Blue Giant:The Treaty Zone
The Astræ'an Empire and The Federated Territories both started expanding into Sector 5 soon after the Groombridge Accord had been signed. Some of the factions in the Federation where already there, such as S.Y.L.A and the Oruc-Pang but after the accord was signed everyone else began to trickle in. At first there was enough space for everyone, but after a few decades some of the groups started getting all territorial and argumentative and little wars broke out. This caused a massive influx of military hardware into the region and eventually the various factions of the Federated territories went to war with the The Astræ'an Empire.
The War[edit]
The last full scale war started in 2969 and lasted twenty three years. Each federal faction had one or two small fleets in the zone and the Empire had just three of its twenty one fleets; The First Imperial Expeditionary Force in the rim zone, the Grand Imperial Fleet in the Outer zone and the Third Imperial Expeditionary Force in the inner zone. The Empire was slowly winning the war and had taken more than half of sector five. Of all the Federated Territory nations, only SYLA and the Shanshock could afford to keep fielding ships. The war ended because the Empire was also fighting with a race called the Hammerheads in the rim, and another called the puppeteers. Then one battlegroup of the third wing of the Grand Imperial Fleet encountered the Roach homeworld of Bone-ring, tried to conquer it, and was utterly destroyed. Ninty four out of one hundred battlegroups were converged on Bone-ring and were also destroyed. The war in the outer zone was put on hold as three quarters of the entire Grand Imperial Fleet headed towards Bone-ring. To prove a point, the Roaches destroyed three more wings, two attacking the planet and one still two thousand light years away. Finally the 2nd Fleet pulled back. (The roaches lost nearly two dozen individuals, more than had died in the previous million years.) The war in the outer zone collapsed, Federal forces had trouble finding enemies and confusion reigned. The imperial navy kept the reasons for their withdrawal concealed and for several years only rumours existed. The scale of the loss was just too great for people to comprehend.
The Treaty Negotiations[edit]
Once again the Empress Astræ'a sued for peace and left negotiations in the hands of Admiral Osada who wisely sought help from a race called the Flarin. The Flarin were excellent negotiators and were accepted by many sides as an independent and neutral party and the eventual treaty satisfied everyone except the Oruc-Pang who had been making a fortune as arms dealers, smugglers and scouts during the conflicts.
(One tiny little glitch in Flarin psychology meant that the sub-sectors that the treaty rangers were given to patrol were divided into hexes twenty light across and five hundred light years deep.)
The Treaty[edit]
The treaty called for a complete end to hostilities, the de-militarization of all planets previously claimed by the Empire and the various Federal factions, and the introduction of a force of Space Rangers to oversee the treaty.
While faction colonies could retain links with their parent nation, they were to be cut loose as independent planets and to have no political influence within the Federated Territories or Empire. Each side has got around this in a number of ways. Just before the signing of the treaty the Gordon Freeholders announced that all its planets in the Treaty zone would be handed over to independent companies called the Gordon-Fir, Gordon-Pine, and Gordon-Cedar settler corporations. A few days later a number of Imperial Bases mutinied and declared themselves independent nations, a fact which Admiral Osada completely neglected to mention, despite the fact that one of the bases was the headquarters of his Grand Imperial Fleet.
