From: JAMES BUTLER <JAMESBUTLER@w...>
Date: Wed, 25 May 2011 07:09:53 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [GZG] PAU Timeline
Hi everybody,
I've been working on this timeline of the Pan-African Union for
some time and I wanted to know what people thought of it. Any comments or
corrections would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
James!
----------
A Brief History of the Development of the Universal Navy
"From our ancestral roots on the plains of Mother Africa, we have endured all
manner of pain and hardship, all manner of conflict and strife and through it
all we have persevered and conquered. We have been belittled by foreigners and
powers beyond our shores. We have seen our homes and loved ones devastated by
plague, by hunger and by war. And even so, we have prospered and we have found
our destiny out among the stars. What greater testament can there be to our
people than
that?"--Admiral Chizoba Yambi
2106: The PAU develops and coordinates a Pan-African Space Force
largely tasked with search & rescue and other safety and patrol duties. This
action was taken largely to curb the growth of independent pirates who had
begun to attack merchant shipping traveling to and from
particularly mineral-rich areas of Pan-African space.
2107-2122: Resources devoted to the PASF remain slight
throughout this period although the fledgling force maintains an excellent
level of professionalism and expertise. Despite this, commercial losses due to
pirate attacks continue to slowly escalate throughout PAU space.
2123-2126: The Pirate War. The Universal Navy is formed out of
the old PASF when scores of independent Islamic privateers merge their
operations to sack several key Union convoys. The newly constituted Universal
Navy under Admiral Chizoba Yambi retaliates against the pirate clans, hunting
down their camps and bases and destroying them one by one. Admiral Yambi lays
down the core precedents of the Universal Navy, dividing his squadrons into
Light, Medium and Heavy Wings. From out of these Wings, he comprises heavier
task forces. Yambi's Battle Wings handle general patrol, escort, siege and
defense duties. Whereas he
comprises specialized Strike Wings to handle search-and-destroy,
reconnaissance-in-force missions and special operations. Yambi
devastates the pirate operations using surprise attacks by his elite
Strike Wings combined with hammer-and-anvil attacks where a Battle Wing
engages the pirates directly to be later supported by a Strike Wing hitting
the enemy from the flank or rear.
2127: Universal Navy and Islamic Federation vessels encounter
each other for the first time as the Universal Navy's anti-piracy
initiative crosses into territory claimed by the Federation. The
Pan-African forces are still engaged in tracking down and destroying the
last of the pirates operating out of remote and hidden bases but the border
between the Union and the Islamic Federation has never been clearly defined
and the Federation claims that the Universal Navy's attacks on stations and
planetary bases in its territory are unacceptable. The PAU responds that if
the Federation would police its own people, there would be no need for the
Universal Navy's initiative at all.
2128: Push comes to shove in the border skirmishes between the PAU and the
Islamic Federation with both sides actively engaging and attacking each
other's remote supply bases and support vessels. This false war becomes a
threat to shipping in the region as surprise attacks on merchant vessels
passing through the area begin to cause losses to other nations' freighters.
The FSE in particular loses several vessels and sends a task force to the
region to bring the two sides to the bargaining table. Late in 2128, a border
treaty is negotiated between the PAU and the Islamic Federation. The
Federation clamps down on privateering operations inside its own space while
the Universal Navy returns to its own territory. An FSE carrier battle group
remains on the scene for another six months to insure the peace. Tensions
decline and peace is restored. Resentment between the PAU and the Islamic
Federation towards each other is largely turned into resentment against the
FSE for forcing a solution upon the two powers as both peoples have historic
animosities against being treated as colonial powers by European nations.
2129: Resentment over the FSE's forcing a solution on both the
Pan-African Union and the Islamic Federation to protect the FSE's own
commercial shipping through the area leads to the first diplomatic contacts
arising between the PAU and the NAC. Impressed in particular by the power of a
single FSE carrier battle group, the PAU seeks to acquire technology and
expertise from the NAC regarding its own carrier operations and an aging
Admiral Yambi organizes the first Universal Navy Carrier Wings.
2135: A treaty of trade and technological co-operation is signed
between the PAU and the NAC. The PAU agrees to restrict trade of its rich
supplies of certain key strategic minerals solely to its own member worlds and
corporations operating out of the NAC. In exchange, vital
ship-building technologies are transferred to the PAU.
