Synth Attack

The Synth Attack on Mars was a conflict that occurred on April, 5th, 2385, during the Federation's celebration of First Contact Day.

A collection of synthetic beings (androids) targeted and fired upon the Utopia Planitia Ship Yards, the Mars Orbital Facility, along with other Martian facilities.
Bombing the surface as well, Starfleet sent forces to respond to the terrorism, but were too late to prevent the planet's widespread destruction.
Their attack ignited flammable vapors in the stratosphere, which caused massive damage to the infrastructure of the planet itself.

Background

When it was learned in 2379 that the Romulan sun was to go supernova, aid was requested from the Federation. Launching evacuation ships, countless Romulans and Remans were saved. (An anticipated 900 million were estimated to perish.) Using the chaos to her advantage, a half-Romulan Tal Shiar operative infiltrated Starfleet Command, posing as a Vulcan. With a vendetta against synthetically-made lifeforms, she convinced others that setting synthetic beings up as instigators in a large-scale terrorist attack would convince the Federation to ban them. The Vulcan/Romulan did not appreciate that the abilities of synthetic lifeforms were quickly surpassing those of Humanoids. They also believed that the existence of synthetic beings would cause the extinction of organic life.

The Attack

Hacking specific androids at once, multiple locations were targeted and sabotaged or bombed. Ships that were run by androids were also the subject of hacking, used to fire upon the rescue ships that were still assisting Romulus and Remus. Though a Starfleet task force was sent at high warp, they were not in time to save Mars. Starfleet withdrew from assisting the Romulans, choosing instead to keep their people close to home. The final death toll due to these supposedly-synthetic-lead attacks was 92,143.

Initially thought to be a widespread programming error in the androids, the Federation did indeed place a ban on creating, researching, or the continued running of synthetic lifeform. The Daystrom Institute, for example, was restricted to theoretical studies only.

The ban on synthetic lifeforms in the Federation was lifted when it was revealed that they were not the ones responsible for the attack.

Fires on the surface of Mars remained until at least 2399.