Great War

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The Great War, referred to alternatively as the First Shivan Incursion or the Coming Darkness, was an armed conflict between the Klonor Empire and the Shivan Imperium during the year 2335. With combat throughout the entirety of the Klonor nation, resulting in the loss of many claimed systems, the brief conflict was the most destructive war within Klonor history. All five of the stellar-systems under the rule of the Grand Duke Solomon Klonor endured assaults from the xenocidal Shivans and, with the Klonor Space Corps unable to inflict anything approaching severe damage upon the alien military, the Klonor people were constantly on the brink of complete defeat and, ultimately, extinction. There was no successful communication between the Duke and whatever leaders may or may not have existed among the Shivans, and the sole goal the Shivans seemed to possess was the complete extermination of all Klonor life.

First Contact: 1.7.2335

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GTA Installaion Riviera, Ross 128
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The first documented contact with the Shivans was in the form of an assault on the Klonor military installation Riviera within the Ross 128 system. The first casualties were the pilots of an out-system standard patrol who, despite piloting the most advanced of current fighter craft, were quickly and brutally slaughtered without downing a single enemy craft. Though one fighter did manage to escape the battle and report the assault to the distant Riviera, the warnings of the frantic pilot and his descriptions of the brief battle were misinterpreted as to mean he had been ambushed by "rogue" members of the Jimathonian military. Ever since the Klonor/Jimathon Split from years earlier, there had been a surprising amount of defection from the Jimathon armed forces to piracy. Though officially denied, it was widely believed they were acting with the knowledge and support of the Jimathon government, and such ambushes had become almost routine. However, since none of the ambushes had involved anything larger than armed freighters, the command staff of the Riviera felt they were safe from attack and saw no need to immediately dispatch its stationed combat vehicles.

Unfortunately, the Shivans possessed a force which greatly surpassed the Jimathon pirates and, when they emerged from Sub-Space a bare few seconds after the Riviera dismissed the terrified pilots warnings, the entire military facility was demolished by what was later determined to be the SD Lucifer. There were no survivors from the assault and the entirety of the of the vessels in-system were either completely destroyed or disabled beyond hope of repair.

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The surviving fighter struggles to return to supposed safety
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Declaration of War

The Riviera and the other vessels of the Corps stationed within Ross 128 were defeated within minutes of the Shivans arrival and, with the complete surprise of the assault, the station Commander was unable to dispatch any message to the Klonor Admiralty stationed within Gamma Draconis. As a result, the other systems of Klonor remained completely ignorant of the Shivan assault and were only concious of a suspicious silence from the Ross 128 garrison. Two days later, 1.9.2335, a Fenris class Cruiser was dispatched from Deneb to investigate the lack of communication. Upon its arrival in Ross 128, and finding only rubble and debris where there was once a heavily armed and defended installation, the 5'th Fleet from Gamma Draconis was mobilised to re-secure the system and investigate the cause of the bases destruction. For several days afterwards there was no indication of who, or what, had destroyed the installation and, with no known weapon technology identified from the wreckage, the Corps was considering the possibility that an unknown alien species was responsible for the attack. When several of the cargo shipments ferrying supplies between Gamma Draconis and the ships newly stationed within Ross 128 were intercepted and destroyed on 1.16.2335 the suspicion became fact.

Initial attempts at communication were met only with violence and the 5'th Fleet was quickly driven out of the Ross 128 system, sustaining massive casualties and only forestalling complete destruction by a hasty retreat. All assaults against known Shivan positions within Ross 128 were defeated easily and, when the Duke was forced to concede that the Empire had effectively lost the system, the Klonor forces stationed within the remaining systems were mobilised to defend against a large-scale invasion. There was one final attempt made at opening communications, a disastrous mission which resulted in the loss of 514 lives, before the Admiralty realised that there could be no dialogue established.

In responce to the Shivans actions, the invasion of Ross 128 and the continued assaults on other Klonor holdings, the Klonor Empire officially declared a State of War on 1.23.2335. Unfortunately, despite the activation of the entirety of the Klonor Space Corps and a sudden surge in enlistment, it seemed impossible to drive the Shivans from the territory they had already conquered.

The Loss of Regulus

An instance of near-hope came when the Shivans launched an assault against the Klonor colony system of Regulus on 1.27.2335. The Lucifer, for unknown reasons, was withheld from the assault and remained in Ross 128 where it continued to repel Klonor attempts to re-take the system. Without the presence of the Super Destroyer, of which there appeared to be only one in existence, the two opposing militaries were on near-equal footing. Though the Shivans were undeniably superior in technological aptitude, without the Lucifer present a Klonor victory was at least a possibility.

