Video Game / Between The Ashes

When our children reflect on these moments, how will they view us?

Between the Ashes is a series of fan campaigns for the FreeSpace franchise. Set between the two official works, these campaigns depict the decline and fall of the Galactic Terran Alliance during the interbellum period. So far, the project has released one large campaign and two two-mission mini-campaigns, with a second large release expected in April of 2024. It can be downloaded from betweentheashes.com.

• Mefistofele is the original Between the Ashes release. It depicts a small pirate outfit as they're contracted to steal a shipment of archeological specimens for a mysterious employer, ultimately revealed to be the Hammer of Light from Descent: Freespace. With a mixture of Old-School Dogfighting, custom scripted mechanics, and detailed environments with custom skyboxes, it established what would become the game's Signature Style.
• Slaves of Chaos is the first main release, a full campaign set in the Antares system. GTD Intrepid under Admiral Po has been deployed to sort out outlaw activity in the system. However, between Po's heavy-handed approach and the arrival of an enigmatic Hammer of Light commander known as Ozymandias, political dissent throughout the system eventually ferments into all-out war and the emergence of the Antares Federation as an independent state.
• Antwerp is the second mini-campaign, depicting a two-part operation against the Hammer of Light fortress in Altair. Things go in an unexpected direction when a Hammer of Light warship disappears midway through an engagement, in stark violation of the established rules of Faster-Than-Light Travel, but the attack proceeds as planned. Ultimately, Intrepid is destroyed with all hands, and the remaining attack force is forced to retreat.
• The Growing Silence is the upcoming release. It's implied to take place in the Luyten system and involve the invention of beam weapons.

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Between the Ashes includes examples of:

• Ace Pilot: The player character, naturally. In Slaves of Chaos and Antwerp, their squad are veterans of the Shivan Incursion and GTI rebellion, and typically deployed to the most important engagements.
• Action Bomb: In "The Gulnara Heist", pirate forces repurpose repair drones as improvised bombs.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: In Mefistofele, the player character is a pirate. In every future campaign, they're a soldier of the Galactic Terran Alliance.
• Armored Coffins: Averted, in contrast to FreeSpace itself. Damaged warships will withdraw if their jump drives are ready, and Antwerp explicitly mentions pilots ejecting.
• Bad Boss: The Hammer of Light leadership in Antares is more than willing to throw away minions, according to comm intercepts in one mission.
• Big Bad: Ozymandias, the Hammer of Light commander in Antares, for Slaves of Chaos. ^note Vasudans tend to use names borrowed from Earth mythology and folklore when interacting with humans.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Subverted more often than it's played straight, with the "heroes" (either the player or friendly assets) walking straight into an ambush.
  • Yuma Station's air wing provides a straight example in "How the West Was Lost", and the player can provide one of their own to GTC Scepter in "Operation: Market".
  • At the end of Slaves of Chaos, the fledgling Antares Federation fleet helps Intrepid finally defeat Ozymandias's Cardinal.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: In the final mission of Slaves of Chaos, "Going Out With a Bang", the Antares Federation breaks their non-aggression pact with the Hammer of Light and rallies to Intrepid's position.
• Corrupt Politician:
  • The norm in Regulus and Sirius. At least some members of the Regulus Senate are involved in smuggling and piracy as far off as Antares, and implied to have connections with the Hammer of Light.
  • The GTA-sponsored members of the Antares government are an interesting example. They're unpopular with the public and lose their authority when the system declares independence, but whether they're corrupt or just doing their jobs isn't stated one way or the other.
• Darkest Hour: "How the West Was Lost". Ozymandias has captured the Vasudan fleet carrier Frontier and laid waste to Antares Station, Antares has declared independence and is actively engaging GTA assets, and both groups have agreed to a non-aggression pact so they can focus on their shared enemy - you.
