Corporate Wars
Haraway's World is one of oldest human colonies and 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, hot and thoroughly poisonous world and set gamely to the task of making it theirs and them its. The Initial colonisation was entirely transhumant and they quickly adapted genetic engineering techniques to allow themselves and their children to survive in Haraway’s heavy metal rich environment and high temperature (around 55 degrees at the equator,) giving rise to a massive and constant belt of high pressure storms that restrict colonisation to near the iceless poles. The first colony was set up on the large island named "Landing" around a major Posthuman sight which turned out to be a nano-factory the colonists could take control of for their own use.
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, Harawayans were able to carry their civilisation with them in their implanted computers rather than plough over the wondrous alien environment that the colonists had found. Cities were built however, first around the posthuman assembly plant on landing, then further afield, 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 Harawayans 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 Harawayans and ensure a smooth transition from one job to another. The Truth however is a little more complicated than that.
2100-2120: Town and Country
For the ten years before the recontact in 2110, Haraway had been experiencing a growing political break between the central government created by the mass policy votes conducted via Haraway's network, but whose primary constituency was the cities and suburbs of Landing, New Reykjavik and Barsoom Islands, and the provincial classes of outer areas, especially the land holders and farmers. This tension was exacerbated by the AR links which shrunk the distances, culturally and politically, between the major cities, and by difficulties in accommodating the population increases of the 21st century cloning boom.
In order to open up large amounts of land quickly, Harawayan policy in the 2090s to 2110s (30s and 40s by local calendar) had given large resource allocations to those who could organize the survey and exploitation of new land, including a large portion of that land which they were expected to sell to others. Unfortunately many did not sell their land, and a system of land holders and large farmers began to develop along Haraway's periphery. In Haraway's mostly collectivist economic and political enviroment this naked self interest was viewed with rising alarm.
While presented in many Harawayan sources as greedy robber barons, various revisionist histories have recently suggested a more complicated picture, with prominent rural land owners striking a series of deals with roving Violet nomads, explorers and bush pilots. The violet groups would scout and survey a new set of land, then trade it for industrial goods to one of the large farmers, allowing large areas of the colony to be opened up rapidly.
In rural areas however these landholders were set against the various poor and middle class workers, especially reds and yellows, many of whom suffered fairly brutal economic dislocation due the efficiency of this system, which left most newly developed colonial areas under the control of large land owners. Inevitably this led to a series of political clashes and major land redistributions. These clashes all reached an eventual political resolution, given the demilitarization of Haraway at the time, but outside forces intervened. In 2110 The Stargazer ship John Cabot landed on Haraway.
2120-2149: Post Contact
Initially recontact changed little on the domestic political front. The central government began to turn more resources into opening up outer areas of the colony, including Beta Continent and far flung islands near the equator to settlement and exploitation. These government programs slowly eroded the power of landholders and large farmers to the benefit of various agricultural collectives and urban run businesses, but were seen as a compromise by most as they ended the need for compulsory land purchase or seizure by collective vote. The decade after recontact was relatively quiet however, though difficulties in assimilating Haraway's massive cloning boom continued in some areas, and tension broke out into several small incidents, especially around the new cities built on what had been once relatively virgin wilderness.
Many land owning families and their violet compatriots didn't see it like this however, and began to seek other ways to gain power and prosperity. Several prominent families, headed by the Asinda family formed a secret society known as the Grey Group, based around a mixture of Objectivist Ideology, anti-casteism (which was extremely popular among many violets at the time) and representative constitutionalism (a doctrine that suggested the power of the people should be limited by mediation through representatives and a constitution). It's little wonder that the Grey Group saw the EU as natural allies, or that many EU companies saw them as allies in turn.
Wary of the Core, and its alliance with the still politically difficult land holder families, the Harawayan government reinforced its police and formed the Harawayan defence force and space program. With an authorized strength of 10,000, the Defence Force (which gives its name to the modern day Harawayan First Division: The Ten Thousand) was initially fairly lightly equipped, with mostly hand carried arms created by local designs. At first they carried mostly small calibre assault rifles and rocket launchers, (though they rapidly adopted more modern designs) with what heavy weapons they did mount launched from aircraft. The biggest problem was the sheer area they needed to cover and most of the defence force's fabricator cycles were devoted to sub-orbital craft.
