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

Cheth Wars
	; Image of Echelon Frigates from the HE trailer by Kwazedilla
Date	April 4 - July 22, 2022; (109 Days)
Location	Server-wide
Result	Eventually, the Bastion of Neutral Groups (BoNG) noticed that they were completely destroying the server, so they decided to just stop fighting entirely. This was out of necessity as there would be no server left to fight if they kept the war going.
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)

Resource Scarcity and Inexperience

It is known that on the server, it is extremely difficult to construct stuff without external help. Because the server had just been created, resources were extremely scarce. Among each side of the war, there were only four frigates constructed. Sinking of a large ship would plunder the entire net worth of multiple nations, and would usually result in the players of said nation giving up or leaving the server entirely.

Because of such scarcity, many players would end up betraying their allies or friends just for a small sum of resources.

This war was largely asymmetrical. Echelon had extensive knowledge on the server's systems before survival even opened. Inversely, the Allied Sovereign States was more of a rebellion, and they had minimal knowledge of shipbuilding. This caused 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!"

Many Allied Sovereign ships were sunk due to friendly fire. Friendly fire was prevalent in fleet battles due to a multitude of reasons:

Both sides used orange/black ships.
Buggy SVS made it difficult to see.
Many players would deliberately down their allies' ships to gain personal resources from their salvage, and then excuse it as accidental.
Many players had personal grudges against others and would shoot down allied ships deliberately during chaotic battles.
Lack of 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 at the time, the blockade would result in chetherite from being near-unobtainable, which also meant that players would have to cruise to destinations (all systems were on the same map), or buy it from Echelon for an unreasonably high price.

The Damkoth Blockade ended whenever Echelon decided 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

Many new players were often forced to mine nine stacks of chetherite for Echelon if they were ever caught resisting the blockade. Echelon was also allowed to bypass Noob Protection, claiming that violating the blockade counts as attacking first.

Timeline of Events

Aftermath

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.