Operation Justice

During Operation Justice, the UNMC was tasked with retaking a major colony on the planet of Justice, whose government was overthrown in a coup supported by the Socialist Progressive Peoples. The number of marines peaked at 240 000 active combat Marines and over a dozen combat warships, resulting in the second largest conflict fought, but still not to the scale of The Orthis War. Eventually both sides withdrew after the usage of nuclear weaponry, devastating the population's infrastructure and leading to the establishment of the Stellar Accords.

The primary colony of Justice suffered from a SPP-led coup, resulting in overthrowing the UN-supported government and the installment of a pro-SPP regime. The United Nations Government wasted no effort in mobilizing and deploying a massive task-force. The task-force being solely dedicated with retaking the colony from SPP forces. The SPP also not desiring to lose the opportunity to get their hands on a rich world deployed their own task-force, resulting in a major engagement between the two super-powers. The Operation was extremely bloody, most notably for the civilians caught in the crossfire, as the Interstellar Life Rights Council had not yet formed the Stellar Accords.

The UNMC was already gaining a sour reputation among colonies due to The Orthis War. There was also a deep concern for the colonies by veteran officers. They foresaw Justice as the second Orthis War and therefore illegally permitted groups of marines off the record to fight unrestricted, regardless of civilian life caught on the battlefield, in order to prevent such a disaster from occurring in UN history a second time.

The end of the conflict was the usage of nuclear weapons and withdrawal of both of the SPP and UNMC forces after years of battle. The conflict failed to see a winning side with most of the colony, and wider planet, now in ruins and deemed unhabitable and unusable. After the full withdrawal, a humanitarian relief force from the Interstellar Life Rights Council was assembled and attempted to aid and recover civilians left in the aftermath.

In the years following Operation Justice, media of the ruined planet circulated widely among colony populations. Entire stretches of land rendered uninhabitable, polluted atmospheres and waters, shattered infrastructure, and abandoned colonies drew immediate and unsettling comparisons to Earth during its pre-Exodus collapse. Justice was not merely another failed intervention, it was a mirror of humanity’s darkest chapter, now repeating itself among the stars.

The similarities were impossible to ignore. As Earth had once been torn apart by conflict, resource wars, and unchecked military escalation, so too had Justice fallen victim to rival powers treating a world as a battleground rather than a home. Public sentiment across UN colonies shifted rapidly, with growing outrage toward unrestricted warfare, civilian neglect, and the absence of protections for non-combatants.

This realization marked a turning point. Major power leaders, colony representatives, and emerging interstellar advocacy groups demanded binding limits on military conduct, fearing that without intervention, Justice would become the first of many dead worlds. From this pressure, the Interstellar Life Rights Council gained unprecedented authority, and the Stellar Accords were drafted and approved.

The Accords were intended to ensure that no colony would ever again be sacrificed to war, establishing strict regulations on weapons of mass destruction, civilian protections, and the conduct of military operations. hopefully, this would prevent history from repeating itself among the stars.