AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey, thanks for joining me back here for a little encore experience as you listen to your ending credits music of "All Along the Watchtower".

This whole story started out initially as a desire to paint StarFox 64, the best game in the StarFox series, in a realistic light, so that I could recall specific events in the Lylat War if I was writing about Fox or Wolf's memories of them. I soon began getting a lot of ideas, but I wanted to condense them without going through some of the less-than inspiring levels of the game and having to write about it, plus I wanted to put my own spin on the story. So I sort of wrote the story as if it was a big Peter Jackson-style movie version of StarFox 64, except with only the first forty minutes, the middle forty minutes, and the last forty minutes put together and leaving the rest to the imagination, since I could still get the most important parts of the story that way and cut out the filler parts. The division sort of prompted me to play around with point of view, so War Stories essentially became this attempt to look at this big interstellar war from the point of view of the civilians caught in the middle (Fay and Lance), the common soldiers (Bill and his wing-mates at the Battle of Venom), and the super-heroes of the war (Fox and Wolf). At the same time, it let me expand upon ideas I had when I was writing my previous story, "Cubs".

So, after a half a year it lies finished, my retelling of this classic story that we all seem somehow drawn to. Here, for your reading pleasure, is one last encyclopedia entry, explaining all the parts that happened in between the various parts of War Stories. If you haven't played StarFox 64, or if you just want an interesting run-down of how history viewed this apocalyptic interstellar war, please be my guest. Again, I'd like to thank you all for your patronage and for your generous reviews, and I hope to hear from you all again in the future. This is Tobias Umbra, tiredly signing off.

Excerpt from the Encyclopedia Corneria, 18th Edition

Lylat War : After practically two centuries of interstellar peace following the conclusion of the Lylat Civil War and the disollution of the Cornerian Empire, the entire Lylat System was plunged into a large-scale interplanetary conflict, waged between the armies of the Venomian Empire of Andross (see article) and the Cornerian Commonwealth (see article). Though just barely over two years long, it remains the most widespread, costly and deadly war in Lylat history, overshadowing the Lylat Civil War and the more recent Aparoid Invasion (see article) in terms of the intensity of the fighting, lives lost and damage caused. A number of ideologies and principles formed the basis of the war, most prominent among them being speciesism and imperialistic expansion (see article: Factors Leading to the Lylat War).

Since its formation, the Venomian Empire of Andross maintained competitive, at-odds diplomatic relations with the rest of Lylat, the Cornerian Commonwealth in particular. Over a period of six years before the war, the Venomian Empire conducted a fierce military and economic buildup, with the intent of invading and subjugating every planet of the Lylat System. Venom annexed the uninhabited nearby planet of Eladard, the second planet of the Verona Sub-System, and built a majority of its military training and production facilities there in order to build their forces in secrecy. The political sensitivity of Venom due to the speciesist relations between its populace and the rest of Lylat led the Cornerian Parlaiment to prohibit any surveillance of the planet, as a sign of goodwill. General George Pepper, Supreme Commander of the Cornerian Armed Forces, secretly disobeyed the orders of Parlaiment and hired the independent mercenary unit, Team StarFox (see article) to conduct espionage missions on Venom in hopes of getting a sense of their military capabilities. During one of these missions, Pigma Dengar of Team StarFox defected to Venom and surrendered his fellow team members, Commander James McCloud and Lieutenant Peppy Hare, to the Venomian Army. When Peppy Hare escaped Venom, knowledge of StarFox's assignment led to the Team StarFox Espionage Scandal, in which the Army was heavily censured and the original StarFox Team, Peppy Hare being the only remaining member, was legally disbanded.

Venom's buildup continued for two more years after the StarFox Scandal, building up one of the most massive armies ever fielded in Lylat history. In a historic surprise attack, Venomian forces invaded Macbeth, the third planet of the Verona Sub-System, using a planetary electromagnetic pulse and seeding the atmosphere of Macbeth with an experimental cobalt-sulfate aerosol attack that disabled 85% of the electronic equipment on the entire planet and interfered with planetary communications signals. The Macbeth invasion premiered many more experimental tools of war never before seen or conceived of in military history, including gigantic battle droids known as Garudas and the giant Venomian surface assault ship, Saucerer. Macbeth surrendered 26 hours after the invasion began, being wholly unprepared for the attack. Prior to and several weeks after the Macbeth surrender, Venomian occupation forces in the capitol of Wayland murdered almost 100,000 canines, felines, leporids and avians living in the city, the single largest mass killing campaign in history. After the Wayland Massacre (see article), Venom continued to harshly subjugate and occupy the planet. In response to the invasion, the Cornerian Commonwealth demanded that Venom withdraw its forces from Macbeth, cutting off all trade with Venom. As Macbeth was a planet independent of the Cornerian Commonwealth, and because of Parlaiment's hesitance to disrupt the 200 years worth of Lylat peace, Corneria neglected to declare war on Venom, however it did begin a crash-course to quickly expand and build up the Cornerian Defense Force and Army's fleet and ground forces.