In January 2125, Mitzi Asinda, the heir apparent to the Asinda family fortune met with representatives of six large EU pharmaceutical businesses with a proposal that would later be called treasonous by many on Haraway. In exchange for major share holdings for the Grey Group members in the EU companies, and cheap and exclusive access to EU goods that the companies could arrange they would massively undercut the prices of urban based Harawayan agribusinesses which were the EU's current suppliers drugs derived from Harawayan ecosystem. Faced with strikes and protests bought on by this action, Grey Group members bought in large numbers of foreign workers and robot labour to replace striking workers.
Shocking as this was for most Harawayans what came next was worse. When the Harawayan government voted to restrict the import of foreign labour and censor the large families involved, restricting their access to various commonly held state resources such as the Ocean the European Union, influenced both by Group Grey and its own pharmaceutical companies declared Haraway's oceans international waters, open to whoever wished to exploit them.
2149: The Blue Trees Compact
Grey Group and the corporations still needed one another, with the corporations still reliant on local support from the large land owning families, not to mention their expertise in resource extraction, while Grey Group had now fully committed themselves to the European cause (at least as it was seen by most citizens of Landing or Barsoom) and were actively pushing for an end to the caste system and a more representative (vs. direct) form of government. Political scuffles begun almost immediately, with mass protests being launched against the internationalization by various mostly city based groups (though including many lower class rural non-violets).
The level of violence of these protests began gradually to increase, with acts of sabotage against corporate and land holder interests. In response Land holders appealed to their mostly violet allies and off world backers for troops to protect their operations. Many of the Grey Group core members moved too previously uninhabited islands in order to help set up bases there and escape potential arrest by Harawayan security forces. Their main base was set up on the Blue Trees Island Chain, along with a major facility to exploit the rich (and largely unique) natural resources of the area.
On January the twenty second, with tension running high, a general vote of all Harawayans repudiated the internationalization of the planets oceans, with 60% voting for the repudiation. In the wake of this, Harawayan police moved to raid the Blue Tree's facility with support from the Defence Force. When the police unit landed it was confronted by several corporate security units and asked to leave. After the first corporate security troops were restrained and put under arrest other groups within the facility opened fire.
Despite their transhuman superiority both Harawayan police and defence force units found themselves badly outmatched by the mercenary security forces and violet nomads on Blue Trees and were forced to retreat with heavy causalities. Shortly after their withdrawal, Mitzi Asinda broadcast a long speech in which she laid out the terms of the Blue Trees compact, and launched a long rhetorical attack on the current caste system and state of Harawayan direct democracy, which she called an invitation to the Tyranny of the majority, and called on all right thinking Harawayans to rise up and overthrow the corrupt central government bureaucrats who had led the people astray.
This speech was the signal for a previously infiltrated group of Violet Nomads and corporate security 'advisors' (made up mostly of former EU, South America and Indonesian special forces) to launch a strike against Landing in which they seized control of several government buildings. Unfortunately for them while they correctly judged the Defence Force's initial inability to respond, they misjudged Landings populous. Massive demonstrations isolated the buildings and galvanized Defence Force and Police units into action. Within a few days Landing was clear of hostiles, with few survivors among the attacking force. War had now begun in earnest.
Opposing Forces
The opposing forces that faced one another in the Harawayan civil war were, by the standards of the time not exactly well trained or equipped. Indeed the Harawayan government's inability to stamp out its rebels may have been one of the causes of the overconfidence which pervaded EU forces on the subject of Haraway before the ZOCU war some 30 years later.
On Haraway meantime there is often a glossing over of the role played by Harawayans on the Compact side, though revisionist histories of the modern day have begun to address this trend.
Compact Security
While the name Compact Security raises the idea of a corporate security force, the Compact's army bore little resemblance to most security arms or PMCs, though it included several of the latter. Off world advisors, specialists and even combat troops drawn from earth and various colony worlds flocked to the Compact's banner due to the high salaries it offered. Most were kept in central areas of the compact for training and guard duties, especially given the difficulty in long term operations in Haraway's harsh environment. There were also worries among the Compact's high command that releasing them might cause significant problems with local populations, or even lead to a loss of control, fears which later proved well grounded. However as the war went on, increasing numbers of specialists were deployed to supplement the compacts mostly lighter native forces, often used to operate excellent, though expensive European made artillery and aircraft. Despite this, the Compact found its self unable to meet the industrial might of the Harawayan cities, and turned increasingly to light infantry operations and guerrilla warfare in the war's later half.