2137-2142: The first Solar War. Universal Navy observers are
allowed aboard NAC vessels. The Universal Navy learns valuable lessons in
space warfare from these observations of ESU and NAC vessels in battle.
2139-2142: Graft and corruption spread like wildfire through the
government of the PAU as NAC corporations increasingly bribe PAU officials to
grant them more and more rights and privileges. When NAC corporations gain
exclusion from major safety protocols, a number of PAU citizens die in bloody
mining accidents working for NAC companies
reporting all-time profit highs. Investigations are held leading to
trials and once fringe parties are swept into power on a platform of reform.
2143: Shortly after the Solar War, seeing a rare opportunity to disrupt the
friendship between the NAC and PAU, the ESU begins making dramatic diplomatic
overtures to the new PAU government and offers a higher price for PAU minerals
than the NAC is currently paying as well as to donate a portion of their
profits to key PAU miner's unions and safety councils. The ESU also offers the
PAU military assistance in the form of new military technologies and direct
transfer of ships. Relations between the PAU and the FSE improve as the ESU
works to bring the two back into cordial relations.
2144: Just prior to the Second Solar War, the PAU ends its
treaty of co-operation with the NAC and begins one with the ESU.
Production in the mineral-rich outer colonies of the Union increase
considerably almost overnight under the new government's reforms. Safety is
insured by government oversight and the miners are better paid, healthy and
happy.
2145-2157: Transfers of ESU and FSE vessels to the Universal
Navy, combined with a surge in the PAU's own shipbuilding, has lead to the
largest increase in the Universal Navy's power since its inception. Bolstered
by a much larger military and the promise of alliances with the ESU and FSE, a
coalition of militant parties sweeps into power in the PAU and the PAU
formally joins with the ESU and FSE as a
co-belligerent in the Second Solar War.
2151: Admiral Chizoba Yambi, hero of the Pirate War, dies. His state funeral
is attended by representatives of all the major powers and a new Universal
Naval Academy is named in his honor.
2160: In the aftermath of the Second Solar War, militant elements within the
PAU lose ground politically as the war was extremely expensive for the PAU
with little or nothing to show for it. A cooling off begins between the PAU
and her former allies. The PAU continues to purchase vessels from both the ESU
and FSE but declines to renew its joint fleet operations with these powers.
Rebuilding the fleet after the war remains a high priority due to the
proximity of the Islamic Federation and New Israel. While the PAU is on
relatively good terms with its neighbors, the constant saber rattling between
the Islamics and New Israel keeps the entire region alert and ready for
trouble. Despite a newfound distaste for foreign entanglements, the "enemy of
my enemy is my friend" thinking prevails and mutual defense initiatives are
brokered between New Israel and the PAU.
2161: Indictments, accusations, counter-accusations and general
resentment over the war cause a split in the PAU and civil war breaks out.
Separatists form the Commonwealth of African Stars and immediately petition
the NAC for economic and military assistance.
2163: Despite rumors of secret NAC technical and military assistance, the war
goes badly for the CAS. Among the last warships to be commissioned by the
Commonwealth are the Nairobi class battleships, built to function as
independent commerce raiders. One of these is the
battleship Kinshasa. Late in the year, the Pan-African Civil War ends
and Kinshasa and the rest of the Commonwealth fleet become part of the
Universal Navy. A Commonwealth medium wing consisting of a light cruiser and
her destroyer escorts slip away from separatist space in the fighting to join
the Rim Pirates. Aboard the light cruiser is the infamous separatist General
Bapoto Zimbaka, who is wanted for numerous atrocities and war crimes. It is
unknown to history whether the General joins the pirates, simply sells his
ships to them or is killed by the pirates while bargaining with them.
2164: The short-lived brushfire war known as the Three Tribes
War occurs in the Sareni cluster between the PAU, the Scandanavian
Federation and the Oceanic Union when a dispute over a once-neutral
colony seized by the Commonwealth of African Stars is ceded to the PAU
as per the conditions of the treaty ending the Pan-African Civil War.
The war quickly develops into a land grab by all three powers which ends in a
new treaty. Nearly half the systems of the cluster have been occupied by one
or another of the warring powers but the neutrality of the remaining systems
is affirmed.
2165: The Third Solar War begins and saner heads prevail in PAU politics and
decide simply not to get involved. The end of the
Pan-African Civil War leaves the PAU in no condition to even consider
foreign adventurism. Reconstruction and political solidarity are the order of
the day.
