Fall of Demorak Campaign (T12)

## Fall of Demorak Campaign

In Y195 the Andromedan campaign to conquer the Republic began. It started with a sharp increase in raids and incursions, mostly by Python- and Conquistador-class ships, but a few Intruder-class ships also participated. Isolated colony planets and convoys were attacked, but the Republic’s warships were evaded in the first months, as the tempo of the attacks built.

The Republic’s analysts soon determined that all of the Andromedan attacks were coming from a single base, and the Fourth Fleet, held for just such a crucial assignment, was dispatched to destroy it. Even as the Red Guard began its heroic mission to end the Andromedan attacks, the Andromedans upped the tempo of operations within the Republic’s space yet again. The Republic, confident in the strength of its defenses, committed its final mobile reserves to the defense of a nearby colony world. The Shieldbearer (left behind by the Red Guard because its tiny engines would not have been able to sustain the strain of the mission) led a task force composed of the gunboat flotillas and fighters of the BTX to help defend the colony until more forces could be gathered. Some of the Republic’s military leadership noted that the ships of the fleet were now widely dispersed trying to protect economic targets: convoys carrying the vital materials needed to fuel the Republic’s factories and the colony planets
that produced those materials. As with larger empires, there were simply too many points to defend and not enough ships to defend them. If the fleet gathered to defend a vital colony, the Andromedans simply attacked the convoys going to or from that colony or some other colony. There was no secure rear area safe from Andromedan depredations.

What the Republic’s strategists did not know was that within the Demorak system the Andromedans had discovered a hiding place. They had spent most of a decade looking for it, and in that isolated shadow they had placed a satellite base, a Rapid Transit Network link directly into the very heart of the Republic. From that node, operating just at the edge of the shadow, they had watched Demorak. It is not certain that the Andromedans knew that the Republic would send out the fighters and PFs of the base; perhaps the attack would have started whether the PFs and fighters had left or not. What is known is that in the fifth month of the campaign, the defenses of Demorak went to full alert as two Andromedan Dominators were sighted approaching the planet.

Unfortunately, they would not be the only two, and the hammer blows would continue as the capital desperately called for its fleet to return and save it. At the same time the Andromedans advanced on Demorak, all across the Republic’s space its isolated warships were themselves attacked, in most cases in overwhelming force. While the scattered forces of the Republic desperately tried to reach rally points where they could at least meet the Andromedans on more equal terms the Andromedan assault on Demorak continued.

## Aftermath

Y195 was a critical year in what had become known as the Andromedan War. The military forces of every empire were on the defensive as overwhelming Andromedan assault groups appeared out of nowhere ravaging colonies and convoys and smashing isolated bases (including a Romulan starbase) and combat formations. There was no real safe “rear area.” Yes, the capitals were more or less secure in the core regions, but the materials needed to fuel the factories that would build the ships were being cut off, and this in turn was strangling the production nodes. Stockpiles of raw materials and finished
products were dwindling. The sudden and complete destruction of the Lyran Democratic Republic at first served its primary purpose: to create more fear and drive the fleets of the various empires even more into a defensive stance. Even the historic alliance achieved by the Federation and Klingons,
further sealed by the successful destruction of a Dominator (SL98), did not really brighten what seemed a dark future.

All of that changed with the suddenness of a nova when the Federation Galactic Survey Cruiser Darwin revealed the secret of the Andromedan Rapid Transit Network. This knowledge allowed the fleets of the various empires to again take the offensive, hunting down the transportation nodes. Knowing what to look for, the intelligence agencies were able to compare notes and realized that there were actually very few Andromedan ships. The Rapid Transit Network simply enabled them to more efficiently mass for assaults, and to strike quickly at many distant targets.

Armed with this knowledge, it took only a few short years to smash the Rapid Transit Network. The empires then mounted an expedition to the Magellanic Cloud, which took a few years more, to put an end to the Andromedan invasion.

Had the Darwin made its discovery just a year, or even six months, earlier it is probable that the Andromedan Rapid Transit Network node in the Demorak system would have been discovered and destroyed, and the Andromedans would never have crushed the Republic. As it was, the populace of the Republic was badly shattered by the experience of being the only people brought under Andromedan domination. The Republic never rose from its ashes, at least within the current record.

## References

1. ↑ Various (2011). *Star Fleet Battles Module C3A - The Andromedan Threat File*. (Amarillo Design Bureau), pp. 38–9.