Author note - Damn, i should probably triple check my writing and not just jam it into fk grammarly and then check it again, the official prologue, building chapters are over, will now focus mainly on Nathaniel Voss. Anyway, I am having fun writing this even if its wholly unplanned, rough with mistakes that I cannot spot as a new author, it might not be the greatest piece of work but I am trying my best maybe a better author will read this and make a remake with their own twist <3
Terran Year: 2330–2340
The fires of civil war no longer burned in secret.
By 2330, the Dominion was no longer a singular power. It was a splintered giant—its bones cracked open by decades of silent corruption and ignited by the brutality inflicted upon the Voss family. When the attempted purge on Earth turned into a bloodbath, when protestors were silenced with orbital strikes and children dragged from safehouses, the illusion of control shattered.
Whole sectors revolted.
The spark of rebellion, once scattered and tentative, turned into a coordinated inferno. The surviving Voss heir, barely seventeen, emerged from obscurity not with ceremony but with a message: the Dominion had betrayed itself, and it would be torn down, root and bone.
And the stars answered.
Veteran captains who had once served with Nicholas Voss resurfaced from retirement. Dozens of fleet groups turned their guns inward, targeting supply nodes, ISB archives, and regional command posts. On outer colonies like Halveron's Reach and Telia Mar, entire garrison armies mutinied. Even on Terra itself, old soldiers, younger idealists, and disillusioned civilians armed themselves in the name of a freer Dominion.
It wasn't just idealism. It was a memory.
They remembered Marcus Voss at the start. They remembered Nicholas who fell in fire, and Jace who warned them of the slow decay. Now, they remembered his great-great-grandson, barely a man but already etched into the hearts of soldiers and civilians alike as the last true heir to Terra's legacy.
The fighting was vicious.
ISB loyalists entrenched themselves in fortified spires and orbital redoubts. Whole sectors became battlefields of attrition. Civilian populations were used as shields. Food supplies were hoarded. Old AI cores were activated in violation of Dominion law to hunt rebel operatives. The Triumvirate—though never publicly seen—continued issuing commands through their shadow bureaucracies, using misdirection, fabricated terrorist threats, and false-flag operations.
It didn't matter.
The Voss Rebellion, as it came to be called, had reached. It had morale. And it had unity born of betrayal.
Within four years, the eastern sectors had fallen to rebel control. Dominion Fleet Command fractured—some admirals defecting outright, others executed in coups. By year six, the old High Council Rotunda in New Avalon was nothing but molten debris, destroyed during the Siege of Earth's Capital Ring. When the battle ended, and the last loyalist carrier disintegrated in low orbit, the last major stronghold of the Triumvirate was gone.
The cost was monumental.
Over 2.1 billion dead across contested worlds. Dozens of colonies burned or abandoned. Food shortages triggered humanitarian crises in several sectors. But it was over.
And what followed was not an empire.
It was rebuilding.
The new Dominion that rose from the ruins was not a loose federation, nor a fractured democracy. It was a constitutional militarized republic—its core doctrine centered on layered leadership, public service, and sectoral representation overseen by the restored Voss line.
The young Voss, now a man, refused the title of High Chancellor or Supreme Commander.
He became "Executor of the Restoration."
And under his guidance, the Dominion began to heal.
Sector councils were rebuilt with checks from planetary assemblies. Military units were demobilized or reassigned to reconstruction. The ISB was abolished—its remaining officers either executed for war crimes or tried publicly. Whole systems that had once been under surveillance were granted open access to Dominion archives, and civil rights were formally codified and taught across Dominion schools.
Some feared chaos would follow the collapse of control.
Instead, discipline held.
Because the people remembered what silence had bought them.
Rebuilding was slow, but visible.
Old cities were repaired. War veterans returned to teach. Communication with fringe worlds resumed. And slowly, the darkness of the Triumvirate's era became just that—an era. An age of shadow that had passed.
And above New Avalon, beneath a new banner that bore the original Terran sigil, now overlaid with a silver phoenix rising from fractured earth, the Dominion once again looked outward.
Not in conquest.
But in defiance.
Because though it had nearly devoured itself, the Dominion had risen from the fire—and this time, it would not forget what nearly destroyed it.
