Between 17,018 BBY and 3017 BBY, the Galactic Republic's capital planet Coruscant, the Republic member world Alsakan, and their respective allies fought a total of seventeen wars known as the Alsakan Conflicts for the political and economical supremacy in the Republic. The Conflicts waged before 12,980 BBY saw several attempts by the two belligerent sides to secure a decisive victory through the use of battle fleets.
However, neither Coruscant nor Alsakan were willing to overextend their military resources on offensives, and direct confrontations were rare. Eventually, the tactics employed shifted to squadrons of large battleships defending the Core Worlds—where both Coruscant and Alsakan lay—and fast cruisers carrying out raids and protecting colony worlds.
In 12,980 BBY, as part of the Fifth Alsakan Conflict that had commenced approximately seventy years earlier, Admiral Hirken, a member of a family that had been among the earliest settlers of Alsakan, launched a relentless campaign to defend the Northern Dependencies region, which was under Alsakan's control, and the Alsakani colonies therein. During that campaign, the cruisers employed by Hirken's forces proved very valuable.
A battle of the campaign
The fighting of Hirken's campaign occurred in the Northern Dependencies' portion of the Core Worlds, the Colonies, and the Inner Rim, including engagements in the Pyria and Twith systems. Confrontations also took place further spinward, in the Dachat and Sz Fel systems of the Negs portion of the Core. The campaign even extended as far along the Alsakani-controlled Namadii Corridor hyperlane as the Glee Anselm and Iridonia systems in Wild Space. One of the campaign's battles, which took place in orbit around a celestial body, saw the participation of at least thirteen warships, nine of which had similar design elements yet represented several different makes.
Although the Fifth Alsakan Conflict continued for nearly three more centuries, Admiral Hirken's campaign in the Northern Dependencies decided the war's outcome. The subsequent campaigns of the Alsakan Conflicts eventually followed a set pattern of raids and ripostes taking place among Coruscant and Alsakan's colonies and being periodically interrupted by ceasefires being made in the Core Worlds.
Admiral Hirken's campaign in the Northern Dependencies was introduced in the 2012 reference book The Essential Guide to Warfare, authored by Jason Fry and Paul R. Urquhart. In the book, the campaign was depicted in an illustration by Darren Tan.
- The Essential Guide to Warfare