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 The Karelian Campaign (AI +1.5 yr)
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| TelQuessir |
Posted on 12-09-2005 06:27
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 Posts: 2598 Joined: August 30 2005 |
The following historical report is compiled by [G]/Relaxation after extensive IM conferences with myself: Prior to the Invasion, the Hiigaran Republic established frontier colonies in the Karelian Cluster due to the increasing population density plaguing the Homeworld at the time. Additionally, the need for resources compounded the problems of spacial inequality and resource deficiency. When the Vaygr attack came, the Hiigaran Navy presence at the Karelian withdrew after it was clear that the Hiigaran Control Zone's outer perimeter was lost ... leaving several billion civilians virtually unprotected. Fortunately enough, the Hiigaran Defense Fleet was able to draw the majority of the Vaygr fleets away from the Karelian at great cost, although the Hiigaran Navy could not spare an attempt to contact the Karelian colonies. Thus it was assumed that the Vaygr overrun the Karelian Cluster for the Diamid deliberated that every combatant must be dedicated to the defense of the Homeworld. This decision by the political head of the Hiigaran people gave the S'jet Fleet enough time to regroup and execute a counterattack. The Hiigarans sucessfully drove off the Grand Vaygr Alliance after months of bloodshed. Unknown to the Kiithid, the Grand Alliance had already been splintered by treacherous politicking caused by separatist Vaygr houses who were embittered by Makaan's fanatic warcrafting or were jealous of the self-styled dictator's power. House Mar'yan was one of the noble families that saw the Loyalists dedicated to Makaan as religious fanatics and elected to abstain from the path of bloodthirsty conquest. Unfortunately, the people of Mar'yan chose the wrong side. In the turbulent civil conflicts that tore the Vaygr apart, House Matron Zahirah regrouped her ragtag battlefleet - the last of her broken house - and fled Galactic West, towards the refuge of the seemingly abandoned Karelian Cluster. The Mar'yan constantly gazed behind them, afraid of pursuit by the fanatic jihadis of Makaan. Loyalist forces however did not chase the retreating Mar'yan warships to the Karelian, thus they were free to expand their domain within the Karelian as the bloody Invasion progressed. For Zahirah planned to make a new home in the Karelian, to use what resources she had onboard her City of the Stars and seed an industrial base on the unclaimed worlds promised in the empty sector. Much to House Mar'yan's surprise, Hiigaran colonies were discovered on the habitable planets of the Cluster; although with little to no military capability (orbital fortifications of Tier II standard 'protected' the primary protectorates). That very discovery was a blessing in disguise to House Matron Zahirah, who was under the constant threat of Loyalist attack and needed to reserve the blunted strength of her military complement. While even her torn war fleet was enough to subdue the Hiigaran colonies, Zahirah knew that she did not have the manpower or time to forcibly pacify the Hiigaran people if she chose to forcefully acquire the Karelian protectorates. And the projected military campaign to seek out every individual terraformed planet, enslave its inhabitants and strip the world of its resources was calculated to be harmfully protracted to make it of any benefit to House Mar'yan. Zahirah understood that dispersing her fleet in such a manner made her people too vulnerable in the event of Loyalist discovery and subsequent attack. Thus, for the first time in history, Vaygr engaged Hiigara with mutually beneficial diplomacy in mind. Warmistress Zahirah made allowances - to not enslave Hiigaran personnel, to protect them from military threats. A most able administrator and leader, she saw the benefits of biding her time and using the Hiigarans' infrastructure to save costs and expand her naval power. And after telling the truth of the galactic politic situation, it was not hard for House Mar'yan and the Karelian Hiigarans to reach a common ground. The Karelians knew that they had no real choice. They were certainly doomed if they were to expend their insufficient 'navy' against the separatists. Consequentially, the Mar'yan Vaygr gave the Karelians the chance to bolster their own infrastructure and increase standard of living on Hiigaran colonies without infringing into their governments. Thus, abandoned Hiigarans and the people of House Mar'yan came to be united in an unprecendented movement of mutual alliance. The grim circumstances certainly overrode the instrinsic cultural hatred shared by both civilisations and expedited the alliance unconsciously prayed for by the lost Hiigarans and those of Vaygr House Mar'yan. Interestingly, the integration of two cultures with such a bloody past was one of tolerance and efficiency. House Mar'yan manufactured modern ships for their own purposes as well as for the Karelian personnel - and neither did they comment when the colonists painted the Hiigaran Angel Moon insignia on the sides of their vessels. House Mar'yan was equally benefited by extensive logistical support and housing for groundside Vaygr. System K-1 became a heavily fortified industrial powerhouse, with no less than two inhabitable planets in the binary star system. Obviously, Warmistress Zahirah was surprisingly expedient in the dealings between the Mar'yan and Karelians, but the presence of the City of the Stars only mere kilometres away from the stratosphere of the Hiigaran primary colony was a grim reminder of Vaygr ruthlessness. They would not shy from the application of merciless and violent force against the Hiigarans if it came to such dire actions. With those issues put aside, Zahirah planned ahead for the certain possibility of Loyalist invasion. The Karelian cluster consists of 120 star systems, with 21 of these inhabited. Six Hiigara-type planets bear most of the Cluster's civil population while the rest of the 21 inhabited systems constitute the bulk of the Cluster's industrial output. The Cluster itself was enormous - even her steadily increasing navy would not be enough to ensure protection against a full-scale attack. However, even the brilliant mind of House Mar'yan's leader could not have forseen the arrival of Hiigaran Navy survey units within the Karelian Cluster one year and two months after the Invasion Era concluded. The special operations fleet was shocked at the thriving commercial activity bristling across the entire sector, and noticed the heavy Vaygr military presence in the area. The HGNS flotilla moved in to investigate and made first contact with House Mar'yan. Approximately forty hours later, Vaygr Loyalist fleets surged into Karelian space with vengeance in mind. The surprised inhabitants (and guests) of the Karelian Cluster floundered in the face of the Armada de Makaan's surgical strikes that effectively rendered the Karelian defensive network impotent. The HGNS flotilla executed a brave delaying action with House Mar'yan's warships after effecting a FTL burst transmission to Admiral Manaan VI of Hiigaran Navy's Eighth Fleet notifying him of the Karelian Cluster's plight. Normally such a high-priority message would have been sent to Fleet Command. But the commanding officer of the HGNS complement knew that time was of the essence. The Eighth Fleet command bastion was closer than Hiigara. He saw that it was more important to incite a rapid response to the Karelian flashpoint, rather than create a strategic deadlock due to Diamid bereaucracy. Admiral Rigel Manaan VI saw the convenient opening to act decisively and to assauge the guilty sense of betrayal and dishonour. He had not made the personal decision to leave the Karelian colonists as the First Invasion occurred, but he was Hiigaran Navy and had failed to protect the weak. What was more, many of the abandoned Hiigarans had been of Manaan descent - and a few had been of Rigel's blood. Rigel Manaan VI thus defied the chain of command and ordered the Eighth Fleet to execute a strategic hyperspace jump to the K1 system, to do what each member of the Hiigaran Navy swore - his duty. |
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