The Julian Protectorate: The Second Resurgence: The Vargr Missions and the
Hidden War
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

In 382, Emperor Martin III of the Imperium ordered a series of Alien Missions
to learn about the alien races with whom the Imperium had contact.  These
missions included xenologists and other researchers, journalists, and
diplomats.  The Vargr Mission, from 486 to 499, met a cool reception from
Protectorate worlds, and, althout anti-Imperial feeling had ebbed since the
Grand Survey, radically anti-Imperial factions attempted to incite worlds of
the Protectorate to turn away the Imperial emissaries.  When these attempts
failed, the radicals resorted to terrorism and corsair raids, hiring bands
of pirates and corsairs to attack the Imperial ships.

Cleon IV, unwilling to tolerate continued harrassment of the study mission,
ordered Imperial Naval Intelligence to counter the anti-Imperial activity in
the area, in a "Hidden War" lasting from 488 to 494.  Although the Naval
efforts were largely successful, they were widely publicised in the 
Protectorate, and anti-Imperial feeling surged.  In spite of the cessation of 
harrassment, the Imperium elected to terminate the Vargr Mission early, in 
499, and move on.

