Silver Hawks Coalition

The Silver Hawks Coalition was a loose confederation of worlds within the Free Worlds League which banded together as a province for Parliamentary and self-defense purposes. The component worlds were separated during the Word of Blake Jihad, and the Silver Hawks' military forces would later trigger Operation GOLDEN DAWN, resulting in the final dissolution of the Coalition, with the remaining worlds absorbed into the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth.

In 3025, the Coalition consisted of the worlds of Danais, Bondurant, Concord, Amity, New Hope, Alkes, Kalidasa, Shiloh, Callison, and Marcus, and was further subdivided into several smaller subprovinces.

Formation and Structure
Born in the fires of the Third Succession War, the creation of the Silver Hawks Coalition was a direct result of the costly failure of Thaddeus Marik's failed Operation KILLING STROKE. Unhappy with the Captain General's continued military adventurism bringing conflict to their doorstep, and seeing the need for local military forces and political cooperation in Parliament, several unaffiliated worlds along the border with the Lyran Commonwealth signed the Concord of Danais in 2966, which brought the coalition into being.

The structure of the new Coalition was a very loose confederation split into five sub provinces, with no acknowledged capital world or overall political leader. Instead, the Coalition serves as a way to consolidate political clout, with MPs from Silver Hawk worlds largely voting as a bloc in support of local interests. Those interests largely consist of mutual defense and opposing aggressive military campaigns. While the Silver Hawks could be relied upon to vote against the Mariks on military matters, they were a swing vote in other matters and historically have voted for government measures, against government measures, and abstained from votes or voted independently in roughly equal proportions. Before its repeal in 3037, the Silver Hawks made liberal use of the Home Defense Act to keep their native military, the Silver Hawk Irregulars, stationed nearby and defending their worlds. This focus on local affairs kept them strictly neutral during Anton Marik's Revolt, for example.

Losses and Returns
While the Free Worlds League was not the primary target of Federated Commonwealth attacks during the 4th Succession War, the Silver Hawks Coalition's location on the Lyran border did put them in the crosshairs of Hanse Davion and Melissa Steiner's attempt to geographically link their two realms. The mercenary Hsien Hotheads attacked Callison, initially only seeking to destroy Marik forces staging there. The battle grew pitched, and eventually the Marik defenders were forced to surrender the world in order to secure their retreat. Later, facing pressure from both the Lyrans and the Tikonov Free Republic, Janos Marik ordered a withdrawal from several other nearby worlds, including Marcus. By January 3030, both Silver Hawks worlds were under Lyran occupation.

Losing this home territory did not sit well with the Silver Hawk Irregulars, who spent the duration of the Andurien Crisis and the War of 3039 on the border, raiding Lyran space with the blessing of Thomas Marik. Though they were involved in offensive operations, the Irregulars showed no desire during this conflict to add new worlds to the Coalition through conquest. Troops of the Thirty First Marik Militia and the Twenty-Fifth Marik Militia did attempt to retake Marcus and Callison, respectively, but were met with unexpectedly fierce FedCom resistance and were forced to retreat.

The lost worlds were finally returned to the Coalition during the first wave of Operation GUERRERO, with Marcus this time being the major battleground of the assault. The use of both federal troops and troops from other provinces to retake lost Coalition territory did much to ease the tension between the Silver Hawks and the rest of the League, and the decade that followed was marked by both better integration of the Irregulars into the larger FWLM structure, and a slight uptick in Coalition support for Government measures in Parliament.

Jihad and Dissolution
The dissolution of the Silver Hawks Coalition began with the onset of the Word of Blake Jihad in early 3068. The first sign of trouble was when Shiloh effectively seceded from both the League and the Silver Hawks Coalition on April 16th, 3068, by ceasing all transmissions from their HPG. In the chaotic atmosphere of the time, this was initially chalked up to Lyran foul play during the ongoing hostilities with Skye, but in fact Shiloh had joined the Word of Blake Protectorate. Having a long history of repressive theocracy under the Exituri sect, the religious fanaticism of Shiloh had been subverted to serve the Word of Blake, and it would become a hotbed of Blakist recruitment.

When the Word of Blake revealed the true identity of the false Thomas Marik, the political situation in the Free Worlds League deteriorated rapidly. In May 3070, the Silver Hawks Irregulars refused their allegiance to the Captain General and aligned themselves with Blakist forces in and around the Coalition's traditional space. In light of this news, many in the rapidly deteriorating League considered the Silver Hawks Coalition as whole to have thrown their lot in with the Blakists. By 3072, half of the Coalition's traditional worlds were under direct governance of the Protectorate. It is unclear if the Coalition maintained any political coherence through this process.

Most of the Silver Hawk worlds in the Protectorate saw active fighting during Operation SCOUR, and even after the Blakists were forced back, Silver Hawk forces did not trust the Coalition. Soon after the defeat of the Word and the proclamation of Stone's Republic of the Sphere, tensions grew high, as several former Silver Hawks Coalition worlds were slated to be incorporated into the Republic's borders. Unwilling to let this stand, the Silver Hawk Irregulars invaded New Hope on the 25th of March, 3081, taking the world in the name of the Silver Hawks Coalition.

This triggered an overwhelming response from the ascendant Republic in the form of Operation GOLDEN DAWN, which solidified much of the structure of the nascent RAF and completely shattered the Silver Hawks militarily, along with several other former Free Worlds League states bordering the Republic. While separate peace treaties were conducted with the Marik Commonwealth, the Stewart Commonality, and the Duchy of Oriente, only the Silver Hawks Coalition refused to sign a peace. However, with the Irregulars destroyed and a standing ultimatum from the Republic in place considering any effort to reform the Silver Hawk Irregulars an act of war, there was little that could be done. Forcibly demilitarized and in need of protection, the remains of the Silver Hawks Coalition were absorbed into the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth in 3082. While the Silver Hawk Irregulars would eventually be reformed in an effort to defend their traditional homelands in the face of Operation HAMMERFALL, they would be under the command of the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth and the Coalition was not reformed.