# Preceding Hadrian's Lifetime # ISD 15792 - Battle of Cressgard First contact with Cielcin in the Year ISD 15792. > By the time I was born, the Crusade had been raging for three hundred years since the first battle with the [Cielcin](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/cielcin) at [Cressgard](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/norma-arm/page/cressgard), but it was far away across some twenty thousand light-years of Empire and open space, out where the Veil opened on the Norma Arm. > > *Empire of Silence* - Chapter 1: Hadrian > I blinked. “Five hundred years is . . . before first contact.” I meant the Battle of Cressgard in ISD 15792, when the Cielcin attacked our colonial fort settlement on the edge of the Marinus Veil. The loss of that colony had sent its horrible message careering across the Imperium, the temple fires burning on every world and the priests beside them crying out those fateful words: *We are not alone*. > > *Howling Dark* - Chapter 32: Saturn or Dis
**Spoilers ahead, proceed with caution**
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# ISD 15863 - Battle of Linon Battle during which House Marlowe destroyed exsul House Orin on Linon, the moon of a gas giant in the Delos system. ISD 15863. > Lord Hadrian’s grandfather, the [Archon Lord Timon](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/sollan-empire-vBP/page/lord-timon-marlowe-iv), was assassinated in ISD 15861 by a homunculus concubine gifted him by Yuen Starcrafts, a starship manufacturer aligned with [Delos](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/spur-of-orion/page/delos)’s exsul houses. They were outraged that Lord Timon had used his powers as the vicereine’s executor to secure a writ of monopoly for House Marlowe over all uranium mining in Delos System, destroying their profits. With the vicereine away at Forum, young [Aleister](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/sollan-empire-vBP/page/lord-aleister-diomedes-friedrich-marlowe) was thrust into the role of system executor and into war with the exsul houses when they declared poine against the [Houses Marlowe](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/sollan-empire-vBP/chapter/house-marlowe-of-delos) and [Kephalos](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/sollan-empire-vBP/chapter/house-kephalos-of-delos). The other houses had underestimated Lord Aleister, however, and were crushed at the Battle of Linon in ISD 15863. [House Orin](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/sollan-empire-vBP/chapter/house-orin-of-linon), the leader of the rebellion, was utterly destroyed, and system authority was more tightly concentrated in the planetary houses. For this and for defending her title, [Vicereine Kephalos](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/sollan-empire-vBP/page/vicereine-duchess-elmira-gwendolyn-kephalos) married Aleister to her youngest daughter, [Liliana](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/sollan-empire-vBP/page/lady-liliana-kephalos-marlowe). > > *Empire of Silence* - Dramatis Personae: House Marlowe of Delos - The Sword, Our Orator! > Once when Father was little older than I, the vicereine—my grandmother—had been called to attend the Emperor at Forum. Thirty-seven years she was away, and she left the recently orphaned Lord of Devil’s Rest in her stead as executor. It had taken House Orin of Linon less than three years to begin refusing Father his tribute, and by the next year Lord Orin had raised an army among the exsul houses to depose my father and the absentee vicereine-duchess. They’d swarmed in from the outer planets in-system, falling from the sky like rain. > > There had been no second year of Lord Orin’s rebellion, and the castle at Linon was home now only to ghosts, a shattered ruin in a twilit crater on a distant moon at the edge of Delos’s system. My father ordered the deaths of every member of House Orin, smashed their genestock, and raided their family atomics. He would have sown the earth with salt if it would have done any good on airless Linon. As it was, he only opened the windows of the sealed fortress and let the air out of the castle. > > *Empire of Silence* - Chapter 5: Tigers and Lambs
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# ISD 15987 - Battle of Bellos
**Spoilers ahead, proceed with caution**
> “It was the summer of ’987!” The announcer’s voice filled the coliseum, rebounding off the cheering masses with their banners and hand-painted signs, screams and shouts of “Devils! Devils! Devils!” nearly drowning out the artificially amplified tones. It was enough to wrench at even my attention. I knew the date, knew what it was we were about to see. > > “The last men of the 617th were stranded on [Bellos](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/norma-arm/page/bellos), their ship crashed, their brothers and sisters slain! No one was coming to save them!” > *Empire of Silence*, Chapter 6: Truth Without Beauty The survivors of the 617th Centaurine Legion repelled a [Cielcin](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/cielcin) horde that had ravaged the Bellos colony; Commemorated often in Colosso by having gladiators represent the Legions and the slaves, disfigured and painted white, to represent the Cielcin.
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# ISD Unknown - Battle of Argissa Early battle in the Cielcin Wars. Argissa was an Imperial colony in the Veil of Marinus. Not much has yet been discovered in [Lord Marlowe](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/meidua-red-company/page/hadrian-anaxander-marlowe)'s account, as the only surviving mention of this battle is found below. > My friend. > > When I had first met Pallino, he’d been an old man. Hoary, white-haired, and one-eyed. He’d lost the eye fighting the Cielcin at **[Argissa](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/norma-arm/page/argissa)** a lifetime before. Old as he was, he’d been strong after the way of old soldiers, and when I had asked him to enlist with me, to leave the life of a coliseum myrmidon for life as a mercenary, he had not blinked the one eye remaining him. > > *Demon in White*, Chapter 1: Behold a Pale Horse
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# ISD Unknown - Battle of Athten Var Famously known as the battle during which Tor Simeon, a legendary scholiast and early explorer of the Centaurus Arm during the Sollan Empire’s expansion, helped defend the Irchtani's holiest site. Simeon discovered the frozen world [Judecca](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/sagittarius-arm/page/judecca) and made peaceful contact with the native Irchtani, a race of flying xenobites with taloned wings. When Simeon's crew mutinied — hoping to enslave the Irchtani for profit — he refused to aid them, allied with the natives, and led a successful resistance from the ancient black temple of Athten Var. For his heroism, he was gifted a red cloak (mistaken for green by the Irchtani) and became known as [Simeon the Red](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/legends/page/simeon-the-red). The Empire later honored him, and Judecca remained under Imperial rule with Irchtani auxilia even serving in the Legions. > The Irchtani. When I was a boy on [Delos](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/spur-of-orion/page/delos), my [mother](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/sollan-empire-vBP/page/lady-liliana-kephalos-marlowe) would tell me stories. Stories of the [Cid Arthur](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/legends/page/cid-arthur), of [Prince Cyrus the Fool](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/legends/page/prince-cyrus-the-golden). Stories of [Kharn Sagara](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/legends/page/kharn-sagara), of [Sir Antony Damrosch](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/legends/page/sir-antony-damrosch) and [Kasia Soulier](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/legends/page/kasia-soulier). But it was the stories of Tor Simeon the Red I liked best. How after centuries of sailing his ship had discovered the planet Judecca and its native Irchtani—a species of flying xenobite nearly so intelligent as man—but the crew had revolted, killing their captain and leaving Simeon for dead. They planned to capture the Irchtani and to sell them into slavery, for such noble savages were always curiosities at the courts of a certain kind of nobleman. Thus they would end their miserable journeys rich and comfortable and might retire to the frontier. But Simeon had survived, and with the help of the Irchtani natives he defeated his former crewmates, avenged his fellow officers, and saw to it that the Irchtani were protected when Imperial settlement came at last to Judecca. He was buried in their holiest shrine, the black temple of Athten Var, a temple that was old when the Irchtani were still dumb animals. A temple that had been built—like Calagah on [Emesh](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/norma-arm/page/emesh) and the Marching Towers on [Sadal Suud](https://www.suneater.wiki/books/spur-of-orion/page/sadal-suud)—by the Quiet, if *built* was the right word. They’d called him *Unaan Kril*, the Red Worm, for their alien eyes perceived the green of his scholiast’s vestments as red, and because we humans do not fly. > > *Demon in White*, Chapter 10: Pinion and Claw
**Spoilers ahead, proceed with caution**
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