Spravac-Delta War

## Description:

The Spravac-Delta War, also known as the Delta War, the Great Spravac War, or the Great Delta War, was a major transversal war that was fought primarily on several major planets in the Deltaverse and spilled into the Gammaverse in the final months of the war. The war saw a total collapse of the Karis Empire as well as the Deltaverse becoming open to the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy, as before it was heavily isolated, with only the Karis Empire and zurok syndicates having any true knowledge of the outside galaxy.

The war was the brainchild of the ambitious spravac warlord Správác Ná Správác (Správ), who managed to convince the Primes and the Imperial Diet of the tactical and strategic significance of the Deltaverse due to its high volume of resources and ample opportunities for spreading war and discord throughout the insular verse. Through conquest and shrewd politics, Správ sought to secure the Deltaverse for the glory of his people as well as himself, and as a result allowed his cabinet of generals to wreak havoc on the verse, causing several massacres that bordered on genocide in their size and brutality.

The Spravac Empire’s forces first attacked a Ures Empire scout vessel, the Wolf 4 after engaging a wandering horde of Blights, where Správ would receive his characteristic facial scar. The spravac then attacked and easily overtook the gorgarian homeworld of Meneldez, conquering it and creating a puppet state that aided the Empire in the war until it was defeated in the decisive Meneldez Campaign in 7018 CE, after that point any support it could give was through the gorgarian volunteer units, or Grey Legions (Sczur-Vectánc), that had embedded themselves within spravac units.

The spravac then aligned themselves with the Karis Empire, an unstable empire on the brink of civil war, which was sparked after the Empress Volaire De Sasheem announced her alliance with the spravac through the Treaty of Kendall of 7017. The spravac deployed several million  spravac soldiers on the karis worlds of Kori and Arrogon in order to assist the karis in the civil war after it became clear that they were incapable of waging the war on their own. To make matters worse, the karis were already embroiled in full scale war against the Tayrigo Empire, which belligerently refused to ally themselves with the spravac for their dealings with their hated karis enemies. The war on Kreyo, the tayrigo homeworld, proved to be the site of the most savage of the fighting, as the two warlike avians clashed and brutalized each other, though one proved to enjoy it more than the other.

The spravac also allied with the Systems Republic, a enclave of independent alien species that had united against the perceived tyranny of the Ures, Karis, and Tayrigo Empires, or the Delta Three as they were known. As such, they voiced their military support for the Spravac Empire for the entirety of the war, and continue to be loyal vassals of the Empire well into the present day.

The spravac conquest of the Ures Empire set in motion the fierce anti-outsider sentiment and fascism within the Ures Empire that fueled tensions with the rest of the galaxy for decades to come, especially with the Xamon Confederacy which entered the Deltaverse in the 7030s. The spravac attacked the Ures homeworld first, failing before attacking Grace, Adam and Iris, seeking to starve the Ures Empire by taking its other principal worlds. The most bloody of these battles was Grace, the campaign on the surface lasted for nearly the entirety of the war, first occupied by the spravac successfully before being liberated by the Holy Zyyntorean Empire, which intervened in the war on the behalf of the Deltaverse powers, successfully pushing the spravac off of Grace, Iris, Nelware, Iol, Ares, Rutook, U’Zule, Kori, Shivelle, and Shagra.

The spravac invasions of Ares and Adam were both critical disasters, and contributed greatly to the failure of the spravac war effort. Adam was invaded by a joint spravac-gorgarian force, the first and only of its kind in the war, as the gorgarians were forced to withdraw most of their troops after Meneldez was invaded by the Ures Empire in 7018. The Systems Republic, though they didn’t lose a single planet to the invading Ures and later zyyntorean forces, were unable to offer substantial military assistance during the war, as they were preoccupied with defending their own worlds with limited spravac assistance, meaning that the spravac were the nearly sole contributors to a majority of the war effort, with only the karis providing any sort of substantial military support that wasn’t occupied with fighting the Republicans.

Conversely, most of the Karis Empire’s best soldiers were busy fighting each other during the violent Karis Civil War, led by former Prince Juile De Sasheem, the son of the empress. The Karis Republican Armies were composed of highly motivated veterans led by charismatic and skilled generals. Spies and traitors within the Royal Court, namely Kail De Sasheem, Juile’s uncle, siphoned royal battle plans to the rebels in order to aid the effort. Though he was not above ruthlessly fighting against the republican forces in order to shield him from any suspicion, especially from the spravac Didact Vrínc Sásgcait, who had previously contributed to the successful campaign on Grace, who suspected his treachery and questioned his integrity at every turn. His suspicions were confirmed in the closing weeks of the battles on Arrogon after Kail revealed his betrayal and personally slew the Didact and his personal guard of Incubi, another fatal blow to the spravac war effort.

The spravac were forced to go on the defensive with the arrival of the zyyntoreans in October 7020 CE and the Raleos Empire in December 7021 CE, whose combined efforts successfully liberated the planet of Grace, providing vast amounts of food supplies to the starving Ures forces, who had stretched themselves thin trying to assist all the other factions as well as their own territory in order to secure influence, a tactic that costed them hundreds of millions of soldiers and civilians.

The zyyntorean offensive renewed the war effort for Ures and the Tayrigo Empire, who were the primary vanguard of resistance against the spravac. The Ures Empire led a successful campaign on Kori, taking the planet from the Karis Empire and devastating the military capabilities of the empire, as Kori was one of their primary military settlements.

On Shagra, though it was a planet of the Tayrigo Empire, the zurok natives were forced to band together against the spravac onslaught, forced to put aside their petty gang warfare in order to defend their business interests. Several major zurok syndicates and tribes did however join the spravac, namely the Black Teeth Tribe, which wanted to oust the dominant crimelords Talok and Shaba from their thrones and rule the planet as a vassal of the Spravac Empire as promised by Správ. The zuroks’ brutal street war was alleviated by the zyyntorean Legate Horous Gai Victari, who easily pacified the Black Teeth and killed the spravac Didact, Tzár Váscz by beheading him in combat.

By mid July 7022 CE, it was becoming clear that the Spravac Empire was unable to maintain its grasp on the Deltaverse, having lost all major planets taken during the war after the zyyntoreans deployed their forces. In addition to these losses, the spravac were also embroiled in a much more violent and pertinent war with the New Roman Republic, which had occupied a majority of the Spravac Empire’s primary forces, hence the reason that only a small detachment of the Horde, mostly auxiliary forces, were available for combat in the Deltaverse.