The rebellion that tore the Dominion apart in the early 2330s was swift, merciless, and total in its objectives. By the time the Triumvirate fell, whole sectors had shifted overnight—toppling ministries, seizing control of data vaults, and exposing decades of state secrets. Amidst the chaos of purges and battles, a quiet but desperate exodus unfolded in the shadows.
They were not soldiers, not rebels, and not spies. They were survivors—civilians, bureaucrats, technicians, former slaves, and even low-ranking officers who had lived their entire lives beneath the shadow of Dominion control. Some had once believed in its mission. Others had only ever feared it. And when the fighting consumed Terra's interior systems, these men and women took what little they could and ran.
Not all fled to rebel strongholds. Many wanted nothing to do with the uprising, believing it to be another wave of tyranny under a new name. Others simply wanted to disappear. They stole or bribed their way onto old survey shuttles, private transports, cargo haulers, and aging escape craft. Some hijacked research vessels from orbital stations. Others found derelict Crimson Maw smuggling ships long forgotten in asteroid fields and refit them with scavenged drives and cracked navcharts.
And they fled.
From the burning corridors of Phoros-9. From the collapsing undercities of New Haven on Titan. From mining platforms in the Arkan Spires and orbital farms around Ganymede's outer ring.
They fled westward. Out of Dominion territory. Into the dark.
Many didn't make it.
The Unknown Regions were unforgiving. Navigation hazards, rogue gravitational shears, and ion storms took their toll. Some ships simply vanished—lost in voids between systems or swallowed by decaying orbits around dead worlds. Others were intercepted by pirate enclaves, stripped for parts, their occupants either sold or slaughtered. A few limped into old Crimson Maw corridors, only to be met by what remained of ancient security systems or dormant mines never deactivated.
But not all met grim fates.
Some arrived in known space—scattered, half-dead, and barely functioning, but alive.
In Hutt space, two vessels managed to land on the moon of Jaggro. The Hutts, ever opportunistic, interrogated the survivors for weeks. One group was sold into indentured service. The other was eventually given over to a minor information broker syndicate in exchange for services rendered. What they told their captors, between bruised teeth and stitched wounds, was only partially believed—talk of a human empire in the east, of cities under domes and fleets shaped like daggers.
A third ship, larger and more intact, stumbled into the fringes of Mandalorian territory. The Mandalorians—who respected strength but despised cowards—detained the survivors but did not kill them. Among them was a former Dominion pilot who refused to kneel, even when his legs were broken. His courage earned their curiosity, if not trust. He spoke of battle doctrines, of rigid command chains, and of a state that raised children to memorize war before morality. Some Mandalorian warlords saw in the Terrans a kind of kinship—honor corrupted, discipline turned into slavery. They let the survivors go, but marked the Dominion in their minds as a faction to watch.
In Zygerrian space, things went worse. A small flotilla of fleeing Terrans—civilians packed into modular haulers—was captured near the Iraxis Cross. Over 400 souls were taken alive. Only a handful ever escaped. Their testimonies, years later, in Republic courts and neutral embassies, became part of a classified archive titled "Testimonies from the Fringe." It was the first time any Republic institution heard the word "Dominion" spoken with fear by humans not from within their own borders.
One battered research corvette found its way to the Hapan Cluster. Ruled by the Matriarchal Queens of the Hapes Consortium, the Hapan government treated the Terrans with suspicion. Their leader, a young woman with a cybernetic lung and Terran Fleet insignia burned into her collarbone, was granted sanctuary after passing a series of loyalty evaluations. In time, she became a minor diplomatic advisor—quietly advocating for caution if ever the Dominion reached their borders.
And a few—just a few—reached the Republic.
The most intact vessel, a corvette dubbed Torchlight, emerged from hyperspace near the Mid Rim world of Svivren. Its drive core was slagged, its crew half-starved, and its hull covered in Dominion markings that no Republic system could identify. The passengers were emaciated and traumatized, but their minds were intact. Within months, they were debriefed by Republic Intelligence and quietly moved to Core Worlds under protected status.
What they told their handlers changed everything.
They spoke of orbital cities, of Bastion-class carriers dropping entire assault divisions on jungle moons. They described the Voss family—heroes and pariahs—whose name once symbolized unity, then tyranny, then rebellion. They described how every citizen was tracked, every meal rationed, and how service was considered the highest form of freedom.
