First Chatcaavan War

What the Pelted call what happened to them in Princes' Game. They aggressively named it the FIRST because they're determined to start the second when they find Second-to-the-Usurper and make him pay. Major events in this war as counted by the Pelted include things that happened on Pelted 'soil'. For the Chatcaavan version of these events, consult Insurrection.

Timeline, Early Events of the War

Major Events

Border Skirmishes

While it was the Chatcaavan plan to distract the Alliance with pirate activity (thus, the alliance with Kamaney), it's unclear whether Fleet was in agreement over whether that activity constituted the war's beginning, though of course, everyone was free to have their own opinion. Maia's, divulged to Sediryl before her departure for Sharsenne: "The war’s already started. The coreward border is seeing action now. Mostly pirates, if I’m reading between the lines correctly. And Fleet is massing ships on the edges of sectors alpha, delta, and gamma, which suggests they think that’s where the main push is going to come.” Maia goes on to say: "“There’s definite fighting there. If it’s Chatcaava, I’ll wager it’s diversionary. That area’s too far from them to be a good staging platform for a serious initiative.”

However, not much later, she adds, “There’s a bulletin out to all shipping. Fleet’s declared a Finite-1 war status. [..] There are only four of those conditions. One’s a warning. At condition 2 and 3, they’ll start upping taxes to help pay for the war effort. At Infinite, everything’s suspended that isn’t devoted to winning the war. I’ve never seen any of those war warnings used."

The war warning is suggestive of dissent in the upper echelons between those who though the pirates were the forerunners of the Chatcaava, and those who didn't but were willing to compromise, at least to the extent of telling people to be careful.

Second's Push

"Our guess is that they crept out along the border, lined up at the edge of Sector Veta and headed spinward, because they also hit Sector Alpha" was Meryl's assessment.

• Bombed Tam-ley: "half the major continent, and part of the adjacent, when the tsunamis hit. Initial projections are that at least seventy percent of the population's dead." What remained of the population was advised to evacuate until the atmosphere settled down. Destroyed the orbitals ("almost nothing left there either"), and the welcome station at the system limit was completely destroyed.
• Passed through double system (Karaka'Ana/Seersana) in Sector Alpha, destroying the installations at heliopause ("billions of fins' worth of infrastructure")
• Bypassed Selnor (though they hit at least "four minor stations"), to raid "three separate colonies", but these were smaller groups and the damage wasn't as extensive
• "The few incursions Fleet had handled since Second’s passage had been minor and rare."

Battle of Selnor

After Second's attack, Fleet sortied a large percentage of its Fleet to Selnor (where FC is) to await redeployment.

"None of them said the obvious thing, which was how unnecessary that scout duty was. Lisinthir didn’t need Meryl’s advanced training in tactics to read this situation. The system lords had come in force, and so long as they maintained cohesion there would be no stopping them. The Alliance might ruin most of the Chatcaavan vessels on the way in but it would use itself up in the doing, and it wouldn’t matter how few Chatcaava remained when the standards fell. There would still be Chatcaava standing, and no one left to gainsay them." When Jahir contacts Lisinthir on the Silhoeutte, Lisinthir reports: /Cousin, all the system lords are in the capital system, halfway to the planet!/ Jahir tells him that the Emperor's remaining fleet, combined with the Twelveworld levy, is more than enough to handle the remaining system lords (which implies that this combined fleet is larger than the force Fleet fielded, and Fleet's capital fleet is 15,000 hulls at this point in history). "Your lover says to leave some of the enemy for him… and his Queen says that today the wingless will retake the sky."

After that contact, Lisinthir serves as go-between, communicating psychically between the White Admiral (commanding the home fleet) and the incoming Chatcaavan allies. "The Admiral-Offense had ordered the safeties off the engines and they’d raced light to their destination… raced it, and won."

"A lot of people died in that battle," Vasiht'h reports (understatement of the century).

Aftermath

"In the wake of the battle, the Silhouette was assigned to search and rescue amid the wreckage, an effort that would require days of work and teams rotating on and off duty to avoid the mistakes made by fatigued and despondent crews."

Timeline

All of these are guesstimates.

• The news of Second's attack on Tam-ley arrives the day after the Emperor's duel at Apex-East.
• The Emperor says they'll need one week to go from the duel to the Throneworld to retake it from the Usurper, but he ends up leaving a day after "three-quarters" of the way through the week, when he received the packet that contains the Throneworld's realtime defense data.
• They have travel time to the Throneworld. (Not sure how long.)
• The battle at the Throneworld takes one day and happens on the day of their fleet's arrival to the Throneworld System. Lisinthir leaves that evening for the Alliance to promise the Emperor's aid to their cause.
• The Emperor spends "days" on the Throneworld, while he quells the riots on the planet and the Admiral-Offense cleans up the fights in the system with the Usurper's remaining partisans.
• They head for Selnor the day after the Queen Ransomed arrives to the throneworld with the Twelveworld Lord's levies, and have travel time to reach it.
• Lisinthir claims they haven't been "gone long" on the day the system lords finally attack Selnor.

This would fit the entire "start" and "end" of the war (if Second's attack and the Battle at Selnor are assumed to be the initiation and end points) within a month at most. Probably more like 2.5-3 weeks.

Eldritch Prophecies

Not sure where else to put this, but it's relevant somewhere, so:

Only love can hold this, because the war for it will never end

You will have to make a choice, arii, a choice, you will have to make a choice

It is not enough to rule, one must Change

• "The future before us, and the empires we must maintain... only love can hold them. Or the war for them will never end." (Liolesa talking to Lisinthir)

• "It will pass," she said again. "You will find yourself having to choose, then." (Queen Ransomed talking to Vasiht'h)

• "Yes," the Emperor agreed. "Admiral-Offense, it is who we are. And we have held it apart from us for too long. It is not enough to rule. We must also Change."