Wars of the Reavers
The Wars of the Reavers: (-962 to -930) was a series of raids staged by the Sylean Grand Fleet.
Description (Specifications)[edit]
During the Long Night, the wealthy families on Sylea maintained a small fleet of jump-capable merchant ships, which attracted the attention of a number of desperate raider bands from Lishun Sector, collectively known as Reavers.
History & Background (Dossier)[edit]
Initially, Sylea ignored reports of Reaver attacks on the merchant ships. However, in -962, a series of raids on ships near Sylea meant that the ruling classes could no longer ignore the Reavers. A number of warships patrolled the coreward regions of the Sylean Main, but either could not locate Reaver ships or were captured or destroyed in cunning Reaver ambushes.
In -959, Baron Ricard Urquhardt, a young Solomani nobleman, gathered substantial support among Vilani merchant families and some of the more aggressive Solomani nobles. He levied warships, marines and armed merchantmen from his supporters, and organized a force he named the Sylean Grand Fleet. The fleet was not equipped or trained to mount large anti-piracy fleet actions, but instead it enforced the Urquhardt Doctrine: Any Reaver attack on a Sylean merchant ship would be answered by a massive retaliatory assault on a Reaver planet. Over the following thirty years, the Grand Fleet destroyed many Reaver bases in the rimward sunsectors of Lishun.
The small Reaver bands were no match for a large, organized fleet. The Grand Fleet pillaged entire planets, even those merely suspected of harboring Reavers. It poisoned agricultural lands with radioactive salts, and destroyed any facilities that might support starship operations, including stocks of fuel and any industries capable of building starship components. By -930, the Reavers had been destroyed or withdrawn entirely from the Core sector.