Corporate Wars

> “
> “The trill of a billion guns firing; the thrill of a million men charging...”
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> — *Lyrics from the song "CORPORATE POTENTATE" by Hyperian metal band Empyrean Sun, on the topic of the Corporate Wars*
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## Corporate Wars

### Date

March 1, 2235 — September 15, 2245 (10 years, 6 months, 14 days)

### Result

Pyrrhic corporate victory* Signing of the Tellus Protocol
* Beginning of the Coalition Reconstruction

 The **Corporate Wars,** also known as the **Corpo Wars** or singularly as the **Coalition Civil War**, were a series of brutal interstellar conflicts that was waged from 2235 to 2245 between the government of the Coalition of Congressional Republics and the various megacorporations that existed in the 23rd century. Historians consider to analyze the Corporate Wars in their entirety as one "superconflict" due to the amount of tied events; however, it can be split into two sub-conflicts: the Shadow War, from 2235 to 2240, and the Colonial Civil War, from 2240 to 2245.

Originally a series of confrontations between corporate security forces defending their property from the Security Intelligence Network and the Coalition Forces Authority due to the Corporate Audit Act of 2235, the situation immediately devolved to become a full-blown civil war stretching across hundreds of light years of space by 2240. Both sides threw all of their industrial, economic, and technological might into the war, as it was seen as the **"war to decide the future of the human race**". Unbeknownst to nearly all but the top leaders of both factions, the Corporate Wars were nothing more than theatrics to cover the deeper shadow war raging between the Cognoscenti, a reformist faction of the Illuminati, and the Illuminati old guard that were fooled into pursuing the war to destroy their liberal faction.

The Corporate Wars rank as the most destructive conflicts of all of human history, with thirty three billion deaths and several billions injured by the conflicts' end. Many casualties were levied on the Coalition and their corporate and paramilitary allies due to of the technological supremacy of the Gang of Thirteen and their allies. The revolting corporations were also accused of several war crimes from different post-war lobby groups, ranging from several deployments of high-payload nuclear weapons to the deliberate strangling of logistics networks that led to mass famines and pandemics across the Frontier, Periphery, and even the Core. Massacres occurred on both sides, with the Coalition being blamed for triggering total war as a result of massacring several Chen Wu executives on Earth during the Battle of Hong Kong in 2239.

The war ended in 2245 following the mutual exhaustion of the armed forces of both sides of the conflict via the Coalition's final mass assault in Operation Stellar Fury, which also saw massive revolts across corporate-controlled space arise from several anti-corporate militias. Leaving billions dead and injured alongside mass destruction of infrastructure across dozens of worlds, the international community gradually came to terms with accepting a "stalemate" enforced by the peace treaty known as the Tellus Protocol. Even though it is officially seen as ending the war with no clear victor, almost all have come to realize that it was, in fact, a document affirming a sly victory for the rebelling corporations. This was because the Tellus Protocol laid the groundwork for the formation of the Coalition Corporate Advisory Committee, the creation of the Coalition Congressional Note, and the proliferation of megacorporate manifestations across all member republics of the CCR, thus illustrating the true victor.

The causes of the Corporate Wars are multitudinous, ranging from the overexpansion of Coalition government bureaucracy as a result of the unfettered Planet Rush, the massive rise in power of the megacorporations, the rise of anti-corporation sentiment in the general population and Coalition government, the decline in the transnational economy, rising secessionist tensions in the frontier and periphery, and the competition between rival megacorporations reaching a breaking point. The beginning of the Corporate Wars is believed to be on March 1, 2235, when the Corporate Audit Act was approved by General Secretary Theodoric Cyrille Marin. Many megacorporations protested this legislation drafted by the General Congress of the Coalition, barring Coalition authorities from entering their properties and leading to massive sieges of corporate property by police and military forces. This reached a boiling point by 2240, when in the face of open corporate defiance, the CCR passed the Corporate Nationalization Act of 2240 to break the megacorporations apart and nationalize essential assets.

