that would be...preposterous, yet terrifying

For some reason I think that the plotline goes like this, and poo on me for taking it seriously:


TEC > Desert Planet > Finds Vasari > TEC, initially losing the battle, gets stronger, managing to exile the populace of Vasari. (Remember Vasari are slave owners) So for several thousand years pass, with the TEC after the Vasari who are on a run for their lives. The Vasari call back their Fleets on the front, which get the crap pounded out of them by the TEC. TEC send first generation of warriors home. At this point, a section of the Vasari had already branched off, and began to purify themselves and liberating other Vasari-owned planets, making the original Vasari race's run even more desperate. Over a thousand years these Vasari who have branched off became very astute with psionics became powerful enough to not only get behind enemy lines (TEC) but make their way to the TEC home planets.

And thus we have the story we have right now. The reason there is no campaign mode is because we are supposed to live out the story (kind of) as we play the game.

We will get the answer someday with the sequel or expansion to Soase.
Just think about something that will fit in the most. What new features could an expansion to SOASE have?

New Ships and technologies for the already existing races? Probably. A new playable race (the menace)? Maybe. But if thats so the new menace race, can't be too uber strong. There must be a chance for every of the other 3 races to defeat it.

But then again maybe the menace race will be introduced as something... like advanced Pirates. They show up every now and then and try to kick someones ass. Maybe as an added extra they can even take over planets and become a permanent nuisance to the other players. (Can Pirates take over planets? They never managed to do when I had them)

But maybe... its like this.
The Menace is a race of spiritual beings. There is real space, phase space, and spiritual space. Centuries ago, a highly advanced and now extinct species, managed to not just travel through phase lanes, but entered the spiritual realm as well. The spiritual menace used this to invade our reality. They drove sentient beings into madness, and then took over their bodies... inhabiting and using them like their own. The precursor race was losing this battle and there was only one last desperate thing they did to defeat the spiritual menace. They managed to fight their way back to the systems of origin, the places where the interdimensional fabric was torn apart and the spirits entered our realm. There they set up the phasejumpinhibitors to BLOCK off travel to and from the spiritual dimension. The spirits already resident in our world could not get back, but no new spirits could enter our realm either. In order to get rid of the spiritual menace already here, they only found one solution. Remove all hosts. So they developed a virus to kill their own species the only advanced sentient beings around at that time, leaving the spirits to dissolve eventually.

Centuries later the Vasari discovered the only heritage left behind by the precursors. The phasejumpinhibitors they left to protect our world from the spiritual invaders. Not knowing about its purposes the vasari only discovered one of the systems side effects... slowing transition into phase space. They never knew about spirit space so they could not observe any effects on it. Then 10.000 years ago, a secret vasari laboratory successfully managed to reverse engineer one of those inhibitors. They experimented on it and tried to create a device with an adverse effect. A device that doesn't slow down phasejumping but one to speed up the process. And they did it. But not just that, the device was no longer blocking access to the spiritual realm. It was granting it. And now the spiritual menace is back to take over our bodies. And there are sooo many of us now. Tasty!

Well, they released the two expansions, which didn't not have no 4th race not not present. What a shame!

 

I think that the Vasari were experimenting with a new form of space travel (hence the transport facility above 'Kron' in the cinematic). This would 'fold' space so the ship literally needn't travel the entire distance.

However, when the crew traveled through, they were subjected to all kinds of supernatural (or just messed up) forces. Hence, driving them crazy. The ship came out the other end and spread the craziness to the core worlds. Like a virus, it spread at an alarming rate and even lay ruin to the ancient Vasari homeworld. The Dark fleet tried to organise a blind assault, but failed miserably, with only one ship surviving, the crew mad with fear after witnessing the supernatural forces at work.

I'm actually rather disappointed that the Vasari Empire crumbled into the dust. They are so cool!   OK... get the message?

BTW: "event horizon" movie would make this clearer to you all.

How could you bring back a two-year old thread?

There are so many others like this...

i heard it was a bunch of dudes looking for kyle

The Intro of the game showed a Vasari experimental transportation lab on the planet Khron that exploded after the operator pushed the button. So I would go with the Extra Dimensional Menace theory. Hmm... I wonder if the next expansion would include the Extra Dimensional fleet.

Given their expertise in nano bots, I'd imagine the thing that's chasing them is a nano swarm of some sort.

By the way, the Borg use nano bots for assimilation