The following data record of the Second Galactic War is being closely monitored by the Ministry of Truth. If you see any suspicious or undemocratic edits being made, report them to the nearest available Democracy Officer posthaste! For the Glory of Super Earth!
Since Helldivers II has an even greater focus on Emergent Gameplay created in collaboration with the playerbase, this has lead to many Story Arcs much more unique than in the first game unfolding.
A complete list of all historical and ongoing operations is available at the Galactic War page
of the Helldivers series official wiki.
Automaton Front
The Automatons, with their inability to feel or express loyalty, are driven by their desire to free their Cyborg "parents" from Super Earth's loving embrace. Following Super Earth's victory in the First Galactic War, the Cyborgs were disarmed and given the chance to express their newfound fealty to Damsel Democracy by working in the mines of their former homeworld, Cyberstan. However, in secret, the Automatons were made outside the galaxy to prevent their full reeducation. Beginning with an invasion on the Western edges of the galactic map, the Automatons began a campaign of terror against Super Earth-controlled planets. Now, they bide their time kidnapping babies, killing voters, and spreading the sadistic, seditious socialism Managed Democracy simply cannot abide. The history of Helldiver operations on the Automaton front is recorded here.The Fall of Malevelon Creek
In the early weeks of the galactic war, the Automaton-controlled planet in the Severin sector known as Malevelon Creek swiftly garnered a reputation amongst Helldivers everywhere as a fiercely territorial battleground, with the Bots fighting tooth and nail to maintain their baby-snatching grip over the planet's lush jungles. This period also gave rise to the "Creek Crawlers", an informal sub-group of Helldivers defined by their will to liberate the Creek. Millions of valiant Helldivers gave their lives ceaselessly attempting to liberate the planet from Bot control, but to no avail as the Bots' hold on the planet was simply too tight. Eventually, on Februrary 27, 2184, evacuations were made and the last remnants of the planet controlled by Super Earth were overtaken by the Automatons. This dealt a crippling blow to Helldiver morale, and fingers were pointed in all directions about how the battle was mismanaged.Operation Swift Disassembly
After Automation transmissions were intercepted hinting at a "reclamation" and some kind of massive Automaton counterattack, a multi-stage military operation known as Swift Disassembly was put together by High Command to strike the Bots while the iron was hot.- Phase I: Liberation of Ubanea and Tibit
- Phase II: The Return to Malevelon
- Phase III: Severin Automaton Counteroffensive
- Phase IV: Automaton Annihilation
At last, on April 7, 2184, Durgen was liberated. With the Automaton threat thoroughly eradicated, Super Destroyer war tables throughout the galaxy showed an empty western front. Operation Swift Disassembly was a resounding success for Freedom and Managed Democracy. Left only with four Terminid-controlled sectors to deal with, the citizens of Super Earth would rest easy in their sufficiently-sized homes knowing that the Automatons would never be heard from again.
The Reclamation
- Cyberstan Rises
- Courageous Defense versus the Red Flood
- The Battle of Marfark
- The Noose Tightens
And yet, against all odds, Operation Enduring Bulwark was a success. When all hope seemed lost, the Helldivers were able to defend their holdings on Varylia 5 and Ustotu, completing the Order with less than a day left as well as narrowly regain control of the Vernen Wells command post before it could be fully reinforced. Though the Menkent line was smashed, Helldivers nonetheless rejoiced following a week-long battle of attrition and reported infighting among dedicated "Bug" and "Bot" focused Helldiver forces regarding deployment priorities.
