THE LEADERS

Alexander deBankole, Minister for Defence of the Systems Alliance

Alexander deBankole was appointed as Minister for Defence in September 2172 as part of the cabinet of Consul Nozomi Taro. He was unusually well suited to the job for a politician, being both a combat veteran of the Cold War, the last global conflict on Earth, but also a highly educated man in his own right. A joint European and African citizen, he stood at the very heart of the human establishment as the reliable man, and was regarded as such by both political allies and opponents. Although a pragmatic individual, he differed from his direct superior on several issues. Taro's ruthless and Machiavellian nature clashed with his own more cooperative personality. Despite clashes of personality, the two did get along, which is perhaps why the Consul selected him to oversee the planning of both the campaign on Anhur and the subsequent operations in the cluster. Others have suggested that Taro placed her trust in deBankole as a test, to see whether or not he could make the hard choices that would be necessary for the war's success.

The task before the Minister was far from a small one. A month before war broke out, neither the Cabinet nor the Alliance High Command had any plans for Anhur beyond a small naval blockade. Tensions had flared up on the planet for all eleven years it had been colonised for, but racial conflict in particular was at an all-time low when slavery was imposed and the Anhur Rebellions began. To make matters more complicated, the Eagle Nebula was on the other side of the galactic core to both human space and batarian territories. However, the Alliance was significantly closer, and the Hegemony was blocked from accessing it from either salarian space or the Terminus Systems by human naval power. While this did mean that batarian reinforcements were likely to be small to non-existent, it also meant that the Alliance had no nearby bases from which to resupply the campaign's effort. Long supply lines would hamper the military effort if any real disruption was felt against them. There were real fears that the Terminus pirates would intervene with their limited naval power against supply dumps and cargo vessels.

Exacerbating these problems was the Citadel Council's disapproval of the war. The asari, whom controlled the majority of the relay routes in and out of the Eagle Nebula, outright refused to allow human military forces to pass. They protested the manner in which the batarian invasion of Elysium had been handled. The Alliance had an existing treaty with the salarians for military use of their space until mid-2177, opening up the only other safe route to Anhur for a limited time. Taro had appealed to the salarians to sign a longer term deal, but their counteroffer was obscene in its terms, most likely as a result of pressure from the turian and asari governments. Rather than take the offer, as the dalatrasses likely hoped would happen, deBankole advised rejecting it. Hobbling the entire war effort for a single world would be an absurdity, he said. An alternative plan would have to be formulated, one that could work within the timetable of the treaty. DeBankole would construct such a plan.

There were other logistics problems that the Minister would have to account for. The most urgent was the dire need for ships of all classes across the entire theatres of operations in the Verge and the border with the Terminus Systems. Construction of the full complement of vessels for the Eighth Fleet was continuing apace, but it still would be not enough. The Alliance could choose to cut off the Hegemony from the rest of the galaxy, or conduct a colony hopping campaign on a continuous basis. It could not do both at the same time. DeBankole's position on this matter was clear. Establish local space superiority, and then leave the ground fighting to the Army without the benefit of significant orbital support. The policy was popular with both the Navy and the Army, as the former had little wish to spread its assets thin against such a determined enemy, while the latter had thought its role was diminishing in the face of the naval stand-off. Anhur would be the test of this strategy, and it would remain controversial both during and after the war.

Political optimism for the campaign was minimal, however. The Eagle Nebula also connected to the Terminus Systems, which would allow the enemy to resupply as long as their credit held. Much was made of this fact, particularly during the fighting itself. There was a lot of complaining in both the Alliance Parliament and the media that the campaign was a sideshow to the attack against the heart of the Hegemony that was so desperately needed. Civil discourse was unappreciative of the serious challenges facing the military in defeating the batarians. There were calls for an immediate direct attack on the Kite's Nest. Both Consul Taro and Minister deBankole stood firm. Such an assault would have been utter folly. Controversy also raged over the hiring of the Eclipse mercenary company before the outbreak of the war, particularly from the government's own left wing. The announcement of full Alliance combat operations did much to quiet these objections, but did not quell them entirely, particularly with the mercs' continued presence in the field.

Despite these challenges, the campaign on Anhur would see the Minister's reputation soar from that of a junior, technocratic figure in the halls of the Alliance to that of a candidate worthy of the consulship itself. The speed with which victory was won, the enemies which would be vanquished, the people liberated, even the brutality of the combat and its aftermath, all would raise Alexander deBankole to the highest levels of esteem, both from his fellow humans and among other species. Little did the galaxy know that one of those who would lead them through the darkest times imaginable was now staking his political career on a little world in the Eagle Nebula. Nor was he the only future hero of the Reaper War with his chips on the table.

