100 Years Of War

The history of the Astragius Galaxy is a mosaic of destruction in which the key roles of the Hundred Years War were played by the Gilgamesh Confederation and the Balarant Union. This war, the third major conflict in recorded history, started along the Gilgamesh / Balarant frontier in Astragius Year 7113, roughly 500 years since the previous conflict. A territorial dispute over a single star system was the spark that touched off a wild fire. Both sides knew there would be no backing down.

The Balarant were desperate for habitable planets to support its overgrown population, and defeat meant extinction. In the beginning, both sides had spread their influence across a few dozen worlds, so the first 50 years saw only small skirmishes. But in the year 7171, total galactic war erupted with the battle of the B'shutima system.

B'shutima, which had been a base for negotiations, was attacked and laid waste by a Balarant interstellar long range missiles. The Gilgamesh retaliation turned the entire B'shutima system into a bloodbath. From that point on, no planet was safe in the mad rush to claim territory. The conflict lasted many decades thereafter, with both sides deploying ISLM's, defensive satellites, and massive space fleets. Gradually, however, ship-to-ship combat gave way to land battles on increasing numbers of worlds.

This lead to the creation of a new weapon: the Armored Trooper, a fighting machine driven by a human pilot and optimized for ground combat; its designation was VOTOM: Vertical One-man Tank for Offense and Maneuvers. Using a variety of special features and weapons, the ATs provided unprecedented strategic options. On Melkia, a planet aligned with Gilgamesh, a unit was even created specifically to exploit the AT's fighting abilities: the Melkian Division Special Forces. But planet-based combat put an incredible strain on both sides ... and there was no end in sight.

The turning point came in 7198 when the Melkian Federation developed a revolutionary AT called the Scopedog. In only one year, the Scopedog proved itself the deadliest AT ever made. MDSF units were thrown into every possible campaign with unprecedented results. They quickly became heroes of Gilgamesh, the most requested commanders and soldiers in the galaxy. Ultimately, their use of the At determined the final outcome of the entire war. One hundred years after it began, a cease-fire was declared. But this brief time of peace would prove to be merely a respite while the next "generation" of weapon was developed: the Perfect Soldier.

Although it is commonly believed that the war began over territory, the actual reason Gilgamesh and Balarant began fighting was never clear. Typical wartime propaganda notwithstanding, the true mystery lies in the fact that both sides abandoned formal rules and broke all previous patterns of ethical behavior. With reliable records of that period now gone or destroyed, the only remaining evidence of how it began lies in traces of a single, ancient, technologically superior civilization. One planet after another had become swept up in senseless battles throughout the history of the galaxy, and the one constant they all shared was a point of origin with this mysterious civilization ... which began on planet Quent.