Caldari Prime
Caldari Prime is the homeworld of the Civire and Deteis people, and is located in the Gallente system of Luminaire (which also contains the Gallente homeworld)
Until recently the planet was claimed and occupied for almost two centuries by the Gallente Federation, following the Gallente-Caldari War. Following unprecedented, state-wide cooperation under the leadership of Tibus Heth, in YC 110 a massive invasion force successfully penetrated Federation defenses and the planet was once again claimed as a sovereign world of the Caldari State.
However in early YC 115, following a period of increasing political and social unrest on the planet, the Federation Navy launched a major assault against the Caldari Navy Leviathan-class Titan Shiigeru and its support fleet, who had stayed in orbit of Caldari Prime since YC 110 to enforce Caldari possession of the planet. The massive offensive operation to re-conquer Caldari Prime, known as Operation Highlander, ended with the destruction of the Shiigeru and its catastrophic fall on Caldari Prime surface.
After the cease of the conflict Caldari Prime has been demilitarized by both Caldari and Gallente forces, and it is now divided in districts which are split between Caldari State and Gallente Federation administrations, with Mordu’s Legion being hired as security and peacekeeper force on the surface.
Contents
History
Collapse
Caldari Prime was initially a barren, uninhabitable world, and the Luminaire system was initially known only as VH-451. The planet was purchased during the colonization of New Eden, by an unidentified Terran megacorporation who proceeded to initiate a terraforming process designed to convert the inhospitable world into a planet fit for human habitation. Small-scale colonization began soon afterwards, consisting mostly of pioneers and of the technicians responsible for overseeing the terraforming equipment, and their families.
When the EVE Gate collapsed, Caldari Prime was cut off, and given its inhospitality towards human habitation collapsed into a dark age very quickly. Most of the colonies died off soon, leaving only a few scattered inhabitants left to struggle on, living under the surface which was still under terraforming process. It took 246 years for the terraforming process to reach the point where the planet was habitable and humans could once again venture out onto the surface. The remains of the ancient underground structures served as hiding places for children during the Gallente-Caldari War.
Geography
Caldari Prime is a cold world, largely given over to tundra, with temperate zones at the tropics and equator. This is partly due to its being near the extreme outside edge of the Luminaire star's habitable zone, and also because the terraforming process, without adequate human oversight, was improperly completed, with the result that the air of Caldari Prime is quite thin, its soil is rather barren and its seas and wildernesses were not properly stocked with creatures and plants, many of which were too delicate to properly survive the frigid temperatures or incomplete ecosystem. Now, however, the planet produces food in abundance despite its low temperature.
Notable locations include the Kaalakiota Mountains, the city of Arcurio, and the ruins of the underwater Gallente city of Nouvelle Rouvenor.
Civilization
The social collapse on Caldari Prime was so complete that it took another eight thousand years after the atmosphere became breathable for the first recorded civilization to arise. Prior to the point, the Caldari consisted of scattered, warring tribes on separate continents who slowly came together into allied houses. The first empires and bloodlines grew out of these alliances, and over time these empires also merged, eventually leading to the formation of the Raata Empire in the year 17453 AD. This empire lasted until 20998 when it collapsed and split into a number of smaller states that were the foundations for the modern Caldari megacorporations.
First contact with the Gallente occurred in 22517 AD, although they had been aware of the (at the time) less technologically advanced Caldari for fifty-four years prior to that point. The Gallente "Cultural Deliverance Society" finally arrived on Caldari Prime one hundred and fourteen years later. When the Gallente Federation was founded in 23121, the Caldari were founding members.
The War
Buildup
The Caldari never wholly clicked with Gallente government. Even when they were co-founding the Federation alongside the Gallente, Intaki and Mannar, some of the Caldari megacorporations were establishing secret colonies and deep-space resources outside of Federation borders that weren't subject to Gallente trade regulations. The Caldari viewed this as part of the process of retaining their cultural identity and autonomy.
When the Caldari extraterritorial assets were, as was inevitable, discovered the Gallente demanded that the Caldari assets be placed under Federation control. The Caldari responded by seceding from the Federation. The result was a tense standoff, with Caldari warships blockading all of the stargates that had been built by the mega corporations. The Gallente government spent several days debating how to negotiate a peace settlement.
Peace was not given a chance, however. A Caldari extremist organization known as the Templis Dragonaurs finally set light to the powder keg when they bombed the city of Nouvelle Rouvenor. This city, constructed inside an environment dome deep underwater, was especially vulnerable to this sort of attack. When the sea waters flooded in through the breached dome, they claimed the lives of more than half a million people.
Evacuation
The immediate response was for the Gallente to initiate an invasion of Caldari Prime, beginning with a sustained orbital bombardment. Massively outnumbered, the Caldari had no hope of holding on to their homeworld. Evacuating the civilian population required the Caldari to hold the orbit of their planet for a month.
Earning that month required that the Caldari Navy be able to keep the Gallente out of the homeworld's orbit and engaged elsewhere. The result was a month-long and bloody fight for the orbit of Caldari Prime, that ultimately came to an end with the heroic sacrifice of Admiral Yakiya Tovil-Toba in what became known to the Gallente as the "Hueromont Incident". The Caldari completed their objectives for the evacuation of their homeworld, but could not ultimately consider themselves successful - they were still forced to leave, and would not return for nearly two hundred years.
The war endured for another eighty years after the evacuation of Caldari Prime.
Capsuleer Era
Pilot capsules were actually a direct product of the war, and initially used exclusively by the Caldari Navy in battle against the Federation. The technology only became widespread in YC105, however, more than ninety years after the end of the war.