• Deadly Dodging: In "Going Out with a Bang", the player's fighter is equipped with decoy beacon, causing Cardinal's torpedoes to chase them instead of Intrepid. Using this trope to cause a friendly fire incident among the enemy battle group is not only a legitimate tactic, but explicitly commended by Intrepid.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • The flight controller on Antares Station does not hide her distrust of the GTA, although she's professional enough to cooperate in emergencies.
  • Arris Gavel has his moments, too. After the GTA seizes remote control of his fighter to discredit him, he threatens to storm Intrepid with his sidearm, take it places it's not supposed to go and blow things up it's not supposed to blow up. He shuts up after being threatened with a cavity search.
• Dramatic Space Drifting: Used in one of the news room articles to show the aftermath of an attack on a civilian ship.
• Easter Egg:
  • Battle snails! Each mission in Slaves of Chaos has an adorable cyborg snail hiding somewhere. Collecting all of them unlocks it as a flyable ship.
  • Many missions have things to find if the player pokes around, from the fun (a freighter in "The Gulnara Heist" has a hold full of antique cars) to the serious (a smuggler in another mission is carrying military-grade ordnance). Unlike the above, these are canon. "How the West Was Lost" takes the cake with a full-on radio broadcast reporting on the player's actions.
• Enemy Mine: Towards the end of Slaves of Chaos, the Antares Federation strikes a non-aggression pact with the Hammer of Light, allowing both groups to focus on the Galactic Terran Alliance. Later on, the Federation changes their minds, helping the GTA drive the HoL from their system.
• False Flag Operation: Frequently in Slaves of Chaos:
  • "Red Handed" and "Playing Pirate" have the player's squad pose as pirates.
  • In "The Will to Act", the player, another Terran pilot, and a Vasudan interpreter pose as Hammer of Light pilots using modified Thoth fighters. The player needs to pass a series of dialogue trees to maintain the ruse.
  • In "Bringing Down the Gavel", the player uses an experimental technology to assume control of and remotely operate a fighter belonging to the titular character and frame them for double-crossing their allies.
  • "Hammer's Edict" puts the player on the receiving end of one. Several of the Vasudan ambassador's escorts are Hammer of Light operatives, and they succeed in disabling his transport, setting up the rest of the mission.
  • The optional mission "The Armageddon Clock" has the player meet a GTA spy who's undercover with the Antares Federation.
• Featureless Protagonist: Following the convention established by the original Freespace, both player characters (the pirate pilot in Mefistofele and the GTA pilot in later releases) exhibit this trope.
• Foregone Conclusion: The disintegration of the GTA into a series of successor states is Freespace canon, so the successful secession of the Antares Federation is inevitable. The storytelling focuses on fleshing these events out instead.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Mostly averted, but there's one noteworthy example in Mefistofele. At the time, the game engine didn't permit changing the name of the player's wing, so the pirate fighters still use the GTA's Greek designations. The same characters reappear in Slaves of Chaos, where they use the designation "Diamond".
• General Failure: Downplayed with Admiral Po. His military defeats in Antares have less to do with his own competence and more to do with being up against Ozymandias. His heavy-handed mishandling of Antares' culture, though, is entirely on him.
• Gimmick Level: Too many examples to list, since Between the Ashes is not shy about creating unique mechanics to reflect specific moments. A few of the more noteworthy ones:
  • "The Gulnara Heist" (Mefistofele): Two pirate transports deploy crews into the titular Gulnara Research Station. While they're aboard, the player is tasked with buying time by intimidating civilian ships so they won't call for help. Walking the line of keeping them compliant without inducing panic is surprisingly tricky; fortunately, failure isn't immediate loss.
  • "Camp Angel" (Slaves of Chaos): The player is tasked with defending a refuge camp which the Hammer of Light is expected to attack. They can deploy static defenses, crossing over with tower defense.
