First Hell War

Hell War
Image of the Hell Desert after the war. It shows both the skybridge used by the Hell Defenders to bridge the attack bunker and the skybridge used by the Coalition to attack the Vault.
Date June 18th - June 22nd, 2020 Location Hell Vault, Varathia, Chungus, Grand Imperium ,Otonabee, Calormen Result Capture of Hell Vault, Hell defenders move to other nations most notably Blackwater
Belligerents
Central Powers: Varathia File:MtA Flag.png Mount Augusta Otonabee Carbon: Carbon Bloom Agotep Zen Alexandria: Alexandria Accelerada SPQR LSA: Norlund IWW Saviors Republic Lone Nations: Blackwater Chungus Cantina Tchad Wheatistan File:ColumbiaFlag.png Columbia	Hell
Commanders and leaders
Convoy File:Bwlogo.jpg Phacad3 File:Bwlogo.jpg Pido Yaahya HiImPosey Evocat0r Seared Sharpcastle33	Vanax35 Saren_Solaris Twigbranch AltRaid HanTzu Ez2Obbybomb
Strength
~115	~15
Casualties and losses
14-18 pearled	3 pearled 2 Alts logboxed

The First Hell War was a major world war between a group colloquially known as the Hell Gang, and a large coalition of allied nations formed to fight them. This war saw a truly massive number of players (over 100) band together to free their allies and bring the Hell Gang to justice. This Gang compromised of citizens of the former states of Savaguard (now the Confederacy of Independent States, CIS) and a rogue Carbon member - the owner of Hell Vault, Vanax35. The war began when some of the Hell Gang skybridged and took Varathia's incomplete vault in a decisive sneak attack on the 19th of June 2020. During the initial attack, the Central Powers alliance of Otonabee and Mt Augusta assisted in the defense of Varathia, along with members of neighboring Cantina, Chungus and Blackwater . The group retreated with the pearls to Hell, with several accounts logboxed in their attack bunker. An attack on Hell Vault was commenced by the Allies on June 18 and would result in the breaking of Hell Vault on June 22. Throughout the attack multiple nations joined the Allies, making it the largest coalition of nations in the history of the server at the time.

Prelude

The Rise of Blackwater and the Dissolution of the Kingdom of Savaguard

The arrival of former ReCharge members on the server in the new nation of Blackwater rapidly disturbed the established geopolitical situation on the server - the former top dog, Savaugard, had a strong challenger in the burgeoning Blackwater-Cantina alliance. The invasion of Eslenti and Savaguard's refusal of their ally's pleas for assitance showed weakness, and this was soon exploited when a group of Cantinans breached the Savaguardian vault, and it fell without any bloodshed. What followed was a complete collapse in both Savaguard's desire to fight, and the very nation itself, as the king Invader1337 abdicated and the nation balkanised into many small nations in a loose defensive alliance. While Savaguard had been defeated, many remembered the injustices performed., These grievances later extended to include GDAN (after he was pearled) and later the Roman Empire, as Cantinan mercenaries under R&S were contracted to return the former lands of Columbia to independent control. Cantina and Blackwater seemed undefeatable - at least, until a new power rose to challenge their newfound hegemony.

Chungus-Varathian Border Incidents

A series of minor scuffles on the border between Chesham and Chungus resulted in two minor conflicts that were quickly resolved by cooler heads , but tensions remained reasonably high between the nation and the rapidly growing city on their border, slowly encroaching on their territorial claims. Many believed an escalation into further conflict was likely. Most of all, the negotiations and general performance of Varathia showed weakness to be exploited.

Olendor Aqua Nether Attacks

On the 8th of June, Saren_Solaris (assisted by kicky) trapped the Olendor Aqua Nether portal . Varathia, assisted by their Otonabian allies, managed to rally troops to push the invaders out, with Saren and kicky abandoning their position under overwhelming force.

The Battle of Varathia Vault

Simple representation of the skybridge and attack bunker made to attack Varathia's vault (Note that map data was taken from 6 months after the war, but the attack bunker and a section of the skybridge remain).

On the 18th of June, a group of ex-Savaguardian citizens and several other allies, mostly on alt accounts, , stealthily constructed a small attack bunker in the desert south of Chesham to use to skybridge the Varathian vault directly north. The attackers made effective use of weaknesses in the (perpetually) incomplete vault to disable it largely without Varathia realising. By the time the attackers started hitting snitches within the vault, it was simply too late for the defenders. The Central Powers alliance was invoked, and allies from Otonabee and Mount Augusta were rallied to defend the vault. This proved to be catastrophic for the defenders, with combat around the vault, trench and surrounding desert costing Varathia and her allies several pearls, most notably the MtA mayor xkevio, Ibis1804 and Otonabian binchymonkey.

As the attack on Varathia was underway, many Chungesians arrived at the scene to hold a Chungus Lives Matter protest.

Motivation

It wasn't until the war was well underway that the motivation behind the attacks was revealed in a release by Vanax in a (now deleted) reddit post, stating that the attacks were largely due to the aforementioned AN attacks, Varathia disabling the Olendor-Alexandria rail tunnel (for upgrades), and for the expulsion of the Borisian people from the settlement of New Boris in the now famous Borisian Genocide. The accuracy of motivations remain disputed, due largely to Vanax's prior unwarranted aggressiveness towards Varathia.

