Bunrodea‐Korath Civil War - TheGiraffe3/Endless-Sky-Creators-Handbook GitHub Wiki
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2565 AD
North of Sagittarius A* lies two belligerent neighbours: The Bunrodea, and the Korath.
All was not well in Korath space. For centuries, the Efreti Republic and the Korsmanath Empire had been locked in a perpetual Cold War against the Sestor Federation, the Similisti Empire, and the Anatruskor Empire. With the latter using automatons, while the former still using piloted ships, the war seems to be swinging in the Sestor Alliance’s favour. To try to swing the war around, the Efreti and the Korsmanath sent operatives to undermine the Similisti government. Through decades of continuous terrorist attacks and information campaign, the Similisti Empire grows dysfunctional.
The Efreti hoped that a pro-Efreti group would coup the government. By bolstering the Similisti, the Sestor hoped to retain its ally long enough to win the war. Yet, the situation developed to neither’s favour.
In one fall swoop, disgruntled Similisti workers rose up all across the ancient Empire’s worlds, and quickly took over all government institutions. In the aristocratic Empire’s place now stands the Mereti Collective, a communist state that stands unaligned to either side. The shock of the sudden coup caused the Efreti-Korsmanath Alliance and the Sestor-Anatruskor alliance to call for a ceasefire, both to recuperate their losses and to assess this new reality.
The Korath, like humans, have a strong with-us-or-against-us mentality, and the Mereti, favouring neither side, are quickly shunned by everybody else. In place of war now stands embargo. And with the least amount of territories, the Mereti are hit the hardest. At least during war one can raid for food.
A famine quickly sweeps across Mereti worlds, which triggers rebels loyal to the Similisti Empire to rise up. With enemies on all sides, without and within, the Mereti cause seems hopeless. Yet, the Mereti has one strength nobody else had. Korath-power. It is a common misconception that the Korath Civil Wars are always bloody, brutal affairs. The reality, however, resembles more of unenthusiastic jabs not unlike the Hai-Unfettered Hai dance.
Korath Methodology of War
The Sestor is a democratic federation, where individualism is valued. Korath, while loving battles, rarely want to dedicate their lives to long, drawn-out wars. To keep popular support high, Sestor politicians never actually enacted a conscription order. Automata, after all, are enough sacrifices. If the common Korath can work in factories to make many automata, why sacrifice them in space?
The Anatruskor and the Korsmanath are traditional Empires. Aristocrats field their private armies, which are used to fight the wars against their enemies. Enemies which, while including the opposing side of war, also includes their fellow nobles. Hence, the majority of Anatruskor and Korsmanath navies are actually in their ports, deterring any upstart nobles from surprise strikes.
The Efreti, after years of “friendly” indoctrination, hate war. They don’t really fight to kill, viewing it as a chore. Hence, unless their worlds are besieged, only token forces are used.
Thus, while the two alliances dance their fleets around each other, the Mereti prepared. The Mereti, you see, is a government by the people, for the people, at least on paper that is. How can the government take care of its citizens if the citizens don’t reciprocate their love? The Mereti enacts something unthinkable for the common Korath. They enacted total war.
Massive drone armies are constructed, from small Model 8’s to larger Model 256s. Building ships up using the same components over and over again means that manufacturing processes can be streamlined. Thus, in five years, the Mereti fleet exploded, quickly matching, and surpassing, the two alliances’ fleets.
The Similisti Rebels, once thought to be the final nail in the Mereti coffin, suddenly becomes the only thing stopping the Mereti from unifying Korath space. But first, the Mereti must test their strength. After all, without experience, even the largest armies can be defeated easily by a small, elite force.
But what can they attack? While the Mereti have raw power, they cannot invade other Korath states. This will mean the four Korath states attacking the Mereti at once, quickly ending the state before it is ready. The Mereti looks south, to Bunrodea Space. Centuries of allying themselves to the Anatruskor means that the Similisti, and now Mereti, had a large Jump Drive stockpile. Falsifying loss records and other manipulation have allowed thousands and thousands of Jump Drives sit in the Merit’s storages, never revealed to the public. Until now.
2576 AD
5000 Mereti drones took their leap of faith from Faronektu into Piadenti, where the Bunrodean planet of Disara is located. Caught by surprise, the Bunrodea were unable to fight back, and the Mereti looted the planet dry. You see, the Bunrodea are not in a good place either. In fact, the Bunrodea are in a civil war of their own. But to understand, we must rewind to two centuries ago.
Bunrodea History
The Generation Ship the only surviving Bunrodea rode in have a population of merely 300. While having enough genetic diversity to not have the Bunrodea die out, inbreeding is a large problem. After hundreds of generations, many birth defects have been allowed to pass onto next generations, forming many, many quirks and variations among the Bunrodea. Bunrodea with extra arms, whose faeces resemble compost more than traditional blobs, and with abnormally thick hides are commonplace. While inconvenient and hard to look at, these special individuals do perform much better in certain jobs than ordinary Bunrodea. Seeing this, the Bunrodea set up a genetic bank, cataloguing the links between genes and physical characteristics. Soon, the Bunrodean Golden Age of Genetic Engineering begins.
