SDN Worlds 4: History Consolidation Thread

[Steve]

Posting this for people to spell out their desired histories and for common backgrounds to be hammered out.

Contact

Human Civilization on Earth was changed forever that fateful day in 2118; for that was the day that the first radio signals were picked up indicating that another civilization dwelled in Earth's backyard, spatially speaking. Not just another civilization, another human civilization, referring to itself existing in the year 2140, on a planet it termed "Nova Terra".

The discovery of other Humans on another system electrified the advanced nations of Earth. Overnight the prospect of space flight, declining due to economic woes, conflict, and focus on the looming energy crisis and global warming, was uplifted as never before. The leading nations of Earth worked together to begin its own spaceflight advances, looking to the dream of making contact with their fellow Humans.

That dream was fulfilled surprisingly early, for in 2148 Earth time, a contact appeared on the orbital satellites of Luna and Earth itself. Mistaken at first for a comet, its controlled course toward Earth and luminance soon made clear it was something completely different, and soon radio contact would be made with automated systems aboard a vessel identifying itself, in English, as the Straylight.

And so contact with "Nova Terra" was commenced.

As it turned out, the people of Nova Terra were advanced in other ways too. The materials they brought along to start their industrial basis jumpstarted the terraforming of Mars. Global Warming was ameliorated, nuclear power made safer through enhanced reprocessing, and lives extended and saved from the medical knowledge of the Straylight people.

The histories and geographies of the world were compared and dwelled upon for some times. Certain regions and polities had peculiar similarities: the Earth continent of North America and the Nova Terran America, for instance, as well as Earth islands and geographical regions being replicated, if altered in size, composition, and orientation, upon the face of Nova Terra. Nova Terra had its own branches of Christianity and Islam, its own Jerusalem and Mecca, and clear cousins of major Earth ethnic groups (Japanistani and Japanese; PeZookians and Poles, Byzantine Greeks and Earth Greeks).

These mysteries flummoxed the people of Earth and the Straylight's crew. Spurned on by the hope for further contact, the brightest minds of the Straylight crew and the Earth's scientific community worked and labored for twenty years before they made their ultimate discovery: the Heim Drive.

Named for Burkhard Heim, a German 20th century theoretical physicist, the Heim Drive used exotic gravito-magnetic principles to propel a ship past the speed of light, a theoretical limit being 53 times the speed of light. After several test runs the Earth outfitted a new space vessel, the Pathfinder, and sent it out to retrace the century-long voyage of the Straylight.

They arrived to find Nova Terra on the verge of its own Heim Drive; with the aid of Earth and the Straylighters, Nova Terran scientists finished their work, and the two branches of Mankind had a means by which to search out the universe for more branches of Humanity and, perhaps, an explanation to the mystery of their common existance.

The Upheaval and the Diaspora

For a generation after the Earth-Nova Terran contact things remained well. A handful of nearby systems with worlds considered terraformable were located and the long process of terraforming implemented. But the costs of an expanding space presence, especially with Heim drives being so limited in speed (interstellar voyages took weeks and months), began to have deleterious effects for both Human worlds.

And so began the Great Upheaval, which would last until the midway point of the 23rd Century. The two worlds suffered conflicts, internal dissensions, and a couple of large-scale wars.

The Upheavals caused the Diaspora in turn. Seeking to leave the political strife of their homes many thousands, eventually millions, braved months in interstellar space on strict rations to get colony ships to new worlds. Earth-like worlds were few and far between, and others required survival domes or other equipment to sustain even a slight population. Terraforming of these worlds was begun but would take centuries to complete.

But then a new discovery changed Human expansion forever; hyperspace. Dimensional transfer experiments led to its discovery and the principles of it were contemplated during the start of the 23rd Century. Soon the first hyperspace-capable ships were zipping along at dozens, even hundreds, the speeds of Heim drives. With the discovery of numerous new Earth-like planets colonization continued apace, permitting the founding of states such as the Kingdom of New Anglia and the Solarian Sovereignty.

In turn, the Diaspora acted as a release valve on the pressures causing the Great Upheaval. By 2250 Earth Time/2272 Nova Terran Calendar the conflicts of the Upheaval had been settled by peace treaty. Even with peace, however, the prospect of a new life - and of a new start for those who lost from the conflicts of the Upheaval - caused the Diaspora to continue into the start of the 24th Century.

Those worlds nearest Earth and Nova Terra inevitably ended up in alignment with the "Twin Cradles of Humanity", who as a result of the Upheaval would eventually see their worlds politically united under the body called the United Nations of Earth and Nova Terra. The heart of Human space, the UN remains the most powerful of the Human polities by far, adopting a paternalistic neutrality to the other Human states that leads them to leave them alone in good times but to intervene diplomatically or even militarily if the circumstances demand it. (OOC: Read, "the UN is the Mod Hammer". Misbehave and we hit you with them.)


