AUTHOR'S FOREWORD:
Here's the first part of the next major battle fought by humanity: Elysium! Obviously, there are a couple of changes from the canon, most notably that Elanos Haliat is a turian, not human. This is mainly because he was supposed to be turian in the games, as some of you may know. Beyond that, it all fits with the Battlefield 2183 AU.
Enjoy!
THE VERGE CONFLICT: Battle of Elysium (2176)
On February 22nd 2176, nearly six years after the Battle of Mindoir, combined military forces from the Terminus Systems and the Batarian Hegemony struck at the Alliance colony of Elysium. The brainchild of Elanos Haliat, a turian robber-baron from near the Far Rim with a reputation for organisation of large scale raids, the operation was by far the most ambitious military action ever undertaken by either the batarians or their pirate allies. The intention was to seize the colony, the crown jewel of the Alliance in the Skyllian Verge, and use it as a base from which to roll back human expansion once and for all.
It was proposed as the cement of a new power bloc in the galaxy, a combined Batarian-Terminus axis to stretch from the Kite's Nest all the way to geth space along the galactic north-west corridors. The ambition arose out of the incapability of the Systems Alliance to stamp out the pirates and mercenaries employed by the batarians in the wake of the successful attack on Mindoir. For four years, rival human and batarian employed privateers, pirates and mercenaries fought each other across the Attican Traverse, Skyllian Verge and Terminus Systems, in a conflict now known as the Mercenary War. The failure of humanity to bring the pirates to defeat in sufficient time gave their enemies the confidence to mount a major attack once again.
The batarians and pirate 'lords' would deploy fully half of their combined naval assets, and nearly four million ground troops in total. They would lose almost all of them, including a number of the Hegemony's dreadnoughts. The confidence of their commanders however was not entirely displaced. The battle, albeit fought on the defenders' own terms, came very close to inflicting another humiliating defeat on humanity at a time when such an event would have caused anarchy. As it happened however, the batarians were defeated in detail. The Second Verge War would follow, and the galaxy would hang in the balance for its result, though none knew it at the time.
PRELUDE TO THE BATTLE:
In 2170, humanity suffered a horrendous defeat at the hands of batarian forces under General Gadnalak. Hundreds of thousands had been kidnapped from their homes on Mindoir, and by 2176, only about half had been repatriated under the Council-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended the First Verge War. Humanity's former leader, Consul Anka Gasperi, took her own life in shame. Her Conservative Party split and fell out of favour, eventually dissolving due to electoral defeat, as the general election of 2172 saw the Labour Party come to power. Mindoir, it was proven, had changed humanity forever, in a way that the Occupation of Shan'xi had failed to do. "Liberty or Death" were to be the watchwords of the new administration.
In the Batarian Hegemony, the political consequences were equally severe. It too had fallen under the sway of a new government, one far more ruthless and belligerent. The decadence of the previous decades' leadership was swept away. Confidence that batarians were the greatest species in the galaxy rose sharply, as praises of the victors of Mindoir were sung to the skies and the proxy war against humanity continued to favour the Hegemony's new found ambitions. By 2176, very little could have prevented the Batarians from eventually restarting their open campaigns against the Systems Alliance, so intoxicated with themselves they had become. In addition, ties to the Terminus Systems had grown very strong indeed, as batarian contracts poured wealth into the coffers of pirates and mercenary companies alike. Both parties to the invasion of Elysium had little reason to believe that anything other than a complete victory lay ahead of them.
Mindoir's consequences were not reserved for the three parties to be involved in the fighting to come, however. The year after the attack on the colony, the Hegemony made the formal request that the Verge be transferred to them by the Citadel, as a means to a permanent peace settlement in the region. The plan was a ruse to gain strategic staging areas for the invasion of other human territories, a fact pointed out by humanity's ambassadors and one soon confirmed by Special Tasks Group agents. The request was rejected, with the asari in particular rebuking it with the disdain only they can muster. Elysium, rich and populous, was particularly prized by many in the batarian government, and the denial of this turned the interest in the colony into obsession. This obsession permeated to the highest levels, and soon afterwards, the Batarian Hegemony ended diplomatic relations with the Citadel, effectively making it a rogue state. Treaties, economic agreements, contracts, and in the case of some asari, personal relationships, ended instantly by government decree.
