When the articles of confederation were signed, every republic within the Antares System rejoiced
in grand ceremonies and idealistic displays of patriotism. Perhaps no deed of the era
was more celebrated than the passing of the very first piece of legislation by Parliament.
It was a simple act, more symbolic than practical,
yet one recorded in history as the first united decree by the Antares Confederacy.
What the histories do not record is that this piece of legislation, as celebrated as it might
be, was in fact, merely the first public measure passed. Many others agreements had
already been laid, decisions that would define the future of the nation for centuries to come.
Their ramifications were profound, but they were never debated within the halls of Parliament,
never disclosed to the general public, and never acknowledged to even the few who began to suspect
their existence. The first true act of the Antares Confederacy was to maintain the lie.
To preserve the silence that existed within every Republic and in the Assembly that had
preceded it. For their own protection, the people could not know the fate of Earth.
But when the first reports were received from the Confederacy’s distant emissaries,
and the presence of the United Terran Protectorates was confirmed,
the highest authorities within the government knew that the lie would not last. For now,
distance was on their side. For all its power, the Galactic Community was far-removed from
the Confederacy, isolated within the frontiers of some distant alien nation.
Yet the galaxy was growing smaller, and the truth could not be hidden forever.
But the few censored details presented to the Confederacy as to the nature of its first meeting
within the Community, were hardly a footnote. Other events held the nation’s captive attention.
In the year 285, all Antares looked to the former territories of the Vrul Salvation League,
as debate raged on how to administer their liberated systems and the colony of Torix.
There was passionate debate within Parliament advocating that the Vrul nation be integrated
into the Confederacy directly. But however noble the intentions, few supported any
action that might turn the Liberation of the Vrul into a war of conquest. With a new civil
government established and enormous aid ensured under the Vrul Recovery Program, Antares ceded
control of the territories it had won in war, and welcomed its new partners in the Vrul Republic.
With the Vrul again a sovereign state, albeit one heavily reliant upon the Confederacy,
there was a feeling that Antares had lived up to its ideals. However shocking the outbreak of war
might have been, it had ended with a victory built on self-determination and freedom. But the Vrul
themselves would challenge this simple narrative. In the years following the declaration of their
Republic, hundreds of thousands of Vrul would take advantage of lenient immigration treaties
to resettle within the Confederacy. These were the Vrul who most readily accepted the Confederacy’s
values, increasingly leaving their Republic in the hands of those who did not. Frustrated and
driven to anger, protests became common across the Vrul Republic. Piracy erupted across its
frontier systems and anti-human sentiment was exploited by ambitious political leaders. Finally,
after several humans were killed by violent mobs across Torix, the still pro-Confederate
Vrul legislature voted to dissolve the Republic and incorporate itself into the Confederacy.
With the failure of the Vrul-Republic, the post-war optimism began to fade,
confronted by an economic downturn and setbacks to the nation’s colonial ambitions. Unemployment
and resources shortages were commonplace across the extra-solar colonies and new alien maladies
presented themselves without warning. The worst of these ailments would kill thousands on the
colony of Samsara, with only a complete lockdown of the planet preventing a catastrophic epidemic.
Yet the era was not without its accomplishments. The partnership between the Confederacy and
the Cloister of the Spirits was strengthened, growing into a powerful alliance known as the
Moya Pact. But no achievement shone brighter than the resettlement of Ariane. The planet,
long considered the jewel of the Antares System, had first been colonized by the Earhart flotilla,
only for its settlers to succumb to the effects of the planet's unique magnetic field.
Centuries later, with the technology to overcome the planet’s nature,
the sacrifice of those fallen colonists was given meaning,
and Ariane was accepted as the first federal territory within the Antares System itself.
The erratic fortunes of the Antares Confederacy meant that few outside its various foreign
ministries recognized the growing tensions between the Cloister of the Spirits, and
their immediate rivals in the Althorian Empire. To many, the declaration of war between them in 294
was a complete surprise. Bound by the articles of the Moya Pact to come to the aid of their allies,
the Confederacy was nevertheless hesitant and unsure what form that aid would take.
With both Parliament and public opinion heavily divided, the Confederacy pledged to defend the
frontiers of the Cloister, but prohibited any offensive action against the Althorians.
The compromise satisfied no one. Many were outraged that the Confederacy was taking part
in a war in which it had nothing to gain, while others felt that the Cloister of the Spirits had
been betrayed through their lack of action. The conflict was sporadic, protracted, and ultimately
achieved very little. Yet before an armistice had been signed, a greater conflict would erupt.
Emboldened by the Cloister of the Spirits lack of success against the Althorians
and perhaps spurred onward by the Confederacy’s reluctance to aid its ally,
the Beldross Empire declared war against the Moya Pact. Again, the Antates Confederacy
was shocked by this turn of events, but the hesitation that had stayed its hand was gone.
Unlike the Althorians, the Beldross were widely despised across Antares.
Warlike and imperialistic, the Galactic Beldross Empire had waged a series of conquests against
their neighbors, the result of competition between rival warlords within their archaic, feudal
civilization. Despite their apparent backwardness, the Beldross had achieved notable successes.
Many refugees from territories conquered by the Beldross had fled to the Confederacy,
and now made up a small but vocal minority.
And for the first time, it was a Vrul citizen who held the office
of the Prime Minister of the Antares Confederacy.
