Fighting for Utopia: the War on Haraway's World

Introduction

Haraway’s World was settled by one of the first long shot missions to leave earth and one of the first attempts to set up a completely new form of society in the colonies. Its founding principles were utopian and pacifistic, seeking a peaceful world, far from the struggles and conflicts still plaguing earth in the mid twenty first century.

Less than one hundred and fifty years after the colonies founding, Haraway was the site, and major participant in, the twenty second centuries largest conflict, and the biggest space battle in human history.

In this article I will examine how Haraway both the events of the War on Haraway and the events of the war it’s self, paying particular attention to how to the transformations it caused to Harawayian Society, and then look to the future.

Prelude

Founding

Haraway was one of the first longshot missions to leave earth. Its colonists were members of the Fifth Wave feminist movement, the last hurrah of the great feminist social movement on earth before true gender equality was finally achieved. Haraway’s founders were fundamentally utopian in their beliefs, seeking to build the perfect society on a distant planet without the conflict and uncertainty that plagued mid twenty-first century earth.

Landing on Haraway they found a beautiful, lush and thoroughly poisonous world and set gamely to the task of making it theirs and them its. The Initial colonisation was entirely transhumanist and they quickly adapted genetic engineering techniques to allow themselves and their children to survive in Haraway’s heavy metal rich environment. Efforts were made to reduce the colonies affect on the alien ecosystem, both for ethical and scientific reasons, and this gave birth to the system of augmented reality that still marks Haraway today, Harawayians were able to carry their civilisation with them in their implanted computers rather than plough over the wonderous alien environment that the colonists had found.

Cities were built however, and the population rapidly expanded, great works of art and culture were created, as was Haraway’s colour system of communitarian transhumanism and direct democratic government. The caste systems origins came from both a technical and social problem. It was observed that in Haraway's relatively mild conditions and with manufacturing systems like fabers, it would become possible for a truly transhuman beings to live essentially alone, without needing contact with anyone else. Further, while it was possible to create a transhuman who would be good at a large range of areas, a specialist transhuman would be far superior in her speciality than a generalist. These two observations combined to lead to the creation of the Colours, both allowing better transhumans and making better community.

Many Harawayians still remember their time of isolation as Haraway’s golden age, without military expenditure or the need for protection from a hostile universe to suck government spending away from the public good, indeed, government its self was limited, with few matters coming before the citizenry for voting, the government’s primary business was to provide necessary resources to all Harawayians and ensure a smooth transition from one job to another.

No era can be entirely without politics however, and Haraway's age of isolation was no exception. While during the early stages the needs of creating a colony overrode any disagreements, as cities developed so did a split between Harawayians who inhabited the outer areas over various issues, including the right of each community to set its own rules and laws and the extent to which these local political structures should be subordinate to central government. Generally, the more travelled and solitary violets supported central government while the more city based Yellows and Blues supported local politics, with the Reds and Greens evenly split. However, political dispute at this time was not really caste based. Instead disagreement was more around local vs. rural divide, with caste based political activism only appearing during the breakdown. In general, Haraway's first sixty years were peaceful but relatively static, a good time to live but without the dramatic economic or technological developments that have marked resent times.

The UN’s Stargazer program and recontact shattered Haraway’s dreams of a splendid, isolated existence forever, and amazed Harawayian public opinion, who were mostly of the opinion that the Post Human's hyperdrive technology was unlikely to be ever viably replicated, let alone improved upon by mere humans. Recontact bought Haraway's first period of rapid political change, strengthening the central government and transport infrastructure and leading to the creation of a space program and Harawayian defence force initially around ten thousand strong.

More and more regular contact with the EU and other colonial actors followed over the next twenty years, and Haraway increasingly traded the drugs and other products of the Harawayian ecosystem for high technology and designs, many of which they rapidly retroengineered with what was seen in many quarters as a complete disregard for intellectual property.

