Time for some exciting news!
As announced a while ago, the 16 new/planned Flashpoints are all a part of the same story, consisting of several mini-campaigns. The Here Might Be Dragons flashpoint that ends one of the mini-campaigns already revealed a part of this story and the power plays in the Hyades Rim. And more will be progressively related as the nine remaining FPs came out. At the same time, the release of the Rimward Periphery map made the whole playing ground a lot bigger, which by itself already resulted in a reassignment of planned Flashpoints, and a likely future increase on its number from 16 to 21. And the new star map will also result in more minor factions being added.
With these two steps in progress, it's time to add two final future features that were long planned since this mod's beginning: replacing the Argo with the Leopard at start and make a full replacement of the base campaign. Or, in other words, this mod will be now designed as a new Campaign mode, rather than an expansion to Career mode, with the new flashpoints being used to tell its story. This will have major implications to game play experience and the Hyades Rim story.
Alternate History
The divergent point from the canon timeline is that during the events in Coronation Day, both Raiju and Kamea Arano miss the DropShip that is supposed to carry them but Madeira betrays their location to House Espinosa and Raiju is killed attempting to escape while Kamea is captured. With control of the Council through gifts and threats, the Directorate conducts a kangaroo court of Kamea and, in exchange for Madeira's support, her death sentence is suspended rather than executed, to avoid turning her into a martyr. House Arano is disbanded and their possessions divided among the other houses, while Kamea is allowed to go to exile and join a mercenary company, as long as she never gets herself involved again in Aurigan politics.
Three years later, the Aurigan Reach founds itself at peace under the new regime. The leaders of several noble houses were replaced by more compliant family members under the pressure of House Espinosa, while plans to replace the Coalition with the Directorate were dropped although in reality Lord Espinosa has near absolute power by controlling the council. Which has lessen the need for open repressive measures in order to keep power, and avoids the popular resentment that fueled Kamea's Arano Restoration.
Discredited by Espinosa's propaganda and with no Canopian support, Kamea has now joined the Leopard and your crew as MechWarrior and Farah has joined her in exile after being harassed and prosecuted by Espinosa's secret police. Madeira was able to stay in his family's estates in Guldra, but only by stepping out as his house's representative in the Council, as Lord Espinosa doesn't trust him because of his former support to Kamea. Disgraced by events, Kamea turns to depression and anger, while the company's debts are piling up and the banks are after the DropShip.
Until Interstellar Expeditions contacts the company and offers it a long-term contract to explore the Hyades Rim and that's the start of the new campaign.
