User:BaconShelf/Far Isle

The Far Isle rebellion was a conflict fought on the colony world of Far Isle. While ostensibly an internal civil war fought due to land disputes on the planet itself, the conflict came to involve nearly every major power of the late-25th century including those of the United Nations Space Command, Colonial Military Authority and the nascent Secessionist Union. For the first several decades, the rebellion was a mostly-contained low-intensity conflict fought between the planetary militias and the private security forces of Aquarius Terraforming Solutions, though in the final months of 2492 saw a series of rapid escalations leading to the total obliteration of the planetary capital via nuclear weapons deployment. The circumstances of the nuclear deployment have remained shrouded in mystery ever-since, leading to the incident becoming infamous for sparking the Insurrection - alongside numerous conspiracy theories.

Prior to the Human-Covenant War, the Far Isle rebellion was infamous for being the only incident of a human colony world's infrastructure and population to be obliterated to near-total levels.

Background
The planet of Far Isle was settled by the Long Sighter Foundation (LSF) in the late-24th century. The LSF were a private co-operative based out of Strauss' World, considered in part to be a spiritualist cult with dubious legitimacy. At the time, the LSF were made up of many of the survivors and veterans of the first Inner Colony War of 2372-2373, and had taken the teachings of Olga Palari to heart. The co-operative's beliefs were centred on a mixture of Palari's writings, a mix of religious beliefs owing to Strauss' World's diverse backgrounds and a cult of personality centred on Lysander Karos - an ideologue who had been influential in the colonial war. In brief, the LSF believed that the settlement of new worlds wasn't enough to escape the ever-growing reach of the United Earth Government - and that only by making a permanent voyage into the stars away from Sol would true independence from Earth be achieved. Over time, the LSF's members pooled their collective earnings into Karos' collective fund, culminating enough money to purchase an old and battered Star Charter-class colony ship retrofitted with a second-hand Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine with which they would begin their voyage. The journey was, by and large, subject to ridicule by the wider Human Sphere, and was commonly assumed to resulted in the death of all involved when the ship was never seen again.

However, the LSF colony ship didn't fail mid-transit, as was commonly believed, and was instead able to chart a number of unexplored slipspace routes down the path leading away from Sol, along the modern Via Serena route. The voyage was eventually stopped at an unclear time due to a breakdown of the SFTE, which the resident ship-board technicians had not the skill to fix. Stranded, the crew elected instead to simply settle the predominant terrestrial world in the system - coming to name it Far Isle and its star, Lysander - after the LSF leader whom had died mid-jump due to medical complications with early cryogenic stasis technology.

The LSF put their ship down on the surface of Far Isle, forming the first colonial homestead town on the planet - which went unnamed for the longest time, simply referred to by local residents as "the town". Far Isle at the time was not a particularly friendly world to terrestrial life, boasting an atmosphere and surface conditions that were livable, but an atmosphere that was toxic to breathe and a local ecosystem that caused extreme allergic reactions if ingested. As such, the local residents were unable to grow crops except in specialised hydroponics farm modules, and had to live inside sealed habitation. However, this unfriendly environment proved a boon the colonists, who - lacking the ability to endlessly journey away from Earth - sought to remain hidden from the interstellar community at large. Far Isle was too unfriendly to then-modern terraforming processes to be a viable candidate for industry. The settlers believed that when Far Isle would be discovered, it would likely be passed over in favour of other, more habitable worlds. This assumption was (unknowingly) disproved in the early 25th century, when Far Isle was indexed by the Earth Survey Catalog, and began to be considered for colony status.