The Fifth Hourseman.

Commander Nathaniel Autumn became captain of The Fifth Horseman two years into the open war between the Tenebraen Collective and the Flux Ascendancy, when his predecessor Captain Wesley Brough was killed during an engagement with Flux forces while bombarding the Immortal Empire colony on Wisch’s Tell. From that point on and until his disappearance four months later, Commander Autumn lead the crew of the Fifth Horseman through the dying embers of civilization.

Born on Earth, Autumn’s parents immigrated to Ancerious within the first decade of the Tenebraen’s establishing of their first colonies in that galaxy. Like his father before him, Nathaniel enlisted in the navy at a young age, and rose quickly through the ranks; a career choice followed by his two younger brothers Henry and Robert as well. His sister Elizabeth, a nonconformist, dropped out of the academy and was last heard of several years before the war began, when she wrote a letter to Nathaniel telling him that she was signing on with a contracted escort fleet and becoming a privateer.

The divergence point between Commander Autumn’s timeline and the Ancerious “prime” timeline is difficult to pinpoint. Key early events appear to have unfolded in a near identical fashion—the surprise attack on Exceion, the Vexation, Ambrosius and the Silent Invasion all unfolded in near identical fashion. One unique divergence however is that the Fortunate Son survives the Altman Incident and reports on the Sciasteonos Centum’s capacities earlier on in the conflict. Much like what will shortly occur in the prime timeline, a shadowy cease-fire was negotiated by Chaw’Sah’Voh and the bald woman through Our Superiors, thus leading to an uneasy peace being negotiated by the Immortal Empire and the Tenebraens; without the support of their proxies, the Ascendancy’s war was inconveniently put on hold, though with Chassovo’s assurance that the DCI would not retaliate against them

However, six months after the war’s end an unknown force (Shaw) lead a second raid on one of the Ascendancy’s Silent Bastions. With 40% of their population killed, and now having been evidently attacked by the Tenebraens in spite of Chassovo’s assurances, the Ascendancy remnants launched FSEMCE strikes on the DCI; the DCI, unaware of the massacre of the Ascendancy’s civilian population, assumed that the Immortal Empire had betrayed their peace treaty and launched a counter-attack with Immortal Empire assault.

However, a key difference occurred: the Flux, believing themselves known and exposed to the Tenebraens, no longer had a reason to stay in the shadows. The War thus began in earnest.

The Fifth Horseman, launched incomplete as Transire Hull 28, is believed to be the last of the Transire class battleships to be completed before wartime conditions curtailed further construction efforts. At the time of its presumed loss, The Fifth Horseman was the largest of the sixteen remaining capitol ships in the Combined Resistance Navies, and in spite of her uniquely handicapped beginnings represented the last best hope of the CRN.

Transire Hull 28 was launched incomplete less than a week before the Ascendancy directed FSEMCE strikes against the Ingranis sector, and was towed out of the area with her propulsion system incomplete by the cruisers Luck of the Draw and Pathfinder. While her engines were incomplete, she was installed as a defensive battery around the recaptured shipyards at Tau Volaris, and was crucial in providing long range fire support against Aberration infected forces attempting to retake the planet. While her engine components were unavailable, Hull 28—already informally dubbed as The Fifth Horseman by her crew—was equipped with an underpowered propulsion system and commissioned in spite of engineer’s concerns due to critical wartime conditions. Under the command of Captain Brough, The Fifth Horseman was directed to rendezvous with Admiral Hargun’s 2nd Combined Fleet at Ambrosious and commence a deep penetrative action into Immortal Empire space.

However, a serious reactor failure which killed a number of her crew via radiation poisoning delayed the arrival of The Fifth Horseman, and so the battleship was not present when Admiral Hargun commenced his assault. By this twist of fate, The Fifth Horseman escaped the massacre that was the Third Battle of Ambrosius where an increasingly desperate Immortal Empire evidently deployed Aberration weaponry at point blank range; for reasons still unclear, the Flux Ascendancy failed to follow up the Aberration deployement with the customary FSEMCE sterilization, thus leaving nearly two thousands Aberration ships sitting on the border between these two warring empires.

Following this cataclysmic battle, the Fifth Horseman proceeded without escort towards the fleet’s fallback point, only to find that the fuel tenders it had expected had been waylaid by raiders who had become increasingly dangerous as the Tenebraen Empire diverted more and more of its policing force to the conflict raging between the Allied Bloc and the Immortal Empire. Ultimately, Captain Brough lured in raiders to the ship by claiming to be a tanker in distress and captured fuel reserves from them; Elizabeth Autumn turned out to be one of the raiders and is believed killed during this engagement.
 
(etc. Post apocalyptic stuffs. Fool shortages, being reported lost while spending two months silent in an FSEMCE hit zone salvaging engines from another Transire class hulk; developing a reputation as a “hero ship”)

Cast of characters, aboard The Fifth Horseman
Commander Autumn—not confident. He looked up to Captain Brough and admired his leadership, but following Brough’s death things have been horrendous for the Fifth Horseman; almost certainly because of circumstance and not because of his own choices, but simply because almost all choices are between two evils.
Dr. Oliver Cyprus—joins the crew partway through their adventures in the AU as anyone with skills is valuable; claims to be a civilian refugee; is actually one of the Flux’s woodsmen who escaped the FSEMCE attacks at the start of the war and has been unable to regroup with the Ascendancy since then. Suspects something is *very* wrong with the timeline as he is unable to contact his people. Has to remain hidden while uncovering clues about what’s going on.
PASHA—an experimental AI designed to wrestle with the Aberration’s infectious qualities. Emotionally unstable, but capable of allowing the Fifth Horseman to resist Aberration infectious energies for up to twelve hours at a time.

Cast of characters, outside The Fifth Horseman
Admiral Dorin (AU)—survived Shaw’s assassination attempt and evidently killed her attacker. Maintains firm control over her loyalists even though her civiliation’s capabilities and valued secrecy have been decimated by merit of the fact that she killed a god.
Shaw (AU)—on the run from his his own faction after the Aberration betrays the Timebreakers—it no longer needs them to take over the galaxy after the Third Battle of Ambrosious. Now blamed for the massacre of their side by the Aberration, Shaw has been pursued by agents of the Bald Woman and the Timebreakers across the galaxy. He did however have some hand in arranging the Fifth Horseman’s transfer to this reality.
Elizabeth Autumn—miraculously survived being attacked by the Fifth Horseman courtesy of an unknown outer party (either Shaw or the Bald Woman). She is the only player aware from the beginning that she’s been placed in another reality, and would likely be the first—either she or Dr. Cyprus—to begin to realize what’s going on. She’s encouraged by her backer to “settle accounts” with Nathaniel.
The Bald Woman (AU)—working as an agent of the Ascendancy, the Bald Woman succeeded in almost annihilating Shaw’s forces in that reality, at the cost of a good amount of lost civilizations. It..

...is a price that does not weigh heavily on her soul.

OOC:
(-ok, so. What is this? No doubt your asking. this is some of the last work that both me and dylan have done together. involving and alternate timeline for ancerious, where things simply took turns for the worst. so no, what happens here will not be happening in this timeline "Ancerious Prime".

- for another point, its worthy to note, that if this is played out correctly. it forshadows the potential end of the 1st ancerious war. Which, as we have observed "Me and horton." some people are growing tired of. So pay attention and read this carefully, its in there.

alright, thats it for now, hope you enjoy this alternate timeline apocalyptic plot twist.)