The Na'hesit, Anhur Corporate Congress

Anhur in 2176 was ruled collectively by a large and nebulous organisation of corporations collectively known as the Corporate Congress, or the Na'hesit in batarian, literally "We, the Merchants". This reflects the stormy circumstances under which the world was colonised, and the compromise solution that the Citadel Council imposed when the matter was brought before them for arbitration. In 2165, the year of humanity's full entry in the galactic markets, Anhur was being settled by the Batarian Hegemony, or more specifically, several merchant houses associated with the top ranks of that state at the time. The conflict with humanity was still largely a cold one, and the entry of the new species into the arena meant that colonisation had become that little bit more complicated.

Arguments over who should colonise and control the world began. The Alliance argued that Anhur was closer to their space, and that if a non-Council species was to be awarded it, it should have been them to take receipt. The batarians pointed to the huge 'gift' that the Council had allowed humanity to take of the garden worlds that the species had colonised before the First Contact War, not to mention the expansion into the Skyllian Verge at their expense. The solution was that neither the Hegemony nor the Alliance would be given sovereignty over the world. It was instead to be ruled jointly between the sponsoring corporations from both species as well as a conglomerate from the Terminus Systems. This arrangement would have serious political consequences, particularly where the priorities of the government were concerned. Thus, the Anhur Corporate Congress was born.

Contrary to expectations, the new regime's various factions became extremely friendly to one another. They had many shared interests and concerns. The first issue to unite them was defence against the Terminus mercenaries and pirates, which threatened their prosperity. Anhur lay on the shortest safe relay route from the asari-held section of the Terminus to both human and batarian space. After they had made their arrangements for defence by founding a common security and police force, which was by no means lacking, their direct economic interests began to intertwine. Competition and antitrust laws were stripped down, as the bigger players moved to consolidate power. They were joined by wealthy rebels from both the Alliance and the Hegemony, looking to escape the regulations of the former and the tyranny of the latter. The colony became a haven for the disgruntled person of means, and an alternative to asari-dominated Illium.

In a war between the human and batarian states, one might be under the impression that a colony such as Anhur would prefer neutrality. Certainly, the batarian merchants in particular had no love for the Hegemony. As the conflict with humanity heated up, more and more batarian merchant houses chose to relocate to Anhur, Omega or Illium. This trickle became a surge in the aftermath of the First Verge War, when Arch-Hegemon Ar'dra began his purges and dissolved the Council of Greaters on Khar'shan. However, the colony's economic rivals were not idle once its prosperity became a clear threat to their own bottom lines. Slavery in the Terminus, particularly on Illium and via Hegemony-backed middlemen, began to eat into the profits of the Corporate Congress. Thus began the colony's inevitable descent into conflict with the Systems Alliance.

At first, the colony began tightening its belt. Cutbacks on services not deemed of direct benefit to the corporations were instituted, mainly affecting entertainment and some beautification projects at first. However, it was an idea that found traction elsewhere soon enough. Healthcare, education, utilities, and child benefits were lowered, eliminated or taxed. Between 2172 and mid-2175, these remained tolerable to the majority of the low-paid earners on Anhur, due largely to low prices. The real driving factors behind the Corporate Congress' fatal move were crime and emigration. As poverty increased on the colony, so too did crime. The government responded by vastly increasing its hold on the populace via its police forces, eventually expanding to paramilitaries and mercenaries to maintain security at key facilities and in large cities. The crime combined with the crackdowns encouraged the beginnings of a wave of emigration, particularly among those with families, who feared for their safety.

This presented a dual problem to the rulers of Anhur. On the one hand, they saw their labour force realising that prospects were better outside the colony. Emigration was a small issue going forward, but indicative of the world's future if they did nothing to change their ways. They needed to address it. On the other hand, competition with Terminus worlds was growing more fierce by the year. The colony did not have the advantage of the Citadel's protectionist tariffs on goods coming out of the unaligned worlds. Exports were also threatened from Illium, which undercut labour costs significantly with its legal slavery system. A system that did not seem to violate the rights of the indentured servants to an unacceptable degree, in the eyes of the human leaders of the Corporate Congress. Their batarian counterparts were entirely used to slavery to begin with, being from a culture with a strict caste hierarchy with slavery inherent in the system.

