The Assault on Taranis

Redirected from The Great Orc Migration.

"Great Admiral Vilhelm lead the fleet, From continent to rocky isle. Steam powered Knights,  All of human might, To face the orcs so vile!" - Extract from Henrik Baumen's poem: "Admiral Vilhelm". The Assault on Taranis, also known as The Great Orc Migration, is a controversial Historic event that happened in the Early-Mid Second Age. As there are wildly different accounts of the event, not that much can be said of it in certainty. What can be said is that growing tensions between the Orcs of Taranis and the Königratzfell Reich came to a head. The 1st Securan Kriegsflotte set off with an army of 22,000 Knights and men at arms on the 19th Grasdar to attack Taranis Isle. They returned in the Winter, just 2 months later, claiming a quick and easy victory.

Background
Both Taranis and The Reich formed in the first centuries of the Second Age, yet it was not to hundreds of years later that they finally met. A human vessel was blown off course and the two races came face to face with each other. Though neither of them harmed each other, there was an instant dislike. Orcs praise passion and the strength and intelligence of the individual. Reichen praise order and the strength and unity of the Motherland a whole.

After this first contact the Reichen returned home to report on the orcs. The High Command was in a state of uncertainty of what to do. For many years, their ordered philosophy counted on humans being the only race to populate the landscape, efficiency and structure demanded it. The sketches made of Taranis depicted a city with seemingly no calculated layout or planning, with buildings erected decidedly unoptimally. To the Reichen, such an affront to order could not be allowed to stand. The Orcs disliked the Reichen for their lack of respect to their culture and lack of individuality. More so, though they feared them. Huge metal War Ships had been spotted patrolling the Erfar Coast through spy glasses. Over the next few hundred years, tensions grew between the two factions.

Orcish Account
On a cold Spring day, 680 years into The Second Age, a council of Military Lords, leading Scientists and Master Mechanics met in the capital and after four days of debating, came to the decision to abandon Taranis and find a new land to call home. The next day, preparations were started. The orcs would utilise their superior knowlege of stealth and navigation to sneak their entire population: around 32,000 at the time, off the island, past the Königratzfell Reich and to a distant land. It was a bold strategy. It took 7 years to build the Great Evacuation Fleet: 1900 vessels strong and with supplies to last up to 3 years constantly at sea. It was a warm Summer night, 10 years after the initial decision when the Orcs left, after an entire day of celebration and mourning. The fleet drifted off into the red setting sun, never to return.

It was 89 years later when the Kriegsflotte arrived. Admiral Vilhem lead his troops ashore to find nothing. In anger, every Taranis ruin was burnt to the ground and every soldier sworn to secrecy of the true events of the assault.

Königratzfell Reich Account
Since the first Reichen ships had spotted Taranis from afar, the country had been in a state of mass industrial frenzy, making significant advances in military technology and mass production of armaments. The Taranis Escalation, as it was known, was a period of unparalleled growth as a nation, with every citizen united in their fervor. When eventually the time came that the fleets of Securus were deemed ready for combat, Admiral Vilhelm sailed out across the Taranis Channel, at the helm of the Aufblitzen, with three Kriegsflotten behind him.

The approach to the island city went optimally, the steel hulls of Reichen battleships being more than a match for the disorganized weaponry of the Orcs. When the ships made landing on the Southeast Beach, the elite Reichen troops made short work of the pitiful Orcish militia, and proceeded to make their way through the town, burning down any memory of their stain on the world. Not one soldier perished in the entire assault, and the event has since been recorded as the finest display of military tactics and strategy in the history of the Reich.