The Global Collective Operations Authority becomes operational and is immediately contested: every faction supports its mandate and opposes the governance structure that limits its own access. Its orbital platforms are the most significant non-Lumicite military infrastructure ever built.
The station the High Ground sandbox is set aboard was built in 2089. Pre-Upheaval hull plating, dated to at least 2030, sits in a section on no construction schematic.
The Starlight Reapers extract scientists from the Menagerie, the Lunar Industrial Complex's research wing, during a crisis with the biological research subjects. Commander Amelia 'Nova' Stirling led the op.
The Sons of the Serpent seize the GCOA orbital station. The Royal Phantom Corps and Aurora Rangers mount the joint rescue named Operation Celestial Aegis; Blackwood and Gallagher fight side by side; the Prophet is captured.
The Sons of the Serpent destroy the Lunar Industrial Complex, the GCOA's helium-3 facility on the Sea of Tranquility, to prove they could reach that far. Helium-3 production goes to zero for at least fifteen years.
A stateless thief past his warranty takes the biggest score of his life, to find the most valuable secret off Earth and mark it for the cartel that hired him.