Odyssey Incident
In TBD, humanity's first encounter with an extraterrestrial intelligence occurred — an event that would later be known as the Odyssey Incident. It began as a routine exploratory and security patrol, dispatched by the United Systems Astronautics Command (USAC) to investigate unusual energy signatures emanating from the edge of a nearby, recently charted star system.
The formation, officially designated Armada Vanguard Three, was centered around the USACS Odyssey, a heavy cruiser serving as flagship, accompanied by a flotilla of escort vessels including the USACS Exigence, Valor, Corsair, and several smaller long-range patrol ships. The mission parameters were straightforward: survey, observe, report. No contact was anticipated.
What they encountered defied all protocols and expectations.
Without warning, a vessel — massive, asymmetric, and utterly alien — materialized from a spatial distortion near the fleet. Standard communication attempts were met with silence. Moments later, the Odyssey was targeted and struck by unknown directed-energy weaponry, its hull catastrophically breached within seconds. Commodore Henrik Vasquez, commanding officer of the Odyssey, was killed instantly when the command deck was annihilated.
Simultaneously, the Exigence — then under Captain Marin Solano — took heavy damage from secondary energy bursts. Captain Solano succumbed to injuries sustained during the attack, leaving Executive Officer Thaddeus Addams the senior surviving officer across the remaining fleet.
Under impossible conditions, Addams rallied the surviving vessels. Recognizing the overwhelming threat, he ordered an immediate, full-thrust retreat, broadcasting a hasty emergency signal to any ships still capable of independent maneuver.
The Valor and Corsair were lost during the escape, destroyed as the alien vessel deployed rapidly shifting weapons and localized gravity distortions. Only through coordinated evasive action and brutal sacrifice did the Exigence, now under Addams’ command, and three other surviving ships manage to escape the engagement zone and initiate high-burn exit vectors back toward human space.
The survivors returned to civilization battered and broken, bearing fragmented sensor data, telemetry logs, and the first and only firsthand accounts of the encounter. Their report would end the era of human isolation — and begin the first interstellar crisis in known history.
Thaddeus Addams, for his actions and leadership under fire, was promoted to High Admiral of USAC, entrusted with the defense and future of humanity’s fragile settlements.
The Odyssey Incident would be dissected, mythologized, and mourned — but the truth remained simple: humanity had been seen, and it had been weighed under alien eyes.
"It was never a question of readiness. It was a question of understanding. And by the time we understood, it was already too late."
— Excerpt from the After Action Review of Thaddeus Addams, High Admiral, United Systems Astronautics Command (USAC)
Location - VX-976
Occurred - October 17th, [TBD]
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