Fifty years before they met Humanity, the Lieka Kingdom and the Dexigalia Empire were spacefaring nations for many years along with their neighbors, the Fulari Empire and the Corimei Republic. While they had been aware of each other for years, they made no move to wage war due to advantages each one had over each other. When compared to each other, the Liekans had weapons development down to a literal science, the Dexigalians were masters of shield technology, the Fulari were unmatched in ground combat and deployment, and the Corimeins had unmanned ship combat technology. They knew that a war between two or more of them would be devastating. These nations for many years had a precarious peace between them.
Fifty years before the First Interstellar War with Humanity, these four nations came under attack by a cybernetic race of beings known only as the Minions. The Minions had only one goal: to wipe out organic life in response to how they were once oppressed. The Minions were very calculating of their attack. By attacking all four nations at once, one nation would not be able to send reinforcements as they would be too focused on defending themselves to help others. Cut off and unable to do more than defend themselves, the four nations needed to develop a means on their own fight the Minions. That method came in the form of developing viruses to inject into the Minion hive minds. It was quickly found that the Minions’ former masters never developed a means to protect their creations from cyber-attacks, a fact the four nations independently exploited. Never facing a virus before, let alone four of them at once, the Minions rapidly began to shut down after their systems began to fry from the attack. Unknown to the four nations, only fifty Minions survived the mass genocide of their species by severing their minds from the hive mind system.
In the aftermath of the war, each of the four nations responded differently when it came to protect themselves from future attacks. The Fulari learned that while they were strong on the ground, their ability to fight in space was severely lacking. For the Corimeins, while the ability to fight the Minions in space using unmanned ships proved effective in saving lives, their ground combat was where they were at their weakest as they relied solely on keeping their enemies from landing on planets. The Fulari and Corimeins came to an agreement, seeing their strengths and weaknesses, to eventually form an alliance.
The Liekans and the Dexigalians, however, pursued the path of conquest. Both nations found the prospect of expanding their territories to provide “buffer zones” as the best bet to prevent any possible future acts annihilation. It was only after both tried to claim the same system that the two of them went to war with each other five years before the First Interstellar War. This war waged on for those five years as each side tried to claim new systems before the other did, resulting in an expansion rush. This caused their territories to expand faster than their forces could cover or protect. When those nations found other sentient life in other systems, they tried to conquer them to serve their new masters.
This changed when they reached the Sol System, finding a species with warships, though these were inferior to their own. When the Liekans found them, they saw a potential ally and future combat slaves against the Dexigalians. The Liekans were very discrete as to what technology to give Humans as they didn’t want them to have the advantage should the Humans know what the Liekans had planned for them. Steps were also taken to install a “backdoor” into the systems of the technology they provided Humans. When the time came, the Human ships would be disabled instantly, making conquest that easy. When the Dexigalians arrived in Sol, they fought two enemies instead of one. While Human ships fought at long range to prevent getting into close quarters combat against ships with superior defenses, the Humans had war tactics down to a science, impressing the Liekans. Once the Dexigalian forces left Sol to reinforce their forces in both Vega and Alpha Centauri, the Liekans had to leave to fight them elsewhere. With Humans as a potential “ally” and future soldiers to their Kingdom, the Liekans felt confident that the Humans would remain in their own star system to not bother with operations outside the Sol System. The Liekans would be back for the Humans soon enough.
However, neither the Liekans nor the Dexigalians expected for Humans in ships more advanced than their own to suddenly appear in Alpha Centauri a few months later. Caught completely off guard as their own ships were ineffective against this new breed of Human vessels and the backdoor command ineffective after Humans discovered and patched it, both Liekan and Dexigalian forces withdrew from Alpha Centauri. While they managed to retreat to Vega, Human ships appeared in Vega a few weeks later, forcing them to withdraw again. While the new Human ships had no shields, their armor can deflect the energy weapons of Liekan and Dexigalian ships. Their point defense system was also able to shoot down any missiles and torpedoes fired at them. The Liekans and Dexigalians were so stretched thin and too focused on each other to defend against an alliance of races spearheaded by the Humans for two years before they finally managed to put a halt to their advance. During those two years, this alliance had formally established a new nation known as the United Systems of the Federation. Losing half of their total territory to the Federation without being able to effectively combat this new force, the Liekan King and the Dexigalian Emperor offered a three-way armistice between each other and the new Federation. The signing of the armistice ended the First Interstellar War.
