Titan War

= The Titan War =

The Titan war (also known as the Siege of Titan, the Attack on Titan or the HCF-WP War) was a conflict between Titan and various militia groups known collectively as the World Police, as well as more city-based militias. The war is marked by many various sieges on the city of Titan where HCF forces had retreated after launching attacks on Carbon and Orion. Despite a protracted siege neither side was able achieve decisive victory through a raw vault attack. In an unprecedented struggle the vault held for 3 long months, mostly due to the advantages that bastions conferred to the defenders. Ultimately, both Papa_Pound and HanTzu would be alt-banned. The vault would given over to sintralin at the end of the war, who had allied herself with Jakebob who was fighting World Police members in the Carson Civil War. The final stand of the war, an assault on Carson's unofficial vault Playpen would be conducted by Titan, with help from Libertas (the new group created by JakebobTheEpic and sintralin). Although initially successful, the attacking force at Playpen were repelled by a stiffening Carson resistance. Libertas returned to their own vault, while the Titan vault was deconstructed, the pearls given to Libertas, where some members of the Titan force would go too. The following months were filled with sorting out the reparations from the war, with Libertas releasing most of the pearls from Titan within a day, after long discussions about what they planned to do in the future. Some pearls from Titan were kept due to pending claims, and were released after their payment. With the release of Clone2204's pearl in April 2015 after long arbitration, the last of the World Police pearls were freed, marking 'official' end of the Titan conflict.

= History =

Papa_Pound had been involved in various conflicts beforehand, most notably being a ringleader in the American uprising. A wanted individual, he escaped capture numerous times through help of friends and luck. During this time he had rebuilt his fortunes underground and received funding through various other means eventually raising the funds needed to supply his forces with gear. Meanwhile Titan transferred ownership over to HanTzu the then leader of Viridian. Under the HanTzu leadership a deal was struck with the HCF which allowed them to use the Titan tower as a base of operations.

Initial raids
The HCF in Titan got into a fight at Mount Augusta, and pearled GordonFreemanQ, a prominent Carsonite. He was brought back to Titan and put in the vault. This was the opening move of the war. Papa and Han claim that Gordon was illegally snitching the Xiphias rail line, despite no request for his pearl or bounty being posted by any xiphias member, whereas the Carsonites maintain the plan was to bait the World Police into an attack.

Attack on Titan
Within 30 minutes, a large collection of fighters arrived at Titan. Despite superior numbers, the bastions at Titan proved too much for the attackers to overcome, barely able to break the first bastion line surrounding Titan. The World Police were repelled by the HCF on the first day, with several being pearled. Multiple civilians were pearled in the crossfire, and it was only the cool heads of the de facto leaders of the World Police that their gear was returned to them.

Siege of Titan
A long period of inaction then followed, with neither side being able to gain the advantage. Although the World Police reached the outer ring of the vault, the tower defenses proved to be too much. There was low-level constant attacks that failed to accomplish much for the better part of nine long weeks. During this time, Odiingrad, lieutenant in Papa's force, was pearled, as well as a large number of World Police fighters. Josh, Clone2204, Superbuilder, Dovah, and others. Whosnick and oneshotjohny, a world police fighter, griefed several houses in Titan. Earning server-wide condemnation for the attackers.

Rekvia and The_BadAsh's raid on the tower
Late one night, Rekvia and Badash snuck into the Titan Tower. There, they found a chest containing the pearl of HanTzu, who was visiting Mandy in the End. Unaware of the situation, Eythx logged on and was caught by surprise and was pearled by The_BadAsh. In a single night the World Police scored a greater victory than in nearly two months prior.

Papa's Pearling
Papa was altbanned in two controversial pearlings. The first, Papa's internet completely dropped out during a fight due to his phone line messing with his internet. This left the Australian PVPer combat logged and thus easy prey. The second, which resulted in his alt-ban, his internet completely went out dropping him from mumble, teamspeak and minecraft. Papa maintains he was the victim of a DDoS attack, something the World Police deny vehemently. Regardless of how it happened, the HCF leader Papa was pearled. This left only Han as the original leader, with PSN largely taking over the day-to-day combat operations.

