The First War, A History of Man's First Interstellar Conflict
"In the beginning, the Admirals told us war was an impossibility. That space was too big, systems too far apart. Like a spitting contest at 50 meters out. They were wrong, of course. Turns out the Drengins could spit pretty far." - President of the Terran Alliance, Thomas Pompeii
As the first day of 2231 dawned on Earth, the capital of the galaxy-spanning Terran Alliance, humanity was the ascendent race in the galaxy. Granted by Providence a position in the central core of the galaxy, mankind had spread its reach throughout the main arteries to the very reaches of the Milky Way. Colonizing systems to galactic south in the very first days of the Alliance, and then colonizing galactic east and north, humanity controlled nearly a fifth of the galaxy at the time of the First War.
The Drengin Empire, the blotch of red in the northwest corner of the galaxy, seemed far less threatening at the time than the Torian Confederacy. The Torian Confederacy was nearly man's equal in size, population and economy. For nearly 20 years Earth's most prominent strategists planned for a conflict with the Torians, with whom man was competing for worlds in the galaxy's southeastern quadrant. Indeed, Fort Bastion, humanity's farthest flung world with the closest proximity to the Torian border, was the only system with a dedicated defense force.
The Admiralty's theories on interstellar war were, at the time, a confused mess. Conflict was seen as a remote possibility. There were no reports of a single space battle between the five major galactic powers. Fort Bastion boasted a defense force of only one small fighter, UES Wasp, with a single laser battery for its main armament. It was humanity's only maneuverable fighting force. The Sol System was the Alliance's only other defended system, with Starbase Gateway providing strong protection for man's home worlds and the vast majority of its trading lanes.
What the Terran Alliance did possess, however, was an economic base nearly three times that of the Drengin Empire, their soon-to-be enemies. Its productive output was even more staggering, though it was focused mostly on the construction of economic starbases and planetside facilities. On paper, the Terran Alliance must have looked like easy pickings for the aggressive Drengins. In reality, though, humanity just had to flick a switch and it would become an engine of war.
Next- First Contact
