The Council was at war. True, there was no formal declaration, no grand gestures or lofty claims, no exhortation of its citizens to step up and fight, to give their lives. No, the conflict, at that point, was still being fought under the cover of night, of careful censure, of encrypted reports and subterfuge. There was no single, clear-cut enemy, despite the fact that the intelligence agencies agreed on the three main forces intent on destabilizing, if not outright destroying the Council - and their reasons for doing just that, just then, were still considered completely unknown. Unless, of course, people would believe Shepard's findings wholesale - which was problematic for different reasons. After all, insane dictatorial batarians, power-hungry information brokers and enigmatic Collectors were par for the course for the Council races. Eldritch beings from beyond time intent on eradicating sentient life? Not so much. Thus, even if the contents of Shepard's reports were accessible to quite a lot of people with sufficient clearance (or political pull, or enough money), most of those who knew the events only agreed that there was something out there, moving behind the scenes, aiming to shatter the Council's peace, likely as a lead-in to a war similar in scope to the Rachni War or the Krogan Rebellion.
The fronts of this war were many; vicious and bloody conflicts raged from the Council dataspheres to the Citadel Wards to the Terminus and beyond.
Distant colonies of the Terminus and the Traverse (occasionally elsewhere as well) were reporting krork attacks - the beasts were always considered lowlier than vorcha and even more of a pest than the sentient roaches, but now they were swarming in numbers, displaying uncanny tenacity and glimmers of bestial cunnin,; not to mention the occasional references to crude, backfire-prone firearms. Reports about strange weather phenomena, green-tinted energy fields, and unseen titans stomping down to destroy defensive emplacements were discarded as shell-shocked ravings of the survivors. And besides, despite the mounting casualties and property damage, not a single colony world has fallen to the beasts yet, thus they were clearly not an immediate threat.
The Council Archives and their access points were under constant assault by the Broker's people - from spamming brute force assaults to batter down electronic defenses to prototype decryption tools to replacing dedicated personnel. The STG and the Spectres under Jondum Bau managed to keep most of the top secret archives and information from the Broker's agents, but they could not mount a decisive counterattack, as the (suspectedly) Collector-based tech of the invaders required more time to crack.
The shadow war against the Network spread to the main Council worlds as well - the Broker's people supplied material to tabloids, conducted blackmailing operations, and generally tried their level best to rapidly increase and exploit the already-existing tensions between races, factions and individuals of power; or to create tension where there was none present before. The number of suspicious accidents and outright assassinations was mounting, as both sides were forced to employ extreme measures of damage control. The main aim of the effort seemed to be the ousting of Councilor Valern, or at least discrediting the dalatrasses who supported his politics (or for whom he was a spokesperson; hard to tell with salarian politics). While his influence did suffer, and there was debate on Sur'Kesh about recalling him, he managed to stay in power.
Battles were waged in space as well, as the Council fleets clashed with pirates from Omega, batarian slave raids, and Collector attacks. If not for the persuasion of Councilors Zaal'Koris and Tevos, these efforts may have had significant results, while the human and turian governments bogged down the responses in red tape. As it was, Councilors Udina and Sparatus grudgingly set aside their differences, while yelling, cajoling, threatening and arguing with their governments to not interfere with the Council efforts in defending the citizens of various Council races. Thus, raiding parties expecting cumbersome (albeit deadly) turian fleet responses were hit by quick reinforcements from Admiral Hackett's Fifth Fleet - while other slavers expecting easy prey in an Alliance colony were met with overwhelming turian force.
Sure, there were problems, miscommunications, delays, but generally, the military setup held well enough - especially when considering that both the Alliance and the Hierarchy governments were put under serious pressure from within to minimize their contribution to the Council fleets, and just concentrate on defending their own home systems and closest colonies.
