War of Ruz'kahni Survival
The War of Ruz'kahni Survival, known to the human power as the Secession War, was a series of interconnected armed conflicts in which most of the known galactic powers took part. There is some debate about its exact nature and length, but the most intense period of fighting occurred between UDC 1004 (human year 2809) and 1010 (2815).
Preface to War: Colonization
Initially located by Ruz'kahni Directorate scouts in the early 700s, the Voltker Zone was the target of the Sol-centered Galactic Coalition of Interstellar States colonization efforts in the 724 New Worlds initiative around the garden world of Voltker. Due to the surprising richness of the region, expansion was rapid and the Coalition would soon claim any worlds encountered, inhabited or not, as their own. Notable among these was Visra, home of the Lumii, a primitive people who had not yet invented steam engines when they were forcibly introduced to the stars. The Coalition Expansion moved until they were buttressed by the surprising resistance of the Dominion and the Caera-Leecii Transient tribes. Both of which were capable of resisting Coalition intrusion into their space.
The region grew stably with only occasional border skirmishes with the Hexians until the reappearance of the Stygian Abominable Intelligence in 978 throughout the voltker zone. Without need for deliberation, a defense action was authorized by Fahikh Valthi and the Directorate began conducting flash raids to eliminate Stygian agents and forces and to acquire what they may have been after from the civilian populace. These flash raids were in many cases poorly organized and modern reexamination by Directorate historians have reported that much of the effort was thwarted by the lack of direct central oversight. Piracy, aggressive boarding, arrests with little suspicion and occasional land-raids have been all documented during this period.
Stygian Infiltration
The Stygians activities in this early period appear are assumed to be intelligence gathering, cybernetic replacement of a few key individuals, and the creation of a number of technology-worshiping cults common in the region. Modern investigations are muddied by a number of factors, poor colonial record keeping, the disorganized response by young adventure-focused Ruz'kahni warriors, lost information during the War and while there are clear indications of espionage, assassinations and kidnappings, the Caera-Leeci, the Vae'Hex Dominion, Voltker Rebels and even the Visran sect Sarai's Light were all active in the area. and aiming to manipulate events in their favor.
First Phase: The Voltker Revolt
The next two decades saw little alteration to this effective Directorate intervention and oversight and settlers would petition the Coalition for aid, security and protection. Not just from the Stygians, but from the Directorate forces who had all but taken over policing and were ill fit for colonial defenses. Instead, the Coalition increased the level of colonial taxation according to their projected development timetable without accounting for the delays caused by the Stygian attacks and the presence of the Ruz'kahni Directorate Expeditionary Fleet. The result was large-scale unrest within the Voltker Zone, to which the Coalition responded by organizing a naval task force for deployment in the summer of 993. The RDEF was not immediately withdrawn, and the main concern of the Directorate forces remained anti-Stygian operations.
The Coalition task force was lost with all hands upon the sabotage and later destruction by the terrorist group Svoboda of the jump gate they were utilizing, marking their real-space location inside the gravity well of the Voltker moon of Aritoran, causing a catastrophic engine failure and impact. Various other Coalition ships began to converge upon the zone, having been the victims of successful mutinies or sympathetic commanding officers. It was only after this event that the RDEF was withdrawn. The colonial government consolidated its military and political power and declared itself the Federation of Voltker by the end of the year.
Federation of Voltker and its Aftermath
Voltker's independent government was a short lived experiment, a unification of the Union of Colonists, the Voltker People's Army, the Voltker Coalition Navy and the Order of the Silver Eagle, an alliance of aligned aristocratic houses with interests in the region. After its initial victory, political infighting left it weakened and a naive belief that the Coalition would not respond with force prevailed among the people. When the Coalition returned by the end of the year, it was a massive punitive strike that crushed the rebellion and enacted strict police-measures across the world.
The result was not a return to stability. Other colonial governments, throughout the neighboring White Belt and the Voltker zone protested these actions as unlawful interference. Of Particular note is The Holy See of Visra's successful coup against Coalition control in 999. A powerful force in this secessionist movement, the Solar Houses of the region began openly protesting the intervention as unlawful interference and a violation of the Democratic Rule of Law and the Free Association clause of the Coalition constitution.
