WHAT'S GONE BEFORE......

   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 100 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 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 sought 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 and population base while the Pan-Sentient Union sought to alleviant its overpopulation pressures by colonizing in the newly designated Frontier.
 
   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 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 and once communication was established they informed the PSU that it had to submit completely and utterly to the Hre'Daak Dominate......or perish. Within three months of first contact an incredibly massive Hre'Daak warship, a vessel whose size was much larger than the PSU or any allied navy had ever seen, arrived in Red Rocks. The Hre'Daak "ambassador" insisted on complete surrender and integration of the PSU and all known races into the Dominate and gave one year as a deadline. When PSU officials meeting the Ambassador scoffed and angrily vowed never to submit, the Hre'Daak ordered a 'demonstration’ in which his warship fired a single torpedo at a nearby moon, instantly shattering it into trillions of pieces. As horror and shock sank in among the PSU diplomatic team, the Hre'Daak reiterated his demands, dropped a book on the table and left. The massive Hre'Daak warship withdrew immediately afterwards but its companion ship raided a PSU cruiser as it was being escorted out of Red Rocks, making off with a planetary database of human space.

   As shock turned to immense fear and anger, the PSU reacted massively. With the Hre'Daak's obviously overwhelming firepower (enough to destroy an entire moon) and the knowledge of the human home world, the PSU Navy began a full-scale redeployment to the Beijing Chain, hurriedly building large numbers of bases and other defenses. Numerous Orion forces also began moving to reinforce Terra, while the Terran half of the PSU government passed a resolution stating it would stay on the planet regardless of the danger. The much smaller Terran Republic, horrified by the Hre'Daak actions, signed a Defense Accord with the PSU three months later. 

   In the fabulously rich Palma Sola District of the PSU a naval captain aboard the PNS Virgo stumbled onto another Hre'Daak warship, which quickly withdrew without communicating. Faced with these ominous moves the PSU also began building defenses and moving warships into the Palma Sola area. The PSU also reached full military production at this time, pumping out hundreds of warships every month at Gerrick III, Galloway's World, Militar, Great Ships, and nearly fifty other planets. Hre'Daak light warships were also found reconnoitering the Ivy Chain which alarmed PSU politicians. By the 10th month after contact with the Hre'Daak, the PSU confidently finished construction of the New Beijing chain defenses and had redeployed four massive fleets (accounting for 60% of the standing PSU fleet) into Red Rocks. The following month the Crucian Union and Thebes both declared their neutrality, to the consternation and howls of their neighbors. The Ophuichi finished their deployment into threatened PSU sectors late in the year, just in time for Admiral Yevgeny Knox to stumble onto the Hre'Daak "Assimilation Fleet" at Hamyang. With orders not to negotiate, PSU units refused to surrender the warp point leading to Red Rocks and the Hre'Daak opened fire. 

   As the Armageddon War began, neither side realized how costly, vicious, and ultimately futile the war would become. The Hre'Daak Fleet entered Red Rocks and with their extremely advanced technology, wiped out all four PSU fleets using only three dozen battlecruiser-sized warships and a Hre'Daak "Assimilator", a battlemoon-class warship. Massive fleet battles erupted in Palma Sola, the Ivy Chain, and Orion space with PSU forces losing large numbers of warships while inflicting little to no damage on the enemy. Even traditional fixed defenses like minefields and IDEW failed to stop the intruders. Faced with a impossible situation and their defenses in tatters, the PSU government began to panic. Remnants of the Red Rocks fleets retreated to more secure locations as the Hre'Daak relentlessly advanced towards Terra and New Valkha. Panic and desperation among the PSU officials turned to grim determination as the first nova bombs were used in Nouveau Dijon and Devon's World, killing all the inhabitants in a flash nova originating from their parent stars. Over two-hundred million civilians perished in these two systems alone. 

   The orgy of destruction continued as Hre'Daak forces assaulted the PSU's star systems, using nova bombs against strongly-held planets, annihilating local defense forces. As their defenses collapsed in the face of this terrible onslaught, politicians on Terra sought to keep the enemy at bay. By the time Hre'Daak forces reached and demolished New Beijing, orderly resistance within the PSU Navy had collapsed. Reformation and PSU naval forces under Admiral Yi and Admiral Knox did manage to rally and finally halt the Hre'Daak advance at Balthasar's World, with heavy losses but by the then the main Hre'Daak Fleet reached and began the Slaughter of Alpha Centauri.

   Battles between Hre'Daak forces and three different PSU fleets raged across the Centauri System, highlighted by desperate ramming tactics on the part of PSU forces. While ineffective, these tactics did buy Terra a little more time but finally resistance failed and the Hre'Daak warped out to mankind’s homesystem and the destruction they wreaked there was unimaginable. 

   As the Hre'Daak Assimilator orbited Terra, it slowly and brutally reduced the planet to a red, radioactive ball. In Orion space, the Hre'Daak reached and finally eliminated New Valkha as well, neatly decapitating the Pan-Sentient Union and killing over 600 billion PSU civilians in the process. The Khan of the Orions and his government had vowed to remain on New Valkha no matter what and was presumed to have perished there. Power devolved back to the Orion sector governors, who immediately fought for power and finally decided on mutual independence for their regions. 

   Nearly prostrate with the fighting, forces under Admiral Knox were able to surprise, ram, and finally destroy the Hre'Daak Assimilator ship as it transited back to Alpha Centauri. Although the attacking Hre'Daak warships in PSU space were ultimately destroyed with this brutal tactic, they had caused unimaginable carnage on the galaxy's premier "hyperpower". 

   With the elimination of the immediate Hre'Daak threat, multiple political factions and various high population worlds in Human space began fighting over federal authority, the direction of the war, and the failure of allied races to stop the destruction of the Human and Orion homeworlds. As fighting grew in the months following the end of the Armageddon War, the PSU fractured. Large areas of human space claimed loyalty to the Galloway’s World faction, but others resisted, forming the Frontier Alliance Worlds. The New Human League (Galloway faction), an enlarged Terran Republic, the Frontier Alliance Worlds, Orion Cantons, and the Reformation Group all began crash researching the "megaweaponry" that the Hre'Daak had used against them although the long-term moral implications of developing and using these awful weapons had not been thoroughly thought out.

   In 2466 a new version of the Grand Alliance was signed (but not activated) by all the surviving member states, binding each to the defense of another if attacked by the Hre'Daak. Although military weaponry was not widely shared between these member states, warship design and production was, with the first of the Majestic, Titan, and Red Dragon-class juggernauts being fielded six months after the war ended. Although twenty-two of these monstrous vessels were built, it was decided that due to their hideous maintenance costs (which was more than three major planets' monthly production) to mothball them until such time as they were needed.