The Battle of The Pillars and The First War
Our prime achievement | Our Darkest Hour
This was humanity's second infancy. The first war began soon after we managed to reenter space. The Wayfarers were taking their first steps in exploration, and I, your humble Archivist, arrived to guide humanity out of its latest dark age.
Before we begin, let us establish a bit of context. The war had three players. Two alien races and humanity. We were caught between their ancient rivalry. The sides were drawn long before the deaths started piling up. The sailiu studied us for years, and found our biology to be a major threat. Simply sneezing in their direction could be lethal, their bodies unable to handle the cocktail of microbes we give off just by being present.
They began rounding up the scattered remnants of humanity and slaughtering them. The purge was an effort to destroy our species before anyone would notice. The sailiu went to great pains securing their position in the galactic community, and humanity's presence jeopardized this position. Can we really blame them? Nothing justifies genocide, but it's hard not to empathize when placing yourself in their shoes. Could we really say in confidance that we wouldn't do the same?
Blood Feud
Throughout human history, there were great men and women who dedicated their lives to war. These people have been viewed as both honor bound heroes, and butchers alike. During the engagement on unity two individuals would rise and become the key leaders that would decide the outcome of the war. One was human, an ensign aboard a crashed frigate fighting on the surface of unity. The other was the siliue admiral who led the attack against our species.
They never met each other at any given point during the war. They never exchanged words, nor did they even know each other's names. Regardless, these two organized every major engagement, and their battle of wits would decide the fate of their respective species.
They never met each other at any given point during the war. They never exchanged words, nor did they even know each other's names. Regardless, these two organized every major engagement, and their battle of wits would decide the fate of their respective species.
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Miranda Thrace
Miranda was an engineer aboard The Wright, a corvette in the Void Navy of Safeharbor. She and her captain along with 5 surviving members of the crew fought against ground forces landing on unity. When the fighting was complete, she found herself the XO, following her captain to later serve on The SVN Faraday.
During the battle, Miranda lost several close friends, perhaps even a lover, though she never mentioned it. Miranda swore vengeance for these deaths and actively pursued sailiu ships for the entirety of the war. By the time the war ended, she was the grand admiral of the entire navy, though some would say her rise to this position was not deserved. I disagree. In my opinion, her dedication to learning the art of war, and applying it to combat in the void is well worth the honor. She proved herself to be quite the capable leader.
Xeva Ssoriess
Little is known of this sailiu admiral. We know that her part in the feud with Miranda began when she lost her home-world, which happened to be the 1st target for the Eden during their purge of the sailiu species. The Eden answer war crimes with war crimes. They saw the systematic extermination of humanity as justification for eliminating an old rival, and jumped at the chance to strike while they were occupied with us.
The eden fleets use asteroids to destroy worlds of those who fail to abide by galactic law. Naturally, Xeva took it personally. Learning this showed us the eden did not assist in the war effort without reason, nor were they as upright and civilized as they appeared. They wouldn't have tried so hard if the Sailiu were not the enemy we faced.
Battle of the pillars
The Battle of The Pillars was the first and largest engagement of the war. Named after a formation in our neighboring nebula, the battle began when an enemy fleet attacked Safeharbor without warning. They struggled to get their vessels past Unity, the warmoon that sits in our sky. Like Safeharbor, Unity featured a planet wide infrastructure. On Safeharbor this infrastructure is a massive, planet-wide city, but on Unity it was a massive, military fortress.
We don't know how the moon was activated, but somehow we managed to turn on small sections of the moon. Perhaps it activated itself, sensing the threat. Regardless, the enemy would not touch the surface of Safeharbor until the warmoon was dealt with.
What few ships we had available made their way to defend Unity. Many of these ships lacked shielding and most of them were barely outfitted for war. They held their own for six hours until eden fleets arrived to assist. The Eden watched us for just as long, and were thwarting the sailiu at every turn. The battle ended when The Archangel, an eden titan, jumped in from deep space. It was quite a sight to behold. Titans aren't used to win a fight, mind you. They always win, in the end. Titans are used when a species wants to send a message of power. This message read loud and clear: humanity was protected.
The First War
War in the void is always a series of small skirmishes. With the kind of distance involved, Isolating an entire fleet to a small area of space is generally considered a bad move. You want to spread your forces out over a large area. Ships can always disengage from their patrol and assist other vessels nearby if they find themselves out of their depth. On top of that, enemy vessels will be unable to sneak by the net you cast. Human vessels were significantly outmatched. The siliue had better technology. We wouldn't be able to stand toe to toe with them without thinning the herd.
This is where I came in...
Our disadvantage brought up a crucial problem: it wasn't just our technology. We had no idea how to wage war anymore. The loss of earth saw a loss of information, and we felt this loss more when it actually mattered. When I emerged from The Archives on Safeharbor, I was able to unlock troves of information brought on the arks that settled the planet.
I found something interesting hidden behind encrypted files. Those who sent the archives from Earth deemed it necessary to hide our history of war. When I opened it, it felt like opening Pandora's Box. I released many works on military strategy. These works became required reading at the Academy on Unity from then on, but those fighting on the front lines had nothing during the war.
Miranda Thrace spent many long hours learning from me when she was made admiral. At this point in the war, there were no earthborn veterans left to hold the position. She had the most experience, which is to say, 6 months of it. She replaced her captain aboard The Faraday, and then took her battleship to lead small fleets. She was terrified, unequipped to handle the fate of the entire human navy. She rose to the occasion, though. I knew she would. When I opened that archive I realized the beast slumbering under our tender flesh. Humanity is no stranger to war, and this beast was waking up.
The fall of The Phoenix
The sailiu knew we settled on a planet, but Safeharbor's location eluded them for years. They followed refugees and inevitably found our home. A fleet appeared, warping into our system and destroying several of our vessels.
Caydie Meredith Kines did so much for humanity. She was among the first casualties of what became The Battle of The Pillars. The Phoenix was a vessel under her command and it was the 1st vessel we lost. We looked up to the sky and saw the nuclear flash, a slight flicker of light in the sky. More came soon after as a fifth of our fleet was destroyed during a simple test flight. We had a fleet for the better part of 3 days.
This was the very first time we came into contact with an alien species. We knew the others existed, but unless you were born in the void on some distant station, you have likely never seen them. To those who saw the others as a distant legend, it was a devastating realization. We were under attack by monsters. Our first contact began with war.
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Ooh. Awesome. I love all the little details like the different military figures and all the information on the different battles you provide. The biggest question I have is about the naming. Why is it called the first war? If you use first, it should be "the first ____ war" since there were probably wars before that. Or you should just rename it? No idea, but the rest was cool(also, totally possible my brain just skipped over the explanation)
Oooo yesss I shall definitely rename it it's our first stellar war. Oof. Nice catch. Thanks so much! I'm glad u enjoyed it
Title? Also, I didn't reread but I feel like you updated a lot? Or maybe I'm just mixing up articles.
This was not supposed to get updated. I accidentally hit the notification button on this instead of another I was polishing. The title is briefly explained, as it's the first war in context of this new version of humanity and it I was still debating on the change. I dont know if that would make sense or if it should simply be altered. Maybe my approach on it was off?
Oh. Alright, that makes sense. I hadn't noticed that you mentioned it in the beginning of the article as that's helpful. Not sure if that was added after my comment or not, but I hadn't realized you'd updated the content at all.
No worries. Lol yeah i made a few changes but not much. I plan on adding another little section but past that, it's just rephrasing and clarification.