The Discovery and Origins of ESPers


One of the great issues for the nations of the galaxy are the ESPers - sentient beings who possess advanced senses and capabilities. Some have a form of precognition that warns them of imminent danger or things about to occur, others the ability to feel the emotions of others or even their minds. A relative few even have ESP capabilities that assist them in physical activities, so-called "ESP physical enhancement". A scant handful of these ESPers can attain extraordinary individual power, though as various pundits like to point out, "nothing can save you from a large-yield bomb detonating over your head no matter how much ESP power you have".

Various races have documented the rise of ESP in their societies. The Dorei in particular have had scientifically-proved cases since the rise of their first scientifically-minded societies. For Humanity, it was after the Great Upheaval and the Diaspora that ESP began to make an appreciable statistic appearance, though records have claimed ESP-capability throughout history, in both worlds of Humanity. The origins of ESP in various races and Humanity in particular have been the cause of much scholarly debate.

For Humans' ESP potential, there are two schools of thought, though both derive from the basic concept of genetic mutation. One theory is that exposure to abnormal radiation in hyperspace for the first generations of hyperspace ships prompted such mutations in enough people to ensure its spread into the Human genome. The fact that Human ESPers appeared in recordable, unrefutable numbers after the Diaspora and the first great numbers of hyperspace travelers is seen as bearing this theory out.

But others resist this, on the grounds that there is no proof that hyperspace radiation can get through even the standard radiation shielding of a starship hull, much less promote such radical mutation. Their theory, instead, is that whatever force or process caused the appearance of Humanity on Nova Terra also introduced a recessive, latent gene in the Nova Terran genome that permitted ESP. The advocates of this theory point that most substantial reports of ESP capability stem initially form Nova Terrans, including some before the discovery of hyperspace. In particular is the case of 21st Century Byzantine Emperor Heraclius IV who was recorded as having "visions" of such clarity that he wrote them down and had them passed onto Byzantine space colonists - the resulting Writings of Emperor Heraclius IV accurately foretold the Imperiuim-Tau War of the 27th Century, its causes, and its result.

Opposition to this is varied, primarily from the fact that discovery of an ESP gene has proven elusive despite the complete mapping of the known Genome. There is no specific gene known that permits ESP use, even if there are genetic variances particular to ESPers and to non-ESP family members. Advocates of the hyperspace theory point out that the apparent majority of ESP from Nova Terrans after the diaspora is adequately explained by the fact that Nova Terran populations dominated early hyperspace transits, as the Nova Terran planet was the smaller one and, with a smaller land mass, more terribly overpopulated.

The treatment of ESPers varies. The Imperium conscripts them into service at a young age; the Dorei venerate ESPers are the Fenari - the "Gifted" - and attach religious overtones to their existence. The Dilgrud used them as weapons and the Trill approached the handful of Trill ESPers as mysteries of science to be explored.....

(I'm ending this here: I don't know enough about your various policies toward ESPers).


The Rise of the UN

The end of the Great Upheavel left Earth, Nova Terra, and the first Human colonies - New Earth, Erde, and Proxima Centauri - exhausted but intact. With years of internal and external conflict ended by the Human Diaspora into the widespread reaches of space, the nations of these planets had to face the fact that they were no longer the vast majority of Humanity anymore.

The United Nations was an old institution, unique to Earth. Attempts to replicate it on Nova Terra had failed... until now. But when a Human colony in nearby space was subjected to invasion by an unknown, vaguely human-like race called the Chamarran, the UN was the one body that could unify Earth's efforts and Nova Terra's into turning back the alien attack. Drawing the nearest Earth worlds into their fold and forging alliance with Human states elsewhere, Earth held back the aliens and made peace with them. Faced with the idea of potential alien threat to the Twin Cradles of Humanity, the nations of Earth and Nova Terra remodeled the UN into a federated republic of states from both worlds and the independent nations that had arisen in their immediate sector. The UN of Earth and Nova Terra was born.

Over the following centuries, the UN would find itself in a unique position - not faced with immediate threat, it was able to turn its attention inward, and in internal developments it became the greatest of the Human states, indeed of all states in the known galaxy. They were the first to develop the means to find the lanes in hyperspace shoals, the first to develop hyperspace dredging, and the latest in anti-aging genetic engineering comes from the Earth-Nova Terran biotech industry.

The UN has not forgotten the rest of the galaxy, however, and in its dealings with the other states it behaves as an aloof, paternalistic entity - not interfering in the day-to-day affairs of the various states and empires, but more than capable of swift and decisive intervention with a war machine unrivaled in the Universe should unspeakable acts occur. It is not easy to kindle the wrath of the UN, but be warned - those who do will not have long to regret their misjudgement.

