During the Kuvexian War, Essia was occupied by the Kuvexians between mid-YE 40 and 5日 4月 YE 41. This resulted in significant changes for Essia and the Separa'Shan.

As the Kuvexian war that began in YE 38 began to heat up, Kuvexian planners decided to strike the Yamatai Star Empire in a two pronged attack. The first prong was an assault on the Ketsurui Military Sector and the second prong was taking the lightly defended but resource rich system of Essia. The objectives for the Kuvexian Third Fleet, led by Noro Deilfir Iskaru, were to take and exploit the Essia system and to split the attention of the Star Army of Yamatai between two fronts.

Iskaru's initial attack consisted of a relatively small fleet of roughly three hundred starships that attacked the System, destroying a orbital station and many satellites. However, the YSS Wyvern detected the ships when they were about an hour away from Essia. They were able to warn the system of the approach. The YSS Wyvern was able to rescue many key members of Essia's government and defended a large convoy of ships that managed to escape from the attacking Kuvexian fleet. The escaping ships included a large chunk of the Essia Monetary Exchange's inventory and finances.

The Seventh fleet was tasked with retaking the Essia system from the Kuvexian fleet. Three Fuji-class Expeditionary Gunships, the YSS Ranger, YSS Invincible, and YSS Akagi were dispatched immediately to provide forward reconnaissance on the situation in Essia. The YSS Ranger infiltrated one of the asteroid belts to plant sensors that would provide high detail up to the second intelligence on the activities in the Essia system. The YSS Invincible was detected and destroyed, although it's soul savior pod was recovered. The YSS Ranger was detected, but a successful feinting maneuver, losing a quarter of it's infantry, allowed the sensor net that was constructed to was thought to remain undetected by the Kuvexian fleet.

Seventh fleet arrived in Essia and began to approach the Kuvexian fleet which was situated deep within the gravity well. The Kuvexians had allowed the YSS Ranger to place the sensor network to hide the approach of over six hundred ships. This trapped the Seventh Fleet deep inside the system. Realizing that the fleet was outgunned, the Seventh fleet conducted a fighting retreat. However, the ambush was costly and roughly ten percent of the Seventh fleet, including several capital ships, were destroyed. Most of the ships destroyed were the slower ones that were sacrificed for most of the fleet to escape. However, the Kuvexian fleet pursued and a running battle was fought between the retreating seventh fleet and the Kuvexian fleet. With the assistance of Gashmere's orbital defenses, the Seventh fleet was able to make a stand and fight off the Kuvexian fleet.

With the defeat of the Seventh Fleet, what remained of the Conclave of Essia disbanded, with many of the members of the conclave hunted down by Kuvexian forces. Many key figures and all of the Star Army personnel on the planet were able to escape into the Jungles and take a large amount of materiel with them, destroying what had to be left behind. What little remained of the government was forced to sign an alliance with the Kuvexians. The Kuvexians wanted to portray their invasion and occupation as being both profitable and legitimate. Ultimately, neither of these things were true.

Because of this, Essia was given a large degree of liberty. Being nominally a open port and trade was allowed with places that were not formally at war with Kuvexia. They also began construction of mining and other stations to fully exploit Essia's resources.

The members of the Conclave and the Essian Senator, Anslen Volontany, were able to form a government in exile. This government was highly focused on ensuring the Separa'Shan who had been displaced by the occupation were able to find places where they could live and work as well as on retaking Essia.

From day one, the Essian insurgency was a strong force, made up of not just Separa'Shan, but Star Army personnel who were stranded behind enemy lines, almost every attempt by the Kuvexians to assert their influence was hindered by the Insurgency. Convoys would find themselves attacked, facilities blown up, and operations hindered by forces that could attack and then fade back into the dessert or jungle like they had never been there in the first place.

The Nekovalkyrja who were a part of the Insurgency were unsure as to the duration and so began to produce more Nekovalkyrja. These Nekovalkyrja that were born on Essia would later become known as 'Jungle Nekovalkyrja'. They depart from standard Nekovalkyrja culturally due to their strong beliefs in the supernatural and almost all are colored to match the jungles or desserts.

Due to Essia sill conducting trade with such partners as the Aberwarn Space Empire and Section Six, Essia was extremely porus both to those wanting to leave Essia due to the constant conflict and those who wanted to come to Essia to spy on the Kuvexians or smuggle illegal weapons to the Insurgantcy. The Insurgantcy received shipments of weapons from both Section Six, and Yamatai leading to a mix of equipment in use. The most notable thing was the Separa'Shan variant of the Revenant Power Armor, which was used extensively by the insurgency.

There was a huge amount of intelligence work done by SAINT and others during the occupation, and a great deal of information about Kuvexia was obtained. Kuvexians would frequently disappear targets of interest or even whole villages to be sold as slaves in Kuvexia.

