Terran Confederation
The Terran Confederation was the political body which ruled the Terrans.
On 2634.186 the Confederation declared war on the Empire of Kilrah for countless acts of piracy and unwarranted assault. By 2654, the Terran-Kilrathi War continued to rage.
Star systems controlled by the Confederation included Alliance, Chengdu, Dakota, Enyo, Hell's Kitchen, Hubble's Star, McAuliffe, Planck's Star, Port Hedland, Proxima, Rostov, Seggallion and Sol.
The Terran Confederation is a democratic republic comprised of hundreds of, mainly, human systems. They have a President as head of state. Governing bodies include the Confederation Congress and a Senate known as the Great Assembly and headed by the Assembly Master. The Confederation’s founding document is the Articles of Confederation and its holiday is Confederation Day, celebrated on August 23rd, on the anniversary of the signing of the Articles of Confederation.
For much of the Confederation’s history, one of its primary duties has been to provide defense for those within its borders. The Confederation military is comprised of the Army, the Navy, the Marines and the Space Forces. The Joint Chiefs of Staff command these forces.
The Terran Confederation was formed in 2416, during the great pandemic on Earth, replacing the World Economic Consortium as the government in Sol System.
The first 50 years of the Confederation’s existence were spent rebuilding the Terrestrial industrial base, and establishing the Confederation’s military tradition with the establishment of both the Space Naval Academy and the Terran Confederation Service Academy. In 2464, a heavily armed Pilgrim sloship entered orbit around the moon and forced the Confederation government to sign the Treaty of Luna, which established Pilgrim title to all habitable worlds within 50 years sloship travel of Earth and forbid Confederation sloship colonization. In return, the Pilgrims agreed to a policy of strict non-interference with Sol system affairs.
This state of existence continued for a century until the discovery of the Akwende Drive in the Sol System in 2588. Jump drive allowed Earth ships to bypass Pilgrim territory. While the losses of exploratory missions where high, 26th century Earth had the wealth and population to absorb the losses. Earth quickly established colonies out towards Hawking and Gemini sectors, leaving Vega to the Pilgrims.
On 2631.244 a Pilgrim fleet jumped into the Sol System, planning to destroy the fleet yards at the Port of Titan space station and halt Confederation expansion. The Confederation, however, had grown strong and, after three days of fighting, repelled the Pilgrim attack. After refusing to negotiate, the Pilgrims began a guerrilla campaign with raids on Confederation systems which lead to a Confederation declaration of war on 2632.017.
The war continued for over three years, with the Pilgrims murdering and enslaving those they captured. The Confederation eventually launched a Grand Fleet, which quickly began capturing systems. The turning point of the war was the Siege of Peron, which lasted for seven months. After the fall of Peron, the Pilgrims soon ended the war with the signing of peace accords at Cygnus on 2634.049, which ended the Pilgrim Alliance.
Later that year, after years of mysterious silence following first contact in 2629, the Kilrathi began sending raids into the Confederation from the Facin Sector. This led to the Confederation declaring a limited war against the Kilrathi, with attacks only against bases in Facin. Confederation forces quickly pushed forward, meeting little resistance.
The Kilrathi withdrawal was later revealed to be a diversion, with a Kilrathi strike on McAuliffe and a number of other Confederation systems on 2629.235. In what was later called the first strike of the war, large parts of the Confederation fleet and industrial capacity were destroyed or captured. This lead to a full declaration of war against the Kilrathi.
In 2653, the Confederation made contact with the Firekkans, and promised to provide protection. Two years later, Firekka joined the Confederation, but was quickly over-run by the Kilrathi Sivar-Eshrad ceremony. While the Confederation eventually returned to the system, the abandonment of a world that had joined the Confederation only weeks before was a huge hit to Confederation morale.
The war continued, year after year, with the Confederation playing catch-up. The effects of the overwhelming numbers of Kilrathi forces culminated in the battle at Vukar Tag in 2667, where the Confederation was forced to risk nearly all of its carriers in an ambush to destroy enough Kilrathi forces to remain in the war. This, along with the tactics discovered in the TCS Tarawa’s strike on Kilrah and other escort carrier engagements served to turn the tide of the war.
By 2668 Kilrathi forces were suffering from the Confederation’s use of escort carriers to destroy various support craft. Kilrathi ships were in disrepair and the Confederation was gaining the upper hand in ships for the first time in the war. As a result, the Kilrathi offered the Confederation government an armistice, which they planned to use to allow them to finish construction of their new fleet and mount a surprise strike on the Confederation. This plan would have succeeded without the intervention of the Geoffrey Tolwyn, Max Kruger, Jason Bondarevsky and the Landreich Free Corps. Word of the Kilrathi plans was sent to Earth where the Joint Chiefs of Staff, excluding news of the Kilrathi trick led to the resignation of President Harold Rodham, who supported the armistice, and the exposure of Foreign Minister Rhonda Jamison as a Kilrathi agent.
Geoffrey Tolwyn organized a last-ditch defence of Earth after retreating through several major Confederation systems that were rendered uninhabitable by the Kilrathi. Suicide tactics by Confederation marines and the arrival of Free Republic of the Landreich reinforcements at the last moment allowed the Confederation to repel the Kilrathi invaders just moments before Earth itself was poisoned. The Confederation fleet was, once again, devastated and several planets and Earth cities were destroyed.
After the loss of a large portion of the fleet, the Confederation was in a position to lose the war. Desperate, plans for various superweapons were accelerated. During this period, as a response to the mishandling of the Kilrathi cease-fire, a military faction known as the Belisarius Group began planning a coup to oust what they considered to be an incompetent civilian government and replace it with military control. Eventually, at the verge of defeat after the failure of the Behemoth, the Confederation achieved victory with Christopher Blair’s strike on Kilrah with the Temblor Bomb.
The next four years included increased political tensions with the Landreich and a number of economic problems with the decrease in military spending. In 2673, however, alleged attacks by Border Worlds forces on Confederation space began to occur. This lead to the Border Worlds Conflict, a short period of tension along the border with a number of small engagements and raids on both sides along with an attack on a world using biological weapons by a group later revealed as the Black Lance. Eventually, the entire situation was revealed to be a plot headed by Geoffrey Tolwyn and a number of Confederation personnel. The plan was to genetically cleanse the human race and prepare them for the next war. The discovery of this plot resulted in the end of martial law, which had been in effect throughout the Kilrathi War, and a review of the Confederation military and black projects.
By 2681, relations with the Kilrathi had become relatively friendly, with only occasional skirmishes with pirates or breakaway factions. The Confederation Navy was also becoming more cost effective, while still managing to maintain a fleet, although smaller than wartime size. This fleet was once again put into use with the insurgence of an unknown force into the Kilrah system. The forces, which became known as the Nephilim, quickly expanded through Kilrathi and Confederation territory. The efforts of the TCS Midway, TCS Eisen and other Confederation forces, eventually pushed back the Nephilim forces and destroyed the wormhole gate in Kilrah that they had used to enter the Confederation’s region of space.
Less than a month later, the Nephilim were once again attempting to construct a wormhole gate, this time deep inside Confederation territory. Confederation forces, including the TCS Cerberus, quickly repelled the invaders and neutralized the new Nephilim gate.
The Confederation still existed in some form in 2789.
References
Source: WC CIC Encyclopedia
