Southern Albion Gang War

> “
> “What did I miss?"
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> "A world, war, bredren, right 'ere on d'streets. Was no day without a gunshot or ten, no matter where you go, any hour.”
>
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> — *Jaxon Kende talking to Klezzy in reference to the Southern Albion Gang War*
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## Southern Albion Gang War

Mafiosos of the Hyperion Commission openly patrolling the streets of Lorenzo with rifles during the opening stage of the war, c. 2688

### Date

May 1st 2688 — May 9th, 2691 (3 years, 9 days)

### Location

Southern Albion, Destino, and the Atlantis Underwater Megasprawl; Hyperion, Hathor star system* Portions of Anchon
* Southern portions of Jade City
* Southern portions of Chasten
* Maogang
* Ubar
* Charon
* Ningzhou
* Fin
* Isurō
* New Pennet
* Sontra
* The Moor
* New Lunes
* Olszowa
* Estenné
* Voćin
* Masay Harbor
* Opulent Pearl
* Mont Pennet Exclusion Zone
* Northern portions of Ciemnygród

### Result

Lorenzo Concordat victory* Further violence ceased at the order of the Planetary Republic of Hyperion
* Coven of Lilith annihilated
* All band members of Gehinnom murdered
* Legion of the Damned disbanded
* Leader of the Hyperion borough of the Harborne Boys, Elijah Crawford, assassinated
* Southern Albion placed under martial law until 2692

Belligerents| **Lorenzo Concordat:** Harborne Boys Hyperion Commission* Corradetti family
* Scarpelli family
* Vanacore family
* Galanti family
* Hundreds of smaller families

The **Southern Albion Gang War**, sometimes also referred to as the **Maogang War** or the **Albion Black Crusade**, was a massive gang war (and, to some, a religious conflict) that spanned from May 1st, 2688, to May 9th, 2691 across all of the southern portions of the Albion continent and even into portions of the Atlantis Underwater Megasprawl and Destino. Considered a part of the Years of Blood and costing a total of over three million lives through criminal, police, and vigilante actions in addition to hundreds of billions of notes of total property damage, it is the largest gang conflict known to have occurred on the planet of Hyperion. The conflict was not only underlined by religious tensions between Christians and pro-Satanist factions, but also on ethnic lines between whites and blacks and between German and Italian-British alliances - by the end of the conflict, the sheer amount of violence superseded all identitarian lines and turned into total warfare on the streets between any gang that could afford bloodshed.

The war originally started as a result of the rape and murder of Antonio Scarpelli, the son of the leader of the Scarpelli Family of the Hyperion Commission, Godfather Rudolf Scarpelli. This rape-homicide, perpetrated by two men and one woman of the Coven of Lilith, was done on the night of April 28th as revenge for the Scarpelli Family raping and killing the Coven's various female sex workers within Scarpelli-controlled regions of Maogang. Antonio's defiled body was hung from the belltower of the Cathedral of Mary Magdalene of Maogang for his family to see before Sunday service on the morning of April 29th; this prompted an explosive response from Rudolf, who in his unbridled rage declared a full-blown war of extermination on the Coven.

Before the end of that Sunday, several brothels, nightclubs, and strip clubs owned by the Coven were under siege by made men and associates of the Scarpelli family, with Coven-affiliated sex workers being shot and killed on the streets. Response from the Hyperion Police Department was non-existent as a result of mafia bribery and the sheer scope of Maogang's poverty-stricken cityscape; this forced the Coven to call on any ally to resist the menace of the Scarpellis bearing down upon them.

A day later, a surge of violence exploded across Maogang and several peripheral cities such as Jade City, Lorenzo, Chasten, and Ubar, perpetrated by loose confederations of rioters who supported the Coven in their conflict against a much larger and government-befriended foe. Several churches and establishments affiliated with Roman Catholicism or the Hyperion Commission were burned down or shot by drive-by parties, forcing the entirety of the Mafia to respond with all families preparing for a massive street war on the horizon.

On May 1st, 2688, a formal meeting was held between the Harborne Boys, a British-origin syndicate, and the various families of the Hyperion Commission who would later declare the Lorenzo Concordat. This alliance was forged on the grounds of mutual Christian faith, and was prompted by the surging tide of Satanic, anti-Christian, anti-Commission, and malevolent gangs rallying to the side of the Coven of Lilith. With the entry of the Harborne Boys into the conflict, the Legion of the Damned rose as a check, including gangs such as the Streetside Satans, Sons of Chaos, Black Order, and Knights of the Ninth Circle, in addition to direct public support from the Satanic black metal band Gehinnom and their millions of supporters.

