Operation Golden Fleece

Operation Golden Fleece is a set of Terran military and intelligence actions preceding the Federation's entry into the Great Galactic War. Initial stages began as early as 2564, first against the Ur-Han Empire, and later broadened to other nations following ALEPH 06101 in 2627. Golden Fleece was largely prepared and executed without parliamentary approval by the ministries of War and of State Security.
At its inception, the main objective of Golden Fleece was to establish a network of operatives within the Ur-Han military, which had been largely left untouched by Terran intelligence until then. This would come to be known as Operation Silent Choir. Following ALEPH 06101, Silent Choir was expanded to other nations such as the Surben Republic and rebel movements within the Ur-Han. The ALEPH recommendation also led to a network of sabotage operations, which came to be known as Operation Cinder. Finally, Operation Antigone was launched in 2628, principally by ACoM and the Bureau, so as to influence the Terran public to accept the country's entry into war. Its main element was the fabrication of evidence of supposed genocide committed by the Ur-Han against the Tesrat and the Dermkha.
All three sub-operations of Golden Fleece were remarkable military, intelligence and political successes. Silent Choir allowed the Terran Armed Forces to have a decisive advantage in human intelligence throughout the conflict, whilst Cinder paralysed alien forces for the first few months of the war. Operation Trojan Horse, part of Cinder, executed over 10,000 terrorist attacks throughout the galaxy within three hours of the Terran entry into the war, most norably wounding the Surben Prime Minister and killing the chair of the Congressional Commission on Defence, as well as outright killing three out of seven members of the chiefs of the Ur-Han naval staff. Due to Cinder, alien forces were virtually unable to oppose a serious resistance for the first year of the war. Antigone did not completely fulfil its objectives, but it did manage to negate much of the public's opposition to the war until the mid 2640s. Golden Fleece was progressively made public from 2699 to 2708, which stirred widespread civil unrest across the Federation ans the broader galaxy. It worsened Terran foreign relations significantly and led to the Social-Liberal Overturn of 2703.