The First War

Mankind's interstellar war retold

The First War, A History of Man's First Interstellar Conflict

"In the beginning, the Admirals told us war was an impossibility. That space was too big, systems too far apart. Like a spitting contest at 50 meters out. They were wrong, of course. Turns out the Drengins could spit pretty far." - President of the Terran Alliance, Thomas Pompeii

As the first day of 2231 dawned on Earth, the capital of the galaxy-spanning Terran Alliance, humanity was the ascendent race in the galaxy. Granted by Providence a position in the central core of the galaxy, mankind had spread its reach throughout the main arteries to the very reaches of the Milky Way. Colonizing systems to galactic south in the very first days of the Alliance, and then colonizing galactic east and north, humanity controlled nearly a fifth of the galaxy at the time of the First War.

The Drengin Empire, the blotch of red in the northwest corner of the galaxy, seemed far less threatening at the time than the Torian Confederacy. The Torian Confederacy was nearly man's equal in size, population and economy. For nearly 20 years Earth's most prominent strategists planned for a conflict with the Torians, with whom man was competing for worlds in the galaxy's southeastern quadrant. Indeed, Fort Bastion, humanity's farthest flung world with the closest proximity to the Torian border, was the only system with a dedicated defense force.

The Admiralty's theories on interstellar war were, at the time, a confused mess. Conflict was seen as a remote possibility. There were no reports of a single space battle between the five major galactic powers. Fort Bastion boasted a defense force of only one small fighter, UES Wasp, with a single laser battery for its main armament. It was humanity's only maneuverable fighting force. The Sol System was the Alliance's only other defended system, with Starbase Gateway providing strong protection for man's home worlds and the vast majority of its trading lanes.

What the Terran Alliance did possess, however, was an economic base nearly three times that of the Drengin Empire, their soon-to-be enemies. Its productive output was even more staggering, though it was focused mostly on the construction of economic starbases and planetside facilities. On paper, the Terran Alliance must have looked like easy pickings for the aggressive Drengins. In reality, though, humanity just had to flick a switch and it would become an engine of war.

Next- First Contact
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Reply #1 Top
news flash;

Local forum readers complained today that they really have no idea as to the level of difficulty involved in running the galactic empire. Rumors have been thrown around suggesting anything from 'cakewalk' to 'masochistic'.

Reply #2 Top
news flash;

Local forum readers complained today that they really have no idea as to the level of difficulty involved in running the galactic empire. Rumors have been thrown around suggesting anything from 'cakewalk' to 'masochistic'.


wth?


Colin: I like your narrative style. keep it up
Reply #3 Top
First Contact-

"It's an odd thing that your dreams never come true, but your nightmares always do." - Captain Horatio Ware, on first contact with the Drengins

First Contact with the Drengin Empire was made on Colony Day, May 20, 2228 when the UES Hermes investigated a spatial anomaly slightly over 2 parsecs from mankind's first permanent extra-solar colony on the planet Abraham. The Hermes was the Alliance's only functional survey vessel, a generation ahead of her time, designed by Vernon Bolivar of UtilCorp Space Labs. It was on a mission to explore and discover habitable planets for Terran expansion, a major policy initiative of the Alliance government.

Captain Horatio Ware, commanding officer of the Hermes, made way from Abraham on the first of May, heading galactic south in an effort to discover habitable planets on the border of the Torian Confederacy and colonize them before the Torians had a chance to. Just 2 parsecs out, Ware's ship came upon a wormhole, a rip in the space time fabric of space, and upon investigating it the Hermes was transported deep inside Drengin territory.

Humankind had known an advanced civilization existed in the northwest corner of the galaxy, of course. Radio and simple lidar intercepts had told them them that much. But humanity, and Ware, were not prepared for the Drengins. They were an aggressive species, militaristic to the core, and within just a few years they would be demanding tribute from the Terran Alliance.

