Overview | It's Always Darkest Before Dawn

Two Empires fight ever onwards, interlocked in a battle that has crossed stars and spanned worlds for the past twelve years. Millions have been sacrificed by both sides in the name of honour.  Still, more battles are fought and the blood continues to flow...

Now, a pivital opportunity to halt to the stupidity and bloodshed has presented itself.  One side or the other could glean enough of an advantage to cripple their enemy and emerge victorious from the flames.

It all revolves around an impossible mission, a moral decision, and the faintest of hopes...  Is the sacrifice of one man's life worth saving millions from a hopeless future?

Synopsis | It's Always Darkest Before Dawn

This Game was ran at an anime convention in Adelaide in 2002. It's based on Japanese mecha, and used comic book panels as a game mechanic. A panel could be used in one of three ways:

1.    The text on the panel can be worked into a scene,

2.    A highlighted keyword or phrase can be worked into a scene,

3.    The image on the panel itself can be worked into a scene.

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Background

Previously there was the United Alliance: an idyllic galactic government that kept the peace and offered stability to its members.

Fifteen years ago The Izaymi Imperium, a collective of worlds ruled by the Emperor Horito Izaymi, broke away from the Alliance and declared itself an independent power. Several surrounding systems were conquered, whilst others defected to the ever-growing Izaymi Empire out of fear or for other, more sinister reasons.

A group of core worlds loyal to the ideals of the United Alliance remained stalwart, hoping to restore the Alliance’s influence and stand together to defend against the encroaching Izaymi forces. These worlds formed a new Alliance from the remnants of the old – the Federated Alliance.

It is now twelve years since the war began. The Federated Alliance has been losing ground to the Izaymi Imperium slowly over time. To counter this and reverse the trend, the Alliance’s top brass formulated a plan that became known as the Vermillion Campaign. Its aim was to cripple the enemy’s forward positions by attacking key supply lines.

At the beginning of the Campaign, whilst in transit to the first rendezvous point, the flagship of the Alliance’s fleet, the Heart of Valour, was ambushed. On board was Admiral Yui Toshigo, Fleet Commander of Federated Alliance forces. Several other key members of the Alliance’s Command Staff were also present to witness the first assault.

All senior Command Staff were captured by Izaymi forces, as well as the Heart of Valour’s computer core containing tactical battle plans and data relating to the entire Vermilion Campaign. The Heart of Valour and her crew were found a day after the attack: the crew alive in lifepods; the ship a burnt-out wreck.

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Mission Briefing

The aim of this mission is to minimise the amount of information Izaymi intelligence is able to gather from the attack on the Heart of Valour.

Objectives:

1.    Locate captured Command Staff:
       (a)    Rescue and secure Command Staff;
       (b)    If rescue is not possible, terminate Command Staff.

2.    Locate Gozen Asuku. Terminate, with extreme prejudice.

3.    Locate captured computer core from the Heart of Valour. Retrieve or destroy the computer core.

4.    Destroy the Deep Space Sensor Array on Esperence to delay transmission of any intelligence gathered.