War of the Decamillenial Transition
May 17, 19804
October 26, 20386
The War of the Decamillenial Transition, also known as the First Intergalactic War, was a major intergalactic war lasting for nearly 600 years in the turn of the 21st millennium taking place entirely within the Via Sagittaria Galaxy and its satellites. It involved the majority of nations in and around the galaxy. The war was a period of Total War, meaning that the entirety of fighting nation's resources were devoted to the conflict. Civilian targets were attacked as though they were legitimate targets and there were no restrictions on the weapons used. It is estimated that almost 5 quintillion casualties occured.
Most consider the war to have started with the initial assault against The Empyrean by the Yohjan Confederacy. The YoC had an expansionist policy for several millennia before this, starting because the YoC was unable to pay off debts, and had to pay those they owed with systems rather than with money. Soon after the assault of The Empyrean, several dozen states in and around the Via Sagittaria, such as the Lowuks Entente declared war on the YoC out of fear for their own safety. The war soon became a multi-front war, with the YoC's allies, such as Shev'ra, versus most of the other nations in and around Via Sagittaria, referred to as the Local Axis. The war also saw the succession of Dotskgard as well as several other states within the YoC.
The War ended when the Yohjan Confederacy surrendered due to large amounts of internal strife. The YoC was not losing by any means, the military was as powerful as it has ever been, it was the internal affairs that collapsed. The YoC had to sue for peace, giving large number of systems to the enemies and promised to shrink its military, however, the nation collapsed before it could transfer these systems to its enemies.
The war is one of the main causes of the Split of the Yohjan Confederacy as well as general stagnation in the galaxy. The enemies of the YoC were badly damaged during the war. They had to focus their resources on reconstruction rather than expansion. The War of the Decamillennial Transition was a loss for all that participated.
Background
The YoC
The YoC had begun a policy of rapid expansion in about ten thousand CE. The federal government of the nation had large debts from the chronic mismanagement of funds that plagued the nation since its inception. They owed more money than they could possibly pay off to various wealthy individuals and banks. When their debts came due, they had no way to pay off this money. With no other options afforded to them, they had to replace their debts with the rights to star systems. When they ran out of systems, they had to expand to keep up. They sent billions of probes into the galaxy that would automatically colonize systems around the Via Sagittaria and flag them for ownership by the entities they owed.
This began a policy of expansion that did not stop until the war began. Given the way the YoC was set up, it was simply easier to expand into new systems than it was to reform the government. The main issue with this strategy was the difficulty in maintaining sovereignty over these areas. Large numbers of systems suddenly coming under the control of the nation strained its resources. Many smaller civilizations found themselves having to fight off these probes or face the destruction of their planet.
The Empyrean
Hailing from the Florescence Dwarf Galaxy, The Empyrean was matching the expansion of the YoC system for system. The main difference is that the Empyrean was far more dense than the sprawling Yohjan Confederacy. Their Holy Book, called The Abyss, describes The Ravis overcoming a foe of power unmatched in history. Scholars of Fuukanism declared it was humanity that was the unmatched foe, however, they assumed it just meant peacefully. They believed the humans would eventually willingly join when faced with what they believed to be the ultimate truth of the universe.
First Encounter
The Empyrean was well aware of the existence of other civilizations in Via Sagittaria. They were almost wiped out by another civilization, called the Triumvirate Civilization, previously. It sent out thousands of probes to map the galaxy looking for their enemy, but the Triumvirate was nowhere to be found. These probes detected signals originating Yohjan probes around Nocturne instead. After this, encounters with probes and automated terraforming craft became increasingly common. The two nations established stable communication in 15679 CE, both parties eager to interact with another species once under control of the Triumvirate.
This eagerness was quickly replaced with fear and distrust. The Empyrean believed they had the divine right to control the entirety of Via Sagittaria, so the idea of competing with a rival nation was not appealing to the general populace. The leaders of the Empyrean had a hard time accepting that a nation could be officially secular while still being successful. The idea of not believing in a religion was foreign to the slightly different psychology of The Ravis (the majority species of The Empyrean). From the beginning, this strained relations between the Empyrean and the YoC. Both naturally distrusted each other.
