A story about the fate of a domain military scientific institute studying the phase space in the burning sector.
The mod is currently in development. x.y.z means there is 100x+10y+z percent of the story that has been told in the mod according to my original plan when starting this mod. Please let me know if there is any bugs, I'll correct those ASAP.
*If you like powerful lasers, lightning arcs, and concentrated energy bolts like I do, take a look!*
According to the lore, the Phase Lab is the former Domain Phase Lab, a large military research institute containing tens of millions of people, working for the Domain Navy. Their fleet is made up by high tech ships that mainly use energy weapons. They used to build prototype ships and experimental platforms to show the value of their research to the Domain Navy, and so their engineering skills are specifically limited to a level where they could make these prototype ships good at demonstrating the power of their new technology, but they couldn't build good military ships on their own.
For their actual fighting style, to compare with vanilla, their fighting style is like defence and kiting focused high tech ships. The flux data, shield efficiency, and mobility of the ships are worse than the ships of the same class in the vanilla, and their ships are not good at flux trading, handling pressure, or taking damage. However, they do have advantageous fire-power and range. and so their ships are like slow glass cannons with long range.
For tips on commanding Phase Lab ships, note that usually their flux dissipation would not be able to support their weapon flux when their shields are on, and their hulls would not be able to survive through firepowers they take when using the V-dissipation. And so it is important to look for chances to turn off shields and fire continuously, then turn shields back on to protect the fragile hull from deadly firepowers.
Spoiler
The phase lab is a classified research institute that belongs to the domain naval force, its actual name is classified, only few high level domain navy officers know it by the name 'phase lab of domain of man', or domain phase lab in short. The phase lab mainly studies the physics properties and possible military usages of the phase space, and the chief researcher of the lab has military rank equivalent to vice admiral of domain navy. Due to the concern regarding the dangerous nature of their research, the phase lab was deployed to persean sector after domain of man had colonized this sector that is far from other territories, and battle group XIV would provide escort during their rotation with battle group VI. When the collapse happened, the phase lab was cut off from Gate Network at the transfer point as well, but when they enacted network failure protocol, a tsunami of phase space anomaly hit their transport fleets, carrying them all the way to middle of nowhere in the Orion-Perseus abyss.
They lost connection with battlegroup XIV, and the chief researcher, vice admiral Vladimir Vasiliev ordered the surviving fleets to make the hyperspace journey toward the closest civilized volume. After 40 years (sector time C+40) of traveling in the Orion Perseus abyss, the transport fleet was not even able to see the fringe of the persean sector, and vice admiral vladimir realized that maybe this journey would take generations of people to complete. Hyperspace traveling in the abyss is a dangerous mission, unprecedented emergency situations could happen at any time, and so there must be enough awaken crew to make the journey at all times. So to guarantee the survival of the people in the phase lab, vice admiral Vasiliev ordered continuous cryosleep process by age: younger crews go in cryosleep, and older crews serve during the journey.
And to guarantee effective leadership of the transport fleet in the coming decades, or even centuries, of such continuous special crisis of abyss traveling, vice admiral Vasiliev initiated the [CLASSIFIED]: the commander in chief would go into cryosleep, with his mind connected with a [CLASSIFIED] body, called [CLASSIFIED]. A [CLASSIFIED] is even more sophisticatd than [REDACTED]. It is designed to [CLASSIFIED] make the person physically awake in the [CLASSIFIED] body, like an external neural system, while the person's physical body can be put to cryosleep. Theoretically, [CLASSIFIED] can extend one's effective working time to as long as he is alive in the cryosleep state. No one knows how it feels once connected to [CLASSIFIED], as even the mere presence of [CLASSIFIED] is high level military secrecy. And only under extreme level of emergency continuously persisting for extremely long time, would a highly ranked officer in charge of an institute of high importance ever be allowed to consider the possibility of initiating [CLASSIFIED]. Unfortunately, the phase lab gets caught in such a terrible situation: they are trapped in the nowhere of abyss for decades of foreseable future, and minimum required awaken crews needs to be on their position for every single minute.
