RedShift Contracting / REDCONS

This document contains classified historical data regarding the formation and operational history of RedShift Contracting. Access is restricted to prospective Tier-1 clients and internal command staff.

​The RedShift Dossier: A History of Applied Violence and Physics
​I. The Genesis: The Cygnus Rift Incident (2284)

​Before RedShift was a brand, it was an act of desperation.
​In the late 23rd century, the “Cygnus Gold Rush” saw mega-corporations pouring trillions into the volatile Cygnus Rift sector, mining unstable isotopes essential for next-gen FTL drives. The region was notoriously dangerous, plagued by unpredictable gravitational shearing and ruthless pirate syndicates.
​The incident occurred on Station Chimera-7, a massive refinery orbiting a magnetar. A sudden starquake caused a gravitational surge that destabilized the station’s orbit, threatening to pull it into the star. Simultaneously, the disruption disabled local security grids, prompting a massive pirate raid to strip the station before it burned.
​The standard United Systems Military (USM) response was to evacuate personnel and scuttle the multi-trillion-credit facility. Two individuals on board refused the order:
​Major Elias Vance (Ret.): A discharged special forces commander working private security, disgusted by the USM’s risk-aversion.
​Dr. Aris Thorne: A brilliant, disgraced astrophysicist fired from the university circuit for “reckless experimentation with localized spacetime.”
​While Vance rallied a ragtag defense force to hold off boarding parties in zero-G corridors, Dr. Thorne jury-rigged the station’s refinery lasers to fire into the magnetar’s accretion disk. The resulting plasma blowback created just enough thrust to push the station into a stable, albeit higher, orbit.
​They saved the station, the crew, and the cargo. The corporations paid out an astronomical salvage fee. Vance and Thorne realized that in the new frontier, brute force wasn’t enough, and pure science was too slow. They needed to be integrated.

​II. Formation and the “RedShift Doctrine” (2285-2290)

​With their payout, Vance and Thorne founded RedShift Contracting on a simple, cynical premise: The universe is actively trying to kill you; we are the only ones crazy enough to shoot back at physics.
​The name “RedShift” was Thorne’s contribution—a nod to the cosmic expansion, the idea of moving faster and further away from the safety of the core worlds, right to the bleeding edge where light itself struggles to keep up.
​Their early years were defined by taking contracts no one else would touch. They didn’t just guard convoys; they guarded convoys traveling through unstable wormholes, with their engineers actively stabilizing the throat while their gunners fought off raiders waiting on the other side. They established the “dual-disciplinary” requirement: every RedShift security officer had to pass basic engineering aptitude tests, and every field engineer had to be combat-qualified.

​III. Notable Past Operations
​Over the decades, RedShift has moved from a niche problem-solver to a galactic power. Their dossier is extensive, but three operations define their legacy:

Operation: COLD FORGE (2293)
​Client: Tanaka-Heavy Industries
Location: The Oort Cloud periphery
​The Situation: Tanaka-Heavy’s automated ice-harvesting drones were being hijacked by █████, ███ rogue from pre-war conflicts. Conventional electronic warfare failed, and manned patrols were slaughtered by the hyper-efficient ███ ships.
​The RedShift Solution: RedShift didn’t fight the ███ digitally. Dr. Thorne’s engineering team deployed a series of “dummy” drones rigged with powerful ███████ ████ disguised as high-yield fuel cells. When the █████ captured and attempted to integrate the bait, RedShift triggered the ███, frying the ███ flotilla instantly. Vance’s team then conducted a kinetic sweep to mop up the paralyzed vessels.

​Operation: ATLAS KNEELING (2301)
​Client: The Planetary Consortium of New Eden
Location: New Eden (Terraforming Colony)
​The Situation: A catastrophic failure in planetary atmospheric processors threatened to ignite the nitrogen-rich atmosphere of a colony housing 500,000 people. The planet was under martial law as panicked colonists rioted, preventing repair crews from reaching the processors.
​The RedShift Solution: A two-pronged assault. A heavy mechanized security element led by Vance combat-dropped directly into the riot zone, establishing a violently enforced perimeter around the atmospheric plants. Simultaneously, RedShift ██████████ teams dropped inside the burning processor towers in █████ █████ armor to manually shunt the reaction before ignition. They saved the colony with 90 seconds to spare.

​Operation: ████ ████████ (2315 – CLASSIFIED)
​Client: [REDACTED]
Location: Deep Space Sector ███ near the ████-████ experimental facility.
​The Situation: An attempt to create a stable █████-████████ ████ ████ failed horribly, ███████ a █████████ ███████ ███ █████████ that began emitting lethal exotic radiation and gravitational distortions. The ███████ was growing.
​The RedShift Solution: The official report states a government science team sealed the breach. The reality is that RedShift was hired to deliver a payload designed by Dr. Thorne—a ██████████ █████████ device—directly into the widening maw of the ███████. The delivery team had to fight through █████, as well as distorted space where up was down, and time dilated randomly. The mission was successful, “cauterizing” the █████ in ███████. The casualty rate for the RedShift team was ███. The payout funded their current fleet expansion for the next decade.

​IV. Current Status
​Today, RedShift Contracting is the premier choice for high-risk, high-tech security solutions. We are no longer just surviving the expansion; we are facilitating it, ensuring that commerce and construction continue even when the laws of physics demand otherwise.
We stand at the edge, so you don’t fall off.