ASCENSION WARS

   A brutal time for humanity, the Ascension Wars(4,441 to 4,677AD) were a series of conflicts between rival sectors of the former Terran League, with the worst fighting taking place in the late 4,600s. After a series of corrupt administrations, the Human League fell apart after High Admiral Underhill assassinated the President of the League at the Melborne II Conference, sparking a nearly endless series of wars. To gain a better understanding about the conflicts that led up to the formation of the Pact of Humanity, the principal combatants must be examined. The eventually successful Triple Alliance(Hokkaido, Honshu, and Bethesda Sectors) allied with Terra Sector late in the conflict, thereby solidifying the support of most civilians within the old Human League and assuring their eventual victory. The office of the High Secretaryship came from the Triple Alliance government structure, which was at the time an absolute dictatorship. The brutal and expansionistic Grand Union(Urbanos, Krasnodar, Oldhams, and Brandenburg Sectors) was led by the "New Duma" faction, a neo-facist group whose goal of occupying Terra and establishing a League-wide facist state only led to the homeworld of Mankind being repeatedly bombarded from space. The Grand Union's eventual collapse was caused by an uprising by its citizenry over the brutal sterilization of human occupied planets, and the overwhelming force of Admiral Asa Niichi's Grand Fleet. The third power during the Ascension Wars was the militaristic United Hindu Collective, in which the infamous Bushi Federation was a part of. The UHC supported High Admiral Ivan Krosskove's grab for power and fielded three "Rebel Fleets", the last of which was annihilated in the Dakota System.

   Several important events took place during the Ascension Wars, including the famous Downport Raid by the Second Rebel Fleet against Terra Sector. This battle crushed Terra's largest combat fleet, forcing the Sector to nominally ally with the Triple Alliance against the two other major power blocks. The battle also killed Terra Sector's most successful military commander, High Admiral Henry Whitehorse, the man who engineered the longest defense of Terra ever recorded(he held the post for 61 years). Upon his death, and the bombardment of Terra by UHC warships, Admiral Ellington de Moya took over Terra Sector's defenses, ultimately routing the much larger UHC forces. Other important battles include the Third Urbanos Raid by the Triple Alliance, in which the planet Urbanos' entire spacebuilding capability was eliminated, forcing the Grand Union to finally sue for peace in 4,674 AD. The Third Urbanos Raid pitted the seasoned Admiral Iso Fukai and Admiral Aleksandr Kunz against the Urbanos System defenders, headed by Admiral Michelle Mosko, the only high-level female officer to fight in that conflict.

   At the time of his ascension to power, Admiral Ellington was one of the youngest naval officers Terra has ever had(a mere 49 years old). A technocrat turned consumate poilitician in his later years, Ellington was a cautious man and throughout his career he was viewed by party elders on Terra as an intelligent, dynamic, articulate, genial, loyal, and above all, politically correct officer. A savvy naval man with leadership experience in backwaters of Terra Sector as well as on Terra itself, Ellington was initially trained in the technical fields but after a taste of command as a Captain, which he did well, he rose in Terra's Enlightened Party as well as the military. When factional fighting between the "Heaven Faction" (led by the naval elites and students) and the "Earth Faction" (from the political/civilian side) broke out, a ceaseless civil war resulted which Ellington was caught up in the struggle. After two years, Skywatch Command staged a take-over and reestablished a semblance of order on Terra by deporting virtually all students and political elites to remote regions in Terra Sector, and Ellington de Moya was no exception.

   Although a prominent naval officer with strong connections to the ruling parties on Terra, Ellington did not go scot-free after the fighting ended, instead he was transferred to the desolate world Jimbalaya III. There he was assigned to the local defense forces, and by all accounts, took his job seriously and was regarded as both a gifted tactician and an effective leader. During that time, he worked closely with Song Ping, Jimbalaya's System Commander and later Sector Party Secretary. As luck would have it, Song Ping was promoted out of Jimbalaya two years later and sent to Terra to be Vice Admiral of Planning for the newly reformed Enlightened Party, where he immediately began pulling strings for young de Moya.

   Song was quite a string puller because just six months later, at the age of 39, Ellington was selected as an alternate member of the Party Central Committee. He was posted to the Guyana System as Overseer to the poverty-wracked planet. Concerned by the lack of facilities in Guyana's schools, he ordered a massive rebuilding program and ordered tuition waivers for students who could not afford fees. Ellington de Moya, despite his wealthy family connections, seemed genuinely concerned for the welfare of his Guyana subjects, and by all accounts the planet was very happy to have him. By the end of two years, the planets' economic output had more than doubled, establishing de Moya as an effective reformist leader in a poverty-stricken system.

   But reformism had its costs. In mid 4,665, after the demotion of Admiral Zapata and the ascendency of hardliners on Terra, a large working group was secretly sent to Guyana to investigate de Moya's performance, no doubt bent on finding an excuse to quitely remove him. Ellington, however, survived the inspection unscathed.

   Although de Moya was reappointed to a naval command later that year(Guyana System Commander), his mentor on Terra, Song Ping, let him know that the party was looking for a new man for the top naval spot in Terra Cluster, command of the Terra System itself. It would be a lucrative job, but there were already dozens of candidates vying for it. Song counseled de Moya to throw his hat in the ring as well. Ellington did, and in 4,667 de Moya was officially appointed Terra System Commander, lap-frogging over scores of party members and naval heavyweights into the spot.

   In the following four years, de Moya's performance as System Commander was flawless. Only 47 years old, Ellington had drawn the attention of no less than High Admiral Henry Whitehorse, who was deeply impressed with the young man's skills and attitude. Whitehorse ordered de Moya penciled in for a top naval spot at the Admiral House on Terra, a move that helped during the Kellogg Coup as de Moya was one of the first three naval commanders to announce support for the Party leadership immediately after the coup began. Ellington's role in suppressing the coup made him a rising star in Terra Sector's naval chain of command, and afterwars he pulled rank to take over committees, organize them, write reports, brief party elders, and basically make himself indispensible to Terra's embattled heirarchy in the wake of the coup.

   Appointed to the Admiralty by President Justinian du Morrow a few months later, de Moya quitely rose from ninetinth to fifth most powerful man on Terra, and he began to play an increasingly central role in Terra's foreign policy in his new post as Undersecretary of Central Relations. The sudden death of High Admiral Whitehorse in the Downport Raid thrust then-Admiral Ellington de Moya into command of Terra's tattered fleets. In this role he rapidly rebuilt the Terra Sector Navy and endorsed the tentative alliance with the once-hated Triple Alliance. Later, he forced the unconditional surrender of the much larger Grand Union, thrusting himself into the position of the High Secretaryship, and leadership of the newly formed Pact of Humanity.

   The last phase of the conflict, the subjugation of the UHC and the eradication of the Bushi Federation, took several more years, culminating in the Battle of the Dakota System. In that battle, the UHC's Third Rebel Fleet unwittingly stumbled into range of Admiral Niichi's Grand Fleet(pro-Sectretary faction) and was annihilated to the last warship. Niichi carried through and bombed Chaparral, the former sector capital flat, thus ending the war.