Reef Wars

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The Reef Wars were a series of conflicts that took place in the Solar System's asteroid belt, waged between the Awoken of the Reef and the Fallen House of Wolves. The wars ended with Skolas' confinement in the Prison of Elders and Queen Mara assuming the Kellship over the Wolves, bringing the defeated Fallen into her realm. Details of the conflict can be found in the Maraid.

Background

The seeds of the conflict were sewn when the House of Kings and their mysterious Kell organized a massive attack against the Last City on Earth so that they might shatter humanity's final bastion and claim the "Great Machine", a limitless supply of ether, for themselves. Mustering the might of the House of Devils from Earth and the House of Winter from Venus, the Kings also sent their summons beyond the asteroid belt to the House of Wolves.

Virixas, Kell of Wolves, heard this call and amassed his fleet from the Jovians with the intention of combining his house's strength, which ranged between the hundreds of thousands to millions, with the Fallen coalition gathering for the assault. Pushing through the asteroid belt toward Earth, the Wolves' presence stirred the Awoken who knew of the coming attack through their Techeuns but lacked any means of warning the City. Whether Mara Sov, the Queen of the Reef, sought to save potential allies from the coming onslaught or simply desired to bring the Wolves under her rule is unclear as the Fallen and Awoken share different views on this but regardless of the queen's motives, she acted.

Course of the war

The Scatter

Virixas had the Wolf fleet regroup at Ceres, a large asteroid in the belt, still seemingly oblivious of the Awoken's presence until the light from their ship engines appears. The Awoken fleet consisted of starfighters, destroyers, frigates, and other ships salvaged from the Reef led personally by Queen Mara. Unworried by this seemingly meager force, Virixas warned the Queen to surrender. The Awoken respond by cutting their engines and drifting; at this point Mara and Virixas engage in banter, with the latter hoping it would give his ships time to draw the coming battle away from Ceres. This would not be the case, however, as the Queen would summon her harbingers.

Massive superweapons of unclear origin, the harbingers disrupted Fallen ships and servitors so severely that they were left barely operable then unleashed such destructive force that Ceres and over half of the House of Wolves were wiped out; among those killed in the massacre was Virixas, the Kell of Wolves himself. Before they could be completely annihilated, the remaining Wolves scattered into the asteroid belt, never to see battle at the Twilight Gap. although she managed to save the City from their attack, three new claimants to the Kellship rose to threaten her people: Irxis, Wolf Baroness; Parixas, the Howling; and Skolas, the Rabid.

Aftermath

With most of the Wolf nobility incarcerated in the Prison of Elders, Variks declared Mara Sov the new Kell of Wolves, and advised other captives to swer their fealty to her. The first amongst them to do so was Saviks, who served closely with the Queen as one of her guards. A small few attempted to continue their fight against the Awoken however, such as Veliniks, the Ravenous. This would-be Kell rallied a group of Wolves to fight with him but before he could strike, he was captured by Petra Venj.

During other operations to neutralize entrenched hostiles, Petra ordered an airstrike that resulted in Guardian casualties; this led to increased tensions between the Reef and the City and Petra from the Reef only to return when allowed back many years later.

Some time after the wars end, Queen Mara gifted an imprisoned Skolas to the Nine to commemorate their victory against the Fallen but in an act of apparent subterfuge against the Reef, Skolas was freed by one of their agents and given a ship. Declaring himself Kell of Kells, Skolas found renewed purpose and would lead a new uprising to unite the Fallen and claim the Great Machine. Saviks and his Fallen heard of Skolas' return and were the first to rise against the Queen, attempting to assassinate her. Though many so-called of these Queenbreakers fell and Saviks was sent to the Prison of Elders, he and many other noble Wolves would escape soon after. In response, the Queen placed bounties on these enemies and called to the Guardians of the City to quell the rebellion.