The Bedokan Revolution

Revolution

The Bedokan Revolution was the first major interplanetary conflict which solidified Bedoke as a player on the interplanetary stage, and officially ended the colonization.

In the colonial town of Denich, as the Bedokans called it, on a stormy evening in the winter of 4682, a plot was hatched, it was a long shot, a wish by the powerful individuals in the Bedokan population to claim their land back from their oppressors. It would take a miracle to pull off. Their first target was the Astrean colonies, as they were the most up front with their brutal colonial strategy. Their plan consisted of three parts:   A) Unite the remaining tribes of Bedoke under a common banner.   B) Seize technology and weaponry from their invaders.   C) Push them off the planet.   The first step proved to be the most difficult. The man who would end up being their leader, Ayamaru Seich was a key person in this plan. Being a trained diplomat who had lived on Tera for a large part of his life, he was one of the main conceptors of this plan. He spent the greater part of four years seeking out tribes across Bedoke and asking them to join his cause. Astrean intelligence actually heard about this about two years into its inception, they ignored it since they believed it wasn't much of a threat.   Uniting about half the tribes under his banner, Seich and crew prepared for stage 2. Teran technology had spread from centers of colonization fairly quickly, at least things such as guns, and other physical artifacts that proved extremely useful. To secure more for the revolution, they had to storm a stronghold using what they had. Their target was Fort Davidson. Using the cover of night, the Bedokans launched a surprise ambush on the night of 6/22/4689. This is generally regarded as the start of the Bedokan revolution.   The news was shocking to those on Tera. The first conflict across the empty void of space. Scholars began to call it "A new era of warfare". Some groups cheered for the Bedokans seizing their independence back, while others called them foolish. The successful storming of Fort Davidson was a blemish on the military record of Astrea. The emperor called it "A mistake on the part of the commanders.."   In the following year of the war, the Bedokans continued to rampage through the Astrean colonies. Their style of warfare was more focused on subjugation than killing, so the citizens of the colonies were mostly unharmed, unless they tried to fight back. Some members of the Bedokans did massacre civilians, much to the dismay of Seich, who had most of them executed. Most historians look on this as a turning point in the war, as this sent several Bedokan chiefs to abandon the cause out of honor.   The Astreans were also having difficulty, their space shuttles took around 4 days to get to Bedoke, and they could not carry many soldiers, while being extremely costly to send. The Bedokans, who had seized several motor vehicles, were much more mobile, and the Astreans had difficulty transporting many aircraft to Bedoke. Their manufacturing plants that they had installed had mostly been captured, and many hangers with their planes captured in night raids. The air superiority was clearly in the hands of the Bedokans, many of whom had been working at the manufacturing plants already. The one advantage the Astreans had at this point was organization. The Bedokan military was extremely unstructured and each tribe had different ideas on what to do. Seich's main unit was the only one with a semblance of Teran military disipline.   The Astreans, realizing that the orbital bombardment treaty only applied to Tera, began to speed work on several kinetic bombardment satellites. Enamellan intelligence learned of this early on in development and began talks with the Bedokans about a tentative alliance. The public opinion of Enamella was not one that wanted war, however, the Astreans having access to orbital bombardment was a risk that their government was not willing to take. Then, at the halfway point in the war in 4691, the Astreans orbitally bombarded a military outpost of the Bedokans. The Enamellans, after learning of this, quickly organized a black ops division, which hijacked a cargo freighter headed to the colony and used it to take out both of the kinetic bombardment satellites. This began what was called "The Black War" Which was a pseudo war between Enamallen and Astrean special ops. No official war was declared on either side, but terrorism was common during this period, which pushed Enamella to seek alliances in the eastern continent and Nautillius.   Back on Bedoke, the war had come to a near standstill, but the cost was much higher for the Astreans to continue sending troops. Each troop transport had to be sent on the four day journey and could only carry a hundred to a hundred fifty troops at a time, as many were repurposed passenger ships. They needed to either change their strategy or leave. The continued pressure from the Enamellans on anything resembling a weapon was getting out of hand. The Emperor pressured the house for war with the Enamellans. It failed by two votes. If they had declared war, it probably would have began the bloodiest conflict the history of Tera would ever know. Enamella had negotiated a defensive pact with Caradel in the east, and their alliance with several minor nations was still in effect. Nautillius had agreed to a defensive treaty in exchange for a remote island. Astrea had allies in the south, and in the far east. Some historians believe that this was the closest the Astrean Empire had come to falling since its inception. That statement is a highly volatile subject, and the dozens of wars that have transpired, and the change it's sustained has made it the 'miracle state'   Seich was also having problems, the problem with winning a war is you start to argue about what happens afterwards. There was a lull in the war while Astrea carefully planned its next move. They began to land aircraft towards the south pole of Bedoke, where the Bedokans refused to go due to a strange superstition of theirs. Seich talked with the other chiefs. The main difficulty was leadership. He was in charge of their "state" for now, but he had seen the governments of Tera and had decided that the divided chiefdoms of Bedoke could not stay together unless they changed. He proposed a system most similar to the Enamellan democratic process. Many of the other chiefs disagreed, saying that they should return to the old ways once they kicked out the invaders. He had lost many people who either deserted or were casualties. They were beginning to run into resource shortages especially on fuel, since much of it was imported off of Tera, or extracted in the Astrean controlled sections to the south.   The final Astrean assault came on 9/23/4693. Teams of bombers and fighters flattened village after village of Bedokans. Air superiority was maintained by the Astreans, marching up from their base on the south pole. The Bedokans were caught by surprise by this large scale assault, and lost the most territory since the war's beginning. Seich was furious at himself for ignoring some Enamellan intel warning of this. He sent word to the chiefs who had left him, showing them the indiscriminate damage the Astreans caused. This brought many of them back into the confederacy. Using the remaining resources where they could, they began planning a last ditch effort to fight the Astreans.   Over the course of the war, Seich had learned the vast importance of air superiority. The terrain of Bedoke, especially in the north, was large, flat plains that stretched for miles on end. The major advantage they had over the Astrean pilots is knowledge of the terrain, and weather patterns. Seich chose the final battle well. The Cassian desert was prone to strange electrical storms which induced extreme magnetic fields in any metal object. It was a topic of curiosity for Terans, but the effect had not been well studied at the time due to the remoteness of the Cassian desert. The plan was simple, bait the Astreans into a storm, and destroy their numbers that way.   The final battle of the war began on 10/30/4693, and ended on the next day. The day was well chosen by Seich, it was possible to predict the electrical storms, but without local knowledge, it was nearly impossible without computer simulations. They tend to strike on bright sunny days, marked only by a sudden increase of wind similar to a thunderstorm on Tera. The generally structure is similar, just on a larger scale due to the perfect environment for them. The other factor about the storms is how quickly they move, the clouds can cover three hundred miles in an hour. One such storm formed on the day of the battle, with the Bedokans baiting them in with a convoy moving south to attack the Astrean's base.   As long as you aren't in a flying metal plane, the induced currents and magnetic fields wouldn't be a huge problem unless you were struck by lightning. The plan worked like a charm, the Astrean aircraft were decimated, thrown out of the sky by the storm. Several Bedokan pilots fell victim as well, but many stayed clear. Using the momentum from this, the Bedokans pushed through and stormed the Astrean's base. It was largely successful, marking the final battle in the war.   Nautillius acting as a mediator, the Bedokan interplanetary treaty was signed, officially ending colonization attempts on the planet by conventional means. Seich went on the becoming the first Chairman of the Bedokan Confederacy.