Third Pan-Galactic War

## Prelude

The Warring Factions Era saw The rise and fall of many. Of those rising to power would come an Imperium. They were cold and calculated, absorbing smaller factions to increase their own strength while killing any who defied them. The warring factions would soon cease to be and the Pan-Galactic Imperium stood as the victor. The people, while grateful the war was over, realized too late that the Imperium existed only to conquer and enslave. Any who dared to resist was crushed under the mass of the Imperium's growing navy. The longer this went on, the more people started to realize they had to be stopped. Factions began building up military strength in secret but this time with a common enemy to bind them, they worked together to end the reign of the authoritarian Imperium.

## Dark Days

The final straw broke when in 3329C.E. The Imperium used a secret superweapon to destroy Rikavi. This atrocity galvanized the newly formed Conglomerate into action against the Imperium. Those who joined the Conglomerate did their best to fight against the oppressors, each one on their own way. Some started to do apply guerilla tactics, others used their fleets and construction capacities to the fullest. The resulting galaxy wide conflict, while only lasting 8 years, would see some of the bloodiest battles in recorded history.

The longer the war was going on, the more lives were lost. This meant a high demand of personel for both sides. Finding a solution to this problem was easy for the Imperium, as the simply drafted as many soldiers as they needed. Adding to the lack of sympathy for the Imperium, this partly solved the recruitment problem for the Coalition, as many were willing to join their cause as an act of revenge. Another problem of this was, that those who joined from liberated worlds were often not trained for military duties and needed the necessary training. This lead to rushed training units, sometimes in less than 20 days, depending on the role the recruit applied on.

Many let their lives in this period of time, but it gave a boost to technology. Each side of the war wanted to have an edge on the enemy. Developing things like super weapons or interdictors, the Empire often was leading in the research race. When the tide of war was slowly changing and they lost most of their super weapons to the Coalition, it was them that took the lead. This was a big step in winning the war, as the Imperium had lost mighty weapons and some members of the Coalition had gained an insight in their technology.

## New Dawn

Before word of the emperors death had spread, the Coalition used their fleets under separate orders to surround 8 Imperium stronghold worlds. With victory being imminent, even the remaining oppressed populations began rebelling, even on the stronghold worlds. Even whole platoons defected from the Imperium, joining the resistance as losing the war was inevitable. Not everybody was a spineless killing machine after all. A big force of resistance fighters managed to completely destroy the tactical command center on one of the strongholds. The remaining Imperium forces Surrendered immediately.

When the Imperium was dealt with, the Coalition created the Pan-Galactic Council. Every member of the Coalition was a member of the council. It was not important how big the fleet of a faction was, or how big their influence on the war was. In the war, every helping hand was needed, same applied now. It's aim was to help the galaxy recovering from the war and to prevent another danger like the Imperium from rising.

After the war, many parts of the galaxy were laying in ruin. Trillions were dead, wreckages were scattered everywhere, some parts of the galaxy had a barely existing infrastructure. Criminals were using this to gain influence and wealth. Piracy was thriving. Some were reminded of the era of warring factions. The Council did the best they could. Their first steps to helping the galaxy recover could not happen fast enough. They established escorted convoys to remote worlds or worlds with a badly damaged infrastructure, to supply the populations with basic goods and building material. Recovering and salvaging the remnants of war was done as quickly as possible, so the recovered resources could be used for building ships and important structures

## Important Battles

### Battle of Sector “220-396”

In 3334C.E. the Coalition found out about the location of the emperor himself and sent a large fleet to kill him, so the empire would start to fall apart. At least, that’s what the Coalition planned for. What they didn’t know was, that these informations were a trap, prepared by the empire so the Coalition takes a hard hit.

It was believed, that the emperor would visit an outpost that was assumed abandoned, to oversee the testing of a secret prototype weapon. When the Coalition arrived at the location, they were surprised by a large fleet that was waiting for their arrival. With their Hyperdrives cooling down and still on the hunt for the emperor they decided to fight and try to kill the emperor.  Shortly after the fight started multiple fighter pilots of the Coalition reported, that the outpost was indeed abandoned and there were no live signs on it. The Coalition, realizing it was a trap attempted to regroup so they could escape. Losses kept mounting as the fleets were dispersed over a wide area. The battle dredged on as the disoriented captains were only receiving spotty transmissions from command. Ships on both sides began to wither down before communications finally cleared up enough for the retreat order to be given. In the end, dozens of ships were destroyed and thousands dead across both sides.

### Fight for “280-485”

As the war was waging on, the Empire was slowly losing its hold in the galaxy. So in 3335C.E. they decided to set up another Trap for the Coalition. Since the war resulted in heavy losses for both sides, everybody had a dire need for resources, so the Empire pretended to start a big mining operation in its outskirts, close to coalition controlled space. The protection of the miners was chosen not to be too low, so it was not obvious that it was a trap.

When the Coalition came to attack the convoy, the trap worked, but not as flawless as intended.  Coalition spies had been sabotaging the imperial navy for a long time now, but now they had landed a major strike. The reinforcements that were ready to close the sling around the coalition fleet, were delayed, as the command ships and the new interdictor-prototype had engine problems and were unable to jump.

This had bought enough time for the Coalition to board some transports and already deal with the escorts to a certain degree, but not without losses. When they had captured the first two transport ships, the imperial reinforcements arrived. Knowing that they were outnumbered, the Coalition tried to jump away. But nothing happened. Their ships could not do the jump, the hyperdrives did activate but they were unable to calculate the jump.

The Coalition fleet now was out of options and tried to make a stand against the empire, but was seriously outnumbered. They managed to land some lucky hits, which led to crashes of multiple imperial ships, but it was still a bad situation. When the R.C.S. Champion was disabled, the captain used auxiliary power to ram her into the interdictor prototype, which led to the destruction of both ships. When the Interdictor exploded, Engineers reported that the jump was now calculated and the hyperdrives were ready. The fleet was escaping as fast as they could.  They had managed to capture two resource transports and destroy multiple imperial ships, but still had major casualties, which led to a massively declining moral in the Coalition fleet.

### The 'Oblivion' Crisis

The Empire detected a large component of Tankium Syndicate technology known as an Oblivion Assault Gun Shard. A Shard is actually a very large part of an Oblivion Assault Gun. The Empire went over to investigate, sending only a few scout ships, initially thinking it was a trap.

The syndicate hesitated before reporting it to the Coalition, which then went on to try and capture it. Realizing the monumental advantage that reverse engineering the technology would grant, the Empire sent an immense fleet to stop the Coalition from recapturing it. The Coalition wanted to prevent the Empire from acquiring the shard, because it would mean the empire became a much larger threat. Because of this, the Tankium Syndicate sent most of their entire faction fleet combined with other Coalition forces in an attempt to prevent the shard from being captured by the Empire.

When both fleets encountered each other, the Empire had a colossal fleet. The Coalition tried using some kind of claw formation to capture the shard. In the centre the main force (mainly consisting of Tankium ships) tried to keep the enemy at bay, while some ships of the flanks were trying to capture the shard. Retrograde had some Hellhounds on the field, that were modified with external grabbing units. One of them managed to grab the shard, but due to being under heavy fire and flying with high speed, the shard was pushed towards the empire fleet. The flagship of the Tankium Fleet used this to their advantage and opened fire upon the shard, detonating it when it was close to the Empire's fleet, destroying a big chunk of them. After that the Coalition charged their Jumpdrives and fled as fast as possible, as there was nothing left to fight for. It was a costly battle for both sides, the Tankium Syndicate even lost half their entire faction's fleet.