When Crown Emperor Adam Lorenzo III made the promise of granting independence to two star systems within the empire, the announcement was met with a mostly positive reception. However, the Imperial Senate, particularly Senior Magistrate Maximilian Tyler-Brett, was extremely unhappy with the proposal. They felt that such actions could be the start of the collapse of the empire, a nation that their forefathers had spent many hundreds of years building. This, the Senior Magistrate said, would make them look weak and foolish, and was an insult to the spirit of the empire.

Despite all this, Adam Lorenzo went ahead and signed the declarations, freeing both Tigris and Sampi-Persei VII in the autumn of 2608.

In response, the Senate abandoned the forum and Kethlan, reconvening on Hyanik in the Krasst star system. From there, they attempted to have the emperor assassinated and replace him with the Senior Magistrate. They failed on both occasions, before Lorenzo III retaliated by sending the INF to attack the system. After driving the senate and its loyalists into submission and arresting Tyler-Brett, the Emperor returned to the task is doing what he believed to be right and freeing nations that had been forcefully absorbed into the Mitikas Empire.

Months after the defeat of the senate, Mitikas came under attack by a mysterious force that soon became known as the Pandoran army. All attempts to battle the enemy failed, and in late 2616 the army, lead by Jason Zackaria, took the palace on Kethlan, effectively destroying the Mitikas Empire.

The truth of the fate of the Mitikas Empire was revealed to many in December 2617, first to the White Knights (although many senior officials within Helios and a number of independent worlds had known for a number of years) and then to the rest of the galaxy, following a broadcast by Jason Zackaria.

Despite first believing that the soldiers known as the Pandorans were either aliens, robots or a hired private military company, the truth disclosed that they were in fact the former citizens of the Mitikas Empire, infected with nanomachines that not only granted them superhuman abilities, but also made them waveringly loyal to the Imperial Senate.

Few citizens of the empire survived the war, with many fleeing to independent worlds and being ferried out of Mitikas in a joint program by the Helios Confederation and independent nations, fearing that it was still possible for the Pandoran army to gain greater knowledge and power through the assimilation of the remaining citizens.