As vice admiral Vasiliev lies into the [CLASSIFIED] to begin the [CLASSIFIED], he failed to connect with [CLASSIFIED]. He repeated continuously for tens of hours, and all attempts failed. However, the [CLASSIFIED] was physically functioning, maintaining its well-callibrated state as [CLASSIFIED] controling the [CLASSIFIED] body. Even the most gifted group of researchers in the phase lab couldn't fully understand what happened. The best educated guess they could make was that, the phase anomaly somehow affected the [CLASSIFIED], and its [CLASSIFIED] was enhanced. It turned out that the user's mind must form certain resonance with the [CLASSIFIED] for the [CLASSIFIED] to happen, but no one knows what the [CLASSIFIED] is. But the [CLASSIFIED] must not terminate, as agreed by all members of the transport fleet. Probabily none of the older crews would ever be able to see the edge of persean sector alive, but some one must stay awake and take command until the end, or the entire fleet would end up getting lost in the abyss.
The officers, researchers, and crews of the transport fleet tried to get connection with the [CLASSIFIED], from higher ranks to lower ranks, but no one succeeded. However, to the surprise of everyone, this flow of trial and error ended when a young Captain was awakened from cryosleep and stepped into the [CLASSIFIED], and the [CLASSIFIED] was finally successful. The captain's name was Eliza Lovlave, she was the commander of a phase lab transport in the fleet, and no one knew why she would be able to make the connection. But she agreed to serve the duty as a domain navy officer, and so she went to cryosleep in the [CLASSIFIED], her [CLASSIFIED] body shaped into her appearance. Everything went through all right, the [CLASSIFIED] rate was near 100%, she was awaken in her [CLASSIFIED] body, and she could serve her duty for a long, long, time.
Captain Lovlace then continues her service as a captain, vice admiral Vasiliev would sometimes teach her skills in strategic commanding and tactical battles. During their decades sailing in the infinite abyss, captain Lovelace successfully commanded her ships to solve crisis like rains of interstellar high energy gamma rays, gravity perturbation from blackholes, key ship system malfunctions, and continuous mental problems of the crews. As years of time passing by, more and more ships were under the command of Eliza Lovelace as her promotions went. The crews described Eliza Loveloce as "a kind commander with decisive and sharp mind that magically knows how to get everyone on the correct path in hard times", and some high level researchers described Eliza Lovelace's tone like "The song of the universe that they would occasionally hear".
After another 50 years (sector time C+90), after a generation of the crews had passed away, and another generation of the crews grewed from young, learned how to do their duties, then to cryosleep, then to wake up and serve all the time as they grew old, the lab transport fleet finally arrived at the boundary between the persean sector and the Orion-Perseus abyss. In the past 50 years, in accordance with domain navy policies, Eiza Lovelace was promoted for her excellant service, from captain to fleet commander, then to higher ranks all the way up to rear admiral, just one rank below vice admiral. And fortunately, with help of advanced medical services, vice admiral Vasiliev was able to make it alive to see the edge of persean sector.
Soon after everyone's great joy of glancing the edge of persean sector, and short celebrations, comes the more-than enthusiastic welcoming from the tri-tachyon [REDACTED] warfleets. At year C+90, the first AI war was burning the entire sector, from the core worlds to the very fringe ones. The phase lab transport fleet was identified by the [REDACTED] as part of XIV group reinforcements coming from the abyss zone by their IFF code issued by the domain government since their deployment. The tri-tachyon [REDACTED] warfleet soon took response to destroy this incoming force, and the lab transport fleet encountered their first fight in the past 90 years. Rear admiral Vasiliev knew that this was a hopeless fight: though most of the domain military ships escorting the transport fleet were still functioning, they were outnumbered badly by the [REDACTED]. However, as a domain navy officer, vice admiral Vasiliev followed his duty and the Domain Navy Articles of War, to engage the enemy forces and fight courageously. Under the wise command, effective logistics, and bravery of sailors, the escort ships were able to defend waves after waves of [REDACTED] attacks. But even each ship takes out two [REDACTED] before they got burned into ashes, the remaining [REDACTED] were still tens of times as many as the escort ships.