Allied Counterattack

With more allies remaining, and Chungus and nearby Blackwater choosing to intervene in the conflict on Varathia's side, combat shifted south to the attack bunker. Here, the allies were able to force the retreat of the attacking forces, at the cost of several pearls. Several accounts were logboxed within the now occupied bunker, a costly, disorganised counterattack costing the allies a total 8/9 pearls. One minor victory came in the form of kicky's pearl, as he accidentally logged back into the server meaning to play hypixel, representing the Hell Gang's first big loss.

The attack on Varathia's vault left them with several active members pearled, their vault partially disabled and hostile bastioned, but also left them with two powerful, unlikely allies in Cantina and Blackwater., and they were out for blood. Carbon also issued a reddit post, admonishing the attack, and indirectly condemning Vanax for his involvement, stating "Any citizen of Carbon participating in the attack will not be protected from those seeking justice for this offensive", but also refusing to intervene.

Siege of Hell Vault

Initial attack

The war soon transitioned from an attack on the now enemy held Varathian vault and accompanying sky-bunkers and ground bunkers to a rescue effort to retrieve pearls from Hell Vault, as the pearls lost in the disastrous Varathia vault defense had already been transferred to Hell before the attack bunker had been taken..

Cantina and Blackwater forces began construction on the attack bunker during the night before the battle, but due to accidents, the location of the first attack bunker and attack tunnels were leaked by the potion status macro during the night. This resulted in the structure being immediately attacked by the Hell Defenders and disabled. The construction of a new attack bunker and tunnel starting near the city of Lynn reached directly east of the Hell vault, where a large resupply bunker was constructed. This bunker would serve as the primary attack bunker during the entire duration of the conflict.

The Hell Gang had bolstered their numbers following the attack on Varathia, and with Blackwater and Cantina joining the allies, this pushed several nations (namely former Eslenti and Boris) to join the defence, along with volunteers from the Roman Empire.

Battle of the Hell Desert

The early coalition began the assault on Hell vault in the eastern desert around the Northern Highway linking Lynn and Tombstone. Hell defenders attempted to hold back the assault with bows and the occasional sword skirmishes. As coalition forces broke bastions, an obsidian path was made from the forward bunker up to the vault trench. The obsidian path was created to shield the attackers from rumored sand traps created in the weeks prior . In this time, several non-aligned observers were pealed, namely esorscher (later released).

Alexandria's Vault is Lost

While the war was well underway, prominent Alexandrian Le_Brine arranged to donate materials to the allied effort, but was fooled by Phacad4 - a fake alt of SirCrowley pretending to be Blackwater leader, phacad3. Crowley took the supplies and then pearled Le_Brine, returning to the Hell Vault untouched. When it became clear that Alexandria was leaning towards assisting the allies, Vanax stole the groups to Alexandria's ocean vault that he had constructed for them under contract for his business, VaultCo. This necessitated a small Alexandrian strike group go and disable their own vault, taking them briefly out of the siege.

The allies pose atop their attack bunker east of the Hell Vault

The infrastructure used by the allies to siege the Hell Vault, starting in Lynn and reaching the forward bunker east of the vault.

Attack tunnels

Under heavy fire, the allies began putting pressure on the edges of the Hell Vault, tunneling underground and fighting along the surface on friendly obsidian. This combat was slow and costly (with several pearls lost). However, allied morale was high and the numbers were strongly in favour of the allies, even more so when Otonabee called on the Laurentian Seas Alliance (LSA) to assist them in the war. This lead to two full days of heavy fighting around and under the Hell Desert, with the defenders putting up a significant effort to hold the attacking swarm at bay. This was especially true during EU hours, when allied numbers were lowest. Many defenders pulled long hours to hold the vault given the need to defend the vault outnumbered at all hours of the day.

Allied Losses

The allies lost many critical pearls in this time, losing Posey to a spleef, SeaRed and later Vah. Regardless, the allies soldiered on.

Father's Day Cease Fire

Wholesome 100

Breach of the Hell trench

As Coalition forces pushed through the desert and created an attacking tunnel on bedrock, they finally arrived at the vault trench. After countless hours of battling for inches, the Coalition fighters felt they were ready to make a push outside of the tunnel and into the trench. With nearly triple the numbers currently logged on and the bastion on the verge of being broken, they planned to overwhelm the vault defenders in order to gain control. The surface team, lead by Commanders Seared and Phacad, was waiting for the ground (bedrock) team to give them the signal to jump. The ground team, lead by Evocat0r, needed to break a couple more pieces of stone reinforced obsidian before giving the signal. Suddenly, ground forces notice a friendly on the other side of the wall - it was Commander Seared. He fell into the trench minutes before the ground team was ready. Commander Evocat0r immediately gave the signal for the surface forces to jump in to buy him time. After only seconds of hesitation, they proceeded to jump into the trench from above. Evocat0r instructed ground forced to immediately break 2 pieces of obsidian and then to immediately flood the trench in an all-out attempt to save Seared. Forces flooded the trench, but due to the initial hesitation, Seared was already too low on health pots. Cantina lost the second of their three leaders.

Skybridge

After days of fighting in ground tunnels, and hardly any progress being made past the trench, Cantina released their secret weapon, Sharpcastle33. Sharp and Posey spent a lot of time theory crafting vault attacks prior to attacking Hell. Sharp was able to figure out a new and extremely effective way to sky bridge. With the addition of nations being added to the Coalition, they were able to attack from the ground, middle, and multiple tunnels in the sky - overwhelming the Hell defenders.

Vault break

The final push into the vault

S.P.Q.R. monument on the top of Hell following the collapse of Hell defenses.

Aftermath

Pearl pyramids

When they scattered the pearls in like 10 different places

Peace terms

The terms the defenders were given. Mention who didnt accept terms too

leaving references for later