Terra Under the Word of Blake
Following the Word of Blake’s conquest of Terra in 3058, the new masters of Humanities’ home began the process of assimilating the government of the system into their own power structure. However, despite ComStar’s centuries long occupation of the system, the years from 3052-3058 had drastically altered the view of Terra held by her citizens, a view which would cause immense problems for the Word’s occupation.
3058-3060 The Resistance Recedes
Unprepared for the sudden savagery of the Word’s assault on Terra, ComStar was hard pressed to initiate CASE BLACK, the activation of numerous sleeper cells of ROM agents across the system, as the ComGuard defences collapsed.
Although certain ComStar line forces resisted for some time, they were inevitably hunted down and exterminated, accomplishing little of real substance. It was the clandestine actions of loyal ROM agents, aided by Terran sympathisers that did the real damage, crippling computer networks and sealing bases across the world.
However, ROM was compromised itself and losses amongst its forces on world rapidly spiralled to appoint where active operations were halted in late 3059, as the remaining ROM cells tried to husband their resources and rebuild their brutalised numbers.
Meanwhile the Word of Blake was striving to bring the worlds defence assets back on line, a job hampered by ComStar’s sabotage efforts. Although a good delaying tactic, by the close of 3060, the Word of Blake had access to all the world’s bases and defences.
One aspect of this long effort to reopen old ComGuard and SLDF bases, was the Word’s inability to spare resources to restart Terra’s massive military industrial complex. This delay would be critical in preventing the Word from expanding as quickly as planned, greatly easing the job of ComStar planners later in the decade.
3060-3062 The Resistance Revives
Over the period from 3060 to 3062, the ComStar ROM cells that had survived the initial battles and purges began to slowly rebuild themselves, keeping to the shadows and trying to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. The focus of these units over this time was in stalling any attempts by the Word to reopen military industrial facilities and in encouraging resistance from Terran citizens who opposed the return of the old ways under the Word.
The period from 3052-3058 had re-instilled in Terrans a sense of their identity in the universe and saw them look outwards for the first time in centuries. By the end of the decade, many Terrans were recalling the era of their world’s leadership and seeing that their strength and power was still something to be reckoned with on the Interstellar stage.
The return of the old ways under the Word of Blake ended this thought experiment, much to the chagrin of several prominent citizens of the world. However, these few were not enough to cause issues on their own, and so the remaining ROM cells focused on providing a steady stream of new adherents to these leaders, slowly creating a problem the Word did not want to deal with.
3062-3064 The Resistance Reconnoitres
The ROM cells on Terra knew that the ComGuards would return at some stage and so began to actively plan for that day from about 3062 onwards. Details on Word forces, dispositions, strengths and vulnerabilities were catalogued and shared from cell to cell. However, the major focus remained the agitating of Terra’s masses against the Word of Blake.
Critical mass in this effort was reached on June 28th, 3063, when Alexis Tran, a well known and popular pro-Terran activist was killed outside the Singapore Castle Brian. Though there is no evidence to suggest Word of Blake involvement in his death, it was exactly the catalyst that the sleeper cells were looking for.
Within days, shadow communications networks were spreading the news, igniting fires of protest in many of the world’s major cities. These protests could well have petered out had ComStar’s ROM not involved itself in them, becoming the leading wave of the protests and striking at Blakeist bases from the masses of the protesters.
The Blakeist response was not well coordinated and two incidents of heavy handed action, exactly what the ROM protesters wanted, set the world afire. The deaths of protesters in Mumbai and Florence further drove the fires of protest, which led to an ever spiralling decent into running street battles and arrests by WOB forces, as TerraSec stood back and declared its neutrality.
3064-3066 The Resistance Rolls On
From 3064 to 3066 the resistance to the WOB saw numerous prison camps set up, where Terran citizens were sent for re-education. In the midst if these arrests and further protests, both ComStar and Word ROM openly engaged each other, with their savage encounters often spilling into the streets.
With news of the camps spreading, the 11th TerraSec Regiment in Sau Paulo rebelled, but was swiftly crushed by WOB forces. However, with that die cast, the WOB wasted little time in disarming the remaining TerraSec formations. Despite their efforts, numerous small units slipped away to join the ever strengthening resistance.
By 3066 the Word was striving to control a powder keg, as it struggled to build its forces, restart industry and calm the ever deteriorating problems on humanities birth world. In order to distract attention from the issues on world, WOB forces took several planets in the Chaos March, trying to spin the effort as an attempt to rebuild Terra’s old empire. Although this move worked to some extent, discontent still simmered and many were the opponents of the Word who were still willing to openly resist.
3066-3067 The Resistance Rebels
In late 3066 a ComStar vessel jumped into near Earth orbit and began broadcasting a repeating signal until its destruction 34 minutes later. The contents of the signal have never been revealed, but what was clear was that ComStar ROM seemingly vanished over night, calming the situation on the mother world for several months.
However, on August 1st 3067, one day before the CASE WHITE Fleet jumped in system, all hell broke loose on Earth, as the remaining ROM forces struck at key communications and logistics nodes across the world. Although their efforts were only moderately successful, they distracted Word commanders at the moment three separate WarShip squadrons materialised near Luna, Mars and Titan. A day later, JumpShips and DropShips, containing 28 ComStar Divisions and all of Wolf’s Dragoons, jumped in system to a point between Earth and Mars.