Instead of causing further loss, Správ and his remaining generals elected to cut their losses and temporarily cease military operations in the Deltaverse, rationalizing that they would attack again once the NRR had been eventually dealt with. In response to the pulling out of the spravac forces, the Ures, Tayrigo, and Raleos Empires formed the JECG (Joint Expeditionary Coalition into the Gammaverse) to invade spravac territory in the Gammaverse. They attacked three known planets; Trox, Malthus, and Ual. The invasions of these three worlds were disastrous in more ways than one. The tayrigos and Ures launched a joint invasion of Trox and Malthus, which failed spectacularly. The Ures Empire and raleos attempted to invade Ual, but were unable to break through its naval garrison, which destroyed the invading army within three hours.

After being pushed off of Trox and Malthus, the commander of the JECG, David Jackson of the Ures Empire, committed the Trox-Malthus Genocide, using SPACs to bombard the planets from orbit for several weeks, irradiating hundreds of miles of land and destroying hundreds of cities and killing hundreds of millions of civilians. General Jackson was sanctioned to use the SPACs, but was instructed to only target military installations. Jackson, disillusioned by the war and ravenous for revenge for his people, went against direct orders and targeted the civilian population. Any that weren’t killed by the immediate blasts were horribly deformed by burns and radiation.

These acts infuriated the Holy Zyyntorean Empire, who rescinded their support for the campaign, as they were originally going to commit troops to the war effort to renew the invasions. Jackson’s acts did end the war however, as the Spravac Empire sued for peace on behalf of the deentrox and malthale, who had demanded within the Imperial Diet that the war end for the sake of their civilian populations.

The Deltaverse forces then signed the Treaty of the Black Abyss, a treaty that ended the war in a truce, though both sides claimed victory, with the spravac rationalizing that the Deltaverse only accepted because they knew they would eventually lose.

The Spravac-Delta War irreversibly changed the political structure of the Deltaverse. The spravac caused such incredible structural damage to the Tayrigo Empire that it plunged the species into another civil war after the heirless Emperor Tul’khan died of old age just four weeks after the treaty was signed. The Ures Empire was so devastated by the war that they had to reconstruct most of their cities on Grace, Iris, Adam, and Iol, while rogue spravac bands left behind from the war continued to run rampant.

The Karis Empire was officially dissolved and reformed into a republic, leading to severe economic devastation and civil instability, leading to a significant downturn in power due to the death of much of its standing army and two of its planets seceding. Nelware experienced major global warming due to spravac ultrabow bombardment, which led to glacier melt that flooded many previously habitable areas. The new government of Nelware, under zyyntorean and Uresian protection, also faced a new insurgency in the form of the Ituck, who continued their war of independence.

Shagra, already in a state of disrepair, was even more devastated, as the spravac destroyed several cities and left power vacuums within both the cities and the wastelands after the destruction of several syndicates and tribes, leading to them being occupied by Shaba and Talok, who essentially became the new governing power on Shagra, which eventually led to zyyntorean military occupation to quell the criminal activity, which failed. Rutook became infested by wild animals brought by the spravac, leading to violence from wandering violent beasts such as the Caisczai and Feroraptors, though the latter would eventually become domesticated by the grug natives. The Systems Republic remained staunchly loyal to the spravac cause, signing the Treaty of the Black Abyss that recognized them as a fledgling vassal of the Spravac Empire, who assisted in rebuilding their worlds.

Ares’ population experienced its first ever population deficit due to the virulent Blood Boiler plague, an engineered bioweapon designed by Tzár Váscz which targeted shurpie queens, leading to billions of shurpies dying long after the war until zyyntorean scientists cured the plague. Meneldez’s war didn’t end until the 7040s after the Xamon Confederacy occupied and absorbed them, finally ending the bloody civil war that resulted from the Ures Empire’s actions during the war.

The war also acted as the major event that officially opened up the Deltaverse to the rest of the galaxy, paving the way for future conflicts, especially with the Xamon Confederacy and later Xamon Empire. The spravac would invade the Deltaverse again in 7060 CE, sparking the even more devastating Orion Spur Wars, a war which ominously mirrors the Delta War in its brutality and sheer scale, though this time the entirety of the spravac war machine came to bear on the verse.

## Chronology:

The date on which the war began is generally agreed to be on January 7, 7017 when Správ’s fleet attacked the Wolf 4, killing an agent of the Ures Empire and immediately beginning hostilities. Others, such as the karis, hold the date to be on January 25, 7017 after Empress Volaire declared her allegiance to the Spravac Empire, sparking the Republican Rebellion. The tayrigos hold that the war was a continuation of their war with the karis, the Eon War, thus putting the war at almost 200 years long by adding its length to the Eon War’s excessive length.

There are several historians within the Holy Zyyntorean Empire and Ures which believe that the war actually began on January 8 when the spravac invaded Meneldez, being the very first major military operation of the war, though some believe that it was the spravac’s naval engagement with the Blights that officially began combat in the Deltaverse.

## Background:

### Spravac Empire

The Spravac Empire, as a ravenously imperialist and expansionist empire, is always eager to wage large scale wars for the thrill of war and bloodshed. As such, it was relatively easy for individual lords and military leaders within the Empire to approach the Primes and propose a campaign within their interests. However, with the beginning of the Spravo-NRR War, the Primes did not believe that the Deltaverse was worth the trouble, and ruled that they would only give Správ an army if he could rally enough Didacts and Blood Alchemists to his cause. Even after Správ gathered these forces, the Primes only gave him a small army in comparison to the armies being fielded to fight the NRR, meaning that Správ had to be frugal and much more strategic with the placement of his troops once he started his war.

Správ gathered 17 other Didacts, Magistrates, and Blood Alchemists to his cause, all of which had exorbitant personalities that frequently clashed with each other, a reason that contributed heavily to the eventual collapse of Správ’s ambitions in the Deltaverse. With his fellow commanders, Správ’s peers brought with them a host of Archons and their personal forces, creating a massive and diverse army.

Správ first recruited the Vótzai of Iut, Étvác Vólóm, who he convinced after cheating in a duel and on the condition that Vólóm’s cousin, the Magistrate Tulic Broscz, also be brought into the war. Vólóm was an excessively reckless and immensely popular Didact and Incubus. Though his reckless nature was controversial amongst his Incubi brothers, Vólóm remained beloved amongst the spravac of Iut and the rest of the Empire, earning his fame for killing an ayar warlord in 22 seconds and becoming the most deadly gladiator on Iut. Vólóm, seeing the war as a challenge, accepted, eager to test his skills against the empires of the Deltaverse.