One recounted being a child during the Velis-Ka operation. Another remembered watching the Crimson Maw fall from orbit through a telescope, then being told never to speak of it again. A third, a former technician, presented detailed schematics of retrofitted Crimson weaponry used by the Dominion—something no known faction had ever deployed.
And most chilling of all: they brought footage.
Not doctored. Not rumor. Raw archives. Terran soldiers in scarlet-grey armor storming Zygerrian outposts, executing slavers without hesitation. Young conscripts flinching at the sight of alien civilians, refusing orders to interact. In one vidlog, a Dominion officer was recorded berating a subordinate for hesitating to open fire, while in another, a refugee child sobbed in Terran custody, terrified and ignored.
The Republic didn't release this footage.
It didn't need to.
The whisper networks carried it faster than official channels ever could.
In the shadowy halls of Coruscant, quiet meetings turned into risk assessments. On Corellia, defense committees began debating early-warning systems in the far east. Even the Jedi—though unconcerned at first—were given notice by the Council of Reconciliation: "Should the Dominion emerge, they must be met not with fear, but understanding… and preparedness."
The galaxy began to remember.
Terran Year: 2350–2370 GrS: 32,570–32,590 BBY: 3253–3233
In the shadow of rebellion, from ash and fractured oaths, the Dominion rose anew.
What had once been a regime of surveillance and iron rule was now being shaped by the hand of a single young man—Tavian Voss, descendant of Jace and Nicholas, heir not by title but by blood and survival. Barely past boyhood when the rebellion began, Tavian had grown into his role with a solemn clarity uncommon in rulers twice his age.
He did not demand loyalty. He earned it—through restraint, through resolve, and through grief.
Though offered titles soaked in grandeur, Tavian accepted only one: Lord Protector of the Dominion. It was a name evoking duty and stewardship, not power. He did not enter the restored Council Rotunda with parades or declarations. Instead, he wore the same uniform he had worn during the Siege of Earth's Capital Ring—patched, worn, and still stained from the fires of civil war.
His rule did not begin with expansion or conquest. It began with silence—listening to what had been broken.
In the first few years, Tavian focused on restoring order through law and cooperation. Sectoral representation was rebalanced. The ISB was dismantled, its operatives either tried or exiled. New civic codes were implemented with rotating councils to prevent accumulation of unchecked authority. Internal policing was made accountable to planetary governments. Intelligence agencies were rebuilt from scratch under strict oversight, stripped of autonomy and answerable to the civilian-elected Council Assembly.
The Voss family, far from centralizing power in their name, spread outward into diverse roles. Tavian's older sister Lys Voss continued her leadership of the Scout Corps, charting deep void corridors and fringe stars. His cousin Renna Voss supervised naval shipyard policy, working to ensure the new Dominion Navy served both defensive and humanitarian aims. Others served in planetary law, education, and civilian forums—each acting not as rulers, but as guardians.
By 2360, Dominion space extended across more than 400 systems, with over 120 fully developed or terraformed worlds. Megaprojects like orbital cities and terraforming cores previously paused during the rebellion resumed at full pace. Entire new migration waves were launched, relocating millions from overcrowded colonies to fringe settlements with stabilized biospheres.
The reborn Dominion was not a perfect state—but it was functioning, growing, and most importantly, healing.
Tavian married in 2362, to a military analyst and political scholar named Kaelen Drae, a woman whose family had lost everything during the Triumvirate's purges. The union was seen not as political spectacle, but as symbolic of the new era—two survivors, binding the past and future. In time, they had children, and for the first time in decades, the people of the Dominion watched a leader raise a family in peace.
Life expectancy across the Dominion stabilized in the range of 70 to 80 years, with sudden deaths still common due to environmental hazards, colonist accidents, and untreated illnesses in frontier regions. However, the worst of the shortages, blackouts, and mortality spikes from the war years were behind them.
In these two decades, Dominion society reshaped itself.
Education was rewritten entirely. Instead of obedience to a central state, students were taught Terran history—all of it, including its crimes and betrayals. The new schooling model emphasized philosophy, ethics, engineering, diplomacy, and self-sufficiency. On Virellus-9, the Voss Academy became the spiritual and administrative heart of this generation—equal parts military college, civic training ground, and historical archive.