With Essia occupied, the Kuvexian fleet began to move outward. They attacked or threatened almost everywhere from Xylar to Celledona to Akina. They would often strike from the Claw, Rosenthal, and Chen nebula against targets of opportunity. This spread the Seventh Fleet thin. The saving grace for the Seventh fleet was that the core of the Kuvexian fleet remained in the Essia system. This prevented them from permanently taking anything farther. It also allowed the Seventh Fleet to engage the Kuvexians on something resembling a level playing field.

The North-Eastern Front was stalemated, as the Kuvexians were unwilling to commit enough forces to press farther into Yamatai and the Star Army was not able to focus it's attention on removing them from Essia without a much larger fleet due to the action in the Ketsurui Military Sector. There were many tactical victories and losses, such as attacks on Kuvexian convoys, or the defense of Halna, but no significant strategic victories for either side.

This would change in early YE 41 with the development of a sensor network that could penetrate the nebula to a degree. While the sensor network was destroyed in the Battle of Ether, it was a significant strategic victory, showing that they could detect and force the Kuvexians to engage them.

Due to their desire to see Essia be a profitable world, the Kuvexians began construction on many improvements to the system, such as mines, a starship gate to the layline gate system, and space elevators with the assistance of Freespacers. Unknown to the Kuvexians who bankrolled everthing, the Freepspacers were also incontact with the Essian Senator, Anslen Volontany, who provided addtional funds to speed construction and ensure that after the occupation was over, the Freespacers would always find a friend in Essia. Because of this, many freespacers habitats were built in the Essia system.

While technically, the days of awe began at the beginning of the Occupation, with visions and other miracles preformed by Nagashun and the gods of the Separa'Shan to their followers and their near constant support of the resistance to Kuvexia, the Days of Awe is most often used to refer to the last week of the occupation from 34日 3月 to 5日 4月. During this time the Seven signs of Nagashun were given. After the occupation, a common statement of faith in Nagashun is “We Witnessed in our own midst, the days of awe.”

The seven signs of Nagashun were

• Nagashun and other gods gave 'prophetic' dreams and signs that were helpful to the resistance. This started around the time that the Kuvexians invaded. She also used her power to give commands through the 'prophetic' dreams to people who couldn't be seen interacting with known rebellious elements. There were also many minor 'miracles' during this time.
• Roughly about a week before the retaking begins in earnest, Nagashun appearing above one of the holiest birthing grounds with hundreds of thousands of Separa'Shan when the Kuvexians try to bomb it and stopping them.
• The Resurrection of seventeen 'Martyrs' around the planet.
• The conversion of about a battalion of Kuvexian troops to belief in Nagashun.
• In one of the largest Separa'Shan cities, the Kuvexians surround it and a little food lasts for a whole week.
• Fire devouring a few tens of thousands of Kuvexian troops right before a huge battle.
• During the final battle, causing all of the Kuvexian's weapons and armor to stop working.

On 34日 3月 YE 41, in response to the destruction of two of the three largest ships in the Kuvexian fleet, a bombing of one of the holiest places on Essia was conducted. The place was the Plains of Farin'Sha, where every year hundreds of thousands of Separa'Shan lay their eggs on the holy day for their species. They were all in the middle of the celebrations and laying when it happened. However, instead of killing the hundreds of thousands of Separa'Shan, Nagashun appeared and created a shield that prevented them from bombing. All of the Separa'Shan fled and while a few thousand were killed by Kuvexian troops trying to control the situation, most escaped. This resulted in every Separa'Shan on the planet to revolt as one. Not even the occupation goverment was able to be controlled. This resulted in the Kuvexians landing troops all across the planet and a high intensity war to break out.

At the same time, the third and ninth fleets of Star Army attacked the system in Operation Sovereign Commitment¹⁾. The Kuvexians were well entrenched and the battle was fought over the course of several hours. The lights of the battle in the sky could be seen from the ground and the smoke rising from the battles on the surface could be seen from space. In the end, Iskaru chose to retreat with a large chunk of the Starships under his command when it became clear that the battle could not be won.

In the immediate aftermath of the occupation, work was done by SAINT and Yamatai police forces to determine the extent of the cooperation of Separa'Shan with Kuvexians. Ultimately, it was found that between SAINT and the Insurgency, there were very few Separa'Shan who were not either part of the resistance or contacts for SAINT. The few surviving willing collaborators all took sanctuary in monasteries and while they were available to speak about their experiences, they were under the protection of the priesthood.

Almost all of the infrastructure built by the freespacers and Kuvexians was captured intact including the jump gate, shipyards, and the space elevators. This led to a huge increase in Essia's production of materiel and agricultural products for sale in the larger galaxy.

The Conclave of Essia would institute a shipsteading program where ships with weapons could be obtained in exchange for service in times of need for the Separa'Shan police and military forces.

The Occupation also resulted in a huge diaspora of Separa'Shan across the Galaxy. This included slaves taken by the Kuvexians, people fleeing the conflict, and those who felt that Essia would be better off without Yamatai who settled a colony on a jungle world outside of Yamatai's space.

Soban created this article on 2019/05/27 14:41.

🚧 This article is a work-in-progress. Is it not currently approved.