The Unicorn

In time, man's search for extraterrestrial life would bear fruit. The true surprise is that we would find it on our planet. In the arctic, an expedition would find a life-pod, a cryogenic stasis pod and inside, an alien creature.

While the alien was certainly an intriguing find, the technology that comprised the pod was almost more so. Despite utilizing physics not understood by the scientists studying it, the pod seemed crude, like a canoe carved from log to be used as a funeral pyre for the creature laid inside of it. What became clear is that the pod was in some transmitting some kind of signal. That signal was born on what would become known as a hyperwave, a medium allowing for faster-than-light transmission of information.

Research into the hyperwave radio would put humanity in contact with an alien civilization, the Kord. They were a culture of noble warriors burned by a millennium struggle for survival. To them, the individual stranded in that pod represented a new hope for a brighter future and they were desperate for him to come home.

The rapid iteration of earth science combined with the ancient wisdom of the Kord created the star-drive, a device capable of interstellar travel. Earth built it's first star-drive capable rocket, the ESC Epiphany. This rocket would carry the lost son of Kord to a star midpoint between Earth and the Kord homeworld. Previous to the development of the star-drive, Kord explorers used cryo-stasis and time to traverse the universe. This son was one of those explores lost centuries ago, before man was even capable of speech. Now the Kord would reclaim their prince in a star-drive rocket of their own, The Coil. In the speech of the Kord, it was a word that meant rebirth, resurrection, repatriation.

Captain Horatio Vega was chosen to lead this mission. He and his crew set out for the sun and with the whole world watching, ignited his star-drive and pierced a hole through space, one between our sun and a distant alien star.

What took place in orbit around that alien star, even today, is not known. The Epiphany and the Coil were lost. the entire earthling crew killed. One Kord crewman survived, though it took many years for him to recover from his wounds. His testimony and fragments of sensor logs recovered from crash sites of both vessels confirmed only one thing: the presence of a third vessel.

That vessel would come to be known as The Unicorn, named for the enormous star-drive at its prow. It would prove as elusive as the mythological unicorn for the fledgling Kord and Earth rocket fleets, but both pledged to find the vessel, capture it, and question its crew.

Fortunately, the actions of Captain Vega and the crews of The Epiphany and The Coil safeguarded their cargo. A shuttle carrying the cryogenic pod, and the remains of two human crewmen, was discovered in that same system, hidden amongst an asteroid belt.

Their sacrifice forged a steadfast alliance between the people of Earth and the people of Kord. Decades after that fateful encounter, the fleets of both civilizations number in the hundreds. Theirs is a culture that prizes loyalty. They believe that on that day, an oath was sworn between Captain Vega and the captain of the Kord vessel, one that bound their two people together. It is their intent to honor that oath even in the face of ruin.