Politically, the Dominion adopted a layered constitutional system with a strong central executive balanced by powerful regional forums. Public voting expanded across all core worlds. Colonies and frontier systems were given broader autonomy, provided they adhered to core Dominion law and sent delegates to the Assembly.
Perhaps most important, the Dominion finally looked outward again.
It did not re-engage with the galaxy at large. The scars of past betrayals still lingered, and major galactic powers still knew little of its position. The Veil Doctrine remained in place—limiting external contact to trusted exploratory teams and allies in the Uncharted Reaches. But diplomacy with small, neutral factions expanded.
The Rynn Circles, descendants of lost human colony ships, entered into agricultural trade and began educational exchange. The insectoid Krava'ti Swarm shared bioadaptive architecture, while the crystalline Chashta Clade opened limited data exchanges on radiation shielding and void physics. Contact with these factions was quiet—no fanfare, no treaties of galactic grandeur, but steady, deliberate cooperation.
By 2370, Dominion citizens no longer feared the skies.
The post-war generation came of age in an era of cautious optimism. They were not naïve—but they were proud. They had grown up hearing of the Fall, and the Rebellion, and now lived in the peace their ancestors had died for. Tavian Voss, now in his late 30s, remained at the helm—not as an emperor, but as a stabilizing force. Though he bore the burdens of leadership with visible fatigue, he remained beloved.
The military, once a hammer of vengeance, had been transformed into a tool of protection and presence. The Navy expanded its reach but avoided the aggressive doctrines of the past. New warships were built with modular designs—equal parts peacekeeper, explorer, and combatant. The Scout Corps became the largest it had ever been, tasked with mapping the unexplored voids, establishing listening stations, and ferrying supplies to fringe allies.
The population of the Dominion reached over 185 billion by 2370—spread across hundreds of worlds and stations. Medical technology, while still limited compared to galactic core worlds, had improved significantly. Disease outbreaks were rare. Frontier medical stations were heavily subsidized. Mental health resources, once ignored, became part of standard military and civilian infrastructure.
Terran Year: 2370–2390 GrS: 32,590–32,610 BBY: 3233–3213
The galaxy was always moving—even when the Dominion chose not to.
By the start of the 2370s, Dominion territory had stabilized. Its core worlds were fortified, its people prosperous, and its borders well-guarded by a navy that, while not immense, was layered, professional, and unpredictable. No longer did slavers probe near Dominion space. Their ships never returned. Their agents disappeared. Word had spread in the black markets and slave rings: There is a place in the east that burns slavers.
But while its internal structure matured, the galaxy beyond remained largely a mystery. Tavian Voss understood what his ancestors did not: a fortress blind to the outside world is merely a tomb waiting to be sealed.
The decision was made—slowly, carefully—to begin observing the broader galaxy, not as invaders or emissaries, but as watchers.
The Scout Corps—now the largest exploratory fleet in Dominion history—was expanded with long-range survey vessels, disguised hulls, and cloaked deep probes. These ships charted hyperlane fragments, monitored encrypted Republic and Sith transmissions, and followed trade routes until they could construct accurate galactic drift maps.
From the edges of the Outer Rim to the old Crimson Maw corridor routes, the Dominion quietly studied its neighbors.
They found much had changed.
The Republic, bloated and increasingly bureaucratic, still held sway over most of the systems, but cracks were showing. Regional autonomy movements surged in the Mid and Expansion Rims. Pirates and local militias carved out semi-legitimate authority on frontier worlds. Trade guilds held more sway than senators in many sectors. The Jedi remained distant, overstretched across too many systems.
The Sith Empire, meanwhile, remained a darker mirror. Its influence surged in the north and northeast of the galaxy. Brutal efficiency. Ritualized power. Yet even there, splinters festered. Warlords competed for favor. Entire fleets vanished into civil conflicts. And most notably, the Mandalorians, ever mercenary, had become more deeply entangled with the Sith in recent decades.
The Dominion recorded everything.
But as the Scout Corps expanded its reach, some contacts became unavoidable.
