Epsilon Pegasi Civil War
One of the clearest and most violent examples of the suffering that rose up in the wake of the Empires collapse, and a memory which still stings Klonor citizens to this day, was the Civil War within Epsilon Pegasi between the Human and Elvish inhabitants of the system. The Humans were descendants of the original Klonor settlers, those who had embarked from the Duchy of Klonor back on Old Earth and colonised the multi-planet Pegasi system. The Elves, though there for centuries already, were newcomers who had settled on one of the uninhabited planets while fleeing from persecution on Earth several years after the Humans had already departed for the Stars.
The war was instigated by the Humans, located on the fifth planet, several months after the Fall. Until then the system had managed to hold itself together better than the rest of the former Empire, forming a provisional government composed of representatives from both planets, but as the isolation continued the stress grew too high. The Humans, numerically superior to the Elves and holding a larger portion of the remainder of the Klonor Space Corps, began to slowly demote and remove from command all the Elves within the military. It was done slowly and quietly, no overt "All Elves must leave or die", but after several weeks it became obvious that within a few months there would not be a single Elf Officer remaining aboard any ship. Already the new commanders were beginning to place restrictions on travel to and from the Elvish planet, restricting commerce, and even proposing radical identification programs. It was clear to all that the ultimate goal was to reduce the Elves to second class citizens, possibly even slave status, after the Humans had removed them from any possible position of resistance.
Chosing to resist rather than meekly submit, the remaining Elvish officers launched a preemptive strike against the Human occupied world and some of the larger combat vessels under Human control. What followed afterwards can at best be called Total War, and at worst attempted Genocide on both sides. Neither side was satisfied with anything less than complete domination of the opposing species, and both worked hard to achieve it. The Humans were larger in number and had greater experience waging war, the Elves had usually concerned themselves with internal matters prior to the Fall, but the Elves were nearly fanatical and still retained contact with their commanders, while the Humans lost contact with theirs when the Empire fell. Neither side was able to conquer the other and, while civilians were being hearded into work/execution camps reminiscent of the Holocaust of the 20'th Century Old Earth, the militaries were constantly on the brink of collapse.
The collapse came months later when, after near constant fighting, the foreign nations of Vernii, Valinon, and Taka mobilised their military forces and conquered the system for their own purposes.