It was not something as tawdry as intellectual property that was to bring war to Haraway however, it was great matters of trade, territory and international law. Specifically the idea that seas off earth could have international waters, and the precise definition of what was owned by the colonists under a UN chartered Colony.

While the Harawayians were willing to synthesise and trade drugs for various EU products they proved notable reluctant to open themselves up to investment, buy up and management by EU corporate interests, and stubbornly committed to doing things their own way. Despite the propaganda spread by various EU sources, the prices they set while high were not excessive, nor supplies kept artificially low. Supplies were however kept under local control, and the level of drugs flowing was certainly not what the EU wanted.

After lobbying by several major EU marine development and pharmaceutical companies, the European Council proved willing to push the UN to apply the UN Convention on Laws of the Sea to off world situations, effectively internationalising Haraway's oceans, and further pressed the claim that those areas of Haraway's World without permanent settlements could not be regarded as sovereign territory. This allowed EU companies to operate freely at sea, deploying massive factory ships which Harawayian regulations had previously prohibited, and set up a number of ports, compounds and outposts to support them and support the land based ecology on various islands and on Beta Continent.

Harawayians were shocked by this invasion, but not initially violent. Peaceful protests, trade embargos and diplomatic negotiation were all tried and eventually failed, and quickly escalated to sabotage, stone throwing and mutual violence. Tension gradually escalated until a Corporate factory fishing vessel, the Pride of Valencia rammed and sunk a Harawayian protest boat, killing all hands.

There was wide spread revolution at this incident among Harawayians, and it was demanded that all off worlders immediately cease operating and withdraw or face action by the self defence force. Unfortunately for Haraway it quickly became obvious that not only were the corporations unwilling to give into its government's demands but they had the tools to make their rejection stick.

War of 2149-51

The three year war on Haraway was a extremely bloody and hard fought. In order to defend their claims against potentially violent transhuman natives, the Corporations bought together a mishmash of formed PMCs and individuals willing to kill for profit. They came from numerous sources, some were soldiers or ex-soldiers, offered higher pay by the corporations than they could earn in an armed force. Others were professional mercenaries of one kind or another, drawn from the more unstable parts of earth and the inner colonies. Finally there were the frontiersmen, those who had been at the head of earth's exploration of space in the 2120s but found the universe thirty years later an all together too safe and boring place.

They are a colourful cast, with figures such as Tim Othendo, Colonel Gerald ‘Jared’ Mcintyre, Artemis Tactical Solutions Group, Shiva Security and a host of others. With corporate propaganda suggesting they were denying necessary medicine to the populations of the core, and general paranoia about transgenics that pervaded EU discourses, not to mention the harsh conditions on Haraway prevented much core media attention being devoted to the conflict and allowed the PMCs a relatively free hand.

Among prominent early incidents was the assassination of Kara Joi, a prominent anti corporate activist by UAV launched missiles, and several other killings of Harawayian leaders, together with the occupation of several Harawayian settlements. The Self Defence Force was able to hold corporate troops from taking over the major cities, though more experienced and better equipped mercenaries took a horrible toll of the previously unblooded Harawayians.

The first year of the war saw battles mostly waged in the forms of small ambushes and bomb attacks against corporate units, ships and bases by often small bands of Harawayian militia, including hostage takings and piracy. The Corporations in turn waged violent reprisals against the local population in an effort to root out guerrilla bands and destroy local morale. While this coercion was successful in some areas, it only escalated attacks in others, and was ineffective in preventing the SDF and the larger guerrilla bands from steadily increasing in skill and equipment.

The turning point in the war is usually regarded as June the Ninetieth 2150, when a lift vehicle carrying ammunition to Shiva Security troops operating on Bazumba Island was struck by a submarine launched ground to space missile, crashing on the landing zone and killing both the crew and over two hundred ground staff.

From then on the war entered a different tone, with corporate security elements increasing suffering defeat against now experienced, well equiped and often heavily augmented Harawayian forces, as what had once been a relatively low intensity insurgency rapidly turned into a full scale industrial war.

