Galactic Terran Alliance

The GTA logo

The Galactic Terran Alliance (GTA) was an alliance formed by the human race after the unification of the peoples at Earth. The space-based military wing of the GTA is known as the Galactic Terran Navy (GTN) but referenced as such only in the FreeSpace Reference Bible. In the campaign, it is referred to as the GTA League of Defense. The intelligence branch of the GTA is Galactic Terran Intelligence (GTI).

History

There's little information available about the establishment and the early days of the GTA in FreeSpace canon. For some general information about the early days of Terran space exploration, see Terrans.

Wars

In 2320, the Galactic Terran Alliance first encountered the Vasudans. At the beginning of their relationship, there was no armed conflict; what we know of as "the Terran-Vasudan War" erupted in the year 2321. The exact cause of the war isn't revealed, but the FS1 techroom entry claims that one of the main factors was a Terran mishandling of "The Conversation," or a ritual of the Vasudan language.

After fourteen years of seemingly endless war, a previously unknown race known as the Shivans attacked, without warning, a Terran convoy and Vasudan strike force in the Antares system, as well as harassing other GTA and PVN forces in the sector. After initial casualty estimates, the PVN approached the GTA with a motion to sign an armistice and fight this new foe. Terran Command agreed, signed the armistice, and ended the Terran-Vasudan portion of the Great War. These two former foes would now cooperate in many ventures, such as science and engineering to defeat the newly discovered Shivans.

Ross 128 had already been lost, Betelgeuse, Beta Cygni, and Ribos also fell to the Shivans' superiority. When the Shivans took Antares, it became clear to the GTA that if the Vasuda system were to fall, the Vasudans' war effort would be fatally crushed. In the effort to defend Vasuda from the mighty Shivan fleet, multiple destroyers engaged Shivan forces in both Deneb and Antares. With the destruction of the GTD Galatea, nothing was left to halt the progression of Shivan forces into the Vasuda system. After arriving, the SD Lucifer bombarded Vasuda Prime, killing billions of innocent Vasudans after only fourteen hours of incessant bombardment.

With the destruction of Vasuda, Terran Command feared the Shivans would now move towards Earth. If it had not been for the Vasudan refugees who found the Ancient records, Earth would have also been annihilated by the Shivan superdestroyer. Thanks to the successful extraction of the Ancient data, Terran Command now possessed the knowledge needed to defeat the SD Lucifer and halt the Shivan advance. After being pursued by the GTD Bastion and later a small contingent of fighters and bombers, the SD Lucifer was destroyed in the subspace tunnel between Sol and Delta Serpentis, causing the jump node to collapse.

With the destruction of the SD Lucifer, the Shivan war machine crumbled, and the remnants of their fleet were defeated as the Great War finally came to an end.

Dissolution

Following the Great War and the loss of Earth, the GTA suddenly found itself without leadership. A provisional government was hastily formed from those members of the GTA government that were away from Sol when the Lucifer was destroyed. It barely held together a fragmented and despaired people, and the only symbol of its authority was the military, which was still licking its wounds after the Great War. The Hades Rebellion proved to be the catalyst for the collapse of the GTA. Even though the rebellion was defeated, the authority of the provisional government was in shambles, and humanity fell apart. The Galactic Terran Alliance was no more.

To fill the power vacuum created by the fall of the GTA, various independent nation-states were founded, such as the Adhara Coalition, the Antares Federation, the Luyten New Alliance, and the Regulus Syndicate. These various blocs were the only semblance of order in the anarchic post-Great War period of Terran history. Eventually, the Vasudans began overtures of a formal union between the two races, leading to the establishment of the Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance.