In early 2023, Shil’vati Governorness Lilatha of the California West Coast County orders the “relocation” of Weaverville, a rural Northern California town, under the pretense of post-invasion stabilization. In reality, the operation forcibly separates unregistered children from their families, dispersing them as political favors to loyalist households. Over twelve hundred humans die during the chaotic roundups, including those who resist or attempt to protect their children. It later comes out that the forced relocation was for the establishment of a Imperial settlement and the humans were in the way.

A cell of surviving U.S. Army Rangers, operating in the Cascadia insurgency corridor, intercepts intel about Weaverville. Fueled by rage and desperation, they deploy a salvaged tactical nuclear device (a backpack-sized warhead from pre-invasion stockpiles) at a Shil’vati spaceport in the Western Oregon Bluezone on February 24, 2023. The detonation obliterates the spaceport and a 2-mile radius, killing 34,000 Shil’vati military personnel and 52,000 human civilians, many of whom were collaborators or laborers trapped in the crossfire.

The Imperial Navy bombards suspected rebel and insurgent sites in response, pulse laser strikes and kinetic bombardments fall across the Rockies, the attacks reduce entire towns to smoldering craters, killing tens of thousands many of whom had no insurgent ties. The indiscriminate violence radicalizes Yellow Zone residents across the area, sparking retaliatory guerrilla attacks on Shil’vati patrols and attacks that reach into even Green Zones. Mass casualty events erupt, including bombings of Shil’vati areas previously declared safe for Imperial personnel and civilians.

The Portland strike divides human factions. Hardline groups hail it as a necessary escalation, while moderates (like the Rocky Mountain Militia) condemn the civilian toll.