Fiction:Grand Galactic Fleet

The Grand Galactic Fleet was the military arm of the Second Galactic Federation in the Spore Galaxy. It fought against the Grox in the Second Grox War but lost, plunging the galaxy into disunited chaos for thousands of years until the rise of the Empire. Because of the wrecks of Grand Fleet starships on many planets across the galaxy, the name of the Grand Galactic Fleet is more well-recognised than that of the Second Federation that it served.

History
The Second Federation is believed to have been formed some time after the end of the First Galactic Federation in the First Grox War, although information about what and when these were has been lost to history. Only the First Grox War is actually known to have occured, and the "Second" Galactic Federation may in fact have been the first.

Durning the time that the Federation was founded, the Grox had control over the entire Galactic Centre and even had strongholds in the bases of the five Galactic Arms. This meant that exploratory ships from the empires that would later make up the Federation had to quickly skirt around the edge of Grox Space to reach other arms, where (if they survived) they had to form alliances with local empires who would give them somewhere to stay. After the missions of these few lucky ships were complete, the only communication between the arms was via trade ships armed with twosystem drives that could travel between star systems in different arms without having to fly into the Galactic Centre.

Eventually, several dozen trade routes were formed that allowed for a constant flow of both messages and people between the different empires, and the Second Galactic Federation was soon formed. Different ship designs were created by engineers and military scientists throughout the galaxy at the capital of the Belatra Kingdom, Telan, and when they were produced the Federation had its own singular space force - the Grand Galactic Fleet was formed. The designs were passed on to the capitals of the Madrosor Imperium and the Eskesian Republic in the neighboring two arms, who then produced their own ships according to the standardised designs.

The Grand Fleet explored the other two arms of the galaxy, and defended Federation worlds from hostile empires - often by bombing them into surrender and then bringing a more peaceful government into power which would then choose to join the Federation. However, the peace only lasted for a few decades.



The Second Grox War
The Grox, who had been mostly ignored and viewed only as a threat for the few pioneering exploration ships, suddenly started attacking the Federation. Grox Probes arrived over some of the closest Federation worlds to the Galactic Centre and their fleets of assault ships destroyed the barely-defended colonies.

In retaliation, the Federation launched an offensive on five fronts - each front being one of the Galactic Arms. This assault, the Outer Colonies Campain, was extremely successful. The Grand Galactic Fleet scored hundreds of victories and over 3500 systems were wiped clean of the Grox, leaving less than a sixth of their original empire remaining.



However, the Grox had a secret weapon - the Conqrix. Along with invading battleships, the Grox Probes carried Conqrix Infection Pods, which quickly buried themselves into the ground of targeted planets. The Conqrix Pods employed several shielding techniques with made them difficult to destroy from the air with anything less than by dropping antimatter bombs on or by simply carpet bombing the area. The former required incredibly expensive weaponry that was currently being used against Grox colonies, and the latter was difficult while the Grox ships were flying around and defending the Conqrix. The Federation had only one choice: the formation of a Grand Galactic Army to conduct ground-based missions against Conqrix troops while the Grand Galactic Fleet fought the Grox in the sky. The Grand Fleet's ships were withdrawn from Grox Space and sent to defend against the March of the Conqrix.

The Federation's efforts were in vain. The Conqrix were successful in weakening the alliance's industrial infrastructure, and soon the Federation collapsed. The member races of the Federation were eradicated all of the way to the tips of the Galactic Arms (with, possibly, a few hidden remnants surviving) and galactic society was utterly destroyed. The Grox were now lone amongst spacefaring races in their galaxy, but they were crippled by the Outer Colonies Campaign and returned to the safety of Grox Space in order to rebuild their empire.

Galactic War and afterwards
Although the Federation was no more, many of the Grand Fleet's ships remained as wrecks and derelicts across many planets of the galaxy. During the First Phase of the Galactic War, many new spacefaring civilisations discovered the remains of these ships and incorporated the technologies (and even the designs) into their own space forces.

The Fleet's flagship, the Atelania, was not located until as late as the Post-Grox Crisis, after which the Empire battled opposing forces to try to find whatever technological secrets may have laid within its corpse. None were found, but more information about the Second Galactic Federation was retrieved from what remained of its data storage facilities after 6500 years.