It is not yet clear who or what has caused the terrible destruction of one of the Echo Clusters most feared races and the whereabouts and condition of Commodore Obscure is, well, very obscure. Rumors have been flying with the Lizards and the Birdmen as prime suspects for this early disaster. Will commodore Obscure be able to escape? Is he on board one of the probes rapidly assimilating natives far from the homeworld disaster? Time will tell. No other race is better suited to recover from an early homeworld disaster.

Meanwhile, some other notable facts and figures:

Five of the eleven races have built a second starbase and Commodore Thin Lizzy has already commissioned 3 new starbases for a total of 4. Captain Tom Graves has his bases working hard and has jumped out to the early lead in ship count with 11 capital ships and 5 freighters servicing 27 planets but seems to have taken a hit to his military during the last turn of the system. The planet leader is Captain Aladrius with 28 planets. 

A total of 135 ships are populating the cluster and several more have been destroyed. Ships getting produced at a rate of 1.3 ships / player / turn.  

There has been plenty of commentary, bravado and showmanship from the leaders vying for control and support in their quest to become Emperor:

Mesh Hong: "Whats that damned parrot parroting now?"

Tom Graves: "A whole Borg world cried out in horror and then were silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."

Space Squad: “Hey Sarge, are you sober again?”

Admiral Thrain: "Borg got what they deserved."

Ronnle Robot: "some poor robot in the space dock in charge of logistics is heading for the scrapyard for sure....."

Aladrius:  "No deals with the other races this time, gotta plant the flag on the whole damned place."

Nicodemus: "...you shall be put to death immediately following these proceedings."

Halion: "That Mesh_Hong certainly seemed a nice gent and his suggestions of mutual trade and discourse on commodity prices was very informative if a little hard to follow after a few rums. ... .Hang on a minute what's happened to my PL21 Probe he'd docked at pier 21?"

... follow the complete story as it unfolds on the public channel: http://planets.nu/discussion/championship-match-0010-1