Solar War

The Solar War is the conflict between the nascent Solar Republic and the Society Remnant for control of the Core of the Solar System.

Background

Following the death of Octavia au Lune in November 743 PCE, ArchImperator Magnus au Grimmus rallied The Society's remaining loyalist fleets and withdrew to regroup on Mercury and Venus. About two months later, he began a counter-offensive to destroy The Rising and reclaim the Core in the name of The Society. In 754 PCE, the Rim Dominion became involved in the war on the side of the Society Remnant after they learned that Darrow had been the one who destroyed the Ganymede Dockyards at the Battle of Ilium rather than Roque au Fabii as he had led them to believe

Major Participants

Solar Republic

• Darrow O'Lykos
• Sevro Barca
• Cadus Harnassus
• Orion Aquarii
• Virginia Augustus
• Dancer O'Faran
• Publius Caraval
• Victra Barca
• Oro Sculpturus
• Colloway Char
• Thraxa Telemanus
• Kavax Telemanus
• Niobe Telemanus
• Regulus Sun

Volk

• Sefi the Quiet
• Valdir the Unshorn
• Volga Fjorgan
• Skarde Olsgur

Society Remnant

• Magnus au Grimmus
• Atalantia au Grimmus
• Atlas au Raa
• Xenophon
• Volsung Fá
• Apollonius au Valii-Rath
• Lysander au Lune
• Rhone ti Flavinius
• Asmodeus au Carthii
• Julia au Bellona

Rim Dominion

• Seraphina au Raa
• Dido au Raa
• Helios au Lux
• Diomedes au Raa

Daughters of Athena

• Athena
• Cheon
• Aurae

The Red Hand

• Harmony
• Cormac O'Vadros
• Picker

Freelancers

• Ephraim ti Horn
• Cyra si Lamensis
• Fig

The Syndicate

• Abomination
• The Queen
• The Duke of Hands
• Gorgo
• Boneriders

Major Events

Battle of Luna

In the weeks following Octavia's demise, many Society legions were stranded on Luna as the Ash Lord withdrew to Mercury and the Rising took control of the moon. In early 744 PCE, the Ash Lord launched a counterattack to relieve the marooned Societal forces.

The three-year invasion was an extremely bloody affair, with Society forces forcing the Republic to fight block to block, city to city. Civilian casualties were notoriously high, with residential areas and schools leveled by stray munitions on both sides.

Liberation of Earth

Over the course of the Battle of Luna, combat spilled over to Earth. Republic ArchImperator Darrow O'Lykos led forces in the ground campaign, with Apollonius au Valii-Rath fighting Darrow and the Eight Legions' Second Cohort at Kardung La in India.

In 746 PCE, the Republic launched an invasion of Society-held territory in northern Africa, and drove House Grimmus forces out of their ancestral seat in the city of New Sparta.

At some point during the campaign, the Republic launched an Iron Rain on Earth that became known as the Wolf Rain.

The battle for Earth lasted as late as 748 PCE, when House Grimmus legionnaires were driven from Africa and the Americas. However, a small holdout of Society forces remained entrenched in South Pacifica until at least 753 PCE.

Liberation of Mars

After the Society Navy was repelled from Luna, Mars became the next primary theater of the war.

In 747 PCE Apollonius au Valii-Rath laid siege to Olympia, where Sefi Volarus was leading the Obsidian migration from Mars' south pole. Valdir the Unshorn became one of the only humans aside from Darrow to survive a duel with the infamous Mad Minotaur. Darrow himself came with the Solar Republic's seventh and fifteenth legions to drive off Valii-Rath and end the siege. The Siege of Olympia marked Atlas au Raa's entrance to the war following his return from the Kuiper Belt.

Later in the year, Apollonius was dispatched to Luna with orders to assassinate Darrow and his family, unaware that he had been sent on a suicide mission. Apollonius was captured and given a life sentence in Deepgrave.

When the Society Remnant lost control of the city of New Thebes, Dictator Magnus au Grimmus destroyed the city with nuclear bombardment. This act drove several minor Gold families from Mars to declare their allegiance for the Republic.

Some of the fiercest fighting took place on Mars. The worst part of the conflict was by far the "Rat War", a three year long campaign to liberate the tunnels and mines of Mars. The Tunnel War was considered to be even worse than the Block War on Luna. Not even the Obsidians sing songs of their victories in the tunnels.

The Battle of Mars in 749 PCE was the single largest battle of the war prior to The Battle of the Ladon in 754 PCE. Following the Solar Republic victory, the Society Navy withdrew from Mars and ceased its campaign.

It would take another two years before the tunnel wars to come to an end and Mars was officially declared free, although an army of Golds loyal to the Society remained encamped on the continent of Sirenia up until at least 753 PCE.

Change in Leadership

In 750 PCE, Apollonius used his connections in Deepgrave to have Magnus au Grimmus poisoned. While House Grimmus's medical staff was able to keep him alive, he was no longer fit to lead the Society Remnant. In his place, his last remaining daughter Atalantia stepped in to assume his role as Dictator.

For the first three years of her tenure, Atalantia orchestrated a counterintelligence campaign to conceal her father's condition from Republic spies and uphold the illusion that the dreaded Ash Lord was still in command of the Society's fleet.

Siege of Mercury

The siege of Mercury began in 751 PCE and lasted for two years until Darrow launched a successful Iron Rain to take the planet.