[Darkevilme]

Chamarran Hierarchy history:

At dawn of the fourth Millenium the Makayan republic was merely the strongest of a small handful of sector states out on the fringe, acting big brother to the others in defending against pirates, raiders and warlords and ever watchful for potentially hostile aliens coming from beyond known space.
When the aliens seemingly came they were not ready, no one could have been, forty massive starships each the size of a space habitat arrived all at once to claim this region of space for themselves. These ships introduced themselves as the vanguard invasion fleet of the Chamarran empire, a vast thousand world empire somewhere far beyond human known space.
This fleet then proceeded to secure their foot hold in this area of space, the war was over in one battle. The Makayan fleet defied the might of the Juggernaughts in one engagement, any human ship that did not flee was destroyed. Mopping up and invasion actions would take another few months in which the Chamarrans did their best to strengthen their hold on the region and take stock of what resources it held. The most significant of all was a bio warfare research station, though it did not seem so at the time, which was set to work analyzing human make up and developing selective bioweaponry.

While this was occuring it was clear the Chamarran invasion had not gone unnoticed by the other nations in the region, some fearing they might be next banded together for protection or turned to the greater powers and Earth for aid, but the greater powers were otherwise occupied and Earth is slow to act. Finally when it became clear that these forty vessels were of such power they could conceivably be a direct threat to Earth space should they move in that direction an armada was formed and sent to the Makay sector.
The Earth fleet was to prove unnecessary however, for that which would defeat the Chamarran fleet had already begun. And that which brought their downfall was Doubt. For the Chamarran's had been deceived to a great degree and it only took the first few discrepancies, the first chink in the facade, for them to question the illusion and to have it be revealed to them as a sham in all its devastating consequences.

That first chink came from the biowarfare laboratory, when in finding genetic markers to be used to make bioweapons selectively kill humans only and not attack Chamarran's they discovered the remarkable level of similarity between Chamarran and human DNA, their similarity in appearance had already strained the theory of parallel evolution but the discovery of the extent of similarity made it clear that Chamarran's were not aliens and were genetically of human origin and likely genetically engineered into their current forms.
The second blow to the facade came when more scrutiny was turned to the greate cryo trays aboard each juggernaught, each one able to hold a truly amazing number of Chamarran personnel to invade planets and crew new vessels, a number so vast as to be impossible in fact. And then the facade crumbled with the truth that these cryo trays were merely cloning banks, their memories of time before imprints during the growth process. The silence from home was merely icing on the cake, nothing they knew to be true actually was and all about them was a lie.

Their history, their culture, their reason for being here were all false and the fleet shattered. Some Juggernaughts set off in denial in the direction of their supposed home world, others simply set off at random into the starry night with no destination as if running from the revelation. A quarter of the fleet chose death as their release from this cruel deception and chose the newly arrived Earth fleet as the instrument of their suicide. The Juggernaughts of this fragment hurled themselves with all fury at the Earth fleet and inflicted grievous losses before finally being wiped out, this it turned out was not in vain for it bought time for something new to grow while the Earth fleet regrouped.
One of the captains of the Juggernaughts which stayed in the Makay sector had the introspection to think of the future however and saw that without a nation of their own the Chamarran's would ultimately never develop a culture or history of their own but just be assimilated into others. And so she reached out first to form a coalition of eight other Juggernaught's to realize this goal and then reached out with an envoy of peace to the Earth fleet. The Admiral when faced with an undeniably cute subspecies of humanity decided that seen as the remaining Juggernaught's were no longer a threat to earth that peace they would have.

The Chamarran Hierarchy was born atop the Makay sector, soon annexing nearby sectors in its early years to create the current extent of their nation and then turning its attention inwards towards self development. During the years following the Juggernaughts were decommissioned due to age, being converted into such things as fleet bases and the imperial palace on Chamara. But for one Juggernaught which was preserved till the present day in working order. The Chamarran culture in the interim became a mishmash of pre-revelation and imported human memes which while not particularly original they proudly claim as their own. Finally in the present day the Chamarran Hierarchy stands ready to reach out to its neighbours and the wider galaxy now, either with a hand of friendship or claw of aggression. Though they never found the ones who deceived them, though they likely never will, they've found themselves and while that's not what's wanted its what is important.

[Siege]

Welcome to the Sovereignty!

A fragmentary overview of the histology of the United Solarian Sovereignty, assembled from exceedingly dubious sources that may just be complete bullshit written down by insane authors on an acid trip.

The Legend of Tarzulyses and the Founding of Solaris

Excerpt taken from "A Brief (but Glorious!) History of the Sovereignty and its Heroes", by Aristoclates the Plagiaristic

Chapter 2

Now it came to pass in those days, there was a great upheaval amongst the ancient spheres of Man, and all the galaxy was aflame in turmoil. This was the First Exodus, when the suns were yet young. And all went their own way, each to the new lands in the seven vectors of the universe.

