The Armageddon War

After the brutally traumatic events of the Terran Civil War ended in 2443, the tattered remains of the Terran Federation joined with the Orion Khanate to form the super-bureaucratic Pan-Sentient Union, a megastate that would bind the two powers together to increase their mutual security. While the loyal Rim Federation sought to join the PSU, it was still physically cut off from the rest of the larger Terran Federation and thus remained (like the Ophuichi) an 'associate member' of the Pan-Sentient Union. During this time the newly formed Terran Republic continued to strengthen both its political and military structure, expanding its federal political arm to include over 300 lightly populated worlds. Two important Fringe areas, the Reformation Group and the Ivy Chain, were also physically cut off from their fellow Fringe worlds and tried to pursue an autonomous course. Although the Reformation Group finally succeeded in establishing independence within the PSU, the Ivy Chain was financially unable to sustain itself and was eventually re-incorporated back into the human part of the PSU in 2447. Relations between the Pan-Sentient Union and the Terran Republic continued to be strained and the nearby Crucian Union finally chose to chart a neutral and ultimately isolationist foreign policy amongst its neighbors. Serious fighting again broke out in 2450 when pockets of Arachnids were discovered near the Reformation Group who (along with substantial PSU naval units) led the effort to crush the surviving militant "bugs".

Rearmament was a major factor for all three powers that had fought in the recent human civil war and the newly forming PSU Navy fought to overcome military integration problems between all four allied races (Human, Orion, Gorm, and Ophuichi). Political integration between the Orions and Human states continued unabated for ten years and was finished by 2455. As tensions receded between the different military powers, the Terran Republic began to focus on strengthening its industrial power base and population while the Pan-Sentient Union sought to alleviant its overpopulation pressures by colonizing in the newly designated Frontier Region.

Tensions spiked briefly within the PSU during the Olympus Affair, in which a human scout discovered a star system with eight habitable planets and sought to claim the tremendous prize for mankind. The issue was finally resolved, however, when human politicians offered up half the new worlds to Orion colonization. At nearly the same time, a genocidal machine race was contacted in a neighboring system and fighting immediately broke out between the Biomechphilists and the PSU, whose overwhelming industrial/military power utterly crushed the solitary Biomechphilist homesystem in just a few weeks.

Abandonment of the Chandler Doctrine was dropped as official PSU military policy in 2450 and heavy warships equipped with advanced technological weapons were dispersed from central strategic nodes like Galloway's World to locations all across the Pan-Sentient Union. By 2462 the PSU military had finally finished its integration but majority Human-crewed ships basically remained stationed in Human territories, as did Orion ships, and Human and Orion warship construction also remained independent, although certain classes of warships were built between the two branches of the PSU Navy to compliment each others' strengths and weaknesses. The high cost of integrating both naval branches proved fantastically expensive however, forcing an extended moratorium on construction of most capital warships across the Pan-Sentient Union. The lack of fighting or any serious border skirmishes by adjacent powers had also lulled the PSU into complacency.

In 2464, the PSU was expanding down the New Beijing Chain when their survey forces discovered and attempted contact with an alien ship of advanced design in the Red Rocks System. It was at this moment that the fate of Humanity, and indeed all known races, changed for this new race was the Hre'Daak……