The months that followed the end of the war was met with turmoil and strife for both the Liekans and the Dexigalians. The citizens and soldiers of both nations felt betrayed by their leadership for losing a war because they trusted the Humans rather than enslaving them like the other races. Many leaders of protests rallied against their leaders were quick to point this fact act, which led to their embarrassing defeat in the war. While the Liekan King and Dexigalian Emperor ordered their forces to disperse these gatherings and arrest those leading them, their forces were quick to disobey their orders and allow the protests to continue uninterrupted. Eventually, the two leaders of their nations were finding that their support was disappearing, and the end of their reign was cemented when assassins killed them and palace guards, once loyal, killed their remaining family members. Both nations were now in the hands of the citizens who were quick to appoint new leaders, namely those in the military that opposed the armistice. These leaders soon talked with each other and knew they had a mutual enemy: The Federation and the Humans who led them. Knowing they would be stronger together, they formed a new alliance to consolidate their military capabilities. This led to the creation of a new name: The Grand Alliance of Imperial Nations, or GAIN for short. However, just consolidating their forces would not be enough to take on the Federation. They needed more soldiers and technology to combat the sudden technological advantage of the Federation. They needed to conquer the Fulari/Corimei Alliance.
Five years after the First Interstellar War, the FCA was suddenly attacked by GAIN forces. The FCA was not aware of the events that occurred in the First Interstellar War involving the Federation as those events happened on the other side of GAIN space. Not expecting the Liekans and the Dexigalians to join forces against them, the FCA fought against GAIN forces for three years, but the GAIN despite their loss in the First Interstellar War, were more numerous and driven by the need of the Fulari armies and the Corimein technology. The FCA against this onslaught were losing the war and eventually, to preserve what remained of their people, surrendered to GAIN forces. Both the Fulari and Corimein leaders were executed, though their families were led to safety, and their territories were annexed. To make the Fulari more obedient, the GAIN utilized the Corimein cybernetic enhancements to enslave the Fulari Army along with other potential soldiers. It also came to the attention of GAIN that Corimein had been studying several disabled Minions that were affected by the four viruses years ago to understand their technology better with thousands more recovered. The Corimein scientists were forced to wipe the brain modules of the Minions and use them as the hardware for a new line of ships that would combine the capabilities of all four nations. Three years later, a new type of warship was born.
The exact rollout date of the new Malice-Class Battleship remains classified, but it was eight years before the Second Interstellar War. While the Federation was able to roll out ships much faster due to their small size and automated shipyards created by the Minion survivors that are citizens of the Federation (another issue GAIN had when they found out a few years after FIW), the Malice was more than twice the length of the Federation’s Danbira-Class Battlecruiser, measuring at 2035 meters. It was also much wider and taller than any Federation ship. At first glance, the saucer shape used by the Dexigalians in the center of the vessel and the angular thick arrowhead design and engines of the Liekans in the front and back of the ship is apparent. What’s new about the overdesign is what sets it apart from previous designs from both nations. The ship utilizes a rare double hull design linked together by a central pylon. Many Federation analysts upon seeing the vessel in the Second Interstellar War believe this was more of an intimidation factor for the vessel as there was no practical purpose to do so. However, this double-hull design serves two purposes. The first is that the two halves are indeed separate vessels that can be separated so that if one hull is too damaged, it can be separated from the rest and either fight or flee. The main reason for this design comes from the shield systems on board. Dexigalian shield technology is still considered superior to other known nations, but there are limitations to its implementation. The shield system is large and requires a great deal of power. Installing a second generator would require a larger or more power sources which would increase the overall size of the vessel covering a larger area. This results in the same strength of shields over a larger area. The remedy of this was doing two ships of the same size interlinked. Their shields were specifically designed to coalesce with each other, making the shields twice as powerful while remaining the same size for a single vessel.
Defenses were not the only matter GAIN developers were looking at when designing the Malice. As energy weapons would prove to be ineffective against the armor used by the Federation, the GAIN reached back into their weapon development programs’ histories during a time when their people used solid rounds and guided projectiles in combat. Among the files were railguns of various sizes, missiles, and torpedoes. Using this data, ship developers managed to design the entire weapons systems of the Malice for maximum devastation and destruction. Among its arsenal are two heavy railguns located between the bow sections. These railguns fire a solid projectile using electromagnetic rails. However, they only fire twice the speed of Federation artillery cannons. This is still enough force to hurl a large tungsten round at a target, tearing through lightly armored ships in a single shot. These railguns can also be used for orbital bombardment, but the ship only has enough rounds to fire each railgun 15 times. 96 railgun turrets are spread out all over the Malice, allowing the vessel to attack regardless of the direction. 18 missile launchers and 16 quad heavy missile launchers round out the vessel's offensive kinetic ordinance against other ships. The vessel also possesses a multitude of small vertical missile launchers and point defense guns for combating the Federation's Kunai Fighters as the Malice lacks any fighters of its own.
As the Malice is the GAIN's sole warship, it is believed this vessel was built in large quantities for the GAIN's war against the Federation. How many of this vessels were built remains unknown.