Broscz, on the other hand, was a dim witted tank commander, and if given the chance, would’ve been abandoned by Správ, who believed that he was too dumb by his standards to serve alongside him in the war. However, Broscz’s love of violence and explosions was hard to ignore, so after being persuaded by Vólóm, he was allowed to serve within the cabinet.

That same day Správ then convinced the extremely powerful and influential Vrínc Sásgcait, a well-respected Didact and aristocrat from Spaasa, who brought in the Didacts Zju Roscz, an Incubus of the Spaasa Coven, Blood Alchemist Cairé Rasczec, who was a close friend and fellow lord of Spaasa, and the Didact Mígcá Tzusczá, an Archon within the Spaasa Coven.

Sásgcait was a Reaver Count, the planetary governor of Spaasa, and thus commanded the entirety of its military forces. Able to bring in as many men as he was allowed to by the Primes, who needed Spaasa’s elite troops for the war against the NRR, Sásgcait’s influence was instrumental to the early successes of the war.

Roscz was an atypically honorable and wise Didact. As an Incubus, he was calculating and decisive, but he also scorned unnecessary actions that would prolong a war, acting under the Incubus philosophy that battles must be brutally quick and decisive. Roscz was by all accounts, the most honest spravac that ever lived.

Cairé Rasczec, on the other hand, was a brash and brutal naval commander. Preferring to command fleets of overwhelming numbers and firepower, Rasczec preferred head on attacks and had little regard for positioning or tactics. However, as a fellow Incubus of the same year as Roscz, Rasczec convinced Roscz to bring him along for the war, which he believed would be the most glorious war of his career.

Along with Rasczec, Roscz brought in Mígcá Tzusczá, an Archon of the Spaasa Coven who was a renowned warrior, well known for his command of Incubi and smaller units of troops, as well as his good relations with the auxiliary races. Tzusczá, however, was reluctant to join the endeavor, but was convinced by Roscz to join, who he owed a personal favor for saving his life during a skirmish with a rival spravac lord.

Taucótziv Bortzílám, a Spine Prince from Sprava, was recruited next. Bortzílám was a skilled commander, easily one of the most skilled in the group, but he was heavily and mutually disliked by Správ, who he [Bortzílám] regarded as arrogant and unworthy of his position as the son of a spravac woman enslaved by zuroks. Bortzílám was also an influential politician. As the leader of an entire continent on Sprava he was extremely powerful, and even held connections to the Coast Stalker Privateers of the Árác Coast.

Správ then commissioned the Blood Alchemists Nágc Voritz and Réritziv Bûnscz, a pair of close friends from Nelkan, who Správ convinced after promising them lordship over two of the planets of their choice once they had conquered the Deltaverse. Both were skilled naval commanders, with Bûnscz in particular being a valuable asset through the war, destroying several Ures and zyyntorean fleets.

Through Didact Roscz, Správ gained the allegiance of Didact Néviscz Savá, the leader of a pirate band known as the Black Thorn Reavers, Savá was a skilled raider who Roscz wanted by his side to command his infantry alongside Roscz’s usage of armored units. Savá would go on to become enemy number one of the tayrigos after Roscz’s death early in the war, as Savá reaved and pillaged Kreyo mercilessly, and was responsible for the complete destruction of several clans in their entirety as well as the rape and murder of hundreds of millions of tayrigo civilians.

Správ then recruited Didact Síráscz Egitá, a powerful Spine Prince from Creksaw who had deep connections with the Creksaw Incubus Coven, and brought with him a great horde of Incubi to fight with him during the war. Egitá was a bizarrely religious spravac, being a member of the Cult of Álgcátzár, a warrior faith that worships a powerful god known as the Sky-Splitter, who created the galaxy by cleaving existence itself in two with a giant flaming sword. As a member of this faith, Egitá displayed exceptional leadership and skill in combat, personally slaying four Ayar Warlords separately in combat before he was approached by Správ. With him, Egitá brought his own personal throng of Álgcátzárí Warriors from the Blaze Throng of Fireblades.

The next didact recruited was Tzár Váscz, a crazed didact and Dark Leech from the planet Etacto. Váscz was born in a cracked egg, thus an oxygen leak caused his development to become stunted and twisted. Váscz was horribly disfigured and misshapen, forced to walk with a cane. Despite his disabilities, Váscz was no less brutal than his peers, and was even more so due to his demented mind and position within the Bane Hordes, the technocratic cultists who frequently experimented on themselves and others using stolen or repurposed ayar technology. As such, Váscz was comparatively less-tactically sound, only able to rise to his position because of his outlandish and unorthodox strategies, which made him well liked by his men, which were mostly whelps that he frequently experimented on with cybernetics and other abominations. Through Váscz, millions of Bane Warriors flocked to Správ’s call, fielding their augmented cybernetic monsters as well as the Black Marauders, spravac pirates who wielded deadly weapons of agonizing pain and biomechanical attachments of their own.

Správ then gained the support of the brilliant Didact Seránó Tzár, a sinister military man who was strict and uncharacteristically cautious by spravac standards. As a member of the peasantry at birth, Tzár was admired by his men for his modesty and lack of arrogance, as he was shown to have a genuine care for the lives of his men, including the auxiliaries. Even after becoming a Didact, Tzár denied any opportunities presented to him for lordship and land titles, electing instead to remain a general and spravac of the people. As the most tactically minded and easily the most intelligent of all Správ’s generals, Tzár was the hardest to convince. Správ only convinced him by appealing to his military mind, challenging him that it would be his greatest military achievement, and would even increase his prestige enough that he could make a bid for Primehood once the war was concluded.

Správ then managed to bring in the renowned warrior Nitscz Terem, an experienced veteran of many battles. As an aging soldier, Nitscz desired to end his career and retire as a noble on a high note, and as such joined Správ, impressed by his grandiose plans and ambition. Nitscz was an impressive commander who was well known for his flanking maneuvers and usage of ranged combat, abstaining from melee unless he was certain it would win him the battle. As a skilled marksman, Nitscz always fought on the field, armed with a custom longbow that shot three bolts instead of one.

