Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/The Embry Civil War

The Embry Civil War, also known as the Three Days War, was a major armed conflict that began during the Voshkod-Aquilan War, triggered when both Socialist Union of Voshkod and the Federation of Aquila both fought a proxy war on the Embry Archipeligos. Ending with a shorter six seconds battle of nuclear exchange, reducing the islands to a wasteland.

In The Warzone, It serves as a background and origin story for the Minutemen Survivors and the war itself would later become featured in the DLC Tacitus story.

A Flood of Violence
By 1954 V.C., things had been going poorly for the Union, who were on the verge of defeat. Just as the Commonwealth seemed poised on the tip of victory, however, another power stepped into the fray. That power was the Voshkod, already a long-time supporter of the in Embry, and being the founder of the Union without the islander's knowledge. Now, it intervened directly, under the pretext of liberating the archipelagos from the Commonwealth.

With the Aquilans also busy dealing with a Voshkod invasion of their own, only the Commonwealth forces stood in the way of the massive Voshkod Army when they launched the mammoth Anchorage Strategic Offensive Operation. Voshkod forces streamed across the seas in huge numbers, in a massive pincer movement that aimed to encircle and destroy the Commonwealth forces in Anchorage, sweeping in from east and west and overwhelming any Commonwealth presence in a brutal and swift campaign lasting a few weeks against poorly led and poorly equipped forces. In short order, Anchorage was under Voshkod control, and a valuable breathing space had been bought for the Union forces.

The Voshkods were far from done. Simultaneously, the rest of the Voshkod forces swept across the rest of the archipelagos, engaging Commonwealth forces in battle where Kimball's army of illiterate peasants was comprehensively defeated in lopsided engagements, and securing large swathes of territory. The besieged Eagle Commonwealth were beaten back by the combined Voshkod and Red Line Union forces, many of its divisions destroyed or forced to surrender. The tide had been turned against them, with the Voshkod forces securing territory for the Union, who themselves increasingly grew in strength, even as the Commonwealth struggled with the onslaught of the Voshkod forces.

Relief for the Commonwealth finally came in (insert date). On the orders of (insert general), the Voshkod forces withdrew across the border in order to reinforce the beleaguered Voshkod forces in the Aquilan theatre, leaving the Red and Blue Embry forces to fight it out amongst themselves. The Commonwealth had managed somehow managed to hold off the combined Union and Voshkod onslaught, primarily due to the difficulty of advancing in a nation with such poor infrastructure but such large territory; which did more to slow down the Union advance than the Commonwealth ever did, but at considerable cost. The Voshkods had given time for the Union to consolidate their gains, and now the balance of power had shifted.

The Eagle Soars
With the Voshkod withdrawal, the two sides were now left to fight between themselves, though both the Commonwealth and Union forces received substantial aid from the Aquila and the Voshkod, respectively. Using the five years during which the Voshkod was in Embry, the Union were able to build up their strength even as that of the Commonwealth was torn down. While the Voshkods had withdrawn, they had left the Union with substantial quantities of military equipment, in addition to large swathes of territory. The war seemed to have shifted in favor of the Union.

However, in spite of the fact that they were disadvantaged in terms of military hardware, numbers and territory, the Commonwealth had a trump card of their own. Four years of war with the Voshkod Union had brutalized their forces, true, but it had also honed their tactics and skills and left those who had survived the stronger for it (though little could be done to improve Kimball's "tactical brilliance"); the Commonwealth that the Union now faced were experienced and grizzled soldiers, ready and willing to fight in brutal trench warfare against their opponent; the corruption, inefficiency and internal conflict that had previously plagued the Commonwealth save for at the very highest level had been weeded out over those four years; the New California Commonwealth forces were much weaker, but at the same time much stronger. As soon as their own war had come to an end, the Aquilans also provided aid, in the form of large amounts of surplus military equipment and generous loans, to help the Commonwealth get back on its feet as soon as possible, since they didn't want to lose their only foothold on the islands.

The Minutemen on the other hand, were biding their time. Knowing their foes through the use of informants, natives, and the few skirmishes they fough when either side wanted to take their territory, they realized they were outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, and outplanned, and facing either forces head on will wipe them out, but realized that both sides expeditionary forces knew little of their homeland. Thus, with the help of the Railroad, a resistance movement formed by the islands under the Aquilan/Voshkod control, they armed themselves with what they could, making improvised guns out of pipes, turning tractors into tanks, stealing as much equipment as they can from both sides, and trained their forces to use guerilla, hit and run, tactics, doing what they can to make sure the islands they control don't fall under either side, and hopefully one day free their homeland from the shackles of the Voshkod and Aquilans.

Rise of the People
With the aim of crushing the weakened Commonwealth, and the unimportant Minutemen, once and for all, (insert general) launched a massive offensive against Commonwealth territory in (insert darte). Initial gains by the Union forces were rapidly made, as the forces of the Union overran the islands and captured several towns before meeting major resistance from the Commonwealth and Minutemen.