Second Phase: Dawning of War
In the aftermath of the Voltker revolt and the gate-assault, the RDEF began to secure jump gates along interstellar lanes to prevent further attacks against neutral civilian infrastructure; it was assessed that there was a continued risk. This assessment was proven accurate when three further gates were destroyed by rebellious forces. The Lo-Shudai viewed the Directorate deployments as violations of their sovereignty, and officially recognized the former Federation of Voltker as legitimate and its surviving leaders as a government-in-exile in 999. Immediately after, the Lo-Shudai began annexxing the ostensibly Coalition Syrus Protectorates and numerous unaligned Outworlder-states. Distressing both the Coalition and Directorate. Response however were limited as Stygian attacks had broadened and began to affect core Directorate and Coalition territories, occupying much of the political focus of both powers. During this period, the Vae'hex Dominion and Caera-Leecii Transient Tribes had begun rapid militarization in secret with the now independent Holy See of Visra. Throughout the Voltker Zone and white belt, waves of revolts would seize planets and the Coalition Outworld Legion would focus much of its efforts on a series of lost-battles on the voltker front and found itself crippled by the conflict.
The Caera-Leecii Alliance
The Caera-Leecii and remnants of the Order of the Silver Eagle were instrumental in the organization of this initial wave of conflict, seeding joined agents throughout the Voltker Zone and White Belt to infiltrate key organizations, military and domestic. Organizing a far larger shadow rebellion than Coalition was at the time aware of. Unlike the scattered independence movements, the Alliance had a goal of a unified power and ensured these rebellions were not as independent as they seemed.
Third Phase: The War of Ruz'kahni Survival
The conflict turned into true war in 1004 when the Federation of the Phoenix was declared power-extent during the Revolt of Gustafson's World. Seizing on the imagery of the failed Voltker Federation as its inspiration, and using the phoenix, a mythological bird that is reborn after death in fire as its icon as a successor to the Order of Silver-Eagle, it was an alliance of the Caera-Leecii Transient Clans, the Lumii Holy See of Visra and the Hexian Imperial Vae’hex Dominion, as well as the Solar Great Houses: Augustiani, Ajnoria, Vauxneyll, Zuheda (Itself a former Directorate clan that joined the Coalition in the far-flung past), and Azdali. The revolts were massive and unified, and soon nearly the entire Voltker Zone was under control of this federation and open war with the Coalition had began. The Directorate had largely taken a supporting role in the conflict for the first 17 months. Logistical, intelligence, and security support were provided, but the active fighting was unfamiliar in nature and largely seen as an internal conflict; the Coalition was, after all, fighting its own citizens; the Federation was not and today remains unrecognized as a distinct, legitimate political entity by the Directorate.
This supporting role changed upon the entrance of the war of the Grand Tide in early 1005. Poliesu warfare, like Rokhandan warfare, places an emphasis on flash raiding. Unlike Rokhandan warfare, it also places emphasis on ferocity and obliteration of resistance and had little regard for casualties. The holy world of Cellen was targeted, as were several gates in Directorate space, before any declaration of war was made. Tens of thousands perished before any response could be made, and the Burning of Cellen is frequently remembered with grief, horror, and anger.
This direct attack was met with the formal entrance of the Ruz'kahni Directorate into a form of warfare that was new to it: total war. For the first time in its history: the Directorate instituted a draft; Directorate ships no longer prioritized the capture of a ship over its destruction; and attempts were made to cripple and destroy the Grand Tide's ability to make war. The ISTO fleets, primarily made up of Coalition and Directorate ships, swept through enemy space systematically and at great cost in lives and ships, and for every world taken, the horrific FTL attacks were made indiscriminately against both military and civilian targets belonging to the ISTO. This dynamic halted when the fortress-system of Praxis became part of the front line. Praxis was a central FTL junction and critical hub for Grand Tide. Several clans had over the course of the conflict developed a weaponized version of RRCT, known as GeCo. Fearing the cost of taking Praxis conventionally, these weapons were deployed without Directorate knowledge or authorization against Praxis, rendering all inhabitants dead in 1007. The clans responsible were disbanded and their leaders punished, and their names erased from history in disgrace.
The continued fight on the Poliesu-front required organization, and with growing hostilities across known space the ISTO was established in the weeks following Praxis. The typical form of the War of Ruz'kahni Survival to follow was for advanced RDEF ships to do the bulk of the fighting in space, and once planets were besieged, vatborn soldiers of the Coalition would invade en masse and serve as a garrison when the fleets continued on. This form of planet-hopping warfare was relentlessly effective, though nevertheless costly, and eventually the ISTO forces reached the Poliesu homeworld. Resistance was fiercest here, and only after months of siege and total war did the emperor of the Grand Tide surrender, specifically to Coalition forces in mid 1008.
