Battle of Quadia Memorial

The Battle of Quadia Memorial was a memorial on Quadia, erected by the native Qua in honor of the members of the 77th Combined Cohort and the Romasi Sector Fleet who died during the Battle of Quadia in 149 ABY.

History
Quadia had been liberated from the grip of slaver groups in 88 ABY, whereafter Queen Rin Sakaros left some of her Massassi soldiers there as a rearguard as she expanded the Empire. Over time, Quadia's defense force was increased to a full cohort, and eventually the 77th drew the assignment.

During the Nightmare War, the Reawakened forces under the command of Ador Hentral assaulted Quadia, hoping to seize a sample of the Sickness from the Ministry of Health in Emoria. Quadia called for aid from the Royal government, and the Romasi Sector Fleet responded, but in the interim, the 77th Combined Cohort prepared a defense. The enemy managed to wear only a small hole in Quadia's shield, forcing a narrow invasion corridor outside Emoria, and the soldiers of the 77th fought a harrowing battle against Skavik invasion forces which outnumbered them nearly a hundred to one.

When the Romasi Sector Fleet arrived, Legate Breek Zagrev sent down over a hundred thousand soldiers of her own, along with half her fleet's Centurions. The Reawakened were eventually driven off Quadia; the Romasi Sector Fleet forces had bombarded the invaders from the air before landing and suffered relatively few casualties, but the 77th was decimated by the onslaught, left at barely more than a quarter alive, with even fewer fit for duty.

After the war, the Qua government voted to create a memorial for the thousands who had died in the planet's defense. The design was approved in 152 ABY and completed in 154 ABY; Quadia's Consul dedicated the memorial.

In 159 ABY, at the ten-year anniversary of the Battle of Quadia, Breek Zagrev attended a remembrance ceremony at the memorial, laying a piphulyoth grown by her fellow Centurion Sorrik at the statue. The following year, Phoenix Prince Tariun Sakaros and his brother Nagarian laid a wreath at the memorial while on Quadia to visit the Household Guard Academy.

Design
Qua sculptor Roeriya Sante was commissioned by the Emoria Council to design the memorial. She chose to base it on a famous reconnaissance holo taken during the battle, of four Royal Army soldiers—a Massassi, a Human, a Kotha, and a Simyasto—making a last stand against a Skavik onslaught before they were gunned down.

The finished memorial was black granite and bronze, set atop a concrete circle base. It stood approximately 4.5 meters tall, evenly divided between a cylindrical pedestal and the tallest figure (the Massassi); all four figures were life-sized. A plaque was installed on the pedestal which read: "On this ground, in the sixty-third year of the Golden Empire, 9,463 heroes of the Royal Army laid down their lives that Quadia might remain free." The figure included the handful of fatalities from the Romasi Sector Fleet and the planet's entire detachment of the Royal Corps of Gendarmes.

Qua were divided between locating the memorial within Emoria's borders or putting it out in the battlefield itself, which had not yet been re-terraformed after Quadia's environmental depradations during the slaver era. Unable to decide, the Emoria Council put it to a popular referendum. The overwhelming majority of 77th survivors, when asked, preferred the battlefield site, and that choice prevailed in the referendum. As such, the memorial was installed some twelve kilometers from Emoria and four from the nearest terraforming line.