2165-2179: Transfers of warships continue from both the ESU and
the FSE but are more and more threatened by cancellation as the ESU and FSE
need vessels to continue the war. Contracts with foreign powers to build
Universal Navy escorts, destroyers and cruisers decline and local shipbuilding
increases to take up the slack.
2166-2177: Expansion of the Universal Navy is met by expansion
of the Islamic Federation's forces and saber-rattling and border
skirmishes begin to again rear their ugly head. This eleven year period
sees a nearly constant low-intensity false war between the two powers.
Commercial expansion and colonial settlement increase dramatically in the
space between the two powers as both sides seek to gain new colonies
that might be used as forward bases in the event of a full-scale war. A
greater conflict seems inevitable, right up to the point where both sides
suddenly return to the bargaining table and negotiate a new border treaty.
Tensions and skirmish incidents decline immediately but the naval arms race
continues. Ironically, later historians will attribute the survival of both
powers against the Kra'vak to this very build up of regional naval power.
2178-2179: The last transfers of foreign capital ships to the
Universal Navy are made as the PAU purchases five Rostov class
Battledreadnoughts and one Konstantin class Attack Carrier from the ESU as
well as ten Novgorod class Frigates. While the purchase of these vessels is a
symbol of the power of the Union to defend itself and maintain order and unity
in Union space, it can only be seen as a provocation to the Islamic Federation
who immediately lay down a new series of capital ships beginning with a new
class of battlecruiser.
2180-2182: The first incidents of contact occur between the
Kra'vak and the PAU. These "ghost ship" sightings are largely ignored at first
and then taken as resurgent pirate activity or renegade Islamic attacks. The
Universal Navy goes on alert during the last few months of 2182 as it becomes
obvious that some hostile power is beginning to raid the edges of PAU space.
2183: The Third Solar War had degenerated largely into a series of border wars
by this time. Union representatives appeared before the United Nations to
request their assistance in investigating attacks on PAU space. This was
largely a political move intended to incline foreign powers to look favorably
upon the Union when it retaliated against the Islamic Federation, which the
Union considered to be the source of the attacks. The United Nations Space
Command sends not one but two survey vessels into the outer rim of PAU space
to investigate with their
powerful long-range scanners. Contact with both ships was lost when they
were off Lagos IV in an largely unsurveyed region of PAU-controlled
space. When contact with the two ships was lost, the Universal Navy dispatched
a Heavy Wing to investigate, led by the aging and now
re-classed battlecruiser UNS Kinshasa. Kinshasa's last transmissions of
an alien enemy finally confirmed the existence of the force raiding PAU space.
A single Universal Navy destroyer was the only member of the wing to return,
with news of the loss of both UN survey ships as well as the Kinshasa and the
rest of the wing.
2184: As the PAU develops more and more intelligence regarding the nature of
the Kra'vak threat, the Universal Navy begins a refitting of its vessels on
the Kra'vak front. Shield generators are removed (most
to be replaced by salvo missile racks and/or submunitions packs) and
many naval vessels have their point defense systems replaced by class-1
dual-purpose batteries and new vessels are no longer constructed with
armor plating. PAU shipyards are pressed to the limit refitting the fleet
wholesale and the decision is made to purchase an additional six Novgorods
from the ESU to assist in general search and exploration missions to locate
Kra'vak systems and patrol Union space.
2185: The UN declares a state of war between Humanity and the Kraâvak and
the PAU pursues aggressive shipbuilding of new vessels of an innovative
design. The PAU signs an agreement with the UNSC, giving the UNSC a hundred
year lease on refueling and resupply bases in its territory in exchange for
technical data. As part of the agreement, an officer exchange program between
the Universal Navy and the UNSC is signed, allowing UNSC observers aboard
Universal Navy craft on the Kra'vak frontier and vice versa.
The PAU begins a major diplomatic effort towards ending the fighting of the
Third Solar War and starts this initiative by sharing a portion of its
intelligence on the Kra'vak with the NAC, NSL, ESU and FSE in the hopes that
humanity can come together against the alien menace.
2186: The Universal Navy lays down the first Yambi class Superdreadnought. The
Kra'vak begin to strike at key richly laden
Pan-African mining colonies on the rim in a bold gambit to rob the Union
of the resources which fuel its industrial might while coveting those same
resources for Kra'vak military expansion.
