Cosmian Wars

The Cosmian Wars began on the 26th of October 1633, after the Linc envoy Zing Hitch who was staying on the Dottian home planet of Plavv on a diplomatic mission, suddenly disappeared. He ended all communications on the 13th. This event soon became known as the Hitch Incident. Tensions between the Dottians and the Linc were already high, which no doubt had an effect on the outcome of the incident. After 24 hours had passed with no sign of the missing Zing Hitch and his entourage, the Linc government made a public announcement denouncing the Dottian government, immediately demanding answers from them. It is now known that the incident was planned and executed by an underground group known as the Supreme Function, funded by Bleak Enterprise.

Six days later, the Dottian envoy Feshmer Craset, posted on the Linc home planet Inloreen was attacked and killed by a group of terrorists (the Supreme Function), who were identified as Linc. This infuriated the Dottians, despite the Linc government’s insistence that they had no involvement. The Dottians declared war on the Linc a few days later, on the 26th.

Many small wars broke out between individual battalions throughout the systems in which the Linc and the Dottians shared borders. Action did not occur in systems where other civilisations had large numbers of their people present. The first major war to flare up happened in the Voltich system on Ghonnick, within Linc territory. The lush planet was the Dottians’ first primary target, due to its large amount of exploitable resources. It spanned the first 20 years of the war up until 1653 and spread to every other planet in the system. When the Dottians eventually pushed through the Linc’s defences, the Linc made a hasty retreat to their home system Mala.

For the next two years the two sides fought in Mala, just beyond the orbit of the outer planet Igma. The Linc army struggled to keep the Dottians out and the fighting eventually turned into a battle of attrition, in which the Dottians were at a clear disadvantage. They were far from any of their already established bases, the nearest being in the Kuloklav system. They were also beginning to run low on supplies, as Linc special forces had managed to sever two of their supply lines. This continued for three years until 1658, when the Dottians suddenly gained new support from the privately owned Humanoid Group.

With the replenishment of munitions, the Dottians ploughed through the Linc defences on Igma and progressed toward Inloreen. The following year, 1659, Inloreen was surrounded by a Dottian fleet of starships. At the beginning of the conflict, the Linc had recruited a large quantity of their able population, meaning their remaining numbers grew relatively small. Dottian soldiers quickly broke through the thinning front lines of the Linc forces and seized the planet.

The Dottians made great efforts for three years to take out any remaining Linc bases and outposts. During this time, violence, executions and rape of the Linc population were commonly seen. These three years became known as the "Years in the Depths" amongst locals and were officially known as the "Inloreen Massacre" to the rest of the galaxy. The Inloreen Massacre is widely regarded as one of the most distressing ethical disasters in history, and became one of the main driving points for the Dottians' harsh after-war reparations.

In 1662, a Dottian fleet taking part in a mission to eliminate remaining Linc outposts and bases attacked Medler 2, a large moon orbiting the planet Medler in the Ifreggiata system. Unbeknownst to them, one of the bases they struck was instead a Human diplomacy and security outpost. The Humans, who had already been in relatively good terms with the Linc but had only recently gained interest in backing up the losing side, almost instantly used the attack as a catalyst and declared war on the Dottians.

It famously took a single week for the Humans to arrive in Mala with several large fleets. A five year struggle ensued, during which the Linc-Human forces pushed back the attackers all the way to Kuloklav. However, neither side could get a firm grip on Strive and Lycat for longer than a year at a time. Millions of civilians were evacuated from the war-ravaged regions but had nowhere to go.

The Dottian commanders, desperate for reinforcements, requested help from their long-time allies, the Grandusks. The Grandusk forces are not renowned for their starship fleets or their technological superiority, but they are known for their dominant practical skills in ground combat. When combined with the Dottian’s powerful star fleets and advanced technology, it took only three years from early 1669 to late 1672 for the Grandusk army to power their way through multiple planets’ worth of Human-Linc territory within Lycat. However, they had burned through their resources just as fast and were unable to advance any further.