- Super Earth Strikes Back!...And Then It Doesn't
Unfortunately, Legitimate Undertaking would immediately be revealed to catastrophically coincide with the total failure of the Terminid Control System on the Terminid front (see "The Umlaut Disaster"), stopping the planned counteroffensive dead in its tracks and rendering all the ongoing sieges of Automaton-held planets to fail as all Helldivers' attention was directed towards the rapidly spreading Terminid supercolonies now with an unimpeded path toward Super Earth. The order to liberate Choohe perished miserably and the civilian lives on the planet were likely slaughtered to a man by the unfeeling Bots, severely impacting progress in the then-ongoing development of improved AT mines. The fact that the Terminids made a resurgence just as Super Earth was about to strike against the Automatons has not gone unnoticed by intelligence, who began attempting to further investigate any possible evidence for Automaton and Terminid collaboration. In the meantime, Helldivers went to total war against the bugs and Legitimate Undertaking was shelved for the time being, with a small Helldiver retainer staying on the Automaton front to keep them from further advancing.
Operation Metallic Harvest
While the Helldivers were occupied with the failure of the Terminid Control System, the Automatons continued in their campaign of baby-snatching terror throughout the northwestern quadrant of the galaxy. In an effort to increase defensive weaponry development, production of the MD-17 Anti-Tank Mine stratagem was restarted locally (their previous developers on Choohe being unavailable, as they were democratically chosen to sacrifice their lives). However, due to Automaton occupation and the strain of war, Super Earth lacked the material resources to begin full manufacturing efforts. Recalling the completely legitimate and not-at-all inflated victory over the Terminids in Operation Harvest, High Command therefore decreed a similar bounty: the decommissioning of 2 billion Bots. If victorious, their scrap would go toward the production of the previously unavailable mines. Though eager to begin, the Helldivers were warned at the start of the order that Super Earth's contracted defense service, Battlefield Systems, had a software issue with their previous kill count. Though this obviously does not mean the original Operation Harvest was illegitimate in its victory, Helldivers were nonetheless cautioned not to expect the same 13-hour victory period they achieved before. After almost a week of fighting and even with highly-advanced statistical projections confidently asserting that the Helldivers would meet the quota in time, they had still fallen about 500,000,000 Bots short of success by the time the Major Order expired, and as such Metallic Harvest was declared a failure, further delaying development of the MD-17 mines. High Command sternly reassured all Helldivers that the shortcomings of Metallic Harvest were in no way influenced by the more accurate incoming data readings of kill statistics than in Operation Harvest.Total War Is Declared
The gravity of the situation became clear. With continued Automaton occupation in the west, and the development of the Meridian Supercolony in the east, Super Earth announced they had merely been engaging in special military operations before, and thus declared they were now fighting in the Great War On Tyranny. Super Earth would no longer rest until all enemies of Democracy were utterly vanquished like they had been a hundred years prior, and thus dedicated their infinite resources to the mobilization of the economy and the mass levying of billions of voluntary SEAF conscripts. In order to ensure every man, woman, and fighting-age child would be battle-ready for the war to come, High Command gave the brave order to develop training facilities on the front lines of each theatre of war. Though the demand to capture the planets of Aesir Pass, Vernen Wells, Heeth, and Angel's Venture were bold, it would surely be worth it to ensure every citizen could access their 72-hour basic training courses.Terminid Front
The Terminids represent everything Super Earth stands against. Their rampant expansionism, fascistic society, and utter lack of self-awareness or independent thought make them incompatible with democracy on the molecular level. It is also on the molecular level that Super Earth's Ministry of Science discovered that they produce Element 710, a substance that fuels FTL travel. Following the First Galactic War, the Bugs of Kepler Prime were peacefully herded onto E-710 farms where Class 2 Super Earth farmers would do their patriotic duty and convert Bug corpses into the backbone of the democratic fleet. In their wisdom, the Super Earth government even approved growth-additives and mutations to better allow the Terminids to suit Super Earth's (fueling) needs. Despite the harmonious and symbiotic relationship that was fostered between the two races, the bugs would repeatedly breach containment and cause havoc on the Eastern galactic fringe. The Helldivers' daring exploits on the Terminid front are recorded here.The Terminid Control System
The early weeks of the war against the Terminids focused mostly on preventing the Bugs from making any advancement towards Super Earth and its controlled territories. Once Super Earth began to gloriously go on the offensive, however, no Terminid could stand in her path, with the Draco and Mirin sectors swiftly losing ground to the march of Helldiver boots. The most vicious fighting was carried out over the planets of Hellmire and Estanu in particular. Though Super Earth's legions could not be matched upon the battlefield, Bug resistance prevented Helldivers from penetrating as deep into the quarantine zone as High Command would have hoped.To keep the Terminid threat at bay, the Terminid Control System ("TCS") was deployed on the barrier planets of Fenrir III, Erata Prime, Meridia, and Turing. These towers would democratically dispense termicide throughout the planet to quarantine the bugs, and allow the brave Helldivers to focus their attention back toward the bot front. In short order, the Helldivers succeeded in activating the TCS, eradicating 99.6% of the alien menace in the affected sectors. Despite this victory, veterans would later report sightings of new Terminid breeds capable of flight following the activation of the TCS. Some cowardly voices believe the TCS itself created mutations in the surviving bug population. This is, of course, dissident propaganda, and any doubts about the efficacy of the TCS should be reported to your local Democracy Officer.
