Krogan Civil Wars

From FABT

Previous:

Krogan Rebellions

Concurrent:

Next:

Reaper War

Krogan Civil Wars
KroganCivilWars.pngAftermath of a battle between the Traditionalists and the Reformists outside a Reformist base in Trisek'lok during the Torch War.

Date:

20 Nocember 764 CE - 5 March 2186 CE
(1421 years, 3 months and 15 days)

Location:

Tuchanka / Aralakh / Krogan DMZ

Outcome:

Decisive UKC victory

Engagements:

Belligerents

KroganInsignia.png Tuchankan Imperialists (764 CE - 1172 CE)

  • All pro-imperial krogan clans and warlords

KroganInsignia.png Tuchankan Traditionalists (1172 CE - 2186 CE)
  • All traditionalist krogan clans and warlords

ReformistInsignia.png Tuchankan Progressionists (764 CE - 1184 CE)

  • All progressionist krogan clans and warlords

AltruistInsignia.png Tuchankan Altruists (764 CE - 773 CE)

  • All altruist krogan clans

ReformistInsignia.png Tuchankan Reformists (1184 CE - 2183 CE)

  • All reformist krogan clans and warlords

ReformistInsignia.png United Krogan Clans (2183 CE - 2186 CE)

  • All krogan member clans and their associated chieftains, warlords and shamans

Supported by:
NormandySquadInsignia.jpg Normandy Squad (2183 CE - 2186 CE)

Commanders

Thousands of Imperialist/Traditionalist krogan chieftains, warlords and shamans over 1400 years

Thousands of Progressionist/Reformist krogan chieftains, warlords and shamans over 1400 years

Strength
  • Tens of millions of krogan troops
  • Hundreds of armoured vehicles, aircraft and seaborne naval vessels
  • Fifty or so ships
  • Over 500,000 mercenaries of varying numbers over 1400 years
  • Tens of millions of krogan troops
  • Hundreds of armoured vehicles, aircraft and seaborne naval vessels
  • Over 600,000 mercenaries of varying numbers over 1400 years
Casualties

Unknown. Very heavy

Unknown. Very heavy

 
"My people chose the fate that awaited us once we were soundly and utterly defeated. Even before the plague that began claiming the lives of our unborn children by the millions, making us weaker generation by generation, our inevitable descent into more chaos, more death, more war was simply too predictable. A thousand years...and we have nothing to show for it. We inflicted a nuclear holocaust upon ourselves, and when we are given the chance to elevate above and beyond the behaviour that led us down that path, we instead chose to embrace more war, and now look where it has gotten us: fighting over radioactive ruins, our women's wombs turned into crematoriums, and our own atmosphere policed by aliens. I looked outside every morning to see nothing but an orange, burning horizon...distant gunfire and shouting was what I heard on a periodic basis. I thought by joining the Reformists everything would finally change...but it didn't. My father betrayed me, so I killed him...and that's when I knew I had surrendered to the chaos. In a world where children are a commodity, he tried to have me killed. That's why I left. I didn't give up on my people, they gave up on themselves. I just got tired of trying to make them see the obvious."
Urdnot Wrex to Marcus L. Shepard in 2183 CE.

