Year: 2213 | Luna Administrative Arcology – Sector A3, UEG Government Complex
Councilor Miriam Vos was no stranger to classified briefings, political theater, or intelligence manipulation. She had served on the UEG Oversight Committee for nearly fifteen years and had seen ONI manufacture enemies, leak "anonymous" intelligence, and plant fear in the public mind to justify budget hikes.
But this was different.
The Ceph presentation had been... too polished. Too well-timed. Just as the colonies were preparing independent slipspace efforts, just as Reach was being fortified as a military bastion, ONI rolls out an existential alien threat no one had ever heard of.
She reviewed the footage again—ONI's "evidence." Thermal signatures, horror-show video from Caliban, DNA structures. It was visceral, yes, but something didn't sit right.
"I want the original raw telemetry from AURORA-1, not the compiled brief."
Her aide blinked.
"Ma'am, that's Tier-Zulu—clearance above yours."
"Then find me someone who has it."
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Over the next few weeks, Councilor Vos began building a quiet alliance:
Dr. Emeric Daas, a skeptical ex-Horizon Industries systems architect who once consulted with ONI and quit after seeing how they "scrubbed" their research partners' data.
Major Bren Rukani, a grounded UNSC logistics officer stationed at Reach, now questioning why so much black-budget material was being routed without oversight.
A whistleblower AI fragment, smuggled from a decom'd Horizon network node, carrying trace logs of ONI manipulating analysis models related to Vault scans.
Each piece told a deeper story: the Ceph were real—but ONI had known for longer than they claimed, and their sudden release of evidence was less about protection and more about control.
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Vos prepared a speech.
She would call for an emergency session. Declassify her findings. Expose the fabricated timeline. Challenge the blockade of colonial ships. She would show that ONI had sat on the Ceph truth for decades, weaponizing fear only when the colonies sought freedom.
She never made it to the podium.
Councilor Vos's shuttle exploded on the descent into New Alexandria, just thirty minutes before her address. ONI claimed it was a fuel line failure. The wreckage was classified.
Her name trended for two days. Then it vanished from the headlines—replaced by stories of a potential Ceph artifact discovered near Jupiter's Europa facility. The narrative continued.
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Year: 2213 | Outer Colony Network Feed – Underground Broadcast "Signal Rebirth"
"They silenced Councilor Vos before she could speak.
They silenced Grayson.
And they'll silence you, too—unless you stop waiting and start fighting.
The Ceph are a ghost story. A veil. A trick by the same monsters who took your freedoms.
The colonies wanted independence. And now? Now we're told aliens make it unsafe?
I say: bullshit."
The hooded figure on the transmission leaned in, eyes hidden behind a mirrored visor, voice modulated. Behind them, the flickering banner of the old ATLAS emblem, now co-opted by radical cells—reborn under a thousand meanings.
This wasn't just a message. It was a call to arms.
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Across Luyten, Gliese, and New Aragon, sparks lit up: weapons caches activated, stolen UNSC equipment deployed, and slumbering cells roused from ten years of dormancy.
The radicals branded it The Great Deception. They said ONI had killed Vos because she knew the truth. That the Vaults were terraforming experiments gone wrong. That the infected footage was staged. That the real enemy was still the same bloated machine that denied them representation: the UNSC and UEG.
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"You want proof?" said another broadcast.
"Where's the footage from the Reach deep slip anchor tests? Where are the names of the victims on Caliban? Why was Councilor Vos's funeral private, with no body?"
They didn't need facts. They had doubt. And doubt was more contagious than infection.
Radical militias began ambushing UNSC patrols near Reach's outer ring. Civil unrest flared in newly terraformed Venus sectors. Underground forums lit up with anti-ONI manifestos, Vos tributes, and speculation about a final trigger event being planned.
Some of it was lies.
Some of it was truth.
And no one could tell the difference anymore.
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Year: 2213 | New Aragon – "Unity Square"
The UEG knew the signs.
They'd seen them before: burning banners, splintered broadcasts, whispers of rebellion disguised as civil rights demands. But this time, they wanted to stop it before it exploded.
Councilor Isela Fari—newly appointed and openly sympathetic to colonial grievances—was dispatched with a diplomatic team to New Aragon, one of the more politically active Outer Colonies. The goal was simple:
A Peace Summit.
A show of unity.
A message that the UEG still listened.
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Over 50,000 people flooded the plaza beneath the towering terra-dome—colonial citizens of all stripes, carrying signs that read:
"Ceph Lies, We Die""Vos Spoke Truth""Autonomy Now."Councilor Fari stepped onto the dais beside New Aragon's local governor. Her speech began with hope:
"We are not enemies.
We are partners in the human journey.
Let the memory of Vos remind us that disagreement must not lead to division—"
That's when it happened.
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One sniper.
One rifle.
One shot fired into the crowd from a rooftop.
Panic erupted. The plaza surged in every direction. Protesters stampeded, riot shields dropped, and someone—no one knows who—threw the first flashbang.
Then came the shooting.
Some say the radicals opened fire.
Others say the riot troops fired first.
All that remains are the body counts.
Over 3200 dead, including Councilor Fari.
Hundreds more injured.
The rally turned into a bloodbath within minutes.
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Across the networked colonies, the message was clear:
"The UEG came with weapons, not peace."
Radical groups declared the beginning of the Second Colonial Rebellion—calling it "The People's Fire." They claimed Fari was a sacrificial pawn, her death used to justify the inevitable crackdown.
The UEG denied involvement in the shooting.
ONI offered no comment.
But the UNSC mobilized within days.
Outer colonies began declaring provisional independence again.
Weapons shipments flowed in from unknown sources.
Sabotage increased on interstellar relays, slipstream beacons, and orbital yards.
And all across the settled systems, one phrase began trending in silence:
"It never ended. We just forgot we were still at war."