The Perseus War was a short, brutal series of border engagements between the Terrans and a renegade faction of templars known as the Stalkers.
Origin
Following the fall of the templar empire at the end of the Hundred-Years War, a significant faction of templars chose to withdraw into isolation, splitting the former empire's home territory in half and declining to involve themselves further in galactic affairs. A state of uneasy truce prevailed for the better part of two centuries before the development of Terran colonies in the Perseus Arm provoked a new conflict.
The templar isolationists had long perceived the Perseus Arm to be their territory. The first colony settlement the Terrans attempted to found was destroyed less than a week after breaking ground, with the loss of all hands, but no attacker was ever discovered. Unperturbed by the setback, the Terrans continued to seed colonies, frequently falling victim to shipping raids and hit and run bombings by raider-class craft of unknown silhouette the colonists began to refer to as stalkers.
After a year or so of attacks, a Terran strike force patrolling the region successfully intercepted and shot down several stalkers, and upon analysing the wrecks discovered they were Templar vessels. Furious, the Terran government demanded Assembly sanctions of the Templars for the year-long campaign of terror. The Templars refused to accept responsibility for their renegade citizens, declaring them to be exiled from the Hegemony and thus not subject to Templar rule.
The Terrans took this as a carte-blanche permission to engage with the "terrorist faction" and deployed several fleets to the region, escalating hostilities. The Stalkers responded by turning their attacks to targets outside the Perseus Arm, striking at "safe" Terran locations.
Key event(s)
- Battle of Bedingrade: Outmatched by the Stalkers both technologically and militarily, the Terrans sought new weapons technology - harnessing antimatter - to try and level the playing field. Their research, hasty, sloppy, and ultimately unsuccessful, caused a number of unstable pockets of dark matter to form in the Bedingrade system, navigational hazards that persist to this day.
- In 83 ATA, responding to rumours of a massive Stalker fleet buildup, Terran high command deliberately leaked intelligence regarding the development of new weaponry and a new fleet at their test bed in Bedingrade via a report to the Assembly. The Templars duly warned their Stalker brethren, and the Stalker fleet jumped into Bedingrade with the intent of wiping out the enemy. The Terrans had no fleet and no weapons, only drone-controlled raiders loaded with nuclear warheads. When the Stalker fleet arrived, the raiders detonated their warheads in the dark matter pockets, causing gravitational and energetic field distortions that tore the Stalker fleet apart.
Aftermath
Their forces seriously depleted, the Stalkers retreated deeper into their home territory. The Terrans were sanctioned by the Assembly for their use of dark matter weapons, and withdrew from their colonies in the Perseus arm, expanding preferentially toward ercinean space.
| Events (alphabetical) | Events (timeline) | 
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| The Daybreak War The Hellfire Campaign The Hundred-Years War The Mendillo Conflict The Nexus Massacre The Oceanhill Incident The Perseus War The Phantom Wars The Sentinel Rebellion |
The Daybreak War (Unknown, BTA) The Phantom Wars (1113-1051 BTA) The Hundred-Years War (210-109 BTA) The Perseus War (81-83 ATA) The Sentinel Rebellion (304-308 ATA) The Nexus Massacre (500 ATA) The Oceanhill Incident (958 ATA) The Hellfire Campaign (993 ATA) The Mendillo Conflict (997 ATA) |