Thousands of Bunrodea pay exorbitant prices to have their offsprings’ genes be sequenced and edited, so that their children can conform to their expectations. In a matter of decade, hyper-specialised individuals emerge. And the genetically engineered individuals are indeed highly competent at their designated job posts. Yet, having one’s fates determined by one’s parents have their downsides. Those with large hands find sculpting and painting difficult, and those with more delicate exoskeletons are unable to compete with thicker-limbed individuals in engineering workshops. While many find their dreams and their specialisation in alignment, more feel betrayed by their parents and their body.
At first, the increased economical aspects of genetical engineering silenced most opposition. After all, with more money, one can indulge themselves in material abundance. With the economy booming, the Bunrodean government issues an edict, calling for each planet to meet quotas on specialised individuals in order to maximise production.
This autocratic policy caused the nobles to become somewhat disgruntled. The promise of granting higher noble titles if the quotas are exceeded, however, did wonders to eliminate opposition from them. All over the Bunrodean Hegemony, pregnant individuals are paid sizeable compensations to have their children modified to fit the quotas. When less families assent, the compensations become threats of deportation.
For ten decades this quota system worked seamlessly. The influx of optimised workers in optimised numbers boosted the Bunrodean economy to new heights. Industries of all kinds boomed, as even the common folk now enjoy similar lifestyles of what a Viscount could have a century earlier.
Decades later a research emerged, indicating that genetical engineered individuals suffer from significantly shorter lifespans. All hell breaks loose.
The decades of forced genetical modifications have gathered a large opposition. From individuals having radically different dreams than what their body can have, to families broken apart due to forced quota meeting, to lineages of dissidents silenced through being assigned to downtrodden sewer jobs, to disgruntled nobles unwilling to use draconian measures to please the Crown, a silent rebellion had been brewing under the watchful eyes of the Queen. And this research ignited the powder keg.
All over Bunrodea space, especially in the industrial northeast, disgruntled Bunrodea rose up against the crown. Controlling most industrial centres and shipyards, the Rebellion quickly captured many worlds, pushing the Royal Guards to only a few system centred around the capital of Erabu Lemata, the Royal Capital. Just as the Rebels start their final assault, the Kor Mereti struck.
2576 AD
Having to deal with the sudden enemy caused the Rebellion to divert much of their fleets up north. While the Bunrodea fought in their home turf, the power of 5000 Mereti drones is nothing to laugh at. As the Rebellion fought tooth-and-nail to stop the Mereti onslaught, now an existential threat, the Royal Guards regrouped and counterattacked. Despite the regroup, the Rebellion is still vastly outnumbering the Royal Guards, and the Rebellion-Royal front stalemates.
As the Mereti slowly advance, beating back superior numbers of Rebellion fleets, however, emergency communique from the capital stopped the advance. Seeing most of the Mereti fleet embroiled in a conflict elsewhere, the Sestor Federation decided to strike against Sapira Mereti in tandem with the Similisti fleet in a decisive strike to topple the Mereti Collective. The Mereti, already under Total War, successfully fought back the invaders, and the resulting Sestor orbital bombardment destroyed the planet’s factories and landscape. It, however, did little to stop the Mereti fleet, which remained slowly growing in Bunrodea space.
The Efreti-Korsmanath Alliance, unwilling to let the Sestor and Anatruskor win against the Mereti and recreating their losing scenario a century prior, quickly invaded the Mereti and Anatruskor in retaliation. Their invasion was unsuccessful, however, in the face of prepared, fortified Anatruskor positions. With that, the Korath-Bunrodea Civil War becomes a five-sided quagmire: The Efreti-Korsmanath Alliance, the Anatruskor-Sestor Alliance, the Mereti Collective, the Bunrodea Royal Government, and the Bunrodea Rebels.
Like I mentioned before, the Mereti are pioneers in the Total War doctrine, and it shows heavily here. Despite being outnumbered and fighting everyone at once, the Mereti do not fall. Holding their territories, the Mereti lays waste to waves after waves of Bunrodea and Korath warships. Seeing this, the Sestor quickly follows, passing the Emergency Powers (Defence) act in 2560, also joining in the Total War bandwagon. Anatruskor and Korsmanath soon follow. When a large Sestor-Anatruskor fleet penetrates all the way to Dokdobaru, where the Quarg still ignore the battles, the Efreti enacts Total War as well.