For three years, a street war never before seen in Hyperion history raged, slowly bringing in more and more gangs into the conflict due to the sheer scope of the war and its subsequent shifting of territories, gang manpower, and profitable fortunes of the destruction. The Hyperian government was, at first, throttled by briberies and threats from both sides of the conflict; however, their increased entry into the war was enough to abate violence for a time until April of 2691 - known as the Month of Blood - where the conflict reached an apex in its orgy of violence and death.

Although the Lorenzo Concordat were the victors of the war due to destroying the Coven of Lilith, killing all the band members of Gehinnom, and thwarting their territories from being direct recipients of military task forces sent in by the Coalition Forces Authority to restore order, all sides had ultimately lost hundreds of thousands and countless notes. The war was enough to weaken the Hyperion Commission to allow various Chinese, Korean, and Japanese criminal organizations to resurge in planetary power to the present, forever changing the criminal underworld of Hyperion. It had also tanked the global economy for three years, causing an increase in poverty across Albion and the strengthening of megacorporate influences through infrastructural restoration loans.

## Start and end dates

The war officially started on **May 1st, 2688** as a result of the formation of the Lorenzo Concordat and the commencement of continent-wide violence by mafia men against the forces of the Legion of the Damned.

The war ended on **May 9th, 2691**, when the Legion collapsed as a result of pressure on all sides from the Lorenzo Concordat, rival gangs, and Hyperian authorities.

## Background

### Dominance of the mafias

As of the 2600s, the various interstellar syndicates that made Hyperion home had intruded into various facets of the planetary government - the most notable of them being the Hyperion Commission, also known as the Hyperian-Italian Mafia.

## Pre-gang war events

### Scarpelli-Coven conflict

The immediate cause for the war lies in the previous Scarpelli-Coven of Lilith skirmishes that were occurring across Maogang. Several cadres of Scarpelli made men and associates descended on the city from Lorenzo, taking over clubs owned by many gangs - including the Coven - and turning them into Scarpelli family profit centers. However, the brazen Satanic aesthetics of the Coven's establishments, in addition to their salacious history, made them perfect antagonists for Scarpelli soldiers.

Several female Lilith gangsters were raped over the course of early 2688 by Scarpelli's men, with some even being killed thereafter and left for the general public to find. This enraged the matriarchal Coven, who sought to exact revenge on the Scarpelli family. However, killing his soldiers was not enough - in order to send a message, the leader of the Coven, Lady Yasmin Locke, ordered that one of his direct family members be "made an example of" in the same vein that her subordinates were being treated en masse.

### Rape and murder of Antonio Scarpelli

On the night of April 28th, Rudolf's youngest son Antonio, aged 14, was kidnapped by a squad of hitmen and women while en route from the Scarpelli's main residence to an auxiliary residence near to the Maogang border, as they commuted from this auxiliary residence to church inside of Maogang's city limits. He was subsequently defiled and murdered somewhere on the Lorenzo-Maogang border according to HYPD investigation before being sent inside Maogang and strung up by an automatically-tightened rope from the steeple of the Cathedral of Mary Magdalene of Maogang, killed by a slit throat. All signs pointed to the Coven as being the culprits when his body was found on the morning of the 29th by his own father during Sunday service, where the sensor on the rope deployed his body upon the sight of a crowd.

### Rage of the Scarpelli family

Rudolf immediately broke into a fit of misery and rage alike, ordering his son to be taken down before storming back to his limousine with his remaining family and speeding off back into the Lorenzo city limits. He afterward placed an emergency call to all Godfathers of the Hyperion Commission and demanded that the entire organization mobilize to destroy the Coven in its entirety. However, the *Capo dei capi*, Alberto Corradetti of the Corradetti Family, initially declined this request and instead proposed Rudolf to handle it personally with his own men. This incensed Rudolf, but he eventually submitted to Corradetti's suggestion and mobilized his own assets to storm into Maogang.