In 2381, a survey ship known as TDS Verdant Gale stumbled upon an old Hapan relay satellite buried near a decaying dwarf star. It was still active, its signals encoded in archaic consort protocol. Recognizing it as non-hostile and unlikely to trace them, the Dominion initiated a passive exchange—offering system data in return for star mapping corrections. No direct contact was made. But the Gale was monitored. Weeks later, a small Hapan science probe was discovered tailing a Scout Corps carrier—well beyond Hapan territory.
Rather than destroy it, the crew returned it. No message. Just returned—fully repaired and with additional shielding upgrades installed. The Hapans responded with silence. But the message was received.
In 2384, contact was made with the Dathomiri.
A space anomaly forced a Dominion scout craft into a hyperspace leading to an unknown destination, only to crash-land near one of the moon's fringe jungle valleys. The crew, half-wounded and expecting death, was instead approached not with hostility, but intense curiosity. The Nightsister clan matron, sensing no overt threat, allowed them to leave after three days of intense questioning and another 5 of repairs.
The encounter was logged, and no further contact initiated.
Not until Dominion historians traced records back and confirmed a terrifying parallel: some of the Dathomiri were descended from humans who had vanished from the early Maw corridors centuries ago.
They had become something else—but their origin was Terran.
In 2388, Dominion cryptographers picked up coded signals from a hidden relay in the far west—near the edge of known space. The signal bore supposed encrypted common to Chiss Ascendancy military scouting frequencies. It wasn't the first time the Dominion had picked up signs of Chiss movement—but this was the first active signal.
No Dominion vessel engaged. But several Chiss probes disappeared in that quadrant in the weeks that followed.
It was clear: the Chiss had noticed someone was watching.
Back home, debate surged across the Voss Assembly. Tavian, now approaching 50, remained cautious. Aware that a single slip could reveal their exact location, he favored passive exchange, observation, and controlled exposure through intermediaries. Yet not all agreed. Some younger admirals, born after the Rebellion, believed the galaxy could be manipulated more directly—through fear or silent coercion.
But Tavian held firm.
Still, change crept in. Small treaties were signed with fringe powers—the Rynn Circles, Krava'ti Swarm, and Oram Clans. Mostly mutual non-interference, sometimes barter trade, occasionally resettlement protocols for wandering human enclaves. These races were not major players—but they were valuable allies in obscurity.
Terran Year: 2390–2410 GrS: 32,610–32,630 BBY: 3213–3193
By 2390, the Dominion had entered a new phase of cautious maturity. It was no longer a fledgling nation clawing its way back from internal collapse, nor the obscure mystery-state of the distant northeast. It was now a stable power — layered, wary, resilient.
The Republic and Sith Empire had once again turned their attention inward, renewing old grudges in a brutal but short-lived war. The Mandalorians, true to form, declared for the Sith without hesitation, initiating coordinated strikes across the Mid Rim. In that brief window of chaos, the Dominion observed from the shadows — not involved, not acknowledged, but very much watching.
Tavian Voss, now in his early sixties, had led the Dominion for decades. Under his rule, the fleet was disciplined, the trade routes protected, and the civilian population relatively free of fear. He had married and together they raised three children. His oldest, Daelen Voss, now a man in his thirties, had served across several sectors as a naval officer, earning a reputation for tactical clarity and quiet charisma. Daelen himself had a young son — barely six — whose birth had been celebrated on dozens of worlds.
But Tavian's health had begun to falter. A respiratory illness, untreated for too long during a planetary relief mission, progressed faster than expected. His last public appearance was during the Unity Accord Summit of 2402, where he delivered a speech praising interstellar vigilance and condemning complacency in a galaxy of ancient evils.
He died quietly in 2404, surrounded by family.
The transition of power was seamless. Daelen Voss took the mantle of Lord Protector without contest. His quiet years in the field and temperate public presence made him a known and respected figure. But even as he stepped into leadership, the galaxy was shifting again.
The brief war between the Sith and Republic had left entire sectors in ruins. The Mandalorians, hungry for battle and honor, had launched assaults deeper into Republic space than expected — briefly occupying Rimward sectors before being forced to retreat. The Sith had gained several southern Mid Rim territories, consolidating their influence in the south and southwest. Though the campaign was brief, lasting only four years, its strategic consequences were significant.
While the Core Worlds focused on defense, and the Sith overextended their supply lines, the Dominion moved.