On March Tenth 2151 Harawayian Self Defence Force regulars and citizens militia looked down from their fighting positions on the forested hills of Javindra as the final heavy lift vehicles carrying Martins Pharmaceutical personnel departing for their jump ship beyond Haraway’s orbit. The encampment was the last major off world corporate facility on Haraway. Slowly, word spread that the last invaders had retreated. The Harawayian self defence force had come a long way from the small, inexperienced and often poorly led force it had been in 2149.

It was a two weeks since the airstrike that had obliterated Xenologic Resource’s primary compound on Kirsa Atoll, almost two months since Colonel Gerald ‘Jared’ Mcintyre and his famous Expanse Tactical Solutions, more commonly known as the Ravens had been slaughtered to a man in an ambush by an SDF armoured battalion on Beta Continent, now all that was left was to hunt down the last pockets of corporate dead enders, those unable or unwilling to evacuate with their parent companies.

Haraway’s political elite was less cheerful. Despite military success, the brutal nature of the fighting, which featured targeting of civilians on both sides, and shortages of Harawayian produced pharmaceuticals had drawn the attention of the EU, and with it the UN security council. Intervention by the great powers was commonly expected to be only a matter of time, and the business of steeling the population for another round of fighting after victory, not to mention military preparations for engagement against one of Earth’s super powers was a daunting prospect.

The war between Haraway’s government and the various corporate interests that sought to claim the planets natural bounty had been fierce, claiming over a million civilian lives over a three year period, and seen far more than its fair share of atrocities committed against Harawayian civilians. Now, facing the prospect of their hard one gains being overturned by great power intervention the Harawayians prepared for another, much longer and bloodier struggle against the might of the EU.

Security Council resolution 9555 passed in mid December, despite Harawayian diplomacy, and provided for the creation of an international force to stabilize Haraway, enforce the UN convention on the Laws of the Sea and ‘protect legitimate business interests’. A force led by the UK and Turkey was being assembled and had made its first jump away from earth when the breakdown hit, leaving them stranded and plunging Haraway back into isolation.

ZOCU and the Magnate War

While the Breakdown saved Haraway from invasion it caused a serious political squabble. Haraway became split between those factions who believed that they could return to the way they’d lived before recontact and sought to put the war behind them of forces and those more farsighted individuals who believed that they could no longer hide from the rest of the universe, and that one way or another the Breakdown was a temporary phenomena. The former group coalesced around the name Restorationists while their opposition called themselves the Progressives.

As well as long term policy problems there were more short term worries, first the continued existence of several of the largest and most heavily armed guerrilla bands as private individuals, but still with their weapons, and secondly the growing demands of Harawayian's of the red (physical) caste who had shouldered the brunt of the brutal fighting and taken most of the causalities (with corporate units often simply killing people they believed to be Reds on sight) demanding a greater say in the political and economic life of Haraway which up to now they had been somewhat excluded from due to their lesser mental and social attributes, and their lack of the levels of inherited cash and prestige possessed by the violets.

Weary of warfare, the public initially supported the Restorationists, who's program included heavy cuts in the self defence force and forcible disarmament of the remaining guerrillas. While there were no outright clashes between guerrillas and SDF units, the situation became increasingly tense, with some guerrilla units taking to the hills.

Despite this, the Restorationists were increasingly able to institute their agenda, cutting the space program and the SDF to levels that would only be able to deal with the remaining guerrillas, and pushing for a return to the old style of Harawayian living. There was a general belief at the start of the breakdown that it would last forever, or at least a very long time, indeed, perhaps it was even directly caused by the posthumans, annoyed at how badly humans had used their gifts. Guerrilla bands were eventually disarmed and careful diplomacy and negotiation defused the potential for military conflict. Out of contact for the next several years the Progressive's agenda seemed increasingly irrelevant to a population sick of war.

