Nexus - Twelfth Season

The twelfth season of Nexus was the second-shortest in the series, at 12 episodes. However, with the loss of Eric Tewes, and his replacement in the form of Dan Richards, Nexus set out to break new ground again...the integration of a season-long story line buried under the various plots of the individual episodes.

Unfortunately, the man-vs-machine storyline didn't come through all that well, but placing stories against the backdrop of a huge war worked out very well. The result was one of the most successful season finales that Nexus has produced.

The twelfth season of Nexus was rated at:

Twelfth Season Episodes

251. Phantom Stranger (DD, DR)

The year is now NY 504, and the crew of the NS Excalibur begin their adventures with a ferry of a diplomat from Minar from his home to the Hesperian Empire, where he will mediate in the continuing rumbling that is the Hesperian civil wars.

Shortly after the Excalibur passes the Mephistopheles Nebula en-route to Minar, the science officer begins to act strangely. Among other things, he attempts to implicate the ship�s NIS officer in a theft of warp crystals from another Nexus ship, and he steals a fighter from the Minar shipyards. He manages to escape by doing an emergency transport to the surface of Minar.

252. Pirates of Hesperia (DD, DR)

The Excalibur is called to the Hesperian border to deliver the ambassador of Nexus from Minar to the Hesperian world of Odawara. While en-route, the ship is attacked by a squadron of Hesperian ships, who claim that Nexus ships have been attacking Hesperian colonies. When the ship reaches Odawara, the officials there conform this.

The Excalibur investigates the area where the attacks took place and itself is the target of an attack. They discover that the attackers are a group of small ships that are armed with Markann technology. The Excalibur captures a number of these ships and a Markann Emissary.

253. Defenders of the Homeland
(DD, DR, BP, MR)

Merchants are the targets of attack, and the Excalibur discovers that it is the work of dragon-like beings who are protecting the planet Wildwood. One of the dragons runs away and joins the Excalibur�s crew. Other additions to the crew include a swashbuckling helmsman, and an ex-con whose continued freedom is at the pleasure of the captain.

254. Honor Among the Enemy
(DD, DR, BP)

The Excalibur is making a port call at Acheron when they detect a battle occurring in the Markann Sector, where neither Nexus nor Markann military ships are allowed by treaty to be. Upon investigating, they discover that the Markann military ship is firing on another military ship that is fleeing. The attacker is forced to break off, and the survivors are brought aboard the Excalibur. The survivors say they are dissidents who feel that Markann goals are better served by peaceful relations with other races.

Some point later, crew aboard the Excalibur start dieing. The cause is found to be a viral pathogen spread by the Markann. One of the survivors from the space battle is found to be the carrier, and he is found to be an agent of the Markann government who infiltrated the group and decided to use the group to pass on the disease to humans as a test. The virus is killed, and the carrier is imprisoned.

The remaining survivors report that they have been exposed to the disease and are therefore carriers. They apologize to Captain Odashu and ask for a shuttle, which he gives them. When the shuttle is safely out of range of the Excalibur, it self-destructs.

255. Task Force Alpha (JB, BP) (Guest GM: DD)

Nexus Marines respond to reports that the Yakoute colony in the NW Sector has not been heard from in several weeks. When the marines reach the scene, they discover that the entire population of 300 families has been killed by some sort of disease that causes rapid mutations. Further investigation uncovers the human carrier, who is from an area of space north of the furthest explored area of Nexus. A cure is found, and it is sprayed into the planet�s atmosphere.

256. Snake in the Garden
(DD, DR, BP, MR)

The Excalibur responds to a call from planetary governor Glendenning of Garden Green, who suspects that efforts to turn his planet into a bread-basket for Nexus are being sabotaged. When the group arrives, they find evidence that galacite, an engine plasma material has been put in the water supply. The ship�s doctor comes upon the solution to the problem, but while the ship is implementing it, Hesperian raiders attack.

The Excalbiur and the auxiliary ship fight bravely but the plan goes awry and most of the systems on the ship are shorted out, and the ship begins to fall into the atmosphere. Only quick thinking by the crew saves the ship, and similar quick thinking by Thanos destroys the majority of the attacking forces. Eventually the crew learns that the entire plot was a plan by the planet Kirwin to eliminate a potential competitor and pass the blame for the deed off on the Hesperians.

