Human Celestial Conflict

Original Prompt: "Write about a seemingly one-sided battle that ended in a pyrrhic victory for the more powerful side"
This conflict serves as the backstory for the game.
Throughout the galaxy, the Celestial Empire has spread far and wide. It's technology superior to all others, and its strength beyond parallel. It has never encountered another race of people who have even been capable of FTL travel. It has become arrogant, its people and its Emperor/Empress believing themselves to be the sole rightful inheritors of the galaxy. Meanwhile, the Federation of Earth has finally invented FTL (Faster than Light) technology, and has finally begun its conquest of the stars. It was only a matter of time before they made contact with eachother, and the wrath of the Celestial Empire would shine forth.
The first contact was impersonal. A lone automated exploration drone, a drone designed to seek out and report back the existance of habitable celestial bodies for the Humanity to populate, was discovered and captured by the Celestial Empire, after it wandered too close to one of their habited hive worlds. Believing themselves to be alone in the galaxy, the naive humans had sent these drones out in all directions without considering the possibility of a hostile force that was beyond them. The Tseibajeen of the Celestial Empire were furious of the idea of another species controlling portions of the galaxy. They had accidentally damaged the navigational data within the drone which contained the locations of many Human worlds. This prevented them from finding the location of Earth and some other planets, but it didn't stop them from seeking and destroying many newly inhabited human planets, who were unprepared to meet them in battle.
Despite their best efforts, humanity stood no chance. The short-lived interstellar Federation of Earth had collapsed under the weight of a far superior foe, and the wounds of the conflict would never heal. Luckily, thanks to the efforts Genome Project soldiers, many Humans were able to escape and take refuge on worlds which remained unknown to the Celestial Empire, including Earth and Kairothia III.
Despite being the clear victor, the Celestial Empire suffered greatly. It wasn't often that the military of the Empire had to partake in actual combat, especially against a foe that could fight in space like them. In the grand scheme of things, they didn't lose much in the way of numbers. But it was a great blow to their pride. They never had to deal with a foe who could stand up to them and outsmart and expose their archaic tactics. The stress of the conflict led to the early retirement of the current Emperor, who had his daughter Veiatama the 7th take over. It sowed the seeds of doubt into the hearts and minds of the Tseibajeen people.

The Conflict

Prelude

A lone unmanned explorer drone wandered too close to a Celestial Empire controlled planet. It was disabled, and taken to one of their labs to uncover its origin. When they realized that it wasn't made by one of their own, they realized what it meant: another race of people was claiming portions of the galaxy for their own, places that the Celestial Empire believed to be their divine right to control.

Deployment

Celestial Empire military ships were sent to bombard human controlled planets with explosives. They were largely unprepared for any form of direct ground combat.
The Federation of Earth retaliated with the best of what they got. While they weren't able to reach most worlds in time, those they could reach were assisted by the finest soldiers Humanity could offer: the Genome Project super soldiers. While these soldiers were originally created to be a police force to maintain order on the worlds of the Federation of Earth and quell rebellion, they made an excellent makeshift military force. But with such small numbers compared to the Celestial Empire, all they could ever do was hold off the orbital bombers while civilian ships evacuated to safe worlds. They willingly sacrificed themselves to save the others.

Battlefield

Most battles took place in orbit above the Human worlds. However, most of the actual fighting took place inside the Celestial Empire ships. The Genome Project soldiers were resourceful, and discovered that they could bypass the energy shields of the Celestial ships by ramming into them. At first they simply rammed them kamakaze style, but they eventually started building ships designed to punch into ships without being destroyed, so that they could board them. This effictively turned some Celestial ships into small scale ground combat scenarios which the Genome Project soldiers excelled in. Of course all of this was simply a diversion to allow civilian ships to escape.

Conditions

The Celestial Empire is a powerful empire that spans large portions of the Milky-Way galaxy, and has existed for tens of thousands of years. Their technology is far beyond that of Humanity, however it has remained largely stagnant the past thousand years.
The Federation of Earth, the Human faction, hadn't even been using FTL technology for a century. Their technology was rapidly advancing, but they were still far behind the Celestial Empire, and was also very limited in its military capabilities due to its small numbers. It had no dedicated military force, and instead only had a police force. However, its police force consisted of the finest Genome Project soldiers; hand-crafted genetically enhanced super-humans created to loyaly serve Humanity.

The Engagement

When the Celestial Empire had no resistance, they used orbital bombardment to destroy any trace of humanity. When Human resistance was present, the Human soldiers, many from the Genome Project, would use ramming techniques to board and sometimes even hijack Celestial ships. Such engagements were done in order to buy time for the civilian population to evacuate and flee to planets that were known to be safe. Ground conflict was rare, and only happened whenever the Celestial Empire was interested in the resources of a world, and the resources were too delicate to risk orbital bombardment.

Outcome

Millions of Humans died, and thousands became isolated from the rest of humanity, and would have to survive on their own.

Aftermath

Humanity was crippled, reduced to only a small number of worlds, and would remain terrified of interstellar travel for many centuries. Even after the events of "Legends of Kairothia (subtitle pending)", which ends in a truce, a deep hatred for the Celestial Empire and the Tseibajeen species dwells in the hearts of many Human. This hatred becomes a source of Malice for demonic forces to enter into the world. In addition, survivors were able to recover samples of Tseibajeen technology so that it could be reverse engineered and refined.
The stress of the conflict is part of what led the Emperor of the Celestial Empire to step down early. This led to his daughter, Empress Veiatama the 7th to take over early. At such a young age, she was very naive yet also very bright and capable. Her open-mindedness led to the end of the open hostility to Humanity and soon after, their integration into the Celestial Empire.

Historical Significance

Technological Advancement

Both factions had access to FTL technology, which allowed them to bypass the speed of light and traverse the large void between star systems in a short amount of time. However, the Celestial Empire technology had tens of thousands of years of refinement over anything Humanty could make use of, such as energy shields and plasma-based weaponry which didn't need ammunition.

Conflict Type

War

Battlefield Type

Space

Belligerents

The Celestial Empire

• Celestial Empire

Federation of Earth

• Federation of Earth

Strength

• Extremely high numbers
• Thousands of cubic light-years of territory
• superior technology

• Low number of very strong soldiers
• less than 100 planets
• primitive technology (by comparison)

Casualties

Causalties were low

Civilian and Military casualties were high. Almost all of the military was wiped out.

Objectives

• Take over all known worlds controlled by Humanity
• destroy the military might of the Federation of Earth
• establish dominance over whatever remained of Humanity through force

• evacuate civilian population from planets that were endangered by forces of the Celestial Empire
• protect ships as they ferried citizens off the planets
• hold back and distract the military of the Celestial Empire
• destroy as much of the enemy as possible before dying