### Scarpelli invasion of Maogang

By the end of that Sunday, thousands of mafiosos and associates descended upon Maogang en masse with deliberate HYPD blindness to the situation. Several high ranking Coven leaders were tracked down, some with the aid of mercenary netrunners, and gunned down in the street. Coven establishments were burned to the ground, and any person who associated with them were being murdered in the hundreds.

Yasmin Locke called upon the assistance of affiliated gangs such as the Streetside Satans and the Sons of Chaos to help the Coven, as it was the main source of those gangs' sexual pleasures within Maogang. Kolonel Kruel and several other leaders of various malevolent criminal outfits answered the call; by the beginning of May 1st, they were already driving back Scarpelli's men from Maogang and leaving chaos in their wake.

### Rise of the Legion of the Damned

Having forged an impromptu alliance christened the "Legion of the Damned", several powerful outfits joined the cause in resistance of the mafia - these included the Black Order, Knights of the Ninth Circle, and the metal band known as Gehinnom alongside their own legion of fans. All cursed the Hyperion Commission and their "corpselover affliction", beginning a massive counter-invasion of Lorenzo that led to the butchering of mafia-associated people and innocent civilians alike.

With churches being lit aflame in both Maogang and Eastern Lorenzo alongside the sacking of mafia-aligned businesses and the murder or rape of hundreds of people, the Hyperion Commission under Corradetti began preparations for a global mobilization, ordering all mafiosos on Hyperion to converge on Southern Albion and protect their territory. Corradetti also reached out to the leader of the Harborne Boys, Elijah Crawford, securing an alliance on both Christian values and material security, further deepening the religion connotation of the incoming war.

## Sides

### Lorenzo Concordat, allies, and co-belligerents

At the start of the gang war, the side in opposition to the Coven of Lilith was solely composed of the Lorenzo Concordat, which was an alliance affirmed between the Harborne Boys and the Hyperion Commission. This alliance was formed for two reasons, one ideological and one material:

1. the mutual value of Christian tenets, in opposition to the Satanic ideology of the Legion of the Damned;
2. the threat of the Legion in occupying and/or destroying the territories of both syndicates in their wanton violence.

This alliance stood firm for the entirety of the war, with close cooperation between the two mafia organizations.

However, an ally in the conflict was found by the means of the Holy Army for the Salvation and Liberation of Humanity, a Christian terrorist organization that had been previously occupied with harassing the Hyperian government. Several HASLH militants gave training, direct support, and material support to the Lorenzo Concordat in the latter half of the conflict.

Although not directly allied to the Lorenzo Concordat, several gangs either struck the Legion and their allies as a result of convenience or were attacked by them alongside the Lorenzo Concordat. These gangs included the African Killa Disciples and the Ruff Ridaz, two powerful majority-black gangs that were targets of the racial supremacist factions of the Legion of the Damned. It also included the Undercity Killaz, who resisted the Legion during their rampages in Maogang and fought against the opportunistic expansions of the Blood Brigadez.

## The war

### May 1st, 2688: Formation of the Lorenzo Concordat

On the evening of May 1st, 2688, Harborne Boys leader Elijah Crawford personally flew in from Jade City to Lorenzo to negotiate with the various *capos* of the Hyperion Commission. Reaching an agreement, the Lorenzo Concordat was announced, uniting the two syndicates' resources and forces to combat the exponential growth of violence towards both their properties and civilians in general across Maogang and Lorenzo.

By May 2nd, several convoys of Harborne Boys began entering northern Maogang from Jade City, occupying bars and clubs suspected to be owned by those sympathetic to the cause of the Legion. Meanwhile, the mafias were able to court the HYPD to their side, allowing a blind eye to mafia deployments while diverting thousands of police officers to secure Lorenzo and portions of Maogang from growing violence.

### 2688

#### The first Orgy of Death

On May 3rd, the Legion of the Damned officially organized itself and conducted its first "orgy of death". Bikers from the Sons of Chaos blitzed into Lorenzo, followed by war vans from the Streetside Satans and the Black Order, slaughtering thousands of civilians as the mafias and police alike scrambled to respond. Several HYPD precincts went on red alert, and a direct emergency alert was issued to the President of the Stellar Republic of Hathor, Alexander Foulke. Foulke, having a distaste for the mafia and initially seeing this as a spat between two criminal organizations, ordered the HYPD to focus on protecting innocent civilians rather than apprehending suspects, hoping that both sides would wither each other enough for a full police offensive later in the month.

