Terugan Civil War
| Terugan Civil War | |||||||||||||
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| Part of the Ascension and The Mazkertis Paradox arcs | |||||||||||||
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- "Prisoners, the ZFT have kept you for too long. They have kept the oppression of the Terugans too long. This is the time for REVOLUTION! Tonight, as me and our resistance allies broke into the prison tonight to rescue our brethren, and the ZFT have killed Vok! They stole his travel glove, and killed his guards! The ZFT are trying to silence us, fellow Terugans! Let no two eyes give you the fist, for now, our rules shall be an eye for an eye! The curfew is off, the lights are off, the systems are down, and we must rise as one! For Vok, for Teruga Prime!"
- ―Jesse Ventura to the Terugan people
The Terugan Civil War is an ongoing conflict that began with the murder of the president of Teruga Prime, Vok. Because Vok's murder was orchestrated to look like he was executed by the ZFT and broadcast across the planet, a disjointed rebellion formed against the planet's ZFT leadership. This rebellion includes most of the Terugan military, as well as what remains of the former government's Terugan Space Systems division, and most importantly of all, many ordinary Terugan citizens. The conflict soon became known as the Terugan Civil War as families and friends were forced to choose sides and turn on each other for the fate of their planet.
So far, the rebels have been successful in liberating most of the planet from ZFT rule, but the ZFT remain in control of Retorian City, where they have established a superportal in the sky connected to Centrum.
Background[edit | edit source]
Occupation of Teruga Prime[edit | edit source]
The ZFT takeover of Teruga Prime occurred during the Uterio War in the year 150,082 CMT. Because Vok was away at the time, a member of his party, Fod, became the planet's Acting President. However, due to his cowardice and inexperience, Fod was unable to make the decisions necessary to protect Teruga Prime from the ZFT's Second Fleet when it arrived. After the Second Fleet bombed many of the planet's major cities from orbit, Fod's brother Wyn arranged a surrender. Shortly afterwards, the commander of the Second Fleet, TBP, beamed down to the planet and had Fod hung from the balcony of the Spire of Conquest. ZFT forces then moved on to Teruga Prime, suppressed any resistance and established a new leadership.
Most Terugans were unaffected by Fod's death and focused on the absence of Vok instead. The Terugans who hated the ZFT's new order hoped that Vok would return to kill TBP and regain ownership of the planet. However, when Vok did return, he made a deal with the ZFT for his life instead. The ZFT recognized Vok as someone who could influence the opinions of the public, and so decided to allow Vok to remain as President while endorsing the presence of the ZFT, citing shared scientific pursuits as one of the reasons for his collaboration. In reality, Vok hated the ZFT, but realized that there was nothing he could do to banish them from Teruga Prime and any effort made against them would result in his death.
The Call to War[edit | edit source]
Two years later, in 150,084 CMT, the Dong Squad were sent to Teruga Prime to retrieve Vok's Travel Glove as part of their quest to collect artifacts of power. Yon figured that Vok would be in the underground city of Ipomal at the time, so they hatched a cunning plan to get there. The Ayy-Lmaliums piloting the Dongers' ship managed to fly it close to the ocean without being detected. From there, the Dongers then climbed inside Pumkin, who was dropped into the ocean and swam into an underground cave - a secret entrance to Ipomal. Once inside the city, Yon directed them to the prison, which is where he knew Vok liked to hang out. The rest of the Dongers disabled the guards while No Image Guy possessed the HUD of a ZFT soldier named Jeff. No Image Guy then convinced Jeff to kill Vok by taking on the image of David Robert Jones and issuing the command. Jeff obeyed, shooting Vok through the eye, killing him instantly. Footage of Jeff killing Vok was recorded and transmitted throughout the city, with Jesse Ventura providing a voiceover encouraging the Terugans to rise up and rebel against the ZFT for killing their leader. The Dongers then prised the Travel Glove off Vok's dead hand while Billy Mays and Demopan planted explosives around the base of the Spire of Conquest. The Dongers fled back to the ship with their prize, with the exception of Demopan, who bravely sacrificed himself to save Billy Mays's life. They narrowly escaped into orbit as the explosives detonated, destroying the Spire of Conquest and adding more fuel to the rising fire of revolution.
