The Colonial Expansion and Independence Movement

The Colonial Expansion and Independence Movement

During the Second Colonial Expansion, the Old Imperial Republic's Settlement and Colonization department was dispatched to Gilrich's Gulch in the Passers Cove system. The city of Tenacity was founded with the ideal of creating the first industrial and food processing centered city.

Though the seat of power was eventually moved to Ephera Primus after achieving independence, the heart of the newly created Imperial Republic Colonial Division's economy lay firmly in the grasp of this fledgling metropolis. Gilrich's Gulch was also the ideal jump point between Ephera, Sanctuary and Dylars' Ditch, and became the first colony built within the Passers Cove system.

Because of its governance, Tenacity's growth was explosive. Even so, the city itself could have easily been mistaken for any largely urbanized non-industrial city. This was largely due to the careful planning of the original colonial builders. And from the onset, there was a heightened desire for security due to its critical infrastructure.

By its thirty year, all major industrial and food processing systems were built underground, in a centralized eight hive pattern. Tenacity's construction was largely influenced by the advent of planetary bombardments during the 72 Hour War, and the city became the archetype in the use of a newly discovered process by using hardened Napharite.

Within a span of fifty years, the city had become the nexus of commerce surpassing Samraum. Producing ninety percent of the Passers Cove resource economy and expanded into the militarized industrial complex, mechanized manufacturing, advanced food production processing, nanotechnology engineering and extend capacity machining foundries.

This growth brought about the ambitious build plans that would become four of the largest construction and void port yards built atop a mobile base. This concept was the first of its kind, and unique to the Old Imperial Republic Colonial Division. Their size and capacity second only to the home system on Mars.

During the Third Colonial Expansion from the Disolenum system into its next-door neighbor of Passers Cove, a universal desire to establish a colony with an eye for the classic governing city style prevalent within the Old Imperial Republic's capital system.

Ephera Primus was the first such implementation of this plan. Little effort was made to provide this colony with any industrial or manufacturing economy. Instead, it became the center of finance and commerce for the sector.

On the converse its sister city in Dylars' Ditch, Pertinacity, became a textiles and raw synthetics manufacturing hub for the Old Imperial Republic Colonial Division.

Both Ephera and Dylars' Ditch were colonized within five years of each other and in twenty years, all three planetary systems were exceeding export quotas of the Old Imperial Republic.

This success prompted the fourth and final Colonial Expansion into Sanctuary. Even though this planetary system held resources that exceeded its sister systems, there was a concerted effort by the Colonials to establish the first conservationist planet within the Periphery.

As time progressed, and with Passers Cove serving its purpose effectively the branch government office in Samraum had turned a blind eye to the mountain of reported paperwork relating to fraud and civil complaints.

The Colonials of Passers Cove were forced to endure the rule of an inefficient and corrupt Colonial Central Bureaucracy. Passers Cove distance from the Old Imperial Republic's seat of power near Cradle only served to exacerbate the problem. Coupled with mounting indifference by the branch government office within Samraum, this served to encourage a de facto state of near tyrannical rule.

After nearly 150 years of rule by the Old Imperial Republic's representatives in the Colonial Central Bureaucracy. The spark of revolution came to life when a high profile incident took place to correct the injustices.

A small group of firebrands within the lowest ranks of the Colonial Central Bureaucracy itself began to collect signatures to create a new political party. This small movement brought to light just how many members of the current government, both military and political, had enough of the rampant corruption that was infecting their much beloved Passers Cove.

With the support of many lower and a few higher ranking members of government and the military, these men and women established their own political party, aptly called the People's Colonial Council.

Despite a near impossible decree that 90 percent of the population had to be present to vote in the new party creation, after months of passionate politicking in the streets of Tenacity, fully 91 percent of the population turned out to vote. This made it clear that the people of Tenacity were tired of their de facto government. They achieved the impossible by establishing the first legally-recognized political council to exist outside of the Founding Four parties that defined the original Imperial Republic.

During this time the Colonial Central Bureaucracy of Passers Cove instituted the now infamous McClaren Decree. Using a loophole in the Old Imperial Republic's Unpatriotic Displacement Act, then Senior Representative Joseph Bran McClaren III imposed a decree that all political meetings not first cleared by the ruling Colonial Central Bureaucracy would be constituted as an act of sedition. If any did not comply, this would trigger the UDA enforcement clause that stated:

'…all due diligence and swift reprimand are to be carried out with extreme prejudice, to all political meetings, establishments and reconnoitering not firstly sanctioned by the governing rule.'

The wording in this clause led to one of the most nefarious acts of political silencing since the Great Cleansing of the Three. In the span of a week, 35 of the 50 elected board members in the People's Colonial Council were either incarcerated or simply disappeared.

The "disappearance" of the fifteen original founders triggered the series of events that lead to revolution.

Within a month, only fifteen members of the PCC remained. Defying the McClaren Decree, they established a secret committee with the help of local city officials and police force. From their hidden base of operations deep within Tenacity, the highly secretive Colonial Revolutionary Committee was born.

Believing that the McClaren Decree had broken the council's back, the Colonial Central Bureaucracy enacted an emergency legislative session to vote out the new political party for lack of membership in the party's board. This meeting was to take place on the second month of the anniversary of the council's political birth.

During this time the Colonial Revolutionary Committee started to infiltrate the core of the Passers Cove Colonial Central Bureaucracy. By the time of the scheduled meeting, fully three-fourths of the enlisted military members and half of the officer corps were loyal members of the CRC.

The Colonial Deep Militarized Branch Admiralty and the Colonial Central Bureaucracy were in a closed door session when a detachment of 150 men and women tasked with protection detail shed their Branch Admiralty markings and revealed the stripes of the newly-created Colonial Revolutionists uniforms. Without so much as storming through the doors, the governing body was effectively relieved of duty and incarcerated, pending trial by the now-established Colonial Revolutionary Committee.

Within 72 hours, members once loyal to the Colonial Deep Militarized Branch Admiralty commandeered over 85 percent of the military hardware in the system. History will say this was the defining moment in the fight for independence, but those 72 hours became the bloodiest of the entire war.

Of the nearly 450,000 military personnel, nearly 100,000 men and women still loyal to the Old Imperial Republic lost their lives. In addition, of the remaining 25 percent of the military hardware that wasn't immediately seized, fully half were still performing their active duty roles. Every last ship that could not execute mutiny flawlessly was shuttled with full crews on board, both Imperial and Colonial.

Several Old Imperial Republic junior officer's became the linchpins that made the revolution successful, and later obtained the coveted Federalist Revolutionary metal.

Among them, was a young officer by the name of Miranda Arrlae Gray. She had been transferred from Tenacity to the venerated 59th Orbital Defense grid. Her subsequent promotion to second Lieutenant after successfully defending the orbiter from a pirate raid a year prior to the revolution had allowed her access to the Defense Commander's inner sanctum.

Her sterling reputation and leadership, allowed her to successfully execute a mutiny and as intern revolutionary captain, she and her battalion became embroiled in one of the most vicious void battles ever documented in the history of the human race.

So decisive was the overall victory against the Old Imperial Republic that it became a turning point, and the call for total independence was declared.

Their sovereignty fully made legal when the Old Imperial Republic were unable to maintain their status as a dual-seated government and the new colonial revolutionary governance overthrew and acquired the majority seat in the Periphery Council of Governments within the Correlated Galactic Entente.