Cheth Wars

Cheth Wars
Image of Echelon Frigates from the HE trailer by Kwazedilla
Date April 4 - July 22, 2022 (109 Days) Location Server-wide Result Damkoth Blockade voluntarily lifted by Echelon to avoid killing the server.
Participants
Allied Sovereign States Amcaran Social Republic UNSC Neo Nova Primordials United Federation (Arimfea) Orovika (material aid, minimal direct involvement)	Echelon Gutin War Cult Vulnere Republic of Carthage (material aid, minimal direct involvement)
Casualties and losses
Unknown (a lot)	Unknown (a little)

The Cheth Wars were a series of closely-related irregular conflicts that occurred in the early months of Horizon's End. The conflicts were fought chiefly between members of the Bastion of Neutral Groups (BoNG), an alliance led by Echelon, and the Allied Sovereign States (ASS).

Context

Resource Scarcity and Inexperience

"The Clapper", an experimental frigate designed by FellOffBridge for the Allied Sovereign States. This ship design is generally understood to be a poor one.

The nature and complexity of Horizon's End's tech tree makes gaining access to substantive resources or infrastructure extremely challenging (and in some cases, impossible) without external support. At the time of the Cheth Wars, the survival server had just been created, and as a result, resources were extremely scarce: as an example, most Allied Sovereign States ships at the time employed white stained glass rather than black stained glass for their cockpits at this time, as production of black stained glass required a black stained glass printer, which in turn required a black stained glass block, which was unobtainable through normal means as squids did not spawn on the server - this was only rectified when black stained glass produced via the /dye donor perk was used to construct black stained glass printers.

Ore blocks, which are essential in starship construction, were especially challenging to mass-produce with such limited means. Asteroids did not exist on the server at this time, meaning that obtaining resources required traveling to the appropriate planet (planetary ore distributions were also more restrictive at this time than in the present day) with a drill ship, which would itself be extremely expensive to create. During the entire span of the Cheth Wars, only four frigates were constructed - two on the BoNG side, and two on the ASS side. Under these conditions, the sinking of a large ship would decimate the net worth of an entire nation; such incidents often resulted in the players of said nation giving up on producing large ships, or leaving the server entirely.

One critical result of this extreme scarcity was creating a strong incentive for players to betray their allies or friends for a small sum of resources. An example of this is a case where FellOffBridge attempted to pirate a Neo Novan starship, specifically a light freighter because the "opportunity presented itself." despite the fact that both of these nations were allies at the time.

Furthermore, the Cheth Wars were compounded by a large experience differential between the two sides. Echelon possessed extensive knowledge and understanding of server mechanics even prior to the launch of the survival server, allowing them to construct relatively effective and comparatively strong warships; inversely, the Allied Sovereign States had minimal comprehension of shipbuilding, causing them to field highly experimental and flawed ship designs which were no match for the Echelon fleet.

Internal Conflict in the Allied Sovereign States

"Holy shit, they were shooting down each others' ships!"

During the Cheth Wars, many Allied Sovereign States ships were sunk due to friendly fire. Friendly fire was prevalent in ASS fleet battles for a multitude of reasons:

• Both sides used an orange/black color scheme for their ships; inefficient ASS SvS comms led to easy misidentification of allies as enemies.
• Issues with server performance made seeing other ships in combat often challenging or inconsistent.
• Some players would deliberately shoot down their allies' ships to gain personal resources from their salvage, and then excuse it as accidental.
• Many players in the Alliance had personal grudges against others, and would shoot down allied ships deliberately during chaotic battles.
• The ASS suffered from significant deficits in fleet coordination.

History

Damkoth Blockade

The Horizon's End survival server opened to the public on 4 April 2022, after 4 months of anticipation by the player-base following the closure of Star Legacy. The very same day, Vandrayk, leader of the Echelon Caliphate (a successor to Vega on Star Legacy) announced a blockade of the planet Damkoth, which was host to Echelon's chief operating center of New Baker Street and was the primary source of Chetherite on the server (followed up by Luxiterna):

Damkoth Blockade
Until further notice effective as of this morning, Damkoth is under a strict blockade by the Echelon caliphate. All chetherite mined on Damkoth is now subsidized and under Echelon control. 
Upon no circumstances will chetherite be mined while an Echelon member is online without swift military action. Upon entering the planet, you will be asked to leave. This will be your only warning. 
Any refusal of this order will result in your death and loss of items. 
Due to combat not being enabled yet, we are under a verbal blockade, any refusal of said orders will result in your name being logged and marked for termination by an Echelon or Vulnere operatives until we feel that our stolen chetherite has been repaid in full. 
Vandrayk, Echelon Caliphate

Because there were no asteroids on the server at the time, the blockade made chetherite near-unobtainable <why did people not use luxiterna?>; often, players would have to cruise to far-away destinations (all systems were on the same map at the time), or buy chetherite from Echelon for an extreme markup.

The Damkoth Blockade was ended voluntarily by Echelon on 17 July 2022. Echelon made this choice when they concluded that their actions were causing too much harm to the server, and continuing the war would result in the complete destruction of the playerbase.

Damkoth Slavery

During the Damkoth blockade, Echelon employed a system of forced labor to penalize players who violated the blockade. Specifically, any player caught violating the terms of the blockade would be forced to mine 9 stacks of chetherite for Echelon, under the threat of being targeted with attacks if they did not comply.

In addition to veterans, Echelon enforced these terms on new players on the server; while new players are typically protected from attack for 48 hours of gameplay, Echelon were allowed by server staff to enforce penalties on new players who violated the blockade, on the basis that violating the blockade constituted an attack on Echelon, which voids a player's protection.

Timeline of Events

<do the best you can, i can clean this up later. just get everything on the page>

Aftermath

<this is where you explain what actually came of all this>

Legacy

The Cheth Wars are broadly understood to have caused extreme damage to the Horizon's End player-base, 'filtering out' a large portion of StarLegacy veterans who attempted to play the server in its early days. Per NovaManGood2110, "more people quit from the cheth war than the RDY war and VA war combined". This is considered to be the broadest conflict in Horizon's End history.