However, the ZFT did not let the Dong Squad escape that easily. Once their scanners detected the Dongers' ship attempting to escape the planet, they dispatched a fleet of ships to take them down. Lord Zrintch arrived with a small Cooperative fleet to back up the Dongers, but was not expecting to head into a war zone. One of the ZFT's ships, the TSS Jet-Ball II, was harassing Zrintch's ship by spinning around it and targeting its engines. Yon got the crazy idea to help Zrintch by having Merasmus teleport him onto the Jet-Ball II so that he could disable it from within. Merasmus agreed and teleported Yon there. Once on the Jet-Ball II, Yon used his skill with firearms and eyebeams to kill the ZFT officers he came across on his way to the bridge. He met the captain of the ship, Ade, who turned out to be a rebel sympathizer stuck in a tricky situation. Once she saw that they actually stood a chance of winning, she came up with the idea of dumping and detonating the ship's warp core to destroy the rest of the ZFT fleet. Yon telepathically instructed the Dongers to tell the Cooperative fleet to prepare to fly ahead of the explosion. When the warp core was dumped into space, Yon momentarily opened the ship's ramp to blast it with an eyebeam. The resulting explosion obliterated the rest of the ZFT fleet, and the crew of the Jet-Ball II survived thanks to No Image Guy, who took control of the ship's auxiliary engines and steered them away from the explosion. The Jet-Ball II docked inside the Dongers' ship's hangar, and the Dongers' ship jumped into hyperspace along with the Cooperative ships.
After the Dongers[edit | edit source]
When the leaders of ZFT found out about the disaster on Teruga Prime, they realized that someone had to pay. That someone was TBP, who was technically in charge of the planet at the time, but had failed to take action to stop the Dongers and the winds of rebellion. TBP was led outside his office and shot as his replacement, Shockwave, arrived to assume command.
Because Ade and Yon destroyed most of the ZFT ships assigned to Teruga Prime, the ZFT had no choice but to send reinforcements to counter the rebels. ZFT forces in Retorian City opened a superportal in the sky to allow more ships to come through from Centrum. As a result of the superportal, Retorian City became the most heavily-defended ZFT stronghold on the planet. Nobody would attempt to challenge it for the next few months.
The TSS Bouncy-Ball was one of the Terugan ships that returned to the planet to help battle the ZFT. One day, while they stopped to stock up on supplies, Blackout dropped out of a portal nearby. After killing one of the Bouncy-Ball's crewmembers, Blackout telepathically assaulted Acting Captain Dan to learn about what was going on. Once he was up to speed on the Terugan Civil War, Blackout decided that he would commandeer the Bouncy-Ball and take it to the nearest ZFT base. Dan alerted his crew to the threat, so the ship took off without him. However, that didn't stop Blackout from flying after it. Blackout broke through one of the ship's windows, dispatched its crew (apart from Kek & Lel, who escaped via parachutes), and flew it to a ZFT base elsewhere on the planet. After he dropped it off, Shockwave showed Blackout what he had been working on, which was a terraforming device designed to make the planet uninhabitable to Terugans.
Kek & Lel then circled back to meet Dan, and the three Terugans began their trek across the wasteland of Teruga Prime. Fortunately, a Red Cross ship stopped to help them. They accepted their help, then took over their ship and flew it to Atuar Sadiares.
Later, the Bouncy-Fleet decided to launch an attack on Retorian City, a large city within a dome out in the irradiated wasteland. The TSS Poop-Scoop Maloop used its "Poop Scoop" to scoop up the ZFT control station on the top of the dome and drop it on the wasteland. To their surprise, the Bouncy-Ball, now under ZFT command, was deployed against them immediately after, along with 24 Falcon-M class ZFT ships. The TSS Bounce-Bounce Revolution used its bass cannon to shatter the forward windows of the Bouncy-Ball, but did no other damage. The crew of the Bouncy-Ball responded by launching explosive ping-pong balls, which bounced between the Bounce-Bounce Revolution and the TSS Balls of Steel before exploding, dealing both ships critical damage. Two dozen Sky Serpent-class ZFT ships then emerged from the superportal and opened fire.