A Catholic bishop was shot and killed in his own home in Maogang on May 4th, with his family in another residence being defiled and murdered by members of the Knights of the Ninth Circle. Multiple other people in Maogang were killed in various drive-by shootings, with over a hundred businesses being looted and their staff maimed or killed. In response, multiple dioceses on Hyperion officially petitioned the planetary government to directly intervene, but were met with empty responses as a result of Foulke's hamstringing on government interventions.

Meanwhile, the Hyperion Commission began to openly patrol the streets of Lorenzo with firearms well into the night of May 4th, driving back several attempts by Legion soldiers to further sack the city. However, the outer limits of Lorenzo were in total anarchy, with biker gangs destroying multiple businesses and homes alike with grenades and incendiary explosives. On the morning of May 5th, an entire megatower in Maogang that was suspected of being a host to mafia activity was lit flame by the Sons of Chaos, sending hundreds of thousands fleeing for their lives and having several thousands injured or killed as a result.

#### First mafia counterattack

The Harborne Boys conducted the first large-scale raids into the territories of the Legion, using their bases in northern Maogang as a staging center. Thousands of Harborne Boys under the command of Otis Byrne used military-grade equipment such as coil rifles and grenade launchers to fight deep into Maogang shantytowns and uproot cells of Legion gangsters on May 10th, causing the deaths of thousands of civilians and the destruction of several properties in the process as Byrne's cadre routed the Legion from several sectors.

Meanwhile, the Corradetti family requisitioned several trucks mounted with heavy machine guns to blockade an incoming storm of Sons of Chaos bikers inbound from Maogang into Lorenzo. After routing the bikers using such vehicles, the Corradetti pushed the advantage by storming into western Lorenzo, destroying any resistance that they found through ripping up buildings with their chainguns and explosives. By this time, the Maogang municipal government had declared a total state of emergency, allowing the activation of the Hyperian Guard within the city.

#### Hyperian Guard deployment

Not initially receiving the orders by Foulke to stand down, two divisions of the Hyperian Guard began to clear the streets of Maogang of Concordat and Legion gangsters alike, leading to massive casualties on all sides by the morning of May 12th. Several Hyperian Guard APCs and tanks had been captured by the Legion, and the commander of one of the divisions, Major General Thomas Bennings, was beheaded.

#### The entry of Gehinnom; the second Orgy of Death

By May 15th, the situation had not improved in the slightest. The Hyperian Guard retreated from Maogang in full, leaving the city in total anarchy as Legion gangs armed with military equipment massacred anyone that they wished en masse. All news relating to the situation was blocked by direct order of the Hathorian government, and all entries and exits to all cities south of Jade City were being blockaded by the arrival of new Hyperian Guard units.

On the evening of the 15th, the Satanic metal band Gehinnom officially endorsed the actions of the Legion and ordered their fans to commit the same wanton violence against Christians and "the establishment". Riots erupted all across Hyperion, both by Gehinnom supporters and by counterprotestors who decried the lack of proper government intervention into the massacres. Over a million Gehinnom supporters across Southern Albion alone rose in hordes, burning churches to the ground and destroying businesses own by Italians, Christians, or megacorporations. The HYPD was placed on maximum readiness, and Foulke was forced to declare a state of emergency on Hyperion.

The second Orgy of Death commenced when the Legion stormed police and military armories across Maogang and occupied Lorenzo using their previously looted equipment, bolstering further their forces and causing mass-scale massacres across Southern Albion as they stormed into Ubar and Chasten. The Suicide Mafia led a direct assault on the largest Maogang HYPD precinct headquarters, leading to the deaths of over a hundred officers and thousands of staff that could not evacuate as their headquarters fell.

Mass rapes and murder began to occur along the Maogang areas of Route 5 and in several sectors across Lorenzo as the Legion pushed deeper into mafia-controlled territories. Mafiosos began arriving to southern Albion by the hundreds of thousands, shutting down portions of the Jade City Aerospaceport in the process as law enforcement tried to prevent them from going south. The Harborne Boys were now in a state of total war, as their bases in northern Maogang were uprooted and they were driven north back into the southern outskirts of Jade City.

