Great Galactic Conflict

The Great Galactic Conflict (22 - 18 BCF), or GGC, was a massive war that ravaged the Aiti Galaxy and drew attention to the need for standard laws regarding the exploration of space. Before the war, the main races of the galaxy took their first true steps into common space travel between the years 400 to 375 BCF. With so many races suddenly being able to expand their influence to other worlds and interact with other races, there was an initial rush to spread empires as far as possible in order to secure plentiful resources to fuel each races' individual utopia, and to ally with as many other races as one could, so as to prevent conflict. Ironically, it was from these two ideologies that the coming war sprang from.

The Hermaduri often receive blame for the events that began the war, for their warlike culture easily pushed them into aggression with the other races, though responsibility is, in part, on the shoulders of all.

The first agreed-upon event that led to the GGC was the dispute over Escalon in 25 BCF, when the Ja'Mekk sent colonists to Escalon without checking first if it had been claimed. As it turned out, the Hermaduri had already begun settling the planet three years prior to the Ja'Mekk arrival. This was not uncommon, especially when the empires were in a rush to colonise as many planets as they could - such run-ins were commonplace. Ja'Mekk and Hermaduri diplomats met to discuss the issue, and the Ja'Mekk offered to buy the planet, not knowing how sensitive the Hermaduri traditions of property-trading were. The Hermaduri believed they should have been offered an item of equal worth to Escalon to settle, which they held to be an equally as resource-rich planet that the Ja'Mekk owned. The Ja'Mekk did not expect this, and bristled at the idea of giving an entire planet in exchange for Escalon. Needless to say, the negotiations did not go well, but neither side agreed to leave Escalon.

Come 24 BCF, tensions broke when colonists began attacking settlements belonging to the other race. These settlement fights grew in scale until both Ja'Mekk and Hermaduri troopers were deployed to Escalon to assist in the fighting. The Ja'Mekk, not able to get an advantage, called upon their Mentalos allies to aide them. The Mentalos were at first reluctant, but after being promised certain sections of the planet that housed exotic plant life for study should they help the Ja'Mekk, the Mentalos joined the fray, providing orbital assistance from artillery ships and gunship support.

The Hermaduri, not to be outdone, enlisted the help of Tagastan auxiliaries - the Tagastans were tributaries of the Hermadur Empire at the time.

With the conflict becoming more and more costly on Escalon, Hermaduri privateers began slipping across the Hermud-Geosian Border in 23 BCF to raid Geosian worlds for resources to fuel their war effort, as the Geosian Empire was weakened from a civil war it was dealing with at the time. As it happened, many of the Geosian insurgents were residents on the outlier worlds that the Hermaduri were raiding, causing them to quickly surrender to the throne in return for protection from the Hermaduri. The Geosian Empire accepted their surrender and turned the now-unified might of the empire against the warrior race, bringing them partially into the war. This was unknown to the Ja'Mekk-Mentalos alliance, however, and thus they saw Geosian ships in Hermadur space and mistook it for them allying with their foe. In response, the Ja'Mekk cut many trade agreements with the Geosian Empire and demanded they end their cooperation with the Hermaduri. Enraged by this, His Eminence, Emperor Phil II refused to send envoys to explain the situation, but proceeded to declare war on the Ja'Mekk and Mentalos as well.

When 22 BCF came, the galaxy found itself in a state of three-way war. The fighting between the original belligerents had spread from Escalon to the various worlds on the Mekkan-Hermud Border. The war left Escalon charred and ruined, no longer profitable to either side of the conflict, but rather a place that needed to be taken from the enemy. The Ja'Mekk delegated the fighting of the Hermaduri to the Mentalos while they themselves took on the Geosians.

By 20 BCF, many major battles had been fought - The Battle of Kef'Biin, The Battle of Ashendar, Operation Coven, and The Siege of Jem'Hek. The Mentalos officially withdrew from the war after the events Kef'Biin, when the Ja'Mekk refused to offer them assistance when Hermaduri aircraft far outnumbered that of the Mentalos. At the Battle of Ashendar, the Tagastans revolted against their masters and declared independence as a separate nation, which led to the Hermud-Tangan Civil War, which drew the Hermaduri out of the fighting. Operation Coven allowed the Geosians to gain a foothold on the Ja'Mekk planet of Sii'Tethen, which broke the year-long stalemate between the two remaining fighters and allowed the Geosians to begin pushing into Ja'Mekk territory, so they could besiege their homeworld Jem'Hek and force a surrender near the end of 18 BCF.

The GGC lasted, in total, five years and claimed the lives of 1.28 billion combatants, along with resulting in 5.7 billion civilian casualties, and countless more were wounded or displaced. Hundreds of worlds across the galaxy were scarred beyond repair, left to be barren, lifeless rocks. In the end, no side came out the victor, even though the Geosian Empire officially won. Shortly after the dust settled, the Mentalos formed the Allied Races in 15 BCF, a mutual defence organisation of which all the belligerent races were a part, so as to work together to ensure a war of such magnitude and destruction would never occur again.