War in Heaven

The **War in Heaven** was an expansive, decades-long war that devastated the eastern Mediterranean world from c. 1200 BC. Involving the great civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia, it began as an expansion attempt by a league of Mycenaean Greeks against the city of Troy, a vassal of the Hittite Empire. Initially a proxy war in a long-term conflict between Aias and the Hittite Assembly, it repeatedly escalated until it was leveraged by Aias as a means to destroy the influence his rivals Metka and Lh\_s\_lht held over the civilizations of the region, in particular the Egyptian and Middle Assyrian empires.

After finally overcoming the Trojans and burning the city to the ground, Aias converted the local people to his cause and led them against the Hittite Empire, against whom he campaigned for several years before finally defeating them. During this time, through his agents and his own actions, Aias was able to devastate the harvests in Greece for several years and influence the starving Mycenaeans to take to the sea as raiders in the eastern Mediterranean, where they came into conflict with traders from Phoenicia and Egypt.

Through a campaign of devastation in Greece, Aias was able to force much of the Mycenaean population into a campaign of raids along the coasts of the Mediterranean, while he set his eyes across the mountains Mesopotamia and across the sea to Egypt. His land forces were able to burn most Hittite cities while his sea forces successfully sacked several Phoenician cities, though they were repeatedly rebuffed from Egypt's coasts.

Intending to overwhelm both civilizations simultaneously, Aias would split his forces and dedicate them all to a single massed attack. Choosing for himself to lead the attack on the Middle Assyrian Empire, with the goal of collapsing and burning the civilization and then continuing to rumored cities in the far west. Command of his naval forces he gave to his lieutenant Atrocles, with the goal of overwhelming Egypt and sailing up the Nile to burn its cities. Aias expected both Metka and Lh\_s\_lht to remain in Egypt, where both had lived almost continuously for nearly 2000 years. He expected to make quick work of the Assyrians and turn back to reinforce Atrocles if necessary.

Upon his arrival in Assyria he found their army better prepared than he expected and his advance delayed. Atrocles meanwhile found the entrance to the Nile blocked so disembarked his forces to fight on land. Both leaders soon found their forces faced with one of the great telekinets.

As the last of Atrocles' forces landed in the Nile Delta, they were ambushed by the Egyptian army led personally by Metka, who was easily able to defeat and kill Atrocles when he refused her demands to surrender. His followers were thereafter quickly defeated and their ships burned.

Despite making slow progress across Assyria, Aias was unable to pin down the Assyrian army or engage it in a conclusive battle. In his frustration he ordered a city be put to the sword, only to have his soldiers drop unconscious upon crossing the city's outer walls. Lh\_s\_lht would appear from inside the city and condemn Aias' brutality. Though he would try to fight Lh\_s\_lht, Aias found himself entirely outmatched, and instead of killing him, Lh\_s\_lht resolved to remove his powers.

The defeat of both Atrocles and Aias and their followers would save both Egypt and Assyria from destruction but both were left devastated and would not recover fully for over a century. The other civilizations of the region; the Hittites, Greeks, Babylonians, northern Phoenicians, and Ugarit, were all destroyed. The short period in history would later confound historians and be labelled the Late Bronze Age Collapse.