Part 17: Historical Files- The Great Wars on Nares

Historical Files- The Great Wars on Nares

Although modern Narestan society is a peaceful and orderly multiplanetary civilisation, this was not always the case. By approximately 50 YE Narestan society was loosely global, with trade contacts between every major population concentration. The steady process of disintegration of earlier powerful governments which had begun centuries earlier was well under way, as loyalties forged during the early agricultural era eroded as commerce and rationalism advanced. The ability of governments to collect tax revenue from the general population and to enforce effective exclusive control over territory was badly compromised in the more developed portions of Nares by this point in history, forcing governmental power centers into one of two alternate adaptations. Some governments accepted their eroding powers and accepted that further revenues would require making a case to former subjects as clients and customers- several modern security firms still active in Narestan civilisation trace their origins from earlier territorial governments. Others, however, chose to rely on what treasuries, armies, and navies they had to prey on commerce and settlements directly, transitioning from territorial rulers to smaller bands of pirates and robbers establishing fortified strongpoints in the more forbidding and defensible portions of the world.

Local efforts to fight back piracy became a longstanding feature of Narestan civilisation, but nonetheless organised piracy remained a serious problem for well over a century and into the dawn of the industrial age. In 176 YE, a global coalition of militias and security firms dedicated to cooperating against the ongoing problem of piracy was organised, and a major effort to hunt down pirate strongholds and defeat them in detail was launched. While local forces continued to protect transport and shipping in their regions, major forces gathered from all across the world began targeting pirate strongholds one by one, overwhelming them and cutting off their routes of escape. The coalition was finally dissolved in 201 YE, after a force of coal-burning cruisers and destroyers armed with heavy explosive turrets- the latest in shipbuilding technology at the time- mustered by the coalition finally hunted down the last major pirate stronghold on Nares, engaging and destroying a fleet of rather antiquated pirate torpedo boats in the Battle of Nesel Bay. Although outbreaks of criminal extortion and occasional armed skirmishes continued sporadically thereafter, as in any society, the Great War of 176-201 was the last major war fought on Nares.