Timeline

Telling Your Time

Here is a handy-dandy timeline to help date prior events that have led humanity to this war with the kitties. More in-depth timelines that follow the Wing Commander game series (©1990 Origin Systems) can be found HERE from WCNews.

"When in the Course of human events…"

2200s / 2300s: Colonization Mining operations conducted on the asteroid belt within Sol System. Humans undertake colonization and terraforming efforts on the other worlds in the Sol System, including Mars and Venus. Expansion then begins to nearby star systems.

Late 2300s: Yan War Humanity recives its first taste of interestellar conflict in a war against a species known as the Yan. The conflict is resolved quickly and with minimal loss of life. Over time, the Yan first become allies, then full members of the Confederation.

2416: Unification The Terran Confederation, a loose alliance of colonies, planets, and systems, each with their own autonomous government, is formed. Significantly military in nature, Confed is designed to provide economic support and a common defense between interstellar outposts of humankind. It replaces the older World Economic Consortium as the Sol System government, and becomes the mediator — and sometimes enforcer — in disagreements and conflicts.

2400s / 2500s: The Great Expansion Humanity spreads out rapidly into interstellar space, until reaching the limits of their drive technology, spurring research into new methods of propulsion.

2588: Jump Drive Dr. Shari Akwende invents a faster-than-light propulsion drive, which is named the Akwende Drive in her honor. It quickly acquires the nickname of 'jump drive' due to the principles which underlie its operation. The older-style 'Hopper' drives appear to be obselete almost overnight.

2588.315: The First Jump The Haile Salassie, mounting the first Terran jump drive, makes the jump from Sol to Polaris. The Haile Salassie returns from Polaris. Exploration into areas previously believed unreachable begins.

2629.105: The Iason Incident Confederation spaceship Iason encounters a spacecraft of unknown origin. Commander Jedora Andropolos on board Iason transmits a wide-band, non-verbal greeting and waits for a response. Barely twenty minutes later, the still-unidentified ship opens fire with full lasers, completely destroying Iason and its crew. Although the identity of the attacking ship is not definitively established until many years later, Confederation deep space tracking computers point to a possible point of origin from a previously unexplored planet, soon to be known by its native name, Kilrah.

2630-2634: Mounting Tensions The Terran Confederation receives numerous reports of unwarranted assault, space piracy, kidnapping and interplanetary plundering, all taking place at an increasingly expanding distance from the planet Kilrah. Frequent attempts to meet with Kilrathi High Command are rejected without explanation. In retaliation, the Terran Confederation Assembly votes unanimously to enforce a strict non-aggression policy by the Kilrathi. The leaders of Kilrah are warned that their next transgression could lead to military reprisals.

2634.186: The Anna Magdalena Incident The Anna Magdalena, 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.

2634.235: McAuliffe Attack A Kilrathi fleet attacks McAuliffe and wipes out the defending Terran fleet using their new shield-piercing torpedoes and fighter based doctrine to decimate the Confederation forces. Despite the Confederation deploying a fleet twice the size of the estimated enemy fleet, the incomplete translation of a partially decoded signal means that the enemy fleet is actually quadruple the expected size. The battle lasts four days. The Kilrathi take more damage than they expected during the battle forcing them to turn back and regroup after the offensive. Kilrathi Prince Ratha is among the slain.

2649: Custer's Carnival Terran ground forces launch an attack on a fortified Kilrathi colony, only to be routed by unexpected Kilrathi fighter support. The new Bengal-class carrier Tiger's Claw is detached from its previous station and assigned to intercept the pursuing fighters in a delaying action eventually known as Custer's Carnival. Swarmed and badly damaged by Kilrathi fighters, the carrier distracts Kilrathi forces long enough for the Terran fleet to reach safety. Despite the fact that three-fourths of its engines are destroyed and half its pilots are listed as casualties, the heroic efforts of the Tiger's Claw's crew allows the carrier to make it back into Terran space. Two Gold Stars (one to a young pilot by the name of James "Paladin" Taggert) and numerous other medals - many of them posthumous - are awarded to the ship's personnel. The carrier itself spends six months in spacedock for repairs and refitting.

2654.110-325: Battle for Venice Terran Intelligence reports that the Kilrathi High Command is directing war efforts from the Venice System, in Vega Sector. Reconnaissance patrols identify Kilrathi ships and boldly give chase, uncovering an Imperial starbase. The Terran patrols are lost, but not before relaying their coordinates back to HQ. A small Terran force of elite fighters is dispatched to the Imperial starbase. Kilrathi resistance is strong, but they are eventually overpowered and the starbase is destroyed. Badly beaten, the Kilrathi move their central military command back to their homeworld of Kilrah.