In the first year of the Siege, Screwface was carved and sent undercover as a mole within the Society ranks. Only Darrow, Mickey, Theodora, and Mustang were aware of his status.

Although the Senate had denied an Iron Rain in August 753 PCE, Darrow ignored the order and liberated the continent of Helios, with over a million casualties. These heavy loses led to deep bitterness especially among the Obsidians, feeling that the Republic was using them as cannon fodder.

Baiting the Rim

Through Atalantia's contacts in The Syndicate, Atlas au Raa obtained footage from the Battle of Ilium that proved Darrow was responsible for the destruction of the Ganymede Dockyards. On Atalantia's orders, Atlas arranged for the Syndicate to sell the footage to Dido au Raa, who sent her daughter Seraphina to infiltrate the Core to make the exchange.

Pirate Hijacking

After obtaining the footage of Darrow's actions at the Battle of Ilium from the Ophion Guild, Seraphina hired the captain of the cargo ship Vindabona to ferry her through the asteroid belt to rendezvous with her ride back to Rim space. While en route, the ship was captured by Obsidians who had turned to piracy following their liberation from Society enslavement and taken the moniker of Ascomanni after the rumored descendants of the warlords who escaped the Dark Revolt.

Kidnapping of Pax and Electra

On November 1st of 753 PCE, Pax Augustus and Electra Barca were abducted by The Syndicate while leaving Regulus Sun's birthday party in Hyperion. The abduction was carried out by Ephraim ti Horn, a former agent of the Sons of Ares who deserted in 746 PCE out of resentment toward the Republic for the death of his fiance, Trigg ti Nakamura, as well as the compromises that were made during the war, such as how the Gold who murdered his entire unit during the Battle of Luna was given a pardon in exchange for resources and intel. He spent the intervening years making a name for himself in the criminal underworld as a thief specializing in acquiring high-value targets before being conscripted by the Duke of Hands in September on the day of Darrow's hearing.

The kidnapping was achieved by smuggling a gas grenade into the party disguised as jewelry, and using a gravWell to ground the children's shuttle as everyone inside lost consciousness. To get the jewelry inside, Ephraim approached and befriended Lyria O'Lagalos, the newest valet of House Telemanus, who migrated to Luna after her entire family was massacred by The Red Hand, a fanatical Red terrorist group that originated as an extremist faction of the Sons of Ares that splintered away from the main organization and now harasses targets across Mars while killing any Red from Gamma clan that they can find.

Battle of Caliban

Approximately eleven weeks after the Iron Rain on Mercury, the Society Navy, led by Atalantia au Grimmus, launched a surprise attack on the Republic fleet in mid-November 753 PCE. Under false overtures of peace negotiations, the Solar Republic was duped into recalling half of its fleet back to Luna. The ships that remained were ambushed and destroyed over Mercury's Caliban Sea, leaving the Free Legions stranded on the surface of the planet.

The Battle of the Ladon

Eight weeks after the Battle of Caliban, Atalantia launched an Iron Rain against the stranded Republic forces on Helios on January 5th, 754 PCE. Despite the odds, The Battle of the Ladon ended in a Republic victory.

The Day of Red Doves

Five days after the Battle of the Ladon, the Solar Republic senate held a vote to decide whether to send a fleet to Mercury to rescue the stranded legions. Dancer and several Senators of the Vox Populi party were poisoned by agents of The Syndicate as part of a coup against Virginia orchestrated by the Copper senator Publius cu Caraval, using the accusation that the Sovereign had assassinated her political opponents to incite a mob to storm the Senate building.

The Long Night

Approximately four weeks after the Day of Red Doves, Lysander launched a surprise attack on the Free Legions from inside Heliopolis. The Long Night, as it was later called, resulted in Solar Republic forces being overwhelmed by a mob of Heliopolis residents loyal to the Society, stirred to action by Lysander. In the midst of the chaos, Cassius and Aurae arrived on Mercury to evacuate Darrow aboard the Archimedes, bringing Thraxa au Telemanus, Screwface, Cadus Harnassus, and around two hundred surviving Free Legionnaires along with them.

A separate group of survivors, led by Colloway xe Char, hid in the mountains for several weeks afterward before hiring iron smugglers to get them off the planet and past the Society Remnant's blockage.

The Siege of Phobos

Nine months after The Long Night, the Society Remnant and the Rim Dominion launch a joint attack on Mars with the goal of seizing the planet's moons to use as a staging area for an Iron Rain. The Siege of Phobos lasted for two weeks before Virginia and Lysander negotiated the Republic's surrender of the moon in exchange for being permitted to evacuate uncontested, as well as the exchange of prisoners taken by both sides.

Invasion of The Rim

Eighteen days after the end of The Siege of Phobos, Volsung Fá launched an invasion of Ilium with the combined might of the Volk fleet and the Kuiper Ascomanni, beginning with the ambush and destruction of the Ilium Guard fleet at the Jovian moon of Garmaga. Gaia au Raa and the Moon Lords sent an emergency transmission to the Dust and Dragon Armadas recalling them home from the Core. Helios au Lux was given imperium over both armadas for the voyage home, and they began their journey two days later.

In order to preserve their alliance against the Republic and make a gesture of goodwill, Lysander accompanied them along with an escort of ten Preatorians under the command of Rhone ti Flavinius. Lysander's personal fleet and those of his allies followed ten days after the Rim's departure.