The Krogan Civil Wars were a series of interplanetary civil conflicts between krogan clans and, later, between the Tuchankan Traditionalists and Tuchankan Reformists, that began on the 20 November 764 CE with the First Great Bloodletting, and ended on the 5 March 2186 CE with Wrex's War. With the Krogan Rebellions coming to an end, the Tuchankan Empire, which had been the single unifying force for all krogan and the only krogan nation-state on the galactic scene, was in ruins, its authority dissolved, its government broken and its citizens scattered across the galaxy. The breakdown of civilized krogan society was all but inevitable at this point, especially when coupled with the genophage, which was only now, at this point, beginning to demonstrate its deadly effects. The Rebellions did not end with the deployment of the genophage, but rather began to die down with it, as it took many more years for the krogan military to be completely beaten and defeated, and even then, many krogan imperial remnants managed to fight on regardless, forcing the Council to launch an ambitious post-war operation to pacify what was left of them: while Operation Slayer's Pact was largely successful, one krogan garrison on Omega managed to repel all Council attempts to take the station, and would only be brought to heel when Drecuns Tanculus successfully assaulted and captured it in 801 CE at the height of the Terminus Revolutions, putting an end to the remaining remnants of the once mighty and feared krogan empire. With the exception of these stubborn and defiant remnants, the rest of the krogan were pushed back to Tuchanka, and forced into an involuntary quarantine of sorts, with their home cluster renamed the "Krogan DMZ", and the CDEM founded to police the DMZ and ensure krogan obedience to the terms of the Treaty of Taetrus. What happened next was predicted by the Special Tasks Group, and thus the CDEM was fully prepared for when the time came, and as per the treaty, remained entirely neutral and would not intervene unless the coming civil war spilled out into Council territory.

Within a week of the Rebellions coming to an end, the krogan had already found a new reason to wage war. Clan Strirgon, the clan of the last Archlord of the Tuchankan Empire, declared its intentions to reform the Empire and waging a vengeance war on the Council for the genophage, and thus became not only the first proponent of Neo-Moroism, but also the first to form the Imperialist faction. Many more powerful clans flocked to this call-to-arms, among them Clan Urdnot under Urdnot Jarrod, Clan Weyrloc under Weyrloc Gregor, Clan Reyrdok under Reyrdok Jurn, Clan Gatatog under Gatatog Chox, and so on. However, for as many who joined the Imperialist faction, there were others who did not share the ideology of Neo-Moroism or wanted the empire restored. Nakmor Jord of Clan Nakmor, part of a clan which was long considered a clan of shamans and wise men, proclaimed that the krogan were strong because they knew all that was powerful must eventually be brought low, and thus the "Age of the Empire", as he termed it, had now come to pass...and that it was time for the krogan to find renewed strength elsewhere. This faction, known as the Progressionists, gathered many other clans to its banners, although few of them commanded the military might that the Imperialists held. A third faction was led by the female clans and was known as the Altruists, and decried the teachings of both, believing the krogan needed to discard their warmongering culture altogether, using the Rebellions as proof of their self-destructive nature, and return to the ways of their ancestors before the Firestorm War. The Imperialists and Progressionists met and argued at great length, and at times the Altruists would join in as well, but this stopped once it was clear the talks of peace weren't going to succeed. Both the Imperialists and Progressionists began arming for war, and the Altruists, arguing pacifism, were eventually forced to choose a side, and merged with the Progressionists. In just over two weeks of the Rebellions ending, war broke out on Tuchanka once more and the First Great Bloodletting began, although this would only be the beginning of the krogan civil wars.

The First Great Bloodletting lasted a century. When it finally ended, neither side was victorious, leaving both sides drained and only concluding hostilities due to an inability to continue fighting them. However, it wouldn't be long before more wars followed, clans warring upon other clans, and eventually even the Imperialists and Progressionists fell into inter-faction civil conflict. The Progressionists fell apart three centuries later, but the rise of Borloc Khoxx, and her new ideology of Khoxxism, led to the founding of the Tuchankan Reformists, who embraced Khoxxist ideals of prioritizing post-war reconstruction, breeding to repopulate and attempting peaceful dialogue with other clans. The latter was abandoned soon after when the Imperialists, now rebranded as the Traditionalists, reformed and continued its war against those who opposed their intentions. The Traditionalists and Reformists continued their struggle for dominance for hundreds of years following the Rebellions, not caring for the galaxy beyond their world. At times their conflict would break out beyond the confines of Tuchanka and into the Aralakh system, but the CDEM never intervened. This continuous bloodbath continued for many centuries more until it reached a turning point: a civil war within Clan Urdnot. With Urdnot Wrex, son of Urdnot Jarrod, declaring for the Reformists, war broke out between the Urdnot Traditionalists under Jarrod, and the Urdnot Reformists under Wrex. Wrex's leadership proved superior to Jarrod's however, and in winning numerous battles and demonstrating his martial prowess, he secured many followers, and eventually the majority of Urdnot sided with Wrex. With Clan Urdnot, one of the largest krogan clans and boasting one of the best terrestrial militaries, siding with the Reformists, it seemed the side had turned against the Traditionalists. However, when Jarrod called for a Crush at the Hollows, he used the opportunity to attempt to murder his son and win the war in one betrayal. It backfired however, and while Wrex's warriors were killed, he managed to kill his father in the process and escape. Wrex did not however choose to ascend the mantle of chieftainship, instead choosing to flee into self-exile as a mercenary. Instead, Urdnot Wreav became chieftain, and instead of reaffirming his allegiance to the Traditionalists, he had Urdnot retract from the civil wars altogether, maintaining a tense neutrality for six centuries afterwards, despite pleas from both sides to join one cause over the other. The civil wars continued in the background, neither side having an advantage over the other.