After two months, Venom had fully occupied Macbeth, using the planet's resources to supply the Venomian Army. A small resistance formed in response to the occupation, resisting Venomian forces and the Macbeth collaborationist government (see article: Macbeth Resistance). The resistance efforts would continue until Macbeth's liberation in the final stages of the war.

Over the following six months, Venom began to establish secret facilities all over Lylat, including a weapons development platform on a space station in Sector X, a research facility on Titania, and secretly occupying the unsettled regions of the Cornerian colony of Papetoon. Border skirmishes on Papetoon between Venomian and Cornerian forces resulted in Venomian victories, and the Venomian Army claimed more and more control over Papetoon. Venom then blockaded the space around Solar, cutting off key interstellar trade routes and vital Cornerian energy resources from the star, all the while performing various biological experiments on the red dwarf.

After the blockade of Solar, Fortuna signed a formal nonaggression pact with Venom. Many speculate that, due to Fortuna being independent and the evolutionary home planet of primates and reptiles, Venom honored the nonaggression pact, or at least was resolved to doing so until after defeating the Cornerian Commonwealth. Meanwhile, Venom continued to ignore Corneria's threats to withdraw from Papetoon. Prime Minister Walter Neville began to lose a great deal of political favor because of his nonresponsiveness to Venom's blatant invasion of Corneria's newest colony. Instead, Neville continued to devote more and more resources to a military build up that many judged as too little, too late.

In another surprise attack, the Venomian Army invaded the planet of Zoness after three more months, decimating the unprepared Cornerian Defense Forces and conquering the planet after a three week siege. Corneria formally declared war on Venom in response. As a message of defiance to the Cornerian war declaration, Andross authorized Operation: Water Rot, a systematic campaign of ecological sabotage in which Zoness' vast oceans were intentionally polluted with billions of metric tons of toxic waste, petroleum oil and poisons. The resulting damage led to the near-extinction of the amphibious enhydra race, as well as the extinction of much of the aquatic wildlife of Zoness. The deaths that resulted from Operation: Water Rot are impossible to calculate, given its enormous scale and the uncertainties involved, but estimates have ranged from two to five billion deaths of sentient species. Many life forms that were not killed by the pollution were severely, monstrously mutated. The act remains the worst genocide in Lylat history. As of this writing, the planet is still undergoing intense ecological renovation to hopefully restore Zoness to some shadow of its former glory. In the midst of Operation: Water Rot, Venom launched an experimental InterPlanetary Ballistic Missile at Corneria. Due to a computer failure, the missile arrived too early in relative to the planet's rotation and struck the Cornerian city of Oceana, instead of its intended target of Corneria City. The damage wrought on Oceana was fierce, the missile being equipped with a powerful anti-matter bomb that leveled much of Oceana and instantly killed almost a million Cornerian citizens, surpassing the death toll of the Wayland Massacre.

The Cornerian public, horrified and angered by Venom's actions, demanded action from Parlaiment. In response, the Prime Minister issued his famous "Whatever It Takes" speech, authorizing General George Pepper to take whatever measures he deemed necessary to defeat Venom. Instantly, Pepper ordered the construction of the massive flagship Ajax, as well as sending over half of the Cornerian Defense Force to Aquas to reinforce the colony.

After two months of preparation, the First Battle of Aquas began in which the massed Venomian invasion fleet faced off against the Cornerian Defense Forces stationed on Aquas, one year and one month after the invasion of Macbeth. Saucerer, the cornerstone of the Venomian invasion forces, proved to be the deciding factor, tipping the scales and narrowly defeating the Cornerian Defense Forces after one and a half months. The casualties from the battle left the Cornerian ground forces considerably understaffed, in addition to massive losses of the Venomian invasion forces.

