Since the inconclusive end to the Third Galactic War, 1,543 years earlier, a strained but sustained peace had held throughout the galaxy. There were stresses to be sure—the expansionistic empire of the K’te carved out a large sphere of influence through the conquest of more primitive races, the Skrull and the Kree continued their interminable, futile conflict nearly non-stop, and even the nominally peaceful Qys and Warpsmiths eyed each other warily, and at times antagonistically, across their common border. But through the economic incentive of free trade--best embodied by the increasing prominence of The Network--and the stability of the centrally located Shi’Ar empire, most of the major governments and power blocks avoided open hostilities for generations.
This, alas, ended in a mire of Apokolipsian treachery. Darkseid, the warlord and master of the hell-world Apokolips, lusted for a second front in his own eternal struggle with the forces of New Genesis. Using agents both overt and covert, Darkseid pledged military and technological support to several of the more aggressive empires if they would attack their neighbors.
Although few observers outside New Genesis realized it at the time, the Fourth Galactic War began on 50922.381.72 when the Skrull launched a particularly aggressive raid against the Kree, and violated their border with the Warpsmiths to do it. Suddenly, after millennia, the Skrull were making sizable gains against their long term adversaries, and were pointedly ignoring Warpsmith warnings to stay out of their space.
Meanwhile, Darkseid’s agents found a sympathetic ear to their proposals in the royal court of the Shi’Ar as well. Indeed, the increasingly erratic Emperor D’Ken eagerly believed Darkseid’ promises of a new golden age of glory and conquest. With megalomaniacal ferocity, D’Ken committed the formidable military of the Shi’Ar to retaking territory lost to the Kree in the last Galactic war over a thousand years earlier, despite the fact that the Kree had been a nominal ally of the Shi’Ar ever since.
Suddenly embroiled in a two-front war, the Kree Empire was relentlessly battered, and the fighting now spilled over more and more into Warpsmith space. Worse, blatant incursions into Warpsmith territory by both the Skrull and the Shi’Ar were increasing.
Grey Warpsmith diplomats expected such unlawfulness from the Skrulls, but were mystified by the actions of their long-time allies the Shi’Ar. Despite reports of D’Ken’s increasingly despotic behavior, they could not believe that the Shi’Ar government would so conspicuously shatter treaties that had brought peace for generations. They demanded an explanation from the Shi’ar. D’Ken’s response was a formal declaration of war delivered by the Third and Fifth Shi’Ar Battle Fleets when they “liberated” five star systems from the “tyranny of Warpsmith arrogance.”
Amused to no end by their long-time rival’s suddenly precarious position, the Qys predictably aggravated the situation, fragrantly inciting border incidents of their own with the Warpsmiths. Although they acted without the direct taint of Darkseid, the Qys still played right into his hands.
The breaking point was reached when the K’te suddenly entered the fray, their subject warrior races pouring over the Qys border. The K’te almost instantly sliced a section of space away from the Qys and plowed right into the side of the Warpsmiths, who were at that point reeling from the combination of direct attacks by the Shi’Ar, significant Skrull incursions, and the rapidly heating-up border dispute with the Qys. Learning of this, the Master Traders on Starholm sent a communiqué to all of the major governments reasserting The Network’s neutrality—even issuing an unprecedented “advisory” against arms sales to active combatants--but also warned that no interference in the trade lanes would be countenanced. The greater independent races either picked sides or declared neutrality; either way they began militarizing. The lesser independent races braced for occupation.
The Fourth Galactic War was now, officially, a reality.
This, of course, was exactly what Darkseid had been planning for; with New Genesis operatives scattered throughout the galaxy trying desperately to engage Apokolips’s agents, Darkseid staged a brutal surprise attack on New Genesis itself, plunging both ancient powers into direct, fiery warfare.
Radical interventionists on New Genesis raised calls that for a more prominent role in the wider conflict, but Izaya The Highfather decreed that the escalating struggle with Apokolips was an immediate danger to New Genesis, itself. The rest of the galaxy was on its own.
And at that moment, in the western spiral arm, far from the fighting, on the primitive but unimaginably pivotal world called earth, a gestalt mentality of limitless malevolence begins its own reign of terror. As is above, so is below.