First Contact War

## Major Battles

The **First Contact War**, also known as **The Great Invasion**, the **First Human-Tyrum War**, or the **Great Defensive War**, was a massive conflict which took place between 2090 and 2097. An invasion perpetrated by the Tyrum Consciousness against seemingly every intelligent lifeform on Earth. The invasion was ended by a defensive success on the part of the peoples of Earth, forcing the Tyrum offworld and putting an end to the invasion. It was this conflict which saw the first stones laid in the path that would lead humanity to unite, leading to the formation of the Greater Terran Union.

## The War

On April 22, 2089, military surveillance satellites from nine different countries across the globe detected what seemed to be a cluster of massive objects passonh through Neptune's orbit, effectively entering the Inner Solar System. Over the next few weeks, civilian and military observatories continued to track the objects until the United Nations Security Council came together and confirmed what they had all suspected; they revealed to public that the objects were almost certainly artificial, confirming the existence of sentient life and advanced intelligence beyond the light of Sol. The UN's announcement also stated that the objects' velocity had been calculated and that they would enter the Earth's orbit within in a year.

When the objects, eventually recognized as spacecraft, arrived over planet Earth on February 17, 2090, their function as warships was violently exposed when the spacecraft destroyed the bare minimum of space-based defenses that the collected governments of Earth could build and deploy within a year. At the same time, those warships commenced an orbital bombardment campaign against the Earth's surface, focusing their fire on major population centers.

The Earth's forces responded by coordinating a global-scale intercontinental ballistic missile strike against the invading warships, destroying a significant number of the largest and most heavily equipped vessels in the process. This action would greatly hamper the aliens invasion capability, as it effectively neutralized their ability to issue orbital strikes against Earth. The resulting ground war was protracted: a worldwide guerrilla war of extreme attrition against the aliens, conducted by what few survivors remained in the aftermath.

During the next seven years of war, every major nation on Earth would fall apart, global infrastructure would be reduced to pre-industrial levels, and slightly over one-third of the Earth's surface would be occupied by the invaders. There were continuous battles between the Humans and the extraterrestrial invaders, later revealed to be the Tyrum, across every continent at some point during the conflict, most notably Europe and South America.

## The European Theatre

The Tyrum launched their first orbital strike on February 17th, 2090 CE, destroying Berlin. The orbital bombardment of the Tyrum caused catastrophic damage to the European Federation's civilian administration. The Federation's military, on the other hand, was highly decentralized, with multiple regional commanders, and could not be crippled by a single decapitating strike. The EUROCORPS were able to stay organized as the Tyrum landed ground forces in Europe, thanks to this redundancy. When the Tyrum landed in Central Europe, it overran numerous German, Belgian, and Czech states, threatening to divide the European Federation in half.

EUROCORPS military power was increasingly decentralized in response to the deteriorating circumstances. The surviving European forces formed a loose coalition of battlegroups, each capable of acting independently and without the need for outside assistance. The size and content of these battlegroups varied greatly; some were small battalions garrisoning small towns, while others were full army groups controlling huge territories and integrating themselves into local governments. Later, it was determined that this so-called "European Strategy" was the most effective of the entire war.

The coalition's unconventional command structure made integrating foreign elements easier than it may have been otherwise. Surviving battlegroups from the Middle East, Eurasia, Africa, and North America were absorbed into the coalition command structure over the course of the war. Rather than a rigorous, traditional military hierarchy, this leadership was made up of a coalition of high-ranking military commanders recruited from the coalition's battlegroups. The European Counter-Offensive was formed as a result of this coalition command's ability to organize the coalition. In the European Theatre, the Franco-German counterattack and the Spanish-Italian landing at Algiers began to change the tide of the war against Tyrum. The Coalition's dominance as the most effective human military force on the globe was confirmed by the success of these offensives. The Franco-German counter-offensive and the Eurasian drive from Dresden drove the Tyrum out of Europe, freeing the continent and bringing the European Theatre to a close. Following Europe's liberation, the Coalition's soldiers were increasingly dispatched to other battle zones across the globe.

## The North American Theatre

The North American continent was hit by a disproportionate amount of orbital strikes from the orbiting Tyrum fleet in the early hours of the war. The North American Commonwealth's population and infrastructure were decimated as a result of these strikes, and the country was thrown into chaos. The Tyrum began landings in North America a few weeks after these initial orbital strikes.

The Tyrum had destroyed or captured the Mt. Weather Emergency Operations Centre, the Raven Rock Mountain Complex, and Commonwealth Aerospace Defence Command by 2091. By 2092, four North American Commonwealth Presidents had been killed, and the Federal Government had collapsed; all state functions were then overseen by the North American Commonwealth Military under Executive Order 19,407.

Battles and events from the North American Theatre, such as the Vancouver Evacuation, Jalisco Offensive, Dakota Salient, and Chicago Liberation, are now part of the Greater Terran Union's founding mythos.

The Emergency International Coalition sent considerable forces to the North American Theatre in 2097 in order to liberate seized American land. Chinese, Russian, Indian, and European soldiers, as well as Commonwealth military remnants, took part in this offensive.

## Known Events

* Battle of Jeddah: Notable Major Human Victory during the war, the Battle of Jeddah is considered a seminal moment for the foundation of the Greater Terran Union, as an army composed of 19 former nations, notably including the North American Commonwealth, successfully repulsed a Tyrum attack.
* Budapest Campaign: Notable as it was during the Budapest Campaign that the first claimed uses of the Greater Terran Union's emblem were recorded.

## References

1. ↑ [5]
2. ↑ [6]