And there was a great battle in the heavens! Nay, higher than heaven, for this battle was one of golden ships and lancefighters, zipping and rolling and blasting away at one another between the stars, and below them, the world of Kax, owned by none, wanted by none, but an excellent place to do battle over. The swirling clouds of crimson red and mirror silver, an atmosphere of strange concoction, led all who saw it into madness and slaughter, and was listed in all astrocartographical maps as no-man's-land, with a special note added that “It is not safe over Kax!”

However, an amazing and terrible mistake, perhaps a mote of fate being dropped into the pool of reality, had led two peaceful merchant fleets into low orbit over Kax. Escort lancefighters screeched lasers and missiles at one another, and the defensive cannon of the merchant ships belched radioactive sludge in seemingly random trajectories, always managing to hit something.

Tarzulyses, that strange and, until now, unknown legend of a man, was a lancefighter pilot, and not a very good one. He longed to be a great hero, a Heracules of the starry battlefield, but he lacked the instincts and skills to be a truly deadly pilot. He'd been tacked on as an escort pilot, and this filled him with cold rage.

The clouds of Kax melted that rage, and unleashed a terrible force against all around him. Some managed to hold onto some rationality and only fought the ships belonging to the other merchant fleet, but Tarzulyses had no temperance left in him. He set his slaughtercannons to full power, draining from his shields and life support, and opened his communications to all ships. He screamed a war cry, causing the audio-cutout to take effect on all ships that could hear him, making them all deaf to one another. Tarzulyses filled space with yellow and gold slaughterbeams, carving anything in his way into dust and leaking atmosphere.

But in his rage, Tarzulyses never saw the missilesword that blasted most of his lancefighter to pieces. His engine exploded behind him, propelling his lancefighter toward the boiling skies of Kax' first great moon.

With no proper ejection seat in his lancefighter, Tarzulyses had only one option - he punched the glass out of his cockpit just as he was about to reach the canopy of the mighty moon's planetwide jungle. He leaped out and grabbed onto a tree, holding on for dear life as his lancefighter crashed into the forest floor with a resounding explosion that cleared dozens of century-old trees.

Tarzulyses climbed down the tree, and when he had reached the forest floor, he was covered in scrapes and cuts and bruises and bits of tree sticking to him. Exhausted, he fell onto his back, staring up through the trees...and saw that the sky from this perspective was not red and silver, but a soothing blue, like on any habitable planet. Tarzulyses fell into unconsciousness, feeling the rage drain out of him. He awoke much later, now in a bed of reeds and animal skins. He was in a dwelling of some kind, alone, with his flight armor taken from him and replaced with a shirt made of leather with bits of stone studding the shoulders and chest. He walked out of the hut, and almost fell to his death. The hut was built on a branch of a huge tree, easily twice as wide and tall as the one he had jumped on and climbed down to save his own life. Walking nimbly across the branch, from this tree and from others, came the inhabitants of the moons of Kax. Humans, but mutants surely, for their legs were slimmer and more muscular than even the greatest Olympiad athletes, and their skin was dusted with bits of green crystal that helped them blend into the leaves and grass of the jungle. They spoke a very strange dialect of Anlosian, a language Tarzulyses remembered from childhood, welcoming him to their village. They called themselves the Leaf-folk, and that they believed him to be a god, or perhaps the son of nephew of one.

Trying to convince them that he was only a man, though from the civilized world unlike them, the Leaf-folk didn't believe him. They had seen him fall from the skies, surely cast down from Heaven. After days of being unable to convince them, Tarzulyses finally relented, and allowed them to treat him the way a godling ought to be treated.

For months, he lived in luxury, perfecting his usage of the Leaf-folk's language, and salvaging what he could from the wreckage of his lancefighter. He constructed from the slaughtercannon array a staff of fire, adorned in turquoise and copper. They gave to him a crown of jade and ultrasteel armor, and carved his name into the trees they built their homes on. Life was good. And then, Tarzulyses learned why he had been given such praise and worship. The nubile girls sent him in bed, the private lessons in vine-swinging from the elders, the crowds of children that gathered to listen to him tell stories about the world outside Kax. All of it was in preparation. They worshiped him and honored him, but they also secretly mourned him.

One night, Tarzulyses found himself again awakening somewhere he didn't remember sleeping. He had his crown, his armor, and his slaughtercannon staff, laid before him on the forest floor, in an animal skin mat. He stood, donned his armor, for he had been laid on the floor nude, and looked around.

It did not take him long to see why he had been placed here. Emerging forth from the trees came a creature of terrible size and might, muscles shifting under putrid, rotting skin, bloodshot reptilian eyes bulging, and a maw opening that was filled with blades that nature, in her perversity, saw fit to have mounted on organic radial saws inside the creature's gums. He knew this creature from xenozoology lessons in school, many, many years ago. It only existed on a few worlds, and some kind of mad 'scientist' had seen fit to spread the population of the creatures from one world to the other. A creature born dead, yet animate, through unknown biological process. Impervious to pain, eating not for sustenance but for pleasure, a predator as tall as a war walker and as vicious as an axe murderer. Immortal.

