ESCI Dewhollow
The ESCI Dewhollow is a colony vessel commissioned by the Evermorn Strategic Colony Initiative to carry Evermornan human and Feldean colonists to Ibren in the Falconer's Eye System. Structurally identical to it's sister vessel, the ESCI Revelation, the Dewhollow's claim to fame (or infamy) is that it was the first such colony vessel to suffer mutiny and conversion to the Aniki Labs/Cinnabar Hegemony in the aftermath of the Armoa Incident.
The Dewhollow Rebellion
It was dinner when Rupert had finally had enough. As he stared down at the half-tray of cold, flavorless algae in the heat of the not-conditioned air, the tired gaze of his emaciated wife boring into him, he felt every muffled bellow of outrage and thump of shattering furniture agains the deck - his Evermornan neighbors' dispute over the last carton of beer, and perhaps no less the last one on the whole damn vessel - crashing against the walls of this sanity like waves on a crumbling sea wall. Every guttural howl in that foreign - alien - language drove Ruper's fingers tighter around the grip of his fork until the knuckles stood out white even in the gloom of the stuffy berth. At last, it was enough. Blinded by a rage that had been marinating for months - perhaps years, for it felt like their privation had gone on for an eternity - Rupert sprung up from the table, fork still clenched in his balled fist, and made for the door. He heard Marie say something in protest over the thunder of blood in his own ears, something about how it wasn't 'right' and they 'didn't mean nothing by it,' but his wife must have been too slowed with fatigue to catch his arm as he stomped away to bear out his anger in decisive, bloody action. I'll show those clowns! he thought. I'll give them something to holler about!The Dewhollow Rebellion was a mutiny carried out primarily by the Feldean population of the ESCI Dewhollow against the Cobalt Knight crew and, to a more limited extent, against their fellow Evermornan colonists who failed to collaborate with the mutineers. By the twelvth year of the journey to Ibren, the Dewhollow was fully under the control of a self-styled 'feif' of the Federated Queendoms of Feldea, complete with an oligarchy that claimed right of rulership due to ties to the royal families of the Federation. As aboard the ESCI Revelation the Greycoif 'smart' virus - actually a compact, advanced artificial intelligence designed as part of an electronic warfare package by Aniki Labs agents lurking in Evermornan space - carried out a program of intentional system failures and intranet propaganda designed to ideologically influence the colonists away from Cobalt Protectorate control and towards the Cinnabar Hegemony. Greycoif_1 started by causing problems like the corruption of certain pharmaceutical auto-fabricator blueprints and parts of the medical bay's obstetrics referrence databases to cause an unaccountable population boom. This boom would have still fallen within the rated population limit of the ship's CELSS systems, but Greycoif_1 eventually escalated to causing harmful mutations in some batches of CELSS algae to ensure that food and atmosphere had to be rigorously rationed. Unlike aboard the Revelation, however, Dewhollow's Cobalt Knights were ineffective at detecting Greycoif_1. The Evermornan-majority civilian administration proved incompetent at worst and corrupt at best, failing to adequately refute Greycoif_1's sockpuppets' claims that the Evermornans were preparing to prioritize their own survival over that of the Feldean colonists. And so, the Feldeans and a rare few Evermornan collaborators overthrew the Cobalt Knights contingent, slew or pressed into service most of the loyal or unaligned Evermornans, and replaced the government with a pro-Feldean hierarchy reminiscent of their native Federated Queendoms of Feldea.
Battle of Ibren
The Battle of Ibren occured shortly after the Revelation approached Ibren after reaching the Falconer's Eye System sphere of influence. The crew of the CKV Mercury Sable, headed by then Knight-Airman Enzo Salt, encountered the capsule of Lufthaus-1b, who informed them of the goings on aboard the Dewhollow. The crew of the Revelation, realizing that the new crew of the Dewhollow meant them ill, pre-empted the mutineers' ambush by arriving over Ibren with a contingent of Knight-Espatiers and the Sable's racks full of Razorbills rather than the expected gifts for their Feldean hosts. Enzo, Knight-Espatier Howard Mackinnon, and their contingent of espatiers fought their way to the Command Information Center of the Dewhollow at great cost and re-established Cobalt Knight control over shipboard systems. Knight-Airman Enzo Salt was promoted to Director of the Dewhollow after recovering from his injuries.Battle of Falconer's Frontier
At the end of the Armoa Conflict, fleeing elements of the Aniki Labs commerce raiding fleet and their civilian cohorts fled the Evermorn-Armoa Binary System in the hopes of repopulating beyond the long reach of the Cobalt Knights. Having discovered the colony effort on Ibren due Revelation's encounter with the ALV High Shale, this ragtag fleet sought to take the Falconer's Eye system from the colonists there before substantial military infrastructure could be produced. Unbeknownst to the Aniki Labs fleet, the crews of the Revelation and Dewhollow had inaugurated their project on Ibren with military conflict and internicene strive and, thus, had both already saturated the system with combat drones and auto-factories cranking out defense products. From the CICs of the Dewhollow and Revelation, respectively, Director Salt and then-Director Mackinnon oversaw the operation ot repel the invaders. Orbital laser batteries and missile silos scattered throughout the asteroid belt quickly destroyed the star carriers that formed the logistical backbone of the invasion fleet. Knights-Espatier boarded the Aniki civilian transports and redirected them to a parking orbit over the outermost dwarf planet until their fates could be decided with sufficient reverence to the human rights outlined under Code of Evermorn.Second Dewhollow Rebellion
The Second Dewhollow Rebellion, occurred roughly fifteen years after the Battle of Ibren and involved the grown children of the original mutineers engaging in a protracted campaign of political organizing against Cobalt Knight efforts to reunify the colonists. This conflict culminated with the overthrow of the provisional leadership headed by Director Salt. The Second Dewhollow Rebellion was much less bloody because the Cobalt Knights expected it to happen and made plans accordingly. While the rebellion was sucessful in killing Director Salt and sending the rest of the Cobalt Knights fleeing back to the Revelation, a loyalist HLAI comprised of fragments of Lufthaus and godfathered by Enzo himself irreversibly set the Dewhollow on a slow-speed course back to Feldea. Authorities on Feldea had already been alerted to the happenings over Ibren via the Protectorate Stellar Telegraphy Network. Older mutineers with the technical know-how to root out the HLAI from the ship's systems or plot a new course had long since been expatriated to Ibren's surface. Any mutineers from the Second Dewhollow Rebellion still alive after the sixty-year journey back to Feldea could only expect a frosty reception when they arrived, likely spending their twilight years in a Feldean prison for causing an international incident with the allied Cobalt Protectorate.Successor
With the Dewhollow sent away, her cruisers, shuttles, and the Revelation were left as the only mobile Protectorate infrastructure in the Falconer's Eye System. A few years later, the cooperative Protectorate-Republic vessel ESCI Turwell arrived to reinforce the Revelation cohort's claim on Ibren, and peace ensued. As for the Dewhollow, it awaited an uncertain fate - perhaps a new crew destined for parts unkown - in a Feldea solar-syncronus parking orbit.
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