And such endless deplete must be ended at all costs, or the transport fleet would be buried by the waves of [REDACTED]. Finally the escort fleet was able to clear a path for the rest of the fleet to retreat, but only few of the warships were left. And the [REDACTED] were gathering for their last engagement to completely finish the transport fleet. At this life or death moment to the entire phase lab transport fleet, vice admiral Vasiliev made his hard decision to sacrifice all the remaining escort ships to slow down the drone ships, so that the transports may retreat to the colonies in the persean sector. And to make sure this decision would work, vice admiral Vasiliev boarded the most advanced unique battleship prototype developped by the phase lab, to take command of this impossible mission himself. The last action vice admiral Vasiliev took was to promote rear admiral Lovelace to vice admiral Lovelace, told her to report to Admiral Kali Molina if the phase lab made it to the persean sector at the end.
And he revealed two missions of highest importance to accomplish to vice admiral Lovelace: lead the researches of the phase lab, and keep the members alive. "Run! Run fast! And may you see the persean sector!" The lab transport fleet retreated, leaving the hell formed by plasmas, lasers, missiles, ion pulses, burning derelicts, and melting steels, with only these last words left by vice admiral Vasiliev in the transponder. No one had heared anything from vice admiral Vasiliev since the great retreat, but the [REDACTED] seemed to disappear. They either gave up on searching for the transport fleet, or got destroyed. Both were almost impossible to happen, yet the truth is, no drone ship went after the phase lab.
The phase lab engaged minor battles in the later years on their way to persean sector, and vice admiral Lovelace was able to fight off those [REDACTED] successfully. After seventeen years since the great retreat (sector time C+107), like a miracle, all the [REDACTED] are gone, and no more [REDACTED] attacks were encountered. All the crews were quite joyful, and they celebrated for the expensive peace through fires. But unfortunately, the crews found out that after a century of traveling in the abyss, and a decade traveling in the sector, most ships almost ran out of fuels due to extremely extended traveling time in hyper space. And the transport fleet had to follow gravity as they didn't have enough fuel to fight the gravity drag. The transport fleet tried their best to avoid falling into a system with a black hole, but they still ended up falling into a system with a blue giant.
Fortunately, there was a [REDACTED] that seemed to function, the crews were surprised for the grandness of such domain creation. But there were two mysterious seemingly-artificial astral bodies flying around the [REDACTED], and the crews were guessing that those creations might be some alien work that took control of the [REDACTED] for energy supplies. As the transport fleet got closer, the astral bodies sent warning messages to the transport fleet, using a highly unreadable tone of words to order them to stay away from the [REDACTED]. Rear admiral Lovelace calmed the crew, ordered the ships to park by, and decided to start a chat with the astral bodies through electric signals. Rear admiral Lovelace explained: "I believe the rythm, the song that I hear from the universe could calm our new friends out there, this might avoid fights. I would try to express the rythm through electro-magnetic waves and phase coil arrays. Prepare for battle, but hold fire, for we shall try to avoid unecessary casualties before we engage."