Ware knew none of this at the time, of course. Indeed, he hardly had time to exchange pleasantries with the Drengin officials before he was forced to place his entire crew in hibernation, because of energy contraints in order, to make their way back to Terran space. But first contact had been made, and even more forebodingly, the Hermes' sensors picked up the presence of numerous Drengin colonies on her way back to Earth. Colonies that were reaching directly toward the Terran's ever-expanding settlements to galactic north.

As history knows, eventually the two civilizations would meet again, and this time permanently, when Drengin colonists settled Umeria I just months after humans colonized Umeria II. The Terrans and the Drengins were now face-to-face, and competing for the same resources.

Next- The Drengin-Torian War
Reply #4 Top
The Drengin-Torian War-

"We watched the Drengins and Torians wrestle with each other for more than a year, all the time wondering what they would think when we came out boxing." -Admiral Roger Barlow, Lord High Admiral of the Terran Navy

By 2230, the Drengin and Torian forces were at each other's necks, battling each other on the western edge of the galaxy. The conflict had been sparked by the Torians' fervent colonization efforts, a continuous expansion that leap-frogged the aged and static Arcean Empire and established a Torian presence directly on the Drengin's galactic southern border. The Torians had been there for half-a-year before the Drengins attacked.

News of the first interstellar war in the galaxy's history hit Earth like a tidal wave. It shook the Admiralty's thinking to the very core. The UES Hermes was dispatched to the scene to observe the coming battle and develop future strategies for the young Terran Space Navy. What the Hermes reported back was both encouraging and frightening.

First, the Drengin and Torian fleets were two to three times more powerful than anything the Terrans could put in space. And that would remain the face even if the Alliance's full research efforts were focused on military technology for the next year. Drengin and Torian ships boasted high-impact mass driver and missile technologies, and though the ships invested little in defense they packed more than enough punch.

What the Torians and Drengins did not possess, however, was speed. The festest alien fleets could travel no more than 3 parsecs a week. The Terran Alliance had warp engines capable of doubling or tripling that speed as early as 2225. The Admiralty knew that while it couldn;t go toe to toe with any potential enemy, it could at least "box" them. This boxing analogy would provide the central theme for the future of humankind's fighting forces. With speed and maneuverability, and advanced sensor arrays, the Terran Alliance would be able to fight above its capabilities.

As the Drengins and Torians slugged it out to galactic west, neither landing a knockout blow, UtilCorp Space Labs won the contract for man's first dedicated naval vessel. The prototype, UES Longbow, possessed no weapons. But it would serve as the backbone of the proposed Terran Space Navy.

What the UES Longbow lacked in weapons, it more than made up for on speed and sensors. The vessel could travel a full 9 parsecs per week thanks to its powerful warp engines, faster than any other known ship in the galaxy. Its life support systems allowed it to travel deep into enemy territories, and most improtant, its quadrupled sensors could detect vessels up to 13 parsecs away. Simply speaking, nothing in known space could sneak up on the Longbow, and nothing could catch it.

The Admiralty's plan was to build a fleet around the Longbow, conserving precious space that would have been dedicated to individual sensor platofrms on fighting vessels and using that space for weapons instead. The Longbow would act as a fleet's eyes and ears, detecting enemy ships before they ever knew the Terrans were there. The Alliance would be able to choose its battles, fight who they wanted to fight, and avoid a more powerful foe. In a word, the humans would be boxing their opponent, hitting them where they were weakest and avoiding their defenses.

Next- Hostilities
Reply #5 Top
Good writting, hope to read more
I especially like the excerpts at the beginings:

"We watched the Drengins and Torians wrestle with each other for more than a year, all the time wondering what they would think when we came out boxing." -Admiral Roger Barlow, Lord High Admiral of the Terran Navy
Reply #6 Top
wth?


lol just trying to ask the difficulty setting   
Reply #7 Top
lol just trying to ask the difficulty setting


lol! wow, i must have been tired when I read your first post... can't believe I didn't see that
Reply #9 Top
THAT WAS TOTALLY AWESOME!
Reply #10 Top
extra extra

as time for the launching of the first longbow(i assume this is the ship class name) nears it has come to this reporter's attention that the ship will be commitioned, Eyes in the Dark.