Interlude Legend of Starhold (Patreon)

Starhold, a legendary fortress lost to time, but her name continues to live on. She was the most feared fortress of her age, built in the final days of the First Lords as the ultimate weapon. For the Solean Empire, it was their Manhattan Project, and was touted as the weapon to end all wars.

There are many theories about what exactly the weapon it carried did, but thanks to modern fortresses based on her, her defenses are largely known. It was a massive spherical construct with the main body being roughly 12000 kilometers in diameter, and it was surrounded by three orbiting rings with twice that diameter. The first ring rested at the equatorial layer, while the other two were offset by 45 degrees above and below, causing the rings to intersect at a common point considered the prime meridian of the Starhold fortress.

A massive sprawling collection of towering spires dotted the surface of Starhold. While also concealing a vast weapons array and planet-side starship docks. Weapons included numerous missile, and torpedo emplacements, supplemented by hellfire plasma cannons, and PBBs. Her surface, while heavily armored as well, relied on a powerful primary shield matrix for protection. The rings actually played a role in projecting that shield matrix.

Still none of what is here, explains why the fortress was so feared. What superweapon did it carry, that it could strike fear into so many? The most prevailing theory is that it carried some new more deadly version of the ASC, able to wipe out entire star systems from a galaxy away.

While that would be a terrifying weapon, it doesn’t mesh with the facts. ASCs had been around for a long time as well. They would not have terrified the First Lords of their own weapon to the point that they would suppress all knowledge of it, and seal it away so that it could not be used.

That brings to question, what was the true weapon? Perhaps some kind of shockwave weapon able to destroy entire galaxies at once? Truly a terrifying weapon, and there is more weight to that theory, but there are people who doubt that one. Project Star Destroyer led to many more doubting this theory as well, especially after it was mentioned by Supreme Protector Countryman that the Starhold and Star Destroyer projects were unrelated. If that wasn’t a lie, then it means the weapon could not have been a galaxy-destroying weapon, as that is exactly what Project Star Destroyer produced.

Regardless, that theory holds some weight. The theory with the most weight, even if it is somewhat dismissed, holds that the weapon does have a galaxy-wide effect. However, that effect is not believed to be destructive. So what kind of weapon is it? The answer is that the fortress itself was a massive psionic amplifier unlike any other. Granting a wielder god-like psionic ability.

The implications of such a device are beyond terrifying. No weapon of mass destruction could compare. An ASC can wipe out an entire star system in an instant, but it can also be defended against. For this amplifier, there would be no defense. You activate this, and an entire galaxy would fall under your domain in an instant. In other words, this little fortress would allow for a single person to mind control an entire galaxy at once. War as we know it would be over, rebellions would fold before they could even form. Entire populations would dance in the palms of a single man.

Such a prospect is so terrifying and brings to mind the true evils that such a weapon could bring about. In that light, a weapon that could grant absolute power of such a degree can not be allowed to exist. With that in mind, if this theory is true as many believe it is. It becomes little wonder that the First Lords reacted the way they did, after but one use of the weapon. They suppressed all knowledge of it, and the science used to create it. Then they sealed the fortress away, so it could never be used again, and even created an order to prevent such a weapon from being made again.