Parminder Crisis

The Parminder Crisis was a series of violent conflicts on the planet Parminder. The main actors were the Presidential Guard, the Reformed Temple Army, and a plague of robots of unknown origin.

Prelude
In the months leading up to the outbreak of violence, the Reformed Temple had grown dramatically in size. This religious group was made up of converts from Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other faiths represented on Parminder. It was a monotheistic, technophobic movement favoring an austere life of prayer and meditation. Many Reformed Temple members left their homes in the capitol city and migrated to a tent city in the rainforest, surrounding the Great Stupa. The Reformed Temple movement was mistrustful of all advanced technology, with the most pious members refusing even to use cell phones or personal computers. However, following attacks by rogue groups of bots and drones, both in the capitol and the surrounding countryside, the Reformed Temple began to arm itself for self defence.

The Reformed Temple Army was the militant branch of the faith, made up of volunteers organized to defend against attacks by the AI plague and, later, to oppose the Presidential Guard.

Outbreak
In the early months of 2300, the Reformed Temple Army's only duty was to defend against the AI plague that was responsible for numerous bombing and shooting attacks. However, as attacks grew more frequent and more intense, rumors began to spread that the government was responsible. President Yusuf officially tolerated the Reformed Temple, but always regarded them with mistrust. At the same time that the Reformed Temple was spreading propaganda accusing him of complicity, he was conducting a campaign of his own. The government formally accused the Reformed Temple of mounting the AI attacks, banned their religion and mounted a campaign to root them out of the rainforest. Before long, though, the Presidential Guard had been defeated and an RTA counterattack was pushing into the Capitol.

Capitol Siege
Following an early success against the Presidential Guard, the RTA advanced rapidly and within a matter of days was laying siege to the presidential palace. The advance of the militia turned to stagnation, however, when they were unable to seize three key strong points in the city- the army barracks, palace and police station. These three locations were centers of resistance until the largest AI attack wiped out the majority of both forces.

AI Swarm and UEA Arrival
While the Parminder Crisis was unfolding, thousands of miles away in space, the UEA had succeeded in restarting Jump Gate 1 and sending several advance ships through to secure the surrounding space. One of these ships, carrying UEA Pioneer Militia Team B arrived just as a major AI attack was underway.

The swarm of bots and drones, included scrap spiders, scrap infantry bots, and three high-grade assasin bots, among them First Widow. It struck from a base located in caves under the capitol where scrap laborers were assembling new bots from any junk material available. The attack destroyed a large tank column striking out from the police station, effectively crippling the Presidential Guard's offensive capability. Simultaneously, it wiped out most of the RTA's presence in the city.

UEA Intervention
Team B moved through the city streets, skirmishing with several patrols of both RTA and Presidential Guard, eventually arriving at the mostly-abandoned police station. During their first engagement with hostile forces, supervising Political Officer Stills was killed in action and the leaderless team was forced to improvise a plan. At the police station they enlisted the aid of tank driver Specialist Alma and criminologist Dr. Lawrence, who accompanied them in a restored Spider Tank in a push on the presidential palace.

Facing withering machine gun fire from the palace, the Spider Tank advanced across the RTA's abandoned trenches and the militia team was able to secure an audience with President Yusuf, due in large part to the negotiating skills of Dr. Jonas Fleisch. Upon meeting with the president and his advisors, the team outlined a tentative plan of surrender, wherein the president would be allowed to remain as the head of state on Parminder in exchange for his submission to the UEA and his deactivation of the Orbital Defense Array which threatened to destroy Jump Gate 1. In order to secure a peaceful surrender, Team B needed to obtain both firing keys that controlled the orbital defense array. To this end, President Yusuf dispatched the team to the army barracks on the East side of the city.

Team B continued on in their comandeered spider tank, reaching the army barracks and finding it abandoned. Beneath the barracks, however, they located the caverns which were being used as the base of operations for the AI plague. Fighting through the cave system, the team unknowingly found their way back to the presidential palace, which had been stormed by bots in the interim. President Yusuf and his entourage, including his family and advisors were already dead, killed by First Widow with a high frequency blade. Team B was able to overcome the infantry and assassin bots who had taken control of the palace, recovering the missing firing key from the wreck of First Widow.

Team B signalled  to the UEA advance spy ships that the planet's defense array was secure, and the UEA pioneer fleet immediately erupted through Jump Gate 1. The fleet's battleships destroyed the inert defense array with a barrage of missiles, and dispatched a drop ship to recover Team B from the still-embattled capitol city.

Aftermath
Parminder was of little strategic significance once it ceased to threaten Jump Gate 1. However, as a symbolic foothold on former colonial space, it was still subjected to an invasion by UEA marines. Described as a peacekeeping force, several thousand marines were deployed to secure the capitol city and pacify the native population. The ensuing campaign was bloody and hard-fought and involved conflict against both RTA and AI plague forces. The Pioneer Militia sent more teams to Parminder for the pacification campaign, among whom were Team E and Team D, both killed in action during an attack on the Great Stupa.

Meanwhile, the news of President Yusuf's death spread quickly over the Charternet. WIthin days, it was publicly accepted that the UEA was responsible for his death, and it was also widely believed that the AI plague was an advance force sent by the Pioneer Fleet to subdue the planet by force. This vastly increased resistance to UEA annexation in the Corporate Charter, and lead to difficult negotiations, culminating in the ill-fated Gala Summit.