The Mereti fleet have destroyed much of the Bunrodea Rebels’ industry and fleets over the years. With loss rates tripling that of the Royal Family’s losses, the tide of the Bunrodean Civil War slowly turned. Then, a surprise Mereti offensive in 2589 destroyed the entire Rebel and Royal fleets before withdrawing to Sayaiban due to a Sestor offensive. The Royalists’ factories, mostly undamaged in the fightings, outproduced the Rebellion. The Rebellion would be placed on the back foot, losing all western sectors to the Royal Family by 2600.
The Korath-Bunrodea Civil War continues in earnest for two hundred more years, with the Korath slowly using more and more destructive weapons while the Bunrodea sides are locked in a bloody struggle in the sector of Paru Paru, the nature of the chokepoint allowing the Rebellion to hold the Royalist offensive with considerably less casualties.
The Bunrodea Civil War would escalate twice more, in 2779 and 2785. In 2779, the Rebellion, after a century of force buildup, launched a costly assault into the Mereti-occupied sector of Navo Chigo, finally driving the Korath invaders out of the sector. The battle, however, severely depleted the Rebellion resources. After the Bunrodea Royalists developed the long-range Thorax Cannons and the Chigiriki-class warship, the Rebellion is all but lost. A huge Royalist assault on Pagu Pagu following a diversionary attack at Kifrana Terberah finally broke the Rebellion defence, and the Bunrodea civil war would end with a Royalist victory in 2790.
2790 AD
Coincidentally, the Korath Civil War would end on the same year. The Mereti failure at defending Navo Chigo finally led to the Mereti leadership allowing the deployment of nanobots against a large concentration of Korsmanathi fleet encircled at Sayaiban, ending it without any sacrifice on the Mereti. The Anatruskor and Sestor, seeing the Mereti breaking the super weapon taboo, immediately approved the use of planet-crackers, high-yield nuclear bombs, and Danforth-style antimatter bombs. Eventually, Sestor engineers found a way to artificially induce a supernova on any type of star, successfully testing it on the unoccupied sector of Persitar. Finally, in 2790, with three flashes, Kasikfar, Peresedersi, and Fasitopfar are obliterated via this weapon. The Archons, seeing this destruction, destroyed all super weapons and ended the conflict forcefully.
With that, the Greatest War in the Galaxy, with over 80 billion casualties over two centuries, with countless planets ruined, some forever, finally ended. Of course, the war’s legacy still remains today.
With the destruction of their main fleet, and their planets destroyed and irradiated, the Korsmanath Empire collapsed, merging into their allies, the Efreti. The Efreti, afraid of the super weapons and the strength of the Mereti and Sestor, are unwilling to emerge from behind the Quarg, now sworn to destroy any automaton that comes through. One billion Korath are in exile, sent by the Drak to lifeless sectors in the Galactic Core to atone for their sins. Fifty thousand Sestor Korath remain in their homelands, mostly in Sestor Ikfar and Sopi Lefarkata. The Mereti were quickly wiped out by other Korath fleets after their superweapons are gone, alongside the Similisti loyalists, a natural result to being enemies to everyone else. The Anatruskor held out for a long time, but the last holdout was destroyed when a resource war broke out in Spera Anatrusk, the Anatruskors’ last planet. Surviving refugees merge into the Sestor, mirroring their Korsmanathi enemies.
Over in Bunrodea space, the huge rebellion over genetical engineering have cast a shroud over Bunrodean society. Unlike two centuries prior, genetical modifications are now frowned upon, or at least the extensive ones. The economic utility, however, is not ignored, and thus the modern Bunrodea caste system is born. The central systems where the Rebellion never touched becomes the Royal ground, its unwavering loyalty rewarded by extreme preferential treatment by the royals. The outer systems are designated to be Erabu, where the more uninvolved Royalist nobles are awarded land in. Past Pagu Pagu, however, lies the Rebellion’s heartland, the industrial zone. There, the former Rebels, the Megasa, are watched over by nobles the most loyal to the Queen. Any subversive activities are due to be reported immediately, and the perpetrator most likely arrested and executed summarily.
As the Galactic North slowly heals from the war, both physically via the Wanderers, and psychologically, in the minds of the Bunrodean Hegemony, all seems well.
Yet, hiding deep in the bunkers of Sopi Lefarkata is the last coven of the Sestor Federation, untouched by the Alpha raid in their capital. It appears that the Sestor contingency plan for a capital sack is useful. Where nobody looks, the Sestor shall rise again.
Yet, whispers still permeates through the darkest alley ways all over the Megasa worlds, espousing the ideas of individual self-determination, the idea of freedom, of how every Bunrodea is born equal. No superiors, no inferiors. Where nobody looks, the flames of Rebellion shall be lit again.
Yet, hidden underneath the Mereti Mind, modified by the Wanderers, still lies an objective. Making the world a better place, and cleanse it of impurities. The Efreti do not belong in Mereti space, and are one of the impurities. Where nobody looks, the Mereti Mind plots.