The History of FLEET
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The organisation known as FLEET - forming, as it does, the political wing of the patchwork military command made up of the various task forces and expeditionary fleets that assembled over Earth in the autumn following the butchery at Mohaborad - has it's origins in the worrying pattern of "accidents" and "navigational failures" many starship commanders claim brought them there. The fact that many of said commanders are clearly lying through their teeth worries everyone but the Admirals, who hold together their scratch-squadrons with the clear knowledge that whoever and whatever their civilian "leader" is, She beats the alternative down there. What exactly attracted interstellar attention to this beleaguered Earth is something no two FLEET officers agree on, something the Board finds troubling. Some go with the accident view, others claim they were ordered here or arrived following something – a distress call, a fleeting sensor contact. A few mention encounters with mysterious, ghostly ships that dropped them off in-system after damage, accidental or in combat, to their engines. A familiar pattern was discerned when recovery vessels retrieved personnel identifying themselves as marines from, predictably, a human empire no other FLEET officer knew of, who claimed his unit was rescued from an exploding carrier vessel by such a ship - he clearly identified the short, dark woman with thick white glasses who'd opened his lifeboat, although fell silent when asked about other crew. From the Board's point of view...following the loss of most of their fledgling military, their director, himself badly injured, told the Goddess the Board were not professional fighters by nature. Within a week, the first battlecruiser arrived - and they keep coming, with new arrivals occasionally emerging in-system with a strange tale to tell. Even stranger were the flotillas that arrived under their own power...and oddly enough, said forces (Admiral Loweko's and Admiral Jordanis's, respectively) are the largest and most driven. The more rational explanation as to what attracted them and their fellows was, ironically, the one the Board seized on because it made them feel better.
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