New Worlds War I

Maria

Source: Fantasma Historical Archive
Document: New Worlds War I
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A conflict extending from January 2838 to the Second Shift of January 2845, involving most of the parties then extant within the Ghost Star system. The New Worlds War was fought on four fronts: Mercury (then Ghost Star I), Seadance (Ghost Star II) and its moon, Polynya (Ghost Star III), and Forgotten (Ghost Star IV). The involved parties included the Ghosts, the Carinae Zone Guard, and the Tarazedi Alliance on the human side, and the Paradigm Sect and Liberated Elite on the Cybrid side.

The war began as the Paradigm Sect attacked a minor Tarazedi Alliance on the sunward side of Forgotten on 14 January 2838, while broadcasting an address claiming all resources-natural and human-in the system for their own uses. This went over poorly with the Ghost Council at the time, which consisted of Razorback, Carrot, and Xenogears. Their declaration of war on 15 January 2838, read from Fantasma Ops by Xenogears, read as follows:

"Again the Cybrids have displayed their true colors, and again we the humans of Mercury will show ours. Your challenge is accepted, and this time we will settle for nothing less than your annihilation. Let the games begin."

This address was delivered while the CZG leadership on Seadance Island began mobilization of all the forces at their command. Seadance Island (the only major seamount on the waterworld) was fortified and defensive forcefields were quickly constructed. Advances in shield technology contributed by the research of Xenogears and Razorback gave the humans their greatest advantage of the war. Certainly they needed all the help they could get, as most of the Ghosts had left the system and the humans were terribly outnumbered by the Cybrids.

The Tarazedi Alliance forces fought off the Cybrids on Forgotten using a number of creative-and risky-techniques involving induced seismic action. While their own losses during the early stages of the war were noteworthy, by mid 2838 they had driven the first wave of Cybrids on Forgotten either off the planet or to their cybernetic graves. Unfortunately, they could do little against the Cybrid's space armada. Clustering in a shell ten light-seconds in radius around the icy planet, they were both out of reach of return fire and well close enough to fall to any launching vessels with deadly effect. This stalemate continued for almost a year while the Tarazedi leadership worked out a solution to the blockade.

On 19 September 2838, the Cybrids began their assaults against the CZG bases in the north polar regions of Polynya. The harsh, volcanic region wreaked havoc on both sides of the conflict, and only the humans' command of shield technologies allowed them to withstand the constant bombardment by artillery and the new Cybrid aerial fighters and bombers, the Aquila and Cygnus models which incorporated design elements from both the old Advocate and Consul models and human technologies that they adapted. The CZG's own Banshees were insufficient to the task-mostly because the humans were limited by acceleration tolerances-and they were quite unable to get their competing bombers in the air through the Cybrid blanket. Instead, they waged HERC battles using new weaponry developed in the Ghosts' labs on Mercury, weapons that had devastating effect against the Cybrid air and ground patrols. The CZG pushed the Cybrids farther and farther south onto the desert plains... until the forces around the Cybrid bases rallied and dealt the CZG a crushing blow on 28 October 2838. The loss of an entire regiment of HERCs and their supporting infrastructure crushed CZG operations on Polynya altogether, and the evacuation back to Seadance left with barely a third of the Guard's original Polynya forces.

Fortunately for the CZG, the Cybrids were unable to pursue due to a new threat. While the Paradigm Sect was noteworthy for its democratic organization, there was sufficient dissent that the Nexus-Prime was divided nearly in two over one particular issue. Several years previously, the Cybrids had worked on converting captured humans into cybernetic humanoids with Cybrid brains and peripherals. Around the time of the NWW, these converted people began to resist the Cybrid leadership, and the careful programming manipulations of Immortal Brotherhood members in their number was beginning to countermand certain battle orders given by Nexus-Prime. When this was discovered, the Nexus was uncertain whether to destroy the rebellious units or to allow them-and their strategic insights-to continue as part of the Paradigm Sect.

The decision was made for them on 26 September 2838. The Brotherhood converts sent a message to the Paradigm Sect at large, a message that they had worked months on to achieve maximum effect-and maximum penetration through the Nexus's firewalls. Upon receiving this message, eighty percent of the captured humans revolted, turning on their masters in whatever ways their duties allowed. In the resulting chaos, about two hundred of these converts escaped the Cybrids entirely, taking with them a good chunk of the Paradigm war force.