Didact Gcóló Málótortv was recruited next. A reserved didact from an aristocratic family on Jalut, Málótortv was well known for his cold exterior and lack of friends. He was known amongst his family as “The Bird that does not Sing”, and joined the military as a marine after he was disinherited by his fathers. His lack of feeling made him almost robotic, and he seemed to gather no pleasure from anything other than commanding soldiers. As such, he was a remarkable and gifted strategist, and was an easy one to convince, as he found the prospect of the Deltaverse War much more intriguing than the war with the NRR.

Next was Sisczt Gitárí, a friend of Správ who requested to join. Správ was impressed by Gitárí’s implementation of aerial warfare in tandem with his command of stealth-oriented shock infantry, and believed that his position as a Blood Baron on Iut would give him a vast array of soldiers, which he believed correctly. Gitárí was also a former gladiator as well as a Gloom Marine, giving him an unparalleled understanding of stealth tactics, perhaps only rivaled by members of the Incubi Covens.

Finally, Správ commissioned Vûl Gcaitá, a warrior proficient in the art of melee combat. Gcaitá was originally a pirate employed by the Bane Hordes, but was brought back into the Empire after a decisive battle with Nitscz Terem, who he had a friendly rivalry with afterwards. Gcaitá’s pirates, known as the Argent Vultures, were a horde of thirty thousand swordsmen that frequently reaved derelict ships and ayar vessels in search of technology and artifacts of the bygone ages of the Ancient Galaxy. After Gcaitá was recruited, he brought his Argent Vultures with him, who served as his personal army, and would later go on to serve on Shivelle and Kori to hunt down and slaughter Republican cells. Additionally, Gcaitá had a fully trained Caisczai under his control. Named Lash, this rare and deadly beast served as Gcaitá’s most loyal follower as well as his most deadly.

With his generals selected, Správ was prepared to mobilize his forces to invade the Deltaverse, eager for war and confident that he was going to win gloriously.

### Deltaverse

As a relatively uneventful verse, the Deltaverse was generally isolated from the rest of the galaxy. Though its existence was certainly known about, it had garnered a reputation in the galaxy as an undisturbed and mythical domain of wondrous technologies and copious amounts of resources. The only source of information that the galaxy had was from zurok pirates and slavers, who were the only species from the Deltaverse to interact heavily with other species. This mythical status no doubt played a part in Správ’s desire to conquer it, believing it would bring him and the Spravac Empire glory.

Within the Deltaverse, its territory was split upon three major factions, along with several smaller factions and numerous ruined worlds destroyed by either war or Blights, which plagued the region extensively and were one of the chief reasons that outerverse explorers and fleets so rarely ventured into the many dead zones of hundreds of thousands of destroyed ships that bordered the verse.

The three major empires of the Deltaverse were the Tayrigo Empire, the Karis Empire, and the Ures Empire. The Tayrigo Empire, its namesake coming from the brutish and dimwitted tayrigos, was embroiled in a vicious and arduously long war against the Karis Empire, who were arrogant and oppressive. As a highly belligerent and warlike species, the tayrigos fought for so long against the karis in order to ensure that their dimwitted populace were hyperfocused on their foes, rather than on the despotic junta that ruled over them with an iron fist.

The Karis Empire was very similar, oppressing their male populace as second class citizens that were conscripted into the Royal Army at an early age, indoctrinated into the army as a poorly maintained, but still technologically superior and well-armed force. With a dominating matriarchal aristocratic class, the Karis Empire was rife with civil instability, as the male class were furious with the treatment they received despite killing and bleeding for the empire. In addition, the Karis Empire had enslaved two other races; the tarys and the grugs, two species that the karis conquered early in their development as civilizations. Both species were conscripted into the Royal Karis Army as auxiliaries, and were often poorly equipped and sent on suicidal attacks against the tayrigos.

By the time the Spravac Empire began their invasion of the Deltaverse, both of these empires were still deeply embroiled in their war, which the spravac capitalized on.

In contrast with the despotic karis and tayrigos, both of which were on the brink of societal collapse, the Ures Empire was in what was considered by many of its citizens to be in its golden age. As a primarily human based faction with ties to the original Fall of Earth in 4610 CE, the Ures Empire had very few enemies. Their only true enemy was the gorgarians, whose army had been unable to put up a proper fight since the First Iol War. As such, Ures had a neutralist foreign policy that kept it out of the tenuous politics of the karis and tayrigos, allowing them to cultivate a large, but relatively inexperienced army. The Ures Empire’s greatest claim to their military prowess was their Titan Program, which fielded a decently sized army of cybernetically enhanced super-soldiers known as Titans, extremely skilled soldiers that were well known for their mystery and extreme skill in combat. Additionally, the Ures Empire fielded a fleet of SPACs, or Solar Powered Artillery Cannons, which were powerful beams of incredible destructive power on par with similar weapons of mass destruction.

Along with the three empires, there was the Systems Republic, a small but powerful faction of several alien races that refused to acquiesce to the three. To remain safe, the SR trained a powerful army and large navy to protect their borders, creating a “dark zone” from which invaders never returned.

## Pre-War Events:

### Zyyntore-Karis War (Bessina Incident): October 12, 7014- April 19, 7015

As the only united empire that had any presence outside of the Deltaverse, the tyrannical Karis Empire eventually came in contact with the Holy Zyyntorean Empire after the karis fired upon the ship of the Harbinger Viacota Gai Zelem, who was leading an expedition into the sector on rumors of Blight infestations.

In the process, the zyyntoreans stumbled across the minor agrarian world of Bessina, the fleet of which engaged the zyyntorean fleet once they entered the planet’s periphery. Though the zyyntorean fleet had superior numbers to the karis fleet, Zelem’s flagship; the Reverence, was shot down, turning the undeclared war into war on the ground.

On the ground, the zyyntoreans and karis waged an attritious low-scale campaign, with the zyyntoreans generally beating out the karis. The war ended in the culminating Battle of Solissa Fields, where the famed warrior and Grand Master Swordsman Kail De Sasheem dueled Zelem, ending in both becoming gravely wounded and forced to withdraw after a Blight infestation manifested overhead, devouring soldiers on both sides and forcing both to retreat, with the remaining zyyntorean troops escaping after a rescue fleet was sent, ignoring the karis fleet which also focused on evacuating its troops.

The war sparked a rivalry and friendship between Zelem and Sasheem, who would go on to fight several major pitched battles against each other during the Shivelle and Nelware Campaigns.

