Warhammer: Empire Reboot

His right hand always gripped the Dawn Blade.

Oshova found an ancient weapon of unknown origin in an ancient temple on the planet Assomolo hundreds of years ago.

And it was from that time on that he stopped aging.

O'Shovar was once the most glorious military hero of the Tau Empire.

Throughout the expansionist history of the Tau Empire, he commanded dozens of key battles. From colonial wars on the empire's frontiers to direct confrontations with the Orcs WAAAGH, Oshowar's name was almost synonymous with victory.

His tactical philosophy was unique among the Tau. Unlike most Tau commanders who preferred long-range fire suppression, Oshova advocated a combination of mobile warfare and close-quarters combat.

He himself pilots a heavily modified Crisis Armor, wielding the Dawn Blade, and often personally charges into the front lines of the battlefield.

This is heresy within the Tau military system.

The spiritual leader and political ruler of the Tau Empire has always harbored a deep-seated fear of Oshova.

He was too strong, too independent, and too beloved by ordinary soldiers.

What unsettles the Ethers even more is that Oshowar has gradually come to question the “Supreme Goodness,” the core ideology of the Tau Empire, during his long expedition.

He saw the Aetherians enjoying peace in the rear, while the Fire Warriors and Earth Castes on the front lines were sent to their deaths.

He saw the true nature of the etheric beings' use of the caste system and mind control to maintain their rule.

He saw beneath the glamorous facade of the "supreme path of goodness" lay a cold power logic that was no different in essence from imperial dogmatism.

After returning from an expedition, Oshowa was asked to report to the Ether Parliament.

He refused.

With his followers, eight top commanders later known as the "Eight Visionaries" and a full expeditionary fleet, Oshova left the Tau Empire's homeland and established his own colonial enclave in the gray area between the Empire and the Tau Empire.

Five star systems, 120 habitable planets, with a total population of approximately 9 billion Tau people and hundreds of billions of dependent races.

The enclave's military force is centered around O'Showa's elite troops, consisting of 3,000 armored vehicles of various types, 200 warships, and billions of militia members trained through a nationwide mobilization.

Compared to the Tau Empire's homeland, this force is merely a detachment.

But under O'Shova's command, this detachment repelled dozens of invasions by the Empire, the Orcs, and the Dark Eldar over three hundred years, never losing a single core planet.

The relationship between the Tau Empire's homeland and the Visionary Enclave is extremely bad.

The Etheric Parliament views O'Showa as a traitor and a dangerous element.

In official propaganda, the existence of the Vision Enclave is itself a desecration of the "Supreme Good Path," and a Tau society that has broken away from the guidance of the Aether is a heretic destined for destruction.

The Ethers periodically send messengers to the Visionary Enclave, demanding that Oshowa return to its homeland for "re-education."

O'Showa periodically sends these messengers back the way they came.

The two sides maintained a stalemate that could erupt into a hot war at any moment.

The standoff was broken six months ago.

An orcish WAAAGH fleet invaded the Viola system from the direction of Imperial space, the most important industrial system of the Farvision enclave.

The sheer number of orcs exceeded Oshovar's expectations.

The leading warlord is the most cunning type of Greenskin, adept at modifying weapons with captured alien technology, arming them to the teeth.

The defensive fleet of the Viola system lost a third of its forces in the first wave of battle.

The sheer number of Orcs overwhelmed the Tau's sophisticated firepower; for every thousand killed, another ten thousand followed.

O'Showa was forced to commit all eight of his visionaries to the battlefield.

Relying on the mobility and precision firepower of their armored units, the Tau people waged a protracted war of attrition against the Orks on the equatorial plains of Viola's home planet.

Oshowar personally piloted the modified Crisis Armor into the Orcs' command center, using the Dawn Blade to kill three Orc leaders.

Finally, in a meticulously planned decapitation strike, Oshowar led the Eight Visionaries into Nazdreig's flagship and confronted the orc warlord on the bridge.

The Dawnblade severed Nazdreig's power claws and pierced through its chest.

The warlords fell.

WAAAGH energy drops sharply.

The orc army began to rout.

O'Showa thought he saw the light at the end of the tunnel.

Then the subspace rift tore open on the outer edge of the Viola galaxy.

An ominous ark emerged from the crack.

The Demon Prince Ugalax the Soul Eater led tens of thousands of Chaos Warriors and a massive demon army straight towards the Viola system.

The arrival of chaos gave the defeated orcs a chance to catch their breath.

Nazdreig is dead, but the Greenskins' reproductive ability allowed new warlords to emerge within weeks.

The three medium-sized orc tribes each elected new leaders. Although they were fighting among themselves, they would temporarily join forces when facing common enemies, Chaos and Tau.

