Orion Civil War

The Orion Civil War began as a covert operation by the Federation against an Orion Syndicate space station after previous Syndicate operations against the Federation, including the assassination of a Caitian Councillor during the Caitian accession. During this operation, the USS Courageous was badly damaged and many of her crew killed. In response the Federation passed the Anti-Slavery Act, directly targeting the Syndicate's activities with the full force of Federation law and deploying a task force to engage in anti-piracy and anti-slavery operations in Orion space. The Caitian Frontier Police were federalized to provide a ground arm.

The Federation's actions brought tensions between traditionalists and Syndicate supporters on one side, and the Orion government's attempts to liberalize their society on the other, to a breaking point. The government saw the chance to hinder the Syndicate and through them the forces that stymied their effort as irresistible. The Syndicate and many traditionalists in Orion society saw the Federation's interference as unacceptable. Though actual Federation intervention was mostly limited to small colonies on the periphery of Orion space, the Syndicate invested a great deal in resisting it for symbolic reasons, and began a terror campaign against the Orion government for backing it. The conflict was primarily a counterinsurgency campaign, and largely confined to Alukk and fringe colonies.

It exploded into full-fledged war during the Union's attempt to purge Syndicate influence on Duaba, and then nitroglycerine was poured onto the fire when the Syndicate detonated a photon microtorp in the Amarki capital of Lironh only days later. The Syndicate shortly thereafter actually seized the world of Celos, setting up a short-lived Celosian Corporate Republic, and in the process precipitated a crisis with the Cardassian Union that came close to provoking war with the Federation before the Cardassians chose not to recognize it.

But the bombing of Lironh was the Syndicate's undoing, as the reaction of the Amarki and the Federation to this escalation was a massive escalation of their own. The Confederacy of Amarkia Navy lead a violent purge of Syndicate space assets, while Amarki Gendarmes were deployed to reinforce Orion Union troops on Celos. The Federation committed practically every investigative resource from its members it could lay hands on, turning every Syndicate attempt at insurgency actions into a suicide run not only for those involved, but dozens of others who helped support them. And the Cardassians, having newly signed a treaty with the Federation that somewhat normalized relations, withdrew their quiet support. The Orion Syndicate failed ultimately not because of a crackdown on its moneymaking operations or a decisive loss of the hearts and minds of the Orion people, but because between Federation investigators and its losses in committing to conventional war on Celos and Duaba it ran out of bodies, equipment, and organization with which to continue the fight.

A new Orion constitutional convention was held and a new constitution signed without incident, after the Celos campaign. The Syndicate's inability to interfere in this process effectively marked the end of the Orion Civil War, though the Federation's Anti-Slavery Task Force and its attachments continued operations for some time after.