The Union forces were in for a rude shock, however, when they attempted to capture several Commonwealth and Minutemen-controlled cities. Attempted assaults by Union forces to take the cities were forced back repeatedly by the Commonwealth, digging into long trench networks, mining areas the enemy was expected to be passing through, setting up traps and ambushes to funnel Union troops into selected kill zones, placing ambushes in strategic points and making use of other tactics. While the Minutemen had hemmed them every step through a combination of guerilla and raiding, artillery, and using the terrain they know.

By the end of (insert date), the Union had suffered major setbacks in trying to take the Commonwealth-controlled cities. Despite their advantages in numbers and equipment, the tactics and experience of the Commonwealth forces allowed them to decimate Union forces larger than them. Though the Union succeeded in capturing several cities, the victories were largely pyrrhic, with an immense price in blood paid for victory. Moreover, thousands of experienced Union soldiers were sacrificed in the offensive, something which forced the Union to turn increasingly to using uneducated, untrained conscripts, who were far less capable than the hardened soldiers they replaced.

War of Attrition
By January 1957 V.C., the Commonwealth had rebuilt its strength sufficiently to force the Union back and begin to go on the offensive. Commonwealth forces would first send in small squads to weaken the Union or Minuteman and cause chaos; once the Union or Minuteman forces had been sufficiently weakened and in disarray from the attacks, the Commonwealth would then push forward, forcing back the confused Union forces before digging in to secure their territorial gains.

Battle-hardened Commonwealth forces clashed with masses of ill-trained Union conscripts and elite Minuteman soldiers, resulting in staggering casualties for all three sides. However, while the Commonwealth had been able to take back several portions of territory captured by the Union, the Union still had an advantage in territory and numbers. When the Commonwealth attempted to launch several major offensives, Commonwealth divisions would find themselves cut off and surrounded by the numerically superior Union and crushed, not the least helped by Aaron Kimball's continued interference in the operations of his generals; constantly demanding that encircled forces fight to the death rather than retreat and consolidate. The most devastating of these defeats was the 6-month Siege of Hoover, in which the Commonwealth’s New 6th Army, after managing to take Hoover, found itself cut off and encircled by Union forces, finally forced to surrender after nearly 300,000 civilian deaths. Facing such devastating setbacks and the loss of thousands of experienced troops, the Commonwealth grew increasingly reluctant to hold territory, turning more and more to planting explosives on their territory and letting their foes capture them, leading to scorched earth that bloodies the Union.

Stalemate and Desperation
By (insert date), the battle lines between Commonwealth and Union seemed effectively set in stone. Commonwealth mobility tactics had been refined to the point of universally applicable science; despite numerous offensives by the Union, most attempts at breaking through the Commonwealth lines were met with failure.

While both the Aquilans and the Voshkod continued to support their respective sides, by this time the support was a mere trickle compared to the torrent it had once been. With steadily increasing casualties for no apparent gain on the sides of both the Commonwealth and the Union, the war seemed to have stalled. Commonwealth held areas seemed virtually unassailable, yet the Union continued to enjoy superiority in numbers and hardware.

1956 came, and with no noticeable gains by either side, each side redoubled their efforts to destroy the enemy, resorting to increasingly questionable tactics and weapons; people were losing sight of what they had been originally fighting for, and all that mattered now was winning the war and crushing the enemy. The Embry Civil War was about to enter an even more bloody and horrific phase.

The next year would see weapons and warfare the likes of which have never been seen before or since. Scientists on both sides delved into forbidden and dark sciences on the orders of desperate leaders, developing increasingly esoteric technologies to fight the enemy with; from scramblers to Hellmouths to the ability to literally transform their soldiers into weapons, known as the forced evolutionary virus (FEV) whose creation would later be known as super mutants; however, the war remained unwinnable. No technology or weapon, however, powerful, could turn the tide of the war in either side's favor, it seemed. What the leaders of the Blue and Red Embry hoped for was a weapon or technology so powerful that it would end the war in one, swift stroke.

And though no one could have known it at the time, both sides would get exactly what they wanted. As the Elsword Empire unveiled a new weapon to end the Voshkod-Aquilan War.

Nuclear Winter
After a year of unrelenting conflict, the Embry Civil War came to its devastating, final conclusion. Both sides had gained what they wanted; the power to end the war in a single strike, though information on how they managed to procure the nukes was wiped out in the fallout, and both sides used it. Perhaps it was a good thing, as it finally put a stop to the war, and in particular the unspeakable horror of the last year.

No one can say for certain who dealt the first blow, but on the (insert date), 1957, two planes were launched, one by each side. Each carried a bomb, and together they would forever change the course of history. Within minutes of each other, (insert city) and (insert city) were razed to the ground by atomic bombs. Millions of lives were gone, in an instant. Over the next 3 fateful days, every last remaining major and minor city in Embry was destroyed by atomic bombs.

The Embry Civil War ended four days later. Not because of diplomatic negotiations, nor because of a surrender document being signed. It ended because there was simply no one left to fight anymore. The death toll was in the hundreds of millions, destruction was estimated in the trillions of dollars, and an entire country the size of the Aquilan, as well as one of the many civilizations in the world, had been wiped off the face of the earth. The final note had been sung, and the finale concluded. Embry was no more...