2nd Federation-Kzinti War

## Background

Relations between the Federation and the Kzinti Hegemony have undergone remarkable transformations over the years. The two were rivals, then enemies, then reluctant trading partners, then enemies again, and finally allies. How this came about gives an insight into how both of these stellar empires came to be. The Kzintis were and are an imperial race, with the attitude that any sentient species in their territory must be kept on their home planets and virtually disarmed. The Federation was and is an economic organization, and sought to have each member planet (or planet within its territory) develop into a profitable trading partner.

As the Kzintis expanded from their home planet, they came upon various other planets. Those that were not inhabited were colonized and exploited. Those with non-industrial sentient species were treated in more or less the same way, except that some of the natives were hired as cheap labor. Races which had an industrial base, or had reached into space, were treated in various manners based on how close they were to the Kzinti homeworlds. The Kzintis viewed their Hegemony as two zones: the Hegemony proper (sovereign Kzinti space under their absolute control) and the larger “Zone of Influence” where Kzinti power ensured that Kzinti trading interests were respected by everyone.

Those planets which were in the ever-expanding Hegemony were subjugated and disarmed, and informed that their only future was in providing whatever trade goods the Hegemony wanted from them in exchange for whatever the Hegemony was willing to give them. Commercial trading relations were opened with all industrial planets in the Zone of Influence, and Kzinti starships provided protection from other races. Those planets which were farther from Kzinti control or had their own space forces were more trading partners than protectorates, while those closer to the Hegemony or without their own forces were “protected” to the point that the Kzinti fleet commander in that sector decide what other races could trade with them. As the Hegemony itself expanded, more and more “protected” planets became “subjugated” planets.

Mantor was fortunate in being fairly far from the Hegemony and in having gotten into space before the first Kzinti explorers reached them in Y46. It also benefited from the Klingon Empire, which reached Mantor only a few years after the Kzintis (in Y53, during the First Klingon-Kzinti War). The Mantor region was on the edge of the First Klingon-Kzinti War and the planet remained neutral; the Kzintis could not conduct an outright takeover of Mantor because of possible Klingon interference. When the First Klingon-Kzinti War ended in Y82, Mantor was a thriving planet with defenses bolstered by gifts of weapons from both sides.

The first Federation explorers reached the region in Y87. The Kzintis resented their arrival and launched an attack on the closest Federation bases to drive the Federation away from their Zone of Influence. The Federation, not ready for war in this theater, retreated until combat forces arrived from the Federation homeworlds and from the Romulan border. The Klingons provided the Federation with tactical advisors who quickly taught them Kzinti tactics, and the Federation was able to restore its original line of bases (which did not include the Mantor region, but provided the ability to support ships operating there). After the peace treaty in Y92, tensions slowly ebbed. The Kzinti Patriarch who had attacked the Federation in Y88 was replaced by a more progressive leader in Y94, and by Y96 the Mantor region was a de facto Free Trade Zone with Klingon, Kzinti, and Federation ships and merchants moving about almost at will and without serious conflicts. (It should be noted that the term “Mantor Region” is not really appropriate. Mantor was only one of a dozen independent industrial planets in the region, although it was the richest, most advanced, and the most important trading partner in the disputed area.)

In Y102, the Federation took its most controversial step, declaring its border to be 4,750 parsecs from the center of the Primary Member Zone. This new border included the Mantor region, and several other areas which the Kzintis and Klingons had regarded as either their territory or at least within their Zone of Influence. The distance of 4,750 parsecs was defined by the distance from the Federation “capital” to the Federation-Romulan Neutral Zone. The Klingons and Kzintis were unable to fathom why the Federation thought that this figure would apply to their borders as well. While the Federation declared this a great move for peace as it meant that it would not attempt to expand beyond this line, the Kzintis and Klingons regarded it as an outright grab of territory that was rightfully and historically theirs, and might have gone to war with the Federation except that other incidents in more important sectors resulted in their going to war with each other! By the time this war was over (Y106) the Federation program to build military bases along the new border was well advanced. The Kzintis might well have then gone to war with the Federation over the disputed territories, but the Patriarch had resolved on a war with the Carnivons (who were a more serious threat, and who, like the Lyrans, provoked a race-hate reaction among Kzintis). This was followed by a war with the Lyrans (Y109) giving the Federation more time to build up their control. The First Federation-Klingon War (which began in Y110 after years of skirmishing and ended in Y111) did not affect the Mantor system.

