Earth Starbase

General

The Earth Starbase is a space platform orbiting the planet Earth, built after the Ur-Quan Hierarchy defeated the Humans and slave shielded Earth. The base, manned and maintained entirely by humans, was constructed by the Hierarchy as part of the terms of the Humans' surrender, meant to serve as a servicing and refueling station for Hierarchy ships in the surrounding area. As such, the base was stocked with the most advanced Ur-Quan automation technology available to repair and refuel the wide variety of vessels in the Hierarchy fleets. A resupply vessel from the Hierarchy was sheduled to visit the station every five years, but the normal resupply schedule was interrupted by the beginning of the second Doctrinal Conflict when all Kzer-Za forces were pulled out to battle the Kohr-Ah. The last resupply vessel came in 2147, eight years prior to The Captain's arrival in Sol.

At the time, Starbase Commander Hayes, formerly of Star Control, was in command of the base and had been since the resupply vessel transferred him and the rest of the current crew from the Earth's surface in 2147 to replace the previous crew. Starbase crew members were chosen by the Ur-Quan for their experience working in space environments and frequently included military veterans from the First War of the Alliance. Ironically this made them more likely to rebel once Ur-Quan supervision was lifted, as proved to be the case in this instance.

With their energy reserves almost completely depleted, the dying Starbase encountered the Vindicator captained by Zelnick, having traveled from Unzervalt to assist Alliance forces, not knowing the war had already ended. Itself nearly out of fuel and operating with a skeleton crew, the Vindicator was nonetheless able to undertake mining operations to restock the Starbase's supplies. Their lives having been saved by the Vindicator's crew, the Starbase personnel agreed to consider Zelnick's proposal to restart military action against the Hierarchy in their apparent time of weakness. After proving the Vindicator's prowess in combat by destroying an Ilwrath vessel that had detected its approach, Zelnick successfully convinced Hayes to reconfigure the Starbase as a military platform and help him outfit the Vindicator for open war.

In a stroke of good fortune, one of the engineers aboard the Starbase had smuggled out illegal copies of the design documents for the Earthling Cruiser after Earth's fleets and shipyards were destroyed at the surrender. The

The Starbase afterwards became the logistics and command center for the New Alliance of Free Stars guerrilla organization, and was the home of the dedicated repair, maintenance and upgrade facilities for the Vindicator and its support fleet. Fortunately the Ur-Quan machinery was flexible enough to interface with the Precursor software on the Vindicator's computer, and fortunately the Vindicator was capable of operating on the standard Hierarchy antimatter-conversion fuel synthesized at the Starbase. Most of the Vindicator's crew also came from Starbase personnel, including all of its highly trained scientific specialists. Second only to the Vindicator itself, the Starbase stands as a symbol of Human resistance during the War.