Over one thousand mafiosos, gangsters, and "Christians" were ran over on Route 5 in a grand spectacle of violence. In response, the Scarpelli family detonated several fuel centers in Maogang using unmanned kamikaze drones, causing the deaths of thousands nearby as the explosions rippled throughout the unsafe infrastructure of the shanty-city. Civilians began to flee Maogang by the near millions, clogging all routes of escape except for air.

The Undercity Killaz, previously neutral, began an insurgency against law enforcement and the Legion alike as a result of the collapse of civil order within Maogang.

#### June: The Coalition strikes, war intensifies

By June 1st, hundreds of thousands had already been injured or killed by the wanton violence in southern Albion. Dozens of Hyperian divisions were being moved in preparation for a grand operation in concert with the HYPD and its Special Tactics and Assault Garrisons (STAG) units, and two divisions of the Interstellar Coalition Terrestrial Army arrived to the Jade City Aerospaceport in preparation for direct deployment with authorization from the General Congress of the Coalition.

Meanwhile, netrunners sympathetic to the Legion - or just taking advantage of the violence - crippled several portions of southern Albion's energy grids, allowing the Legion to spread further its rage. All of Maogang was deemed lost by June 2nd, and southern Chasten, over half of Lorenzo, small portions of Jade City, and northern Ubar were under siege by hordes of millions of rampaging gangs and rioters. With explosions and obstacles blocking several critical highways leading to southern Albion, the Hyperian military and Coalition forces had to begin airlifting their troops into staging grounds in areas such as Fin and northern Chasten.

The deaths of tens of thousands of Christians for the sake of their identity had led to the paramilitarization of the Hyperian branch of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal service order, who began to deploy their members to Chasten and Jade City in anticipation of the cities' sieges.

On June 4th, the HYPD and the Hyperian Guard with support from the Coalition Forces Authority launched the first of many offensives to take back portions of Southern Albion from warring gangs, commencing their attacks from within Jade City southward towards northern Maogang. Firing upon both Concordat and Legion forces, the first armored divisions were able to breach into northern Maogang by the morning of the 5th before they were met with Legion ATGM fire. In retaliation for their attacks on Concordat forces, the Hyperion Commission on the 5th stormed several police and military armories in Lorenzo through the use of previously unseen synthetic shock troops under the command of the heir of the Galanti family, Vincent Galanti.

In response, on the night of the 5th, hundreds of thousands of officers from the HYPD descended on western Lorenzo and began the First Battle of Lorenzo to wrest control of the mafia capital away from the Hyperion Commission. However, this operation was horribly managed, leading to the deaths of hundreds of officers and a full-scale retreat to Chasten as the municipal government of Lorenzo was overthrown and direct administration by the Commission was instated.

Due to the rising anarchy in Southern Albion, multiple gangs previously uninvolved began to start making their moves. By June 15th, the neo-Nazi 4. Reich paramilitary group began to wage open warfare against the mafia in Fin and southern Chasten. By July, several white power gangs had taken advantage of the chaos wrought by the Legion to begin a "race war", particularly against black gangs and civilians, all across the anarchic zones.

#### July: Entry of the AKD

The African Killa Disciples, based in western Maogang, openly declared a "war for the survival of the black race" against the Legion and the neo-Nazi gangs that began their invasions of southern Albion. Although not distinctly allying with the Lorenzo Concordat, they nevertheless opened up secret communications channels and began to coordinate an insurgency alongside the Undercity Killaz to free the city from Legion control (or, lack of any control thereof).

On July 2nd, the Planetary Republic of Hyperion convened its Congress in Port Bremerton to deliberate the deployment of all military forces on the world to Southern Albion. However, the Planetary Deputy Governor Archer Vangelos was killed and his hovercraft were shot down over the skies of Destino before he reached his destination, prompting a declaration of emergency over the continent of Destino and the entry of the Security Information Network as a result of the gang war seemingly becoming a theater of the ongoing War on Terror.

On July 3rd, Planetary Governor Holden Harcrow officially petitioned Foulke to deploy further reinforcements to Southern Albion, as he was being hamstrung in every bureaucratic direction on the fears of a planet-wide riot emerging. Foulke finally caved, and on the 4th, Foulke directly asked the General Secretary of the Coalition for an intervention force composed of CFA reinforcements.