Total war, known as the Colonial Civil War sub-conflict, began in 2240 when the defiant megacorporations, known as the Gang of Thirteen, officially declared independence through the subversion of many colonial governments and direct corporate possessions. They then declared war on the Coalition government, forming the Outer Colonial Combine as a rival puppet government. The largest land and space battles in human history would be a part of this war, ranging from the gargantuan Battle of Hathor and Battle of Sol to the massive Soviet-American attempted invasion of Tellus to bring it back to Coalition control during the betrayal of the Elpis star system in 2241.

The war concluded with the final massive assault by the CCR against the OCC to recapture lost colonial systems in what would be known as Operation Stellar Fury. Almost all of the combat capabilities of the Coalition Forces Authority would be destroyed as a result, forcing the CCR to go to the negotiation table with the rebelling corporations. General Secretary Theodoric C. Marin would be forced to end his extended stay in office through the September Sunset Coup by forces of the People's Liberation Army of the People's Republic of China on the grounds of preventing further corporate ire. The Tellus Protocol would be subsequently drafted on Tellus between the OCC and CCR, and signed between all member parties on September 16th of 2245.

The Corporate Wars changed the sociopolitical landscape of the Coalition for centuries to come. The rise of the CCAC and the Note allowed megacorporations to fully dominate the economy of the CCR, and the political aftershocks of the war would spawn multiple rebellions in the future, ranging from the Meran War to the Belial War as a result of corporate influence. Corporations that sided with the CCR during the conflict, such as the Kanetomi Corporation, would be widely rewarded, promoting the Kanetomi dynasty to near-legendary status in the Core. The second iteration of the Planet Rush would begin not soon after, bringing the CCR to its current borders. Identitarianism in the Coalition would spike, and a "Coalition identity" would be firmly forged as an identity that stands in support of statism and against corporate control. The Illuminati would be dethroned from their shadow throne of control over humanity and replaced by the now-independent Cognoscenti, who used the corporations rather than the state as their main vector of indirect manipulation.

## Start and end dates

It is considered by many historians that the Corporate Wars officially began on **March 1, 2235**, when the *Corporate Audit Act* was approved by the incumbent General Secretary of the Coalition, Theodoric Cyrille Marin.

The end of war was with the announced armistice on **September 15th, 2245**, as the various clauses of the Tellus Protocol neared completion. The protocol was subsequently signed on the 16th, officially ending all remaining conflict between the corporations and the Coalition government.

## Background

### Decline of the "Planet Rush" and colonization

One of the primary underlying causes of the Corporate Wars was the slump in colonization following the gradual decline of the Planet Rush phenomenon. With government-sponsored colonial ventures ending, corporations had swooped in to replace the Coalition government as the primary source of colonial funding; despite this move, it had grown too expensive over the centuries to continue colonization as a consequence of terraforming materials spiking in market price. In addition to this, many citizens were reluctant to colonize further and further away from the Core, as the growing threat of piracy meant that these already strained logistics lines could be easily cut.

Thus, as colonization slowed, corporate influence in the colonial frontier and periphery grew, with contracts for security of planetary bodies and trade routes being passed to many subsidiaries of megacorporations such as the Chen Wu Corporation, Hinata Group, and various securities corporations that held stakes in profitable private military company ventures.

This "corporatization" of the colonies would not go unnoticed by the central government of the Coalition, however. As early as the 2200s, the Coalition had already begun drafting laws and executive orders to counter the explosion in megacorporate growth in the colonies; this was to prevent a stranglehold on key colonial resources such as agricultural and mining products from being deliberately marked up by monopolies. Such moves were seen as antagonistic by the corporations that held colonial investments, and as such sparked the flame for what would erupt later in the 23rd century.

### Growing divide between government and corporations

From the inception of the Coalition, the government and the megacorporations had always been at odds in one way or another. Following the end of the Second Martian-Terran War, several Coalition politicians from Earth, Mars, and the wider Solar System insisted that the common market of the Coalition should have integrated anti-trust and anti-monopoly measures as a means to prevent a total stranglehold on the economy from forming. Even so, the raw power of Terran and Martian megacorporations at the time through their financial powers and investments were able to influence the government from legislating the bulk of these proposed laws.