She then tried to get access to the communication antenna of the ship. Once she gained control, the ship started to emit exotic pattern of electro-magnetic waves, these waves didn't carry any decodable information, and no one understood what the vice admiral was trying to do. Then in the eternity-like long of silence, the electro-magnetic waves started to resonate with the comm antennas and phase coil devices of every ship in the fleet, creating the amplified pattern. The sensor officers found that these signals contain more and more complicated patterns as they got amplified, but still, no one knew what those pattern meant. Suddenly, a phase space researcher shouted, "Look at the readings not, for it's not a message, it's a music, the music of the universe!" At beginning, no one else understood what the researcher was saying, but as the signal got more and more amplified, every crew member on board felt like hearing some strange noise with patterns from their deepest heart. Then all of a sudden, some weird light spots showed up from nowhere, the sparks came out of the astral bodies, and all the communication antennas generated unreasonably high amount of flux and they all got burned down.
For a brief moment, some crew saw the presence of [CLASSIFIED] got blurred, almost disappeared, but after time shorter than a second, the [CLASSIFIED] stayed there, and it was super hot, ejecting steel-melting vapors. The [CLASSIFIED] body of vice admiral Lovelace woke up for a brief moment, made her order as a sentence before she fell unconscious: "collect as much energy from the [REDACTED], until they wake up." Fortunately the [CLASSIFIED] was still in good shape, and the physical body of vice admiral Lovelace was still in cryosleep state. The [CLASSIFIED] got offline after the strange heating up, and it took a day to cooldown. The crew took three days of time to use the [REDACTED] to collect plasma clouds, let it cooldown, and used the synchrotron core carried on one of the lab transports to make some very inefficient field production of fuels.
The fuel was barely able to support the fleet to travel very slowly, even mostly the travel was just passively following gravity, and with most ships mothballed, to the core worlds. As the crews were trying to collect more fuels, one of the astral bodies started to react. The transport fleet soon started to prepare for a full retreat as vice admiral Lovelace was still unconscious. But the astral body didn't seem to be interested in chasing the fleet, instead, it started to attack the [REDACTED]. The transport fleet took the time to abandon all unfinished fuel production processes, and retreated to the hyperspace. All crews were rejoyced for their survival through all those crazy anomalies, with some fear about what Eliza really is.
With the limited but theoretically enough fuel storage, the fleet started to crawl towards the core worlds of persean sector, a new journey taking decades began. The crew was confident to make it to the end, not because of some unreal wishes, but because of what life-threatening challenges they had lived through. After a week of slow and mostly passive traveling in the hyperspace, vice admiral Lovelace woke up. The crews were curious about how she felt, and she said: "Tired, like I had just finished a singing for all my life time, it felt like I was performing the greatest music ever, to some imaginary friends I could not see. But I just can't remember what actually happened after we arrived at some star system."
The peaceful yet dangerous journey continued for another eight decades (sector time C+187), another generation of crews passed away, and yet another generation of crews grew up. The transport fleet finally got close enough to the colonies where they could see the minor exploration fleets from the core worlds. They learned the history of the sector when they were struggling in the abyss as they communicate with the independent captains, and in exchange, they would tell the legend of vice admiral Vasiliev during the great retreat. Rear admiral Lovelace sometimes would get lost in memories, as when she was speaking to a crew member, it would remind her of the chats she made with the grand parents of that member. She felt happy when she saw every crew member, as witnessing the heirs of the passed friends living made her felt that she is not so lonely.
After another two years of such peaceful journey (sector time C+189), the disturbing [REDACTED] appeared again. They started minor attacks on the transport fleet, but no ships were lost to the [REDACTED] attacks. And after another two years of traveling (sector time C+191), the transport fleet finally arrived in an isolated system that was close to the core worlds, just a short distance to the east from Tyle. And in that system, the transport fleet found a tundra world and vast ruins of civilizations. The transport fleet jumped right into the star system to do some further explorations, and to their surprise, they found a working comm-relay. As the crews were excited to hear living news from the core worlds, to their larger surprise, they found an unholy flash of [REDACTED] color. It turned out that this system was invaded by the [REDACTED], and the transport fleet soon got flooded by the [REDACTED]. The [REDACTED] were not lesser than what the phase lab had faced during the great retreat, but the phase lab only had limited functioning transport ships and experimental platforms for various concept weapons to use here.