They fled to the southern edge of the desert and prepared to jump en masse off world to Seadance's moon. While they made their preparations, the majority of the force was occupied in keeping the Cybrids off their backs. During the conflict, it was discovered that the Cybrid enhancements added to the natural human creativity and intelligence led to a greater combat skill than either they or their masters had dreamed possible. The Cybrid onslaught was beaten back, chased down, and slaughtered mercilessly. In light of this victory, the escapees decided to call themselves the Liberated Elite.

In mid-December 2838, the Cybrids began to fight back with electronic warfare, including transmitted computer viruses and hacks, misleading sensor information, and all manner of other creative things that could be done with computers. Just before the final escape on 25 December 2838, a quarter of the LE forces were tricked into attacking what appeared to be an anti-aircraft facility several kilometers from the launch site. It turned out to be a trap; instead of a launcher the LE discovered several dozen artillery vehicles and a platoon of top HERCs. Those of the LE task force not killed in the battle were recaptured. Some of their lower brain functions-such as the desire for freedom-were purged, and they would remain slaves forever.

In May of 2839, the LE force arrived on Seadance's moon and began setting up shop. Through deceitful diplomatic methods they convinced the CZG to allow them to remain there unmolested while they set up living arrangements on the moon. The Ghosts remaining in the systems (now down to Xenogears, Razorback, Ko'ah, and Jehrico) discovered a bigger problem. The Ghost Star, it seemed, was unstable and possessed a dearth of neutrinos similar to Sol's situation at the turn of the millennium. Unfortunately, the trend seemed to be continuing in the Ghost Star, and on 01 April 2839 Xenogears announced that the Ghost Star would probably go supernova in approximately two hundred years. This news was accepted with a nod and a thanks from the CZG, Tarazedi, and LE. The Paradigm Sect seemed bent on having the system to themselves until such did occur, a month later they doubled their efforts to beat through the blockade on Mercury. In December of 2839 they succeeded, and waves of Cybrid HERCs and air support dropped onto the defenseless planet.

At this time, the only Ghosts with significant psychokinetic powers remaining on Mercury were Ko'ah and Jehrico, and their range and power were limited by inexperience. An attempt to duplicate the Tarazedi Rain strategy that had wiped the Everything Else clean several years previously failed as the Cybrids were prepared for that eventuality. Thus, on 25 December 2839 the Ghosts were forced once again to evacuate the population of Fantasma down to the Core, and from there their efforts were dedicated to maintaining a shield around Fantasma itself to keep the Cybrids from locating the passages down to the Core.

Elsewhere, the Cybrids were having a harder time. The Tarazedi decided to use brute force-a rare tactic for them-and simply smash through the Cybrid blockade using every available spacecraft they possessed. They had converted nearly eighty percent of their HERC and tank force into pieces for their space force, and their ships now bristled with armaments. Several ships were actually constructed out of the hulls of HERCs and tanks (the small antigrav-based Falcon, based on the technologies of the Predator, was a popular vehicle) and some of these specially-configured vehicles were armed with fusion-point kinetic weapons that the unshielded Cybrid space vessels were helpless against. The Tarazedi did not settle for escaping; instead, they slaughtered every Cybrid ship they could reach before proceeding to Polynya and beginning a massive orbital bombardment against their main bases there.

In February of 2841 the Liberated Elite committed what came to be known as the Betrayal. Considering the CZG and others on Seadance to be ripe targets and useful resources for conversion, they began bombarding Seadance's space defense from the moon, and through the holes in the patrol patterns they launched platform ships; large, single-use vessels with ranks of submarine-modified HERCs, tanks, and other vehicles arrayed under forcefields. The platforms were intended to float on the surface of Seadance's ocean, and attack the main fortifications on the island while submarines dropped directly from space destroyed the CZG's submarine facilities.

These ferocious battles waged until 04 July 2843, when the Supernova Truce was called. Xenogears had discovered the supernova cycle was accelerating, and the Ghost Star would blow up in only a year. When this announcement was made, fighting in the system ceased for a time as the CZG and Ghosts began a massive evacuation of all planets in the system. Hastily-constructed launch platforms on Mercury would catapult space vessels toward the edge of the system, where the recently-returned Eidolon was attempting to construct a wormhole that would save the lives of everyone in the Ghost Star system...

(from "A Children's History of Mercury" by Enigma the Cat)

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