Galactic Civil War

The Galactic Civil War, often referred to as the Coalition War or the 45 Years War, was a series of conflicts involving the Eastern Coalition against the Eracustan Alliance. Lasting from year 0 to year 45 ACW, the conflict was caused by a joint Coalition effort to cripple both the Crimson Armada and Galactic Concordat, who (according to the Torons) were preventing expansion. From 19 to 21 ACW, the Third Reaver Crusade also took place, which was a rare time when both Alliance and Coalition forces occasionally fought together against the Reavers.

The cause of the war was initiated when an Armadian Scout Patrol, Fleet Section 4-6, was present in the neutral system of Vytal, part of a chain of systems that were agreed upon by the Toron Empire and the Armada as a buffer zone years prior. However, a Toron voidfleet mistakenly assumed Vytal as a Toron-owned system, and believed that the Armadian force present was an act of invasion.

The Toron Empire had planned to launch an offensive into the Armada a few years later, involving a build-up of voidships and divisions to match or overpower the Armada. The resulting war caused the Toron Empire to fight with far less than what was planned.

After a brief battle in Vytal, and a larger one in Canara, the Armada-Toron border was heavily fortified and patrolled by voidfleets on both sides. Then the Arien Ascension launched their own offensive into Concordat space, who were still neutral at the time, simply named by the Alliance as "the Western Offensive". At this point, the Armada initiated a Blitzkrieg into Toron space, but was soon halted due to the VSC's use of Void-Space Nullifier technology.

What then followed was a painstakingly long "siege" of Toron and Arien space, which lasted from 14 ACW until the war's end. Mass famine in the Toron Empire led to a Communist Revolution that successfully overthrown the government and finally brought an end to the grueling war.

Background
The causes of the Galactic Civil War can be traced back in the 50 years leading up to it, simply known as the Pre-Civil War Period. This period was marked by a build-up of Armadian forces and territories, the consolidation of the Galactic Concordat, and the goals of the Toron Empire and Arien Ascension.

Before the Concordat's formation, its territories were former independent colonies, planets and systems that have been settled by species of all types, but mainly humans. The Toron Empire had planned to consolidate some of these territories for their own, particularly near their western border. It's still unclear if the Toron Empire wanted to vassalize these independent states, or just take them over entirely.

Nevertheless, when the Concordat eventually formed, the Toron Empire despised its existence, since they could no longer take over the now united colonies without angering the Concordat and the Armada. Thus, the Toron Empire did two things to gain an advantage. The first was a secretive build-up of massive fleets to match and/or overpower both the Concordat and Armada. The second was to form a loose alliance with both the Arien Ascension and Void-Space Corporation.

Like the Toron Empire, the Arien Ascension was also looking to expand to spread their dogmatic religious beliefs. The Arien ruling class believed it was their divine right to conquer and spread the word of their gods to all the galaxy. So they begrudgingly accepted the alliance offer that the Toron Empire sent to them, as it sought to help out the Ariens. As for the VSC, they thought they could make a significant profit by manufacturing HZ-Drives for the new combined Toron fleet, since they were the largest commercial producer of HZ-Drives at the time. Thus, the VCS happily accepted the alliance offer sent to them.

The Concordat and Crimson Armada were wary of this development, so they themselves allied together to form the Eracustan Alliance. The seeds of war were sown, and it only needed one spark to ignite the pile...

0-2 ACW (The Phony War)
The first shots of the war were fired when a Toron voidfleet jumped right onto an Armadian Patrol Fleet, Fleet Section 4-6, and subsequently crippled them. The Patrol Fleet retreated to the Canara system from Vytal, where it was reinforced by the 4th Battlefleet of the Armadian Navy, led by Admiral Seth Faulknen. The Toron voidfleet, chasing the Patrol Fleet, were unexpectedly met with the 4th Battlefleet, thus initiated the Battle of Canara. After hours of fighting, the Toron voidfleet was severly crippled to about a fifth of its original size, and retreated to Imperial space.

While retreating, the Toron voidfleet was near-constantly being attacked as the 4th Battlefleet tracked and jumped in on the voidfleet every time the Toron HZ-Drives were offline and recharging. The 4th Battlefleet used this tactic until the Toron voidfleet finally returned to Imperial space, where the 4th Battlefleet stayed on the border in Armadian space. The next two years involved failed diplomacy attempts, border skirmishes, and border mobilization and defense on both sides. Armadian defense implacements and more numerous patrol fleets took form on the border, and the Toron Empire did the same.

No offensive decisions were made by either side during the two year period known as the "Phony War". The Crimson Armada still maintained a defensive doctrine when it came to fleet organization and tactics. The Toron Empire were not ready for war, and were defending the border while the dockyards and war factories could get to work.

2-9 ACW (The Western Offensive)
In order to break the Armadian defense, the Coalition agreed to go around the Armadian border by going through Concordat space. They would accomplish this using a mixture of Toron, VSC, and (primarily) Arien voidships and fleets. The Concordat at this point had a neutral stance on the war, opting to stay out of it. That would soon not matter as the combined Coalition fleet was spotted inside Concordat space, extremely close to the Sedaurus system which was only 150 lightyears away from the border. Despite this, the fleet had not engaged in combat in those systems, they were just simply passing through.

The Concordat sent multiple messages to the Coalition to stand down and turn back, none of them got a reply. So the Concordat voted unanimously to send their own fleets to try and sort this out peacefully. Once the Concordat fleets arrived, however, the Coalition fleet opened fire upon them, sparking the massive Battle of Lorien. The battle involved nearly two days of fighting across two massive fleets, each around 10,000 voidships strong.

The ultimate result of the Battle of Lorien was a Pyrrhic Allied Victory, after both forces were reduced to a fourth of their size, and the Coalition fleet retreated back to their allied space. Soon after, two other Coalition fleets moved into Concordat space to try and get through the Armadian line. The Concordat, with help from the Armada, assembled three fleets to meet the Coalition fleets. In time, one Allied fleet and one Coalition fleet met in the Ferrusiak system, while the other two Allied fleets met with the other Coalition fleet near the Halcyon Nebula. This sparked the subsequent Battles of Ferrusiak and Halcyon Nebula, respectively.

9-14 ACW (Armadian Blitzkrieg)
By the time the Western Offensive had been finally dealt with, Grand Admiral Bacara of the Crimson Armada launched a blitzkrieg into Toron space, dubbed "Operation Dammerung". The subsequent systems and worlds that stood in the Armada's path, such as Yesbin and Cori Macri, and thier garrisonned forces, did little to slow the Armada's crushing advance. The Armada did not partake to land planetary invasions during Operation Dammerung, instead limiting combat to space as much as possible. Planets and their governors either surrendered, fled or (rarely) openly accepted the Armadian fleets.

Surrender and Peace Treaty
The territorial changes involved the Olienmar Sector being ceded to the Galactic Concordat from the Toron Empire, and Toron worlds to the Galactic Southwest to be liberated as independent systems and planets. Otherwise, all other borders were to return to their Pre-Civil War form.