2654.326: Destruction of the Goddard Colony Shortly after intelligence reports indicate that the Kilrathi have developed a new weapon against inhabited planets, all contact is lost with the Goddard colony. The Confederation fleet arrives at Goddard only to find that the quarter-million colonists were all killed when the Kilrathi bombarded the colony with their new weapon.

2655.199: Goddard Avenged Deeply angered by the Goddard tragedy, the Confederation carrier Tiger's Claw pursues the Kilrathi strike force into enemy territory, where it is ambushed by a captured Confederation Exeter-class ship. Reconnaissance ships eventually locate the dreadnought ship suspected of carrying the prototype weapon. The Tiger's Claw follows, and in a stunning display of deep space logistics and fighting skill, eliminates the dreadnought.

2655: Battle for Firekka In late 2655, the Confederation pledges to protect a newly discovered bird-like race called the Firekkans, who plan to ally with the Confederation. In the interim, a huge Kilrathi battle fleet commanded by Prince Thrakhath and his Drakhai Imperial Guard moves into the Firekkan System. The fleet's intent is unknown until the Kilrathi defector Ralgha nar Hhallas exposes a plan to use Firekka for a religious ritual in which warriors rededicate themselves to Sivar, the Kilrathi god of war. The Confederation decides to disrupt the religious ceremony in hopes of breaking enemy morale. Marine troopships jump into the system and stage an assault on the Kilrathi priestesses. The mission is successful, and the Tiger's Claw retreats to Terran-controlled space under heavy Kilrathi pursuit. In short order, Firekkan natives revolt and force the remaining Kilrathi forces to withdraw.

2656: The Enigma Campaign Confederation forces attempt to remove the Kilrathi from Enigma sector, where strategic jump nodes lead directly to human core colonies. The campaign ends in failure when an attack on the Kilrathi Enigma sector headquarters at K'Tithrak Mang fails, and the renowned TCS Tiger's Claw is ambushed and destroyed by Kilrathi stealth fighters.

2656.080: Showdown Stung by the loss of the Tiger's Claw, the Confedration offensive in Enigma grinds to a halt. Several major force-on-force engagements between Confederation and Kilrathi units end inconclusively, sapping the manpower and resources of both sides to little gain.

2656.195: Drawdown With the loss of many of the ships from the sector fleet in Enigma, ships are withdrawn from the Gemini sector, which is viewed as strategically less important, to bolster the main battle fleets until new vessels come online.

2656.290: Flanking Maneuver Realizing the futility of the direct assault, the Kilrathi decide to attempt a strike through the Gemini sector, against the now weakened Terran presence. Newly constructed Kilrathi ships swarm into the sector, brushing aside the older model terran equpiment. Clarke and Fariss quadrants are quickly overrun, except for Perry system and its naval supply station.

2656.320: Fall of Perry With several previous attacks on Perry turned aside by the station's fierce defenders, the Kilrahi gather their fleet in Gemini sector for an all-out assault on the system. Worn down by the succession of battles, the outpost's defense fails to hold this time. Perry Supply Depot is destroyed as the remaining Terran forces flee through the jump to New Constantinople.

2656.321: Battle of New Constantinople Having crushed the single largest obstacle to their occupation of the sector, Kilrathi forces sweep into the New Constantinople system. They are met by the Terran vessels which fled from Perry, as well as a large number of private craft sponsored by the station's wealthy patrons. The battle drags on, with the Kilrathi getting the upper hand, until the Confederation reinforcements for Gemini Sector finally arrive. Vice Admiral Aleksei Marakov's 8th Fleet jumps into the New Constantinople system as the Terran forces are beginning to break. Asked if they should withdraw due to the numerical superiority of the Kilrathi, Marakov's response is "No matter what, we fight." The fresh ships and men of the 8th fleet charge directly into the heart of the Kilrathi attackers. Casualties are high on both sides, however the unexpected tenacity of the new Terran forces causes the Kilrathi to withdraw.

2657.001: The Present The new year finds the two forces with a rough parity in the sector. The Kilrathi spearhead has been blunted with heavy losses, but without further reinforcement the Terran fleet still lacks the strength to push them out of the systems they have already occupied. The Kilrathi Empire's attept at a quick thrust has instead become another dragged out campaign of attrition, in the same manner as dozens of campaigns before it. The war carries on, with no end in sight.

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