Junkie-Jabber:  OK so this isnt more story.  This is actually a little sort of teaser thing for a location thats going to factor in a bit later on.  I'd like to let you all know now that while i like to stick as close to "cannon" as possible I am going off on a bit of a tangent with this.  Mostly because the idea popped into my head and festered there until i put fingers to keyboard and pushed this out.  anyways here you go.

By: Tizzelex, Signals Analyst for the Creterakian Government

Chapter 15: Inter-System Wars

Section 8: The Podwars

            The Podwars were a short, but fierce series of battles that took place during the early years of human expansion into the galaxy.  Indeed, the violence exhibited in this war was so great that it is considered a major contribution to the Creterakian decision to tame our primitive neighbors.  During the beginning of the war there were several contenders vying for control over the area of space now known as The Dark.  At that time The Dark was a dense cluster of stars which contained the Alpha, Oberon, Akrianis, Nibiru, and Nocturnal systems.  For many years these neighboring systems lived in a state of truce, but after countless raids and border skirmishes the conflict boiled over after an expansionist attack by forces from Akrianis on a planet under Oberon control.

A full scale war bloomed almost instantly.  No target was considered out of bounds, be it military or civilian.  As the attacks escalated so did the weaponry involved.  It was a ship under the banner of the Nocturnal system that first used singularity bombs to destroy Akrianis, the central star of that system.  All life within seven light years was eliminated in the resulting explosion.  Over the following months singularity weapons were brought to bear by the Alpha system as well.  These attacks quickly consumed the less aggressive systems leaving only Nocturnal and Alpha.

The final battle of the Podwars took place in what is now known as the Hutchins Demilitarized Zone.  In this sector of space the fanatical religious forces led by the Dark Overlord Scott Carl Sigler met the clone armies of the Aggregate Intelligence of Alpha under the control of the forty-second incarnation of J.C. “Alpha” Hutchins.  This battle marked the first, and only time, that singularity weapons were used in ship-to-ship combat.  After several days of fighting the battle ended when a Nocturnal “punch bomber” managed to slip past the Alpha defensive grid and drove itself, along with its payload of twelve singularity bombs straight into the star, destroying the Aggregate Intelligence.

Within the Dark there is now only one star system, Nocturnal, which consists of a pair of red dwarf stars with twelve planets and four moons capable of supporting human life.  Punch space travel into or out of the Dark is near impossible due to massive disturbances in the fabric of the space time continuum.  These distortions also affect travel with standard sub-light engines, causing variances in time that have been known to last anywhere from a few seconds up to several years.  As of this time the only census information obtained by the Creterakian empire is that  Nocturnal is inhabited by the descendants of the followers of the Dark Overlord.  All attempts at peaceful communications have been met with extreme violence.  It is to be noted that the Creterakian empire does not consider the Dark to be under its control.

It is also to be noted here that meaning behind the phrase “Podwar” has long since been lost to the annals of history.  Its meaning is now known only to those who still reside within The Dark.