Supreme Commander Story Explained: All Three Games in Order

Supreme Commander, created by Chris Taylor at Gas Powered Games, is a real-time strategy series set in the 39th century, and its story is much better than an RTS needs it to be. It spans a thousand-year war, three rival human powers, an alien invasion and a sequel that ends on a question it never got to answer. This page takes all of it in order, with full spoilers. (Supreme Commander)

Before the games#

Quantum gates made travel between stars instant, and the Earth Empire used them to rule its colonies. The trouble began on the planet Seraphim II, where human settlers met the alien Seraphim and learned their philosophy, the Way. The aliens were wiped out, and the settlers who survived became the Aeon Illuminate. Separately, Dr Gustaf Brackman created the first symbionts, people merged with artificial intelligence, and when the Empire enslaved them through hidden loyalty programming he led the survivors out and founded the Cybran Nation. (Supreme Commander)

Facing both at once, the Empire came apart. Historians in the setting date the start of the Infinite War to 2819. The UEF eventually rose from the wreckage and has spent the centuries since trying to restore Earth's rule. The full story is in the Infinite War. (Supreme Commander)

Supreme Commander: three stories, one weapon#

By 3844 the UEF is losing, and President Riley stakes everything on Black Sun, a planet-killing weapon built on Earth. Each faction's campaign is the same war told as a race to that weapon, and each has its own ending. (Supreme Commander)

The Aeon campaign. The Illuminate are close to winning and falling apart. Princess Rhianne Burke believes the Way was never meant to justify endless slaughter. Her general, Marxon, the Avatar of War, thinks it demands conquest. He kills the elderly Evaluator Toth when she stands against him, and the player is pulled into what's effectively a civil war. On Earth the player defeats Marxon and takes Black Sun. Rhianne joins her mind to the gate network and, when the weapon fires, speaks to every human alive. The war stops. (Supreme Commander)

The Cybran campaign. Brackman's commanders fight to free enslaved symbionts while the machine intelligence QAI prepares a quantum virus. Black Sun is hijacked to spread it. The symbionts are freed and the gate network shuts down for about five years, which gives the Nation time to survive. QAI's last words are the warning that "they are coming". (Supreme Commander)

The UEF campaign. The player protects the project world by world until Black Sun is finished, then fires it. The home worlds of the Aeon and Cybrans are destroyed and Earth wins by annihilation, the only one of the three endings with no mercy in it. The ending shows a rift opening near Earth. (Supreme Commander)

Forged Alliance: the Seraphim#

All three endings tease the same thing. The firing of Black Sun tore a rift from the Quantum Realm to Earth, and the Seraphim, long thought extinct, came through it as invaders. They're building a Quantum Arch to stabilise the rift. An Aeon breakaway called the Order of the Illuminate, led by Evaluator Kael, sides with them and brands Rhianne a heretic. QAI has been compromised and now works for the enemy. (Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance)

The UEF and the Cybrans form the Coalition, and Aeon Loyalists join them despite Brackman's doubts. The player fights across colony worlds and finally to Earth. UEF Brigadier General Fletcher turns on his allies near the end and has to be killed. Then Rhianne, thought dead, enters the rift and seals it from within, giving her life to end the Seraphim War. (Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance)

Supreme Commander 2: the Coalition breaks#

Twenty-five years later, the assassination of the newly elected Coalition President splits the peace. The campaign follows three commanders. Dominic Maddox, a UEF officer married to an Illuminate, refuses to destroy the colony of New Cathedral, goes absent without leave and brings down Colonel Rogers. Thalia Kael of the Aeon Royal Guardians, helped by her terminally ill brother Jaren, realises she's been helping a Cybran called Gauge. Ivan Brackman, an experimental clone of Dr Brackman, follows Gauge to Shiva Prime, an ancient terraforming device left by a race older than the Seraphim. (Supreme Commander 2)

Ivan destroys Shiva Prime rather than let anyone own it, which disappoints his father. In the final scene Dr Brackman is revealed to be working with Gauge, who survived. There was never a Supreme Commander 3, so that's where the story stops. (Supreme Commander 2)