An Empire in Peril (Feature Film)

An Empire in Peril is a feature film based on the book of the same name. It was written, produced and directed by the original author Nick Chang. Filming took place in late March and early April 2019 in Seattle and North Bend, Washington despite severe setbacks. As of May 2020, the film was declared complete, but on indefinite hold for premiere due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Chang has stated the events of the film are not canon, but meant as a general look into the universe and its characters.

Plot
The film opens with the TNS Genesis battlegroup engaged in a space battle with the Aradynic Dominion over an unspecified colony. Tia Epstein manages to keep the enemy fighters clear of the carrier while they prepare to fire two torpedoes. The Genesis scores two kills, causing the rest of the enemy ships to jump away. Commanding Officer of the Genesis, Admiral Arnold Leminsky, warns they had only encountered a vanguard force and that there will be more.

The carrier locates the source of the distress signal that sent them: a destroyed carrier battle group. Leminsky remarks on how the war is going badly, and orders a squad of Winged Hussars, led by Sergeant Reiston, to scout the planet surface ahead of the planned marine landings. The Hussars land on a dropship and encounter an unusually large force of the Dominion Army. Corporal Natalie Epstein listens to their communications, revealing the existence of an unknown but very important facility. Reiston makes the call to spend the night on the surface looking for it.

Meanwhile in orbit, the battlegroup is ambushed by a much larger fleet of Dominion ships. Leminsky makes the call to make an atmospheric entry to escape, and hide the ship somewhere in a mountain range. Tia expresses concern that her sister, Natalie, is spending the night on the surface with her team, whom she distrusts.

In the morning, the Hussars discover the facility--a human building being looted by Dominion soldiers. Natalie realizes its a secret antimatter production facility, and that the Dominion are going to refine it into weapons. The marines return to the Genesis, and inform Admiral Leminsky of the situation. He devises a plan to destroy the facility to deny the Dominion access to so much antimatter. By destroying one of the alien dropships transporting the antimatter, Tia's fighter could cause a chain reaction capable of destroying both the facility and most of the alien fleet above it. However, Reiston's team must destroy one of the Dominion's anti-aircraft missile launchers to let the fighter-bombers in.

The battle group launches one last, desperate attack. The starships in orbit keeping the Dominion fleet distracted while the Hussars run for the missile launchers. The Hussars destroy the launcher just in time for Tia to shoot down one of the alien dropships. The antimatter explosion wipes out the alien ships in the sky, and leaves a looming cloud. The Hussars stand on a ridge, overlooking the blast, wondering how the war will go now.

Inconsistencies with Canon

 * Su-235 fighter-bombers have a crew of three, but are depicted with only two.
 * No Interceptors are ever used against the Dominion fighters.
 * The marines are not shown wearing body armor.
 * Natalie's M2600 light machine gun is magazine fed, when the Hussars are always depicted using belt-fed LMGs in the book.
 * Natalie can understand and translate the Aradynic language. During the War, no humans could speak or understand Aradynic. Computer cyphers used statistical pattern recognition with low accuracy, and many Dominion officers were trained to speak English to accept the surrender of human units, but were captured in battle.
 * Sergeant Reiston's backpack radio uses a headset rather than a receiver.
 * The control room of the Genesis is supposed to be mostly analog according to the book, but are shown as mostly holograms.
 * Naval officers are supposed to wear peaked caps when on duty.
 * Antimatter weapons are commonplace in the Imperial arsenal, and are not experimental as Natalie says in the movie.
 * Tia does not start to like Natalie's squadmates until much later in the War, during the Battle of the Icebox.
 * Tia is only ever shown drinking vodka, but most naval personnel drink blue rum.
 * Leminsky says "Sound General Quarters," but it should be "Set Condition White."
 * The Hussars fly in on a dropship, rather than their signature vehicle: the Lightning Glider.
 * The Marines need to destroy an anti-aircraft missile launcher on foot, but usually the Naval Air Corps uses Corvid Electronic Warfare planes for SEAD.