By July 5th, the Legion had steamrolled through central Ubar, breaking through HYPD checkpoints and reaching the city limits of Charon and Isurō by noon. The Hyperian Guard had simultaneously conducted aerial assaults on northern and eastern Maogang, securing a coastal network to allow for the marine landing of further reinforcements into the city proper. Plans were in the works to also invade Lorenzo and wrest it from mafia control, but ultimately these were scrapped in favor of placing further pressure on the Legion to prevent them from breaking out of the Maogang area.

#### Entry of the Blood Brigadez and Ruff Ridaz

On July 7th, the Blood Brigadez would enter the gang war to take advantage of the chaos spreading with the Legion's invasions of Fin and Beira. Not necessarily standing against the Legion, Danny Fernandez would instead broker a deal where the Legion would march north towards Jade City and northern Chasten with Blood Brigade support. This redirection of the rampage led several native Jade City gangs to ally themselves with the Concordat, including those such as the Jade Drifters and the various Red Jackal sets in the city. Danny would be publicly shamed as a "sucka" by the leader of the Ruff Ridaz, BMX, who said that any encroachment on his territory - the Atlantis Underwater Megasprawl - by the Legion or their allied gangs would result in the entry of the RRs.

In the early morning of July 8th, the Legion of the Damned were able to break into the massive shanty-city of Ningzhou, raising further hell with the arrival of Gehinnom fans and the total collapse of any semblance of HYPD authority. Resistance by civilian militias and local self-defense gangs were able to thwart a deep penetration of the Legion into the bowels of Ningzhou, but their vital control over Route 5 allowed them to close in on Voćin and the northern outskirts of the underwater Ciemnygród by July 13th.

On the 13th, the Hyperian government attempted to shut all highway sea-locks towards the Atlantis Underwater Megasprawl as a means to prevent the flood of the Legion into the underwater megalopolis. However, several locks were held open as a result of Ruff Rida gangsters taking over lock control centers; BMX had declared war on the Legion the prior evening, and his forces were sallying out of Atlantis in order to invade the surface and root out the Legion from his empire.

This forced the HYPD's Atlantis division to conduct a red alert emergency, causing a two-front war for the Ruff Ridaz: one front being the Legion in Voćin, and the other front being the throngs of STAG and HYPD troops trying to attack the sea locks and shut them before the Legion could overwhelm RR lines and begin an invasion of Atlantis.

During the entire month of July, the amount of people fleeing Southern Albion caused a total lockdown of all major seaports, airports, bus and train terminals, and the Jade City Aerospaceport, with the former venues often becoming bloodbaths as a result of Legion or Concordat attacks. With the situation devolving so heavily, and with the power and water supply to these areas often vanishing overnight from cyber or physical attacks, the government of the Coalition in the Central Headquarters of the Coalition on Earth ordered that the Coalition Forces Authority would be assuming leadership in all security operations.

By July 30th, several more ICTA divisions would arrive in Jade City through the JCA, in addition to the arrival of the 101st Coalition Marine Division and their air complements.

On August 1st, the commander of all CFA, HG, and HYPD operations, Gen. Morley Kaiser of the ICTA, announced that the airspace over southern Albion would be officially shut down, limiting aerial and hovercraft travel only to cleared individuals and military or police assets. He would then, three days later, commence an operation that would result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands as the Coalition began its warpath against all criminal elements.

#### August 4 to August 31st: Operation Concrete Jungle

On the morning of August 4th, 2688, the Coalition commenced Operation Concrete Jungle as a means to finally bring order to southern Albion. Forty Hyperian Guard divisions, ten Interstellar Coalition Terrestrial Army Divisions, and the 101st Coalition Marine Division - a total of nearly 800,000 men - with support from hundreds of thousands of HYPD and STAG officers - deployed from various staging grounds in Jade City across southern Albion. Their first objective was take control of the vital Route 5 Superhighway from northern Maogang all the way to the sea locks of Ciemnygród, and several HG divisions were sent in first to test enemy presences. Heavy fighting almost immediately began when a Legion war party of two hundred thousand clashed with around 150,000 Hyperian guardsmen and police along northern Maogang and southern Jade City, leading to liberal use of close air support, armor, and artillery fire that led to massive amounts of collateral damage. Incendiary and conventional explosives alike were used in heavy amounts to dislodge and destroy Legion and other gang strongholds that kept the Coalition forces strangled, leading to the expulsion of countless hundreds of thousands of tons of particulate and smoke. By August 8th, the Hyperian Guard and the ICTA broke through the Legion lines, leading to a noticeable darkening of the day sky across Hyperion from the sheer amount of dust that had breached into the atmosphere.