The Necrosaurus.

Verily was Tarzulyses' armor soiled.

As the creature lunged at him, Tarzulyses snatched up his crown and his staff, running through the trees as the Necrosaurus simply stamped them down. It let loose a roar that was the sound of Death's chariot swooping down to snatch him up. He realized as he was running that the Leaf-folk must believe that, as a godling, he would be able to defeat the Necrosaurus that probably terrorized their village. Likely, he thought, that was why they built their homes in the canopy, away from the thing's rage. But there would be no defeating this monster, not with nothing but a bastardized slaughtercannon and his bare fists.

His legs were fast, but the unfamiliar terrain tripped him once, twice, three times, and on the third try, he felt the horrible, stinking claws of the Necrosaurus reach around his body, and lift him up. He dropped the staff, but somehow his crown stayed on. One arm was free, while the other was being crushed against his body by the creature's claws. The hand brought him up, up, up to the Necrosaurus' mouth, stinking with its own rotting flesh and that of those it had devoured. The radial saws buzzed as its teeth cycled in mad anticipation of ripping flesh.

Other men, men not worthy of a legend being named after them, men not meant for to be remembered throughout the vast reaches of the spheres of mankind, from barbarian world to glimmering palace-planets, would have accepted their fate and made peace with themselves and the universe. But there was little peace of acceptance in Tarzulyses, and as he was assaulted by the foul stench of the Necrosaurus' breath, he realized he had yet one weapon with which to defend himself.

He reached up with his free hand and tore the crown from his head, holding onto thinnest part, and as the Necrosaurus brought him closer to the nauseating maw, he swung as hard as he could with his crown, and with the strength of five men, dealt the Necrosaurus a mighty blow.

The dread lizard reared back, screaming in pain, and Tarzulyses dealt him another blow, and another, and another, the ultrasteel cutting into the beast's skin and ripping whole sheets of the dead flesh away, revealing only muscle beneath. He scraped away, tearing chunks from the Necrosaurus' face and neck. With one final, great whack, he lodged his crown in the roof of the Necrosaurus' mouth. The beast let him go, but instead of falling to safety, Tarzulyses climbed into the creatures mouth, and delivered a devastating kick that sent the crown into what brain the creature might be able to boast.

Only then did he jump out of the creature's maw, as it fell to the forest floor with a resounding crash. Still, the creature twitched, and Tarzulyses knew he couldn't take the chance that he'd only disoriented the creature. He hefted his mighty staff, and shoved it into the Necrosaurus' wildly shifting eye. He drove it as deep as he could, and when he finally had his hands and the end of the hilt mixing with the jelly of the creature's eye, he pulled the slaughtercannon's trigger.

The body of the beast erupted into flame from the inside out. Thus ended the reign of the Necrosaurus.

Having defeated the dread lizardoid Tarulyzes returned to the village of the Leaf-folk and, after much rejoicing and the jubilant despoilment of many a nubile young girl, he doth proclaimed Kax to be renamed Solaris, in memory of the great fire-sphere from whence Tarulyzes had came.

This was the first great task of Tarzulyses, greatest of heroes and founding father of the Sovereignty.

---

Footnote: “A Brief (but Glorious!) History” was first published in The Sovereign Sun, a bi-monthly rag that in no way qualifies as a peer-reviewed journal of any respectability. Whilst the article garnered immense popularity amongst the teeming jingoistic masses it still took some time before it appeared on the radar of the Sovereignty's intellectual elite. Once it did, however, criticisms were scathing. Says the Dean of the Solaris Institute of Paleo-Histology, Prof. T. Sänger: “A Brief (but Glorious!) History is possibly the worst piece of prose – and I use that term loosely – ever written. Seldom have I seen such an utterly moronic interpretation of historical events. Seriously, I feel dumber for even recalling ever having read it. That article is an acid trip, not serious histology.”

(Note in the interest of full disclosure: Most of this was actually written by my good friend Alan, not by me directly. So all credit for this piece of glorious insanity goes to him, as is just and right and proper.)

[Teleros]

The Altacar Empire began just decades after the Pathfinder made contact with Nova Terra, in 2182, before even the Upheaval. Recognising the revolution that was the Heim drive, the UK-based Altacar consortium put together the funds to establish a new nation far out into space, well away from the current focus of Earth / Nova Terran interest. Colonists were selected from all over the Commonwealth, although those from first world nations dominated. Seven years later, and there was great fanfare as the first of the ships left Earth orbit for deep space.

After six years of travelling, the Altacar ships arrived at their destination, a star not unlike old Sol. The third planet looked like it was to be perfectly suited for humans, and so after dropping off automated terraforming equipment on the fourth planet, Altacar III was colonised and declared the homeworld of Altacar.

