Origins of the Terran Republic - Part 2
Terraforming of Mars Illustration courtesy of NASA
Death of the Prophet
2069-2101
The Cathedral of Attra and the Great Citadel of Fantatoul were founded in the eastern Martian provinces by the recently retired General Kossa in 2069 to provide places of worship for the faithful and the newly converted. The cathedrals acted as places of worship and civic centers. In time they would each become the centers of the two major Ammanian factions, the 'peace party' of Attra, or the Attrans, and the 'hawks' of Fantatoul or the 'Tatou.'
Three years later the Ammanian Prophet Demsel died violently and under suspicious circumstances. Demsel's death created unrest in the eastern provinces, and General Kossa took full advantage of the suspicions of the faithful to build a strong following. He set up his political headquarters in the environs of the Great Citadel and in 2073, to the horror of many, Kossa declared the Ammanian Kossa Principate, selected seven elders to act as the Consul of Governors and formally declared sovereignty over the twenty-two provinces of the eastern Martian hemisphere. The Earth-controlled Martian government refused to recognize the Principate, but it lacked the military muscle to intervene. For the next seven years, General Kossa continued to expand the borders of the Principate, and by 2080, Ammanian provinces in the east numbered forty-three.
The Martian government's position was precarious. Aside from the indigenous police forces, the various United Nations Treaties prohibited military forces, and Earth's nations had neither the resources nor the political will to send troops to pick a fight on Mars. So far as the Earth and the Martian governments were concerned, the Ammanians were welcome to the eastern deserts of Mars. The Earthers were better off without them. Besides, the Principate was dependent upon commerce with Earth. The import of foodstuffs, oxygen, and water, especially water, was controlled by the corporations of Earth and the Martian government. The Principate was still under the Earth's thumb.
But Kossa had other plans.
In late 2089 some jurisdictional arguments between Principate soldiers and Martian security forces along the frontier culminated in gunfire. Each side collected their dead and blamed the other. In April of 2090 open warfare broke out when Principate forces crossed the east-west border to attack the Martian community of Newton and occupied the domes of the city. The Terrans, the Ammanian name for Earthers and loyalist Martians protested but did little to redress the affront.
First Sol System Jihad
In 2091, Ammanians troops invaded the western provinces in earnest. The Martians, still having nothing but a police force was forced to submit and pay tribute after the United Nations informed the government that they were unable to provide the military forces needed to defend western Mars. But a popular revolt among the Attran faction forced General Kossa to recall his troops, giving up the occupation of the western regions.
Knowing that they must arm or be destroyed, the Martians hired Earth's major defense contractors to build an army and squadrons of aircraft and orbital combat ships.
As expected, after a five-year interlude during which the Ammanians suffered a civil war between the Attrans and Kossa's victorious Tatou forces, the fight against Terran Mars resumed. In 2097 the Ammanians launch the first of many armed spacecraft. The ships are little more than rocket capsules armed with missiles. The pilots call them rocket coffins. In 2098 the rocket capsules of the Ammanian stellar forces score their first kill when a Fremont Corporation transport capsule carrying high tech optical equipment is destroyed as it approaches Mars.
The Principate armies seized a majority of the Martian western hemisphere up to the Najia Ridge, through a series of campaigns which ended in 2099. However, A Martian counter-attack led by the corporate-trained armies and newly arrived Earth mercenaries drove the Ammanians back to their original borders.
The retreat of Kossa's forces triggered renewed unrest in the Principate and a second civil war broke out when the hawkish Tatou opposed a peace initiative by the Attran Ammanians. This further weakened Kossa's armies. Martian forces then invaded the eastern provinces in a campaign that lasted two years until a desperate Ammanian assault recovered Ventria province and held it against the Terrans. Fighting continued until 2101, when General Kossa, well advanced in age, died while at his field headquarters.