In response to the Coalition attack, the Legion launched approximately seven hundred and fifty thousand improvised missiles and barrel bombs into Jade City and northern Maogang, killing over ten thousand civilians and several hundred soldiers in the process. Two dirty bombs on August 8th were detonated in New Pennet, most likely using radioactive material sourced from the Mont Pennet Exclusion Zone, leading to a quarantine of all cities north of New Pennet and the arrival of Hyperian Guard reinforcements to the peninsula by August 10th.

Meanwhile, on August 9th, ICTA soldiers pushed deep into the midst of Maogang, fighting both Legion and Undercity Killa gangsters as they wrested further control over Route 5. An incident involving Coalition soldiers firing upon AKD members lead to the African Killa Disciples declaring a state of war against the Hyperian and Coalition government, rallying hundreds of African and black gangs to the cause and causing an uproar across Albion and Destino in the process. Several black groups of significant global underworld power, such as the Army of the Pharoah and the black supremacist New Afrikan Liberation Army paramilitary, joined the AKD in their new insurgency against the Coalition and the Legion, plunging cities such as The Moor and Anchon into chaos.

As the ICTA divisions focused on advancing through further portions of Route 5, the Hyperian Guard and the HYPD were tasked with maintaining order over recently captured zones. The 101st Coalition Marines were tasked on the 11th with fighting deep into Maogang and assaulting a location that SIN had ascertained held several leaders of the Legion of the Damned; using a combination of armor and air support, Coalition marines broke into the Phan Trì neighborhood of Maogang and slaughtered thousands of Legion soldiers in their attempt to raid the area. However, no leaders were found, as the SIN was ultimately given falsified intelligence.

On the 12th, a vanguard of military forces had broken through central Maogang and captured Route 204, the superhighway leading southwest to Lorenzo from Route 5. However, military forces in eastern Maogang were getting bogged down as a result of experiencing resistance from not only the Legion, but the Undercity Killaz and various black gangs as well; this desynchrony in military operations led to the Legion brutally retaking portions of Route 5 and the east, forcing Gen. Kaiser to respond with the 101st Coalition Marines and his ICTA divisions to push back the Legion by the 17th.

By the 19th, the Coalition military had been able to take most of Route 5 within the city limits of Maogang, and were continuing their slow and methodical advance down into Ubar and Lorenzo. Now experiencing Concordat resistance, the Hyperian government received a flurry of warnings from the leadership of the Hyperion Commission, which stated that any "gross violation of property rights" within Lorenzo would result in a concerted and violent response. Meetings between the Commission and planetary government led to the reinstatement of a non-mafia municipal administration by the 21st, which prevented a Second Battle of Lorenzo from commencing. As HYPD assets and men returned to Lorenzo, Coalition military forces resumed their advancements through western Maogang, reaching the Ubar border from the western side of the city by the 22nd.

Over time, General Kaiser was able to seize control of the major transport networks in Ubar, Charon, Isurō, and other cities by the 29th. On the 31st, Coalition troops had cleared out major Legion presences in Voćin, forcing the Ruff Ridaz to retreat back into the Atlantis Megasprawl and abating the need for the sea locks to close.

#### The end of the Orgies of Death; the beginning of the street wars

General Kaiser announced an operational victory on September 1st, accrediting both his own CFA forces and that of the Hyperian Guard and the HYPD in full. The 101st Coalition Marines and most of the ICTA divisions were ordered to leave Voćin and head back to the Jade City Aerospaceport for spacelift from Hyperion, while two ICTA divisions stayed garrisoned at the JCA's military subport in case of later rapid CFA response. The Hyperian Guard, however, were ordered by President Foulke to maintain order on the streets as the HYPD recuperated its law enforcement abilities, leading to martial law to be extended over Maogang, Ubar, Ningzhou, Charon, portions of Chasten, portions of Lorenzo, and Voćin as the STAG of the HYPD committed to hunting down and destroying the most violent of Legion pockets.

### 2691

#### April: Month of Blood

##### Blood Sabbath concert massacre

On April 15th, over three thousand mafiosos from both the Hyperion Commission and the Harborne Boys converged on the abandoned Maogang Sportsplex, armed with military-grade weapons and equipment...