Wrath of the Gods

The Wrath of the Gods, known as <<< in Alatazem and as >>> in ???, was a war fought on Deinzephanais and on many worlds owned by the Adiguliz and the Śiter Guliz between the Aziphox of Hieret, and their Adiguliz allies, and Śiter Guliz. The war began in 1094 ED with Satar's attack of Yiḥitheb and finally ended in 1012 ED with the Battle of Satar, in which Golise, the most powerful of the Adiguliz, destroyed the remnants of Satar's fleet.

The Descent of Adifaniz
In 2998 ED, a great comet appeared over Deinazephanais. It was known as Adifaniz to the Ateter, meaning mighty light. The comet appeared as one of the brightest objects in the sky when it broke through the atmosphere of Deinazephanais and crashed in the Riyver Desert, near Yiḥitheb. It was so prevalent in the sky that it was recorded in various texts from around Deinazephanais. The king of the city, King Yiḥiket VII, sent a small force to investigate the site and ordered them to take the remains of the comet back to the palace. The comet was described in Yilireti texts as being metallic and round, with strange appendages, and it was considered to be a religious artefact. In late 2991 ED, the priests tending to the artefact unwittingly activated it. The artefact was in fact a probe, sent by the Śiter Guliz, to find new worlds to enslave. The king, naturally, had no knowledge of the artefact's true purpose and declared a celebration in Yiḥitheb, held in 2990 ED, in which the artefact was brought out for all to see.

The Arrival of Satar and Golise
It was during this celebration that the forces under the command of Satar descended upon Hieret, attracted to the signatures broadcast by the probe. Within minutes, the city of Yiḥitheb was reduced into a smoking ruin and most of its population was slain. Only a few thousand people escaped into the surrounding countryside and spread news onto other cities. It was through this that the Wrath of the Gods began.

King Kiqetirṱer V of the Ateter Kingdom was disposed in the panic which followed. Satar, using the ruins of Yiḥitheb as his base, sent scouts to the other cities of Hieret. Armed with only bows and arrows, the soldiers of the Ateter and other kingdoms were useless against the aircraft employed by Satar. Each aircraft had the power to level entire cities and would have seemed to be like mythological beasts to the Ateter.

In the chaos, a priest of Gizenatter assembled a small army and took control of the Ateter Kingdom, crowning himself King Mako I and founding the Mako Dynasty. Satar sent an ultimatum to the ruler of each city in Hieret, demanding that they declare him king and pay homage to him. King Mako was the only king to reject the ultimatum and Satar descended upon the city with his fleet of spaceships. The god offered Mako the chance to repent and express his worship, but Mako refused once more. When Satar ordered his fleet to destroy Gizenatter, a second fleet appeared and destroyed most of Satar's fleet, forcing him to retreat. The second fleet was commanded by Golise, one of the Adiguliz, who was a sworn enemy of Satar and, having heard of his conquest of Deinazephanais, had assembled a fleet to defeat him.

Following the successful defence of Gizenatter, Golise summoned Mako to his flagship and was impressed by the king's confidence and fearlessness. Golise and Mako quickly became allies and then friends, with Golise promising to defend Deinazephanais from the Śiter Guliz. Golise, with innate knowledge of the tactics of his enemies, foresaw that the Śiter Guliz would use Hieret's fractured nature to their own gain and instructed Mako to unite the cities of Hieret under his control. Golise left to fight the Śiter Guliz in their own territories, and Mako began his conquest of Hieret.

Uniting Hieret
Within a few months of Yiḥitheb's fall, a wave of unrest and rioting shook the Ateter Kingdom and many cities rebelled. Erbi and other cities traditionally administered by the Erhemmii were the first cities to secede from the kingdom, followed by the cities once owned by the Uriṱeriqṱer Kingdom. The priests of Irbid feared that Mako had provoked what they perceived to be punishment from the gods and staged a revolt in 2987 ED, depriving the Ateter Kingdom of manpower and leaving it with only four cities.

Sembi, now the kingdom's most northern city, was now isolated and thus threatened by the Erhemmii. Rather than attempt to retake Irbid, Mako assembled a mighty army of fifteen thousand soldiers and pushed north to Bi, assaulting and taking the city. He then pushed west, destroying the hastily-assembled army from Erbi that was sent to oppose him at the village of Edisan, and laid siege to the city. With the fall of Erbi, the remaining Erhemmii city of Etbi sued for peace and fell under the dominion of the Ateter Kingdom once more.

In 2985 ED, the king of Irbid, who had been chosen from one of the rebellious priests, attacked Adirem with eight thousand men. The garrison of the city fought the enemy army away from the walls and forced them to retreat. By early summer of the year, King Mako arrived back in Gizenatter and took his army towards Irbid. Mako and his army waited outside the city and diplomats were sent into Irbid to attempt to explain the situation to the priests. The fearful priests had the diplomats executed, but their words spread doubt into the king and he repented. Irbid was reclaimed by the Ateter Kingdom without bloodshed.