Thus, the Na'hesit attempted to solve both the problem of emigration and make itself more competitive by attempting to establish a system of indentured servitude nearly identical to that seen on Illium. To this end, the Corporate Congress lowered the minimum wage to zero and declared all but the shortest contract terms on workers within a set range of earnings to be indefinite. Nearly 60% of the populace became slaves almost overnight, in a startling series of events. To quell the notion that these workers would become chattel slaves, particularly among humans, the measures taken to reduce the budget were reversed at the same time. Healthcare, utilities, education and child benefits were restored almost to the levels previously enjoyed. The labour cost savings and the monopolisation of the domestic market more than covered the costs of such a measure. This would stop any ideas of rebellion, it was hoped. Among elite batarians, it was assumed that their fellows would simply accept the new order, as it was still infinitely better than living as low caste scum in Ar'dra's new Hegemony. Both humans and batarians were disgusted and outraged by their new status, defying their masters' expectations almost immediately.

A greater miscalculation could not be imagined.

The population of the Systems Alliance was infuriated beyond all rationality. Offices of the corporations involved on Anhur were burned by angry mobs all over human space, sometimes with the cooperation of local police forces. Merchandise produced on Anhur was destroyed, often by ditching the containers into the sea in a manner reflective of the Boston Tea Party hundreds of years before. Alliance politicians, scared of and cowed by their electorate, demanded action. None came at first, as the batarian attack on Elysium was mere weeks away and the larger war was about to start. Consul Taro played her cards close to her chest by necessity.

The resistance to the imposition of slavery on Anhur itself started slowly, at first. Humans in particular were hopeful that the Alliance would send a fleet to overthrow the Corporate Congress. It was left to the lower caste batarians to begin the armed resistance in earnest, while the humans protested peacefully. Both were met with varying degrees of force. The violent resistance saw civil rights suspended across the colony. The protests were put down quickly too, as the government realised its mistake but was unable to correct it. Reversal would mean losing power, and the executives had been in charge far too long to allow that. Extensive bombings, sometimes even suicide attacks, began across the planet, carried out by a group of batarians calling themselves the Na'kharit or "We, the Great Ones." The play on words was not an irony lost on their targets. They were soon joined by the Anhur Republican Army, a human group made up of deserters and freed slaves, which began guerilla attacks against the mercenaries and security forces. Together, they formed the Coalition of the Free, or CoF, and declared war against the Corporate Congress on New Year's Day, 2176. The Anhur Rebellions had begun, plunging the world in a devastating civil war.

For a month, the fighting was insignificant and sporadic, especially compared with what was to come. Both sides used the time to recruit and arm themselves with what they could. There was an acute lack of armour, biotics, heavy weapons or air support. The Na'hesit did have some minor orbital firepower, but lacked the sensory equipment to use it properly for bombardments. However, the dynamics were to change. The Hegemony, with the knowledge that the Alliance would likely try to take the world sooner or later when war broke out, sent huge amounts of equipment. These were dispatched using the same ships that would carry the troops to Elysium, in many cases. With Hegemony involvement confirmed, the Alliance began sending weapons too and hired the Eclipse to coordinate training, as well as keep the CoF intact while the batarian plot in the Verge was dealt with.

The game changed again once the Alliance victory at Elysium had been won. The Corporate Congress knew that they would be in the sights of humanity's armies and fleets, though they had no idea when the wrath would arrive. They did not think it would come as soon as it did by a long shot. However, they were not the leaders of a whole world by being flippant about precautionary measures. Contact was made with the Hegemony via their Terminus allies for more support, and it was readily given. Up until the very moment the Alliance's naval net around the Kite's Nest and Viper Nebula closed, batarian ships were transporting matériel to the Na'hesit for the purpose of winning their war.

They used their new found equipment to try and crush the Rebellion before they could be relieved by the Alliance, and had no small success in accomplishing their goal. Open resistance to corporate rule was crushed in four of the five continents of the planet, as well as all the island chains connecting them. There, the abolitionists were forced to resort to terrorist tactics to make a go of poking their enslavers in the eye. The idea behind these moves was simple. Restore order to the planet and climb down from crisis to the greatest extent possible, before the Alliance arrived with fire and brimstone. If the issue was settled before a campaign could be mounted, they hoped to avoid retribution entirely. An entirely feasible plan, if their opponents had not been Nozomi Taro and Alexander deBankole, and if the strategic objective of the Alliance had not been the total subjugation of all batarian colonies outside of the Kite's Nest. The failure of the Corporate Congress to conquer the entirety of Anhur by June 2176 would cost them very dearly indeed. Their legacy in history would be as pariahs to both their species, with even batarian loyalists regarding them as weaklings and caste traitors.