AT: "mu"
Four rebel ships attack the ISS Avenger
The Terran Empire rebellion was a war fought between the Terran Empire and members of a rebellion comprised of conquered slave races in the 2150s. The rebellion included at least some Andorians, Orions, Tellarites, and Vulcans.
2155
By January 2155, the war was going badly for the Starfleet. Twelve ships had been lost in a recent battle at Tau Ceti, though Terran propaganda was that the battle had gone well.
It was against this backdrop that Commander Jonathan Archer of the ISS Enterprise received word through his contacts that a Terran vessel, reportedly from the future and another universe, had been captured by the Tholians. After trying to persuade Captain Maximilian Forrest to divert Enterprise to Tholian space to investigate instead of rendezvous with Admiral Black's assault fleet, Archer staged a mutiny and locked Enterprise on a course to the Vintaak system. He then had his information on the captured ship to Fleet admiral Gardner, which turned out to be a fortuitous decision when Forrest regained his command with the help of T'Pol.
Now with official orders from Gardner, Enterprise entered the Vintaak system cloaked and beamed over an assault team to the Terran ship, the USS Defiant, that was being gutted in an asteroid drydock at the time. Enterprise was quickly detected by several Tholian shipss and encased in a Tholian web. While the Defiant powered up, Enterprise was destroyed, but not before several escape pods escaped the ship. These pods were recovered by the Defiant once it broke free from the drydock and destroyed the Tholian ships.
With a crew of only 47, along with several alien slaves the Tholians had been using to disassemble the Template:ShipClass starship, Archer ordered the Defaint to rendezvous with Black's assault fleet. There were delayed due to sabotage from the Gorn slavemaster Slar, who was eventually captured and killed by Archer and several MACOs.
A D'Kyr type starship destroyed by the Defiant
By the time Defiant reached the assault fleet, only Black's flagship, the ISS Avenger, remained. With four rebel ships remaining, it seemed that the Avenger wouldn't last long until the Defiant arrived. The Defiant quickly made short work of an Andorian battle cruiser, a Tellarite cruiser, and a Vulcan Template:ShipType. One of the Andorian battle cruisers was allowed to flee, to spread word of the Defiant's overwhelming power.
In a speech to the crew of both the Defiant and the Avenger, after killing Admiral Black for trying to take his command, Archer laid out his plan to take the Defiant to Earth and overthrow the Emperor and the rest of the "corrupt and arrogant criminals" at Starfleet Command. However, T'Pol, Phlox, and Soval, afraid that Archer's xenophobia would make the Empire worse than it already was, attempted to stop Archer by having Phlox sabotage the Defiant while the Avenger attempted to destroy it. Their plan was foiled by Chief engineer Tucker, and Avenger was destroyed. Archer himself was shortly removed as well by Hoshi Sato, with the help of Archer's bodyguard Travis Mayweather. When the Defaint arrived at Earth, "Empress" Sato demand that Starfleet surrender, or be destroyed. (ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly", "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II")