Attack on Mars

The Attack on Mars was a surprise attack which occurred on April 5, First Contact Day, in 2385. It was masterminded by Commodore Oh, a Zhat Vash operative who had infiltrated Starfleet Security, and carried out through compromised A500 synths originating from the Daystrom Institute's Division of Advanced Synthetic Research.
==Prelude==
At some time following the defeat of the Reman military coup of the Romulan Star Empire, it was discovered that the Romulan sun would soon go supernova, likely destroying the planets Romulus and Remus. With the effect on other nearby systems, the impending disaster was anticipated to kill at least nine hundred million Romulans. The empire requested aid from the . Admiral Jean-Luc Picard convinced Starfleet to mobilize a massive rescue armada – "ten thousand warp-capable ferries" – to aid in the evacuation efforts, which were assembled over Mars. ()
Oh, a half-Romulan/half-Vulcan member of the Tal Shiar and its ultra-secretive Zhat Vash cabal, held a gathering of Zhat Vash operatives on the planet Aia. She reminded them of the Admonition, showing them devastation wrought upon the galaxy by artificial lifeforms, warning it would happen again. She selected Mars as an ideal target whose destruction would push the Federation towards a ban of artificial lifeforms. ()
On First Contact Day in 2385, only a skeleton crew remained to work at the center of the rescue fleet, the Utopia Planitia Ship Yards, during the holiday. Multiple A500 androids suddenly went rogue. One android, F8, lowered the deflector shields protecting the shipyards and the planet itself, then hacked the Martian defense net. Once the attack began, F8 slaughtered his organic coworkers and then committed suicide. ()
==The attack==
Moments thereafter, numerous synth ships began targeting the rescue armada, the Utopia Planitia Ship Yards, the Mars Orbital Facility, and other Martian facilities. The satellite network surrounding Mars was turned against the surface. The synths then began bombarding the surface, igniting flammable vapors in the stratosphere and causing massive damage to the planet's infrastructure.
Starfleet dispatched a task force to Mars at high warp in response to the attack, but was unable to prevent the destruction of almost the entire surface of the planet.
==Aftermath==
Although initial reports only estimated more than three thousand killed, the death toll would eventually be revised to 92,143 in total. During the initial news reports, Admiral Picard was quoted on the Federation News Network, calling the attack "devastating". All reserve officers were called back into service. ()
Since it was initially thought to be a programming error in the synths, the Federation Council placed a ban on synthetic lifeforms. Androids such as B-4 were dismantled, and the Daystrom Institute was restricted to "theoretical" studies on synthetics. Admiral Picard called this ban "a mistake". With all active positronic matrices shut down, people who would contract mendaxic neurosclerosis, such as Thaddeus Troi-Riker, would eventually die from the illness without treatment, increasing the death toll beyond the initial attack.
All exploration was put on hold, after Starfleet Command was asked to "scale back" operations in light of the personnel shortage and to focus on protecting Federation citizens; ships that were only good for exploration were slated for decommission. Admiral Janeway believed the decision to be in error, questioning what would happen if the Federation stopped exploring new worlds and new civilizations. Using her connections, Janeway reassigned the second , , as a training ship in a pilot program under her command to continue the exploration aspect under the guise of training newly assigned ensigns.()
With the destruction of the Romulan rescue armada, Admiral Picard submitted a plan to replace the lost ships with mothballed vessels from Beta Antares Ship Yards and the 40 Eridani A Starfleet Construction Yards. Starfleet, aware that the Romulan rescue mission was unpopular among many of the Federation's member races, and with several saying they would leave the Federation if the rescue went forward, instead abandoned its promise to aid the Romulan evacuation altogether, a decision that shocked Picard.
In desperation, he submitted his resignation, demanding that Starfleet either accept it or honor their promise to the Romulans; to his surprise and dismay, they accepted the resignation, which angered Lieutenant Commander Raffi Musiker, who believed in his plans and was eventually discharged from Starfleet. In the years that followed, Picard developed recurring nightmares of the attack, partly from his loss of faith in Starfleet. Musiker, who had initially believed in some Tal Shiar involvement and not the accepted story of a programming error, would become obsessed with figuring out who really carried out the attack, with her conspiracy theories only getting as far as the Conclave of Eight. This obsession would lead to the destruction of her family and her drug addiction.
==Legacy==
In 2387, Ambassador Spock would attempt to stop the supernova from happening by using red matter aboard the starship . He would be too late, and when the Romulan sun did go supernova, it destroyed the Romulus system, killing millions. The Jellyfish would be attacked by the Romulan mining vessel Narada, whose captain Nero blamed Spock and the Federation for the death of his wife in the supernova. Both ships would be lost in a red matter-created black hole, leading to the creation of an alternate reality and, eventually, the destruction of that reality's and an attack on Earth in retaliation for the prime Starfleet's refusal to help. Picard would go on to blame Starfleet's inaction for the high death toll, lamenting that their decision to call off the rescue and to abandon the Romulans was not just dishonorable, but also downright criminal, and it was not so easy for those either had died or left behind. The Romulan Star Empire was replaced by a Romulan Free State.
With the lack of Starfleet support, the sectors in and near the former Romulan Neutral Zone collapsed, and the planets there were left to themselves. Independent groups such as the Fenris Rangers would attempt to maintain order and help worlds like Vashti, the Romulan Relocation Hub before the attack, but by the end of the century these worlds would fall into chaos and poverty, becoming hotbeds for the Romulan Rebirth movement and petty warlords like Kar Kantar.
As of 2399, Mars remained ablaze. Some individuals, such as Dr. Agnes Jurati, later referred to the planet as having been "destroyed" in the attack. At the same time, however, the Federation's synthetic ban was eventually lifted after it was discovered that the synthetics were not responsible for the attack, but rather it was orchestrated by the Zhat Vash whose sole mission was the extermination of all synthetic life, even at the apparent cost of their own homeworld and millions of innocent Romulans. (; ; , , )
File:Synth ships over Mars.png|Rogue synth ships over the Martian colonies
File:Synth attack a Utopia Planitia station.png|Rogue synth ships attacking the Utopia Planitia Ship Yards
File:Attack on Mars.jpg|An FNN broadcast about the Attack on Mars
File:Jean-Luc Picard's "devastating" comment.png|News broadcast with Admiral Picard regarding the attack
== Appendices==
===Appearances===
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===Apocrypha===
In Star Trek Online, a Task Force Operation PVE mission based on the Attack on Mars is known as "Synth Wave". In it, players are tasked with attempting to rescue as many engineers as possible to get them to safety or get them into various Starfleet vessels to fight against the synth armada. Since the players' involvement in the event is only hypothetical, players can see what their actions could do in lessening the death toll of the attack.
==External link==
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De:Angriff auf den Mars
Category:Conflicts