This situation changed dramatically when LNS Hydra in system bringing a diplomatic party from Londenium in November of 2159. The very fact that FTL travel still existed caused a brief panic on Haraway, but skilful diplomacy by the Londenium embassy was able to calm most of the immediate fears and strike a deal with the Progressives. The Progressives in turn had been in negotiations with red rights groups for some time, and had gradually begun gaining ground using equal treatment and non-discrimination (two founding principles of the colony) to drive their agenda forward. The Arrival of the Hydra proved them right about several other issues and the presence of the Londenium Delegation and Red Rights allowed the Progressives to begin developing their program in earnest, with the SDF expanded again, equal rights provisions for all castes and various educational and welfare provisions.

Without theta dust deposits of its own, Haraway was reliant on Londenium for Theta dust, but never the less it’s general technology grew by leaps and bounds, with great advancements in transhumanism, bioroids and AI, and a vast improvement in space industry. The first slipways was contructed in orbit above Home Island in 2161, with its products, the destroyers Athena and the Isis The Athena would historically make the trip to Londenium in 2162 bringing Haraway’s representatives to the Council of Londenium for the formation of ZOCU. While somewhat inferior to Londenium designs, they proved quite capable in combat.

The Isis had its own historic moment of a darker kind in 2165 when it became the first Harawayian Space Warship to fire in anger as part of the Harawayian contingent sent to Nidoras, successfully engaging several Magnate naval vessels. The Harawayian Two Hundred and Fifth Brigade also proved their metal on the ground, its members being one of the few groups capable of coming close to matching magnate super soldiers in physical ability. The Two Hundred and Fifth was engaged in many actions, culminating in the battle of New Frederiksberg, in which it held against two Magnate infantry divisions for three days with heavy allied aerospace support before being relieved by the Londenium Forty Sixth Combat Frame Division.

Harawayian officers at Nidoras were extremely impressed by the performance of the OMF-4 Peltast which they witness first hand at the battle of New-Frederiksberg, and with the liberation of Vrijheid diplomatic efforts were rapidly begun to secure both a number of frames and a licence to produce them domestically. Despite some wrangling with Londenium Metals a licence for domestic production was eventually secured, along with an initial delivery of thirty six frames from Londenium, within four years, the production line was fully established and Harawayian SDF units were deploying large numbers of Peltast including their own specialist variants such as the underwater adapted Peltast-Marine, with design studies being conducted on the first all domestic Harawayian mecha.

Haraway’s military build up continued into the 2170s, with more star ships being produced, including the iconic Concord class, and a series of military reorganisations culminating in the Harawayian Self Defence Force being split into three branches, the Army, responsible for operations on land and lower atmosphere, Aerospace Force responsible for space craft, and the Navy, responsible for sea based defence of Haraway’s vast oceans, and including a substantial marine component.

Indeed, despite their reorganisation, each of Haraway’s branches continued to include elements of the other three, with the Navy and Aerospace Force deploying Marines and Espaiter infantry and mobile suits while the army included not just gunships but interceptors and flying mobile suits.

This period also saw the second stage of the red rights movement, with increased political attacks on what was seen as non-overt forms of discrimination such as lack of encouragement for Reds in maths and science classes in their education, and affirmative action in the professions. This equalisation in many ways went hand in hand with the increasing nationalism and militarism of Harawayian society, culminating in the creation of the triservice system.

Despite this rather hazy institutional divide, by the end of the 2170s Haraway had built up a very strong military force. It was just as well, as the end of the breakdown bought a renewal of their decades old conflict with Europe.

Before the Thunder: 2181-2184

Thirty years after its creation, Resolution 9555 was widely regarded as a dead letter, however as conflict on New Mercia worsening, and PACT and the EU becoming increasingly concerned over the level of military force controlled by ZOCU, it was resurrected as a way to deploy forces to Haraway. The initial force was a composite UN group, UNSFH, or UN Stabilisation Force Haraway, with six thousand troops including a mix of contingents from various European and third country forces with what became a fairly limited mandate.