It's often forgotten that most of the Compact's leadership and combat forces were Harawayan, and indeed, just as strongly transhuman as their foes. Mitzi Asinda was a Blue, and the Compact's chief strategist, Lora Remno was a Yellow. The Compact used violet caste nomads extensively, especially in difficult terrain, where even the mostly red city based light infantry forced had great difficulty in operating. That said, the Compact did have difficulty filling out its main combat units with reds, as it had little to offer them, and few found any appeal in the mostly pro-landholder propaganda of the compact. As the war dragged on, many violets would also become unhappy with the Compact's brutality, and their under-representation in its upper ranks.
This lack of Reds led to an extreme dislike of them among many off world recruited Compact Personnel, and even some of the native violet troops. In the war's later part, this led to many atrocities against Reds, especially Red civilians who couldn't fight back.
The Harawayan Defence Force
Initially numbering ten thousand, the Harawayan defence force performed very poorly in the opening months of the war, so poorly in fact that it became regarded as something of a joke by off world forces. Recruited and trained hastily, the HDF had major problems with equipment, due to the government of the time's refusal to buy off world weapons, and Haraway's lack of a major arms industry. This kept the HDF short of weapons, radios and most importantly air or GEV transports necessary for rapid movement between Haraway's many islands, or into areas deep in the jungle and left the HDF struggling with a glacial pace of operations.
Another problem was that the Compact's Security's leadership was often much better trained than the HDFs, having studied at the best European military academies and supported by various commercially available tactical and operational planning software and off world advisors many with decades of experience. What many off world sources missed was that the Compact's leadership was also transgenic, and that HDF leaders were often able to out think even trained baselines. Further, when the HDF could bring the compact to open battle, it was often victorious, though causalities tended to be substantial when facing off against off world purchased heavy weapons.
In the war's first year, the HDF mostly used local militias to slow the tempo of Compact Security's advance and allow time for their relatively lumbering logistical system to catch up. Village militia troops, often rural reds and yellows are seen by many as the true heroes of the war's first years, keeping the Compact in check and continually contesting its control over Haraway's outer regions and ecological resources.
By the War's second and third years however, the Harawayan Defence Force began to transform its self. Harawayan factories were now producing large amounts of equipment, including heavy weapons competitive with those used by the Compact (who's stocks of advanced weapons were subject to continually attrition both by combat and Haraway's harsh climate) and Harawayan leadership was now experienced and battle hardened. In the third year, these advantages came fully to bear and HDF tanks and gunships began to take a heavy toll on Compact forces used to an edge in firepower.
The Progress of the War
The war on Haraway lasted three years, from 2149-2151, and is generally divided into three phases, each lasting roughly a year. The war officially ended in November of 2151, with the deployment of EU peace keepers, though tension remained high in many areas, and there were several clashes between HDF, violet and EU troops even after that, as well as several attacks on remaining Corporate facilities.
Given these continuing tensions, it's likely that Haraway might have been fully occupied by the EU had the breakdown not struck. Indeed, more fleet assets were on their way to Haraway even as the virus ripped across the expanse.
Phase one, 2149: Compact Advance
In the wars first phase, compact forces made extensive progress. Long range missiles and units deployed by aircraft or ground effect vehicles destroyed several outlying HDF bases, and many of the outer islands rapidly fell to the Compact, often before the HDF could even mobilize in response. The HDF fell back, leaving newly formed militia units and its few special forces and ranger groups to continue to contest the outer islands, while concentrating their defences around the major cities.
Fortunately while this caused a consumer goods shortage, the wars general popularity, and Harawayan Island's food self sufficiency meant that the Compact could not wait the Harawayan government out, especially not with the continued partisan actions and growing numbers of HDF air raids conducted against its rear areas. The compact spent ten months gobbling up outer areas before finally feeling strong enough to turn their attention to Haraway's cities.
On November fourth 2149, Compact forces began a major assault against Barsoom, Landing and New Reykjavik, landing troops from both aircraft and GEVs, they sought to gain control of the cities by storm.
After three days of bloody battle, the assaults failed. Harawayan civilians, who many Compact strategists believed were turning against the war proved completely unwilling to support the invasion, but more importantly, the HDF proved far more ready to resist than the Compact had anticipated, and the battle ground down into a costly slugging match which HDF forces in carefully prepared positions and close to their own centres of supply were the only ones who could win. The battle continued till January the third in some areas, when the last Compact forces evacuated from landing, but after the first two months, the outcome was never really in doubt.