King Mako I paused his conquest for some time, strengthening his army and sending diplomatic missions to the other cities of Hieret. In 2979 ED, he resumed the conflict, winning a number of successes against a resurgent Uriṱeriqṱer Kingdom and recapturing most of the territory lost in the rebellions several years prior. He capitalised on his success and continued to drive north, capturing four cities in a matter of months. By 2967 ED, however, his army was exhausted and had suffered heavily from the continuous fighting, forcing him to delay plans for an invasion of northern Hieret.

By this time, the Śiter Guliz had managed to outmanoeuvred the forces of Golise and of his wife, Tisiphise, and, as Golise had predicted, sent a token force to Deinazephanais to subjugate the cities that had not been conquered by the Ateter. Golise, fighting fiercely in his home systems for his survival, could only spare a handful of ships and a few thousand men to assist the Ateter, and the most violent part of the war on Deinazephanais began.

The Kingdom of the Gods
Posing as a god to the people of the independent city-states in Hieret, and using his powerful spaceships to demonstrate his divinity, the Satar installed himself as the most powerful ruler on Deinazephanais. His kingdom was known as the Kingdom of the Gods and most of the garra that would become slaves to the Śiter Guliz came from it. Although Satar had arrived on Deinazephanais in 2961 ED, with a massively-superior force consisting of over twenty thousand guards, with technology that was considered by the garra to be magic, he did not stage an offensive against the Ateter Kingdom, and instead, he forced his new slaves to build massive temples and statues in his honour or shipped them from Deinazephanais back to his systems, several light-years from the planet.

In 2955 ED, fifty-three ships under the command of one of Golise's most skilled generals, ???, arrived at Deinazephanais, smashing the blockade that the Śiter Guliz had set up around the planet and landing with several hundred troops. These troops would later fight alongside the Ateter against Satar's forces. The arrival of these soldiers provoked Satar to begin his invasion of the Ateter Kingdom earlier than he had planned.

The first battle of this offensive was the siege of Ziḥuriṱer, in which the Ateter garrison was slaughtered and the people of the city massacred. The battle involved garra on both sides of the conflict, with the garra from northern Hieret believing Satar to be their god and fighting as fanatically as Satar's traditional troops. The siege was followed by an attack on Etbi, which was as big a failure for the Ateter Kingdom as the Siege of Ziḥuriṱer had been. King Mako I was killed in the battle and his son, King Mako II, succeeded him.

When Satar ordered his troops to take Sembi in 2953 ED, his troops found the city had been reinforced by soldiers from the Dominion of Golise. Massive artillery batteries mounted on the top of buildings in the city destroyed entire formations of Śiter Guliz troops as they approached the city, encouraging many of the garra fighting with them to rout and retreat. Sembi was besieged for several weeks, with artillery fire being traded for days on end. While the city was protected from the majority of enemy fire by a powerful shield erected by ???'s troops, large parts of the city were made into ruins and many people were slain. The siege was eventually broken and an attack was mounted to retake Etbi. The city was taken after a fierce siege and a counter-offensive was pioneered by ??? for 2952 ED.

As the sieges of Sembi and Etbi were happening, ???'s ships engaged in fierce skirmishes with Satar's fleet. These skirmishes were committed to prevent Satar from bombarding Adiguliz troop movements and Ateter cities and, though in the face of great naval superiority, were generally successful. In a matter of months, Satar had lost six ships in short engagements lasting only a few minutes, while ??? lost only two.

In 2951 ED, the Adiguliz pushed north from Etbi and Sembi, defeating the Śiter Guliz in several battles. By the end of the year, Satar had been forced to flee Deinazephanais completely, pursued by ???'s fleet, which prevented the god from turning Hieret into a toxic wasteland. The Ateter Kingdom was left in command of the island in its entirety, the problems of which soon surfaced. Many garra that had been converted by Satar and remained loyal to him in spite of his defeat and they waged a war against the Ateter Kingdom. In 2943 ED, King Mako II was slain in battle with these fanatical soldiers. In 2924 ED, his son, King Mako III, received the same fate. King Adimako I would avenge the deaths of both his father and grandfather and succeeded in casting the remnants of the Kingdom of Gods into the desert. Though they would continue to cause troubles for the Ateter Kingdom and persist for thousand of years, they were neutered as a significant military force for several decades. King Adimako I died in 2893 ED, leaving command of the Ateter Kingdom to his son, King Mako IV.

By this time, the Wrath of the Gods had ended in Deinazephanais, but had continued to rage in the systems of the Adiguliz and the Śiter Guliz. The war, however, returned to Ein-Ceixos in 2871 ED, and two fierce battles were fought. King Mako IV was present for both struggles, being on-board Golise's flagship. King Mako was also present for the peace treaty, signed in 2870 ED, on a ship in orbit around Deinos Ai.