The Diunity
The Diunity was older than both the Empyrean and the YoC. Unlike them, however, it was content to remain in the northern galactic halo. However, these two giants were clearly not going to allow this to happen. Forward bases of theirs in the desner regions of the galaxy detected the increase in military activity in the YoC and they inferred that the Empyrean was behaving in the same way. The Diunity was strongly in favor of a war happening between the two nations, as that would weaken both of them and allow the Diunity to remain alone in their home galaxy.
The Diunity started a campaign of occupying, influencing, or otherwise gaining hegemony in many Dwarf Galaxies in the 12th millennia. It soon had influence over 3 other galaxies besides its home without even losing a single soldier. Their use of diplomacy allowed them to gain many satellite states they could use to block assaults on the home galaxy.
The Lowuks Entente
The Lowuks Entente was made up of a species called the Atlins who, at once time, were essentially the government of the Triumvirate Civiliztion. While equally as expansionist as their piers, their home galaxy of Ventemir had more than enough stars to satiate their thirst for expansion. The Lowuks Entente had little to do with the Triumvirate itself. When word of two other nations more powerful than it came to Ventemir, it quickly began a program of extra-galactic expansion, causing them to claim systems under the control of the Yohjan Confederacy. They attempted to establish diplomatic relations with the Yohjan Confederacy in 18,091 CE, but these failed.
Pre-War Alliances
Within Via Sagittaria, the increasing tensions prompted many of the nations of the galaxy to seek security via alliances. Soon the galaxy was filled with a web of alliances and treaties, further prompting nations to join out of fear of their safety. The most popular of the alliances were those with the two local superpowers, The YoC and The Empyrean.
Yohjan Affiliated States
The YoC did not align itself with any state without first incorporating it into itself, even if this incorporation was fairly loose. Nations in this alliance were all in the process of transitioning to become fully-fledged member-states of the YoC.
- The Yohjan Confederacy
The Local Axis
This alliance was a loose alliance in which the only condition was to never become a member-state of the YoC. The whole reason this alliance existed was to preserve the sovereignty of all nations in the Via Sagittaria that had not yet become one with the YoC. Their name literally means "The close allies" with Local Axis being the prefered translation.
- The Local Axis
Eventually, Dotskgard will also become a nation that would join the Local Axis as it succeeds from the YoC later on during the war.
Unaffiliated Nations
The only major nation to not form any alliances as the The Diunity of Fornax, it was acting solely in its own self-interest throughout the entire conflict.
Timeline
Initial Casus Belli
Main Article: Battle of Koosi Paglaus
Very quickly, the entire galaxy was mapped and claimed. However, it was far from fully colonized. What these nations would do is created a "bubble of claims." Essentially, they would colonize every system around a volume of space they claimed, while slowly colonizing the interior of this volume. This allowed most of the galaxy to end up claimed without most of its being colonized. Nations ballooned in size. What was once a nation confined to one corner of the Via Sagittaria claimed almost half of it within five millennia.
With this incredibly rapid expansion came a huge border stretching across the center of the Via Sagittaria. What's more is that almost all the Satellite galaxies around the Via Sagittaria were claimed as well. Large numbers of individuals, ships, and supplies flooded into these border regions to solidify claims in the region. With a large number of ships on both sides, tensions and distrust on both sides, and a generally expansionist foreign policy on the part of the YoC created a very precarious situation.
In a small border system, named Koosi Paglaus, there were two fairly close stars. One star, Koosi, and the other, Paglaus. One of these stars was claimed by the Empyrean and the other by the YoC. The system was close to an unusually rich neutron star, making it desirable to colonize. A minor treaty was put in place that would evenly split the resources of the system while also ensuring fair access to the Neutron Star. This meant soldiers and ships from both sides were regularly the line of sight of each other for several years. At the time, tensions were reaching their peak when the YoC refused to let converts to Fuukanism (the state religion of The Empyrean) practice their faith or leave to a place that would let them.
Three ships got within ten kilometers of each other, two from the Empyrean and one from the YoC. The crew of the YoC ship, fearing their safety, called for reinforcements to join them. With this came reinforcements from the Empyrean. Soon, thousands of ships were in the area. Crews from the ships turned off the automated weapons systems, fearing a glitch or error could cause them to mistake the enemy ships for asteroids. As more ships built up, a single shot from a single YoC ship rang out. Whether it was a private that lost his nerve or an error was unknown, as seconds later The Empyreal ships responded with a barrage of fire. All at once, the system became a battlefield. Several thousands of individuals lost their lives in the fighting.
