Hi Micro, Ghodere,
Thanks a lot for your feedback, greatly appreciated
. To respond to your thoughts Ghodere - I think that both the NC and the VS were named political factions for some time before the war started. I base that on the info from
here. The NC at least were definitely a faction (the timeline states they were having peace negotiations with the TR in 2845). I assumed that the VS were a political group too, since it had been almost 200 years since Briggs had discovered the alien artifacts on Auraxis - enough time for them to form into an official and separate faction.
Of course, both interpretations are possible, as the official lore is so wide open
.
Sonny