Haraway reluctantly allowed this force to deploy to the various uninhabited islands, but the government issued a warning, sanction by popular vote that any attempt to restart resource exploitation operations under the guise of UNSFH would be met with all necessary means to prevent it, a threshold the EU was not willing to push, and which EU public opinion would not initially bear.

The next four years saw several small boarder incidents in space and on the ground, ranging in size from a confrontation between a flight of Peltasts and a flight of Maelstroms too a company level fire fight between a unit of Harawayian Army troops who got lost on exercise and strayed too close a UN position and an equal sized force of Ugandan troops.

The confrontations increased in severity and frequency up to 2185, but allowed the Harawayian armed forces to gain valuable information on EU equipment and tactical doctrine, not to mention the strengths and deficiencies of their own equipment. With the possibility of Kanon coming under siege, Haraway created several varients of the Peltast in anticipation of the need to fill gaps in their forces, most notably the improved Peltast-H model which would see much of the war's initial fighting before the Hoplite could enter the field in numbers.

The new mobile suit's came none too soon, the first wings of Peltast-H were just undergoing work up when resolution 11079 passed the UN security council and the ZOCU war began all across the Expanse.

2185: War in Earnest

As soon as the first PACT forces landed on Kanon on February 14th, the war begun in earnest. Not wanting the EU forces suspected to be only days away to have a secure drop zone, the Harawayian first issued an ultimatum requiring all UN forces to surrender and be disarmed, and when the twelve hour deadline ran out, the Harawayian armed forces launched an immediate strike against all UN positions.

Several UN units from third party nations did surrender rather than join a war they considered not their own, while artillery, air and space strikes lashed down on the positions that refused to capitulate, where most UN troopers were already sheltering in prepared positions due to the expected assault.

After the bombardment Harawayian stormed the remaining encampments against stiff resistance, over the next three days the remaining defensive positions were overrun, though the battle was unexpectedly fierce with the Indonesian contingent being wiped out after refusing to surrender and elements joint Franco-Dutch force managing to break out into the hills of Blue Trees while their comrades held back the Harawayians. Three days later the EU relief force arrived, covered by several divisions of cruisers it would form part of the numerous spoiler attacks launched by the EU fleet in order to facilitate Admiral Mackenzie's push to Londenium.

With most ZCM forces pulled back to defend Londenium and Kanon, and with several skirmishes having already shown that even the upgraded Peltast-H being unable to properly push through EU air defences the Harawayian aerospace force declined to engage the EU force in open space, preferring to maintain the orbital parameter above Home and Bazumba Islands and their shipyards. The convoy was able to successfully make orbit, pinning down Harawayian forces with orbital fire and successfully landing four divisions, with a total of around eighty thousand men.

The compared to the mostly uniform nature of the PACT forces invading Kanon, the initial EU force deployed to Haraway was an eclectic mix of different units drawn from across the Union, consisting of a solid core of elite marine infantry, trained to fight in the island conditions they found on Haraway.

The core of the force was the British Royal Marines of Three and Five Commando Brigades and the a divisional level force from the Spanish Infantería de Marina. As well as these formations from the French, Italian, Turkish and Portuguese Marines, a Swedish infantry division inexplicably posted to the tropical paradise of Haraway, a battalion of British Paratroopers who were quiet unwilling to see their rivals in the Marines grab all the glory, and a mixed collection of German, French and Belgium light armour units equipped with hover craft and other amphibians.

The European combined force (designated European Colonial Corp. Two in official documents) was perhaps better equipped for local conditions than their counterparts on Kanon, with several attachments from the EU's terrestrial navies equipped with everything up to small frigates to provide transportation and sea control, and was command by two strong willed and experienced officers who by all accounts loathed one another's company.

