Omega
From FABT
 
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Location: |
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Commissioned: |
22 December 651 CE (as Mining Station Cruciea) |
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Decommissioned: |
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Length: |
44.7km |
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Diameter: |
52.6km |
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Population: |
7.8 million |
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Defenses: |
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Type: |
Mining facility and town (651 CE - 700 CE) |
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Power: |
Twenty centralized eezo cores |
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Manufacturer: |
Easy-Eezo Industries (Mining Station Cruciea) |
- "Omega. What a shithole. Every time I come here I feel like I need three showers to wash the stench off, in addition to the usual decontamination."
- — Miranda Lawson describing Omega.
Omega (formerly known as Mining Station Cruciea under Easy-Eezo and known as Griyasu to the krogan) was a massive space station in the Sahrabarik system of the Omega Nebula, formerly serving as the de facto capital of the Terminus Systems, the home of lawlessness and "free enterprise" and the throne of the Ruler of Omega. In 643 CE, a massive asteroid some 50 kilometers in diameter was discovered by Council survey teams in the Sahrabarik system shortly after the system's discovery by the Council, and upon further examination, it was discovered the asteroid was rich with immense deposits of element zero, enough to be mined for potentially centuries but requiring immense resources and industrial-grade materials to penetrate the asteroid's dense crust: the contract was awarded to the Council-funded Easy-Eezo Industries, a mining corporation that specialized in eezo extraction, and by 651 CE, Easy-Eezo had begun setting up facilities on the asteroid, establishing a small asteroid base for the operation: a small mining town was established to house the company's employees, while an extensive set of four mining facilities were built deep into the asteroid's dense core, enormous drills and mining equipment transported inside to begin gnawing away at the asteroid's wealth of eezo: as the operation grew and the years went on, Mining Station Cruciea, as it became known, would only continue to expand, growing from a small town to virtually a small city by 691 CE, becoming a minor port as miners brought in their families to live there, and eventually tourists and more employees came to stay, all the while the mines continued to run 24/7, barely even denting the asteroid's eezo reserves.
In 700 CE, the Krogan Rebellions began, and the Council immediately issued evacuation orders for the Sahrabarik system, as the Omega Nebula was squarely within the Tuchankan Empire's sights for conquests, wanting access to the F89 asteroid to mine for themselves. Easy-Eezo packed up and left, with Council forces arriving to evacuate remaining civilian personnel, while STG teams remained behind to sabotage as much of the mining equipment as possible: they were unable to finish their work by the time a krogan fleet arrived to seize the station, and by the time the krogan arrived, Mining Station Cruciea was completely abandoned, allowing them a bloodless conquest. The krogan seized on the potential of the asteroid as a starfortress, a space station bristling with armaments, acting as a major naval port and denying the Council access to the Nebula by controlling the gateway to the rest of the cluster: the station was armoured up, a barracks built, a refueling port established, and numerous anti-ship defensive batteries and kinetic barriers brought in and built on-site. While the mining city was largely left untouched, it was used to house the 11th Warband, the krogan division that would be left behind to garrison the fortress: while the krogan were able to reactivate some of the mining facilities, most had been successfully sabotaged by the STG, with engineers and techs brought in to try and restore them to full operation. By 704 CE, the station had been renamed to "Griyasu" by the krogan, with the closest human equivalent to the meaning of the word being "Omega". The krogan would hold the station for the entirety of the war, with the Council making three attempts to retake it without success: the fortress' powerful armament, coupled with its location within a dense asteroid field, made any assault on the station practically impossible, earning Omega the reputation of "impregnable" and quickly making it one of the most valuable strategically important footholds the Empire had, and it would never fall, even as the Empire itself collapsed. As a result of its impregnability, the krogan of the 11th Warband became the only krogan in the galaxy unafflicted by the genophage, and even after the Empire collapsed and the war ended, the 11th Warband held their posts and refused to back down, holding out against a larger Council offensive in 769 CE that was once again a failure.
