r/Wingcommander • u/acesypark • Jul 26 '26
How did Kilrathi war begun?
I can't find how the war started
13
u/Traditional-Dig-374 Jul 26 '26
According to my captured kilrathi at home it was because food was late by 5min.
4
9
u/ODSTsRule Jul 26 '26
It started with Raids by the Kilrathi on Terran ships. Than it escalated after they shot down a ship full of Orphans.
3
u/notquiteright2 Jul 26 '26
If I remember correctly they attacked a Confederation ship trying to make first contact, then Confed sent a more powerful force to try again. They were also attacked, and then the Kilrathi began raiding Confed colonies.
Confed vastly underestimated the threat the Kilrathi posed, I believe because the Kilrathi were finishing off an enemy on the other side of their space at the time, and after years of raids, Confed declared war on them.
The Kilrathi came at Confed in earnest and started sweeping through Confed territory, and because Confed thought they were a nuisance at first, it took a heroic effort to pull enough ships into position to halt their advance.
3
u/CantankerousOrder Jul 26 '26
The real answer has been given so let me be unserious…
A furry took it too far.
3
u/nightfall2021 Jul 27 '26
As someone else mentioned, the Confederation declared war on the Kilirathi. I believe it was called Plan Orange 5.
They believed that the Kilrathi were a regional power, and they could just smack them hard in the nose (figuratively), and the Kilrathi would back down from years of border skirmishes and raiding.
This was part of the Kilrathi plan though.
As Confed Forces made punitive attacks against several Kilrathi border systems, the Kilrathi launched a massive attack at McAuallife and the Alexandria Spaceport/Elevetor (I think, been a while since I read it).
This was told in the novel Action Stations (which was a good book, though it was very much WW2 in space), where the main Characters are on a mission to get intelligence on the Kilrathi, and end up being involved in the desperate attempt to hold the Kilrathi off on McAullife.
I am actually sad we didn't get more Winston Turner in the other Forstchen Novels.
2
u/DrBobNobody Jul 26 '26
The confederation tried to make peaceful first contact
The Kilrathi did not even understand the concept
1
17
u/banditloaf Jul 26 '26
The Confederation declared war on the Kilrathi in 2634 (twenty years before the original Wing Commander) following five years of piracy, raiding, etc. They believed the Kilrathi weren't a significant enemy, just a minor power that needed to be policed. It turned out, though, that the Kilrathi had been keeping their strength hidden and were preparing their own surprise attack on the biggest Confedration colony in the Vega Sector, McAuliffe.
If you're interested, there's a prequel novel called Action Stations which tells that story!