General de Ejército Eduardo Amenabar, a Spaniard was in overall command of the invasion, by all accounts an extremely patriotic man and a devote Catholic, Amenabar had first risen to fame as a Captain when he'd led a rescue team to retrieve a group of European parliamentary observers who'd helicopter had been shot down by insurgents in the Kurdistan War of 2143. Amenabar was on record as despising both the concept of transgenics and the many social experiments in the Expanse of which Haraway was the most obvious to the European public, but also for his strict adherence to both the letter and spirit of international law and rules of engagement, at point having sacked a full colonel who had called an artillery strike on a civilian village they allegedly took fire from.

On the other hand Lt. General William Seaton of the Royal Marines was a pragmatist, and had participated in several somewhat murky special operations during the Breakdown, working closely with the SAS and SBS. He was a thoroughly apolitical officer, but apparently devoted to the British state and the European idea in general. Seaton bought a certain ruthlessness to operations on Haraway, and his personality seems to have been better suited to the high intensity ground fighting that he found there than Amenabars, but he and his commander were unable to form a good working relationship, and while political considerations prevented Amenabar from sacking Seaton, it's know they argued extensively.

Commanding the Harawayian operations on the ground was Marshal Leona Malki, overall commander of the Harawayian army. The Yellow caste offspring of a pair of Red parents, Malki was by all accounts the most skilful of Haraway's wartime service leaders. Working closer with Admiral Reiko Tenmo of the Harawayian navy she proved a skilful and highly aggressive counter for the battle seasoned EU commanders.

Initial EU operations saw the EU's forces landing in several drop zones, largely uncontested by Harawayian forces who pulled back to avoid major attrition from orbital strikes, except on Blue Forest, where Harawayian forces still pursuing the remains of the Franco-Belgium UNSFH contingent became caught up in a fierce battle with Royal Marine Commandos and Turkish Marines landing to relieve them. After several hours and heavy losses on both sides, Harawayian forces pulled back to defensive positions around Miranda's Crater, leaving the field to the Europeans.

The next few months saw a series of ambitious European offensives push the European parameter out across multiple islands. Despite successes these offensives saw heavy causalities on the European side, including several cruisers lost in fierce orbital battles during Harawayian sallies from their orbital parameter or EU attempts to penetrate it.

The fiercest of these battles took place during the assault on New Reykjavík, an industrial centre which the Harawayians could not allow to fall into enemy hands. On May the 4th the Europeans launched a major assault on the island with both airborne and amphibious forces supported by mass orbital fire. This assault had been anticipated by Marshal Malki's staff, the Harawayians proved to be well readied for the European push. On the ground regular two combined arms divisions s lay in wait for the EU landing force and several GTO submarines, together with a concentrated spaceborne assault had been prepared to strike at the bombardment line.

A concentrated mobile suit strike combined with GTO fire and supporting barrages from Haraway's navy was effective at driving off and in some cases sinking the EU bombardment squadron but the Peltasts involved took heavy causalities. Without orbital fire however, the EU ground and naval assault turned into a disaster, with the loss of two of their surface combatants, the Frigates HMS Devon and HMS Wiltshire and with the EU ground forces being all but thrown back into the sea, even veteran EU units proved unable to cope with skilled and heavily augmented Harawayian regulars without indirect fire superiority. As a result of the battle, 42 Commando virtually ceased to exist, and most of the other units involved were mauled, barely managing to withdraw.

The battle of New Reykjavík ended the first phase of the fighting and stopped the EU's ground push towards Landing and Bazumba Island's cold. The decision was made on the EU side to wait for additional reinforcements and fleet elements, and for the destruction of Londenium's fleet and drive yards, now thought to be only a month away before continuing the offensive.

Unfortunately for the EU, this was not to be, the attack on Londenium would be a disaster, and already OMF-6 Hoplites were beginning to arrive on Haraway and be produced in numbers locally, a development which would change the balance of the war both on the ground and in space.