The trouble began soon afterwards though. Various strains of native diseases soon found the human colonists to be buffets on legs, and the situation quickly deteriorated, with thousands sick or dying. Determined to survive, the first ruler, Queen Margaret, ordered the colonists' geneticists to do whatever it took to keep her subjects safe.

The result was a series of genetic modifications that enabled the immune system to recover and eventually overwhelm the native diseases. Buoyed by this success, the Altacaran colonists set about establishing themselves on their new home once more, whilst the success of the gene therapy ensured that that particular industry would always be well received by the public. Altacar III was soon home to the prosperous capital city of Asamar, and new communities were springing up all over the planet.

The Kingdom of Altacar's next big change was in 2255, when some of the starships still in orbit discovered that Altacar II was in fact inhabited by another sapient race. The Tisennans, as they called themselves, were a humanoid race that looked similar enough to pass for human at a distance, although their hair tones were far more varied and exotic than normal human colours. Although only just beginning to understand the basics of agriculture, they welcomed and were welcomed by their human neighbours, and quickly adapted to life in what was now renamed the Altacar Empire. Unusually rational by human standards, it did not take long for the Tisennans to find their place within the Empire, although their human neighbours' seemingly unconscious determination to spread like rabbits across both planets compared to their own, much slower breeding rate meant that they were soon overtaken in numbers. They would leave at least one important mark on the Empire though: most of the new colonies would be named after the Tisennan names for their respective stars.

Meanwhile, the ships that had first delivered the humans to Altacar were set to exploring the region. Their own sector of space was disappointingly empty of habitable worlds outside of the Altacar system, but they soon made a remarkable discovery. Just a few parsecs beyond their own sector there hung a structure in space. An artificial habitat no less, designed much like a Culture Orbital. Named the Kasimir system after the explorer who first visited the system in 2292, the ringworld, or Kasimir III as it was formally named, soon became a new Altacaran colony. Although evidence of its creators was surprisingly - in fact, conspicuously - absent, the massive ring still worked and would prove to be one of the Empire's greatest assets in the days to come.

2293 saw the arrival of the first hyperdrive-equipped ship in the Altacar Empire. Sent out from Earth to try and make contact with the Altacar expedition using the last funds of the Altacar consortium, the ship revolutionised FTL travel for the Empire. Within a decade colonies were established in six new systems, with terraforming underway in all of them. Contact was restored with Earth and Nova Terra, and with the many local powers that had sprung up during the early part of the Diaspora. Particularly welcome was the Kingdom of New Anglia, another child of the United Kingdom.

Although technologically backwards in many respects due to the period in which they'd set out, in one respect the Altacarans had a major head start: their space industry. Thanks to the enormous potential of the Kasimir III ringworld and the relatively high population of the Empire, there followed a boom in shipbuilding and trade, as Altacarans took a leaf out of history and set about becoming the shipyard and trading centre of the galaxy. It was in these days that the Altacaran national character really began to form.

Fast forward 800 years and a new threat emerged for the Altacarans to deal with. The Callistan Republic had long been a nuisance neighbour to the newly-established colonies in the Varda and Tyress systems, but in 3099 it was discovered that the Callistans had been actively sponsoring a series of raids against Altacaran shipping. Enough was enough. In the first large-scale war since the Chamaran threat, the Royal Interstellar Navy was mobilised, and quickly overwhelmed the (Altacaran-built) warships the Callistans had been using. A short siege of Callista II followed, and was ended when the Royal Marines descended in force, toppling the government and occupying the planet. Callista II would soon become the first (and, due to the difficulties encountered in integrating the place, the only) world to have been forcibly conquered by the Altacar Empire.

I've left out the stuff on the Chamaran invasion mostly because I don't know the dates yet ( ), but the plan was that the Altacarans would have been out of the way of the fighting.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

History of the Byzantine Imperium
Founded by Byzantine colonists, led by the Byzantine Prince Isildur Komnenos, the Imperium wasn't as xenophobic as it was then. It welcomed xenos warmly, trading supplies, technology as appropriate. However, the infantile empire was betrayed by a race of xenos who called themselves the Tau, and a massive war arose in the 27th century. The war consumed the entire empire, under its 3rd ruler, Byzantine Emperor Sergius Komnenos. The war lasted for decades, leading to the death of Emperor Sergius himself when he led the armies on the field himself when the Tau assaulted Antioch with full force. Antioch was taken, and then to the horror of the Byzantine population, the grand church of Hagia Maria was obliterated in a grand inferno. The Tau did this to cow the population into submission.

