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The war began before anyone fighting it today was born. The exact start of the conflict remains disputed, but most historians would agree the secession of planets declaring independence from the United Empyreal Federation was the catalyst which set the greater conflict in motion.

Following a long period of economic reforms, rollbacks in social safety nets, and consolidation of power into fewer and fewer privileged hands, resistance grew among the laboring people on various planets under Federation control as those elected to represent the people failed to do so. This trend continued, although it could not continue forever. Incremental changes over time pushed the working people to their breaking point, and they began to push back, demanding a greater say in the systems controlling every part of their lives. Too many people had been held down for too long, deprived of the basic needs they deserved as human beings and left with no legal recourse by those in power as the electoral system continued to produce the same unwanted result of preserving the inequities of the status quo. 

Thus, the course was set for revolution.

The first world to fall was Mobas, the heart of the revolutionary movement. Some nearby systems, upon hearing of the successful seizure of power, abandoned their Federation loyalties and allied with the movement, seeking a better life for their people. Faster than light speed, other worlds deposed of Federation rule and joined in the resistance. Before long, a dozen worlds took up arms against their former rulers despite still being vastly out-numbered and out-gunned. 

It was not the large number of world defecting that caught the Federation off their guard, but the speed with which the revolution spread throughout those territories. Although they had the sheer numbers advantage, mobilizing enough fleets scattered across their remaining territory and concentrating their attacks in an organized and effective manner to halt the spread of revolution proved an impossible task for the Federation. Being unprepared for such a large-scale resistance put the Federation on the defensive, and, forced to withdraw their forces, the Federation consolidated its power along the Austral Corridor, fortifying its position and hunting down whatever revolutionary elements still persisted on the planets that declared Federation allegiance. The success of the revolution was, and remains, the most crushing blow ever dealt to the Federation's galactic hegemony.

Whatever skirmishes that occurred on and around the seceding planets soon died down, and the revolutionary resistance movement was able to take a moment to breathe and enjoy their hard-earned victory for the first time since Mobas was overthrown. They renamed the planet Kaal, and all seceding planets took on new names as the revolution sought to expel and erase all evidence of former Federation control. A new leadership had taken over: the rule of those held too long under the Federation's heel. No longer would control of the structures the people relied on for survival be entrusted to those who were given incentives to function in their own individual interests. The failures of the Federation's representative democracy would be corrected and replaced with a true democracy, one in which the people themselves held control over their lives and all the forces and factors which governed them – they called themselves the Planetary Democratic Republic. 

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Placing blame for this never-ending war depends primarily on which historians you read. Those in the Federation claim the violence of the revolutionary forces marked the first shots fired, though the PDR argues it was the structural violence of the Federation and its systems – economic, social, labor, etc. – that was the impetus for violent armed resistance. Regardless, each side insists they were only defending themselves from the antagonisms of the other. 

Following the establishment of the PDR, a period of simmering quietude came over the galaxy, threatening to boil over at even the slightest movement from either of the warring factions. As the Federation eradicated any and all PDR sympathizers from its ranks, the PDR was silently arming itself, constructing as many ships, weapons, and military outposts as possible for their inevitable clash with Federation forces who, they knew, would not sit idly by for long after suffering such a monumental defeat which had resulted in the loss of more than a dozen planets. "If they were willing to let those worlds and their people govern themselves, there would have been no need for revolution" was a common refrain in PDR territory during this time in defense of their actions.

    
A storm was gathering, and the question in both camps was not "if", but "when" the next bolt of lightning was going to strike. 

Federation and PDR historians disagree, again, on the impetus that propelled these two forces into sustained combat, and no one alive today was around to witness it for themselves. The revolution occurred 107 years ago on the standard galactic calendar, and the "calm before the storm" following its success lasted not even two years on that same calendar. Nothing since has been able to stop the war. Not a century's worth of technological advancements, theoretical breakthroughs, or galactic explorations have yielded a solution. Every new discovery, new insight, and new development feeds the war machine – and the strange irony is, if they didn't, the war actually might end. One side would overcome the other and put a stop to the fighting, but neither side wanted to be the one to succumb. 

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In the intervening decades, the balance of power had shifted to and fro, but never far enough to tip the scales and give one side a decisive victory over the other. Throughout the engagements, many worlds were taken, some retaken, and others taken back again, but such occurrences became less and less frequent as each belligerent fortified their position, and the movement of combat lines stagnated. However, this did not result in a lessening of the scale of combat or its frequency, as one might expect, but only in its efficacy. 

Morale became a problem for all combatants within a growing sentiment that hundreds of millions of lives were taken every year essentially for nothing. Generations lived and died never knowing peace, and war became just another part of life, thus making it difficult, if not impossible, to oppose. The way of life the PDR had been trying to build for themselves was perpetually delayed as more and more resources and personnel had to be allocated to the war effort, and the Federation had lost more wealth in the ships, crew, provisions, and armaments spent on the war than they would have gained if they had never engaged in hostilities with the PDR following the revolution. 

The call for peace became most needed at the time it felt most hopeless. Neither the Federation nor the PDR could conceive of granting victory to the other given their fundamentally irreconcilable principles. The existence of one meant a constant threat from the other, and whoever the victor might be would seek the swiftest end to the ideology of their opponent, if only for the sake of self-preservation. Peace, it seemed, simply could not exist for any sustained duration as long as the two sides were ruling the galaxy in two contradictory fashions. 

And so the war continued on...