The Island War

The destruction wrought on the main EU fleet at Londenium was a grave shock to EU forces everywhere, but on Haraway it proved particularly problematic. Amenabar had been counting on the Deep Space Fleet, once it had finished at Londenium to solve some of his operational problems on Haraway. Once it's massive battleships had wrested control of the sky from the Harawayians, movement and fire support on the surface would prove much easier.

With the Deep Space Fleet now definitively not coming, the EU forces had to rethink their strategy, more supplies and troops would need to be shipped in and a long ground campaign would have to be prepared. Despite operations around New Mercia, the EU was able to grant the request for additional troops, and despite mounting raids and GTO fire against the drop zones, EU troop numbers had risen to almost two hundred thousand by the end of the year.

Meantime, however, their perimeter was shrinking. A series of lightning offensives using the new Hoplite together with surface bombardment from the Harawayian battleship Landing and other Harawayian space assets achieved blitzkrieg like success against several EU held Islands, pushing back their parameter towards their initial LZ, and liberating most of the remaining major Harawayian settlements that had previously been occupied.

EU forces also found surviving on Haraway difficult. The semi-toxic nature of the air, the high heavy metal content of just about everything together with often unfriendly and toxic wildlife caused numerous causalities and morale problems, exacerbated by often unexpected attacks by Harawayian partisans or standoff ordinance.

Despite these setbacks, the EU expedition launched a new offensive in February of 2186, building up forces along a broad swath of mostly uninhabited islands before pushing against the Archipelago, site of most of Haraway's major settlements. Fierce fighting raged across Haraway for most of 2186, with numerous offensives and counter offensives launched by both sides. Despite being outnumbered, the Harawayians generally got the better of these engagements, as both their superior augmentation and the growing superiority of their tactical doctrine took their toll on the EU offensives.

With causalities mounting Seaton was able to prevail on his superior to launch one last all out assault against home Island, bypassing the majority of Haraway's defences and hopefully decapitating the regime. The operation was dubbed Operation Torch, after a famous amphibious assault in the Second World War, and was scheduled to begin in Febuary of 2187.

The Space War

The battle in space was just as hard fought as the one on the ground, but on a much smaller scale. Skirmishes, convoy raids and small actions by fleet divisions took place over the whole of the Haraway System throughout 2185 and 2186. While Harawayian aerospace command was never able, or rather, never willing to take the causalities required to win full space control, they did cause a steady attrition on EU forces. Harawayain documents from the time show clearly that this was a strategy fully in keeping with the desires of Harawayian Army and Navy planners, who believed that continuing EU reinforcements would put a continual, crippling drain on EU resources.

Haraway suffered losses as well, as the EU fleet gradually improved its air defences and tactics, and begun to introduce the Lambert mobile suit and implement upgrade packages for the Maelstrom interceptor. Despite this Admiral Kimmel was able to preserve the bulk of the Harawayian fleet, fighting a relatively conservative battle and trading better than even against her EU opponents.

This did however allow the steady influx of EU forces to continue, and EU operational security was initially able to disguise the true extent of this build up this build up from the Harawayians. It proved an unpleasant surprise when they did learn of it.

2187: Victory on the ground

In November of 2186, the first Harawayian OMF-6H Hera high speed mobile suits were deployed as both interceptors and high speed recon craft. Originally designed to interdict a EU bombing campaign that never really materialized the extremely fast but relatively ungainly Hera proved its worth against high flying EU units and as a recon craft, especially when refitted with passive stealth coatings imported from Hampshire or Heaven's Shore.

By late December, several recon off these flights over the EU strongholds at Blue Trees and Medora detected the massive scale of EU build up and preparations for airlift there. The EU troop preparations proved a rude surprise to the Harawayians and recon by several units of Special Purpose Forces confirmed the high command's worse fears: the Europeans were preparing for a full assault on the planetary capital at Landing Island.

While landing was heavily held, it seemed unlikely that it could survive against the might of the invasion force the EU was assembling. Marshal Malki took a bold decision: rather than await and attempt to absorb the EU attack, several elite Harawayian divisions would launch an immediate and pre-emptive offensive against the EU.

