The Inward War
Military: War
The Inward War, spanning from 2564 to 2569, remains one of the most concealed yet defining conflicts in the history of the United Colonial Group. Unlike conventional wars fought with fleets and battalions, the Inward War was waged in silence, across the halls of governance, the markets of frontier worlds, the alleyways of criminal strongholds, and the invisible networks of ideological subversion. Public records describe these years as stable, prosperous, and politically uneventful. But classified chronologies reveal the truth: the UCG was under assault from within, beset by corruption, sedition, Exiled infiltration, and ONI remnants seeking to rebuild their power from the shadows. As traditional military structures struggled to identify the Enemy, the Noctis Praesidium stepped into a war only they were capable of fighting.
The spark of the conflict lay in the aftermath of the Purge diaspora. Thousands of former ONI personnel, both loyalists and opportunists, spread into the Outer and Middle Colonies, some assimilating peacefully, while others formed secretive networks dedicated to resurrecting ONI's ideological legacy. Parallel to this, UCG expansion created power vacuums exploited by criminal syndicates, rebel warlords, political opportunists, and Exiled sympathizers. These factions did not coordinate openly, yet their combined actions formed a hydra whose many heads destabilized economic lanes, civic governance, and frontier defenses. The DMDF, constrained by jurisdictional limits and the need for public transparency, could not engage these threats without sparking civil panic.
The Noctis Praesidium became the Regime silent shield during this time. Drawing upon the Wolf Doctrine's preemptive mandate, Praesidium operatives were authorized to infiltrate, dismantle, and neutralize hostile elements without public disclosure. Their methods were elegant in execution and merciless in effect. Political conspiracies collapsed as their architects vanished. Corrupted governors resigned under mysterious circumstances. Insurgent armies awoke one morning to find their supply caches detonated and their leadership eliminated with surgical precision. Criminal cartels discovered that their secure channels had been infiltrated for months, their structures mapped, and their future actions predicted. Across multiple systems, rebellions ended before a single broadcast could declare their intent.
The most significant adversary of this period was the Third Column, a loose alliance of ONI purists, rogue Spartan-IIIs, rogue intelligence analysts, and Exiled arms traffickers. Their goal was nothing less than to weaken the UCG from within and reestablish ONI's supremacy under a different banner. Their rise threatened to ignite a civil war. But the Praesidium dismantled the Third Column with ruthless coordination. In a series of operations now referred to internally as The Night of Three Dozen Masks, the Praesidium assassinated thirty-six key leaders across three star systems within a six-hour window. The Third Column crumbled instantly, its members scattered, paranoid, and directionless. Within a month, the faction had ceased to exist entirely.
By 2569, the Inward War had ended, not with a treaty, or a public speech, or even the acknowledgment that a war had occurred. It ended with silence. The UCG emerged unified, secure, and strengthened, its internal enemies extinguished before they could centralize their power. The Noctis Praesidium emerged as the undisputed guardian of the Regime stability. Their ability to fight a war without the public ever realizing it occurred cemented their place in the highest tiers of UCG strategy. Senior historians now regard the Inward War as the ultimate demonstration of the Praesidium's purpose: a war fought in darkness, for a future that would exist in light.