Rear admiral Eliza ordered all transport ships and mothballed ships to retreat, and organized a defence fleet formed purely by hydraulis experimental platforms, and vice admiral Lovelace boards a clarinet experimental platform. "If this is my concert in destiny, then let it be, but I will not take a bow before I played a good music to my audiences." Eliza said to herself. The battle was harsh and extremely long, but the result was surprising. All the [REDACTED] were destroyed, and none of the experimental platforms were damaged. Only the combat data record pad remembered how much damage the shields soked and regenerated. At the end of the battle, one of the [REDACTED] retreated, and hit the retreating transport fleet. It took an unbelievable manuver: the [REDACTED] rammed into the phase lab flagship that carries the archive of all information about research projects and most of the support materials of the phase lab. This suicide attack left a deep scar on the phase lab flagship, and the [REDACTED] was completely destroyed in the ramming. No one knew what caused the [REDACTED] to go mad, but fortunately the flag ship was not destroyed, and most of the crews survived due to constant tactical drills.
After the ramming, vice admiral Lovelace reported back to the transport fleet. The phase lab took the derelicts to more careful analysis, to study the technology used to create this monster, and to find out who made it. The crews were curious about the grand battle, and they were asking how did those experimental platforms beat the drone fleets. As described by vice admiral Lovelace, the "concert" was satisfying, the hydraulis section played extremely well for the bassline part of the music, and her clarinet solo part was charming, and these two parts formed a harmony, making the music a truly exceptional piece of art. No one knew what vice admiral Lovelace was talking about, all the crew believed that she was just mumbling blurred memories combined with imaginations after such a grand battle, and she just need to rest. And the system was cleared from [REDACTED] after the fight.
After months of recovery and repairs, the transport fleet finally repaired all the hulls damaged during the retreat and the ramming. And the crews found that the fuels ran out again, without enough resupplies, they would never be able to make their way to the core worlds. And so the phase lab started a vote to settle down in the system, as there was just no fuel for the fleet to travel to the core worlds, all the crews agreed to settle a colony in the tundra world for now. Many mothballed transport ships were dismantled to provide materials for colony industries, and the flagship was dismantled to provide materials for a star fortress orbiting the colony, providing protections for the colony and serving as space labs for research uses.
The new colony on the tundra world was named "Research Site V" in memorial of vice admiral Vasiliev, and the terraforming project to reform the planet's eco system and climate soon began. Rear admiral Eliza became the colony manager and the chief researcher of the phase lab. After settling down, the researchers of the phase lab found out that most of the warship and weapon blueprints from the domain navy database and past research projects were lost, only the base blueprints package, the ion weapon blue prints, and some large beam weapon blue prints were recoverable. And they made a partial recover for the domain warship onslaught, the phaselab engineers took their imagination to fill the missing parts back, and fortunately the new blueprint was producible, and the researchers called the ship "Phase Lab Onslaught". The phase lab also started to develop new ships and weapons, as space fleet was in urgent need to prevent the colony from getting raided by pirates or drone ships.
After another three years (sector time C+194) of defending the colony from minor [REDACTED] attacks and development of industry, the phase lab was able to gain control of the system. It soon spread its population onto all colonizable planets in the system. With the first fuel production facility being built on one of the research sites in the system, the phase lab was finally able to support fleets going to see the core system. The terraforming project installed several stellar mirrors onboard the transport fleet during the deployment, and as the temperature raised and some icebergs melt, research site V soon became a terran planet with mild climate. Then the solar lens were adjusted so that they wouldn't turn Research Site V into a water world. Though vice admiral Lovelace couldn't travel too far away from the phase lab flagship due to the constraint of the [CLASSIFIED], she nonetheless was more than willing to send representatives to speak with domain officers in the core system.
