Above the bloodied, corrupted, alien-infested hellscape that had once been the radiant homeworld of humanity, crowning the planet's corrupted skies and past the nuclear firestorm that was constantly fuelled by the human fleet, Xertaza, from the bridge of the battered Ruthless watched the apocalypse below with growing concern. It was in that harrowing moment that terrified sailors and civilians all across the Empire had received the crowning piece of dreadful news: the total number of deaths as a result of the recent Alien War had just exceeded one trillion. With Earth on the cusp of falling to the alien scourge in its entirety, it had become clear that this unfathomably large, incomprehensibly tragic, and undoubtedly foreboding number, would only continue to swell.
All of the Ruthless's marines who were not allocated towards the defence of the ship from boarding actions had been deployed to the planet's surface; the same went for much of the surrounding fleet, and yet despite this, the situation on the ground was a failing stalemate at best. The human ground forces were potent and capable of engaging aliens on an open field, but the alien hordes, having arrived in numbers great enough that they had become entrenched moments after their arrival, were difficult to repulse and even more difficult to dislodge. Sweeping across the planet, the aliens had the perverted the very ground they fought on, flooding the streets of Earth's cities with so-called biofluid that could heal their fallen, create new soldiers, and — according to some reports — could even create new spacecraft within minutes. Five-legged alien monstrosities, the standard size of which were dubbed "Stompers", not only stood up to human armor but served to destroy any human ship that tried to lend ground support from a close range; clouds of alien corruption choked any without a helmet and corrupted entire regions; human forces resisted their foe bravely, cutting them down in the hundreds of millions, but this meant nothing. Their foe had become the planet itself — their foe was endless.
With the aliens' ability to mimic every facet of a human, from biology to mannerisms to memories and language, the human defensive lines had been subverted on countless occasions, as aliens, following convoys of refugees, simply walked past their foe, only to transform and infect more of the planet at a later time. The surface of the Earth grew darker and less recognizable by the moment, and while the human resistance stubbornly continued above ground, those aliens that had travelled to the lower levels of the ecumenopolis easily spread their corruption in the subterranean levels of the world. Their corruption faced no difficulty as it warped the under-world of the Earth into a truly hellish form, for the cramped confines of underground, hardly being protected by the overstretched military, provided the perfect environment for the ever-infectious alien biofluid. Already, the losses of the war had been catastrophic — if Earth, the birthplace of the human race, along with many of its inhabitants and many of the galaxy's most important Tekran were to truly fall, the cost would become unimaginable. Furthermore, with tens of billions of civilians fleeing from conflict across the world, the aliens' infiltrative ability alone made them nearly impossible to contain; as many of those refugees boarded ships in preparation for planet-wide evacuation, Xertaza had reluctantly realized that if there was but a single alien aboard any of those ships, it could put other planets in jeopardy.
It was with a heavy heart that, because of the aliens' exceptional ability to infiltrate human society, and because of the advanced state of alien corruption on the surface of the planet, Xertaza had placed the entire planet under extreme quarantine — anyone who attempted to leave would be nuked out of the sky, as if the world was suffering from the devourer plague. This was but one step away from declaring the world lost, though by this point such a thing would be a formality; with the surface wavering and the underground regions of the planet having succumbed to alien attack, the homeworld of the human race had already been destroyed in a way none could have imagined. Along with the world and its people, placed in jeopardy or destroyed altogether, was the planet's vast history; as the homeworld of the human race, Earth had held more museums, historic sites, relics and monuments than any other planet in the galaxy, as well as the complex in which nearly all of the Empire's fallen imperators were interred. These imperators' grand mausoleum was but minutes away from failing, and with it, much of the Empire's proud heritage stood on the cusp of destruction at the aliens' vile hands — as the aliens consumed the surface of Earth, they consumed humanity's glorious past. The birthplace of humanity was being transformed into a nightmarish alien wasteland before Xertaza's very eyes; she was terrified, but this fear only grew more intense as she realized that this would not be the last world to meet such an undeserving fate. Not only had the aliens killed the Imperator and decapitated the government, not only had they riven humanity's heart and desecrated every facet of its heritage, but they threatened to now transform every other proud human world into a festering nightmare. Xertaza, watching the fall of humanity's longest home with sheer and utter horror, swore to herself that she would find some way to give the alien monstrosities there a taste of proper human revenge — though she did not yet know how.
