The first stages of the war dragged on for months. Still distrusting and occasionally even fighting each other in the face of a greater threat, the Qys and Warpsmiths were unable to coordinate their forces against their common enemies and were served shocking losses. The mighty star fleets of the Shi’Ar deployed disruption generators in hyperspace, limiting the Warpsmiths’ teleportation abilities, and while the “war forms” of the Qys were physically quite formidable, the Qys themselves were no match for the combat skills honed to perfection in the warrior races of the K’te, particularly the force blade-wielding Cholonu. The Kree Empire held out against the suddenly superior Skrull forces only through dint of pure will, the territory lost to their age-old enemies actually serving to boost morale, but no one was under any illusion that the Kree were fighting anything but a defensive war at this point.

    Of the three aggressors, the “best” empire to be occupied by was, surprisingly, the Skrull. Their military governors were stringent, but not particularly brutal or unfair—at least as long as no active rebellion was in the offing--and they were certainly orderly. Perhaps the best thing about the Skrull was that they seemed genuinely uninterested in occupied races and their culture, and were quite willing to simply leave them be as long as they didn’t make any trouble for them.

    The K’te seemed evenhanded in victory, as well, but they followed standard K’te occupational protocols: Namely, the swift creation of programs and institutions designed to eventually erase the indigenous culture and replace it with a new one structured to mass produce loyal warriors in a few generations’ time, while simultaneously committing larceny on a planetary scale, carting off much of a captured planet’s resources and cultural treasures back to the K’te’s homeworld of K’te’i.

    The worst invaders by far, however, were the Shi’Ar. Flush with victory and hewing close to the example of increasingly callous decadence set by the Emperor, military governors chosen from the ranks of D’Ken’s loyal followers terrorized and ravaged whole worlds. Unlike the K’te, whose demands for tribute were limited by their desire to maintain sustainable societies on conquered worlds, the majority of Shi’Ar military governors felt no such compunction. Shocking corruption, exploitation, and debasements and debaucheries rising to the level of war crimes were the norm.

    Stories of atrocities and unimaginable perversities in the occupied territories slowly leaked back into the Shi’Ar Empire, while generals warned D’Ken that constantly dealing with planet-wide revolts caused by poor colonial administration was tying up important military resources needed elsewhere. D’Ken (now called in hushed tones “The Mad Emperor” by some) did not seem to care, and the excesses continued.

    In these darkest hours, however, a new and very literal light came into being. Growing increasingly dissatisfied with the aloofness of New Genesis, the human New Genesis agent named Sentinel (Alan Scott, formerly the earth hero known as Green Lantern) sought new and powerful allies who would be more willing to intervene in the rapidly deteriorating state of the galaxy. He soon joined forces with the ancient masters of the distant planet Oa, called The Guardians, who shared his concerns and were independently working to find a way to help balance the scales of order and chaos. Together they founded a new multi-species organization dedicated to fighting for peace and justice throughout the galaxy. Basing these galactic protectors to some degree on Scott’s persona on earth, the new organization was called the Green Lantern Corps, and thousands of beings throughout known space soon heard the call and joined its ranks. With Oa-designed power rings in hand, these courageous beings quickly gained a tremendous reputation throughout the galaxy, rooting out evil at every turn, and exposing the treachery at the heart of the Galactic War.

    Perhaps the greatest of them--aside from the Green Lantern Prime, himself--was the cunning and heroic warrior known as Sinestro. A brilliant tactician and a prodigy at using the elemental force of the power ring, Sinestro was instrumental in convincing the major empires that the Corps could be a significant factor in the war. In only their first few months of operation, the Lanterns freed over a dozen worlds from tyranny and brought the vital resource of hope to hundreds more. Moreover, the arrival of the Lanterns finally evened the odds in dealing with aggressor races equipped with advanced Apokolips technology. Because of this, the Lanterns soon earned the credibility required to rally the other empires of the galaxy into an alliance to defeat Darkseid’s pawns.

    With Green Lanterns acting as intermediaries, the Black Warpsmiths, the Kree Supreme Intelligence and representatives from the Qys Kingqueen meet on Hod for an emergency summit. The Green Lanterns presented their evidence, largely leaked from New Genesis, proving what many had suspected but that no one wanted to believe: That the Skrull, K’te and Shi’Nar were being clandestinely supported by Darkseid. In response, the Warpsmiths, Kree and Qys agreed to formally ally with each other to combat what they rightly considered the greatest threat the galaxy had yet faced.

    This agreement radically altered the complexion of the war, and is almost universally regarded as the conflict’s central turning point. Through shared intelligence information and a canny understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses, the forces of the Kree, Qys and Warpsmiths complimented each other quite well and struck back ferociously. For the first time ever, Qys organic starships were allowed to cross into Warpsmith space, where they engaged the fleets of the Shi’Ar, freeing the Warpsmiths to concentrate on executing devastating counterattacks against the invading armies of the K’te. These newly invigorated fronts forced the Skrull to redeploy, giving the Kree the time they needed to consolidate and prepare for an offensive of their own.

    Darkseid’s axis reeled before the onslaught, and their alliance, based largely on mutual greed, was not sufficiently to weather it.

    Emperor D’Ken reacted to the Shi’Ar’s stalled offensive with public executions of “incompetent” generals, and increasingly desperate and incompetent campaigns of his own design. The loss of life was staggering, and refugees fleeing the carnage flooded out of Shi’Ar space. The empire was hemorrhaging, and with the utter removal of sensible military men from the upper echelons of its armed forces (through either battle or execution), chaos reigned and the empire teetered on complete collapse.

    With D’Ken’s control buckling and the Shi’Ar slipping into anarchy, the emperor’s sister, Lilandra, executed a coup, aided by Green Lantern agents, the few sane members of the Shi’Are military still alive, and Gladiator, the head of D’Ken’s Imperial Guard. The fall of D’Ken’s government was nearly bloodless. D’Ken’s corrupt lackeys had no stomach for fighting a losing battle and simply fled. D’Ken, himself, was quickly brought to this understanding by his underlings, including the rest of the Imperial Guard, who stayed loyal to their insane monarch. Despite a supposedly airtight blockade supervised by the Green Lantern Corps, D’Ken and much of his court stunned the new government by simply disappearing.

    With D’Ken’s “abdication” confirmed, Lilandra quickly consolidated her power base, and was crowned empress. Her first act as Majestrix of the Shi’Ar was to formally switch sides in the Galactic War, although this was largely a symbolic action, as the empire was in such disarray it was no longer able to fight anyone.

    Still, this sent a powerful signal, received by no less than Darkseid, who realized that the effective lifespan of his monstrous feint was nearing its end, and it was time to put the final phase of his plan into operation. So far, his plot had succeeded marvelously: The onslaught of shocking violence throughout the Galaxy, culminating in his direct attacks on New Genesis, had weakened his ancient adversaries enough that Darkseid now had the best opportunity he would ever have to strike at and conquer his true target: The elemental power of The Source, itself!