HanTzu's Altban
HanTzu had maintained amicable relations with a young newfriend by the name of Matthew1034. Matthew1034 had been pressuring Han to come see his catapult he had recently constructed. The catapult killed Han, who then respawned in Titan. Han returned, now naked, never believing that he was in any danger. Matthew1034 then launched a surprise attack, wearing only iron armor, and slew HanTzu. Han was officially alt-banned, and thus the Titan war was functionally over. On April 23rd it was revealed that Matthew1034 was an alt of TangentialThreat, a World Police lieutenant in his first successful assassination.

Libertas
As the fighting began to die down, Carson experienced a civil war between factions loyal to Jakebob and those loyal to Clone2204. Jakebob admitted he intended to pearl Clone in order to achieve a prisoner exchange to release his friend Eldoorn from Titan's vault. Jakebob and his allies attacked Clone whilst he was riding on the CIC, but he escaped certain pearling by the intervention of several other Carsonites. In response, Clone hired notorious raider Ruhzzy to attack Jakebob. Jakebob allied himself with Sintralin, long-standing friend of Papa and Shadedjon. Sintralin, along with TB (former HCF) and a few others invited Jakebob to join their new group, dubbed &quot;Libertas&quot;. Not long after Papa was alt-banned and the defenses of Titan were weakening, Sintralin persuaded Papa to give her ownership of his vault. Sintralin deconstructed the vault, and used some of the wealth to construct a new vault on the homestead of Libertas. Many, but not all, of the surviving HCF fighters joined Libertas, leading the World Police to attack them for open claims.

NOTE: The deconstruction of the Titan vault and the dissolution of the group that guarded it occurred AFTER the assault on Playpen.

Playpen Assault
Papa, perhaps believing the defenses of Carson weakened by the losses incurred at Titan, decided to launch an attack on Playpen (Carson's unofficial vault) with his Titan force, along with the help of Libertas. Initially the attack went very well, but the defenders rallied at the last ring of defenses. There, the Carsonites were joined by an outpouring from Orion, Aeon, Commonwealth, Fellowship, Chanos, Hjaltland, Sunder and nearly every corner of the server. Titan/Libertas' attack stalled, and finally Papa and leadership who were actually present ordered the retreat. With the assault at Playpen, the Titan War ended. Papa_Pound gave Sintralin permission to deconstruct the Titan Vault (Bulwark) and gave her all of its assets. Papa and Han simply saw no resolution to the war, and with that, gave up. Rather than see their vault broken, and as a show of good faith, Libertas released any pearl from Titan that did not have claims on it, and began working towards paying reps for Playpen, as well as for the Titan members who had joined them. A few pearls from Titan still had active claims on them, and were released pending their payment. There was a long arbitration process between Libertas and Clone2204 regarding whether Jakebob and Eldoorn were justified in attacking clone, the result being that they were. Clone paid all necessary reps, and was later released in April 2015.

The ODST
Once it became clear that an outright assault was not going to break the vault, a small group of players led by RogueX7 and TangentialThreat launched an operation aimed at breaking the bastions via block placing on a skybridge to reach the tower. Although they did not play a crucial role in ending the war, since the Titan defenses were pretty much abandoned (Titan and Co. decided the Playpen attack would be a make or break situation), it was clear that the Titan defenders would not be able to hold the tower once the bridge was completed. Without Papa and several of the HCF leaders, there was little to no hope of holding out against such a determined group.

Aftermath
The end of the war brought many changes to Civcraft. For the first time the power of bastions were fully realized -- suddenly, a small group of dedicated defenders could hold off a much greater force for a very long time. The war was very much seen at a microscopic level, with many observers in Titan watching the war rage on and taking note the criminal actions of certain attackers. With the collapse of the Titan defenders and the rise of Libertas there is some hope that the HCF players may be peacefully integrated into society, and that reps for old damages during the America Era would be paid. Lastly, a major rise of server alliances and globalization followed, with many players seeking to create defensive groups or alliances to prevent the disorganization that occurred during the war from happening again.

= Public opinion =

Public opinion is mixed. While the actions of the militias griefing Titan is condemned, other find such actions in a state of total war perfectly reasonable.

Propaganda
Several pieces of propaganda were made for both sides of the conflict.

= References =