The conflict, which lasted six months and seven days, ended in the death of 55,643 zyyntoreans and 50,991 karis. An unknown, but presumably light amount of Blight bioforms were killed during their incursion.

### Rebellion of General Gless: May 8, 7015- May 10, 7015

A veteran of the Bessina Incident, General Festruile De Gless was the commander of an army of cavaliers and light skirmishing troops. Disillusioned by the Karis Empire’s willful disregard for the lives of his men and his own, the Bessina Incident acted as a fire that blew the powder keg, causing Gless to gather as many loyal men as possible and revolt on his home planet of Kori.

Beginning by attacking several law enforcement establishments in the local town of Kedress, which he then took over and gathered more civilians, mostly men, to his cause. However, Gless was also brutal and violent towards those that did not join him, massacring them in the town square which became known as the Kedress Square Massacre.

In response to the massacre, Royal Forces were deployed and led by Kail De Sasheem, who was deeply saddened by Gless’s betrayal but also infuriated by his killing of civilians. Sasheem’s forces besieged the town for two days, killing most of the rebels until they surrendered on May 10. However, Gless refused to surrender, believing that death was preferable to kowtowing to the Empress. Gless, along with the remaining 30 of his loyal soldiers, charged directly at Kail’s forces with their sabers drawn, gunned down and leaving Gless mortally wounded. Gless, bleeding and begging for death, was killed mercifully by Kail with a swift beheading.

Gless’s Rebellion was the very first open anti-royal rebellion in the history of the Sasheem Dynasty’s rule. Though Gless did not state any long term goals aside from causing as much damage to the empire as possible, he served as one of the early figures of the coming reformation that would be spearheaded by Juile De Sasheem and Kail De Sasheem in secret. His violent actions would go on to influence similar massacres instigated by splinter members of the Republican Army, namely the crimes committed by the controversial Zarra Battalion.

In the aftermath of the battle, 1,302 rebels, 584 Royal soldiers, 82 police forces, and 792 Royalist civilians were killed in the brief conflict. A total of 2,760 were killed overall.

### June 7015 Vollar Riots (The Vollar Rebellion): June 4- June 17, 7015

Following the brief rebellion by General Gless, a procession of sympathizers to Gless’s cause, mostly veterans and young men, held a vigil for the dead general in the city square of Vollar, a major city on Kori, as a form of protest after they got wind that Gless was not to be given a proper Oceanist funeral.

Vollar police were sent to break up the vigil, only to be met with rocks and shouting. In the sudden commotion, the police fired into the crowd of mourners, killing six and wounding thirteen others. The next day on June 5, the Vollar police department was attacked by rioters, who stormed the department in the early morning before many police had got there and looted the building, stealing weapons and destroying computers. Police on the scene arrested over thirty of the rioters and fired off warning shots, scaring away the rioters.

The governor of Vollar, the Countess Mariss De Vrenness, ordered the city into emergency lockdown on June 6, cutting off communications out of fear that a county-wide rebellion would spark. The police then brought out their heavily armed special weapons teams to storm suspected buildings of rioters and made several thousand arrests, filling two jails to maximum capacity.

In response to the jailing; the rioters, now armed with stolen police weapons and various tools, assaulted the jails in efforts to free the imprisoned civilians on June 8. Only one of the attempts, the assault on Hendar County Jail, was successful. The other assault, the one on Vollar City Internment, ended after 72 rioters were killed and another 83 injured. Hendar was emptied of its prisoners, some of which weren’t even connected to the riots, causing further havoc as the prisoners began running amok through areas of the city, looting and attacking cops wherever they went.

By June 10, Vrenness had grown desperate and requested the aid of local military forces. In response, 5,000 royal soldiers arrived to assist the police on June 12. The royal soldiers, led by Captain Katriss De Brenn, a noble’s daughter, began blocking off entire sections of the city, thoroughly searching for sympathizers within the districts they took over. During that time another 54 rioters and unaffiliated civilians were killed.

By this point, the mostly disorganized rioters had become unified, and began shouting out anti-royalist chants, demanding that the government be converted to a republic, effectively becoming the first Republicans. Wearing blue and red coloring to symbolize their new rebellion, the Vollar Rebels began attacking in masses, storming royal barricades and killing hundreds of soldiers on June 13. Royalist civilians also began rising up, assisting the soldiers with their own weapons, even using gardening and repair tools. Alleyways and streets became medieval-esque battlefields as the two sides butchered each other for three more days, earning the name Cabben Torra La’volle or the “The Week of Broken Skulls''. However, the constant bloodshed had fatigued many of the rebels, and their zealous killing and destruction of property caused many unaffiliated civilians, the majority of the city population, to flock to the Royalists, who espoused that they were protecting them while the rebels only sought to destroy.

With waning support and most of their fighters dead, the remaining Republicans surrendered, becoming incarcerated at Hendar County Jail on June 17. The Vollar Rebels would later be freed in 7017 by the Karis Republican Army forces on Kori once the civil war began in earnest, with most of the rebels becoming senior members of the KRA’s leadership by the conclusion of the war.

The Vollar Rebellion ended with 4,382 Republicans, 1,049 police, 318 Royal soldiers, 503 Royalist civilians, and 449 unaffiliated civilians killed, with a total of 6,701 dead and thousands more wounded or injured.

### Kendall Protests (Battle of Kendall): June 19- October 6, 7015

In response to the bloody Vollar Rebellion, rival Republican and Royalist civilians within Kendall gathered to protest and counter-protest the Empress Volaire De Sasheem’s address to the public regarding the Vollar affair. The Republicans were in a much higher number than the Royalists, composed primarily of veterans and young males, similarly to the Vollar Riots. The Royalists took notice of this trend and used it as a rallying cry, believing that the protestors would start another rebellion within the capital of the entire empire itself. As such, brawls between the two sides began, causing the protests to dissipate after three civilians were injured, one of which critically.

The protestors appeared again on June 21, this time in front of the Kendall Royal Police Center (KRPC). The protestors were nonviolent, and dissipated after they were threatened by the police chief that his officers would fire into the crowd if they continued.

A counter protest was made throughout the entire city on June 28, with over 90,000 Royalist civilians marching through the main street of Bentrill, espousing Pro-Royalist propaganda in support of the Empress and declaring that the Vollar Rebels were thugs and savages. 17 civilians were killed by Republicans who attacked them by throwing down heavy objects such as bricks and metal blocks from their apartments.

