The Great Collapse

" We had the mightest military in the whole Cluster at the time and even we couldn't stand against Arleth and his damned fanatics. Eventually it was all we could do to run and protect what we had left, including the Governor and his family. That we got them out and into Inner System space was a miracle and one we paid for with the lives of too many good men and women.

History can call me a coward, I'm an old soldier on his last legs, but I'll be damned if I allow it to tarnish the sacrifice they made to get us out of that hell that bastard unleashed on Roma.

- General Xander Phillips, Commander of the Glyni Ka'Roma First Fleet

Rise of a Warlord

By 3170 AFT, Baen Arleth already had his core followers around him, those four who eventually became his lieutenants. That point in time was when they began recruiting to their cause, preaching about distaste and distrust with not only the governing bodies in his home system but with The Core Senate itself. Authorities in Eusarre Erria were aware of the rising dessidence on their planets but the larger picture of it was not seen by them given the individual governance of the planets there. Baen and his lieutenants split the five inhabitable planets of the system amongst themselves, each working individually on the planets to recruit and propagandize their new followers. Because of this, the system did not see the true issue rising up until it was too late.
After taking power in Eusarre Erria, the now estimated several hundred million strong force of the Horde moved on to the Teceanisis System in 3179 AFT. While they began with a slow burn takeover that began in the same way they had done before, by sending in people who preached the 'truth' to the populace of certain planets until they had recruited enough. By 3183 AFT, war broke out as the rest of the planets in Teceanisis realized what was happening and attempted to arrest the members of the Horde who were in the area. This fed immediately into the narrative they were preaching and pulled people deeper into the Horde, giving them an even greater force with little effort on their part. Eventually every planet in Teceanisis fell to the Horde and only one ship escaped, limping its way to the neighboring Glyni Ka'Roma System in 3187 AFT while being pursued by two Iron Creed ships. After the Iron Creed ships ignored multiple warnings, the Glyni Ka'Roma military fired upon them and caused Baen Arleth to declare them an enemy of the Horde.

The Horde Pushes Onward

Despite the might of the Glyni Ka'roma military at the time, they did not stand long against the zealotry of the Horde. Early in 3190 AFT, the Glyni Ka'Roma Governer, his family, and the survivors of the Teceanisis Great Houses had fled along with what refugees they could take with them with a military escort to make sure they got out. They went directly to New Terra to plead their case to the Core Senate but - despite literal recorded footage - it was not believed that the threat of Baen Arleth and his army was as serious as they said. That was, until later in 3190 AFT, when the Horde entered the Inner System and crushed any resistance that the Hani System put up. Only a few fighting skiffs and personal ships managed to escape the system to relay the news, confirming the story that was told by the survivors of Glyni Ka'Roma and Teceanisis.
From 3191 to 3206 AFT, the remainder of the Cluster organized to make a stand against the Horde and managed to bring their force to a standstill. While both sides shifted back and forth on what territory they held, the forces aligned under the banner of the Core Senate managed to keep them from taking over the entirety of the Cluster. This standstill was not enough, however, and a group dubbed the Covert Company was formed. Made up of fifty members from across the Cluster and including representation from all systems, the Covert split into smaller groups and slipped into the backlines of the Horde. From there, these small cells began assassinating their way through the higher-ups across the Horde factions as well as taking out as many key supply points as they could.

Desperate Measures

By 3212 AFT, the Covert was down to only a dozen surviving members. While they had made progress and had taken out several members of the leadership amongst other sabotages, it hadn't been enough to stop the Horde - only stall it further. Desperate, the Senate voted to initiate the Final Shot, a project that had been active in 3191 AFT. A secret group of government scientists and researchers had been working for years to convert decommissioned battleships into massive EMP bombs, calculating that with the correction strategic positions they could cause a cascade that would cripple the Cluster. With it focused around the sectors that the Horde held, it was created as a last ditch effort to stop them if military might wasn't enough. This group also created shielding technology that would hopefully protect technology at the Core from being affected as they would be cause in the edge of the radius but this was never a guarantee. It was a plan born of mad desperation and took a full year to get it fully active.
In 3213 AFT, all ten ships were slipped into position, aided in getting to their prime spots by their derelict appearances, the work the Covert had done over the years, and ten small crews of men and women who knew that they were likely going to die to get these ships into place. That year, the EMPs were fired and cascaded their effect across the Cluster, crippling the Allied Forces and Baen Arleth. Crews were trapped within their ships as systems died, floating in space unable to escape - nothing more than massive tombs drifting forever. Others were trapped on planets not their own and forced to become members of the population. Many followers of Arleth who were trapped like this, however, did not live long once they were discovered. While many ships, HAEMs, and other technology was protected by the shielding that had been created, others didn't make it. Some worked for a few years before unexpectedly dying.

Fall of a Warlord

In the end, Baen Arleth's army was finally routed through this desperate action. Baen himself was finally assassinated by one of the last two members of the Covert, who had worked his way into his close-knit circle for years and waited for the right opportunity to strike. Although the war was effectively over when the EMPs fired in 3213 AFT, it was not officially declared over until Arleth's dead was broadcast publicly over the recently constructed Link Network in 3225 AFT.

Conflict Type

War, Theatre

Battlefield Type

Space

Start Date

3179 AFT

Ending Date

3225 AFT

Conflict Result

Near collapse of society across the entire Orionis Cluster as targeted EMPs caused massive cascading systems failures.

Belligerents

Baen Arleth and his Horde

• Warlord Baen & His Horde

Allied Forces of Orionis Under the Core Senate

• The Core Senate

Strength

There are no exact numbers for how strong Baen Arleth's army was at its height of power. There are estimates that he had anywhere from hundreds of millions to billions but, again, exact numbers are unknown due to lack of information on the Horde. Many spies sent in to the region they controlled never returned and even less managed to send back information without it being intercepted.

Although the conflict began with smaller skirmishes with the governorship of Glyni Ka'Roma and the Teceanisis Houses, the Core Senate did eventually declare war against Baen and put the full force of itself against him. Under the banner of the Senate, every system that could sent in their forces to try and stop him, amassing a massive force that is estimated in the several billion.

Casualties

The majority of Arleth's most loyal forces were killed but most of those conscripted or forced into the fight survived.

Some estimates place the loss of life care higher than Baen Arleth's forces but others place it lower depending on who they are including. In all, the exact estimate is not known but most alive at the time lost someone war against the Horde.

Objectives

Take over the entire Cluster for control and power.

Defend the survival of the Cluster at all costs.