Shaps Crisis

The Shaps Crisis was a short-lived period of military and political clashes between the UNSC and the secessionist colonies of the Madara Fringe.

Aftermath
The Shaps Crisis' was one of the most important and pivotal moments in the Via Casilina Community's history. Previously, although the colonies of the Madara Fringe had acted and traded independently from the larger Human Sphere, the UEG and by extension the UNSC still considered them as part of their colonial empire. With the ratification of the Treaty of Terceira after the Crisis' conclusion, the UNSC had to recognize them as their own sovereign entity, giving up their claims and plans for reoccupying the region in the future. It established total political, legislative, judicial, and commercial independence from the larger UEG and later the Phoenix Initiative, and firm borders that defined where their respective territories were. Crucially, it also cut off the military protection that the colonies previously benefited from, which would be a driving factor for their unification into the Via Casilina Community.

The entire period was seen as an embarrassment for the UNSC, and demonstrated several hard lessons they had to appreciate. The biggest was that nobody was quite yet willing to fight another war against a human opponent. Even though the UNSC had a decisive military advantage over the Madaran colonies in all areas, exercising that was problematic as many servicemen refused to commit to battle unless they themselves were fired upon. There were even instances where soldiers gave up positions without firing a shot, and those that did usually expressed profound regret or even more serious mental illnesses over ending human lives. In addition, the UNSC was extremely sensitive to unrest among its civilian population, and the threat of widespread civil war acted as a sword of Damocles that hung over any suggestion to invade the rogue colonies.

The Shaps Crisis also established the influence that Covenant successor-states could have on human politics. The Strewn Shore was deeply concerned with the escalating situation outside their rimward borders, and in any case preferred the creation of a buffer-state that separated them from the larger UNSC. Even the Concord of Reconciliation urged the UNSC to end the crisis quickly, as a prolonged invasion scenario would've tied up ships that would've been used to combat the Torchbearers in the Human Sphere and the Hades Gulf.