Skyllian Cold War

From FABT

Borders of the Systems Alliance (blue) and the Batarian Hegemony (red) during the Skyllian Cold War.
X57 was briefly hijacked by Balak Uhtero and his extremists in an attempt to wipe out the surface of Terra Nova, a planet with a population of 4.4 million people at the time.
Destruction of the Alpha Relay, an event which wiped out an entire star system and resulted in 300,000 military and civilian casualties.

The Skyllian Cold War was a period of astropolitical tension between the Systems Alliance and the Batarian Hegemony after the Skyllian Blitz that lasted from 2177 CE to 2186 CE. The tensions began immediately following the aftermath of Operation Samson's Pillars, following the Hegemony's capitulation and secession from the Citadel Council, effectively becoming a rogue state. The Hegemony severed all diplomatic channels with the Citadel, closing their embassy and becoming a galactic pariah, believing that the Council had seen fit to abandon them now that their "new favourite toy" (humanity) had taken over. This lack of contact with the Council led to increased tensions between them and the Alliance, although the two states kept to themselves, with the Alliance even withdrawing from the recently captured Uifa'ar Nebula, although the Hegemony did not move back in to reclaim the cluster. Having accepted that traditional slaver tactics had only drawn them into a war they ended up losing, the Hegemony scaled back on Slaver Corps operations, supplementing them with mercenary proxies, in most cases hiring Blood Pack legions to carry out attacks with maximum deniability. Alliance intelligence knew the Hegemony was behind the attacks, but lacking the proof necessary for a casus belli, instead chose to wage intelligence and cyberwarfare, protecting their colonies with military force where and when they could.

Terrorism ran rampant throughout the Skyllian Cold War, used as a tool by batarian proxies, and in some cases by batarian extremists, to damage Alliance assets and facilities in retaliation for their losses during the Skyllian Blitz. In 2183 CE, using the Eden Prime War as a cover, Balak Uhtero, largely acting on his own will, took his slaver unit and instead hijacked an asteroid that was being towed to Terra Nova, and was only narrowly stopped by Marcus L. Shepard from dropping the asteroid onto the planet: the Hegemony government later denied responsibility. While terrorist attacks of this scale were not the norm during the Skyllian Cold War, other terrorist actions on smaller targets were common. The Skyllian Cold War would remain largely passive until November 2185 CE, when Amanda Kenson was caught by a batarian patrol in the Bahak system and was discovered to have been planning to smash an asteroid into the Alpha Relay. They refused to believe her claims about needing to stop the Reapers, but word never spread beyond Aratoht due to the planetary governor wishing to interrogate Kenson for more information first. This allowed Marcus L. Shepard to break into the prison and rescue Kenson, although Shepard would later discover Kenson and her team to be indoctrinated, and he was forced to kill his fellow marines in order to complete the mission: the asteroid destroyed the Alpha Relay, and the energy released wiped out the entire system, along with Aratoht and all 300,000 batarians that lived on it. Shepard escaped, but word spread throughout the Hegemony of Bahak's destruction, and Shepard's involvement. For the next six months, tensions ran very hot between the two powers over the Bahak Incident, with the Hegemony crying for Shepard's extradition and execution, while the Alliance worked to de-escalate the situation and keep Shepard out of batarian hands. It was believed the conflict finally went hot in June 2186 CE when Hegemony forces were mistakenly believed to have invaded Alliance space. The Alliance declared war, only to receive confirmation half an hour later that it wasn't the batarians, but an entirely unknown force, also later confirmed to be the Reapers.

While the Cold War had technically gone hot, the declaration of war was premature and mistaken, and therefore it is largely considered that the Skyllian Cold War ended with the beginning of the Reaper War, only to be followed by the Second Skyllian Cold War the year after.

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