The Infinite Graveyard of Giants

NOTICE: This page covers both topics by this name, the 2 great battles and the location itself.

Location

Origin

The name refers to a nearly endless field in outer space that stretches countless light-eons across. The nearest named location is a blue super-star named Apollyon, roughly 10,000 lightyears away from the edge of the Graveyard. Technically, Apollyon and its planet are 310 quadrillion lightyears (years on Karrots) west of the universal equator, heading rimward. This area is far on the Hoppist side of the universal equator, acting as an unintended border for Hoppist territory.

History

This area of space was a gigantic gap of nearly empty space, containing one atom every cubic light-year. After the start of The Endless War for The Eternal Throne this area became a wasteland scattered with numerous starships & space vessels that either fought in the battles, or where destroyed passing by.

Considered no hop's space, this area serves as a starwall between both factions after the second battle. On most maps of the Universe, this is the only official edge and corner that is not explored beyond, excluding the Task Force fleets of The Grand Sop Army, meant to hold back The Infinite Empire.

Before arriving on Earth, Hop left this area under remote surveillance and vows to not return unless his forces are defeated. A courier is sent once every 100 orbits to ensure efforts are being made to protect Hop's side of the starwall. As of present day, no breaches have occurred. Prisoners are not allowed beyond the border either.

Battle 1 (4400 BSA)

Participating Forces

• Hoppists (Grand Sop Army)
  • Hoppist Allies (K'Ursan Federation, Canisogians)
• The Infinite Empire
  • Fleshy Allies

The Kindling of Warfire

Shortly after declaring war on the Hoppists, The Infinite Empire began to approach Karrots and other fluff-dominated worlds, attacking their moons, stealing resources, disabling technology, damaging infrastructure and interfering with communications. This is one of the most major conflicts in the war before any strategy was implemented, occurring nearly by accident.

Sop planned an assault on the nearest known Imperial world, however due to distance, even sending standard travel would give then enemy enough time to develop a technology to cross the border faster and invade Hoppist space first. With the introduction of Electric Eyes in the Grand Sop Army, the hoppist forces gained an advantage in terms of area control. Once the first Electric Eye was placed beyond the Apollyon system, Sop routed another on an off angle, in order to prevent a clear path from the waypoints back to Karrots. The second Eye was in transport from the first one (using the star Apollyon for fuel), when it was suddenly destroyed from a collision with a space station. The Imperials has placed a planet sized station unintentionally in the way of the Eye's path of travel, destroying both. The Hoppist fleet was not far behind, when they dropped from FTL travel, and saw the enormous wreckage.

As the response team attempted to rescue the Electric Eye's crew, multiple starships darted off from the wreckage, surviving the blast, and nearly instantly after, several enemy carriers and destroyer class ships, with a planet-sized navy's worth of reinforcements began attacking the Hoppist fleet. Sop ordered a counter-assault, placing the flagship Her Majesty's Finest in the center of the conflict to divert enemy attention on a noticeable target, planning to bomb the enemy craft as fast as possible to gain control. As GSA forced moved into position, a larger and larger number of enemy ships swarmed in. Sop had an emergency council with his crew on the bridge. They would send 2 ships to each Hoppist ally in the area and request additional forces, as well as provide a second trip to a nearby Hoppist world to recruit starship pilots and manufacturers as soon as possible to assist in the fight.

Within a fraction of a day, billions of fighters were in engaged in such a large-scale combat scenario, many pieces of debris scattered, creating terrain that all vehicles had to navigate around, creating a battle that felt like a zero-gravity ground conflict in spacecraft. Sop was mostly unfamiliar with this as it rarely occurred in natural combat. A new plan had to be put into motion, but the Empire had a solution before a plan was finalized. They sent in weapons of mass destruction to target debris and Hoppist-allied ships, weakening their forces. When this occurred, Sop knew the threat was great and more immediate than before. He had several Electric Eyes sent to Apollyon and they would send all remaining reserved and nearby active duty forces from their side of the Universal Equator to aid in the battle.

Statistics

Multiple high ranking and experience squadrons from the GSA were destroyed over the course of the battle. The squads lost had their informal nicknames saved, as their numerical designation was passed on to newer generations of pilots.

Total spacecraft losses: Estimated 40 billion (including Hoppist allied forces)

Total crew losses (MIA/captured): Estimated 2 million Hops (captured/MIA), unknown allied loses (deaths due to obliteration make exact numbers hard to discover)

Among the defeated designated squadrons were:

• The 1st, "Ether Pulsar" Squadron (no surviving craft, crew lost during battle, discovered and rescued in wreckage during 2nd Battle)
• The 2nd, "Clashing Strike Ranger" Squadron (no surviving craft, crew recovered, however leader MIA)
• The 9th, "Light Speedsters" Squadron (no surviving craft, spare one ejection pod, all crew recovered)
• The 11th, "Sunrisers" Squadron (two craft captured by enemy, others destroyed, 2 missing pilots, other crew recovered)
• The 13th, "Royal Bomber Elite" Squadron (all craft and crew captured by enemy, all MIA)
• The 40th, "Star Drift Specialists" Squadron (no surviving craft, all crew recovered)
• The 41st, "Wrath of Karrots" Squadron (unknown, all craft and crew MIA after arriving)
• The 105th, "Hungriest for Battle" Squadron (one surviving craft, captain recovered, squadron captured, rescued late in the war)

Battle 2 (3988 BSA)

Participating Forces

• Hoppists (Grand Sop Army)
  • Hoppist Allies
• The Infinite Empire
  • Fleshy Allies
• Misc Pirates, Collectors & Scavengers

Back into the Embers

At least 200 orbits after the first battle, late in The War, Hop finishes his training and joins his father, Sop, as they take their newest capital ship the Crimson Wrath into the field. Armed with double the fleet and over twice the forces, the revitalized Grand Sop Army entered the immense outskirts of the graveyard. The debris was sparse, parts of ships as large as entire starfighters, only a moment of flight time apart. Deeper into the debris, even after all this time, being the only mass in lightyears of visible light, the destroyed ships from all forces held each other near via gravity. Many scavengers and pirates (who attack perimeter patrols and retreating forces on both sides) fled upon seeing the enormous military might warp in, near the edge of the area.

Sop and Hop, after successfully fighting off Imperial forces on the Hoppist controlled side of the Graveyard, planned a full-full-forward mass attack on all enemy worlds, and turning the Graveyard into a virtual wall, only opened by expected Hoppist forces. All allied forces were forbidden going a light-second beyond the boundary, as the Hops could no longer recover them due to the dense amount of debris in the area. The new plan involved countless fleets, with identical setups per section of space captured, however their tactics would vary depending on enemy forces present and the structure of the forces there. Upon reaching the graveyard, despite war efforts pushing all Imperial forces back, a sudden force of ships arrived at the same time Sop's forces approached.

It was later discovered a traitor (who would later defect to The New Sop Order) had been transmitting strategic information along Imperial channels, not tracked by the Hoppist Network, via a connection of co-conspirators. Despite Sop's knowledge and goals, an inside force causing trouble was unforeseen in such a a large part of the war effort. The traitor and his accomplices were thrown into prison instead of sent into a black hole, due to time constraints and their rank. Originally this was because it was seen as a poor plan, before being discovered this was intentional. The purpose of this treason was to defy the plan, and instead continue a brute force assault to snuff out the militaries without continuing a war of attrition.

To be continued...