Of the six colonized planets in the Viola system, three have become battlefields.

The Tau civilians were forced to retreat to the core planet, and industrial capacity shrank dramatically.

O'Showa's fleet suffered heavy losses in months of intense combat, and its ammunition and spare parts stocks fell below critical levels.

Tasha, one of the Eight Visionaries, was killed in a battle against a demon army when his armor was torn apart by Ugalax.

Tasha was ejected in the last second before her armor exploded, but her legs and left arm had already been torn to shreds by the demon's claws.

She died from excessive blood loss during the evacuation.

This is the first time in the three hundred years since the establishment of the Vision Enclave that it has lost a core commander of the "Eight Generals" level.

O'Showa stood in front of the tactical holographic console, watching the final battlefield footage of Tasha on the projection screen.

A month ago, he made a decision he never thought he would make.

Seek aid from the Titanium Empire's homeland.

He personally recorded a message, loaded it into a high-speed communication drone, and launched it along a pre-set route into the Tau Empire's home space.

In the video, O'Showa removes his armor and helmet.

He said the Vision Enclave is facing the most serious survival crisis since its establishment.

The dual pressures from the orcs and chaos have exceeded the enclave's tolerance limit.

He requested that the Tau Empire, in consideration of the nine billion Tau people in the Visionary Enclave, send reinforcements.

He said that if the homeland was willing to send troops, he was willing to surrender unconditionally to the Etheric Parliament after the war and accept any form of punishment.

He accepted exile, imprisonment, and execution.

He said his personal honor or disgrace was unimportant; what mattered were the lives of the nine billion people in the Vision Enclave.

The drone disappeared into the interstellar void.

Then came the long wait.

The situation in Viola deteriorated further over the course of the month.

The fourth colony has fallen. The fleet has lost two more capital ships. Ammunition reserves have plummeted from the warning line to below the red line.

Of the remaining seven of the Eight Foresight Generals, three were fighting while wounded.

Finally, the Titanium Empire replied.

A messenger drone was intercepted by a communications array at Vision Enclave.

O'Showa activated the holographic recording carried by the drone in the flagship's command center.

Four of the seven visionaries who were able to arrive stood behind him.

The holographic projection lights up.

A Tau Aether with a smooth face and wearing a gorgeous platinum dress appears in the picture.

The current supreme political leader of the Tau Empire, the High Ether Anvar.

In theory, he is the spiritual mentor and embodiment of the highest good for all Tau people.

In reality, he is a politician skilled in political maneuvering and ruthless to the core.

Anwar's holographic imagery began with a few words affirming O'Showa's past military achievements, praising his willingness to surrender and accept punishment as demonstrating a remaining sense of honor.

Then he changed the subject.

He said that all the disasters Oshova is facing now prove that the Tau society, which is deviated from the guidance of the ether, is doomed to destruction, and the predicament of the visionary enclave is the natural punishment of the "highest good" for the betrayers.

Anwa said that from the moment Oshova betrayed the Tau Empire, he made an irreversible mistake.

He was an exiled outcast who could never be redeemed, and the Tau people who followed him in establishing the Vision Enclave were also traitors who had to atone with their deaths.

Anwar refused to send any reinforcements.

At the end of the video, Anwar put on a hypocritical and disgusting expression of compassion, saying that if Oshowar still wanted to make a final contribution to the Path of Goodness, then before he died, he should lead his traitorous subordinates to eliminate as many orcs and chaos humans as possible.

"This will be the only way you can atone for your sins."

O'Showa drew his plasma pistol, aimed it at Anwa's holographic projection, and pulled the trigger.

Anvana's hateful face twisted, shattered, and vanished amidst the electric sparks.

The wreckage of the drone was smoking on the floor.

Standing behind O'Showa, the four Visionaries had clenched their fists, some were breathing heavily, and some had a barely contained rage surging in their eyes.

O'Showa holstered his pistol and announced to his men around him.

"From this day forward, all ties between the Vision Enclave and the Tau Empire are permanently severed. We are no longer rebels, because the premise of rebels is recognizing the legitimacy of their mother country. From this moment on, the Tau Empire and its aethers are a completely irrelevant foreign regime to us."

"Get back to your posts and prepare for battle."

The four generals saluted simultaneously, then turned and left.

O'Showa stood alone in the command room, looking at the wreckage of the Anwa drone on the floor.

A moment later, he bent down, picked up a fragment, turned it over, and saw the emblem of the Titanium Empire cast on the back of the fragment.

He gripped it tightly and crushed the national emblem into powder.

Then O'Shovar pulled up the complete star map of the Viola galaxy.