Breakdown

While the violence had ended, the Breakdown did not end Haraway's political turmoil. There were still tens of thousands of corporate personnel and EU troops remaining on the World, and a small EU fleet in orbit, led by the Drake Class Suffren now unable to leave due to the loss of its FTL drive. The orbital ships and their rail guns put a powerful impetus on the Harawayan government to make peace, and despite several more skirmishes between EU and remaining Compact troops and local militia after the Compact surrender, peace sporadically broke out across Haraway.

The first problem was what to do with the now isolated EU citizens.

EU isolates

The debate as to what to do about the isolate community was fierce on both sides. Certain officers on the EU side, advised by some of the remaining hard like corporations wanted a quick attempt to take control of Haraway and institute a military government with themselves in charge, hoping the guns of the Suffren and it's escorts would be enough to overcome the HDF. This possibility was quickly discarded however due to the numerical advantage of the HDF and militias, and the civilian deaths that it would likely have caused.

Similar discussions went on in Harawayan councils and voting boards. While it might be possible to destroy the remaining off worlders, it would likely lead to the bombardment of Harawayan cities from space, and most Harawayans, even after three years of war were notably reluctant to see a full-scale slaughter of largely innocent civilian workers. The HDF moved to block precipitous action by Militias, and for once the Harawayan voting system paid dividends in dealing with the EU, making it obvious that the Harawayans did not want to fight, and any isolated incidents were just that: the isolated actions of a small number.

Eventually a compromise was worked out. The off worlders were given a choice: they could join Harawayan society, but their children would need to be genetically engineered in the Harawayan mould, or they live in one of two large refugee camps: New Kalimantan in the Southern Hemisphere or Island Three Two Seven in the North. Both of these were chosen because they had intact corporate built environmental domes. The majority of EU and Corporate personnel chose this latter option, though around a third chose the former.

Aid (often sent by EU citizens in the cities) and trade flowed between the EU enclaves and the Harawayan areas of the planet. The Harawayans continued to be eager to buy advanced technology and expertise from the Europeans (which the Europeans could produce in small amounts due to the micro-fabricators they'd bought to allow resupply). When off worlders required a continual supply of medicine to survive in Haraway's harsh environment. Another issue was the space ships. At first, the EU fleet commander, Admiral Juliette Guillemin was reluctant to involve herself with the Harawayans at all, fearing sabotage or espaiter action might take over her ships, or in the long term that the Harawayans might steal them or gain vital EU military secrets. Time, combined with careful negotiations on the Harawayan side eventually convinced her and her staff otherwise. The EU fleet was simply running out of spare parts and did not have the facilities to fabricate them all its self. While simply scuttling the ships was suggested by some, the idea was rejected on several grounds: first, it would remove the last deterrent the off world settlers had to deter Harawayan aggression and second, the troop ships and battleship's medical facilities provided a last ditch treatment facility for those who got sick in Haraway's hot, heavy metal rich environment. By June of 2153, Admiral Guillemin had agreed to give technical assistance to the Harawayans in fabricating aerospace components, in exchange for those parts for her ships. By 2156, with no sign of a quick end to the Breakdown and an increasing need for spare parts and the like, the Admiral agreed to sell one of her destroyers, the Argo to the Harawayans to help in space industrial development, and in 2157 one of her cruisers the Wyvern which had developed a series of increasing severe faults and was becoming unsafe to operate.

The need to potentially combat, but also to provide spare parts for the EU ships provided a considerable shot in the arm to Harawayan space industry. It also had the knock on effect opened up the northern hemisphere far more than it had been before, as the price of suborbital travel dropped. By 2158 the HDF was operating a number of frigate class space vehicles and missile boats, based on adapted, and in some cases improved EU technology.

Without a significant source of theta dust or even delta dust there was little chance of Haraway becoming an interstellar power however, until 2159, when the situation on Haraway was completely upended.

Haraway's politics

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 political demands of Harawayan's of the red caste. The Reds had shouldered the brunt of the brutal fighting and taken most of the causalities (with some mercenary units 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 defence force and forcible disarmament of the remaining guerrillas, partly to prevent clashes between them and the EU isolates. While there were no outright clashes between guerrillas and HDF 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 HDF to levels that would only be able to deal with the remaining guerrillas or aggression from the EU Isolates, and pushing for a return to the old style of Harawayan living, including continued population expansion into the colonies outer areas. 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.

That changed in 2159 however, when the LNS Hydra entered the system. The Hydra, one of the first Londenium destroyers built around a Theta drive entered the system in late June 2159, carrying a Londenium embassy and a mandate to form ties with one of Londenium's closest colonial neighbours. The fact that FTL travel was even possible caused a brief panic on Haraway and much soul searching among the isolates, but things calmed after the true state of things became apparent.

The Hydra's arrival couldn't have come at a better time for the Progressives, who had recently forged an alliance with the Red Rights movement and, partly due to the growing unpopularity of Prime Minister Mai Perkasa, who had been involved in a series of corruption scandals. Skilful diplomacy on the part of the Londenium embassy with both the Harawayans and EU ships in orbit allowed them to come to something of an alliance with the Progressives, who then forced a snap election for new prime minister and a series of votes authorizing additional budget for the HDF, and space program, while at the same time opening up fully to Londenium diplomacy.

The arrival of the Hydra was also a major event for the EU isolates, who now had the prospect of evacuating Haraway entirely. Ballets were held, and most of those who settled at the Northern settlement (Island Three Two Seven, called Columbus by its inhabitants ), together with many of the ship crews decided to evacuate, while most of the Southern settlement on New Kalimantan (New Cardiff) decided to stay. This led to more negotiations involving the fate of the EU ships and those who chose to remain. Admiral Guillemin chose to consolidate her remaining crews aboard the hospital and troop ships and the Suffren, while selling the rest to the Harawayans, who by this point were more or less trusted. Given the condition of the other EU ships, the Suffren was seen as more than sufficient deterrent against any aggression. The old battleship was finally sold to the Harawayans in 2172, when New Cardiff formally became part of Haraway proper, and converted into an orbital platform, then a Museum. It remains in orbit to this day.

The injection of more EU technology accelerated the Harawayan space program a pace, and with Londenium assistance and supplies of Theta dust, they constructed several orbital slipways. The first Harawayan indigenous built FTL capable warships were bought into service in 2161, the destroyers Isis and Athena. The two ships would serve as escort to the Harawayan delegation to the Council of Londenium for negotiation of the treaty of ZOCU in 2162, and later go onto have a slightly darker place in history as the first Harawayan combat starship's to fire a shot in anger.

Heaven's Reach

The reformed Harawayan military, indeed militaries across ZOCU were put to the test again near the end of the Breakdown in 2176 by events on Heaven's Reach. The Heaven's Reach conflict was relatively minor in compared to the wars that proceeded and followed it, it was important to ZOCU as it was the first time ZOCU Combined Militia units took to the field, and led to considerable experience and lessons learned into the structuring and management of multinational forces for ZOCU members. Doctrines that were conceived at Heaven's Reach would a decade later prove themselves against the Core.