Asteroid Blues - The Last Look

And it's all done, bar the screaming.
All locations are locked, and the Asteroid Blues are over.
Before the AI Historian does its work, here's how things have played out:

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Pakngein Nbis: Traffic Control
Haqqislam have held the line against the Ariadnan attack, with a 40 point lead it seems unlikely that this result will be overturned by the historian.

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Xaraks Battery: Fire Control
O-12 were never really seriously challenged in their control here, with a clear lead and no rivals.

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Jiyuan Open-Pit Site: Ops Hub
Despite briefly losing control to the NA2 assault Yu Jing recovered well and at 30 points ahead it'd take a big swing from the AI Historian to break their lead.

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Liberty Cargo: Admin. Building
PanOceania rallied well in the dying days of the campaign to put in a solid defensive effort which turned the tide against the numbers and mechanical advantage of Haqqislam, but with less that 30 points in it this might be one to watch in the final accounting.

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The Gorge: BOT Branch Office
In one of the best displays of allied coordination of the campaign, Haqqislam forced the PanOceanian forces to break off their efforts in support of ALEPH, which in turn forced ALEPH back onto the defensive and left the Bank of Tunguska functionally secure.

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Main Strip: The Japanese Bottom
The second example of good allied play sees the Tohaa take The Japanese Bottom from Yu Jing at the request of NA2, making them one of the biggest winners of the campaign overall.

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The Gallery Maze: The Passageways
This is the one to watch, as it's too close to call right now. The loss of the starting points would put the Nomads slightly ahead, but ALEPH have traditionally done the best from the AI Historian, so it seems likely they will just hold out. The Nomad offensive here, along with holding the Bank of Tunguska, was the best result for a "major nation" outside of Haqqislam.

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So that's it for the Asteroid Blues.

It might have looked like the Combined Army weren't ever really in the race, but our expectation is that we already basically failed before this whole thing kicked off.

The new gate into the Human Sphere from Evolved Intelligence controlled space is already over 70% complete. Which we'll discover as the result of all this kerfuffle on Novyy Bangkok.

The threat of a gated wormhole, avoiding the 50% attrition of the Acheron passage and bypassing the Paradiso system entirely, is something the Human Sphere will have to respond to.

In desperation we'll assemble an elite crew and a top of the line ship for a suicide mission into EI space, and launch the Defiance in a last ditch effort to destroy the gate from the other side, while a massive assault from the Human Sphere side takes it out here as well.

Maybe we use the knowledge we've garnered from the Penny Arcade to collapse the Wormhole too?

And that's how Asteroid Blues is going to lead directly into the launch of the Kickstarter for Defiance.

Maybe.

We'll see!

Thanks for joining us on this fun ride, and apologies for the blackout in the middle there (life, it's a thing).

Admiral JCJ Farley
PanOceanian Fleet liaison to Coordinated Command: Novyy Bangkok