As an answer to the voices demanding a build-down of turian commitment, Primarch Fedorian travelled to Tuchanka in person, to formalize a closer working with the emerging krogan alliance led by Clan Urdnot. While there was visible tension and a promise of a future reckoning about the mutual, bloody past, both the Primarch and Spectre Urdnot (and that little tidbit caused quite an uproar) seemed sincere about dealing with the new difficulties first, before revisiting old wounds. Of course, an unnamed source aired information about the turians deploying planet-cracking bombs on Tuchanka in case the krogan were getting expansionist again. Shockingly, Urdnot Wrex laughed it off, and considered it a gesture of respect towards a rather deadly foe. Still, he did insist on the defusing of the bombs - and those who knew him well were quite aware that he had not forgotten the incident and its implications.
Fleet Master Sheridan also rejected the governmental pressure to draw back and focus the Alliance fleets on defending Sol, Arcturus, and maybe a few central, important colonies - especially since that list included places for their political merits (and number of voters), instead of strategic assets. He was very close to being fired when somebody leaked the governmental intentions, and the Alliance colonies (even those on the list) went berserk, rallying behind Udina to prevent the withdrawal. In the end, while Sheridan managed to retain his position and the stance of the Alliance Fleet, he lost control over First and Second Fleets, solely dedicated to the defense of Sol and Arcturus respectively - and strengthened with vessels drawn from the other Alliance forces, leaving Third, Fourth, and Fifth Fleets rather understrength and spread dangerously thin.
With the turians and humans focused on defending the Council territory, offensive operations against the batarians and the Collectors, as well as pirate hunting duty were left to the asari and salarian fleets, respectively.
The first serious push into batarian space resulted in the Battle of Hiba, where the asari dreadnought Cybele and her escort faced with the three known dreadnoughts of the Hegemony, and demolished them with only minor damage suffered, thanks to the upgraded armor, barriers and weaponry. The tables were quickly turned however, when another dreadnought dropped out from FTL, and opened fire on the asari vessels from advanced particle weaponry. The batarian ship employed distinctive lightning weaponry as a close-quarters defense against fighters and guided ordnance, while displaying a disturbingly fast and sophisticated damage control system. The clash ended in a draw; both the batarian dreadnought and the remains of the asari task force limping away.
The Collectors also struck several times, targeting mostly smaller, distant human colonies. While their forces never even approached the fleet beaten back at Fehl Prime, even a single Collector ship was more than a match against a small frontier colony - and they could vanish by the time the relief force arrived. The ships arriving post-raid always found the colony emptied of all human life, with only rather nasty traps left behind.
From deep within the Terminus Systems, rumors started about unknown vessels dropping out from seemingly nowhere, wielding laser and plasma technology far beyond even that of the Alliance, and cloaking systems more sophisticated than even the Normandy-class frigates. As the rumors always mentioned these ships in connection with a destroyed Blood Pack, Blue Sun or Eclipse force, the Council put a rather low priority on investigating whether the unknown vessels were potentially willing allies - after all, the resources were spread rather thin, as it was.
And not just the naval and intelligence assets - the war in shadows also taxed the special forces. The turian Blackwatch repelled several assassination attempts at key military figures (including Primarch Fedorian himself), while Cabalists purged indoctrinated zealots from the chain of command. The STG was fighting a gruelling war of attrition for the datasphere to keep their classified projects from the Shadow Broker. Asari Huntresses clashed with Eclipse Sisters as Jona Sederis incited more and more Maidens to embrace the decadent lifestyle of the Sisterhood and to turn against the hidebound, traditional Matriarchs of the Thirty. The N7s faced an almost-unprecedented rise in cultist activity - and not just on Terra but on Mars as well; both the Prothean Archives and the Noctis Facility had been assaulted by rather well-equipped teams, with impressive cyberwarfare support.
The Council forces were holding the line, true, but all leaders knew that it was a very delicate balance, relying too much on luck for comfort - but there was not much that could have been used as a decisive boost to improve their status.
The Battle of Haestrom would change that.