However, the situation was complicated: admiral Kali Molina resigned due to aging, the XIV battlegroup transformed into an independent faction called Hegemony, and vice admiral Lovelace found that her rank in the domain navy was the highest in the sector for now, because domain was not involved in the life of any person in the sector at all for a long, long time. The phase lab found itself in a strange situation: they came with a mission of doing phase space research for the domain of man navy, but now there was no one to report to, and the domain seemed to be gone. In such special time, vice admiral Lovelace reminded herself of the two key missions given by vice admiral Vasiliev: to do research, and to survive. She decided to run the colonies around these two missions, and to loose the other domain regulations so that the phase lab may live better in such a sector.
As the [REDACTED] disappeared magically again, the hyperspace paths were more secured, and communication with the core system had lead to a fever of visiting core system worlds and doing trades with the people there. Rear admiral Lovelace also sent other agents to different worlds, but after losing contacts with all the agents but the one coming back from Chicomoztoc (C+195), vice admiral Lovelace realized that the sector was not a safe place, was not under domain regulations, and did not quite appreciate the battle group XIV identity mostly because of the deeds Hegemony had done. And so instead of claiming its identity as a classified military lab under domain navy and escorted by battle group XIV, the domain phase lab introduced itself as an independent power coming into the sector (the Phase Lab), with new IFF codes that have nothing to do with battle group XIV. And as a newly founded faction, vice admiral Lovelace was voted to be the faction leader, to lead the people in the phase lab through the hardship in the sector, and to a less dimmed future.
Since the phase lab arrived in the sector, the persean league was quite worried that eventually the phase lab would become a part of hegemony, and their system would be like a dagger, straightly pointing at the heart of the persean league. Then the formation of the Phase Lab faction pushed such worries to a climax. And so to eliminate such danger, the persean league organized a huge united armada containing hundreds of ships to visit the Research Site V. Though all the organizations were done in secracy, such size of fleet mobilization must draw some attention, and so the league decided to act fast to finish everything before anyone else would realize. Rear admiral Lovelace noticed the unusual gatherings of huge amount of unidentified military ships near the jump point to the system of Research Site V, and she knew, whatever this was, it was another crisis that could took all lifes in the phase lab. She decided to take the gathering moment as a chance, so she boarded the newly produced flagship of the phase lab navy, an aulochrome class battleship, with some flumpet class destroyers to escort.
All of the details of this battle were classified by the Phase Lab and the Persean League. But the outcome was that a quarter of the ships (including the flagship) in the united fleet were "accidentally" destroyed, the Persean League sent a diplomatic team to Resarch Site V soon after this "accident", and then a meeting was organized. After that, a treaty of friendship was signed, the Persean League purchased a lot of tea from the Phase Lab, the united fleet retreated, and several technology exchanges happened.
After more than a decade of development (sector time C+206), the Phase Lab becomes a significant faction in the sector. All the cryosleepers are awakened to join the new faction, they are scientists, domain navy soldiers, some core crews of high importance, etc. And the phase lab becomes a faction with tens of millions of populations. Its fleet is composed of experimental platforms, innovatively designed new ships after the loss of archive, and restored blueprint packages. As a faction, the domain phase lab upholds the idealistic belief, cares about the well being of people living in the sector, strictly follows the domain regulations on colony developments, and bans open trades of [REDACTED]. But it does not force the domain restriction on AI development on other factions, as the Phase Lab declared full respect to other factions' power of regulation. And the Phase Lab is not interested in buying [REDACTED] at all, as the [REDACTED] are just useless to their core mission: to survive, and to study the phase space.
No one in the sector knows that vice admiral Lovelace is actually a cryosleeper awake through a [CLASSIFIED] body, even most of the crews of the phase lab didn't know that, as the [CLASSIFIED] was something happened more than a century ago. And only several extremely high ranked senior researchers of the Phase Lab would have ideas about what this secret could be, as they are the only personnels that have access to the classified archives documenting what happened before a century.