Fighting continued, with the Coalition accepting the Republic of Ayun-Ji as a protectorate and utilizing the captured W-1 reserves. After the capitulation of the Grand Tide, RDEF focus shifted towards the Stygian Abominable Intelligence, and development of weaponry specialized for lethality against Thinking Machines was completed, and with them RDEF forces were able to make territorial gains and seize reserves of W-1 that had previously been unattainable. As the Federation began losing ground, they managed to obtain a Coalition RRCT Complex on the world of Marcion. Seeing its value, they extricated it through a series of military operations known as Project Starlight and by the end of 1008, had began mass-vatborne creation of their own.
Fourth Phase: The Shattering
The following year saw continued success from the newly formed ISTO, and the lines of battle saw the Federation pushed from the region known as the White Belt and a push towards Visra was undertaken by the Coalition. Considered symbolic, Visra's secession and casting off Coalition rule was a marked political point as their rejection of democracy in totality was seen as an insult to the GCIS' ideals. During this period, the Holy See of Visra was approached directly by their Stygian allies and given plans for a new weapon. The See, along with the rest of the Federation began to secretly construct the weapon and it was soon designated the FFS Fioletovyy, a warship of unique designs possessing a weapon able to target enemy fleets in the tempestuous realm of Jumpspace. As the war was turning against the Federation of the Phoenix, and when Visra itself was being assaulted by Coalition Forces in an event known as the Razing of Visra, the Patriarch of the Holy See, Seraph Alexander III, ordered his Lumii to fire the weapon.
The result was an event known as The Shattering. Jump-gates within 114 parsecs immediately failed and the nature of the hyper-space lanes altered. Ships in jumpspace failed to exit, exited unexpectedly, or at unintended destinations. Others flew out of control, their systems and power-systems failing or misfiring and collided with numerous worlds, causing immense damage. The region known as the White Belt was particularly effected and nearly all jump-computations altered. The fundamental nature of Jumpspace altered within the effected regions, leaving new paths to open, and old ones to fail. The death toll is considerable. While direct impacts resulted in millions dead from out-of-control vessels, the loss of logistics throughout the effected zones caused far greater and as to unknown losses of life.
Aftermath
The Federation of the Phoenix, having heavily altered its fleet to operate outside of Jump-gates and established nav-lanes during their rise managed to re-seize massive amounts of lost territory and was more capable of rebuilding their logistics than the Galactic Coalition, which had relied on these established lanes of infrastructure to maintain its empire. But its internal divisions were many, and many thought the civilian death toll was too great. Demand for reparations by the states of the Federation towards the Holy See of Visra led for what was seen as a unilateral unapproved usage of the weapon led to the exit of the See from the Federation by the end of 1010 as it was reformed under a military junta by the Supreme Commander of Navy.
The Sovereign Federation and the House Wars
Internal pressures in the young nation caused it to fracture, as the level of involvement of the Stygians began to be known, civilians openly revolted. Similarly its Solar Houses engaged in clandestine war against one another, and the Junta was shattered by 1016. A period of unrest followed before it was reorganized in the wake of the event known as the House Wars between the years 1017 and 1019. During this period House Vauxneyll and House Ajnoria began open-conflict across Federation space, Vauxneyll's aggression reaching a height when the lesser house Allaldyn was almost completed eradicated. Upon suffering a defeat, the need for a new, unified Federation was clear to all. After a three month deliberation, massive political reforms transformed the Federation under a new, unified, civilian government. They would re-unite with the Holy See of Visra and was rechristened as The Sovereign Federation by the end of 1019.
In Retrospect
Ten years since the ceasefire, things remain politically uncertain. Directorate space was furthest from the regions most affected by the Shattering, and the devastation was somewhat ameliorated due to the fact that some Directorate FTL drives don't require the use of jump-lanes. The broad (but not universal) consensus is that the ISTO, despite making gains at the time of the end of hostilities, was the losing side, with the Coalition in particular having lost a large amount of its territory and logistics structure without having made major gains (with the notable exception of the Ayun-Ji Republic). Many regard the war as an unnecessary tragedy born of dysfunctional foreign policy, and the Directorate's close relation with the Solar government is being questioned by the Houyani and Celleni political blocs as peace talks continue to drag on a decade later.