Finding themselves spread out, the Venomian Army began what was known as the Easton Offensive, the move to hopefully begin the final parts of invading Corneria, on the Lylatian holiday of Easton. Much of the Venomian reserve forces were moved from Venom and Macbeth to reinforce Zoness and Aquas, while the Venomian Starfleet split into three attack groups. One would consist of an invasion force that included Saucerer to attack and conquer Katina. The invasion force was much smaller than the forces that had attacked Zoness and Macbeth, due to the damages incurred in the First Battle of Aquas, however the Venomian Army surmised that, due to Katina's low population density, it wouldn't require as much forces to conquer. An even smaller attack group was used to quickly take control of the small Cornerian Army defense outpost and terraforming station on Fichina, then to move on and hide itself inside the dense asteroid field outside Corneria known as Meteo. Finally, the largest group, the Venomian attack fleet, traveled to Sector Y in hopes of drawing the majority of the Cornerian Starfleet away from Corneria.

The Easton Offensive was only partially successful. The Venomian invasion force on Katina underestimated the skills and preparedness of the Cornerian Army forces stationed on the planet, including the elite Bulldog and Huskey squadrons, which managed to keep the Venomian forces at bay, locking the battle into a month-long stalemate in which Saucerer was unable to be safely deployed due to the density of the Cornerian Army fighters around the main base of Fort Eastwood. The majority of the Cornerian Starfleet was drawn to Sector Y in order to meet the large Venomian attack fleet, which allowed the smaller Venomian attack group that had been hiding in Meteo to begin hostilities on the mostly-undefended Corneria.

With so much at stake, General Pepper hired the newly reformed Team StarFox, led by the son of founder James McCloud, to hopefully stop the invading Venomian attack group from destroying Corneria City. StarFox proved surprisingly effective, destroying the Venomian Attack Carrier and its supporting forces almost single-handedly. As a result of their success on Corneria, the StarFox Team consistently became a tactical ace-in-the-hole for the struggling Cornerian Army, able to move faster than many units in the Cornerian Armed Forces, taking care of smaller missions of strategic importance and providing vital reinforcement to the Cornerian Starfleet in larger engagements.

As the Cornerian Starfleet battled the Venomian Attack Fleet, StarFox moved on from Corneria to Meteo, wiping out the remainder of the attack group that had assaulted Corneria. They then moved on to Sector Y, reinforcing the Starfleet and providing the tactical edge required to drive the Attack Fleet back to Aquas. The Cornerian Starfleet then split into three groups, one that would return to Corneria and provide protection from further attack, another that would remain in Sector Y and strategically trap the Venomian Starfleet on Aquas and Zoness, and another that would move on to Katina with Team StarFox to destroy the invasion forces.

Whilst the Cornerian battle group engaged the Venomians in orbit over Katina, the commander of the Saucerer, Commodore Madeline Zira, decided to make a last-ditch effort to wipe out Fort Eastwood and the Katinan capitol of Tombstone. The StarFox Team was deployed in the skies above Katina to reinforce the Bulldog and Husky Squadrons of Major Bill Grey. The Battle of Katina ended in a total Cornerian victory, resulting in the annihilation of the Venomian invasion ships in orbit and the destruction of the Saucerer through the combined effort of Team StarFox and Bulldog and Husky squadrons.

The victory at Katina marked a turning point in the Lylat War, in which the Venomian Army would be permanently on the defensive. The Cornerian Fleet returned to Sector Y and began its campaign to re-take Aquas in the hopes of preventing the planet from suffering a similar fate to Zoness. Meanwhile, Team StarFox was sent on its own on the seemingly simple task of liberating the defense outpost on Fichina and investigating the Venomian research facility in Sector X. During the Incident on Fichina, StarFox had its first encounter with Team StarWolf (see article), an elite fighter unit of the Venomian Army that had been tasked with destroying the strategic edge that StarFox provided. As StarWolf engaged StarFox over Fichina, retreating Venomian forces armed a bomb on the outpost to destroy the base. Despite the efforts of StarFox, StarWolf proved dangerous enough to hold the mercenary team off until the bomb's timer reached zero. The two teams retreated to avoid the blast, and the outpost was destroyed by the Venomian antimatter bomb.

The result proved embarrassing for the Cornerian Army and the credibility of Team StarFox, to the point that Prime Minister Walter Neville threatened to fire General Pepper if he did not terminate StarFox's contract. Despite objections, Pepper deployed StarFox to Sector X, where they quickly destroyed the Venomian prototype Spybot, a redeeming act that put StarFox back into favor.