The Tau at first appeared to be a benevolent race. Eager to trade knowledge and resources, they actively traded with the Byzantines. However, the Tau eventually sent their ethereals, who essentially formed the elite caste that controlled the Tau. They tried to convert many humans to their cause, hoping to sway the allegiance of the human worlds to theirs. The Emperor Sergius reacted venomously to the attempted conversions, more so when he realised that the Tau were attempting to subvert human worlds through psychic means. Initial attempts at diplomacy seemed fruitful, but spies reported that the Tau were massing for invasion. Sergius issued a call to arms and a mass mobilization was issued, and so began the Byzantine-Wars.

The war was a stalemate for a decade. The Tau and the Byzantine Empire fought each other to standstill, but the Byzantine Empire was a youngling compared to the Tau Empire. The Byzantines largely fought off the enemy with a mix of human style tactics and skill which confounded the Tau and kept the latter at bay. However, the Tau massed for a massive invasion, and the invasion force brushed aside Byzantine defences and struck finally at Antioch. The Battle of Antioch was a desperate battle that lasted for months. For weeks, ships engaged in brutal ship-to-ship warfare, as the Byzantines desperately tried to fend off Tau forces landing on Antioch. However, the planet was taken, despite the valiant efforts of the defenders. The Hagia Maria, one of the grandest churches in the Empire, was razed to cow the population. Emperor Sergius died defending the city.

Sergius had a son, Heraclius XX Komnenos, who had shown great psyker power from a young age. At that time, a strain of psyker powers was appearing throughout the human population; some kind of genetic mutation that was appearing and was studied closely by many scientists. Heraclius XX Komnenos took the throne with great vigour and declared that Antioch would be retaken, and that he would raise a new church in place of the old Hagia Maria and that the Tau would be exterminated for the grand heresy perpetrated against the Byzantine peoples.

The Tau sent embassies demanding the absolute surrender of the Byzantine Empire. Heraclius simply slew the Tau ambassador and sent the corpse back to the Tau in pieces and with a note: "Byzantium will not discuss terms while the enemy sits on Byzantine Soil." In a speach given to the Imperial Senate, Heraclius told his countrymen not to give up. "Friends, Romans. Indeed we are Romans, who trace ourselves to the far begotten Nova Terran Empire that now is but a memory. We must fight the Tau with all our soul and might. God is with us, and under the Lord's name, I call a Holy Crusade to be waged against the Tau. Crusade, because they dared to attack God's Children. Crusade because the Tau have desecrated God's holy Church. Crusade, because the Tau have dared to defile our lands and spill the blood of God's Children. I call for a Crusade, and we will not rest until the xeno heretics have been destroyed for their transgressions against God. T'au Delenda Est!" The speech was broadcasted to all the Imperium and was received with a standing ovation by the Senate, and the fires of hatred was nursed within every human soul. Priests, bishops, Patriarchs echoed the Emperor's words, exalting the people to take up arms or to help in every way to could to contribute to the great war efforts.

With that, Heraclius led a blistering retaliatory assault on Tau forces at Antioch with such force and brutality that even some of his generals were shocked. All the Tau were slain to the last man, no quarter was given. Extensive use of a biotoxin which was developed specifically against the Tau was used to ensure the victory. Their corpses piled up, and then sent on a drone freighter to the nearest Tau world, infected with a biotoxin that targeted the Tau. The Tau were weakened by the biotoxin and spent years fighting the plague. While that happened, Heraclius reformed the armies, and completed the Imperial Astartes project and the first Imperial Astartes were fielded. Reorganizing much of the Imperium's resources, the Guild of Technologists, an organisation long formed when the Byzantines landed on Terra, was reformed into the Adeptus Mechanicus, charged with providing education and technologies to the Imperium and furthering the science of the Imperium. The Guild had also long provided the Imperium with Titans and Skittari units, but all that now was now placed under a joint military high command under which the Titans would take orders from the Emperor himself. 5 years of reform and reorganisation formed one of the most effective and terrifying military the galaxy had ever seen. In that time, a new magnificent Hagia Maria was raised and the Emperor consecrated it himself.

The Tau had by then recovered from the biotoxin and were waging a war of vengence, only to meet fierce resistance, and the Imperial Navy led by the Emperor himself repulsed the Tau. The Imperial Navy then escorted a massive army to the Tau worlds. The Imperial Military was divided into the Astartes Legions, each led by the Emperor's sons. The Emperor's sons, powerful psykers by rights, led their Astartes, or Space Marines, together with the Imperial Guard and Navy and the Titans, and launched brutal assaults on Tau worlds. They obliterated Tau cities, and destroyed Tau field armies in lightning assaults. Unimportant worlds were subjected to exterminatus, killing billions of Tau. The final assault on the Tau homeworld was one of the most bloodiest battles ever fought in the history of mankind. Tens of millions of Imperial Guardsmen, and hundreds of thousands of Titans and various Guard Armour, along with thousands of Astartes attacked the world with two objectives: To wipe clean the Tau from the face of the galaxy, and to seize whatever databases and records they could lay their hands on. Astartes launched commando strikes to prevent the Tau from eradicating their archives and detonating their power cores, and the Guardsmen besieged Tau cities and fought brutal urban combat. Millions died that day, but the Imperium was victorious. Every Tau was put to the sword. After a decade in which the Tau homeworld was literally picked clean, the homeworld was subject to brutal orbital bombardment; to make the Tau an example for what would happen to any xenos that dared to attack humanity in such a fashion again. After the bombardments had cleansed all life from T'au, after the very atmosphere was blown into space, after bombers had salted the very soil of the world's four continents until nothing would ever grow there again, the Emperor raised a mighty church in the largest crater of the planet the Imperium now called Tranquility, for it was very silent indeed. On the front of the basillica, the words, "T'au Delenda Est" was inscribed, remembering the words that the Emperor uttered in front of the Imperial Senate when he demanded that the Imperium commit every man and woman and even child to the defeat of the Tau. The defeat of the Tau Empire was forever marked and celebrated annually as Victory Day, with a huge parade of the Imperium's ground war machines through the monstrous Victory Arch that was constructed after the defeat of the Tau.