In the week of July 6-13, a period of violence occurred during which Republican protestors and rioters attacked and looted several stores throughout the city, killing the occupants and owners within, as they suspected that they were Royalist supporters, ending in the death of over 32 people and the destruction of 14 establishments.

In response, Royal Police arrested all the participants on July 15, as they had discovered the identity of the protestors through the camera feeds of the stores they attacked as well as from civilian witnesses. On July 17, a newly formed Royalist gang known as the Sons of the Empire began attacking and butchering civilians that they suspected to hold Republican beliefs. The SoE were particularly violent, killing over 100 civilians with cooperation from the police from July 17 to July 23.

In response to the killings by the SoE, the Republicans formed their own groups, namely the Judges of Kendall, a small group of thugs that waged a street war with the SoE. However, the SoE’s ties with the police force made the fights primarily one sided, and the Judges were eventually forced to dissipate by July 30.

On August 5, a pacifist protest made up of unaffiliated civilians marched through the streets, professing that a peaceful end to the hostilities could be reached. The protest did not last very long, as counter-protesters from both sides eventually began brawling with each other and the pacifists, causing them to retreat while the other two sides erupted into full scale fighting.

On August 10, the SoE organized a small rally in Kendall Square, declaring their official support for the Empress and spouting out more Anti-Republican propaganda, even declaring them as Tayrigo Empire spies. The rally ended after a Republican car bomb went off, causing the rally to dissipate with 43 Royalists killed in the blast.

On August 15, SoE members and other associates attacked the visiting noble Baron Tresso De Endrass, who was rumored to be a Republican in secret. The members kidnapped and tortured the baron for three days attempting to make him confess.

Despite the SoE’s supposed allegiance to the Empress, police raided the SoE compound and rescued the baron and killed the SoE members. Following the raid, the Empress publicly disavowed the SoE for their attack against Baron Endrass, and police were instructed to arrest or fire upon any karis seen wearing the SoE emblem. By August 18, after losing over 60 members, the SoE went into hiding, temporarily dissolving until the beginning of the Karis Civil War, during that time they would be reconstructed as an official paramilitary by the Empress out of desperation.

Protests continued until October 6, without any SoE members to disrupt the Republicans or goad the Royalists into fighting, the protests went on without little incident aside from savage shouting matches, eventually ending as enthusiasm died down due to the relative lack of violence.

By the end of the protests, which had become something of a minor civil war, 432 Republican civilians, 53 police, 237 SoE and other Royalists, and 67 other civilians were killed. A total of 782 altogether.

### Kendall Protest Anniversary Rally: June 19, 7016

There was little activity on both camps of the growing civil conflict within the Karis Empire, leading the Empress to believe that she had successfully curtailed the dissatisfaction within the empire. This notion was shattered on June 19 7016, exactly one year after the Kendall Protests began. Though there were still protests, they often did not end in any fighting and had less participants than before, though police would still arrive to ensure the protests did not turn violent.

The Rally had over 2,000,000 attendees, almost an eighth of the Kendall population. The Rally was forced to dissipate after royal soldiers, accompanied by Royalists, appeared demanding that the rally end. Wanted to avoid bloodshed, the protestors complied, though many members of it warned that a war was coming, and that they would be on the winning side.

### Engagement with Blights in Správ’s Fleet: January 7, 7017

With his generals recruited and his fleets prepared, Správ began his invasion of the Deltaverse by first passing through the Forlorn Dead Zone, a ring of ship debris thousands of years old that borders the Deltaverse in massive clusters. Radio interference meant that the ships could not communicate with each other effectively, meaning that each individual ship was flying blind. Upon entering the mass of twisting wreckage, Správ’s flagship; the Genocide-class Black Abyss began reading mysterious disturbances on its hull. Správ dispatched companies of Astral Marines to investigate, using their mag-boots to walk along the hull. The marines reported breaches in the hull seemingly eaten away by a corrosive substance. Corsairs were then sent to inspect the breaches, only to be killed by an unknown creature, their radios cutting out after coming in contact with the entity.

As the Abyss moved out of the wreckage, it came in contact with other ships within the over 2,000 ship fleet. Suddenly, a Warrior-class battleship, the Horror of Dread suddenly crashed into the side of another, the Dark Sinner. As the two ships exploded in a spectacular fashion, corsairs within the Abyss began reporting firefights with warped spravac soldiers, mutated beyond recognition. The 25 mile long ship became a battleground as Blight-infested spravac hosts assaulted their former comrades, adding more to their ranks. Správ gathered his Incubi bodyguards and ordered them to confront the Blights at the source. The Incubi cut through the Blights with ease, resisting the temptations that the voices echoed through their skulls.

Outside of the fleet, a small Ures scout ship known as the Wolf 4, holding the agent Sam Gariss, witnessed the entire battle unfurl. Blight infested spravac ships, now with their captains taken under their influence, began firing on the uninfected ships, creating a massive naval battle that destroyed entire sections of the Dead Zone.

In the chaos of the battle, a Blight corruptor managed to creep through the cracks of the ship into Správ’s bridge, lunging at him as it sensed he was the leader. The slimy black mass latched onto the left half of Správ’s face, suctioning itself to him as it began to funnel lies into his mind. However, in a stunning act of will, Správ gripped the form in his talons, the jagged hooks digging into its synthetic inky flesh, and tore it clean off, tearing a layer of skin off his face as well. With the corruptor squirming helplessly in his palm, he crushed it, its black goo splattering across the floor.

After two more hours, the Incubi and corsairs managed to cull the supercarrier of the infestation. With the infestation destroyed, the massive ship began firing its ultrabows into the sides of the infested spravac ships, destroying them and the Blights inside. The Black Abyss waited for the rest of the fleet to arrive out of the labyrinth of destroyed vessels. To his dismay, Správ found that nearly a quarter of his fleet had been lost to the parasites.

Alarmed that the spravac broke through the massive Blight infection, Agent Gariss attempted to flee before the spravac noticed his craft, however the battleship Yearning Hunt caught his craft in its tractor beam. A kill team of Astral Marines aboard a Leech dropship landed on the ship. Agent Gariss managed to kill one of the marines before another plunged its jagged glaive into his gut, wrenching out his intestines wrapped around the hooked blade as he died. The marines examined the computers on the ship and learned of the homeworld of their future foe; the Ures Empire. After disembarking the ship, the Yearning Hunt destroyed the ship with a single plasma torpedo.