257. Border Post (DD, DR, BP, MR)

The Excalibur investigates the disappearance of one of the border posts along the Drolian border. The Drolians towed the post to one of their worlds and put two of the crew on trial because the two co-wrote a paper on detecting cloaked ships, and the border post made routine sensor sweeps of the area.

258. Time Siphon (DD, DR, BP)

The Excalibur witnesses the end of a battle between a Nexus cruiser and a Hesperian warship. Both combatants collide, exploding. The intense explosion opens a temporal siphon, connecting the Excalibur to a Nexus ship in the year NY 946. However, the effect of the temporal siphon is that crewmembers from the Excalibur are being exchanged for futuristic technology. Attempts to leave the area are futile and result in heavy damage being done to the auxiliary ship. After an attack by Hesperian vessels does heavy damage, the Excalibur heads into the temporal siphon. The siphon is sealed and the Excalibur meets the NS Pegasus, whose captain, Richard Keynes informs them that he can not allow them to return to NY 505 because the Pegasus had no records that the Excalibur had existed past that point. Ulek the Inquisitor, a neutral High Nexus, informs the Excalibur that they can return.

Through these events, Nexus learns of the existence of an AIC node on Shiren, the Hesperian development of transphasic torpedoes, and Nexus acquires the technology to develop regenerative ablative armor.

Miniseries: The AIC War (episodes 259 - 262)

259. The Heart of Tarkon
(DD, DR, BP)

The AIC War begins as AIC conquers the western provinces of the Hesperian Empire and launches a blitz invasion of Nexus.

The doctor and others are sent in the auxiliary ship to retrieve a Nexus ambassador from Hesperia in the hopes that he will have information about AIC or groups resisting the computer�s domination. At the same time, Captain Odashu investigates a strange energy signature on the planet Tarkon and discovers the sleeping computer known as the Heart of Tarkon. The computer tells Odashu that AIC will not be able to conquer Tarkon, but can give no further assistance.

260. The Prisoners (DD, DR, BP)

The Lancelot is returning to the Excalibur following its failure to retrieve the Nexus ambassador. En route, the Lancelot discovers a Nexus prison transport that appears to be stranded in space. As the doctor investigates, he discovers that the ship was attacked by AIC and left for dead. The command staff of the ship was killed in the attack and the prisoners have taken over the ship and are in the process of repairing its systems.

Just as the prison ship�s systems are getting repaired, AIC attacks again, and in the midst of the battle, the Lancelot is destroyed. The prison ship then makes its way back to Minar.

261. The Lost Soul (DD, DR, BP)

By this time in the war, a series of decisive battles have been fought on the Southern front, and AIC has been pushed back into Hesperia, with only a small pocket of resistance remaining north of Minar.

Captain Odahsu investigates a strange energy reading on the surface of Minar and discovers an ancient city that is the home of am intelligent orb that is the center of the forces of magery on the planet. While making this discovery, the group also runs into Dr. Socrates, who is still being possessed by the wraith shard from the Mephistopheles Nebbula. Socrates is captured.

262. The Threat

The Excalibur is transported to Shiren, and the group faces the Shiren Node while above them, the ship is under fierce attack. The Shiren Node attempts to bargain with the Nexus officers, but failing that, in one of the most chilling scenes in the episode, it simply tells them that it's hundreds of computer-controlled ships can become warp-powered warheads.

Faced with this threat, and faced with the onslaught of the AIC Node's termination drones, the team detonates a warhead that had been smuggled down with them. All members of the group are killed, the AIC Node is destroyed, and the threat is ended.

Without AIC's control, the last remnants of the invasion forces are stopped.

The Ophir Node offers to assist in the recovery of Hesperia by taking control of the remnants of the Hesperian navy. The last scene of the episode drops through the floor of the Ophir Node's control room, through a couple of sub-basements, and into a cavernous room...where thousands of termination drones lay dormant.

263. The Suxen Empire (DD, DR, BP) (NR)

In this spoof of the Nexus RPG using BESM, the players play the roles of a group of resistance fighters who are struggling against the Suxen Empire, headed by Malik. The episode is full of light-hearted shots at the Nexus series, from Malik's headquarters being in the "Evil Empire State Building" to Malik's office having wanted posters of the regular cast. (Dirk DeVerst even had a poster...but it was posted on the office's dart board.)

The plot of the story centers on the efforts of the resistance to hijack a supply cache that is being transported by a couple of Malik's demonic flunkies (who were humorously named after some of the players).