Resource Replenishment - Operations Prime Liberation and Hell-Draco
With Super Earth's core worlds shielded behind the TCS, High Command issued orders for Operation Prime Liberation, an ambitious plan to liberate several worlds in the Mirin and Draco Sectors in order to cull excess Terminid populations and reestablish vital production centers for the all-important Element-710. Despite the Helldivers' valiant efforts, confusion and divided priorities resulted in the failure to capture all the objective planets, leading Super Earth's government to temporarily restrict reproductive privileges nationwide in anticipation of the projected E-710 shortfall. A subsequent follow-up operation, Hell-Draco, was successful in protecting civilian Biomass Collection Teams on the liberated worlds as they harvested raw E-710 for offworld processing, somewhat alleviating the situation and allowing High Command to safely shift its priorities to the upcoming Operation Swift Disassembly on the Automaton Front.New E-710 Farms
By early April of 2184, the Galactic War had been won in all but name. The Automatons had been smote upon the dunes of Durgen where they made their last stand, and the TCS was preventing the Terminids from making any further advancement towards Super Earth's territories. But High Command cautioned the Helldivers not to hang up their capes just yet, as there was still yet more work to be done for the glory of Super Earth regarding the Terminids. High Command unveiled its plans to construct safer, more efficient and more humane E-710 farms on the planets Estanu, Crimsica and Hellmire to further sustain Super Earth's economy and help recoup material losses from the Automaton front, giving the order to liberate said three planets from Terminid control.Easily, the Helldivers completed their order. SEAF expeditionary forces would soon establish more advanced E-710 farms and procedures (including Terminid growth-additives) to increase E-710 and human-resource production. As a reward, C-01 procreation permits were reintroduced. Thankfully, this objective was completed just as the Automatons unveiled their main battle fleet and launched their gigantic Reclamation offensive, meaning Super Earth was able to secure stable resource production for the impending ferocious battles to come with the Bot legions.
Bug Resistance
Strangely (and due to circumstances completely beyond Super Earth's control), the Terminids were able to easily breach containment once again on numerous farms across the newly-liberated Quarantine Zone worlds, forcing the Helldivers to once again liberate several planets from Terminid control and reestablish E-710 production in the region so more attention could be given to the rapidly heating-up Automaton front. Due to brutal ongoing combat operations against the Bots which required greater attention from the Helldiver fleet, the defenses of several planets, including Hellmire once more, were lost, and Helldiver retaliation in the area was slow to come.And yet when it did come, it came with a vengeance.
