2032 - The Sino-Soviet Federation is formed by China, Russia, Vietnam, and North Korea.
2042 - The USA, India, Britain, and Brazil form the Alliance for Space Activities in order to co-operate to put a colony on Luna.
2043 - The EU uses ASA expertise to place a small colony on Mars.
2044 - Sino-Sov scientists discover TN materials in samples sent back from Mars, and the Sino-Sov alliance begins to convert to a TN economy.
2045/SE1 - The ASA learns of TN materials through a defector, and races ahead of the Sino-Sovs, with better tech in most categories, but a serious lack
of sufficient infrastructure.
3rd May Space Era 1 - The SS Yuri Gagarin, a gravitic exploration ship, is the first TN powered craft to leave Earth,
17th May SE2 - SS Yuri Gagarin entered Sol's JP1 and discovered Proxima Centauri. Per standing orders, the Captain took astronomical observations and
returned to Sol System with the data. Of particular note are what appear to be derelict spacecraft in the system.
The Sino-Soviet government has been provided with copies of this data. The ASA is still badly outmassed outside the orbit of Luna, but the first
Destroyer group should be coming online soon.
17th October SE2 - Destroyer Squadron 1(DesRon1) entered the Proxima Centauri system and conducted a thorough sweep, finding nothing but the previously
noted derelicts. Analysis was unable to determine much about them from the scans. DesRon1 placed salvage bouys on the wrecks, but it is unlikely the
Sino-Soviet Federation will respect those buoys if they arrive their with a salvage craft first.
18th December SE2 - Alien ruins are discovered on Mars, an apparently intact city, devoid of life.
4th May SE3 - Data from the Martian dig allows the discovery of a ruined settlement on Luna. Sino-Soviet diplomats begin to agitate for access to the
sites.
23rd April SE4 - The war started as a surprise to both sides.
Reports came in from Luna that they had opened an alien vault in the ruins that contained some kind of robotic defenders. After a short battle, the
robots were contained, and less than a third were left.
Apparently, the Russian Premier, upon recieving the news, ordered a bombardment by missile of the location. As soon as the launch was registered,
Cheyenne Mountain and the matching complex in the Appalachians reacted according to pre-programmed doctrine, launching counter-missiles. The Sino-Sov
Alliance was shocked by the sheer volume of fire the complexes produced, though the complexes designers were surprised to learn that their laser and
microwave cannons were unable to reach out of the atmosphere. However, the initial Meson strikes crippled two Sino-Soviet orbital defense bases, and
sent the Sino-Sov datanet into an epileptic fit.
Russian forces in orbit began to fire back as well as scatter. Luna took 400,000 casualties in the initial strike, as well as some infrastructure
damage. Earth was hit as well, but there were no casualties as the point defense net brought down all missiles with any chance of damaging Alliance
populations.
The Torpedo Patrol Boats stationed in the Gulf of Mexico and Indian Ocean lifted, and began supporting the fire from the PDC complexes. Within 2 hours
the Soviets had been forced out of orbit and destroyed. There was effectively zero damage to Alliance ships, except for engineering failures on several
torpedo boats as they attempted to flash-wake their torpedo control systems. These will require shipyard time to replace, unfortunately.
Sino-Sov missiles and counter missiles were shown to be heavily deficient, as countermissiles chased torpedoes that outpaced them handily, and ASA
countermissiles, built to counter ASA-level tech, found the Sino-Sov salvoes to be largely easy meat. Only the sheer surprise of the initial strike
allowed any missiles to get through the network at all.
Outsystem, DesRon1 was already headed back to Earth for refit after nearly a year on training excersizes near Jupiter. DesRon2(Provisional) was working
up in the belt, picketing the approach out of the Proxima Centauri jump point. Gatebuilder1 was onstation at the point, along with a Sino-Sov heavy
destroyer. And of course, the Mars Patrol was hanging out at Mars.
On receipt of war notices, the Russian Kanin-class ship began to fire upon the gatebuilder, but after its' fire proved ineffective, it withdrew several
hundred km. DesRon1 initially launched 4 Lynx class capital missiles to support the fight in Earth orbit, but quickly saw that even that fire was
unneeded. R.Admiral Hughes, CO TF1, then altered course to support the Gatebuilder at the JP. DesRon2, having not yet recieved Ballista-class
Destroyers, was unable to participate, but immediately headed for the JP to handle the Sino-Sov heavy destroyer.
Four days later. mousetrapped by the destroyer squadrons, the Kanin was fired upon by the Ballistas Arrow and Arbalest at 1009 GMT. Missiles were intercepted at 1247GMT, however, maneuvering to clear the range allowed DesRon2 to enter missile range, and the Hounds Boxer, Borsoi, and Bloodhound unleashed a full spread of Sparrow assault missiles which devastated the Kanin. The DL Acheron retrieved the lifeboats at 1453.
The five torpedo boats on the Mars patrol boosted quickly for the belt, where sensors were tracking 3 Kuznekov class frigates and another frigate of
unknown design, preceding themselves with Halibut-boosted Sparrows. By the time they arrived, all that was left to do was pick up the survivors.
Outside the bombardment of the Lunar settlement, the most dangerous event of the space war was the sheer number of armed missiles and torpedoes floating
inspace for several days.
A rogue torpedo strike on the Sino-Sov colony at Ceres was launched by one officer, who was hung upon conviction of war crimes. As far as sensors can
determine, there were no survivors at the colony.
The ground war would go on for some time yet. It was the 2nd of May before major resistance ceased, and the government surrendered on the 4th of May.
One Kiev-class GeoSurvey ship and two Moskva class Grav Survey ships were turned over at that time as well. Two brigades of Garrison troops were imported to maintain order, and oversee the relocation of the populace.
{Sorry if this is terse, but I wrote it because I really was surprised by the war. Had been using the new truce settings to create a rival in Sol, 6month and a SMd DR to 800 + open trade and Geo were well on the way to keeping the peace when this happened.}