The son of an immigrant who had escaped to the Confederacy after the destruction of their
homeworld, Dronofeg promised to usher in a new era of bold and decisive leadership. His inauguration
was held exactly 100 years after the launch of the CAS Earhart, and he vowed to confront the
Beldross with the same spirit and confidence that those first pioneers had displayed.
After the war it would be learned that the Beldross’s earlier campaigns had left them
weakened and divided. The reigning Emperor lacked the confidence of his vassals and
only a paltry force of their most radical warlords mustered against the Cloister and the Confederacy.
They were utterly crushed in a series of one-sided engagements. The Confederacy’s fleets and armies
by contrast had benefited from a series of reforms introduced after the Liberation of Torix and cut
through the meager defenses of the Beldross Feudal Lords. With Confederate guns trained on the cities
of their homeworld, the Empire capitulated. At the behest of the Cloister of the Spirits,
a new buffer state was established, severing from the Beldross one of their frontier vassals.
The war against the Beldross had ended triumphantly for the Confederacy.
Despite the vast scale of the campaign, there was limited bloodshed and the threat of a
costly planetary invasion was enough to end the fighting. The Confederacy’s losses were minimal
and a hostile rival had been defanged. Despite this however, many believed that the recent wars
had been needless, driven by the Cloister of the Spirits strange and often incomprehensible values.
The alliance between the two powers, the Moya Pact, had once been the Confederacy’s proudest
accomplishment, yet now it was increasingly seen as a political liability. By 320al,
voices in Parliament called for the dissolution of the alliance. Few wished to sever all ties with
the Cloister, but there remained the fear that the Confederacy would be dragged into another war.
Before any action could be taken, those fears were realized.
Among the many nations encountered by the Confederacy had been Kelarr Confederation
of Clans. There were in many ways similar to Antares, sharing similar values and ethics.
Many times the possibility had been discussed of inviting them to enter the Moya Pact, but these
efforts never met with success. Compared even to the other species of the galaxy, the Pneuma race
was completely alien and the friendship they found with Antares was unusual, all too often,
the Cloister of the Spirits was unwilling to join with those they deemed unacceptable. In 323,
the Kelarr Clans joined the Althorian Empire and launched a new war on two fronts.
Caught between two hostile nations, the Cloister of the Spirits was nearly immediately overrun.
Their race was unsuited for warfare, and most of their ships and equipment were merely imitations
of those used by Antares. Their tactics were predictable and easily foiled once learned.
Any great counter-attack would be the burden of the Confederacy alone.
But the decades of intermittent wars had left Antares exhausted and economically drained. Recent
colonization efforts and improvements to state infrastructure had left the military underfunded
and the scale of the unfolding conflict was beyond anything the Confederate military had yet
undertaken. Unable to meet the larger fleets of the Kelarr Clans in open battle, the Confederation
instead attempted a defeat in detail. For years Kelarr and Confederate fleets hunted one another
across the vast expanse of their mutual border system, looking for an opportunity to strike.
On the Althonian front, the prospect was much less dire. Improvements made to the defenses of
the region since the conclusion of the last war made the threat of direct invasion rather remote.
The Althonians were themselves occupied almost entirely by the invasion of the
Cloister of the Spirits, leaving their border territories nearly undefended.
The Confederacy lacked the resources to liberate every occupied system within the Cloister, but the
seizure of an Althonian colony was enough to force them to redirect resources from their invasion.
The Confederacy struck deeper and deeper in Althonian territory,
giving the Cloister the crucial time needed to mobilize a more effective defense.
As the war dragged into a stalemate, exhaustion grew on both sides.
Secret negotiations laid the groundwork for peace, but with the majority of the Cloister of the
Spirits star systems still occupied, the Althonian Empire and Kelarr Clans insisted on terms the Moya
Pact could not afford. Without a decisive victory by either side, the stalemate would continue.
In 335, twelve years after the outbreak of war, the opportunity finally arrived. On the borders of
the Kelarr Clans, a large fleet of vessels moved to seize the outermost frontier systems of the
Confederacy that had changed hands multiple times across the conflict. The Kelarr hoped to force
Antares to accept their terms, but they had played directly into the designs of the Confederate Navy.
The Battle of Qorrolla was the largest naval engagement in the Confederacy’s history up to
that point. For the first time, Confederate cruisers, the largest warships the nation
had ever put into service, traded fire with alien warships of similar size and capability.
It was the decisive victory the diplomats had been waiting for, and with Kelarr warships
burning all across the frontier, the two sides finally arrived at an armistice.
The peace treaty was signed by Prime Minister Dronofeg, elected to a historic second term to
again lead his nation in a time of war. He appeared before parliament to announce the
end of hostilities, surrounded by his staff and senators, humans and other Vrul - but also many
other species from across the wider galaxy. There had been a sense within the Confederacy that their
first century among the stars had been one of missed opportunities and senseless conflicts,
but footage of the peace ceremonies underscored something that had been largely understated.
The Antares System had been a refuge for the first pioneers of the Earhart Flotilla, now
it had become something more. Humanity was left there by circumstance, others arrived by choice.
The citizens of the Confederacy were not only human, but Vrul, Pneuman, Tavurite, Anoran,
Kelarr, Ruggan, Uthonian and many more. They were immigrants, refugees, idealists and dreamers who
saw in Antares the exact same thing the pioneers had seen, a chance to work and build a better
life for themselves and their descendants. Something was growing within the nation,
something it had lacked for much of its history, a sense of purpose, a sense of pride, a sense
of belonging, and the persistent belief that the nation’s best days were still ahead of it.