Flashback to twenty-nine years ago, to a classroom where a young and 
particularly bored out of her mind Seraph would ritualisticlly phase out the 
voice of her history teacher every other day and dwell her mind on more 
interesting topics like adventure and action.  She was not the most popular 
girl in her school nor did she have a particular desire to be. Nonetheless 
she found the History class could help her imaginative mind, in it's 
unbridled state to produce wild fantasies that fueled the imaginary world of 
fierce competetion, war, and heroism that comprised her conscious world and 
constant diversion from the very things that would insipre her to it.  The 
teacher would droll on in his monotone voice on and on about the Slave Strife 
of GSC 23019 (Galatic Standard Calender) or the Epic Sea War of 22810 or 
whatever.  Today however he had finally gotten to the topic which could hold 
Seraph's interest for a whole 10 minutes as opposed to the standard 12 
seconds it took her to pull a sheet of paper from her notebook and brandish 
her pen.  Instructor Avrian was talking about the Warlord era of her people's 
history, a time when powerful Warlords ravaged the trade lines crushing small 
empires with savage force and a lack of mercy.  Out of these lessons two of 
the warlords were the ones Seraph found particularly interesting, Alkanphel, 
a warlord who had been briefly mentioned in her people's makeshift history of 
the Candlelight Wars of nearly 650 years past, and Sera Nast a rather 
merciless woman who took exquisite pleasure in bringing down high profile and 
mighty empires with a small force of strike ships and superior tactical 
knowledge.
    Avrian paced back and forth across the room, a typical habit of his that 
quite nicely complemented his practice of rapping on his cybertic leg with a 
pointer, both were sufficiently annoying.
    "Allright, we see now that as Alkanphel's fleet crossed the Alsalen 
Nebula here and dove straight into the Verasis system, the Setex homeworld, 
while simultaneously Sera Nast's tiny strike force surfaces over here in the 
Servalen system.  Now can anyone tell me why it was that on the very night 
that Alkanphel's flagship entered the Verasis system that the Setex emperor 
stepped down?"
    Seraph leaned on her arm as silence befell the room.  Avrian stopped 
pacing for a moment.    
    "Come on, this was in the reading which I'm beginning to suspect none of 
you read."
    A small girl towards the back of the responded with a simple but direct 
answer, "Didn't he know that hte Xetre Knights were plotting to assassinate 
him?"
    Avrian turned to face the display screen at the front of the class. "No, 
the fact that he stepped down was the reason why the Xetre Knights plotted to 
assassinate him in the first place.  Actually at the time," several large 
pictures of the Emperor appeared in the upper right corner of the display, 
"no one was exactly sure why he had stepped down, he was a brilliant 
tactician and ruler who had led his people to the apotheosis of their empire 
and mastered his race in one of the dominant forces in that sector of the 
galaxy.  He had cited that it was for family reasons but it was doubtful that 
anyone at the time really believed him, many of his political opponents 
accused him of cowardice in a critical time when Alkanphel had just engaged 
the Setex forces on the rim of the system.  The real reason didn't surface 
until many years later after political infighting caused a civil war which 
resulted in the collapse of the front lines in the Verasis system.  A 
terrible shame too seeing as how the Setex forces had done quite serious 
damage to Alkanphel's forces and quite likely would've won had there not been 
a civil war..."
    Avrian paused as he passed by Seraph's desk and was quick to confiscate 
the picture she had been scrawling on a piece of paper deftly hidden under 
her notes, which were by no stretch of the imagination up to date.  "This is 
pretty... I think I'll put this on my mantlepiece."  The instructor proceeded 
to fold the paper and put it in his pocket and then continued to his lecture 
despite an obvious look of despair and defeat on Seraph's face.
    "As I was saying," the pacing and tapping resumed, "What the Setex 
emperor knew at that time was the very thing that sentenced his empire to 
indefinate nomadism,  the fact that Sera Nast had managed through no lack of 
genuis to steal one the most powerful weapons ever conceived in her attack on 
the Xerili empire only two years earlier.  Sera Nast was indeed in the 
possession of..."
    Seraph rose her head at the abrupt pause which had been sparked by 
screaming down the hall accompanied by load noises that sounded quite similar 
to gunfire.  Avrian began tapping his stick again,
    "Damn those raiders, by my honor you're going to learn about this before 
the bust in here and gun us down."  The door without hesitation blasted open 
followed briefly thereafter by the foot of none other than Alkanphel himself 
who showed no recourse to blowing Instructor Avrian into oblivion.
    The warlord paused and scanned the room.  Suddenly a voice rang from the 
back of the room,
    "Save us Seraph!! You're the only one who can save us!!"
    "Except me..." all of sudden Sera Nast herself materialized in the center 
of the room, a humorous edition of the portrait in all of the history books, 
except with the exception that a picture of a laser rifle had been stapled to 
her thigh.  Suddenly the warlord grabbed Avrian's thumping stick and sharply 
rapped Seraph across the head.  Everyone laughed,
    "How terribly amusing," Nast shouted.
    Alkanphel looked Seraph straight in the eyes, "Wake up little girlie and 
save us all."
    
    "Wake up Seraph, children do not sleep in my classroom."  Avrian began 
thumping his metal leg again.  Seraph sighed as she struggled her eyes open. 
    "Now despite Seraph's second disruption for the day I shall continue."  
The pacing resumed.  "So what we can see here is what severe political 
influence is carried by even the threat of an IDM disruptor's use..  
Allthough Nast didn't actually possess one she had convinced the Setex 
emporer that she did.  And what convienent timing with Alkanphel's attack 
don't you think.  It has been proposed that the two may have been working 
together during the Warlord era and this attack is a perfect example. As 
you---"
    The display screen blanked out with the text "Report to next class"  
flashing in red letters.
    "Very well, next time we will discuss the Peragine war involving none 
other than our favorite warlord Sera Nast and the extreme damage that her 
attacks did to our social and governmental structure."
    Seraph stood and hurried out of the classroom.