In the shadows of this distraction, Dominion patrols and deep-range recon wings made daring strikes into known slaver worlds, especially ones operating on the edge of Zygerrian and criminal Hutt-controlled space. No public announcements were made, and no survivors were left to tell the tale. Outposts were destroyed. Bunkers were breached. Thousands of humans were rescued — many of them born in captivity, some descendants of former Terran slaves, though indistinguishable now from the larger galactic population.
But the victories came at a price.
During the final assault on a fortified slave port on the outer edge of the Carthus Strip, two Dominion capital ships were lost — one of them a Sovereign-class battlecruiser carrying over 2,000 crew. Among the fallen was Commander Alrek Voss, Tavian's youngest son and Daelen's younger brother. Alrek had served as the captain chief the doomed warship and died attempting to secure an emergency evacuation corridor. His death devastated the family, particularly Daelen, who had always seen his younger brother as more idealistic and compassionate.
Daelen responded not with speeches or retribution, but with doctrine. Within the year, new naval protocols were implemented: tighter engagement zones, higher recon oversight, and reinforced battle doctrine for outpost assaults. The Dominion would not act recklessly — not again. And not with so many lives on the line.
But even as the Dominion pulled back from overt strikes, it did not stop growing.
New colonies were established on the fringes of the Velin Reach and the Doral Belt. Some of these worlds were uninhabited. Others contained native populations — evidence of ancient migrations or long-forgotten settlements. Dominion policy was cautious: observe, assess, and intervene only if invited or deemed ethically necessary. Some populations were eventually integrated into the wider Dominion, with careful cultural transitions and planetary oversight councils.
Technologically, the Dominion remained adaptive but selective. Galactic starship architecture had overtaken Terran-based design in many respects, and the Dominion embraced what was most efficient. Yet in weaponry, Dominion scientists continued perfecting a blend of blaster and advanced kinetic systems — especially ground-based rail weaponry designed to counter energy shielding and even Jedi-class threats, should such a day ever come.
As Daelen led, his son — Jackson— grew up beneath the twin pressures of legacy and potential.
Bright, disciplined, and fiercely independent, Jacksonw was raised with public visibility but given wide academic and military exposure. Unlike prior Voss heirs, he was never hidden away, nor was he paraded. Instead, he served alongside peers from across the Dominion, training in off-world academies, participating in relief efforts, and even aiding in post-war reconstruction across several border worlds.
Terran Year: 2440–2450 GrS: 32,660–32,670 BBY: 3436–3426
The world that once bore the scorched fury of Dominion fire had long been left untouched—Velis-Ka, the former Crimson Maw fortress world. Its atmosphere had choked on ash for decades, its soil poisoned by melted ferrocrete, its orbit littered with the silent wreckage of slaver and Dominion ships alike.
But the dead did not remain forgotten.
Nearly two centuries after the Maw's annihilation, the Dominion returned—not to erase the past, but to enshrine it. Where once orbital bombardments had cracked the crust and flames consumed entire bastion towers, the Dominion established a foothold. This time, not in wrath, but with reverence.
Velis-Ka would not be a colony like any other. It would be a bastion.
The world was stabilized first—terraformers from the outer colonies towed in stabilizer satellites to clear the ionized bands and radiation clouds that had long made orbital work hazardous. Surface drones, guided by excavation specialists, began the grim work of clearing out the skeletal remains of Maw structures and battlefield grave sites. The bones of thousands—slaver and slave alike—were interred within vast burial mounds, sealed in blackstone and engraved with no names, only a symbol: the Dominion crest burned into the shell of a broken chain.
A great citadel was constructed atop the former Maw command spire, now reforged into Fort Virelion—named after a Dominion captain who fell leading the first breach into the Maw's planetary heart. The fortress would serve as a defensive hub, training ground, and cultural shrine. It was heavily fortified, ringed by anti-orbital batteries, sensor nets, and hardened hangar-bastions capable of launching a fleet's worth of atmospheric interceptors.
What began as a strategic reclamation transformed into something far deeper. Velis-Ka became a place of pilgrimage for Dominion officers and cadets, a reminder of the cost of vigilance. Graduating classes from the various Academies often made the journey here, not for glory, but for reflection—walking the preserved trenches, the crater fields, and the scorched gulches where Terran blood had been spilled in the name of liberation and survival.
