“Space is harsh. Infinitely harsh. Those who find it difficult to live on the surface of a fertile, habitable world have no right to be travelling outside of a city, let alone off of a planet.”
-- Sezurenian Colonial Handbook circa 7 years post Scourge
* * *
It wasn’t the first time that somebody had viewed the central planet of Sezuren, Sartys, from orbit since the Scourge, but it was arguably the most important. The reconstructed scout vessel Magellan was sending video feed back down to the surface for the public at large. It was completely symbolic, of course – the Federal government had been using the Magellan for over a year and a half by then and had reconstructed two other ships of its class. It was thanks to these ships that the Warp Gates, devices that had been assumed destroyed in the Scourge, were in fact very much intact and still very functional.
It was this discovery that had brought Alesia Maradoth and her party into power. While the old government had focused much on rebuilding slowly, Alesia’s party – the Nebulan Party – sought to create a new vision for the Federation as a shining beacon of power and unity throughout the galaxy. In fact, the Nebulan takeover of the government was so complete that the previous party completely dissolved and was absorbed into the victor, effectively making the Colonial Federation a one-party state. The public did not much notice nor care however, the stirring speeches of the lady Prime Minister invoking images of a vast interstellar dominion with nearly infinite resources at their disposal.
The first act of Maradoth and the Nebulan Congress of Sezuren was to defend itself from outside threats – the reconstruction and sometimes jury-rigging of fightercraft, just in case. After all, there might be other human survivors out there that are hostile. It was also the Nebulan-controlled Congress that approved the reconstruction of the Atlantis and Ponce de Leon, sister ships of the Magellan. And now that all three scout ships were considered to be in good working order and the damage to Sezuren believed to have been reasonably assessed, there was only one course of action imaginable for the three ships.
That is why the signals were being released to the public live. The ships were leaving the system and would not return for a while…if at all. Dangerous? Absolutely. But the people of Sezuren were far from cowards and did not fear the hardships that might follow. They were, after all, colonists.
, and stars are named of course, its just planets are seen as only temporary stops and sources sources of raw materials so why bother naming them something special? An attempted poignant comment on a nomadic lifestyle 
.
And I'll get you your starting screen shot in a short while.
I guess. 
