Third Rachni War
From FABT
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21 December 20 CE - 30 April 44 CE |
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Rachni space / Milky Way Galaxy |
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Tactical Rachni victory
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Ananke Chi, Achlys Psi and Gaia Omicron clusters fall under rachni occupation |
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- "The third war finally put us on the offensive. The Council was desperate to reverse the rachni gains made in the last war, and determined to finally attack the rachni first. Unlike the Iera Containment Zone, the Eastern Line was the perfect staging area for such an ambitious offensive operation, and new anti-rachni weapons and tactics, as well as new knowledge on the rachni themselves, meant we were now in a perfect position to strike back. But just as before, the rachni's relentless nature and sheer numbers were too much for our forces. Year after year, the worlds we took back fell back into rachni hands within ten years, forcing us back to the Eastern Line. Then the rachni regained the initiative, managing to outflank the Line and break through it. It was only thanks to the actions of the asari Sixth Fleet that the rachni were beaten back. The third war was by far the longest, lasting 24 years. In the end, we were forced to concede even more territory to the rachni, with the Eastern Line being pushed back and reinforced. The Council made preparations for one final stand...but our salvation was close at hand. And, finally, thanks to the efforts of our best scientists, the fourth war brought an end to the nightmare. And began another."
- — A salarian teacher on the Third Rachni War.
The Third Rachni War, also known as the Council-Rachni War (20-44) historically and sometimes as the Second Council-Rachni War, was a major conflict between the Citadel Council and the First Rachni Collective fought between 21 December 20 CE to 30 April 44 CE that served as the third phase of the Rachni Wars. The first and second wars inflicted a devastating toll on the Council, although the Council was able to deal back many of these losses upon the rachni at the Battle of the Eastern Line, which concluded the second war. However, rachni breeding capability meant they would be able to replace these losses within a year, rendering the Council's gains void. With this knowledge, and with the rachni advances stalled for four years, asari and salarian military leadership began to convene to make plans for a future offensive into rachni space, as well as to develop new weapons systems to more efficiently battle the rachni. The strategy they developed would utilize weapons and defensive systems developed during the last war, obliterating rachni fleets in quick succession and deploying neutron bio-weapons to clear out rachni nests. Millions of troops and hundreds of ships were committed to the operation, making it the largest mobilization of troops in Council history up until that point.
Finally, in late December of 20 CE, the Council launched their brand new offensive, codenamed Operation Equilibrium, attacking from three points along the Eastern Line (Pincers A, B and C respectively). The operation goes off without a hitch, correctly predicting the rachni fleets would be deployed out of position and unable to answer their assault fast enough. Asari and salarian fleets swarmed through the nearest clusters, deploying neutron WMDs that devastated rachni troops caught on the surface and allowed asari and salarian troops to secure key strategic positions quickly and effectively, establishing bases of operation on defensible positions and utilizing anti-horde tactics to break rachni counterattacks. Anti-rachni ship-to-ship weapons developed during the last war are used to great effect in space combat, giving the Council near total naval and air supremacy over their designated AOs, setting the rachni even further back. By 22 CE, the Council had recaptured numerous systems, inflicted heavy losses on rachni forces, and for the first time in the Rachni Wars, the rachni were in full retreat, withdrawing to systems under their control and holding back against repeated and relentless Council attacks. By 23 CE, the operation was deemed to be going well, with Pincer A, B and C making rapid progress across their zones. However, by 25 CE, asari commander of Pincer A Jaleztea T'mios had received orders to continue pushing ahead, thrusting too fast and to deep into enemy territory, with a directive to strike a devastating blow directly at the rachni homeworld of Suen: however, this advance left the Council's left flank dangerously exposed, which forced Pincer B to divert elements from its main effort to shore up its exposed rear. Made worse was the rachni's change in tactics who, on top of their usual horde mentality, had taken to harassing Council supply convoys, striking deep behind enemy lines with interdictors and smaller ships to prey on and destroy Council resupply ships. And with the Council forces moving too deep into rachni territory, these convoys were finding it harder and harder to reach their forces, and turned up in less and less quantities. Soon, the pincers began to suffer losses that they could not recover from, and began to encounter equipment and fuel shortages. Jaleztea saw the danger posed by her advance, and tried to warn her commanders of the threat posed by her unsupported advance, but her orders remained clear: strike at Suen, and use the threat of neutron bombs being used against their Starsinger in order to coerce the rachni into accepting Council terms of permanent armistice. Meanwhile, Pincers B and C would continue to reclaim lost Council territories, with orders to push them back beyond Relay 627.
Finally, in 27 CE, Jaleztea's forces broke through rachni lines and reached Suen, where they laid siege to the planet in a naval blockade. Using a captured rachni soldier taken during their campaign, Jaleztea communicated the Council's demands through a mind meld to the soldier, and then released the rachni down to the surface to relay the message to the Starsinger. The Starsinger agreed to Jaleztea's terms, who then sent down a Council peace delegation that had been assigned to them, who descended to Suen's surface to speak to the rachni Starsinger. The Council delegation explained the misunderstanding to the rachni, and extended their wishes to end their conflict peacefully, but the Starsinger simply replied that there had been no misunderstanding, and that the rachni would not stop until every single asari and salarian had been eradicated from the galaxy: the rachni then slaughtered the peace delegation, with the Starsinger possessing one of the dead ambassadors and returning to the fleet, where it then activated its possessed agent and relayed its wishes to Jaleztea. Realizing who it was, Jaleztea was reported to have gunned down the possessed ambassador, and then ordered a full-scale bombardment of the surface. She never got the chance: an entire rachni fleet exited FTL around Pincer A, and numerous planetary cannons on Suen's surface opened fire on the Council fleet. The trap sprung, the rachni ships obliterated the entire Council fleet, which has gone down as one of the most catastrophic Council defeats in their entire military history.