  • "Bringing Down the Gavel" (Slaves of Chaos): The player is instructed to attack a convoy and destroy their (external) cargo pods, leaving the ships themselves alone. It ends up playing like a bonus level in an arcade game. The player is remotely operating Arris Gavel's fighter, and can also switch between controlling it and their own, which has long-ranged missiles.
  • "Groundhog Day" (Slaves of Chaos): Another mission where the player defends a station from Hammer of Light aggression. This time around, the station has artillery aboard... which was never completed, requiring the player to pass firing solutions.
  • "Black Flag" (Slaves of Chaos) is a Stealth-Based Mission.
• Gray-and-Black Morality: The situation in Antares boils down to a four-way conflict between the Galactic Terran Alliance (gray), Antares Federation (gray), Hammer of Light (black), and criminal elements backed by the Regulus Syndicate (mostly black, but it's implied that at least some of them got caught up in crime to make ends meet). The Antares Federation is generally depicted more sympathetically, but they end up striking a non-aggression pact with the Hammer of Light.
• Hacking Minigame: It's more of a setpiece, but "The Texas Seven" makes the player open up a terminal window for some cyber-warfare.
• Hope Spot:
  • At the end of "Camp Angel", Ozymandias's flagship Cardinal is ambushed and captured by Intrepid and Frontier. Soon, both Cardinal and Frontier are under his control, and Intrepid is laying low while the Antares Federation hunts it down.
  • On a smaller scale, "Acts of Volition" ends with Intrepid staging a Gunship Rescue, only to be ambushed by waves of Sekhmet bombers.
• Impeded Communication: A staple of the series. Every major faction has some way of jamming enemy transmissions. More often than not, the player's side is on the receiving end, but "Operation: Market" shows the GTA getting in on the action, too.
  • "Hammer's Edict" has a fighter simply jump away from the jamming and call for backup that way. This technique isn't used very often because it leaves the side calling for backup down a fighter until reinforcements can arrive.
  • "Gerar's Judgement" shows a rare case of impeded navigation, with GTSc Trafalgar jamming Cardinal's navigational sensors. They also use the much less sophisticated technique of parking a cruiser in front of it.
• Imported Alien Phlebotinum: OPHOSIS, elements of which were stolen by the pirate wing in Mefistofele on behalf of the Hammer of Light. It's ultimately revealed to be an Ancient artifact capable of predicting Shivan arrivals, which is why Ozymandias wants it so badly - it would unify the various factions of the Hammer of Light under his leadership.
• Justified Tutorial: While the Player Character is temporarily grounded pending an investigation into the GTI Rebellion, the admiral in charge of a pilot's academy invites them to consult on some new training material.
• Macross Missile Massacre:
  • As of Slaves of Chaos, Orion- and Typhon-class destroyers^note In Freespace, the word "destroyer", bizarrely, refers to a fleet carrier. have been upgraded with heavy ship-to-ship torpedoes.
  • The Hammer of Light loves outfitting their Horus interceptors with Hornet swarm missiles and Flail cannon, which apply disorienting knockback... while you're trying to dodge said swarm missiles.
• Morton's Fork: In Antwerp, Intrepid has to decide between going down with all hands, or trying to evacuate in the middle of a minefield. They choose the former to help buy time for the rest of the strike force.
• Odd Name Out:
  • Most Vasudans take a "Terran name" from Egyptian mythology, and Terrans likewise use Egyptian mythological names to refer to Vasudan ships. Vasudan carriers, however, use simple evocative names like Frontier. ^note This is a carry-over from the first Freespace game, which featured ships such as Hope, Pinnacle, and Anvil.
  • Ozymandias, the Hammer of Light commander in Antares, and his ship, Cardinal, also stand out. In this case Ozymandias chose those names to create a specific effect on his Terran opponents.
  • Bizarrely, the Hammer of Light cruisers that attack the refuge camp in "Camp Angel" are designated Quisling and Thule. Maybe whoever was in charge of reporting names that day really doesn't like Those Wacky Nazis?