This divide between the government and the corporations would only grow as the Coalition further expanded, providing a larger and larger market for these corporations to exponentially grow and consume sectors of the economy. However, no one side proved to triumph over the long run, with an equilibrium of power forming as a result of infighting between megacorporations and the general political division of the Coalition's government itself. This, however, would change with the quick radicalization of the Coalition public, and thus the government, against megacorporate activity as colonization pursued.

## Aftermath

Following the dissolution of the Outer Colonial Combine and the signage of the Tellus Protocol between the CCR and the rebelling corporations, the first motion in the reunited Coalition was to prevent the outbreak of non-corporate secessionist rebellions and planetary civil wars as a result of the weakened political and economic infrastructure. Since the Coalition Forces Authority was effectively destroyed after its rampage in Operation Stellar Fury, the Combined Member National Subcommand was mobilized in its entirety to see individual deployments across multiple high-risk star systems, ranging from Tupã to Azimuth and Erigon. They were joined in this mission, known as the Pan-Coalition Peace Initiative, by the remnants of corporate security forces that pledged their forces to such a task without monetary compensation for a period of ten years.

Due to the absolute devastation wrought by the Corporate Wars, the Coalition entered a period known as the Coalition Reconstruction, where construction megacorporations such as Chen Wu Corporation exploded in financial and economic power as the Coalition government rebuilt. Several revolutions and uprisings that occurred during the end stages of the Corporate Wars continued, include the neofascist Camarero Rebellions and the socialist Red Wave Uprisings across the frontier and periphery regions. These rebellions would sow the seeds for distant colonial rebellions, such as the Meran War.

With the stipulations of the Tellus Protocol coming into effect, the Coalition Corporate Advisory Committee was formed in late 2245, with all signatory megacorporations being given a seat. The Coalition Congressional Note was created a year later, fundamentally transforming the Coalition economy and giving megacorporations further power through transactional anonymity. As a result of these economic transformations and the finishing of the Reconstruction by 2254 signaled the beginning of humanity's Second Renaissance.

Having sided with the Coalition government in the Corporate Wars due to its strong ties to the State of Japan, the Kanetomi Corporation and their compatriot corporations were awarded with a bountiful amount of post-war construction contracts and financial favors. This catapulted the Kanetomi Corporation in particular to become one of the strongest megacorporations in the CCR, rivaling even that of Chen Wu, Hinata, and Stapleford. The star system of Wadatsumi, sacked by the rebelling corporations during the war and previously under Kanetomi control, would quickly blossom in economic power to be a lynchpin of the north.

## Impact

### Casualties and war crimes

It is estimated that over thirty three billion people died in the war, split between over 11 billion military personnel and over 22 billion civilians; this figure does not include synthetics and artificial intelligence warforms. Many civilians died in the Corporate Wars as a result of collateral damage from aerial, artillery, and ortillery strikes, in addition to disease, starvation, and massacres.

The Coalition of Congressional Republics suffered the most casualties during the war, losing around 7 billion military personnel and 20 billion civilians for a total loss of around 27 billion. With a population of only 500 billion at the time, this accounted for eight percent of the country dead, in addition to a further fifteen percent injured by some sort of weapon or other cause (such as the effects of starvation, dehydration, irradiation, and infection). The bulk of civilian deaths for the Coalition occurred as a result of the OCC's push into the Core in the penultimate phase of the war, especially with the battles for Hathor and the Solar System.

Both sides utilized chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and nanological weaponry against each other. The corporate forces were more partial to the usage of these weapons of mass destruction due to force parity issues, as seen in the battles of Hyperion and Ganymede.

### Purported slave labor

It is purported that the rebelling corporations used slave labor to bolster their small industrial capabilities during the course of the war...