Declarations (May-September 19804)
Within hours, several smaller governments prematurely declared war on the YoC for their "attack" on the Empyrean. The YoC government took this as a sign that the Empyrean was starting an attack, and they promptly declared war. After several weeks of deliberation, the Empyrean decided that if Fuukos, their goddess, was happy with them, they would win the war and subjugate the YoC once and for all. Further away nations soon heard of the events and quickly took sides as well.
In the various nations around the Via Sagittaria, war was widely seen as a good thing. Most believed that the sheer military might of the YoC would quickly subjugate the other nations and allow the nation to finally become a Kardashev Three civilization. Other nations were simply afraid of the YoC. They did not want to be ruled from Aegyn, they wanted to be ruled from their own home systems.
Opening moves (19804-19807)
With enemies scattered across the Via Sagittaria, timely movement of troops was key. Instant Communication, while incredibly fast for the time, still meant that there was a somewhat large delay in communication, typically only seconds to minutes. However, even these short time frames proved to be too long of a delay for ships to be centrally coordinated at every level. Most automated craft were either very close to those that controlled them or given advanced computers and algorithms so they could pilot themselves.
These ships were deployed all across the galaxy. Wormholes leading to other nations were largely shut down, so these craft would need years to cross the large amounts of space between the enemies. The YoC sent ships destined for the Magellanic Clouds as well as the Fluorescence and Evanescence galaxies with the intention of quickly overwhelming the enemies all while losing as few actual soldiers as possible.
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Sagittarian railgun battery on Cryantur 1 during the Battle of Cryantur, in the Tarantula Campaign.
The Empyrean planned a much longer war. It deployed its ships with the intention of supporting smaller nations (mostly the Entente) in their fight against the YoC. The plan was to wear down the YoC all while keeping the home galaxy untouched. Their strategy was centered on keeping Fluorescence safe and having the YoC crumble under the stress of a multi-front war. Nations fighting against the YoC eventually synchronized their efforts by creating the Local Axis, an alliance of the Empyrean, The Lowuks Entente, the Lanoir Confederacy, and, later, Dotskgard.
Early Escalation (19808-19823)
These automated crafts first made it to their destinations in 19808 CE. This marks the point when major battles started happening. At this point, however, the war was simple just building more craft than your opponents while also sticking to military targets to inhibit this process. Planets were usually occupied by actual soldiers rather than robots to make sure that civilian deaths were kept to a minimum. The people of the nation, while eager for war, had no reason to desire for their enemies to be destroyed. The war was about securing hegemony in the eyes of the people.
This period of the war mostly only saw fighting in border areas, with most civilians not noticing a difference in their everyday lives. Every day, trillions upon trillions of these craft were created for the sake of outnumbering the enemy. The YoC and its allies, with a larger quantity of stars as well as a larger population, were able to outproduce most of its enemies with craft to spare. It sent its spacecraft mostly to hold off the Empyrean, with the plan of subjugating each smaller nation before attacking the main enemy.
This period of the war was comparatively simple, and it even saw an increase in the approval ratings for the government of the YoC. Those opposed to the government saw its effectiveness in the war effort as well as the economic boom caused by the increase in production. Many once critical of the YoC soon began to support the YoC as well as the war effort.
The Abandonment of Decency (19823-19850)
The Abandonment of Decency was a period in the war in which most nations started to stop distinguishing between military and civilian targets. This period saw the usage of weapons never before used in conflicts in an attempt to make the enemy surrender. The YoC was advancing at a startling pace to those around around it. In fifteen years, the defenses of the Lanoir Confederacy fell to YoC and the nation was quickly occupied that same year. None expected the war with the YoC to end so quickly. A wave of patriotism swept through the YoC as the people saw its success. The year 19850 was a huge blow for the Local Axis, demonstrating that even united, they were unable to defend themselves from the might of the YoC.