Whatever the case was, Earth was still failing, and Xertaza was powerless to do anything besides watch, and kill anything that tried to flee. Of course, Xertaza's declaration of Earth's quarantine extended to all Tekran on and within the world; while the other inhabited planets in the system, under the weight of their own gargantuan planetary thrusters and even remnant drives of unimaginable scale, fled from the star that had hosted them for billions of years, it became clear that there was a terrible hole in the Empire, and no one was yet certain what world or leader would fill this void. The Empire's constitution designated a clear successor for this type of grim circumstance, but reluctance to see such a drastic change in leadership realized, as it would essentially see the planet of Earth declared lost, had left the Empire leaderless since the previous day.
One thing, above all else, was clear: if it was to survive, humanity needed a more reliable means of differentiating aliens from humans, and it needed such a thing back at the start of the damned invasion. To rectify this, Xertaza had contacted her entire science department the moment aliens had landed on Earth, ordering them to work on improving the alien detector so that it actually worked; the science department was to work on this task exclusively, until it was completed. So important was this discovery, Xertaza reckoned, that her extreme order was worth it: the fate of the rest of humanity likely depended on the development of such a device.
Xertaza's mind then leapt onto the next strategic crisis that confronted it with desperate abandon: a Tehkrian fleet, acting under her orders, had been attacked by not one, but three Nahmatiixian fleets at different points. Two of these fleets opted to strike the world of Tehkria itself, coincidentally, at nearly the same moment an alien armada had also attacked the world; the universe's strange, murderous sense of humor prevailed yet again. Thankfully, Lassarha, through her superior defences, superior tactics, and superior luck, had eventually triumphed, though this did not make the news good: Nahmatiix, seemingly, was embroiled in open rebellion against the Empire, having attacked another human world without declared reason or justification besides self-defence, though even news of Nahmatiix's attack was being suppressed by the Nahmatiixian EWCC. This rebellion was worrying by itself; it was made more so by the fact that the world was in possession of a few million warships, and, as most rebellions were preceded by a secret rearmament, the planet likely possessed many more.
Treason — Xertaza scoffed, and furiously hit her desk as if it were Heralax's head at the mere thought of it. To do such a thing during an alien invasion was a heinous crime against the human race: Heralax Tekran had to suffer and die; his officials had to suffer and die; his generals had to suffer and die; many of his traitorous subordinates had to suffer and die, and, along with the traitorous rats, their cause had to suffer and die. Only then could humanity have a hope at living.
Just as Xertaza began preparing orders for her ship and fleet to prepare an assault on the world of Nahmatiix, a second textcomm, this one originating from the Empire-wide Communications Center above Nahmatiix — the second-highest-priority replacement version of the station — slammed into Xertaza's mind like the punch of an enforcer, drowning out her own thoughts, and sending her reeling with unexpected shock. As her MECS suppressed the sudden burst of agony, Xertaza could see that everyone around her was buckled over in the same manner: this message was intended not just for her, but for what seemed like the entire Empire, though as the textcomm's message held her thoughts in an iron grip, Xertaza couldn't reason beyond this. Burned into her memory was an elongated manifesto, consisting of a galvanizing primer:
"Alien horrors parade down the streets of our proud homeworld. The Imperator lies dead, his office lies empty, and with every defeat brought on by incompetent, incapable leadership, our human and Tekran species grow closer to extinction. What the past three days have made clear is that our once-proud Empire is not the nation that it was meant to be; it is a gutted shell of its former self, and every human and Tekran alive has suffered because of it. For thousands of years, entire planets, space stations and populaces have languished under unequal rule, rule that blatantly goes against the very constitution that created this once-magnificent state, and a tyranny that has repressed anyone not born on Earth or Tehkria — this cannot continue, and I, Heralax Tekran, will see that it does not. Already, you witness the corrupt leaders of the old order struggling to maintain their strangling grip on the throat of the galaxy; the planetary consul of Tehkria attempted to murder one of her counterparts using a mentally-enslaved citizen, and, after pinning it on yet another one of her rivals, she invaded a human world while the galaxy was battling the aliens — twice. Tehkria and Earth have maintained a stranglehold on politics since time immemorial, and