Afterwards, StarFox moved on to Solar, which the Venomians had mostly abandoned aside from some auxiliary forces and a massive experimental bio-weapon creature codnamed Vulcain. With the assistance of Major Bill Grey from nearby Katina, the StarFox Team destroyed the bio-weapons infesting Solar, putting a stop to the most heinous of Andross' bioengineering experiments.

During the two weeks that StarFox was conducting its missions in the Kragg Sub-System and on Solar, the Cornerian Starfleet had launched a massive attack on the planet of Aquas, overwhelming the Venomian occupation forces to the extent that many surrendered or retreated back to the more heavily-fortified Zoness after three weeks. The Second Battle of Aquas was considered one of the finest, most efficient operations that the Cornerian Armed Forces had ever conducted at the time, though the finest hour of the Commonwealth's forces had yet to come.

With StarFox and the Cornerian Starfleet working side by side once more, preparations were made over a period of three more weeks for the invasion of Zoness. Using the element of surprise, Team StarFox was sent in to destroy the intricate early warning systems on Zoness, with some surprise help from independent mercenary Katt Monroe. After destroying Zoness' early warning system, StarFox confronted and destroyed the Sarumarine, the largest Venomian "defiler" ship that had perpetuated Operation: Water Rot. Unable to detect an attack and with their logistics severely compromised, the Cornerian Starfleet moved in and attacked the Venomian forces on Zoness, destroying the grand majority of the occupation forces over a period of a month. During this time, Team StarFox was deployed on standby to Sector Z, where a small Venomian intercept force attempted to ambush and destroy StarFox's mother ship Great Fox with powerful long-range missiles launched from Macbeth. The attack was defeated, and Sector Z was secured.

Realizing that Cornerian forces would soon be headed towards Macbeth, General Maximillion Zaius, the strategic commander of the Venomian Army, authorized the Venomian forces on Macbeth to destroy all evidence and witnesses of their war crimes on the planet. This included a death campaign in which Venomians and Macbeth collaborators began a mass execution of much of the civilian population of Wayland. Fay Donahue, a leader of the Macbeth Resistance, sent a distress signal to General Pepper, informing the Cornerians of what was taking place.

Rather than preparing as planned, the Cornerian Starfleet almost immediately moved on from Zoness, with Team StarFox moving in from Sector Z. What ensued was a large, three-way battle against the Venomians. The Cornerian Starfleet attacked the large occupation force in orbit above Macbeth, while Team StarFox began an attack on the main Venomian supply depot on the surface. In conjunction, the arrival of the Cornerian forces and StarFox signaled an uprising in Wayland, in which hundreds of thousands of civilians and the forces of the Macbeth Resistance revolted against the Venomians and the Macbeth collaborationist government. Macbeth was liberated after six weeks, ending one year and ten months worth of Venomian oppression. With the strongest occupied territory freed, all that remained to conclude the war was the final attack on Venom.

While Aquas, Zoness, and Macbeth were being liberated, preparations for the invasion of Venom were already well underway. A week after the liberation of Macbeth, the massive Cornerian flagship Ajax and an armada of supporting starships blasted out of Corneria's orbital shipyards and traveled at maximum warp to Macbeth.

Commanded personally by General Pepper, the Cornerian Starfleet gathered all of the forces it could for an all-out assault on Venom, including the addition of Bulldog and Husky squadrons and employing the mercenary Katt Monroe. Using the StarFox Team as an ace in the hole one last time, the Cornerian Starfleet would attack the Area 6 space region and the Bolse Defense Station over Venom whilst StarFox would fly directly down to Venom to assault the presumably undefended palace of Andross. While the Cornerian Starfleet engaged the Venomian forces the largest space battle of the entire war, StarFox was intercepted once more by StarWolf in the skies over Venom. This time, however, StarWolf was defeated, and StarFox leader Fox McCloud flew into the massive Imperial Palace, single-handedly fighting and defeating the gigantic monster that Andross had become after multiple self-experiments.

With the death of Andross and the destruction of the Imperial Palace, much of the remaining Venomian forces surrendered or retreated to parts unknown. The StarWolf Team, among the most notorious of Venomian war criminals, to this day remains at large. Many other, less notable members of the Venomian Army retreated to Fortuna, which had stayed out of the war and was sympathetic to the Venomian cause. The fall of Venom signaled the end of the Lylat War, in which the entire Lylat System rejoiced in a massive celebration of peace. Victory Day, commemorating the anniversary of the end of the war, remains an interstellar holiday, held to memorialize the sacrifices of those that fought and died for the freedom of the galaxy.