2188: Contact is made with the SaâVasku. The Yambi class Superdreadnought
Shaka is laid down.
2189: Kra'vak forces drive towards the Core Worlds leading to the Battle of
Centaurus. The Universal Navy cooperates with the UNSC and the navies of all
the other major powers to repulse the Kra'vak offensive. On the positive side,
all human nations now fully realize the Kra'vak threat and pledge themselves
to cooperate against it.
2190: The Kra'vak offensive into human space falters after the Battle of
Centaurus. There is a brief pause during which the Kra'vak opt to change their
tactics and they begin to consolidate their hold on the captured human
territories they have taken so far. The pattern of Kra'vak attacks changes in
nature as well from raids and deep, slashing attacks to a concerted, organized
march into human space. Instead of striking all over human space, the Kra'vak
begin an organized offensive that advances slowly into human territory
systematically taking world after world and fortifying their holdings as they
advance. The third and final Yambi class Superdreadnought Nthanda is laid
down.
2191: Contact is made with the Phalons.
2192: First Battle of Mars. The Kra'vak manage to slip a veteran task force
through Sol's battered outer ring of defenses and launch a strike against the
orbital stations and colonies of Mars, focusing on the shipyards there. At
stake are the under construction ships of the UNSC's new heavy graser armed
battleline. Ships and crews from all human nations, including the PAU, make
the ultimate sacrifice to defend the shipyards and their contents and the
Kra'vak force is annihilated down to the last man. Despite the victorious
nature of the battle, civilian morale takes a heavy blow as people begin to
give way to their fears of alien domination.
2193: The Siege of Sol begins. While the PAU is prepared to commit the bulk of
its forces to the defense of Earth and the Core Worlds, behind the scenes,
Universal Navy officials argue vehemently with their UNSC counterparts over
the PAU's proposed Operation Damocles, the launch of an expeditionary fleet to
take the battle to the Kra'vak. The UNSC insists now is the time to insure the
defense of the homeworlds and that a counteroffensive can only take place
after that. The PAU believes that the only way to lift the siege is to
threaten the Kra'vak's own home colonies. The UNSC rightly points out the risk
in this plan in that no one yet knows where the Kra'vak home systems even are.
Tensions are increased when the PAU takes its plan to the other major powers
directly and informs the UNSC that, if necessary, the Universal Navy will
launch a counteroffensive alone. Opinion is widely divided over what is the
correct course of action but in the end, the ESU, FSE, NSL, IJSF and NAC all
decide to support the notion of an expeditionary fleet and contribute forces.
Comprised of vessels from all major powers, the main military might of the
expeditionary force consists of ships from the PAU, IJSF, FSE and NAC, with
the UNSC's major contribution being the elite of its survey command, under
Commodore Kaitlin Chavez, which will be tasked with the difficult mission of
searching for the Kra'vak's homeworlds while under fire. Despite the Universal
Navy's contributing the largest naval contingent of the expeditionary force,
UNSC Fleet Admiral Alonso Landry is chosen to lead the combined fleet which
slips out of Sol system late in the year, jumping out to the rim and further
still into the outer dark towards Kra'vak space.
2194--A Time For Heroes
Operation Damocles:
The combined expeditionary fleet is under the command of UNSC Fleet Admiral
Alonso Landry aboard the Sol class Superdreadnought
Hyperion. His second-in-command is PAU Admiral Gunju Yakuba aboard the
Yambi class Superdreadnought Nthanda. The fleet's survey ships, including the
Visionary class Explorer Pioneer, are led by UNSC Commodore Kaitlin Chavez.
The Japanese have assigned the Scanner Pickets Fubuki and Yukikaze to back up
the stretched thin UNSC survey ships assigned to the mission. Carrier
operations are coordinated by the IJSF's Commodore Yosima Fujima, flying his
flag from the Akagi class
Supercarrier Hosho, which has a full contingent of multi-mode fighters.
Fujima's second in command is the NAC's Captain Andreas Bennett of the
Inflexible class carrier RNS Invincible. Invincible's torpedo bomber squadrons
are renowned as the NAC's best. The fleet's ground forces are organized around
its two largest contingents: NSL Panzer Grenadiers led by Brigadier Rudolf
Drescher and ESU Naval Infantry led by Colonel Zhanna Tereshkova.