• Out-Gambitted: Ozymandias is always one step ahead of Admiral Po. It really comes to a head after "Camp Angel", where he leverages his own captivity aboard Antares Station to capture a PVN carrier and recapture his own flagship.
• Out of Focus: The Parliamentary Vasudan Empire is a borderline case. They deploy Frontier and her battlegroup to support Intrepid against the Hammer threat in Antares, one early mission involves extracting a Vasudan spy from an HoL station, and PVE officials try to appeal to the Vasudan population of Antares, but the player interacts with the Hammer of Light much more than friendly Vasudan forces. This is largely a consequence of the story focusing on the decline and fall of the Galactic Terran Alliance.
• Outside-Context Problem: Downplayed example in Antwerp. Whatever HLC Taweret did in "Operation: Market", that's not how Faster-Than-Light Travel works here.
• Propaganda Machine: Kalev Ehin, a journalist affiliated with the Antares Federation. While he does raise some legitimate criticisms of the GTA, he has no real journalistic ethics to speak of and stops just short of making things up in his quest to discredit them. The extent to which he truly believes in the legitimacy of the Antares Federation movement or is motivated solely by self-interest is ambiguous, but he's slimy either way.
• Pull the Thread: Early in Slaves of Chaos, Alpha wing is posing as a gang of smugglers to intercept the pirate vessel Benedict. Benedict's captain mentions getting their boss a Doberman as a gift, and when Alpha wing doesn't contradict them, replies with "It was a dachshund, you twat!" and opens fire.
• Pyrrhic Victory: The Galactic Terran Alliance pushes the Hammer of Light out of Antares, but are forced to recognize the system's sovereignty.
• Reporting Name: Since Vasudan physiology makes their language all but impossible for humans, Vasudan ships (whether operated by the Parliamentary Vasudan Navy or the Hammer of Light) are issued reporting names drawn from Egyptian mythology.
• Shout-Out: At one point, Command invokes the Rush Act to resolve a labor dispute. The player can resolve the situation with violence or arrange for a more equitable outcome.
• Space Mines:
  • Slaves of Chaos adds Arathron mines to the Watchdog- and Cerberus-class sentry guns of Freespace canon. They make more sense here than usual due to the existence of subspace decoy beacons, which can lead a ship to exit subspace in the middle of a minefield.
  • In Antwerp, the Hammer of Light has mines defending their fortress.
• Stealth-Based Mission: "Black Flag" is a straight example. Unusually for Freesace, the patrolling fighters respect line of sight; the player can duck behind the objective or nearby cargo and transports to avoid detection.
• The Stinger: A cutscene at the end of Mefistofele reveals that the pirate group was hired by none other than the Hammer of Light. Their cargo is strongly implied to be part of OPHOSIS.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: The more heavy-handed the player is at the protest in "How the West Was Lost", the more vindictive the Antares Federation will be later in the mission.
• War Refugees: "Camp Angel" is set at the titular refugee camp.
• Warrior Poet: Admiral Po fancies himself this.
• Wham Episode: Several:
  • "The Texas Seven": Ozymandias captures Frontier and uses it to recapture Cardinal, leaving the Hammer of Light forces with more firepower than everyone else in Antares combined.
  • "How the West Was Lost": The Antares Federation declares independence from the GTA and allies with the Hammer of Light to back up their claim.
  • "Operation: Market": A Hammer of Light cruiser disappears mid-battle, without initiating a standard subspace jump. The attacking force is quite disturbed to find such unknown technology in terrorist hands. "Can we talk about what just happened?", indeed.
  • "Operation: Garden": Intrepid, the player's home base so far, is lost with all hands.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Early in Slaves of Chaos, Intrepid's pilots capture two members of the Regulus senate who've been supporting the crime rings in Antares. Their ultimate fate is unclear, although given their implied connections with the Hammer of Light and Admiral Po (who ordered their capture) retaining command of Intrepid, it's probably not anything good.