The Memorial Field spanned nearly 80 kilometers of open plains—dotted with blackstone obelisks etched with the names of every Terran killed in the Velis-Ka campaign, and those confirmed rescued in its aftermath. At its center stood the Echo Flame, a towering beacon that burned eternally, powered by a fusion core once stolen from a slaver capital ship. Its light could be seen from orbit.
But Velis-Ka's purpose was not purely symbolic. As slave raids in the eastern sectors increased once again, its strategic position became invaluable. From this bastion, Dominion scout fleets launched rapid-response patrols into nearby sectors as well as the deeper Uncharted Reaches, tracking and striking at slaver hideouts, Zygerrian outposts, and pirate dens. Data cores recovered from operations traced illegal genetic trafficking rings back to unaffiliated stations near old Maw supply corridors.
Velis-Ka became the first line of defense and a reminder of Dominion resolve. Citizens were not conscripted en masse like in the old days, but a new generation of volunteers came forward, driven not by propaganda but by conviction. Dominion civilians knew the stories of Velis-Ka—not sanitized, not bloodless. They knew that what had happened there might someday happen again.
A small civilian enclave developed along the southern ridge—Narak's Stand, named after a Zygerrian slave-turned-scout who had died warning the Dominion of a Crimson resurgence decades ago. The settlement was multi-species, one of the first official mixed-population sites within core Dominion space. Here, descendants of rescued slaves and Terran settlers coexisted, farming hardy algae crops and maintaining the memorial sites. Dominion authorities tolerated them, even provided protection, though not without watchful surveillance.
In the higher echelons of Dominion leadership, Fort Virelion became a second command hub—a place where war games, strategic conferences, and military policy summits were held. Some called it a shadow capital. Others simply called it sacred ground.
By 2450, the term "Velis-Ka Doctrine" had entered military usage. It described the belief that mercy without strength leads to ruin, and that strategic brutality, when directed against true evil, is not cruelty—but necessity. It became a foundational tenant in the Dominion's mid-century military and foreign policy documents.
The Republic, by this point, had quietly begun mapping the sector once again. Though no official ships dared approach Dominion territory, rumors persisted that a long-range probe had captured images of Fort Virelion's flame burning against the void.
The Jedi Council, when shown the footage, did not speak. But one Master was recorded whispering:
"It is a graveyard of both tyrants and liberators… and they've chosen not to forget."
Terran Year: 2450–2470 GrS Year: 2,000–2,020 BBY: 3620–3600
The galaxy had not forgotten the Dominion—only lost sight of it., the Dominion reappeared. Not in bombastic declarations or mass military deployments, but in movements along the edges of forgotten charts, along hyperlanes once believed impassable, and in whispers traded by scouts and spies.
The previous Lord Protector,passed away quietly on the world of Alectra Prime. He had ruled with resolve, guided by principle. His name would remain etched across monuments throughout Dominion space. His heir, Alaric Voss, assumed the mantle of Lord Protector shortly after, continuing the Voss stewardship.
Alaric, by all accounts, was less martial than his forebears—but more diplomatic. A pragmatic leader, he favored tight strategic control and long-term growth over conquest. Under his rule, the Dominion's presence in nearby regions became undeniable. And as the years unfolded, a new generation was born into that shadow. Among them was his third son, named Nathaniel Voss, born in Terran year 2460—a child born not into revolution, but into a Dominion finally at peace with itself, if not with the galaxy.
The galaxy, however, was beginning to take notice.
What had once been strange sightings and unverified reports turned into patterns: sensor echoes of Terran ships operating on the outer edges of Hutt territory, strange metallic hulls glimpsed near Mandalorian listening posts, and offhand trade deals with remote small enclaves. The Dominion was not expanding like the Republic or conquering like the Sith. It was anchoring—quietly and deliberately.
The Galactic Republic had little clarity and less consensus. Intelligence agents occasionally intercepted records of Dominion raids on outlaw slavers or outpost seizures in unmapped sectors. The Senate, bloated with concerns over Sith resurgence and internal bickering, only briefly debated Terran matters. Some argued the Dominion should be monitored more closely. Others dismissed it as a regional anomaly, not a credible galactic force.
