The Soft War

**The Soft War** was a large scale conflict between The Human Commonwealth and The Atlantic Confederation, which took place over 9 years, from 2277 until 2285, when it was eclipsed by the Domolaki Invasion of Earth. It is the result of the return of Ekrim Tekin to Neo-Europe, though the conflict was instigated by Freya Ibsen.

## Background and Origins

A number of factors are responsible for the outbreak of war.

### The Rivalry between Ibsen and Tekin

Both monolithic figureheads of their respective nations, though with drastically different methods, the two looked set to clash at some point. While only briefly coexisting in positions of power from 2226 until 2237, Ibsen was a staunch Anti-Tekinite, opposing many of his policies, and developing a severe hatred of him and his followers, The Brotherhood of Tekin. She would also typically present Nordica's past failings in stopping Tekin as a dark age for both The Realm, and Democracy as a whole. While Tekin would not develop as severe of a distaste for her, she became the perfect embodiment of his belief in the Illusion of Choice, owing to her way of ruling through manipulation, and was thus frequently portrayed as a hypocrite among Tekin's supporters. Open hostilities would occur between the two ideologies in French Guyana, during the Pará-Guyana War, when Jaan Minkenen, in fact, under the direct control of Freya Ibsen, verbally abused Felonius Tekin over his ideals, resulting in a firefight that killed almost all diplomats in the room.

### The Lobbying of The Fellowship of the Radiants

The Fellowship of the Radiants was a powerful and influential secret society partly set up by Wolfgang Von Stuttgart, that both Ekrim Tekin and Freya Ibsen were connected with, Ibsen being a full member, while Tekin exerted influence from outside. Both parties knew the other was involved, and so, both began lobbying the group in order to advance their own agendas. One such example of this was the creation of Dmitri Milosovic, who although instrumental in Tekin's plans to return to power in Neo-Europe, was partly created by Ibsen, and likely wouldn't have been possible without her, perhaps believing she would be able to sabotage his efforts. A select few historians sometimes class this period as the opening 'battle' of The Soft War, though the general consensus is that it is only a singular event in the path to war.

## Impact

### Wider Impacts

The war is credited with substantially weakening both The Human Commonwealth and Atlantic Confederation, with the war damaging infrastructure, destabilising economies, weakening the general populous, and draining the resources of both superstates immediately prior to the Domolaki invasion of Earth. It is partly a result of the war that The Human Commonwealth was so susceptible to Domolaki attack, and widely hypothesised that had such an impetus been placed instead on The Atlantic Commonwealth, the results of the fighting would not be dissimilar. A clear example of this was that the damage dealt to the infrastructure of Constantinople by the Seismic bomb attack in 2282, hobbled their response to the 2286 invasion of the city by the Domolaki.

Furthermore, the attitudes between Tekin and Ibsen bled into the latter war, with The Atlantic association deliberately withholding information from the other superstates, in order to keep the information away from Tekin. This prevented crucial intelligence, most notably insight into Domolaki technologies and strategy gained from the earlier fighting on The Sanctuary Moons, from reaching GUISS or the Human Commonwealth, costing them time, resources, and human life.