Chelsea Defense Force

Created By: Jay P. Hailey (And David Pulver)
Number of Members: over 500,000
Nature of Members: Individual residents of the planet Chelsea.
Organization: Military, Based on the British military.
Game Role: A force charged with protecting the planet Chelsea, Occasionally even in conflict with Starfleet's goals.
World Role: The defense of the planet Chelsea and the confrontation of the Phoenix Domain in the Phoenix Sector.
Relative Influence: In the Phoenix Sector, large. The CDF can affect the future of entire worlds. Outside the Phoenix Sector, slight, viewed as just another planetary militia.
Public or Secret?: Public.
Publicly Stated Goal: To defend Chelsea and enhance her security, to advance Federation interests in the area.
Relative Wealth: Compared to other planetary militias, good. The people of Chelsea staunchly support their militia and pay a lot of money to make sure it's large and well armed.
Group advantages: The CDF has strong support from it's home planet, and can call on neighboring planetary forces as well as Starfleet for back up.
Contacts: Starfleet Command, Admiral Bach at Starbase 94.
Special Abilities: The CDF is a purely military force and doesn't have to concentrate on science or galactic politics the way Starfleet does.
Group disadvantages: A strict code of behavior governs the CDF, and no given member can really escape the scrutiny of the high command or the planetary government should he do something wrong, without leaving and dropping all association with Chelsea at all.
Special Disadvantages: If Chelsea gets attacked, The CDF's job is to be first into the fire, and last out.
Who belongs: Federation citizens who reside on Chelsea and elect to join.
Those who favor them: The People of Chelsea, local neighbors. Starfleet Officers who appreciate local back up right at hand.
Those opposed to them: Pirates. The Phoenix Domain. The Illshani. Starfleet officers who feel that planetary militas are second rate wannabe forces.
Area of Operation: The planet Chelsea, the Phoenix Sector.
Headquarters Location: The planet Chelsea.
Public Face: Dedicated defenders of Chelsea's freedom, staunch supporters of the UFP.
Notable Members: Colonel Jonathan Richards, served as liaison officer with the USS Harrier in the early 24th century, that ship arranged a treaty balance with the Phoenix Domain that lasted 40 years.
History of the Group: The planet Chelsea was settled by refugees from England and Europe following the wars of the 21st century. They didn't know exactly where they were but the planet was good and so they set about making a world without the flaws that left Earth in radioactive rubble. The CDF was a very small and uncommitted service early on, mainly concerned with internal peace keeping and such. There were no known enemies in the region which could threaten Chelsea.
       This changed in the mid 23rd century when the Phoenix Domain was founded and started to expand its territory through violence. As planet after planet fell, Chelsea began to feverishly upgrade it's military capacity. Aided by the Federation strong hold (and hereditary enemies of the Phoenix Domain) in the Great Spiral Sector.
       Eventually Chelsea and her neighbors were in a position to put an end to Phoenix Domain expansion, although they lacked the force to push the Phoenix Domain back and reclaim fallen planets. Throughout the late 23rd a cold war developed between the Phoenix Domain and the Federation planets in the region. Starfleet was spread too thin to offer consistent support, so Chelsea, Lungold and other Phoenix Sector planets armed themselves and tensions began to rise ever higher. In the early 24th century the Federation Starship Harrier was sent to stabilize the situation. This succeeded although both the Phoenix Domain and local Federation planets complained about it.
       In the 2330's the D'Ken star cities began to arrive in the Phoenix sector. They were refugees from a totalitarian society on the far side of the Phoenix Nebula, territory currently unexplored by the UFP. The D'Ken were a humanoid race called the Malathiki, and dissidents. They were accepted as refugees in the Phoenix Domain, and then as UFP Citizens. Almost as soon as the D'Ken star cities arrived in the area reports started of fast, black mystery ships being sighted. As time went on these mystery ships began making attacks, making strikes against weak or undefended targets. The violence stepped up again and again.
       By 2345 it was obvious that the black mystery ships were fighting an undeclared war against the Phoenix Sector, indiscriminately attacking Phoenix Domain and Federation units, military and civilian. The damage was severe. Only heavily escorted convoys dared to move. Task groups sent out to hunt the mystery ships were worn down by repeated attacks or made no contact.
       The Great Spiral Sector and Starbase 94 sent heavy reinforcements into the region. An informal arrangement was confirmed by a cease fire and then an agreement to confront the mystery ships together. The Phoenix Domain and Federation forces began to operate cooperatively against the mystery ships.
       It was learned from the D'Ken and through forensic study that the mystery ships were also Malathiki, from something called the Illshani Domination. These individuals were heavily cyborged and some were even found with great parts of their brains replaced by cybernetic technology.
