Scenario Era: Galactic Civil War, Clone Wars
Scenario Year: 20BBY Approx.
Scenario Location: Uhto Sector (Homebrew), Unknown Territories

Potential PC Vibes:
CIS Agents, Local Not!Sith, Mercenaries VS Jedi Order, Mercenaries, Republic Agents

Scenario:
Some years before the Invasion of Naboo in 32BBY, various Mid Rim astrogation companies had been investigating an unrecorded hyperlane cluster trailing into the Unknown Regions to the galactic west. Discovered by pure accident during a miscalculated jump by a long-distance freight hauler, the plodding and increasingly labyrinthine Republic bureaucracy was slow to mount any significant effort in the exploration; particularly overburdened by the first stirrings of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, who's political tensions had already caused much confusion within the Galactic Senate.

What few resources and credits were spent on independent astro-cartographers, logistics companies and research collectives resulted in little more than a disparate and ragtag fleet of support, exploration and science vessels. The mission was simple - thoroughly catalogue every star, world and asteroid of particular size within the network - with any luck the data could be sold to mining companies or merchant guilds for further efforts. Even at the most optimistic estimations, historical analysis suggested that little would come from this effort for decades.

What none among the expedition could have known was their arrival had been anticipated.

The sector of space was already inhabited by a plethora of sapient species. More curiously, these appeared largely to be the usual suspects - Humans, Twi'lek and others dispersed among various planets across multiple systems. Initial theories between the explorers was this sector being an ancient colony of the Old Republic, cut off from the rest of the galaxy during some strange, sweeping hyperspace phenomena.

The locals had developed a relatively sophisticated society and possessed various advanced technologies, from spaceflight to blasters and energy shields. Still, their technology had evidently degraded in the previous millennia, with primitive hyperspace drives that could only connect between their own systems and a distinct lack of droids.

Concerningly, their labour appeared to be primarily slave-driven, with millions of sapients branded by local occultic runes and overseen by a powerful spiritual caste. These cults appeared to worship a twisted form of the same philosophy practiced by the warrior-monks of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant - speaking openly of the will to power and mastery of oneself over the souls of others.

Very little of the expedition's discoveries would return to the galactic community, their ships captured, crews enslaved and officers interrogated by dark powers. As the local cults gluttoned on the knowledge of their prisoners and reverse-engineered their advanced machines, they begun to dream of domination across a thousand worlds beyond their meagre borders.

The CIS would discover the fragmented records of the expedition nearly a decade later, just before the onset of the Clone Wars. With the incentives of various, anonymous benefactors, the Confederacy would prepare a significantly grander fleet; military, industry and exploration combined into a single, massive operation to tame this new space. An operation of such scale would undoubtedly be detected by Republic Intelligence eventually, but they could not afford to lose any head start.

By the time the Republic arrived, the CIS had already taken control of and fortified multiple planets - uninhabitable by the locals, but more than sufficient for their droid-centered automation. Worse still, they had developed somewhat of a friendly relationship with the local cults. Though far from true allies, they had brought news of their war and the Jedi to the sorcerer-kings of the sector, who gladly made pacts with the newcomers to strike at their barely remembered ancient enemies.

Sensing the Dark Side about these priests and mystics, the Jedi would push the Senate to deploy the armies of the Republic - bolstered by the new Clones of the Kaminoans - to combat the CIS while they personally investigated these forgotten strangers.