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The Regulus system within the Sub-Space Network
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The initial assault, coming through the Polaris-Regulus Jump-Node, was costly for the Klonor forces; losing three Cruisers and five Corvettes before they were forced to retreat towards the interior of the system and the full force of the 2'nd Fleet. However, even that defeat was a morale-booster when the Shivans, who to date had lost only three individual fighter-craft, were forced to abandon and destroy two Cain class Cruisers when it became apparent that Klonor boarding parties, dispatched once the enemy forces had been detected, were on the verge of seizing control. Though it was not a direct victory for the Klonor Space Corps, the Shivans own weaponry being the source of the Cruisers destruction, it marked the first time that any of the enemy capital ships had been eliminated in any way. Civilians believed it was a sign of the inevitable turn-around and the Corps took it as a sign of the Shivans mortality, giving them the small dot of hope they needed to continue the fight.

What followed in the next two weeks were a series of minor battles, nothing on the scale of the Ross 128 assault or even their initial foray into Regulus, as the Shivans secured the Jump-Node and began to construct and fortify cargo depots throughout the system. The Corps launched two ill-fated assaults against these depots, destroying both and eliminating the vessels guarding the cargo, but the drastic losses suffered during the attacks made each victory a hollow one and they soon abandoned any offensive tactics; hoping to preserve their forces to slow the Shivan advance towards the inhabited planet when they finally launched a large-scale assault.

The civilian population of Regulus, despite their initial hope after the first minor battle, was consumed by fear as time progressed without the Shivans being expelled from the system. After the first Depot Assault, which saw the destruction of four Klonor Corvettes compared with the Shivan loss of only a single Cruiser, a large-scale exodus of the system was underway and within one week the majority of the civilian population had relocated to either Deneb or Epsilon Pegasi. However, approximately 17% of the population refused to evacuate and, to safeguard these stubborn individuals as well as the territory they refused to leave, the Klonor Space Corps remained in-system in the hope of saving the inhabited planet from complete destruction.

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Three Demon class Destroyers ambushed the 2'nd Fleet
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Though the final Shivan push was a long time in coming, it made up for it in ferocity and pure cunning. Originally the assault seemed nothing more than one of the many minor raids plaguing the Corps ships, a common occurance since the Shivans arrivals, and it was expected that only a wing of assault fighters, or perhaps a Cain class Cruiser at most, were involved in the raid that a civilian freighter was reporting. When two Fenris class Cruisers were dispatched to the site of the incident they instead found three Shivan Demon class Destroyers waiting for them. Though they managed to combat the Destroyers for a long enough time to warn the remainder of the 2'nd Fleet, Klonor knowledge of Shivan tactics having expanded greatly in the brief time they had been combating the hostile aliens, they nonetheless quickly succumbed to the excessive firepower present. The reinforcements which arrived on the scene soon afterwards, among them the GDD Triton, the systems sole Orion class Destroyer, were likewise engaged by the Shivans and, despite their accomplishment of disabling one the three enemy Destroyers, were destroyed soon afterwards.

What followed after the ambush, which eliminated the most powerful Klonor warship in the system as well as several of the most distinguished Cruisers, was a brute-force assault against the Corps vessels in orbit over the Colony planet. Though fighting valiantly, the sheer numbers and firewpower of the attacking Fleet soon rendered the defenders incapable of further combat. An estimated nine hours after the commencement of attack, the time since original contact between the two Fenris Cruisers and the three Destroyers, the Admiralty in Gamma Draconis ordered a full retreat of all surviving Corps vessels through the Jump-Node to the remaining Klonor systems. The Shivans, now with uncontested control of the Regulus system, moved to hunt down and eliminate all vessels within the system that were unable to evacuate upon the Admiralty's order. The civilians on the Colony planet, however, were unmolested by the Shivans and seemed to not even be noticed by the successful conquerors.

After Regulus

The defeat of the Corps within Regulus, even without the presence of the Lucifer, indicated that the military of Klonor was simply not up to the task of repelling the Shivans. It was now known that the Shivans were mortal and, with enough planning and perparation, the Corps could delay and even damage their Feet; but merely delaying the inevitable end was not the preferred outcome. Somehow, a method of defeating the Shivans needed to be found.

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Beam Cannons aboard The Colossus, a Klonor vessel constructed after the Great War
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The Commanders of the Corps, supported by the Duke, decided that even the meagerest of advantages was vital and worth minimal risk; so the newly developed and still experimental Beam Cannon was put into production. An amazing breakthrough in weapons technology, the Beam Cannon was an Capital-Ship weapon designed for use aboard the Cruisers and Destroyers of the Corps; practically doubling the offensive capabilities of Klonor warships. Its use would give Klonor vessels more assault capacity than Shivan vessels of equal size and, though the superior defensive technology present aboard Shivan ships and their advanced fighters meant that the field of battle would still not be perfectly equal, it would be close enough for superior tactics and inspired operation to cover the remaining distance. However, the weapon was so recent a development that it had not been subjected to the myriad tests necessary to insure adequate performance in combat conditions. Those ships that the Beams had already been installed on, the most recently constructed Orion Destroyers that would have been the vanguard of the newest Corps vessels, were subject to critical reactor failures at inopportune moments; leaving them drifting and a perfect target for Shivan forces until a full repair crew could be dispatched to replace the reactors.

