Tenebrean-Black Sun War

Military action

It started with a whimper.

The Tenebrean Empire rose on Luna, starting off as a group of skilled career politicians banding together over trade rights. The innumerable contracts and treaties drafted by the former Terran Mandate were under constant review, and lives often hinged on the outcome. Fortunes were made and lost almost overnight, as lucrative trade deals changed hands.   Named after Tenebre, the Luna orbital plate the group first met on, these politicians expanded their mercantile influence to bring the Mandate to its knees, slowly starving the planet of food, minerals, energy, and most importantly, consumer goods through the organization of armed merchant freighters acting as a blockade. So insidious were the trade deals that Earth's mighty fleets found themselves starved of fuel and munitions when they were needed most, and only token resistance was offered.   Although many of the parliament officials were executed or permanently imprisoned, several managed to escape, finding welcome allies among pirates, former military officials, and most importantly minor trading houses jilted by the now forming Tenebrean Empire.   Meeting in secret, aboard a derelict science station once built to study a black hole, the Black Sun Consortium was born. The exiled earth officials formed a board of generals in hiding, and a counter-blow entered the planning stages.   Despite at first only irritating resistance by the Black Sun, the influence of the Tenebrean Empire slowly spread, resulting in a 100 year long but almost bloodless takeover of the galactic core simply done by manipulating the price of goods, and the economy. With the core under their control, the vast merchant fleets were re-fitted into outright ships of conquest, and a slow march to bring the rim worlds to heel resulted in the conflict detailed in this log.   The galaxy is a vast place, and even a group as rich as the Tenebreans found themselves stretched. Tit-for-tat attacks, retaliations, and counter-assaults became the norm across the galaxy, and almost daily news reports came in of a world destroyed by one side or another, ultimately culminating in the use of weapons of mass destruction.   The war had come to a close with a narrow Tenebrean victory in the skies over Earth itself, achieved when seeing the battle turning in Black Sun favor, the Empire launched an overwhelming screen of planet busting fusion missiles, ensuring the mutual annihilation of both fleets. Orbital bombardment was prevented, and thus the Empire lived on to rebuild and fight another day.   Greenbriar was one such company tasked with exploring maiden worlds, untouched by humanity, with the express purpose of harvesting material to feed a galaxy starved by the ravages of war.   The scream came shortly after, and with it, all contact was lost with the outside galaxy.