Member State Conflicts in the Federation: The War of the Sun and Moon on Assiettes VI

Author: MantelGlobalIndustries

Original post: https://forums.eveonline.com/t/yc125-necwc-member-state-conflicts-in-the-federation-the-war-of-the-sun-and-moon-on-assiettes-vi/407776

Entry for YC125 New Eden Capsuleer’s Writing Contest in the Academic/News/Gossip category.

Assiettes VI
Authored by Edward Adams
Commander
Nadire Security Consultants
Federation Peacekeepers

Introduction

For centuries, the Federated Union of Gallente Prime (The Gallente Federation) has stood as the guardian of peace, goodwill, and tranquillity amongst its member states and citizenry. The defence of human life and emphasis on the respect of the rights of all mankind stand at the forefront of the Federation and those ideals are encouraged to be considered at all levels of governance from the Senate of the Federation to the member state governments that compose the Union. The Union has the mandate of facilitating peaceful interstellar expansion so that all can benefit from a stable and secure environment to better advance the human condition and standard of living – and it is this that has drawn so many to agree to the terms of the Charter and Constitution and to accept their responsibilities towards the Federation and that of their neighbours, least of all their own populations under their charge.

Unfortunately, there have been several incidents in the history of the Federation where a member state has chosen not to resolve their grievances through dialogue and negotiation with their peers, but through violence and conflict to forcibly impose their will upon them. That war should break out between member states is a failure of the Federal system itself, as the system is intended to substantially reduce the likelihood of conflict through bringing member states closer together and through active avenues of resolution. One of the most infamous examples of this was the Steroyne Arcologies War on Aice III, fought between a myriad mix of Federal Union peacekeepers, corporate sector security forces, and insurgent paramilitaries.

This article will focus on a conflict during the Century of Peace that was fought between my member state of residency the Northern Colonial Commonwealth, and its neighbour and chief rival on the continent of Fryskland, the Grand Republic of the Radiant Sun in YC88, known as the War of the Sun and Moon. The war was short, but bloody, as it was primarily fought over the desire of each member state to expand into resource rich areas that had not been claimed by either party. A secondary cause for the conflict was the ever-present distrust between the two member states stemming from historic attitudes between the ethnic composition of the Commonwealth and the Republic.

The purpose of this article is not to condemn or to praise one side at the expense of the other, despite my personal citizenship in the Commonwealth, but to bring to the public eye an era of my member state’s history that is not widely known outside of certain Federal circles and the Nadire District.

The Prelude to War:

In the decades after the Interstellar War came to an end in FC127 (YC12), there was a significant population increase on the planet, primarily due to the influx of Minmatar and Mannar immigrants that sought new beginnings in Sinq Laison. Many of their number settled and established their own member states on the uninhabited western coast of continental Fryskland that had been ignored by the Northern Colonial Commonwealth. These member states rejected integration into the Commonwealth and instead coalesced into their own alliance known as the Grand Republic of the Radiant Sun, its name taken from the common practice of their citizens worshipping the sun as a deity.

Initially welcoming of the newcomers, the Commonwealth soon developed a fierce rivalry with the Grand Republic over the course of several decades. The Commonwealth saw the Republic as a threat to its historic economic and political dominance of Fryskland, whilst the Republic government viewed the Commonwealth with suspicion, in part due to its prominent ethnic Caldari population. According to the Mannar, the Caldari State was suspected to be the culprits behind the Doa de Kabar during the Interstellar War, the Mannar name for the devastation of their home-world following the extinction of a keystone species that led to a rapid collapse of its environment. As such, the Mannar became fervently in favour of the war effort against the State, viewing them as enemies of humanity and bolstering the Federal Armed Forces through mass enlistment. This perception of the State sometimes bled over to the ethnic Caldari themselves, with infrequent incidents between the Mannar and the Caldari that remained loyal to the Federation persisting throughout the Interstellar War. Whilst this feeling has dissipated over the century of peace following the conclusion of the Interstellar War, and with the acknowledgement of the significant contributions of loyal Federal Caldari to the Federation and its war effort by Mannar leaders, it does regrettably linger to this day in some circles.

In the years before the war broke out, several minor incidents occurred between the Commonwealth and the Republic, primarily clashes between their police and customs forces around the distant border on the coastal regions. A new era of expansion across the Fryskland continent was beginning, with both sending pioneer expeditions into previously unclaimed territory lying between the two member states. Invariably these expeditions were accompanied by private security contractors or detachments of national police or army personnel, and encounters were inevitably had between settlers that reached their destinations, only to find that they were preempted by a thriving village or township. Not all these encounters were peaceful, and one tragic episode would lead to a rapid deterioration of relations and ultimately to war.