As the war entered its second year, the HDF prepared to go on the offensive.
Phase two 2150: the HDF gains momentum
While several small offensive actions, commando raids and the like were completely in January, most historians mark the date of first major HDF offensive as February Eighth. By this point, the Ten Thousand had grown far larger, and the HDF had over a hundred thousand personnel at its command. Still, it was the nucleolus of the old HDF that performed the first offensive, a major assault on the Gallo Island chain. The Gallo Islands had fallen to the Compact in the first days of the war, one of the furthest points South that they'd managed to capture, and had been the staging base for assaults on Barsoom Island, and landing its self. It was also being used for a staging ground by Compact chemically powered fighters and the like for raids against the Harawayan cities.
The first part of the battle saw HDF aircraft, ships and attack submersibles moving into the area to attempt to gain naval superiority. A series of submarine and naval skirmishes took place, culminating in the engagement at Quedesa Sound, perhaps the first major victory of the HDF, where they destroyed a dozen compact vessels for the lost of only three of their own, mostly due to massive airstrikes launched from Barsoom.
Airborne and marine forces landed soon after, linking up with militia operating in the area who struck at several compact strong holds in advance of the invasion. The HDF chose to hit all islands in the chain at once rather than attempting to Island hop, mostly due to concerns that militia forces might not wait for an invasion, and a wish to rapidly root out Compact forces before they could go to ground. The Compact's Indigo Flowers and Five Stones volunteer brigades (both named after major violet caste nomadic groups wandering in Gallo) supported by various mercenary advisors launched a counter attack against the beachheads across the island chain, attempting to dislodge the HDF before it could really gain a proper foothold.
These attacks failed however, despite initial gains. While the first waves were checked in a fierce battle on the Islands fringes, subsequent waves and the heavy armour they bought in rapidly broke the Compact's offensive. Neither nomadic nor mercenary forces had the firepower to face down tanks and armoured cars, and in many places their defences had already been heavily undermined by the actions of local militias. Within a few days, the surviving elements of both VBs had withdrawn to the jungle to fight a guerrilla action, while the mercenary forces had been evacuated or destroyed.
The loss of Gallo was only the first in a number of offensives and counter offensives launched over the year. Not all were successful for the HDF, with some being exceptionally bloody, most notably the battle of Twelve Streams Island, where an intelligence intercept allowed the Compact to ambush and destroy an entire HDF brigade as it dropped on the island. In general though the Compact was forced to retreat. It simply could not sustain losses at the same rate the HDF could. Further, the presence of loyalist militias often undermined the ability of Compact units to keep the HDF from coming ashore, providing secure landing zones even if they could be pinpointed ahead of time by Compact intelligence.
As the war entered its third year, the Compact was reorganizing its strategy. Reluctantly, and at the urging mostly of various mercenary commanders, the Compact's leadership began to take harsher and harsher action to root out pro-government guerrillas. Increasing losses and spiralling drug prices bought on by the instability of the war caused greater and greater uses of these mercenary units and armed advisors. Many of these troops had few qualms about civilian deaths, but were highly skilled. Unfortunately for the Compact, their increasing ruthlessness led to another problem.
Phase three 2151: defection
By 2151, the Compact's corporate backers were growing increasingly alarmed. The Compact did not appear to be winning and it seemed like they might be attempting to fight an entire planet if this continued. The tactics used by various mercenaries and violet bands also began to trouble many in the Compact and Corporate leadership, as they involved the Wanton slaughter of civilians. Even beyond the moral objections held by those in leadership positions, the war was growing increasingly unpopular in Europe.
The HDF and militia then in some ways played into the Compact's hands on the PR by launching their own terror attacks, especially against mercenaries and corporate facilities. Off worlders were the primary target. Few Harawayan units would take mercenary prisoners, some shooting them, while others inflicted more grizzly treatment, such as impalement or murder with machetes. While this was seen as unacceptable off World, and turned the calls for an end to hostilities into calls for EU intervention, it seems to have had little effect on World, where most of the Compact's violet combat troops were now ready to defect.