The assault would take the form of a combined naval and orbital attack against the Blue Trees, bypassing the EU defences around the outlying islands and launching a surprise attack just as the EU Invasion was preparing to jump off. The first hint that something was wrong came when the Landing and a strike group of cruisers left the parameter over Bazumba Island. It seems the EU commanders did not really sense danger until t missiles and amphibious mobile suits roared out of the water. The Harawayian navy and mobile suits quickly suppressed local air and ground to orbit defences as the Landing and the orbital component of the strike force came on station.

Scrambling to adjust many EU forces piled up in their embarkation zones, as orbital fire and missile strikes closed runways and forced dropships to abort take off. Dropping Hoplites and raising Siren and Acguy mobile suits added to the confusion, as almost the entire island became a confused melee of fighting machines and troops. Caught out of position and with many of their number lying dead in the ruins of their transports, the EU forces fought back bravely but were unable to stem the Harawayian tide. Despite heavy Harawayian casualities the offensive tore the heart out of the EU effort, killed or captured most of its leaders including General Amenabar and Seaton (both captured when their HQ was overrun by Harawayian drop troops) and left the EU effort on Haraway a shambles.

After the defeat at Blue Trees, there was no realistic hope of the EU taking the planet, remaining EU units were able to withdraw with varying degrees of success as EU convoys ceased to reinforce but rather withdraw troops, pulling them back to orbit and evacuating them to refit or for reassignment to other theatres such as New Mercia.

By August, the remaining EU forces had either withdraw or been surrendered or hunted down. While significant space skirmishes continued, Haraway remained relatively quiet for the next one and a half years. Harawayian forces continued to operate along with other combined militia units, including sending a large contingent to New Mercia. Haraway was the site of a Combined Militia build up in 2188, ready for proposed fresh offensives into the core in 2190, unfortunately, the EU had other plans.

2189: Rage against the heavens

While most of 2189 passed much like 2188 had, with small skirmishes around Haraway, the end of the year saw the biggest battle of human history. Much has already been written of the events of that fateful December day, so I will not dwell upon it too much at length, however, the battle in space highlighted both how far the EU navies had come in terms of mobile suit tactics and the problems of ZOCU, and particularly Harawayian command arrangements, which only included a small staff and informational systems which were largely reminiscent of the early 21st century in the way they delivered information.

This system had never been replaced, or draw lessons from the excellent Harawayian air or ground command systems as the skirmish nature of combat around Haraway and the mental enhancements of most of its Admirals (including Admiral Kimmel herself) had made such devices seem unnecessary. The Harawayian naval staff was simply unable to cope with the magnitude of the engagement facing them, causing the fatal lack of coordination which decided the outcome.

Despite the lost in 2189, ZOCU was able to win a relatively equitable peace with the Core, and none of its worlds were occupied, and at least many of its war aims fulfilled. Many on Haraway however see things differently.

Aftermath: Untrusting Peace

No story of the end of the War on Haraway is complete without a mention of Emma Lan and her peace movement. Inspired by the Clyne movement on Kanon, the extremely charismatic and intelligent Green caste singer was in many ways Haraway's premier entertainer during the war, but maintained a reputation for being more than just a pop-star. Her turn to politics in the wars final year would have alientated the public from a less popular, charismatic or skilful operator, but somehow Lan managed to ride the waves of public opinion and was instrumental in the vote which bought Haraway to the peace table in January 2190, when many voices called for a continuation of the struggle, alone if necessary.

Five years after the end of the war, Haraway remains extremely hawkish about prospects of another conflict with the Core, and has lent considerable resources to the defence of New Mercia, as well as deploying a large number of resources to the exploration of the rim.

Time will tell if the peace on Haraway will last.

-Dr. Joanna Hastings is Chair of Military History at Westbrook University, Londenium