Grayson's War

Grayson's War (10,613–10,619 NE) was a brief military conflict between the Unified Vespian Directorate and House Grayson, a minor household located in the Outback Worlds. House Grayson, led by the young and relatively inexperienced house leader, Archon Matthias Grayson, sought to gain increased political status within the Directorate by becoming a major house. Grayson foolishly assumed that this could be accomplished through force of arms and conquering neighboring worlds, carving out a small region of space of his household and gaining the respect he and his family believed they were due. The entire conflict was generally ignored by the rest of the Directorate's population, as the far more destructive Dalhart War in the galactic south was raging on at the same time as Grayson's War.

The war began when House Grayson was ill-advised by members of the far larger and strong great household, House Morgan, to carve out an empire for itself in the space neighboring the Morgans. The Morgans intended to use the Graysons as a buffer state between themselves and the many major houses in the Ruza sector, where the Morgans had been meddling for some time. The Graysons themselves had been planning to embark upon a military campaign for decades, but the Morgans helped in pushing them into actively seeking territory for their house. The war took off with the invasion of Knox in 10,613 NE, and given the ongoing status of the Dalhart War, the Obsidian Guard was slow to react, taking a full year before any military response was issued. The Graysons were swiftly defeated by the federal military, though Archon Grayson was given no punishment due to his minor house status, and simply ignored by the government on Vespia.

Grayson's War has since been ignored as a minor conflict between the government and an upstart house in the Outback, and little attention given to House Grayson ever since that war. The Morgans were never linked to the war's beginning, though the households in the Ruza Sector had been weakened, serving the Morgan's plans in the long-run. Since the war's end in 10,619 NE, the war has largely fallen into obscurity, with detailed information on the conflict only found in the federal government archives of the war and the archives of House Grayson. The war's relevance is limited only to the members of House Grayson and the worlds in the immediate vicinity of the planet Grayson itself.

Background
The start of Grayson's War is generally agreed on by historians to have been influenced by the actions of House Morgan in the Ruza sector years prior to the conflict. The Morgans, seeking to destabilize the sector and stop an increasingly dangerous trading bloc in the sector standing directly in its path to the Cardinal Worlds, influnced the behavior of the head of House Grayson, Matthias Grayson. A young archon who had just taken over the household following the death of his father, Horatio Grayson, just three years prior, Matthias had long fostered ambitions of realizing his family's dreams of becoming a major household. Though the Graysons, being a small minor house in the Edge Worlds region of the galaxy, had no relatistic avenues to fulling this goal, and any though of competing with a major house, let alone a great household, was impossible.

Having been aware of the Graysons' ambitions and seeing a golden opportunity to take out a potential enemy in the Ruza sector, the Morgans stepped in to provide "counseling" on the topic, flattering the inexperienced leader with stories of the Morgans' rise to prominence in the past, and the step he could take to fulfill his desires. The Graysons, never known for their intellectual capacity, even ranked as one of the most intellectually handicapped families in the galaxy, jumped at the opportunity to be like the Morgans. However, the Morgans were keen to distance themselves from the Graysons and their coming actions in the future. Stating that their advice was merely "inspirational", the Morgans easily separated themselves from the Graysons and held no further direct talks with the minor house thereafter. It was hoped that the Graysons would act on their own time, and fulfill the geopolitical needs of the household in due time.

Foolishly, Archon Grayson and his council of advisors took the bait the Morgans had laid out for them, ad prepared for war. Not expecting a minor house to gather an army of any size or capacity, the Vespian Defense Forces completely ignored the buildup of combat personnel by House Grayson. The massive arms purchases and increase size of the fleet of warships wielded by the Graysons went completely unnoticed by any of the federal government officials or the neighboring worlds surrounding Grayson. For a period of two years, the Graysons cultivated a massive army that would accomplish what Matthias had set out to do, or at least hoped would gain him the respect of the great and major households of Vespia. In 10,612 NE, Archon Grayson issued a galaxy-wide proclamation that stated his intentions to dominate the surrounding worlds in his region, and that the Graysons would be viewed as a major household from then on. The broadcast was ignored, and the only viewers were on the planet of Grayson, and their silent minders in House Morgan.