Recognising the potential for a conflict to occur, several arms concerns made a point of offering their wares to each government. This, coupled with the tensions noted above, eventually led to an arms race developing. Some of the more notable acquisitions made were the procurement of aerial assault ships and aircraft carriers, inspired by the prevalent use of airships for commercial trade in Fryskland and the historical effectiveness of their armoured ancestors during the Airship Wars on Gallentia. These war machines boasted robust protection in the form of Osmium-alloy plate, hard-hitting coil-gun batteries suitable for aerial combat and gunfire support for tactical bombardment, as well as the endurance for long-range patrols across the enormous geography of Fryskland. In the space of five years, two rival fleets were developed, tested, and used to ‘fly the flag’ over contested territories. Defence companies were all too ready to offer their wares in an era of cutthroat business activities to secure Federal and District contracts, seeing the potential for a war as an ideal showcase for the efficacy of their products.

The Conflict Begins:

The proximate cause of the War of the Sun and Moon was the Coextal Incident in December YC87, in which a confrontation between settler parties in the disputed territories turned violent. Ultimately, a shootout occurred between Republican Civil Guardians and Colonial Gendarmes responding to distress calls with numerous casualties suffered, some fatal. Diplomatic relations reached an all-time low following this with both the Commonwealth and Republic levying accusations of having engineered the confrontation as a casus belli against each other. The crisis further escalated when the Republic ordered a mobilisation of the Grand Army of the Republic, followed by the Commonwealth Colonial Armed Forces. Conflict monitors of the Nadire Federal District were unable to respond in time before the Republic Senate issued a proclamation in January YC88 denouncing the provocations of the Commonwealth, declaring the time of the Commonwealth’s pre-eminence to be at an end and announcing the formal declaration of hostilities against the Commonwealth with immediate effect.

The Commonwealth Parliament immediately reciprocated with their own declaration of war after consultation with the First Minister in an emergency session. From staging locations along the border, the Commonwealth immediately launched an assault into Republic territory with an armoured battlegroup, which was routed through a defence-in-depth strategy. The Republic withdrew from the frontier, allowing them to advance under constant harassment from Republic scouting parties until such time as the Commonwealth supply lines became overextended. A swift Republican counter-offensive utilising their Aerospace Fleet achieved the partial encirclement of the battlegroup and compelled a retreat, with significant material losses suffered by the Commonwealth.

Several further attempts by the Commonwealth Army to break the stalemate and regain the initiative were blunted by the Republic, limiting efforts to maintain the frontline in a war that was increasingly being decided by manoeuvre. It would be the Republic that would take the opportunity to invade the Commonwealth further in a series of operations that they hoped would compel the latter’s capitulation and ensure their own ascendancy over Fryskland and Assiettes VI.

The Starfall:

What would eventually become the deciding battle of the War of the Sun and Moon would not take place in the capital city of a conquered foe, amidst devastated buildings and scourged works of man, but instead it would occur in the skies above what is now known as the Verbrannter Wüste, a vast stretch of plains interspersed with hilly terrain to the east of the Commonwealth’s territory and close to the disputed central territories. This isolated area was the site of a showdown between Commonwealth Air Force and Naval Aviation squadrons and the Republic Aerospace Fleet in March YC88, the clash above the desolate plains involving hundreds of aircraft, and a vast majority of each side’s airborne capital ships being committed to battle.

The leadership of the Commonwealth Armed Forces came to the realisation that the Grand Army of the Republic would at some point attempt an all-out assault on the Commonwealth, encouraged by their successes against Commonwealth attempts at dislodging Republic forces entrenched in the disputed territories and the weakened state of the Commonwealth Army. The opportunity was not lost on the Republic, flush with high morale after their string of victories stunting the offensive operations made by the Commonwealth and eager to prove their superiority.

A counter-offensive was planned by the Republic General Staff to strike the Commonwealth city of Hekelentia, one of the founding ‘First Five’, to seize it for use as a staging ground for further operations. This was code-named Operation Half-Moon, with subsequent planned operations for the seizure of the Commonwealth’s orbital elevator at Voltenville and an assault on the capital of Rhamnus code-named Stellar Eclipse and Lunar Eclipse respectively. Under the command of Admiral Freyrsten, the majority of the Republic Aerospace Fleet was mobilised under the single formation Assault Group Solar to act as a spearhead to Hekelentia, with the objective of breaking through the Commonwealth defensive perimeter and bombarding the city into submission. Once this was achieved, a supporting force of requisitioned civilian airships would follow in their wake to ferry Grand Army of the Republic ground forces to fortify Hekelentia for the prosecution of Operation Stellar Eclipse.