It wasn't until 2183 CE that Wrex suddenly returned, now a galactic war hero from the Eden Prime War. Spurned on by the imminent arrival of a far greater threat to the galaxy and a need to prepare for it, not to mention wanting to bring a final conclusion to the bickering and disputes between his people which had lasted over a thousand years, Wrex challenged his brother Wreav to the role of chieftain, and when he was victorious, he wasted no time in calling for a crush between the two factions. At that crush, he delivered a singular ultimatum: Clan Urdnot will be joining with the Reformists, but Wrex will assume full command of the faction, and will be reforming it into the United Krogan Clans, the new krogan nation-state. From here he implemented his new policy of Wrexism. A state of total war upon the Traditionalists and all those who violently oppose or object to the new status quo would be declared, and those clans he defeated would be given a choice: join the UKC, or be branded uraysh and be completely annihilated. From here on out, Wrex made it clear he would not allow the civil wars to continue any longer, and formed a crusade against those who opposed Khoxxism, which he saw as the only way forward for all krogan. While not all Reformists took kindly to Wrex hijacking their cause, it was the Traditionalists who responded the most violently, with Weyrloc Guld, then-leader of the Traditionalists, returning Wrex's declaration of war in kind. But while the Traditionalists argued over what type of offensive should be waged, Wrex wasted no time and went straight on the offensive, capturing a large swath of Traditionalist territory in just a couple of months and annexing Clan Gatatog, a hardline Traditionalist supporter: in one swift stroke, Wrex made it clear he was not messing around.

The next two years would see Wrex's bloody campaign put into action, and the scant elements of the Reformists that originally opposed him were so impressed and awed by Wrex's results that they accepted him openly. Many Traditionalist clans were either wiped out or conquered, but none harboured a grudge more than Clan Gatatog, who planned an assassination of Wrex. This assassination was exposed when Uvenk attempted to recruit the tank-bred supersoldier Grunt into his ranks during his initiation, only for Grunt and his Normandy allies to turn on and kill him: when Wrex heard of the betrayal, he had Gatatog declared uraysh, and obliterated the entire clan. Shortly thereafter, he launched a full-scale assault upon Hagalok Hospital, where Weyrloc Guld had established a research lab to attempt a cure of the genophage. Instead, Guld was killed by the Normandy Squad, and Clan Weyrloc subsequently was destroyed by its own in-fighting when all of Guld's eight sons attempted to succeed him, only for them to kill each other and for Wrex to annex what was left. With the sudden annihilation of Clan Weyrloc, Traditionalist fervor began to collapse, making Wrex's campaign all the easier. In January of 2186 CE, Wrex launched a final campaign into Traditionalist enclaves within Uemrek to flush them out and put an end to them once and for all. The result was a Wrexist victory, and on the 5 March 2186 CE, surviving Traditionalists were called to Urdnot Keep to sign an historic treaty that put an official end to the Krogan Civil Wars, and recognized the global sovereignty of the UKC over all krogan, and bound all the clan chieftains in loyalty to him. With the Urdnot Pact signed and ratified, Wrex's War was officially over, and with it, the civil wars as well.

Prelude[edit | edit source]