With the destruction of the Wolf 4, the Spravac Empire had officially declared war on the Ures Empire, and by extension the entire Deltaverse.

425 spravac ships were destroyed travelling through the Forlorn Dead Zone, a total of 403,750 spravac were killed in the destruction of the ships, with 201,875 of them being infected by Blights. Another 4,328 spravac were killed on ships that were not destroyed. A total of 426 ships and 408,079 were killed including Agent Gariss and the Wolf 4.

The following was a transcript of the report filed by Gariss before the destruction of his ship:

[ADDRESSING SECTOR 5]

[DISTRESS SIGNAL: BLACK]

[FROM: AGENT GARISS]

[LOCATION: ORBITING URES ON THE WOLF 4]

[January 7, 7017]

IN THE EVENTS OF ACTS OF WAR WITH ALIEN OPPOSITIONS. AUTHORIZATION OF ADMINISTRATOR OF DEFENSE MUST BE GIVEN TO ACT ON THE REQUESTED ACTION.

THE TRANSCRIPTION OF AGENT: SAM GARISS.

Command, I have received a visual of a massive unidentified fleet engaged with what seems to be a Blight infestation. It appears that they are firing at each other.

The ships are unlike anything I’ve ever seen, the smallest ones are still kilometers long by the looks of them, massive guns on them too.

Command, I’m tapping into their radio chatter. It’s definitely foreign, nothing like I’ve ever heard, they don’t sound friendly, transmitting for translation by yuriksis.

Oh no...C-Command I can confirm they appear to be winning the encounter with the Blights, it looks like the Blight forms are retreating into space.

Command, I-I they broke through. More ships are emerging from the Forlorn Dead Zone; they appear to be waiting for the rest of them to catch up.

Command, it’s been an hour, and more ships keep pouring out of the wreckage, it looks like there’s over one thousand of them.

Command, the fleet is on the move again, making a warp jump before they notice me- Oh God they saw me!

Command! I have been caught in a tractor beam, if you are receiving this then they’ve captured me! Prepare for anything, it looks like we may be going to war when this is ov-

[BUZZING FROM ANTIMATTER BLADES AND THE SHRIEKS OF SPRAVAC MARINES]

[LOST SIGNAL OF WOLF 4]

## Course of the War:

### Opening Attacks (January 7017)

Almost immediately following the attack on the Wolf 4, the spravac forces began to split apart to attack different sectors of the Deltaverse. Knowing that they needed a base of operations, the Didacts almost made it a competition to see who could take a planet first, with Vrínc Sásgcait winning the first spravac victory and first battle of the entire war with his swift conquest of Meneldez, the homeworld of the gorgarians.

The defense fleet over Meneldez was practically nonexistent, allowing Sásgcait to land his soldiers with ease, beginning with the decisive Battle of Galdren on January 2, during which nearly 200,000 gorgarian soldiers were killed within the opening hours of the invasion. Sásgcait then split his invasion force into three groups, spreading out through the planet destroying every gorgarian army in their path. By January 10, the gorgarians were desperately holding onto their planet, consolidating all of their forces in the last city of Telvin. With their last 600,000 soldiers, the gorgarian army futilely launched an offensive against Battle Group Talonshred, a force of 300,000 spravac led by Sásgcait himself. The gorgarians were brutally slaughtered for three days, eventually retreating with their remaining 45,000 soldiers behind Tevlin’s walls, which the spravac overtook one day later.

With Meneldez taken, the spravac immediately established themselves as a force that was not to be trifled with, which played into their subsequent alliance with the Karis Empire, which signed the Treaty of Kendall on January 25. After the Fall of Meneldez, Blood Alchemist Réritziv Bûnscz and the Didacts Zju Roscz, Néviscz Savá, and Síráscz Egitá invaded Kreyo, the homeworld of the Tayrigo Empire. Grace would be invaded on January 14 by Správ himself and Vólóm after the former’s failed attack on Ures on January 7.

After the signing of the Treaty of Kendall, the karis people were infuriated, believing that the alliance with the spravac would lead their empire to ruin, and formally recognized the spark that began the Karis Civil War, which was fought on Arrogon and Kori primarily.

### January 7017

The spravac forces easily smashed through the Kreyo Defense Armada, essentially wiping out tayrigo air power for a majority of the campaign, with only local airfields providing any sort of fight against the lightning speed and deadly firepower of the spravac air fleet. Zju Roscz spearheaded the campaign, winning several key battles early on in the battle for the planet. The largest of these was the Battle of Ironsand Point, in which over two million tayrigo warriors and 7,000 tanks engaged a spravac-malthale horde of three million. The spravac won the battle, and even destroyed two of the Imperial Tanks that were fielded at the month-long battle. Savá was Roscz’s trusted advisor, commanding his Incubi and ranger forces in the battles, and was reviled for his savagery and brutalizing of tayrigo villages. Roscz became well regarded amongst his enemies as a relatively fair and just commander, who made good on his promise when he claimed that he would allow the citizens of the village of Rustrock to evacuate before he burned it. Savá was not so honest, and frequently raided villages and towns with Incubi and then reaved and raped them with his marines once the village defenses had been weakened.

Egitá led the spravac forces in the southern hemisphere of Kreyo, winning a handful of decisive early victories against the tayrigos. He was instrumental in the devastating Battle of Gravelbreak, during which a force of 100,000 spravac rangers managed to completely encircle and massacre six divisions of Ironclad tayrigo soldiers.

The spravac forces led by Didact Vólóm invaded Grace on January 14, 7017, decisively crushing the initial forces sent against him at the Battles of St. Victoria, New Wellington, and Nimitz. Notably, Vólóm slayed three Titans personally at the Battle of Nimitz, earning him the nickname “Titan Slayer”, which he would continue to demonstrate for the rest of the war. After successfully establishing a beachhead at the Battle of Braddock Base, Didacts Sásgcait and Tzár descended upon the planet with millions of spravac, malthale, deentrox, and many other auxiliary species to take the world by February 8, 7017.

The first battles of the Karis Civil War also erupted on Arrogon, Kori, and Nelware. Republican partisans broke out the Vollar Rebels on Kori on January 10, 7017. The rebels were especially brutal, known for executing captured karis royal soldiers by firing squad in the hundreds. The Royalists won an early victory at the Battle of Leshonne River, where the Royal Army crushed the forces led by General Vurner De Bress, an esteemed karis general who defected along with most of his army when the Treaty of Kendall was signed. The Royals then crossed the river and began subjugating towns that they suspected of rebel sympathies, staging pogroms that killed hundreds in mere days.