Fortunately for the Commonwealth, their Intelligence services had managed to partially decipher Republic codes and were actively monitoring military communications traffic. Though the Commonwealth leadership required convincing, especially as a proposed interception by the Commonwealth Air Force and Navy assets left other areas undefended, they were eventually swayed through the chance to draw the Republic into a battle of annihilation that could turn the tide of the war. By the time that the Republic armada was underway towards the Commonwealth, they were already being tracked by the latter, with their own squadrons mobilised to intercept.

The Republic Aerospace Fleet crossed the border without hindrance, bombarding several picket outposts and outlying settlements on their approach to Hekelentia. As this was occurring, the joint task force of the Commonwealth Air Force and Navy was being vectored in to intercept Assault Group Solar at best speed, eventually coming head-to-head against each other above the Verbrannter Wüste in the early hours of the morning. They had the advantage of the element of surprise through relentless utilisation of electronic warfare to interfere with the Republic’s long-range sensors, coupled with running silent in the night sky. This concealed the approach of the Commonwealth’s fleet until the last moment, in which a co-ordinated volley strike blew apart the vanguard of the Aerospace Fleet, destroying several assault ships outright and sending their flaming wrecks careening to earth.

With the element of surprise gone, the Commonwealth Fleet launched aircraft and sought to take advantage of the chaos and confusion in the Republic ranks to inflict more devastation. Admiral Freyrsten, to his credit, managed to impose order over the Fleet and ordered Assault Group Solar to close distance with the Commonwealth ships. A brutal melee developed between the capital ships of the fleet and a furball of fighter craft amid it all. Despite their initial advantage, it would not be long before the Commonwealth experienced casualties, their vessels erupting in spectacular globes of fire that illuminated their descent to earth. For the survivors on the ground emerging from their wrecked ships, it was akin to stars falling from the heavens, which gave the battle its common moniker.

After several hours of being engaged and with severe losses mounting, Admiral Freyrsten called for the mauled Assault Group Solar to withdraw from the battlefield to prevent a total defeat. To protect the retreating ships, he requested a rear-guard formation to conduct a delaying action against the pursuing Commonwealth vessels. One such vessel was the heavily damaged RAS Sunspear, under the command of Commander-Captain Nils Ingstad. Knowing the Sunspear would never make the return journey, Commander-Captain Ingstad committed his ship to a ramming action against the lead Commonwealth pursuer, the assault carrier CAV Silver Moon. Charging forwards with all batteries firing, the Sunspear ploughed into the Silver Moon, causing both to crash after their propulsion systems overcompensated. The final valiant action of the Sunspear and her captain, coupled with the loss of the Silver Moon, discouraged the Commonwealth from pursuing their Republic adversaries allowing them to complete their withdrawal.

Although the Commonwealth claimed victory against the Republic in the Starfall, preventing the fall of Hekelentia and enjoying a 2:1 kill ratio in their favour, they were unable to press the advantage that they had now secured. The Air Force and Navy did not walk away unscathed as despite having devastated the GRAF, over a fifth of the Commonwealth’s combat fleet was destroyed or damaged beyond repair, and another third requiring extensive repairs that effectively put those ships out of action for months. In addition, the enormous bloodshed suffered by both sides, on scales not seen since the Interstellar War during the State occupation of Assiettes, convinced many in the Commonwealth to reduce the tempo of offensive operations accordingly. This attitude was mirrored by Republican officials, and a tacit truce was observed with no further strategic operations being launched by either side.

The hulks of the once mighty fleets remain where they fell to earth to this day, preserved by the arid climate, as the location is far too remote to salvage them economically. The most famed of the crash sites is the wreckage of the CAV Silver Moon and the RAS Sunspear, the two assault carriers that rammed each other during the battle, with their resting places visited by tourists from across the Nadire Federal District. The site of the Starfall has been protected as a heritage site by the Commonwealth Ministry of Culture and the Societies, and the wrecks themselves are designated as war graves, although that has not prevented ‘wildcat’ salvagers from picking over the fallen stars searching for valuable material from time to time.