At the same time a wave of patriotism swept through the YoC, fear gripped those of the remaining nations in the galaxy. It seemed that even with their technological advantage thanks to The Empyrean, a war based solely on production was not going to mean a victory for them. It was the Lowuks Entente that first acknowledged this fact with an attack on various worlds in the Ouranir Galaxy with the intent of demoralizing the inhabitants of the galaxy and knocking them out of the war. Using an ancient artifact most likely leftover from Sedrua, they entirely destroyed the planet by compressing it the density of a neutron star before letting it explode with great force. The system lost several trillion individuals. Several more of these attacks were quickly carried out, causing almost a quadrillion casualties.
This attack, however, came with a cost. The use of weapons on civilians very quickly struck fear in the hearts of all. The YoC responded with the destruction of a small colony supplying The Empyrean with materiel. This colony had large numbers of civilians residing on it. Later, The Empyrean used this attack as a reason to further escalate the war and justify their usage of more advanced weapons, such as artificial gamma ray bursts and artificial supernovae, two things too expensive for the YoC to use commonly.
Suddenly, the idea of restraint was entirely removed. Automated craft were designed to operate in urban environments, scorched-world tactics became commonplace, and restrictions on weapons such as nanomachines and strange matter being almost entirely removed. The number of deaths went up from a handful of soldiers to the populations of entire systems being wiped out. These weapons had no ways to be countered, causing most planets to remain vulnerable. This period in the war saw the largest number of deaths as well as the largest number of refugees throughout the entirety of the War. The war went from being widely approved of to causing civil unrest within a year. Few but those profiting from the war were happy with it, even so, most blamed the enemies for this in both nations.
Static Warfare (19850s-19945)
In the mid to late 19800s, the front plane of the war began to grind to a halt, advances in point-defense technology rendered strange matter useless as a weapon. To this day, planets in the Via Sagittaria are required to have point defense systems to prevent strange matter from being used as a weapon. In addition to this, automated ships were able to be hacked or tricked in ways that made fixing this issue cost-prohibitive.
Ancient artifacts with capabilities beyond what were possible at the time became ludicrously valuable to nations in the galaxy. Capturing these artifacts became the most important goals during this period.
Heavy damages to production centers meant that the number of automated craft were widely reduced. Older ships in both nations were seized by the state en masse. These older ships needed to be piloted by actual individuals as they were designed to be unhackable as well as harder to trick, however, this meant that citizens would need to be drafted in this war. While, at the beginning of the war, such actions would be deemed
Operation Heavenly Descent (19946-19948)
With the people growing restless, it was time for the YoC to take drastic measures. Trillions had already died, and quadrillions had to evacuate areas near to the front lines. The economic benefits of gaining territory were entirely off-set by the large amount of destruction. The YoC issued a an order to Claes Dynamics, a company specializing in artificial intelligence and robotics, to create an AI that would compute the best strategies for the YoC to win. The AI would be fully sapient and able to adapt to a number of situations. The move to create an AI at this level was certainly controversial. As such, it was kept top secret. Few actually knew it was happening, and those that did rarely had the full picture. The idea was to push towards the Empyreal capital with the guidance of the AI and capture it within a year.
The plan became known as Heavenly Descent. After several years of work, Claes Dynamics created Beatrix in 19946. Beatrix fulfilled the goals of the Heavenly Descent Project flawlessly. With its guidance, the YoC started to win again. Within weeks the stagnant lines began moving in the YoC's favor. The generals quickly learned to trust Beatrix and follow its advice when giving orders to a tee.
In early 19948 CE, the YoC was within several dozen light years of the capital of the Empyrean. Would have things continued this way, the war would have ended by mid-year.
Second Static Warfare (19948-20007)
This was when The Empyrean activated an AI of its own named "Tyrinne," This AI was designed solely to counteract Beatrix and perhaps even regain territory lost to the YoC. Unlike the YoC which took almost every precaution it could when creating Beatrix, The Empyrean, like an animal backed into a corner, gave comparatively little thought into safety compared to effectiveness. The idea of being ruled by a secular state terrified the Ravis so much that unleashing a potentially dangerous AI was well worth the risk. The only safety precaution put in place was to make sure the AI would follow the state religion, essentially barring it from becoming dangerous.
