War is Declared (July 5, 2010)

ChrisReid

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator


On this day in the year 2634, war is formally declared between the Terran Confederation and Empire of Kilrah. The last straw came in the form of the tragic Anna Magdelena incident. See how descriptions of this event vary slightly over time. The quotes below come from Claw Marks, Victory Streak and Kilrathi Saga/Star*Soldier.

On 2634.186, war is formally declared by the Terran Confederation on the Empire of
Kilrah for countless acts of piracy and unwarranted assault.
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The Anna Magdelena, ferrying orphans to Dieno, is attacked by a pair of Kilrathi fighters. All hands are lost. In retaliation for this and the five-year string of equally heinous abuses of all known laws of civility, the Terran Confederation officially declares war on the Empire of Kilrah for countless acts of piracy and unwarranted assault.
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The Anna Magdelena, a refitted transport ship ferrying orphans to their new homes on Dieno, is openly attacked by a pair of Kilrathi fighters. No one survives. In retaliation for this and the five-year string of equally heinous abuses of all known laws of civility, the Terran Confederation officially declares war on the Empire of Kilrah.
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Original update published on July 5, 2010
 
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The start of the war is such an interesting series of events. The "Pearl Harbor" of the war doesn't happen until several months into the conflict when Confed thinks it's winning in the Facin (?) Sector.
 
I have to say, I never was too fond of this added detail to the timeline, it was just too evil-cliché for my taste.
 
Facin was from Action Stations. The main reason Confed thought it was winning was because the kats weren't really contesting the campaign, more focused on McAuliffe.

As for "evil cliche", you do recall we're talking about WW2-Pacific IN SPACE!, right? :p That kind of thing wasn't unheard of from the Japanese. It also helps convey that the Kilrathi aren't just humans wearing funny kitty suits, but have their own morality and code of conduct (so to speak).
 
Death said:
(...)

As for "evil cliche", you do recall we're talking about WW2-Pacific IN SPACE!, right? :p That kind of thing wasn't unheard of from the Japanese. It also helps convey that the Kilrathi aren't just humans wearing funny kitty suits, but have their own morality and code of conduct (so to speak).
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I didn't know that the Anna M.-incident has a real-life counterpart. So they're Japanese wearing funny kitty suits? :)
I mean, of course the Kilrathi had to be evil and I already accepted that they shot down ejected pilots, ate their prisoners and randomly attacked civilian targets. But a transport ferrying orphans? That's just too over the top for me. Maybe they didn't know what it was ferrying but it makes it sound (to me) as if they specifically attacked that transport. Probably diverting half of their fleet to do it ;).
 
I don't believe there was a specific analog for the Anna M in WW2, but the Japanese at the time did often have a significant disregard for the accepted rules of war, particularly the treatment of noncombatants and prisoners of war. Nanjing, the Bataan death march, Unit 731, putting civilians in the line of fire (or so planned, anyway, to counter what would've been Operation Olympic, the proposed invasion of the Japanese islands)...

That aside, given the intentional analog of the Pacific campaign of WW2, and the kat talk about "honor" and such, it's hard for the historically minded to come to any conclusion other than that the kats were put in the position of imperial Japan in opposition to the Terran Confederation's position as the US in real life.

As for the forces involved, as the S*S excerpt quoted in the thread starting post says, it was a pair of fighters. I doubt the Kilrathi knew the actual contents, just that, from their perspective, it was an unprotected ship of an inferior, honorless race, and thus a valid target.
 
I never really thought much about the orphans bit until now, but looking at it, it could be as much a propaganda angle as anything else - it first appears in a piece written for human consumption after thirty years of constant war. Made me think more of Korean Air Flight 007, rather than that Dutch flight.

I always wondered what "Facin" was named after. It's a pity Mr. Forstchen didn't have the Universe map to work from when he wrote Action Stations. There's another casus belli mentioned as a throwaway, page 31: "Poor Janet, the loss of their two sons in the Miaquez incident five years ago was something she had never recovered from. He looked back up at Skip and realized that his old friend's pain was barely concealed as well. A case of mistaken identity, the Kilrathi claimed, and the apology was accepted, and Janet stayed locked away in mourning."

So that would have been some time in 2629.
 
Death said:
Apparently, there was a possible analog to the Anna M, though the RL event turned out much better for the civilian craft.

During Japanese operations in the Dutch East Indies in 1942, IJN pilots had standing orders to shoot down any aircraft in the area, armed or not. Saburo Sakai, however, declined to follow those orders, and let a Dutch DC-3 filled with women and children fleeing the warzone go.
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It might also be a reference to the "Panay Incident" in 1937 when Japanese naval aircraft attacked the Panay in the Yangtze River (an international waterway at the time). It was a clearly marked US vessel that was sunk by IJN aircraft. No women and children, but similar in nature.
 
You know, I actually think this incident says more about Confed than about the Kilrathi. Think about it - to them, it was just another transport. They most likely had no idea what was aboard (though, to be fair, we can assume such knowledge would not have made a difference). For Confed, on the other hand, the fact that there were orphans onboard served as the "final straw" to declare war. All things considered, it's likely that this incident was intentionally blown out of proportion - I'm sure there was quite a lot of people, in the military, in the Senate and in the government, who rightly felt that a declaration of war was far overdue.

Prior to the Anna Magdalena incident, it seems that the majority found it preferable to pretend that all these acts of piracy are just communication problems and such - but it's much harder to vote against a declaration of war when everyone is yelling "the Kilrathi are killing our orphans!"

In short, I think this was just another (relatively) meaningless act of piracy - and the reason why it was recorded as the most direct cause of the declaration of war is not because killing orphans was an escalation of the conflict, but because here was at last an issue that could be used to fire up the public.
 
Aside from all the moral implications, I've always been interested in how the words/sentences morphed in just those two revisions. "Terran Confederation on the Empire of Kilrah for countless acts of piracy and unwarranted assault" is retained in the transition from Claw Marks to Victory Streak, and "heinous abuses of all known laws of civility" get added. Then from VS to KS, "heinous abuses of all known laws of civility" is kept and "countless acts of piracy and unwarranted assault" is cut off.

(and then it's neat that 15 years later, we can still be having a discussion about this minor change)
 
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