K'lik Culling Campaign

The K'lik Culling Campaign was an armed conflict fought between the Septoid Supremacy and the species of the K'lik as a whole. It was started by the Supremacy with the eplicit aim of exterminating the K'lik and its earlier campaign against humanity, the Human Culling Campaign was the archetype which the offensive against the K'lik was modelled after.

During the war, the seperate states of the K'lik united under a military leadership and formed the Chellan League to streamline all efforts of its species into defeating the Septoids. Their advance was eventually stopped in a pitched battle around the homeworld of the K'lik, Aphex and while the Supremacy maintains a culling campaign can only end with the destruction of either species, most of the galaxy maintains this victory over the Septoids marks the end of the K'lik Culling Campaign and views the wars that followed it, during which the Chellan League managed to reclaim several colonies from the Supremacy, are seperate conflicts.

Background
Contact between the nations of the K'lik species and the rest of the Aleph Sector had been established in the closing years before the Human Culling Campaign and the aftermath of that war had been largely beneficial for the K'lik: human refugees had brought advanced technology to the K'lik, elevating it to a spacefaring race and the political turmoil in the entire sector following the victory of the Septoids had allowed the nations of the K'lik to establish several colonies in neighbouring systems.

However, both these events soon sparked tensions with the Septoid Supremacy, who viewed the sheltering of human refugees as affront and had laid claim to all former human systems, including the ones now colonized by the K'lik. As consolidation of the gains made during the Human Culling Campaign progressed, the Septoid Supremacy became more outspoken about the K'lik colonies, which they perceived as theft of what they considered legitimate spoils of war.

Millions of humans had been enslaved during the war and subjugated to a brutal policy of extermination through labor. In the years following the Human Culling Campaign, the Septoid Supremacy had developed a strong dependancy upon the labor of these human slaves, but proved unable to revise its policy of total extermination of all its human slaves. This meant that pressure upon the Septoid economy increased each passing year, as the supply of slave labor in the Supremacy dwindled.

Ultimatively, the rising tensions with the K'lik coincided with an objective need for war to sustain its model of society for the Septoid Supremacy, who also perceived the K'lik as easy target for their next round of attacks against other species in the Aleph Sector.

Battle for Aphex
When the Septoids reached Aphex, it became clear that the predictions made by the K'lik high command were wrong. Instead of the anticipated orbital obliteration of the entire planet, the Septoids staged a ground invasion, seemingly confident in their ability to subjugate its population.

The Chellan League reversed its earlier strategy, following the arrival of allied forces from human resistance groups and mercenaries from the Divide. Instead of a battle at the Gethsemane system, the K'lik rallied their forces to engage the Septoids at Aphex.

Initial battles managed to overwhelm the Septoid fleets in orbit around Aphex and sent them into retreat, pursued by considerable fleet assets, while the Septoid offensive on the ground came to a halt as a consequence. Fighting continued for over half a year before eventually the last organized resistance by Septoid forces on the ground could be broken. Fighting ebbed out after the Septoid defeat at Aphex and the war was followed by a prolonged period of low-intensity skirmishes along system borders.

Aftermath
The unprecedented defeat of the Septoid Supremacy sent ripples throughout the Aleph Sector, causing human resistance groups in the Divide to step up their campaigns against Septoid incursions and granting confidence to states in direct neighbourhood of the Supremacy. Weakened by the war, the Septoids were unable to effectively answer these developements and especially the Rakyo princes used this to their own advantage as they began to implement numerous trade restrictions and tariffs to curb trade with the Supremacy. This increased existing tensions between Rakyo and Septoids and would eventually spiral into a new culling campaign by the Septoids, against the Rakyo.

As a major reason for the war had been to secure new sources of slave labor, the defeat proved hurtful to the economy of the Supremacy. Not only had they failed to enslave significant numbers of K'lik; the emboldened resistance groups within the Divide also disturbed slave raids into this part of the galaxy as well. As a result, the Septoid Supremacy experienced a decade long deep economic crisis and answered the recession with increased violence against dissidents and oppositionals. The wave of terror that decimated Septoid colonies in order to maintain the rule of the Supremacy would become known as the years of maiming.