Finding the risks acceptable, all to aware that without the newest weaponry a Shivan victory was gauranteed, all ships currently under construction had the Beams installed within their standard weapon systems and the remaining vessels currently in service were pulled in individually for full refits.

The Shivans, meanwhile, seemed to be following the pattern they had established after they succeeded in conquering Ross 128. After securing the system, eliminating all space vessels they could locate, they were content to remain within and patrol the system. They continued to repel all Klonor attempts to re-take the system, as they had within Ross 128, and launched only minor fighter raids against other Klonor colonies and military installations. Unfortunately, none were convinced that the Shivans had halted their advance and the remaining systems geared for the eventual assault.

The Draconian Campaign

The sole military engagement of sufficient length to be termed a Campaign, infinitely larger than individual fighter sorties or Fleet Battles, was the Shivan invasion of Gamma Draconis. Coming on the heels of the conquering of Regulus, the first exchange of fire coming on 2.20.2335, the Draconian Campaign was several days of continuous combat with the new Beam Cannons only just coming into service. At that point only ships just leaving dock were equipped with the powerful weapons, currently active ships had not been refitted yet and were still utilizing the older Laser Turret brand of offensive weaponry. As such, the initial days were disastrous for the Corps.

Fortunately for the Klonor military, the Lucifer once again remained behind when the primary assault was launched. Actively engaged in patrolling the Regulus system, the Shivans seemed determined to utilize the Lucifer only during crucial and surgical strikes against vital enemy stations, otherwise it seemed restricted to securing and defending already pacified systems. With Gamma Draconis acting as the staging point for the bulk of the Klonor Space Cords, an estimated three System Fleets located within the military installation, the superior numbers of the defenders enabled them to hold the first Shivan assault from reaching the systems interior. Though losing three Orion class Destroyers in the first day of combat, they managed to hold their ground and protect the interior installation that was busy equipping the Leviathan and Fenris Cruisers with the sole hope of stopping the Shivans.

The next day, 2.21.2335, the first of the refitted Cruisers entered service and began launching assaults against forward Shivan positions. With the extreme firepower of the new Beam Cannons, in addition to their superior numbers, the Corps actually managed to disable the foremost Shivan outposts and hold their ground from Shivan counter-assaults. The day afterwards, with the first refitted Orion coming into service, the Corps was successful in re-taking all Shivan held space within two AU of the installation. The day afterwards, with success not just possible, but probable, the Lucifer appeared within the system and commenced immediate assaults against all Klonor positions. Within three hours the Corps-controlled territory had been reduced to the area they retained after the first day of combat.

After the appearance of the Lucifer, its three Flux Cannons superior to any defensive technology present within Klonor, the Klonor vessels were forced into guerilla tactics and hit-and-run strikes. No Klonor vessels could stand up to the Lucifer in direct combat and Gamma Draconis was to vital too simply abandon, so the Corps began to focus on delaying the Shivans for as long as they could until a method of destroying the Lucifer could be found.

Battle of Deneb

Main article(s): Battle of Deneb

The most catastrophic single military engagement in the history of Klonor, the Battle of Deneb was a key turning point in the Great War. Instigated by the Klonor Admiralty, who were ignorant of the advanced shielding technology aboard the Lucifer, the Admirals wanted to lure the Super Destroyer into a conflict where, hopelessly outnumbered, it would fall victim to the combined might of several System Fleets. Taking place on 2.28.2335 in orbit over Deneb V, the then-Capital of the Klonor Empire, it involved portions of the 3'rd, 4'th, and 6'th Fleets of the Klonor Space Corps, as well as approximately 600,000 infantry soldiers and mechanized operators stationed on the planets surface.

The Admiralty hoped to lure the Lucifer to Deneb with the illusion that the system housed a vital, yet undefended, military installation, a prime target that would lure the Super Destroyer away from the ongoing siege of Gamma Draconis. A successful venture, the Shivans launched an incursion on 2.25.2335 and, with a hasty Corps retreat reinforcing the image of vulnerability, the Lucifer itself appeared in-system soon afterwards.

Historians have various competing estimates of the Shivan forces involved, with the numbers ranging from a bare dozen Cruisers and the SD Lucifer to several hundred Destroyers and the SD Lucifer, but the outcome of the Battle is an uncontestable fact. Planned to stonewall the Shivan advance and eliminate the Super Destroyer that had been inflicting astronomical casuaties upon the embattled Corps, the result was the almost complete annhilation of the Klonor forces involved and loss with all hands of the GDD Intrepid. Though even before this particular defeat the tide of the War was undeniably going against the Klonor military, afterwards the remaining conflicts could be best described as a slaughter.