On November 15th wy549, after fifteen years of the Council’s “reintegration” strategy following the invention of the M² drive, the local governments of Grove, Foxglove, and Canto filed the Articles of Secession, officially declaring independence from the The Whistler Colonial Corporate Council and establishing a set of defense treaties amongst themselves.
These decisions were made with overwhelming popular support, the colonists having been independent of Council meddling in all but name for centuries. And the three secessionist colonies hadn’t been idle. In the years leading up to the production of the M² drive they had amassed massive, complimentary armed forces and significant defenses, including the three massive and deadly Lakota-class Dreadnoughts from Grove’s Cheyenne Drive Yards.
In the five years that followed, the Council attempted numerous tactics to bring the secessionists to the negotiating table, including a number of crippling embargoes that threatened to starve the population of Foxglove en masse. In wy554, the secessionist governments began nationalizing, dismantling, and selling off the local divisions of Council-member corporate entities. The response from the Council was swift and brutal.
On August 11th, wy554, dive-capable elements of the WDF 3rd Fleet surfaced in Canto and began the systemic orbital bombardment of the system’s civic and government centers. The assault, while not directly targeting manufacturing or industry, disrupted the population and economy of Canto to the point that it has never quite recovered.
The resulting shooting war would go on for the next 36 years, until September 9th, wy590 at the Battle of Grove, Jack Cartwright disobeyed orders and rammed WDF Indomitable into Grove Orbital.