View source for The War Drones On (Chronicle)

[[Image:Caldariwar.jpg|Gallente-Caldari War: The War Drones On]]

The bitter ferocity of the first stages of the war fueled the animosity and ill will between the two [[Races|races]], killing all hope for peace for years to come. The [[Caldari|Caldari]] were getting stronger by the day as the refugees from [[Caldari|Caldari]] Prime started to settle in, while the Gallenteans were still in a state of confusion following the fall of the fascist regime. The [[Caldari|Caldari]] mounted a series of raids into Federation territory, which the Gallenteans in their slow and cumbersome ships were ill equipped to meet. But the might of the Federation was too much for the [[Caldari|Caldari]] to overcome and their raids, even if successful military wise, had little impact beside draining the morale of the Gallenteans and bolstering their own.

After a while the [[Caldari|Caldari]] agenda became clear - they were willing to sign peace if the Federation would return [[Caldari|Caldari]] Prime and acknowledge the newly formed [[Caldari|Caldari]] state. But the Gallenteans couldn’t agree to these demands for two reasons: one, they were loath to admit a sovereign state into their midst; close to their own home planet and were unwilling to uproot the sizeable [[Gallente|Gallente]] population on [[Caldari|Caldari]] Prime, and second, the Gallenteans were not alone in the Federation and if they allowed the [[Caldari|Caldari]] to leave the Intakis and Mannars, both of them starting to flex their economical and political muscles, might be tempted to follow, thus throwing the whole society into turmoil. The Gallenteans were forced to regard the [[Caldari|Caldari]] as rebels and renegades and had to try to get them back into the Federation, with good or evil.

For a while the Federation could do little else than watch the [[Caldari|Caldari]] play havoc upon the Gallentean fleet and the outermost provinces of the Federation. The [[Caldari|Caldari]] were getting ever bolder and every few months they seemed to have a new and improved version of their nimble solo-fighters, which the Federation had few answers against. To many Gallenteans it seemed inevitable that, unless their demands were met, the [[Caldari|Caldari]] would sooner or later overrun the whole Federation. Everything the Gallenteans tried failed - their attempts for their own solo-fighters were utter failure and stationary defenses such as mines and sentry guns could only go so far in protecting space facilities for long. It seemed like every time the Gallenteans came up with something sleek and speedy and powerful the [[Caldari|Caldari]] would soon respond with something even sleeker and more powerful.

Finally, the solution evolved from the stationary defenses of all things. The Gallenteans had employed mines for a long time with so-so results, but with the massive advances in robotics technology taking place at this time the mines were slowly transformed into a far deadlier object. The first drones were little more than mines with proximity detonators and some limited moving capabilities, but soon they had advanced to the level that a single drone almost rivaled a solo-fighter’s capabilities. The fact that drones were many times cheaper to build than fighters and didn’t require a highly trained pilot meant that the days of the solo-fighters were numbered. The drones reversed the tide of the war and now the [[Caldari|Caldari]] were scrambling to come up with a solution against these new weapons. It didn’t take them that long - they simply upgraded their fighters a bit, added some shields and extra weapons and called the new vessels frigates. Some extra crew was also needed at first, but then the [[Caldari|Caldari]] obtained capsule technology from the Jovians some years later and could again reduce the crew to one on most frigates.

The climatic battle of the war was fought near the twin-system of Iyen-Oursta. Both sides - the Gallenteans with their drones and [[Caldari|Caldari]] with their new frigates - were confident of victory and thus were willing to throw everything they had into the battle. The result was the largest space battle that had been fought in the world of [[Eve|EVE]] up to then, today it has only been surpassed by the Battle of Vak’Atioth during the [[Amarr|Amarr]]-Jove War. The Battle of Iyen-Oursta raged for a whole day. During a lapse in the action after almost 15 hour constant fighting the [[Caldari|Caldari]] withdrew in a stately fashion, leaving the battlefield to the Gallenteans. The Gallenteans claimed victory as the side retaining the battlefield, but the [[Caldari|Caldari]] also claimed victory as they had inflicted considerably more losses and causalities on the Gallenteans than they’d received themselves. In any case, the battle gave neither side the decisive victory they’d sought and it was becoming obvious to everyone that such a victory would never be scored.

With frigates the [[Caldari|Caldari]] managed the stem the tide of the advancing Federation and before long stalemate again ensued. Slowly, normal life returned for most people, the war became a distant thunderstorm that only occasionally rattled the populace as a whole. Neither side was willing to offer peace for fear of it being taken as a sign of weakness, but the new generation growing up on both sides was willing to sacrifice itself for such an uncertain cause, so the war slowly faded into small-scale border skirmishes and raids. The matter was finally settled when the Gallenteans came into contact with the [[Amarr|Amarr]] Empire and soon perceived them to be a much greater threat than the [[Caldari|Caldari]]. This propelled them to make a hasty peace. The Federation acknowledged the [[Caldari|Caldari]] state as sovereign and both sides were to retain their original outposts and settlements, except for [[Caldari|Caldari]] Prime, which remained under Federation control.