now, when our species is under threat, not only does the weakness brought on by this domination show, but these planets fight the rest of humanity in a desperate attempt to maintain their wicked hegemony, even as survival itself is at stake. Such selfishness cannot ensure our survival. Even before the Alien War, the power of Tehkria repressed countless people across the galaxy, denying many of our brothers and sisters in space stations access to even basic representation and self-government, while countless other worlds were ostracized and lorded over by an idiotic few. This incompetent evil cannot be the foundation of a strong state, which in the face of the aliens' arrival we so desperately need. We are without a leader; extinction nears, but the people of the galaxy should not cower before its terrible visage: I, Heralax Tekran, refuse to stand by and watch. To save our nation, and to prevent it from falling back into the incapable hands of unequal Tehkrian rule, I have no choice but to assume imperatorship, and I promise that under our new, revitalized state, not only shall humanity endure against these alien monsters, but that it will prosper! The government that let us fall into this failing fight for survival is no more, the foul perversion of our Empire which has ruled the cosmos for thousands of years is no more, and in its place will arise our restored Empire, one true to the values, to the strength, and to the equality of worlds, stations, and people, that was dreamt of by the founders. Make no mistake: there will be those few who oppose righteousness, and, for the sake of everyone's survival, they must be swept aside, in what will be nothing less than a second founding war. I already have the support of all of Nahmatiix, I am joined by trillions of other, like-minded restorers of the human race across the galaxy, and I would be proud to count you among them. Take to the streets, call on your planetary governments, and bring arms to bear against those who fight us all to ensure that humanity endures!"
Xertaza, her head still ringing, was soon hit with wave after wave of panicked textcomms from hundreds of planets across the Empire, many of them dispatched from constabulary precincts, informing her of the sudden defection of thousands of worlds and trillions of people to the usurper. Worse still, many of these textcomms were ideology-infused reports from Xertaza's own people, declaring their allegiance to the righteous-seeming pretender, and urging her to follow in their footsteps. Riots, some seeming planned, many others appearing genuine, spontaneously broke out on every world from Retharxia to Ihndrastar, all while the defensive fleets of entire worlds had their loyalties split after mere minutes; where diplomacy, rhetoric, or argument failed, inevitably, blood was shed. The populations of most of the galaxy's space stations, who had felt oppressed by their planetary brethren for thousands of years, spontaneously changed their allegiances in favor of a leader who seemed to actually care about them, their plight, and political equality; many of those on planets who sympathized with those on space stations were similarly won over. Without a rival to contest Heralax, his regime appeared to be the only authority left in the galaxy, and many joined him simply because there seemed to be no one else to join. Divisions between planets and people threatened to tear the stars apart; the Empire, the monolithic foundation of modern human civilization, was now at serious risk of violent implosion on a scale not seen for thousands of years, all while the aliens threatened to eradicate it from without. Such a wave of treason was perhaps not surprising during such a time of upheaval, crisis, and emotion, but similarly it was far too complete to have not been planned before the invasion had even begun. In the moments that followed, countless more planetary consuls and station commanders swore allegiance to Heralax's regime; Xertaza, having been so occupied by the alien invasion, had entirely failed to remove the rot festering within the heart of the Empire — now she, and every other human in the galaxy, was paying the price for her ignorance.
Knowing that she could not afford even a millisecond's more inaction, Xertaza quickly distributed forceful orders to everyone under her command, instructing them to fight the treasonous, illegal regime in any way possible. Many of Xertaza's communications were sent from the Ruthless's own quantum communications network directly to their intended recipients, so as to avoid their interception at the hands of Heralax, who, by controlling the EWCC, controlled most of its communication, something which only helped spread the disease of treason across humanity's fractured nation.
Another moment, and Xertaza became privy to yet another textcomm issued by an ambitious government official — this one originating from the Ineffable, the flagship of Tehkria and the location of much of the world's government — which was imploring Xertaza to invoke the constitution of the Empire so as to, as the textcomm stated, "...end this madness." Xertaza couldn't say that she disagreed.