Humanity was aware of batarian ambitions. It engaged mercenaries and privateers of its own to harass their enemy. The lack of direct attacks was due to two factors. The turians were still enforcing the ceasefire agreement, making direct conflict impossible for the moment, though this would not last forever. More important was the need to buy time. The Alliance military was in complete disarray in 2172. Much of its leadership had to resign as a result of involvement in the threatened coup attempts against the Gasperi Administration. The Army and Navy had excellent equipment, but in terms of numbers and pound-for-pound firepower, they were in no shape to fight the batarians in open warfare. Much of the time between 2172 and 2176 was taken up with constructing fleets and armies capable of taking the fight to the enemies of humanity.
Gathering allies was also a priority for the new government. The most notable result was the Treaty of Rayya, a huge leap forward in human-quarian relations. Quarian technical capability greatly aided the human armament efforts after 2173, and would play a crucial role in the coming battle. The Alliance also signed a financial compact with the Vol Protectorate, allowing volus investors an interest in the semi-state defence and colonial companies in return for funding. This provided for even greater expansion of the military than would otherwise have been possible. Meanwhile, confidence in the Big Three Citadel species had been destroyed when they had refused to aid the Alliance counterattack in the aftermath of Mindoir. Human leadership nonetheless tried to improve relations. They failed to secure direct military assistance against the batarians either for a regime change or for the immediate defence of colonies in the Verge. However, year-on-year agreements for transit of Alliance military forces through Citadel space were reached, and would prove decisive for both the Battle of Elysium and the counterattack to come afterwards. In addition to these new alliances and treaties, human intelligence services began cultivating links to various batarian dissident and separatist groups. These were numerous and diverse in nature, from disgruntled ex-military officers forced out by the change in government to religious fundamentalists who viewed the Hegemony as the incarnation of evil in the galaxy. All would prove useful in the coming battle and beyond.
By the end of 2174, the Mercenary War was warming up and the Turian Hierarchy had its fill of playing the barrier between the two sides. The primarchs ordered the withdrawal of their forces, as human successes against the pirates on the defensive became more frequent. Human expansion continued at pace even without the protection of turian peacekeeping fleets, and Elysium's population saw a swell. With the humans looking like they might turn the tide, the batarians began providing direct assistance to the pirates. Old ships were refitted and sold on the cheap, and fanatical "volunteer" squadrons were formed.
All over the Verge, terror attacks and insane frontal assaults against Alliance Navy pickets were launched. Kamikaze attacks by torpedo-carrying fighters, piloted by batarian extremists, became a favourite tactic against the far better armed Alliance ships. In 2175, this paid a handsome dividend. The Alliance fleet carrier SSV Amaterasu was on patrol duty with her cruiser escorts, when it was attacked by a combined batarian-pirate force of a similar size. The carrier group should have been more than capable of driving off the enemy, but the Amaterasu was attacked immediately by fighters dropping out of FTL travel behind the cruiser pickets. While the carrier's point defences destroyed most of the fighters, two managed to crash into the launch sections. The munitions and fuel of the Alliance fighters were set off in a chain reaction by the attack, and the Amaterasu's shields failed. The order to abandon ship was given mere minutes into the battle, as the enemy ships concentrated their fire on the crippled vessel.
The destruction of Amaterasu was significant to the Battle of Elysium in two ways. Firstly, it boosted the already exaggerated confidence of Batarian High Command to the point of belief of divinity in their cause. The powers-that-be were on their side, and nothing could stop them from conquering the Verge from the humans. It was this that allowed Elanos Haliat's proposal to seize a major human colony to be taken seriously. The ship's loss also set off yet another political crisis in the Alliance, with questions asked in parliament and demands for another declaration of war laid down by the hardliners. While the new administration was able to resist this pressure, it also meant that any major batarian attack absolutely had to be detected beforehand, and if possible, reversed into a complete defeat for the invading forces. Planning and preparation for just such a battle began long before word of the attack reached Alliance ears, and was to be entirely vindicated.