While the Hegemony was distracted by other wars, the Marquis (the Kzinti noble in charge of territory along the Federation border, including — so he thought — Mantor) reached a diplomatic solution in the Mantor Protocol of Y104. Under the terms of this agreement, the Federation recognized the “historic trading relationship” between the Hegemony and Mantor. The Protocol contained some very curious language. While it never recognized Federation sovereignty, it seemed (to Federation eyes) that this was assumed. The Kzintis assumed no such thing, and in fact assumed that the lack of mention of Federation trading rights meant that these existed only at the convenience of the Hegemony. The Federation assumed that since it had sovereignty over the area, its trading rights were obvious. There was also no mention of the Klingons, as both the Federation and Hegemony had concluded separate deals which allowed the Klingons to maintain an embassy and trading relationship with Mantor (at least during peacetime). The Klingons, in effect, signed two treaties, neither of which really recognized the sovereignty of either competing power. All three signed an agreement with Mantor that limited warships in the Mantor system to a “station frigate” and occasional visits by cruisers. The Mantorese were able to trade with any of the three, but the Federation offered better terms because of its stronger overall economy and better selection of consumer goods, and steadily gained in “market share”. From the Federation point of view, Mantor was a respected neutral planet that would eventually apply for Federation membership. All four of the governments involved knew that the documents they were signing were a diplomatic fiction, a lie they had all agreed to tell each other. Resolution of the Mantor Question was (by unspoken agreement) set aside for another day when the developing situation was different. Similar protocols were written regarding some of the other industrial civilizations in the disputed zone.

By Y115, the Hegemony’s wars with the Klingons, Carnivons, and Lyrans were over, and a new Patriarch was ready to launch a war with the Federation to expel their bases (and merchants) from the disputed area, but the Kzinti Civil War erupted and, although brief, left the Hegemony in no position to launch an offensive war. Another war with the Klingons (Y123-Y131) kept the Kzintis from reconsidering the Mantor Question. The Mantor Protocol remained in place and Kzinti traders and warships continued to visit the planet, as did Klingons under their Protocol of Y105 (which had been reinstated in Y112). Federation influence steadily grew.

But in Y135, a new Patriarch had decided to write his own history by waging war on the Federation. This began with a devastating attack in Y136.

## Invasion

The Kzinti attack in Y136 included five separate squadrons attacking Federation interests, including Mantor, Cygnus, the airless mining colonies around Questrion, the Federation outpost station near Kalmouri, and another neutral but minor inhabited planet known as Ceron, where the Klingon sector squadron was “based” (inside the Federation)! The plan called for these five squadrons to seize the designated systems, then sweep forward to capture or destroy all Federation outposts, convoys, traders, and colonies before uniting (with the main squadron and the reserve squadron) into a single fleet to attack the main Federation base in the sector. These plans did not work out as well as expected. In the Mantor operation, the Federation completed their evacuation while forcing the Kzintis to expend all of their drones. The Kzinti Reserve squadron had to take over that mission while Cat-With-One-Paw restocked his drone magazines; this put that branch of the attack a day behind schedule. The squadron which reached Ceron found the Klingon squadron gone (to Mantor) and pressed on toward other objectives. The Squadron that went to Questrion accepted the surrender of the Federation miners there and, leaving one ship behind, pressed on. The miners then unveiled hidden phaser batteries and disabled the occupying frigate. When the squadron returned to Questiron, it found the mines evacuated and the mining machinery wrecked. The squadron that reached the outpost station at Kalmouri destroyed it and pressed on. But it was at Cygnus where the failure of the initial offensive was determined. The attacking squadron expected only a Federation light cruiser and a trio of auxiliary destroyers, but found instead two cruisers, three police ships, and no less than ten Cygnan warships. Pressing their attack (they knew the price of failure would be death), the Kzinti ships were destroyed or damaged, disrupting their entire plan. While the Federation lost billions of credits worth of ships and installations in the first assault, they did not lose the war in a single campaign, as the Kzintis had intended. The Kzinti assault had missed a step and the Federation barely had time to deploy their reserves, stopping the offensive at the line of the old border (where a string of older bases stiffened the defense). The Kzintis had wanted to destroy those bases, which would have prevented the Federation from operating in the “disputed zone”, in effect ceding it to the Kzintis.

The Kzintis regathered their forces and threw a determined attack at the Federation bases, destroying two of them, but the remainder of the line held long enough for more Federation forces to arrive. The Kzinti offensive then paused (knowing that the Federation did not have the power to take the offensive) to clean up the “captured” territory, destroying isolated Federation bases, colonies, and outposts and rounding up the dozens of civilian Federation freighters in the area. Star Fleet, desperately trying to gather forces to resist a renewed Kzinti invasion, could only listen by subspace as dozens of trapped Federation transmitters begged for help that never came. Cygnus, still defended by its own forces and by Star Fleet, became a symbol. If the Federation still held Cygnus (then its most advanced outpost), it was plausible that the war would continue until the invaders were thrown out. But if Cygnus fell, many worried that the Federation might, or should, sue for peace. In a bold political gamble, the Council approved the Cygnan application for full membership (something that should have taken a decade) and declared that the Y102 borders would be reinstated.