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.

By the end of the longest and bloodiest war in recent history, the final casualty toll was measured to be 17.2 billion dead, both military personnel and civilians.

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 longest space battle since the Lance Incursion. 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 brutal campaign 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 garrisoned 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.

For the five years of the "Armadian Blitzkreig" stage of the war, Toron, Arien and even VSC fleets practically threw themselves at the advancing Armadian line, and failing most of the time. Soon after the first year of Operation Dammerung, the combined Coalition Navy had lost nearly half of its entire fleet strength, accounting for most of the Coalition losses during the war. The Coalition was desperate for any chance to slow the advancing Allied line, and they thus turned to Voidspace Nullifiers, devices that could nullify the operation of any voidspace-capable space ship from traversing star systems. The Arien Ascension proclaimed the Allied invaders as the devils and the chaos that had been warned about in their dogmatic religion, rallying nearly every Arien to either fight on the front lines or work in factories for the war effort.

14-44 ACW (Toron-Arien Siege)
The final segment of the war was the longest and most exhausting for both parties, lasting a total of 30 years. This was due to a number of factors, but the major factor involved the activation of hundreds of Voidspace Nullifiers, devices that deactivated HZ-Drives before and even during traveling via Voidspace, along the frontline by the Coalition, halting the furious success of Operation Dammerung. For a few months, the Allied line stood still as they were trying to discover a way around the massive "barrier", but there was none. All the while joint Allied High Command were planning a way to counteract this change in the war. Attrition was also a major factor that neither side had prepared for, as the "line" had received an incredible amount of pressure due to the supply lines servicing such a wide front.

Now, HZ-Drives at the time only had a range of about 30-50 lightyears maximum, Voidspace Nullifiers covered an area of 25 lightyears in diameter, and the core of the Toron Empire and Arien Ascension were hundreds of lightyears from the frontline. Eventually, a new plan was forged to go outside the galactic plane in order to go around the barrier of null, which was dangerous considering that nothing existed beyond the galactic plane and assistance is hard to reach. Nevertheless, "Operation Umerrand" was put into action, involving two Battlefleets traversing 50 lightyears beyond the galactic plane before going in again. The operation succeeded in breaking the Nullifier place upon the world of Gaza Jhul, opening a hole in the frontline that the Armada used feverously.

Seeing this development, the Toron Empire enacted a order that would cripple his own Empire, he activated more Voidspace Nullifiers in the path that lead directly to Rhedeus, the capital. This was a detrimental move to the Toron Empire, as its own voidspace-capable ships transporting logistics and consumer goods had ceased, and all worlds in the wake of this that are not self-sustaining quickly fell to famine, disease and rioting.

19-21 ACW (Third Reaver Crusade)
In the 19th year of the War, various Reaver Tribes made their hostile migration and raiding attacks on the VSC, Toron Empire, Arien Ascension and Galactic Concordat. Against this threat, a temporary cease-fire was agreed upon by both sides so that they can each deter the greater threat. The following two years saw battles against Reaver Clans and Tribes and even a few battles where fleets and armies from former opposing sides fought alongside one another.

The cease-fire did not last long and by 21 ACW, the war had resumed in intensified all along the line.

Surrender and Outcome
One year after civil strife and internal conflicts raged within the former Toron Empire, the leader of the de-facto revolutionary government, Alexy Rohn, offered the surrender of Coalition forces, shortly followed by the Arien Ascension's own societal collapse and unconditional surrender. The VSC wanted to stay out of the peace talks, preferring to stay neutral, but intense intimidation from the Grand Admiral of the Crimson Armada said otherwise.

The surrender took place in the Vytal system, where the conflict originally began 45 years ago, where members of the four nations came together peacefully (the Ascension was so fragmented that a central government representing the former nation ceased to exist). After a three-days discussion, the surrender was finalized and the Treaty of Vytal was signed.

The Treaty of Vytal restored the borders of the Toron Empire, the Galactic Concordat and the Crimson Armada to the pre-2 BCW borders with a few exceptions. 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. A small fine of 10 million Concordian credits were to be paid to the Concordat from the new government of the former Toron Empire (which at this time became the Toronian Socialist Soviet Republic).

Additionally, the formation of the Solar Alliance Treaty Organization (SATO) was created as a defensive pact against external and internal threats. The TSSR was initially a member-state of SATO but soon left as it formed the later USSP. Many veterans of the war, who fought from its earliest days, were now either in their middle ages, or have been retired. In some cases, one would be fighting in the war long enough to see their own son or daughter to start fighting in it as well. The Galactic Civil War would have long-lasting effects for both sides, worlds of former battle sites and sieges, and even the civilians held up in the crossfire.

As of 231 ACW, the Galactic Civil War has been a somewhat faded memory, fantasized in stories and learning institutions, but in the minds of many it is a recent and mind-crushing event that leaves lasting effects on the mind.