The lone UGN warship was the first to open fire upon the assembled Arcadian military vessels. It was soon after followed by tens of other ships. The OCS ‘security forces’ knew well enough that they were likely starting a war, but they also knew that if they stood by and watched as the favored son of their president and CEO was killed on their watch that there would be hell to pay.

It was a choice between potentially dooming the galaxy to an age of Arcadian tyranny and facing a fate filled with (at the very least) torture, slavery and a slow, painful death. Even if they wanted or attempted to flee, where could they have possibly gone to escape their fate? The OCS had agents everywhere, and Arcadia was supposed to be the second coming of the Angelus Holy Union. They honestly thought it was a choice between three flavors of death, and since they would die either way, they thought it better to die here and now in a blaze of glory than to be captured and tortured by either the Omniconpro Corporate Sector or the Arcadian menace.

The mostly OCS ships let loose a barrage of lance fire, only for the particle lances to be bent and deflected around some sort of bubble that surrounded the Arcadian ships. Still, if they could destroy even one of the Arcadian warships, they could say that they made a dent in the enemy forces, no matter how small. The kept firing for what seemed to them like and eternity before their particle lances began to overheat due to overuse and they were forced to cease fire.

The Arcadian ship had not fired a single shot in retaliation, and not a single one of them had a single scratch or scorch mark. The OCS ships and the single UGN warship were still waiting for their weapons to cool down when they received a hail from one of the Arcadian vessels. It was a simple, single sentence inquiry, and one whose answer would decide the fate of untold billions.

“Are we to take your actions as a declaration of war?”

The inquiry was responded to with a shot from the UGN flagship, whose weapons had only just cooled down enough to not cause a catastrophic failure when firing. The particle lance deflected harmlessly off of the I-Field of the ship it was directed against, which irritated the juvenile General Secretary on board to no end. As soon as the lance bounced off of the Arcadian warship’s shields, the UGN and OCS vessels received a final hail with only three words.

“So be it.”

A minute later, the Arcadian armada opened up on the OCS and UGN ships. They were not simply using energy-based weapons, but also primitive guided missiles and torpedoes. There should have been no way that such antiquated devices would ever be able to even so much as damage the hulls of the UGN and OCS ships.

The key word there was ‘should’.

The missiles and torpedoes that had been launched exploded just before touching any of the UGN and OCS ships, spreading a blue, paint-like substance over the ships. As soon as the first volley of explosives had reached their target, a second volley was loosed and this time truly explosive munitions made their way towards the enemies of Arcadia. Right before the second volley struck home, the Arcadian forces fired their particle beam cannons, not as a single volley but instead at their own discretion.

The missiles and torpedoes hit the parts of the OCS and UGN ships that had been coated with the blue goo and the explosions tore open large chunks of the affected ships. The smarter ones among the UGN and OCS forces realized that the blue goo was somehow able to interfere with their vessels’ shielding, and began trying to take evasive maneuvers, only to have their ships be hit by the blasts of energy from the Arcadian warships.

If they had merely stayed put, there was a decent likelihood that their ships would have taken some damage, but not a terminal amount of damage. However, the missiles containing the blue goo had not only struck the front of their ships but had also struck the sides by making hard turns as they had passed. Thus, when the affected ships tried to turn to steer away from further attacks, they had their unshielded portions swept by the elongated sideways pillars of plasma, which cut deep into their ships.

As the Arcadian military vessels tore up their foes, the young fool of a General Secretary attempted to flee the field of battle. His warship broke ranks and sped towards the planet’s moon, only to be hit in the rear by a torpedo filled the blue gel. Most of the gel was destroyed by the ship’s thrusters, but enough of it coated the unprotected rear of the flagship to be a liability.

A mix of more missiles, torpedoes and megaparticle cannons began to eat away at the hind quarters of the UGN flagship, slowly disabling its thrusters one after another. Finally, when the ship only had two thrusters left and was barely crawling along through the void, the flagship reached the point where it had gotten far enough. In a flash of light, the warship entered hyperspace, leaving the OCS forces to fall alone. One by one, the OCS ‘security forces’ had their ships sunk, all without Arcadia even deeming it a necessity to field its true power in the form of the Mobile Suit Golems, Mobile Armor Golems and its piloted strike craft.

…

The same day this happened, at merely one Galactic Hour after the General Secretary fled into hyperspace, the Arcadian Galactic Commonwealth released a statement to the whole of the galaxy.

“At approximately 0900 hours, Galactic Standard Time, the United Galactic Nations and its Omniconpro Corporate Sector allies attacked an Arcadian fleet that was delivering relief and aid to the war-torn worlds that are currently in a state of civil war. There was no motive or cause for this attack beyond wanton and pointless aggression, and when an Arcadian military fleet arrived to try and deescalate the situation, it too was fired upon. While no damage came to the Arcadian military or relief ships, this act, perpetrated by the General Secretary of the UGN himself, has been interpreted as a declaration of war. As of this moment, the UGN and the OCS have declared war on our nation. We take no joy in this conflict, nor have we wished for this conflict to happen at all. This war was thrust upon us, and we will respond with all the force we feel is needed. We ask future historians to know this one fact; we did not start this war, but we will be the ones to end it.”

One day after the message was broadcast to the whole of the galaxy, the first Arcadian ships crossed the border into UGN space as the UGN and OCS quickly redirected their attention away from the 80 system wide civil war and towards the oncoming Arcadian forces. They sent a few of their purpose-built warships to try and destroy the Arcadian cargo freighters in the 80 systems, only to discover that they were now protected by a small fleet of Arcadian warships each.

The forces of Arkhan had made the first move, and now it was time for the UGN and OCS to get their heads out of their asses and do something. If they didn’t, the whole structure they had built up over hundreds and even thousands of years had a chance of collapsing around them.