War of Saiheran Succession

Template:!War InfoboxThe War of Saiheran Succession, also known as the War of Thrones or the Twenty Millennium War, was a galactic-scale civil war lasting from 67,433 CE-84,808 CE. It is widely considered the most horrific war in the modern history of the galaxy and possibly the entire Local Universe. It resulted in the formation of one of the most powerful nations in the universe, the United Nations of the Florathel Galaxy, as well as some rather large territorial changes for multiple nations and the complete dissolution of the Corroloa Empire.

Timeline

Initial Casus Belli

The war started after the murder of King Oram, when he failed to name a successor. No one has the faintest idea who did it, but it doesn't really matter anymore. Normally, failing an official naming of a successor, Saiheran Law states that the royal consort would be next in line, or failing that the firstborn of their children. Unfortunately, Queen Azal predeceased her husband, and her oldest four children were all quadruplets. (the three who came a few minutes after the first used this fact to rationalize their ignoring of the birth order clause)

After Oram's death, his four children immediately started fighting. The physically weakest but most popular of them, Princess Zelera, proposed a public election between the four heirs, but this was rejected by the other three because they knew perfectly well they would lose. The physically strongest, Prince Sais, proposed a fight to the death. This was also rejected for similar reasons. The most intelligent of them, Prince Karnak, proposed a battle of intelligence, which was again rejected. Finally, the most scheming of the four, Princess Kalea suggested that they try to send armies against each other, and whoever controlled the victorious army would win.

This idea was accepted as it seemed the most fair, but Kalea already had secret agreements with roughly 1/3 of the divisions of the Saiheran Army as well as the Trezhath Republic and Dominion of Khae. Some historians believe that this kind of planning indicates that Kalea either hired the assassin or committed the murder of King Oram herself. A savvy underling of Prince Karnak (who he was possibly having an affair with) was in the room at the time, and pointed this fact out to the other three heirs. They then hastily arranged alliances with the vast majority of the nations in the galaxy (notable exceptions being the Cnara-Frealee Federation, which spent the entire war trying to convince everyone to make peace, and the Pecay-Po Federation of Nalachi, which was extremely isolationist at the time and thus did not care about external affairs.)

Opening Moves

At the beginning of the war, all four heirs with the exception of Prince Sais fled Dimostah to avoid being killed. Princess Zelera set up a secret base on the entirely unknown rogue planet of Aiah, where she stayed for the majority of the war. Princess Kalea constructed a mobile station deep in interstellar space. Interestingly, Prince Karnak's base was located directly on the surface of Erae, a major planet of his main ally, the Arnot Republic. This decision would prove to be extremely foolish, and almost resulted in Karnak's death very early in the war.

As this was occurring, the various nations began to move their automated fleets towards each other, and the first battles of the war started happening when they met. While the war was ostensibly over who would sit on the Saiheran throne, many of the warring nations already disliked each other and so were looking for an excuse to fight.

Early Escalation

As the armies met, small skirmishes broke out between the borders of the various nations participating. An important early battle was the Battle of Pagalus, a minor system on the border between the Marakat Interstellar Union and the Free Nation of Garrea. It wasn't very well populated, but was within a disputed region between the two nations. As they were still ostensibly following the rules of war, they avoided civilian casualties, with most of the fighting occurring within the unpopulated Oort cloud of the system. This battle allowed the FNG to take control of the disputed territory surrounding the system.

There were similar battles across the galaxy, causing small border changes. As these occurred far from populated areas, most citizens had little to no changes to their daily lives. People in the border regions were protesting the war, but they were sadly ignored.

Battle of Erae

One of the most climactic battles of this part of the war was the Battle of Erae. This battle took place after the Trezhath Republic and Dominion of Khae pushed far into the relatively unpopulated coreward region of the Arnot Republic, reaching the planet Erae. Erae was the site of Prince Karnak's base, and they jumped on the opportunity to attack it.

At first, the battle seemed to be going well for the attacking nations, and the front lines almost entered the hill sphere of Erae itself. A long-range missile impacted the site of Prince Karnak's base on the surface of the planet, leaving a large crater, but the occupants had fled to an outer dwarf planet. However, reinforcements from Morlac had finally arrived, and managed to rebuff the enemy forces.

After the battle, Prince Karnak later fled the system and constructed a base on an interstellar asteroid, far from any population centers.

Rules do not Apply

After this early phase of the war, almost completely filled with minor battles that didn't really do much, the warring nations stopped even trying to follow the Rules of War. This phase began after many of the generals on all sides decided that their current strategy, while relatively popular, wasn't getting anywhere. It 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.

One of the most horrific weapons to be used is very simple: it simply fires a bullet composed entirely of strange matter, and on impact with a target it rapidly begins converting the entire structure to strange matter. If fired at a planet, it would transform it into a 1-kilometer-wide sphere of strange matter, killing everyone on the surface in less than an hour. All who ordered its use on civilian targets were convicted in the Great Tribunal after the war and remain imprisoned to this day.

This weapon, due to strange matter's bizarre properties, would need to be fired from within about 200 kilometers of the planetary surface, making for many climactic battles.

Battle of Morlac

One such battle was the Battle of Morlac, which took place in the vicinity of Morlac, when the Trezhath-Khae alliance pushed deep into the territory of the Arnot Republic. After their disastrous defeat at the Battle of Erae, they had taken to using these strange matter bullets on any attacking fleet.

The first enemy fleets entered the oort cloud of Morlac's home star in 71,835 CE, reaching the orbit of the outermost planet hours later. The entire fleet of the Arnot Republic as well as those divisions of the Saiheran army that Karnak had managed to win over at the beginning of the war were waiting for them. The two opposing forces were almost equally matched, but Karnak had absolutely refused to use the strange matter bullets as a matter of principle. This resulted in an absolute massacre, the entire fleet being reduced to millimetre-wide blobs of hyperdense matter within minutes of the beginning of the battle.

The attacking fleet then advanced towards Morlac itself, and all that opposed it was the tiny group of patrol ships in orbit of Morlac itself. These were rapidly destroyed, although one of the pilots managed to place her craft on a collision course with the flagship before the craft was hit by the strange matter bullet. This meant that the flagship was likewise converted into strange matter, which was a serious blow to the attacking fleet.

Prince Karnak himself arrived in the system while this was occurring, and landed his shuttle on the opposite side of the planet. He personally made twelve trips between the surface and his flagship before the fleet reached the planet and dropped the bullet onto the surface. As the planet collapsed in on itself, he fled into the intergalactic void, broken by the horrors of war.

Princess Kalea then ordered for the remaining major planets of the Arnot Republic to be destroyed in a similar fashion. Sadly, no one objected to this brutal act, and it was carried out. The Arnot Republic was utterly destroyed, and a full 99.5% of its population was killed. This event was later referred to as the Scouring of Arnot, and those who carried it out were the only criminals to be sentenced to death in the Great Tribunal.