On Arrogon, Republican forces helmed by Juile De Sasheem occupied the city of Hedronn, as it had become a hotbed of Republican sympathies in the weeks before the war began. The Hedronn army would then march south, destroying the Royal 46th Division at the Battle of Spionne, during which only 838 rebels were killed while over 5,000 Royal soldiers were killed or captured. The destruction prompted Empress Volaire to initiate even harsher conscription, even bringing in old or retired soldiers back into the ranks of the army to ensure she had higher numbers. Ironically, many of these soldiers would defect within months and join her son’s side.

On Nelware, the ice cold planet collapsed from the chaos. Though not many karis republican cells were present on the world, they held connections with tary rebel groups and were funneling them weapons and armor to rise up. The tary forces were led by Drephis Manson, a national and military leader that sought to lead the tarys as an independent republic. In addition, Ituck forces began to emerge from the chaos, at times even cooperating with the tary republicans to conduct daring raids on karis military patrols. However, the tarys were unorganized, and at many points would crumble from the losses they took when they became bogged down during an unsuccessful raid. It would not take long for the spravac to intervene, sending Mígcá Tzusczá and his personal retinue of 60,000 Incubi and 300 Ethtat mercenaries to assist the quickly crumbling karis war effort on the frigid planet. As shapeshifters, the ethtat impersonated rebel soldiers and planted bombs or sabotaged cities to later be raided by the Incubi, a strategy that went unchallenged for a good duration of the Battle for Nelware.

The rebels located on Rutook also rose up after the death and public display of a karis colonel, massacring the karis bases and waging an attritious war of guerilla tactics against the thinly stretched karis forces on the planet. The karis general there, General Lenna De Fretaire, won only one major battle against the grug rebels without any spravac assistance, that being the January 17 Battle of the Grettule Marshes, in which over 6,000 grug militiamen and only 500 karis were killed.

### February 7017

In February 4, 7017 the Systems Republic officially began funneling support in form of supplies and intelligence to the spravac war effort. Though they would not officially enter into the war until June, 7018, the Systems Republic had been involved much earlier. Using the intel given to them by the SR, the spravac invaded Adam on February 17, 7017. Didact Bortzílám was at the helm of the Adam Campaign alongside the gorgarian General Dresin Mal. The newly armed gorgarian army would go on to do much of the fighting on Adam, as Bortzílám had been given a much smaller army in proportion to the massive hordes fielded by his peers on Grace and later Iris. Bortzílám’s army easily took Adam’s moon of Eve, with most of the fighting occurring with the capital city of Eden. A majority of the casualties would be gorgarian, who lost over 100,000 troops just to take the moon.

On Kreyo, Didact Roscz and Savá began the infamous Gren’dok Offensive, invading the continent sized Gren’dok desert, which was a central industrial region on Kreyo. Roscz and Savá used a textbook example of spravac combined arms tactics, using tanks and speeders to spearhead the advance while infantry, namely rangers, spread out and pillaged and cleaned up whatever the tanks did not utterly evaporate with their weapons. The Great Battle of the Gren’dok, as the tayrigos called it, saw the deaths of several clan leaders in the region, as well as the ascension of High Marshall Vil’Bredok, who decisively won the Battle of Holasta Plain, halting the advance on the southern flank led by Savá. The Gren’dok Offensive would not officially end until mid-june however.

Republican Forces on Arrogon led by Juile De Sasheem and Shein De Cautis began a campaign against the royal forces in the north. The Great Northern Campaign began on February 7 and would last until April 5. As Sasheem moved against the royal armies, led primarily by General Reina De Muess, he recruited hundreds of thousands of civilians to his cause, greatly increasing his ranks. However, many of the civilians were disgruntled and less principled than Sasheem or his fellow commanders, and the mass murder of Royalist civilians was widespread, with over 1 million killed within February alone.

Retaliation to the massacres on Arrogon was swift, and soon civilian populations were butchering each other on the streets of Kori, with the Vollar Rebels, now calling themselves Varille’s Battalion after their leader Lieutenant Colonel Relos De Varille, leading a brutal campaign against the Royals in the city of Mecrina that bordered on terrorism.

On Nelware, Didact Tzusczá became obsessed with eradicating the Ituck, who began to harass his Incubi forces in the streets and alleyways on Averneim and Ithalheil. The Incubi, led by their Archon Salátzár Malátval, began using planetary seismic scanning to attempt to locate hidden Ituck bases. His forces succeeded in locating an underground compound that they called Breakfang, launching a strike against the compound on February 10. The strike force consisted of 400 Incubi warriors, who successfully destroyed the compound in a 40 minute engagement. Over 200 Ituck were killed in the battle with 132 Incubi slain in the assault. Though they attempted to also seize weapons and equipment for study, the Ituck wisely destroyed it once they realized the battle was lost, ensuring that the Incubi did not gain a leg up in the war for the planet.

The beginning of February also marked the beginning of Didact Vólóm’s scourge of Grace at the decisive Battle of Nimitz, where he killed his first three Titans, earning him the nickname “Titan Slayer”. On February 8 Didact Seránó Tzár began his Suffolkshire Campaign, killing almost 100,000 civilians within the first battle of the offensive alone at Norwich. He also launched a deadly assault known as the Death March on February 17, which would last until March 8, killing almost 2,000,000 Uresian soldiers and civilians during the battle.

Spravac also began preparations to invade Rutook, which had become a hotbed of rebel activity after the karis forces had demonstrated their incompetence in defeating the grug insurgents. Didact Gcóló Málótortv was slated to lead the invasion, bringing with him over 200,000 spravac marines and deentrox, as well as a host of Feroraptors and Caisczai to terrorize the grugs.

### March 7017

By March 8, the 1st Death March led by Tzár ended after the pivotal Battle of Wellington, by this point taking over 45% of Suffolkshire’s surface area. Ures naval forces attempted to break through the spravac blockade over Grace in a desperate attempt to land much needed supplies and soldiers on the ground, as all other armies on the planet already were engaged by the other spravac generals on all fronts. The Uresian navy succeeded in landing nearly 50,000 more troops in Suffolkshire, though that was only a third of what they had hoped to deploy.