       Eventually advanced Federation sensor technology became available and there was some ability to track Illshani ships. At this point the war turned around for the Federation and Phoenix Domain forces, but it was still heavy slogging. The CDF stayed at the front of the fighting and took heavy casualties and losses of material.
       The war came to a climax at the Battle of Three Suns where local, Great Spiral and Phoenix Domain forces fought a massed Illshani formation. At the last minute the tide of battle was turned by a squadron of fresh ships from the inner Federation joining the battle on the allied side. The broken Ilshani fleet fled and retreated to a more guerrilla style of warfare that continues sporadically to this day. After the war, The local combatants returned to their respective homeworlds and collapsed. In the case of the CDF this description is all too literal. Chelsea spent most of it's fleet on the war with the Illshani. With the end of the war the hyped up war time economy collapsed, the remains of the CDF fleet soon docked for lack of spare parts and stayed docked.
       Chelsea became afflicted with a mix of overconfidence and a reluctant of the population to spend scarce resources on the CDF. In 2353 the Phoenix Domain explained the fallacy of this attitude by invading and occupying Chelsea. The depleted CDF fell to a well timed and planned sneak attack. The Phoenix Domain engaged in a rampage of looting, pillaging and terror bombing the populace of Chelsea. However the Phoenix Domain miscalculated the desire of the Great Spiral sector to see them humiliated and defeated. Rallying other local Federation planets the fleets of the Great Spiral Sector drove off the Phoenix Domain and relieved Chelsea.
       Within a few months Chelsea had rebuilt some of it's infrastructure and a new CDF, the war was brutal but inconclusive. The CDF and other Federation forces dealt several humiliating defeats to the Phoenix Domain but the Phoenix Domain forces fought well enough to make an invasion of Phoenix Domain territory untenable.
       A peace treaty was signed. Chelsea had learned a difficult lesson, never to appear vulnerable to the Phoenix Domain.
       In 2369 the Second Federation Phoenix Domain War broke out, over ownership of the planet Beehive and it's native race of crystal silicon sentients. The Phoenix Domain was harvesting the creatures and using their bodies to make computers that could compete with The best of Federation technology but for much less cost, space and energy.
       The war was fought by one heavy Federation starship supported in the main by the CDF. As the Phoenix Domain got fully mobilized and appeared to be about to swamp the single Federation starship with numbers, once again the Great Spiral Sector stepped in and evened the odds.
       The planet Beehive was taken firmly into Federation hands and the Crystal Trees were left alone. Several planet conquered by the Phoenix Domain were liberated, and the Phoenix Domains long term plans for expansion were disrupted almost terminally.
       In 2370 the Phoenix Domain evened the score with the starship Lucifer, a battleship equal to any Federation heavy unit in fire power. The war entered a tense stalemate until, in a surprise engagement under mysterious circumstances the PDS Lucifer was destroyed by the Starship USS Endeavor.
       With the loss of the Lucifer, the Phoenix Domain broke down into civil unrest. Without the crystal trees of Beehive, the Phoenix Domain could not complete a second battleship and looked doomed.
       After the USS Endeavor completed her clean up of the situation, the CDF stepped in and liberated the rest of the planets occupied by the Phoenix Domain since there rise to power.
       This places Chelsea in the odd position of being a colonial power in the Phoenix Sector. The harshest testing ground for the CDF is Videga, a planet that had numerous warring states on it before the Phoenix Domain Invasion. The warring states banded together and put up extremely fierce resistance. Every weapon possible was tried at least once. Nukes biological and chemical weapons were used much to the detriment of the planets ecology and population.
       In 2370 The CDF drove Phoenix Domain Forces away from Videga and landed CDF troops to announce the beginning of the liberation. Videgan reactions have been mixed. Desperate refugees will sell out to anyone whose buying, so new recovery colonies are springing up and stretching Chelsea's ability to support and develop them. At the same time, many hard bitten and amazingly tough Videgan resistance fighters assume that any off worlder in a funny uniform is a fair target and start shooting. The CDF was in the odd position of reinforcing a garrison on a supposedly liberated planet to try and put down such "terrorist violence"
       Thing have quieted down on Videga, and the hard work of recovering the planet is just getting under way. Far from being a second class force, and a speed bump in the path of invading "Players" the CDF is a large player in the region and promises to only get larger.
 
 

This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and situations are fictional. Any resemblance to persons, places, or situations living or dead is coincidental.

© Garry Stahl: 1997-2006 unless other Copyrights apply. All rights reserved, re-print only with permission.

 
 
Return to the Groups Page

Return to the Epiphany Trek Files

Your Comments Welcome.

Site maintained and designed by the Owner
  
With the Amiga 4000 Computer and SuSE Linux: 100% Windows Free

The Computers that work for me