In the dawn of the human interplanetary era, the efforts of Captain Horatio Vega and the crew of the ESC Epiphany (in those days, prototype rockets were named for muses) were daily headlines and today their exploits are legend. Today, a fictionalized account of his heroic deeds are broadcast as the weekly 'Captain Space Hero' serial program.
Captain Vega is part of Earth's proud legacy, a man of great bravery and unimpeachable virtue. He is sacrosanct.
Captain Vega and the entirety of the ESC Epiphany crew died while in service of mankind. Their task was to deliver the Kord prince, asleep in his cryogenic pod, to his people. The efficiency of the star-drive on those first rockets was poor, allowing for only the shortest of star-to-star jumps. This required plotting a surreptitious route though the galaxy as a more direct route would require much larger jumps than current star-drive technology would allow.
The events of this winding journey were communicated via hyperwave radio to Earth and printed, broadcast, and televised for eager consumption of the whole planet. The day of the ESC Epiphany's destruction is still mourned today as a global holiday.
The exact manner of the ESC's destruction is still unknown. Years later it's wreckage was finally analyzed and the bodies of the crew were brought home for burial. Even after years adrift in space on cosmic flotsam, there was one survivor, the Kord Prince.
Kord can survive exposure to the vacuum of space and a lack of food, water, or air for long periods through a biological mechanism of torpor. In the course of the crew's adventures, the Kord Prince, known as Kant and played by the esteemed actor Aaron McAlister in the serial program, had been revived and joined the crew as a valuable member. He was found floating among the cosmic flotsam of the Epiphany's wreckage in orbit around a barren planet.
The experience did not leave him unscathed. Injuries sustained in the Epiphany's destruction and exacerbated by the long period marooned in space left him with a fractured memory and unstable mental state.To man and Kord, he had but one statement upon which he was completely convinced, Captain Vega and the ESC Epiphany crew were heroes beyond measure, that he was alive today was directly the result of the crew's stalwart bravery.
Little else is known of the events that brought the Epiphany to destruction. It seems the rocket was struck by an energy burst of some kind, thought to be a freak natural phenomenon.
One man has dared to question this narrative decades after the men and women of the ESC Epiphany were buried. Indeed, he was caught in a plot to exhume and desecrate the body of Captain Vega in his misguided quest to validate an insane conspiracy theory. That man is Neil Falmov, former journalist of the Solar Press Corps.
Despite his obvious guilt and mad delusions, Neil was a stirring speaker, even as he spouted sacrilege on the stand. Backed by the high-powered celebrity lawyer, Howard Union, the two made for captivating watching. Union's involvement ensured that the trial would be a long and hard fought one, much to the delight of Earth who just seemed to love hating Neil.
"It is not my intent to dishonor Captain Vega, quite the contrary. No one man has done more to demonstrate humanity's virtue to the galactic community. He deserves our respect and we deserve the truth of his final moments. Yes, your honor, I maintain that Captain Vega's grave is empty."
-Neil Falmov at his preliminary hearing.
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