Discontentment had been growing among violets with the compact almost since the start of the war. Mostly extremely patriotic, they found little to recommend much of the compacts program to them, especially if as it now seemed it might bring off worlder influence even more pervasive than that of the central government. Worse, they were under-represented in Compact leadership positions and many were increasingly unhappy with the atrocities they saw taking place.
One by one, Violet tribes began to make their own separate peace with the government in return for limited concessions and guarantees they would not be pursued. By November, the Compact had been stripped to a few loyal units and large numbers of foreign mercenaries and the assault on Blue Trees begun. A major armoured offensive on beta-continent which destroyed two of the major PMC forces involved paved the way for the assault. News reached Haraway that EU intervention forces were on their way, but travel time was relatively long and the Harawayan government had set its course. The war would be waged to the finish.
The EU Intervention
With the EU racing to intervene, Harawayan forces moved quickly against the Compact Capital on Blue Trees. While most of the Grey Group had already evacuated (furthering the collapse of Compact morale) Blue Trees remained the centre of Compact strength and home to the majority of off world facilities in Haraway's World's Southern Hemisphere. The HDF bypassed many outer corporate bases and large ships in order to strike directly at Blue Trees before EU peace keepers could land.
The Compact's last fight was one of the toughest as they assembled their remaining forces around the heavily fortifies Izuma base on Blue Trees. Rather than attempting to meet the Harawayan forces in open battle, Compact naval units were held in reserve in various hidden bases in Blue Tree's many bays and inlets to strike at the invasion flotilla at a vital time. Compact high command hoped that it could hold onto Blue Tree's long enough for EU intervention and then gain a number of concessions from the Harawayan central government, including recognition of its sovereignty over Blue Trees, or if the Harawayan government demurred, portray them as the aggressor and gain full scale EU intervention. The HDF were well aware of both possibilities and desperate to prevent them at almost any cost.
The battle opened with a ferocious suborbital and aerial bombardment by the HDF, striking not just at Izuma base but the surrounding towns and harbours. The air battle was bitterly contested, but the Compact held much of its air force in reserve waiting for the invasion its self, mostly on hidden airbases.
The Compact hoped that given Blue Trees was largely clear of militia, their assets would be able to escape detection and they could ride out the bombardment, then strike at the heavy lift vehicles, aircraft and GEVs that the HDF would use to deploy it's armour with their husbanded air and naval assets, defeating any remaining landing fairly easily before it could be reinforced with rapid response forces from Izuma.
The HDF countered this stratagem with the large scale covert insertion of ranger units, many guided by recently defected Violets who had previously garrisoned Blue Trees. These Ranger units were inserted covertly in the weeks before the invasion, and while some were found and neutralized by Compact patrols, many made it into the interior and began to search out Compact air and naval assets. The HDF also deployed a massive number of sensors against the area the area, including newly launched microsat clusters and scanner arrays to watch for activity. After a week of bombing of Izuma (and support missions for ranger teams that got into trouble) the HDF's air and missile units switched to an intense bombardment of these located targets, neutralizing much of the Compact's air force and many naval units on the ground.
With counter air and counter sea operations completed the HDF's invasion began in earnest. Ranger units attacked anti-air and anti-ship missile launchers that might threaten the invasion, and while the Compact did surge their remaining air and ground units they were unable to break through the invasions escorts successfully.
Remaining Compact Units withdrew to heavily reinforced positions around Izuma its self, and began a last ditch defence. By this point however the writing was on the wall for the Compact, and Izuma fell after a week of hard fighting.
EU forces dropped onto Haraway two weeks later, taking up positions to protect remaining corporate facilities and the like. There were several skirmishes between EU peace keepers and militia, some of which evolved into fierce battles, and two including direct clashes between EU troops and the HDF. It was obvious to the EU that the initial ten thousand strong EU force was insufficient and would need to be reinforced in order to facilitate a negotiated solution which preserved EU corporate interests on the planet. The Harawayan government and defence force struggled to prepare for the possibility of the full EU falling upon them, while maintaining a stance of the full expulsion of corporate assets. A huge EU task force began to form up for what would have been one of the first real planetary invasions in the European arm when the breakdown intervened, and rendered both sides moot.
Conclusion and Aftermath
The breakdown may have saved Haraway's World from full scale EU intervention, but it also left thousands of European troops and corporate personnel trapped on Harway. Much of the politics of the break down era and Haraway's subsequent political and military development would be defined by these exiles and the legacy of the three year war.
It was certain though, that after the Compact War, Haraway would never be the same again.