Wow, it's been nine months since I started this thing. Here's the beginning of the Second Korx War - more to come later.
State of affairs: 2229 – 2231
For these three years, one major political and military event dominated known space: the Second Korx War. Although only the five ‘good’ races and the Korx were directly involved, no other race stayed truly neutral. The Snathi and Yor would be caught up in the maelstrom of events and destroyed as sovereign powers, while the Arceans and Thalans, though supposedly neutral, secretly supplied the Korx with weapons and ships. The Arceans’ motives were simple enough – they intended to play the allies and Korx off against each other as a means to assist their own bid for galactic power. The Thalans’ motives were much more complicated, and will be covered in detail in the section on the Alignment War.
For the allies, the war would bring them closer together (except for the arrogant Drath). A long period of interplanetary tourism between 2230 and 2231, fueled by the ongoing Galactic Olympics, helped xenophilia flourish between the benevolent races of the galaxy, whose cultures started in some ways to blur. By 2232, all four had alliances except between the Terrans and Iconians.
Second Korx War
Causes of the War
Even as the disastrous First Korx War concluded, Terran diplomats had been winning a major diplomatic victory. On May 1st, 2230, Virginia Montgomery (biographical link), Terran Special Ambassador to Toria, announced the creation of a formal military alliance between the Torian Confederation and Terran Alliance.
The move stunned the Korx, but not enough to thwart their ongoing plans to finish the Terrans once and for all. Barely two months after the Pact of Toria, the Korx issued a ludicrous demand for the Terrans to cede James Colony. Everyone in both powers knew this was a declaration of war, and sure enough, following the Terran refusal on July 8th, the Korx military mobilized. To their shock, however, it was not merely the Torians who responded. Between the Pact of Toria and the Korx declaration of war, Special Ambassador Montgomery had secretly visited the Altarian, Iconian, and Drath governments and obtained promises of support in the event of a Korx attack. In an emergency session of the United Planets, the respective ambassadors of the three races demanded the Korx cease military action against the Terrans or face the consequences. The Korx response is generally not translated into English; suffice it to say the answer was no. The Second Korx War had begun.
Forces and Strategies
Of the five “Allied Polities”, the Terrans were still the weakest. Admiral Roshenkov had reorganized the ESS into a number of task forces, of which only three existed at this point: TF 5 (Commodore Hannah Garcia, 4 capital ships), TF 63 (Cmdr. Bernard Mzu, 3 capital ships) and TF 37 (Cmdr. Lillian Mintaka, 2 capital ships), the last of which was intended for home defense only. Other allied powers were considerably stronger; the Altarian Republican Navy could muster almost two dozen cruisers, while the Iconians’ “Defense Force”, despite the name, was well prepared for long-range strikes with multiple invasion transports. Although individually outmatched by the Korx, the combined forces of the allies easily were superior. Coordination, however, could be poor. Though the two members of the Terran-Torian alliance were quite willing to cooperate, others were more hesitant, especially the Drath, who throughout the war oscillated between paranoia and arrogance when dealing with their allies. A Combined Military Committee was established based on Altaria to assist interracial offensives, but its effectiveness was limited.
The Korx had none of these problems. Their intensely capitalistic society was highly meritocratic, with Korx succeeding or failing through their own abilities, and this included the military. There was no such thing as a Korx political appointee; all military commanders held their rank through innate skill. Competition between commanders was rife, however, and this struggle for promotion would cause the fall of Iconia, among other disasters (see later - link to an alternative opinion). The Korx military was larger than any allied force but that of the Torians; however, it was outnumbered by the allies as a group. In addition, though Korx singularity drivers were equal or superior to allied technology, the mere three worlds they controlled lacked the industrial base to fight the manufacturing capabilities of the twenty-seven allied planets. To make matters worse for the Korx, their economy, always heavily dependent on trade, had been crippled by the loss of trade when four separate races declared war.
(link to more detailed analysis)
The following map depicts the key campaign areas of the war's beginning. Note the Korx occupation of Dratha IV.
