Anathema Wars

"We can't save every universe, but as long as we can save one, our victory against LUCIS will count for something."

―Unknown GSSOC commander

The Anathema Wars were a galaxy-spanning conflict in the Crucible Galaxy involving multiple civilizations and spanning at least several years. They began when the Anathema was deliberately activated by the Galactic Senate Special Operations Corps in order to destroy LUCIS before he could mature into a form of the Basilisk. While the GSSOC was successful in effectively preventing the worst possible outcome for the fate of the universe, they traded it for another threatening entity.

Because the Anathema were considered a completely different enemy from LUCIS, the Anathema Wars at the time was considered an entirely separate conflict. However, with the benefit of hindsight on how preceding events relate to it, historians instead tend to classify the Anathema Wars as the final phase of the Chaos Crisis.

Fronts

Karalian Front

The natural course of the Anathema's rampage did not take it directly through the primary territories of the Karalian Empire. However, this did not prevent the region from getting involved in the war. The red supergiant Eye of Uszaroth was on the verge of going supernova, and in doing so, it threatened to release deadly gamma rays that would completely destroy all life in the Twin Hearts Nebula. As a desperate attempt to save his people, King Rustiagon Karrel deliberately lured the Anathema over to Eye of Uszaroth to neutralize the star. The most direct route took the Anathema through the Kansar Nebula, home to the Drussiray which would mean the destruction of the Drussiray homeworld of Zema. Thus, Karrel, to the best of his ability, ran the operation in secret in an effort to avoid mass hysteria.

However, word of this plan leaked, which resulted in the Drussiray turning against the Vaikan. A series of violent skirmishes erupted in the area between the two over survival. Ultimately, the Vaikan won, and planet Zema was lost to the Anathema. Karrel succeeded in luring the Anathema to Eye of Uszaroth where the star's gamma ray output was reduced by 99%. While this did not stop the ecological disasters that occurred throughout the Twin Hearts Nebula, it allowed enough time for most of the population of the area to evacuate to other star systems. Most of the planets that were damaged by the gamma rays would have a chance of recovering over the next few decades.

Battle of Brunikor

In what is considered to be the final battle of the Anathema Wars, the GSSOC lead a strike to guide the Anathema into Brunikor, a pocket dimension where the Anathema could be neutralized to stop it from spreading beyond the galactic cluster and to the rest of the universe. Brunikor, however, was home to the last Arckasian civilization, where the Mavetian species lived under the leadership of Hades. The Mavetians had a very different outlook on the universe than most other species, having endured for billions of years - valuing sentiment over their creative works and their construction projects within Brunikor. Many had either chosen to evacuate or accept their fates that their time was at an end. However, Hades himself was not ready to let go of his creations and chose to stand his ground against GSSOC.

In one last confrontation, Hades was defeated, after realizing it was time to let go. Reluctantly, he accepted that organic life needed a future, and for their victory against LUCIS to mean something, there had to be a universe to exist afterward. Hades was offered the chance to evacuate with the other Mavetians, but he chose to stay and allow himself to be destroyed by the Anathema. In doing so, once the Anathema entered Brunikor and destroyed the pocket dimension, a shutdown mechanism was triggered which permanently disabled the Anathema, and with it, the last of the functional Arckasian technology in the universe.

Aftermath

By the end of the war, the death toll was estimated to be at least several billion. This includes not just those killed in action fighting the Anathema, but also combines LUCIS's indoctrinated forces. It is even hypothesized that multiple, uncontacted civilizations without the means of space travel were lost as well, meaning the number of lives lost far exceeded than what is officially on record. The Anathema Wars are widely considered the most devastating conflict in the Crucible Galaxy since the Omni extermination at the hands of the Ghorax.

The destruction of the jumpgates also meant the total collapse of galactic government, and the members of the Second Galactic Senate were stranded from one another without a means of FTL communication. Despite that, organic life survived, and civilization continued. Smaller states would pick up the pieces and rebuild.