The history of Supreme Commander begins in the year 2015, when colonization of our local solar system begins. A decade later, a breakthrough dubbed a “quantum tunnel” enables scientists to transport matter between locations. In 2055, a monkey is successfully tunneled to Mars, and six years later, a human arrives on Neptune; the following year, a base is established on the planet’s Triton moon.

Interstellar expansion gets underway in 2108 when a colony is set up in the Alpha Centauri system. Two years later, Earth unites under a single government, the Earth Empire; its military arm is known as Earth Command (EarthCom). Over the next few hundred years, humanity aggressively colonizes the stars, using bioengineered DNA patterns to “grow” colonists who are raised by artificial intelligence on new worlds.

No intelligent life is encountered until the year 2623, when a military expedition investigates the loss of contact with a surveying team on the world Seraphim II. The first meeting with the aliens ends with 88 Seraphim and two marines dead — the Seraphim subsequently avoid humans, and eventually EarthCom recalls its fleet, leaving a colony behind. The colonists are tasked with capturing and reverse-engineering the aliens’ technology, but they later lapse into radio silence.

Cybrans and Illuminates Emerge

Meanwhile, Dr. Gustaf Brackman, the man who created advanced artificial intelligence, heads to the planet Procyon with a group of AI-equipped machine-based slaves. He founds the Cybran Nation and secedes from what he sees as a tyrannical government. The Earth Empire declares war on the Cybran Nation.

In 2669, 42 years into the conflict, EarthCom forces visit Seraphim II to find the alien technology, hoping to use it to win the war. The no-longer-shy Seraphim overwhelm them, and EarthCom unleashes a virus engineered to kill the aliens. The defenders respond by using previously-unknown battleships to destroy EarthCom’s armada, but it’s a pyrrhic victory: within a year, the virus will kill all of them. The war between the Earth Empire and Cybran Nation continues.

The colonists on Seraphim II had been presumed lost, but they reemerge in 2679, declaring themselves the “enlightened” members of the Aeon Illuminate. The Earth Empire responds by attempting to quarantine Seraphim II, but it soon finds itself fighting the Aeon Illuminate. The three-way Infinite War wages through 3303, when the Earth Empire is officially dissolved and replaced by the United Earth Federation (UEF), which unleashes a massive counter-push against both of its enemies. The UEF is controlled by EarthCom, which sheds the political process and installs a military dictatorship.

The Infinite War

The first Supreme Commander game covers the conclusion of the Infinite War, which ends differently depending on the faction chosen at the start of the single-player campaign. However, all three scenarios include the Cybrans developing a new AI called QAI, which has unintended consequences when it summons Seraphim who had long ago left their home world and settled elsewhere in the galaxy.

The Forged Alliance expansion pack features the Seraphim invasion and the combined defense of the UEF, Aeon Illuminate, and Cybrans. However, not all of the Aeon Illuminate fight the aliens: many of them side with the enemy and form the Order of the Illuminate. The Order is dismantled after the Seraphim are defeated, but the Aeon Illuminate leadership changes the faction’s name to The Illuminate to placate the remaining dissenters.

The end of the war against the Seraphim sees the beginning of 25 years of peace between the three factions, with the creation of the Colonial Defense Coalition to govern them.

Complex Relationships

As Supreme Commander 2 opens, Commander Dominic “Migraine” Maddox has followed in his father’s footsteps by serving in the UEF military. His parents were staunch loyalists who wanted nothing to do with the Cybran Nation or Aeon Illuminate, so when Maddox married moderate Illuminate Annika Koenig, they disowned their only son. They recanted their views when their grandson, named after Maddox’s father, was born, but they were later killed in a tragic accident.

Maddox is looking for a way to quietly slip out of the military, due to the stress from hiding his wife’s Illuminate status, but the reopening of hostilities between the three factions won’t make that easy, especially with Colonel Alex Rodgers expecting him to take a hard-line stance against former allies. However, Maddox has a friend in Jeremy “Analog” Daxil, a fellow military man who’s a genius with tactics and who comes to share Maddox’s views about the UEF.

Maddox also gets assistance from Illuminate commander Thalia Kael, who has family ties to both sides of the schism that erupted in the religious faction during the Infinite War. Her father was a businessman who moved between all three factions, which led to his death at the hands of UEF nationalists. Her mother had died of a degenerative disease shortly after her birth. The same condition afflicts her brother, Jaran, who counter the effects by having his spinal cord and eyes replaced with Cybran technology, but that’s a procedure forbidden by the Illuminate because it would impede enlightenment.

It turns out that Maddox and Kael know each other from their academy days. They were also friends with Ivan Brackman, who is now a commander in the Cybran Nation. Brackman is the test tube baby son of Dr. Gustaf Brackman, who is now over 1,000 years old, thanks to the technologies he developed when he was still part of the UEF. Ivan was always jealous of the friendship between Maddox and Kael, although he never acted on those feelings. Gustaf kept a close eye on Ivan after he left school, but Ivan soon finds himself acting on his own when he meets Maddox and Kael again.