Gallente Occupancy
From the end of the evacuation through until YC110 (AD.23346), Caldari Prime was part of the Gallente Federation, with a population demographic increasingly made up of largely of Gallente and smaller native Caldari population. This was always an uneasy arrangement, and Caldari Prime remained a segregated world, with distinct districts for each culture, and even whole cities where one ethnicity or the other were in the considerable minority.
After the war ended, the continued occupation of the planet became a significant bone of contention for the Caldari, many of whom felt that the homeworld should be returned to them. The Federation, wary of allowing their former bitter enemies a potential foothold in the capital system never agreed to this point of view, and continued to claim the planet as their own.
Up until the rise of Tibus Heth, the possible reclamation of their homeworld was at most a distant, impossible fantasy for the Caldari. Heth's rise, accompanied as it was by a surge of ethnic violence on Caldari Prime, prompted President Souro Foiritan to declare a state of martial law on Caldari Prime. The enforced curfew resulted in increased levels of segregation among the planet's inhabitants.
Invasion
In YC110, Tibus Heth seized the opportunity created by the Elder attack on the CONCORD Headquarters in Yulai to initiate a massive invasion of the Federation with single-minded intent - the recapture of Caldari Prime. Heth committed 90% of the Caldari Navy to the invasion. Assisted by the sabotage of the Federation's "Tripwire" border monitoring system, the treason of Anvent Eturrer, and the proximity of Luminaire to the Caldari border (a mere two jumps), the massive invasion force was pretty much guaranteed to succeed.
With a total of twenty million soldiers committed the ground invasion, and the Luminaire system emptied of Federation warships and every entrance point thoroughly blockaded, the recapture of the planet was swift and ruthless, though by most accounts the invading Caldari forces did their best to spare civilians of both races.
The martial law and resultant separation of the Gallente and Caldari populace into separate districts made it very easy for Heth to twist President Foiritain's arm. Faced with the deaths of every Gallente on Caldari Prime and maybe on Gallente Prime as well, Foiritain relented and used the presidential emergency powers given to him by the Federation Senate to ratify the Federation's surrender of Caldari Prime to the control of the State. Under Foiritain's orders, the Caldari fleet was allowed to withdraw, leaving a single Leviathan-class titan, the Shiigeru, and its support fleet in orbit over the planet.
Caldari Sovereignty
Caldari Prime was a bubble of Caldari territory inside Federation space for five years. Foiritan's signing of the treaty that handed the world back to the State has been alternately hailed as the best possible decision in a bad situation, and viciously criticized as being "spineless".
The planet was under occupation by the State's forces, with the occupying forces consisting mostly of State Army regulars, supplemented by Provist auxiliaries. Naturally, there was a significant resistance movement - either Gallente military who refuse to surrender, or rebellious civilians unwilling to take their home's change of ownership lying down. The most notable of these movements was the Joint Resistance Movement. The Caldari were forced to take extreme measures for dealing with these dissidents.
Operation Highlander
From 15 March YC 115 a new period of unrest started on Caldari Prime, leading to the destruction of Provist headquarters on the 18 March and subsequently to the Battle of Caldari Prime.
On the morning of March 22 the Federation Combined Armed Forces launched their largest military offensive since the bombardment of Caldari Prime over a century earlier, facing off against the Shiigeru and her support fleet in an eight-hour battle that saw millions of casualties and the first large-scale military use of cloned soldier technology, as thousands of cloned mercenaries fought on both fronts.
Deploying a capital assault force of Nyx-class supercarriers and Moros-class dreadnoughts, the Federation forces were considerably aided by capsuleer supporters. While the Shiigeru and its escorts were supported by Caldari loyalist capsuleers, the attacking forces proved too strong and the titan was destroyed. Large sections of the titan’s superstructure impacted on the surface of Caldari Prime, causing widespread destruction.
On Caldari Prime itself, clone mercenaries fought fiercely for both the Caldari and Gallente ground forces. Caldari forces were able to hold a slight majority of the planetary surface, a major factor in the subsequent demilitarization and division of the planet between Caldari and Gallente administrations.
Soon after the catastrophic impact of Shiigeru’s remains with the surface, Ishukone asked permission to the Gallente Senate to access the planet for relief purposes, permission that was granted soon after, and played an important role for the subsequent diplomatic efforts of ceasing the conflict still ongoing on the surface.
Demilitarisation of the planet
On April 2 YC 115 an agreement between the Gallente Federation and the Caldari State was signed by President Jacus Roden and six of the eight CEOs of the Chief Executive Panel. Despite both Tibus Heth and Lai Dai CEO Alakoni Ishanoya refused to sign, the bylaws of the CEP de facto bound all megacorporations to respect the agreement. The agreement classified Caldari Prime as a demilitarized zone, prompting both Gallente Federation and Caldari State to call off every military operation on the planet and granting all defence and policing duties of the planet to Mordu’s Legion. The surface has been divided into a number of districts that has been split between Gallente and Caldari administration. Roughly fifty-four percent of the districts fall under the Caldari jurisdiction of the Ishukone Corporation, while forty-six percent are Gallente districts administered by Material Acquisition. The districts are purely administrative and are not segregated by ethnicity.
Inhabitants of the Gallente districts are considered full citizens of the Federation and fall under all laws that previously applied to Caldari Prime before the Caldari invasion. The Caldari districts are under a more convoluted system, with individuals retaining corporate citizenship with their megacorporate employers, though Ishukone collects administrative taxes and apply their corporate law for civilian activities. According to the terms of the treaty, Caldari Prime's two largest cities, Arcurio and Tovil, are split between the two sides. Tovil falls under Caldari administration, while Arcurio has been placed within a Gallente district.