Galactic Terran Alliance
From FreeSpace Reference
The Galactic Terran Alliance was the main Terran faction during the Great War. The GTA fought a prolonged and costly war with the Parliamentary Vasudan Navy, but eventually the two factions united to fight the Shivans in 2335.
The player fought for the GTA in the Descent: FreeSpace - The Great War, the first FreeSpace game.
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[edit] Organization
The ideology of the GTA was based on unification and expansionism which filtered through to the faction's organization. Based along military lines, the GTA imposed a lenient martial law due to the ongoing war with the Vasudans. This allowed for the rapid evacuation of civilian assets in the threat of an invasion.
Galactic Terran Intelligence was the counter-espionage intelligence-gathering arm of the GTA. The GTI had a great degree of freedom, given its ability to organize an armed insurrection in the form of the Hades Rebellion.
[edit] Strength
The GTA was militarily a very powerful faction. At the height of its power in 2335, the GTA had colonized twelve worlds outside the solar system and frontier outposts had been established on fifteen other planets and moons throughout the galaxy. Were it not for the war with the Vasudans and the arrival of the Shivans, the GTA would have expanded further.
The GTA's space-based navy is known to consist of around 10 Orion-class destroyers as well as a multitude of Fenris and Leviathan cruisers. Within secured systems, large Arcadia installations are also present which serve as the hub of commerce and trade as well as a viable military staging point. Each destroyer or installation carries a large number of fighter and bomber squadrons which supplement their strategic effectiveness.
[edit] History
[edit] Origins
The Galactic Terran Alliance rose from unification of the nation-states of Earth. Prior to the discovery and exploitation of Subspace, the human race had developed up to the relatively stable hegemony of nation-states. However, with the beginnings of space-travel, the nation-states unified into a planetary or global-state. As inter-system subspace travel became viable, thus arose the interstellar-state. The interstellar-state thus evolved into a galactic-state: The Galactic Terran Alliance.
[edit] Vasudan War
The GTA rapidly expanded with the inception of subspace. Due this expansion, however, contact with another alien species, the Vasudans in the year 2321, led to the first galactic conflict - The Terran-Vasudan War.
It was immediately apparent that the Terrans would not be able to win the war decisively in a few months. Thus the production of the Leviathan cruiser was commissioned to supplement the defense of Terran systems.
The early victory at the Battle of Gulnara led the Terrans to believe that victory was just over the horizon. However, they were proved wrong at the Battle of Talania where they were soundly defeated.
The Battle of Rexias 4 saw a second terrible defeat with the destruction of the GTD Goliath. The Vega Engagement of 2333 saw the inception of the deadly Typhon destroyer. The strength of these new destroyers led to the destruction of the entire Terran 4th fleet and its flagship, the GTD Eisenhower.
Despite these losses, by 2335, the GTA had recouped this space and were at the doorstep of the Vasudan homeworld, Vasuda Prime, in the Antares system. However, fierce Vasudan resistance and the failure of Operation Thresher caused a stalemate at the Antares front.
Alexander McCarthy, a traitor to the Alliance, attempted to form an alliance with the Vasudans, on the judgment that a new alien threat was on the brink of annihilating both species. Though he was apprehended and the threat was covered up, he was only proven to be right. With the arrival of a third alien species, the Great War began.
[edit] The Great War
In 2335, a new, far more dangerous alien force made itself known. Codenamed the Shivans, this new species penetrated in a few days what had taken months for the GTA to attack. Contact with mutliple outposts in Beta Cygni, Ikeya and Ross 128 were utterly destroyed by the alien threat.
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