Among the Jedi, however, there was growing curiosity. The Council of First Knowledge received field reports from far-flung archaeologists and Outer Rim Knights—mentions of Terran ships, of strange hybrid technologies, of fierce discipline and deep-seated caution. The Jedi did not interfere, but the Council of Reconciliation began quietly preparing outreach proposals, unsure if such a civilization would respond with openness—or blasterfire.
The Sith Empire, still fractured but recovering, acknowledged the Dominion's existence but gave it little priority. Sith Lords focused inward—on reasserting control over rebellious territories and preparing for future conflict with the Republic. To them, the Dominion was simply another potential rival—a blade not yet drawn. Their interest lay more in analyzing Terran weaponry and doctrine than in direct confrontation. One particular Sith intelligence division compiled over 700 fragments of field data into a single archive titled "The Red Curtain: Dominion Warfare Patterns."
The Hutts, however, remembered well.
Older Hutts still bore losses from the massacre like the Velis-Ka and the obliteration of Crimson Maw operations. Some Hutt Lords saw Terran silence as ominous, not reassuring. One particularly nervous Kajidic in the Mid Rim hired mercenaries to chart any Terran-aligned systems—most did not return. The Hutt Grand Council, ever calculating, chose discretion. They began quietly avoiding expansion into the Uncharted Reaches while strengthening their eastern borders, something they have never done before.
The Zygerrians, still licking their wounds from the loss of their slave outposts ages ago, harbored nothing but hatred. Rebuilding their networks in secret, they warned their clients and operatives to avoid Terran patrol regions entirely. Their underground channels labeled the Dominion as "the Grave-Makers," a warning to any slave raiders still daring to reach into the northeastern fringes.
The Mandalorians, ever proud, maintained a neutral stance. Among them, however, a quiet divide persisted. Some Clans—particularly those on the outer fringes—viewed the Terrans with reluctant respect. Stories of Dominion discipline, honor among their elite ranks, and the sheer tenacity of their early battles sparked interest. Other Clans viewed their secrecy as cowardice, their control over information a betrayal of what it meant to fight with pride. Either way, the Mandalorians watched. And waited.
The Hapes Consortium, with its matriarchal structure and keen diplomatic apparatus, maintained the only semi-formal contact with the Dominion. Through encrypted channels, Hapan advisors periodically exchanged limited scientific and navigational data with Terran diplomats. No treaties, no alliances—but a kind of mutual understanding, born of pragmatism and shared borders.
The Chiss Ascendancy, operating in the west, in wild space, began issuing reports to their Ruling Families of an unknown human polity exhibiting advanced tactical cohesion and long-range stealth capabilities. Their expansion committee recommended passive observation, citing the Dominion's stable leadership and regional focus. Quietly, however, battle plans and contingencies.
Despite the attention, the Dominion itself did not change dramatically. Under Alaric Voss, it retained a careful, slow approach to engagement with the galaxy. Though more visible than before, it was still extremely secretive about its core worlds, its home system, and its strategic objectives. No maps led to Terra. No hyperspace routes were disclosed. Those who strayed too close never returned—or were found drifting without memory.
Still, certain patterns emerged. The Dominion began deploying long-range surveillance platforms—stealthed, autonomous satellites with heavy encryption and passive monitoring arrays. Their patrols increased along fringe hyperspace corridors, particularly those prone to piracy or slaver activity. Some of these patrols assisted ships in distress—others vanished entire raider groups without leaving wreckage.
The Dominion also began quiet diplomatic probes—not with the galactic powers, but with minor nations and isolated star systems. Some of these worlds were human in origin—forgotten or abandoned by the Republic long ago. Others were alien enclaves that had no strong allegiance. In these exchanges, the Dominion offered aid, trade, and limited defense arrangements—always accompanied by heavy vetting and firm expectations.
By Terran year 2470, a new generation had taken shape—one that had never known the war of the 2330s or the rebuilding of the 2350s. These young citizens had grown up in a Dominion that was cautious but firm, structured but no longer suffocating. They studied their history, were taught the value of vigilance, but also the weight of mistakes.
And among them, the Voss family remained ever central.
Nathaniel Voss, third son of Lord Protector Alaric, grew beneath the eyes of a nation still wary of too much power in one line. But the legacy endured—not because of name alone, but because each generation had paid in blood to keep it worthy.