It wasn't until the Terminus Revolutions and the arrival of a turian revolutionary, Drecuns Tanculus, spearheading a massive army, that Omega would finally fall, Tanculus uniting the disparate groups of the nascent Terminus Systems in taking the station: knowing a direct assault was futile, Tanculus instead captured the resupply transports the 11th Warband used to stock up on fresh supplies and used them as a trojan horse to bypass Omega's defenses and infiltate the station from within, disabling Omega's batteries and allowing the invasion force to land: the 11th Warband fought to the death, and in 800 CE, Omega had finally fallen to an outside force, with Tanculus establishing the station as his new headquarters and the de facto capital of the Terminus Systems, using it as a place for the rest of his revolutionary army to rally behind: in doing so, Tanculus became the first Ruler of Omega. Following the Revolutions, Omega would become a major Terminus port, and the city was once again thriving with the hustle and bustle of civilian life, tourists and workers coming to use the mines: as declared by Tanculus, the station would have no law enforcement and no official government, with the Ruler of Omega simply a figurehead who would protect the station from foreign attack, but not intervene in its internal affairs. As such, Omega became the "lawless Citadel", a parody of Council society where mercenaries and criminal syndicates ran rampant and "free enterprise" had no limits. Most of the mining facilities were finally repaired and reactivated, pumping out eezo to sell to interested parties, including the Council races. As the centuries went on, Omega's reputation only further deteriorated, with numerous PMCs making their home on the station over the years, establishing dedicated chapters of their organizations to operate on the station: Omega's crime rate was exponentially high, with indiscriminate murder, rape and burglary occurring almost daily to the station's 7.8 million residents. Gang and mercenary wars occurred every so often, turning Omega into a battlefield between competing PMCs and cartels, and as the years went on, the players kept changing, with new PMCs rising to crush the old, and new drug cartels murdering their competition to take their place. Omega was a place of constant flux, always changing and never static.
By 2185 CE Aria T'Loak was the Ruler of Omega, having overthrown her predecessor, the krogan Khurdok Chaggu, 400 years earlier and usurped him. The Blue Suns, Eclipse and Blood Pack PMCs planned to overthrow Aria T'Loak in 2185 CE but were weakened by the Kima Siege and Gozu Mercenary War, made only worse when Cerberus invaded the station, securing a quick victory by swiftly defeating the PMCs and cartels, and ousting Aria and her syndicate. Cerberus quickly occupied the station, repopulating the abandoned krogan barracks, upgrading the station's defenses with new particle artillery and building high-density energy forcefields at crucial checkpoints across Omega in order to control the population. The station's mining facilities remained active, but access to them was prohibited and the spaces abandoned due to the adjutants that Cerberus had unleashed upon the station during their invasion and lost control of not long after, all of them trapped and imprisoned in the lower levels of the station until Cerberus could deal with them. The Talons, a drug cartel turned resistance group, quickly started up an insurrection against Cerberus, who tried and failed over the next six months to defeat them. In 2186 CE, Aria would return with a conglomeration of criminal enterprises, Terminus criminal bands and PMCs, with support from the UGC, to retake Omega in a daring assault to oust Cerberus from the asteroid: after Cerberus was defeated and their remaining forces captured, Aria re-established her grip on the station, but things had changed, with Nyreen Kandros' death having impacted the pirate queen emotionally. After the Reaper War and Aria's return, she was determined to change things, and subsequently declared the independent Omega Republic, with Aria as the head-of-state and the Talons as her military: for the first time in history, Omega had official government. This would continue for decades, although Aria's leadership quickly became unpopular when she sided with the Titan Covenant in the Post-Apocalyptic War, joining with them in a military alliance. Omega became a battleground between insurrectionists fighting against Aria not long into the war, which soon exploded into full-scale civil war.
Following Aria's defeat and death at the hands of her daughter Sata T'Loak years later, Sata took over from her mother, declaring the dissolution of the Omega Republic in favor of a new government. Establishing the Alpha Republic in its place, Sata announced her infrastructure initiative to completely rebuild and modernize Omega from the ground up, demolishing the dilapidated slums and lawless streets of the station to create a proper, civilized city on par with the Citadel, a place for members of any species to live and find comfort, security and safety. As part of this initiative, Sata renamed the station "Alpha", wanting to ditch the name "Omega" and the negative connotations that came with it in order to chase a new future for the station and represent a new leap forward.