Operation Harvest
With the Hydra, Lacaille, and Andromeda Sectors secured against further Automaton incursions by the newly-established Menkent Line in mid-April 2184, Super Earth High Command felt the time was right to redeploy the Helldivers' main efforts to the Terminid front. Unlike previous efforts which had targeted specific worlds, this would be a pure population-culling exercise, with the Helldivers being given a target to kill a minimum of 2 billion Bugs across all accessible Bug-infested worlds to replenish E-710 stocks for a planned counteroffensive into Automaton-occupied space. In its infinite wisdom, High Command allotted a generous 6 days to complete the Major Order. However, to say that the Helldivers made short work of this objective would be something of an understatement. In just over 12 hours since the declaration of the Major Order, the seemingly impossible quota was met with extreme prejudice. Truly, freedom never sleeps for the mighty Helldiver corpsnote .As a great patriot once said, "The only good bug is a dead bug". These words rang true across the galaxy on April 18, 2184.
A Divided Front
The enemies of Managed Democracy® wouldn't take the Helldivers' pre-emptive self defense efforts lying down. In what was surely a coordinated act of terror, the Terminids and Automatons launched large-scale invasions on both fronts, pushing Super Earth to its limit. Faced with distress calls throughout the galaxy, High Command gave a daring order to defend at least ten planets from capture by either enemy. High-ranking Super Earth analyists claimed that this Major Order was doomed to lose at least some territory. Such naysaying revealed them to be dissident traitors, and as such, they were summarily executed by Autocannon Firing Squad.As the Major Order progressed, it became clearer that the Helldivers were having much greater success on the Terminid side of things compared to how they were rapidly losing ground to the Automaton menace. In particular, the bugs made assault after assault on the longtime battlefield of Estanu only to be repelled by flamers and heavy weapons each time. Indeed, it was on the fields of Estanu that nearly half of the Order's defense quotas were fulfilled. Ultimately, and despite significant losses to morale and troop coordination, the Major Order was completed with just a few hours to spare (See "The Noose Tightens" on the Automaton After-Action Report for more detail). Though ground was ultimately lost as our sadly martyred officials always knew would happen, Helldivers celebrated what was considered one of the greatest tests of their ability to coordinate and sustain their way of life.
The Meridia Crisis
- The Umlaut Disaster
The Terminid Control System was an array of complexes across the planets of the Umlaut Sector such as Erata Prime, Fenrir III, Turing and Meridia that functioned to distribute into the atmosphere Termicide, a chemical designed to kill Terminids. It was installed onto these planets by the Helldivers in early March to serve as an impenetrable wall for the Bugs to not be able to stray too close to Super Earth. For almost two months, this system worked wonderfully, despite treasonous "concerns" (read: Dissident propaganda) that the Termicide would backfire and in fact mutate the Terminids in unpredictable ways instead of culling their population.
Then suddenly, without warning or prior indication that anything was off, the TCS failed, and catastrophically so. Instead of culling their population, the Termicide instead massively boosted the Arthropods' reproductive cycle, causing Terminid populations in all planets in which the TCS is active to absolutely explode. Within a matter of minutes, the Umlaut Sector was almost completely overrun by the Terminids with the notable example of Meridia, which was fully and irrecoverably occupied and became a planet-wide supercolony, cutting the whole of the rest of the Terminid Front off in addition to Crimsica becoming assailed by Insectoids once more. SEAF High Command responded by putting Operation Legitimate Undertaking on indefinite hold and ordering all Helldivers to scramble to the Umlaut Sector immediately in order to keep order, to salvage anything they could and to deactivate the failed Terminid Control System before it causes even more mutations.
Fortunately, Operation Umlaut Firebreak was successful, preventing the three barrier planets from spreading their contamination for the time being. Despite this, Super Earth's (recently replaced) scientists not only determined the Meridia Supercolony to be as infested with bugs as Kepler Prime itself, but feared that it would now develop new varieties of mutant Terminids. Until further notice, Super Earth high command would have to cease Helldiver deployment on Meridia, deeming conventional operations ineffective. As returning Helldivers climbed into their cryo-pods for reassignment, their thoughts would surely wander to the threat a new Terminid homeworld would pose so close to Super Earth itself.
- The Spread of Infection