A complete stalemate and lack of action for two years in length prompted both sides to begin searching for additional forces to back them up. The Dottians urged the Myriads to the south of the Grandusk astral territory to provide them with more material and weapons, while also attempting to contact more equipment manufacturers to boost their current arsenals. The Myriads declined and only a few corporations responded to their calls. It took the Humans a further four years to negotiate terms with the Xanfer neighbouring their astral territory. Communication was slow and the two parties disagreed on several terms, but a temporary alliance was eventually formed and the Xanfer began supplying artillery, medical and logistics support for the Linc-Human Coalition in January of 1679.

The strengthened Linc-Human Coalition pushed through the Dottian and Grandusk armies, even nearly breaking through Kuloklav and the systems around it. However, the front lines around Kuloklav and Imuz were not the only large battles taking place.

In 1682, a new offensive by the Linc-Human Coalition rushed through Morvon in a surprise assault on the military bases situated there. An attempt to loop around to flank the Dottians from the other side of the front lines, named Operation Road Rage, had been planned in secret by the alliance. The attack was coordinated to occur when their enemy's supplies began to run dry. It found moderate success, breaking a large hole in the Plavv Alliance's defences, but not managing to penetrate much further behind enemy lines. The Plavv Alliance's interception forces were strong but took away from the fighting ability on the main front, allowing the Linc-Human Coalition to push further in.

In February of 1691, the galaxy was surprised by a sudden attack on the Cindus-governed system Dablo, by the Myriads' own star fleet. The Myriads, hoping to use the galactic focus on the Cosmian Wars between the Linc-Human Coalition and the Plavv Alliance to allow for them to take back the system that they once governed, had been "planning the offensive for years". Approximately 25,000,000 Cindus civilians were killed in the initial attack, along with several million military troops. The Cindus government immediately declared war on the Myriads - an announcement marking the creation of the second theatre of the Cosmian Wars. It was later discovered in the years after the end of the wars that the Dottians and Grandusks had helped the Myriads to coordinate their assault.

It was at the moment of the attack on Dablo that Dottian forces in the Kuloklav and Imuz theatre also began to double their efforts to launch several counter-offensives on the enemy armies stationed on the other planets. These attacks struck hard at the key strategic points held by the opposing side. However, the Linc-Human Coalition forces fought back with a new wave of equipment from their supporters, including the Xanfer military. An all out conflict dragged on for almost a decade, with fighting calming down at the turn of the new century in 1700 as resources ran dry once more.

The Cosmian Wars went cold for three years from 1700 to 1703 as both sides came to internal agreements that no forward progress would be made by either's star fleets. Over the course of 1702 and 1703, small pushes were frequently made by the Dottians but each one was pushed back by fortifications set up by the Humans.

During this time, the war between the Cindii and the Myriads continued at full intensity, with many of the largest cities in the Dablo, Walli and Torke systems being bombarded by both artillery and air strikes. Casualties had risen by the millions and both sides were being backed by participants in the wars in the Dottian astral territory. It was discovered the following year, in 1704, that the Linc and Humans had been secretly negotiating with the Sleethiers. The same year also saw the rise of the Xanfer military's new weapons manufacturer, Xanfer Military Manufacturing founded by Pilo Lender.

The Sleethiers had historically remained neutral in most wars throughout the galaxy, so the members of the Plavv Alliance were taken by surprise when the powerful civilisation suddenly joined the conflict, on the enemy side. Favour quickly tipped into the hands of the Linc-Human Coalition after the announcement, with the fresh troops and equipment rapidly overwhelming the defending Dottians. By 1708, most of the astral territory owned by the Dottians and Grandusks had been captured by the Coalition.

In 1709, negotiations between the Linc-Human Coalition and the Plavv Alliance begun. Although the wars in the Cindus astral territory had not yet concluded, the Dottians and Grandusks made an official surrender announcement. Their representatives in the Jalo system urged the Myriads to also cede the war, but were instead sent back to their own territories by the civilisation's military. The following year, Linc-Human Coalition forces entered the Myriad astral territory, ending the ongoing war by force.

Over the three years from 1709 to 1712, a treaty was constructed and at the end of the final year, signed on the planet Kolban by every known intelligent civilisation in the galaxy. Named after the planet itself, the Kolban Pact marked the beginning of the Kolban Alliance and thus the beginning of modern society. Bleak Enterprise was closed down eight years later, in 1720. The main operating base of the Supreme Function was raided and shut down the following year.