The End of the War:

The massive loss of life caused by such wholesale destruction in The Starfall did not go unnoticed by the Federation, having been made aware of the conflict by independent reports published on GalNet and through conflict reports submitted by the Nadire Federal District Parliament. After careful review of the facts on the ground and, considerate of the mutually observed truce by the belligerent parties, the Federation elected to intervene in the War of the Sun and Moon via the deployment of a peace-keeping force. A Federal Marines Expeditionary Force Unit was dispatched to establish a cordon sanitaire in the contested territories between the Commonwealth and the Republic, reinforced with a Federal Administration diplomatic mission to both member states with the objective of securing a ceasefire.

The Federation’s decision to directly intervene in the affairs of the member states, a rare occurrence in a peacetime Federation, was also driven by the notification of the discovery by the Nadire Federal District of a previously unknown and uncontacted native population that resided within the contested territories, an event that automatically triggered Federal first contact protocols. A pre-industrial nomadic civilisation, known as the Bes’aie, lived unnoticed by the Commonwealth or the Republic resided within the contested territories being fought over, with their ancestral lands roughly falling within the boundaries of the Commonwealth and Republic claims, and the Federation saw the conflict as a threat to their survival. Federal law automatically gives citizenship to all uncontacted or native civilisations falling within its territory, and mandates that they shall be guaranteed the same rights of all citizens.

The Peacekeepers did not experience much combat during their deployment, as both sides had experienced too much loss of life for any real desire to continue the conflict outside of hardliners, who were quickly pushed to the political side-line. Ultimately, very little in the way of further battles or encounters occurred, and the Federal Administration was successful in exploiting the mutual trust and respect in the Federal Union that the Commonwealth and the Republic had in convincing both to agree a formal armistice and subsequent Treaties of Rhamnus and Tlacity in May YC88. The peace treaties were guaranteed through ongoing Federal conflict monitoring oversight and the establishment of a demilitarised protective zone over most of the former contested territory.

This protective barrier eventually delineated the borders of the future Bes’aie member state, the Confederation of the Bes’aie Hosts. Relations between the Commonwealth and the Bes’aie are centred primarily on the resource trade, with the latter officially declaring neutrality to avoid aligning too closely with either of the dominant powers on Fryskland. External transitional aid from the Federation as part of an ‘uplift’ process to prepare the Bes’aie for ascension to member state status transformed their society, although many still cling to their pre-first contact ways and roam the steppes of the Verbrannter Wüste to this day. The Confederation’s neutrality and territorial integrity is further bolstered by the continued presence of a garrison of Federal Peacekeepers with the consent of the Host leadership, albeit much reduced in number from the war-time years.

Although the Hosts continue to express neutrality up to the present day, this has had the unintended result of the Confederation becoming a hotbed of espionage activity between the intelligence agencies of the Commonwealth and the Republic. The alleged and proven activities of the spies operating in the Confederation have provided more than enough material for a litany of holoseries and published novels over the decades since the conclusion of the War.

Despite tensions having significantly reduced since the conclusion of the War and the Sun and Moon, they have never truly disappeared. Extremist groups acting on their own accord carried out numerous acts of terror against the military and civilian population in the decade after the treaties were signed, groups that were readily condemned and suppressed by both sides eager to keep the peace. Fringe political parties and lobbyist groups, often founded and led by the ageing veterans of the conflict, attempt to influence the population and politics of the day with varying degrees of success.

However, these groups do not reflect the prevailing belief that there really is no genuine desire for a resumption of hostilities. Most of the new generation of Commonwealth and Republic citizens do not share the same animosity as the previous, with the main point of contention having been removed with the establishment of the Confederation. Economic co-operation following the peace treaties led to closer ties, nurtured by Federal negotiators, which they hoped in theory would reduce the chance of further conflict. Most prominently, both the Commonwealth Colonial Armed Forces and the Grand Army of the Republic united under the planetary defence initiative when Assiettes was the target of the Triglavian Collective during the Invasion Era of YC122. The former foes combined their efforts to protect Fryskland in the ultimately unsuccessful Triglavian effort – a watershed moment that did not go unnoticed by either side or the Federation.

Speaking as an immigrant to the Commonwealth and effectively an outsider to the conflict, the resolution affirms my faith in the Federation as the ultimate peacemaker between the member states in times of crisis. That said, the Federation failed to prevent the conflict, only responding after a climactic battle with enormous loss of life. The Federal District failed to appropriately intervene through the inability of their conflict monitors to detect and initiate de-escalation protocols. These failures constitute hard lessons for the Federation and the District, as if they both acted more proactively, it could have been possible to prevent the bloodshed that was wrought here. A failure to learn from these mistakes could prove equally as disastrous in the future with the next flashpoint.