With Pincer A completely destroyed, the rachni launched their new offensive, swarming in on the exposed left flank. From 28 CE to 37 CE, the Council fought a bloody war of attrition to hold onto their required territories, putting their new found knowledge and training to the test. No longer as unprepared as they were in the past, battles for control that had lasted mere hours in the last two wars were extended by months, and in the case of Pincer B's efforts, a whole decade. The rachni applied overwhelming amounts of force, pouring in millions upon millions of troops and hundreds of ships to smash upon Council defenses in a neverending onslaught. And while Council troops put up a valiant effort, defeats resounded across the board as the rachni gained ground, dealing horrendous losses upon the Council. Finally, by 38 CE, the Council had lost over 70 percent of the territories it had reacquired, with Pincer B severely depleted, and Pincer C in near constant withdrawal. Desperate to regain the initiative, the Council poured in reinforcements into Pincer B, and coordinated their efforts into one final desperate offensive. Codenamed Operation Cobalt, the attack called for a singular thrust through a weakened part of the rachni lines, with the hope of breaking the back of the rachni offensive and turning their momentum against them, allowing Pincer B to begin pushing the rachni back, relieving the pressure on Pincer C as the rachni inevitably diverted reinforcements to plug the hole. The Council would then redeploy more reinforcements to Pincer C, promoting a second thrust into the weakened rachni force, leading to a collapse of their right flank. The rachni would realize their position was falling apart, and would fall back, giving the initiative back to Council forces. The offensive was however doomed from the beginning: unbeknownst to the Council, the rachni were deploying brand new dreadnought-type vessels equipped with new shields that were nearly impervious to the Council's anti-rachni weapons, and which had firepower that surpassed even the most powerful salarian or asari dreadnought. When Pincer B launched its attack, it enjoyed initial success, as the rachni feinted a withdrawal, and diverted reinforcements from the right flank was expected. However, when Pincer C launched its new assault, the new rachni dreadnoughts tore apart the Council warships piecemeal, all while suffering little damage themselves. Pincer B was soon met with similar difficulties, and were steadily forced back. In an heroic effort to save retreating Council warships, members of the 8th Infiltration Regiment of the STG sacrificed their lives to board one of the rachni dreadnoughts and destroy it with a tactical antimatter warhead, the explosion of which consumed several other rachni capital ships within the vicinity and killed a rachni queen, causing the rachni front line to fall into chaos before it was reorganized: asari commandos performed a similar raid on another dreadnought, killing another rachni queen in the process as well. This gave Pincer C time to escape and cover the withdrawal of Pincer B, with survivors from both escaping back to the Eastern Line.
However, the rachni then exposed a weakness in the Eastern Line, sending forces to the far southeast into uncharted territory to outflank the Line. It was here that the rachni crossed into the Althak Vepar, and landed troops on Tuchanka, which they believed to be occupied by Council forces when they detected life on the planet. However, the krogan, who had survived a nuclear war beforehand and looked upon the alien visitors with disgust, slaughtered the entire rachni invasion force, and caused the rachni to abandon invasion efforts once they realized the krogan were too primitive to be part of the Council. The main bulk of their forces continued into Council space, and when the Council realized they were going to be overrun, they dispatched reinforcements to hold off the rachni while they made plans to rebuild the Eastern Line further back, and evacuated colonies that they soon planned to give up to the rachni: in the mean time, the salarians prepared a "victory" package for their enemy. Just before they were finally overwhelmed in 43 CE, Council forces withdrew to the new Eastern Line, with the rachni seizing the evacuated systems as they pursued the Council relentlessly. They assaulted the new Eastern Line viciously, but realized early on that it was far more well fortified than the last one, and did not have enough dreadnoughts to guarantee a penetration of its defenses. Even worse, when the rachni deployed their troops to begin building nests on their conquered worlds, they discovered too late that the salarians had poisoned the atmosphere with a nerve toxin they knew was toxic to rachni, and they lost millions of soldiers and workers before they finally discovered the trap and withdrew their forces. In the end, the rachni had obtained victory, but the Council had made it extremely costly for both sides.
And even in defeat, the Council had found the key to ultimate victory at last. The rachni attack on Tuchanka had not gone unnoticed by the STG, who had been observing the krogan for quite some time after having discovered them in 31 BCE. While the STG had initially concluded their species would be left alone until they achieved spaceflight, they had noted that the krogan were the perfect biological counter to the rachni in every way: both enjoyed strength in numbers, but the krogan not only had regenerative abilities that made them tougher to kill, but aggressive warfare ran in their culture, and more importantly, their redundant nervous system made it so they could survive in the toxic and harsh environments of the rachni nests that asari and salarian troops couldn't. As a result, the STG sought and acquired approval from the salarian government to initiate first contact with the krogan and to begin uplifting them for the purpose of setting them loose on the rachni. This began in 41 CE, a full three years before the third war ended, and the asari were only informed in 45 CE when the first krogan ambassador arrived on the Citadel to formalize the krogan's entry into the galactic community. The tide had finally turned, and in 46 CE, millions upon millions of krogan troops began to ship out to the front.