With the creation of Tyrinne, the advancing lines came to a halt. A second period of static warfare began, this time with two ludicrously advanced super-intelligences constantly trying and failing to outwit each other. Needless to say, the people of the YoC were not happy with the sudden halt of progress. Beatrix had the troops mostly concentrate on The Empyrean and, with the creation of Tyrinne, had no choice but to continue doing so. The other Local Axis nations were able to retake their territory, further damaging the public's perception of the war.
During this period, the events known as the Anarian Fever Crisis occurred in the remote world of Anar. Deeply embeded within the conflict going on, the authorities limited themselves on just isolating the world to contain the virus. This caused 3 billion deaths and the realization by the survivals that the nation they belonged to had failed them. This led to the creation of the Abeona Iniciative, to which many ravaged and torn out worlds by the war joined up. The iniciative promoted the exploration, throught the Eye of Freedom wormhole, of the Lewis Galaxy as a mean to scape the destruction of the war and a failing state. Finally with the creation of the Twelve Colonyships of the Forefathers, 8 billion refugees from all over the via Sagittaria left to the Lewis Galaxy settling the world of Elpida and founding effectively the Lewis Nations.
The Enlistment Era and Total War (20007-20281)
Beatrix was gripped with a desperation Beatrix was never programmed to handle. It did everything in its limited power to get more troops and get more resources diverted to fighting the war. It had no morality beyond, winning the war is what is right and losing the war is what is wrong, so anything, including forcing quadrillions into the military, was entirely acceptable to it. As such, it began to ask its superiors for more troops, constantly. It showed them with images of the war it gathered from ships, it studied the humans around it and used psychological tricks to get them to comply, and even convinced many of the technicians working on it to act as a physical hand into the real world. Years of manipulation slowly had the generals and politicians that worked with Beatrix believe that even more resources needed to be put towards the war.
At least for the YoC, the War of the Decamillennial Transition became a total war. The entire industrial output of the nation was being put towards vanquishing its foes with little regard for what that meant for the people. The YoC started to see actual gains again, greatly increasing morale among troops, however, already, the YoC was cracking under the pressure. This period would be the final straw for many nonhumans living across the galaxy. What was briefly a time of great success soon became a period of anarchy.
End of the Yohjan War
With large portions of the populace rebelling, the government of the YoC had no choice but to surrender. It needed access to its large military to maintain order. What came was a hastily written treaty called The Treaty of Cygnus-Orion. It detailed the complete removal of YoC troops from all areas not within the Via Sagittaria, the end to claiming large tracts of territory they could not control, the termination of their tactical super-intelligence, and the ceding of a large amount of developed territory to the Local Axis. With the signing of this treaty, there was meant for order and peace to return to the galaxy. Instead, the few patriots remaining in the YoC rejected the government for giving up on the war effort and for the humiliating losses it placed on itself.
The YoC fell into a brutal civil war when the Federal Government lost almost control over most systems not immediately next to the Aegyn. The remaining nations of the Via Sagittaria were barely surviving the onslaught of the YoC. With no outside help, they would continue struggling throughout the Split of the YoC.
De-escalation (20307-20307)
The remaining nations of the Via Sagittaria, all of which were in ruin, removed their troops from their borders and used far more resources to repair themselves than they did to reclaim their lost territory, leaving large amounts of space free of governance. Within these areas, war lords, opportunists, dictators, radicals, and all other manner of other undesirable forces were able to set up nations in their own image.
Aftermath
Diunitarian Offensive (20381-20507)
The extensive, albeit brief, assault on the Via Sagittaria by the Diunity of Fornax was mostly undergone to gain access to more materials than their small Dwarf Galaxy could provide. Places such as the Ejeunor Galaxy were occupied as outposts against potentially hostile war lords that have arisen out of the ashes of YoC. By this point, the war was already ending, with the Local Axis dissolved as an alliance in 20304. This assault was directly in response to the recent instability in the Via Sagittaria.
Lasting Effects
The War would end up being the single deadliest modern conflict to happen in the Via Sagittaria. The population was unable to recover for another five millennia. This reduction would have lasted longer were it not for the post-split governments aggressive depopulation campaigns. The power in the galaxy shifted from humans to a more species-bling power structure after this war as well.