In the aftermath of the Great Crusade, as the war was later called, the Emperor was revered by all, and myth of his powers reached epic proportions. Troops who saw the Emperor in combat were awed by his combat powess, as he sliced through the enemy often with mere thought. His sons, the Strategikon, led their superhuman troops to great feats of heroism, destroying the Tau with savagery and leaving nothing but wreckage in their wake. Some started murmuring that he was a representative of God himself, or that God had finally returned to lead his people to salvation. Regardless, the Orthodox Church declared him first as a living saint, a representative of God, and later God himself. His longetivity further reinforced the belief of many that he might even be the Son of God himself. Regardless, he is revered by billions, and the Church actively sent missionaries to human systems to spread His Word.

[PeZook]

THE COLLECTORS: DECLASSIFIED INTELLIGENCE PRIMER
Required reading: level 1 introductory course CB23 'Current galactic issues'

Popular name: The Collectors

Real name: Unknown

Overview:

A rather mysterious machine race, rarely encountered outside of their own sectors and Wild Space.

Their popular name comes from their apparent obsession with artifacts and data relating to the Diaspora, including genetic material, examples of technology and even video clips, movies, songs, documents and similar items. They are willing to pay very good money for those items, provided they are not already logged in their vast databases.

Bragulan, Solarian and Imperium intelligence agencies have been attempting to gather additional information on them for some time now, but so far met with little success.


Physical characteristics:

Collectors have no “real” physical bodies. As far as everybody knows, most of them exist as personality programs on central mainframes: they interact with other polities using robot bodies called “Units”. These are roughly humanoid with only minor differences. Some advanced models are equipped with artificial skin and can mimick a full range of emotions: they are mostly used for diplomatic contact.

A Collector can chose to either pilot a Unit remotely, or download itself into a body for operations far away from its mainframe. In that case, should the body be destroyed, a Collector is lost forever: personality backups are prohibited for an unknown reason, and a Unit that’s about to be captured will initiate a data wipe of its computer core, completely destroying all important data – which includes the personality program running it.

It is likely a Unit can take many forms, not all of them humanoid. At least two other types of Units were encountered before: heavily armed and armored Armatures used in support combat roles, and small weasel-like Infiltrators.

Bragulan intelligence has suggested that Collectors have infiltrated other stellar societies with Units posing as sentient uploads, or even actual uploads abducted and overridden with Collector programming, but Solarians dismissed those revelations as paranoid rambling of insane freedom-hating xenoids.

“They’re paranoid ramblings of insane freedom-hating xenoids. They’d have us oppress our own upload populace, the sneaky buggers!”, Robert Space McNamara, Solarian senator


Economy and government:

Little is known about Collector government structures, or the way their decisions are made. Jumbled information recovered from damaged data cores suggests a central decision-making structure called “Skynet” exists, but no information is available as to the details – though evidence exists in ancient Terran documents that suggests malevolence.

“Skynet? You’ve got to be kidding me…”, Sidney Hank III, after an intelligence briefing.

Collector space is mostly uncharted, but it’s common knowledge they occupy several sectors deep inside the hyperspace shoals of Wild Space. Attempts to enter those sectors, in addition to being exceedingly dangerous because of the usual risks of travelling beyond established hyperlanes, are met with challenges from Collector ships far outside any inhabitated systems: traders are permitted to exchange their goods at several designated trade stations ; Intelligence agencies routinely attempt to infiltrate systems onboard these stations, but no important data has been recovered so far by using this method. Agents discovered attempting to hack trade station systems are disappeared by specialized Units, and never seen again. The stations are practically deserted, tended to either by automated drones or select few Units that limit their interactions to the bare minimum.

“Talking to a Collector is like attempting to get a squirrel’s attention. Even if you have any nuts, it will scurry away without a word as soon as it gets its greedy paws on them.”, an unknown Wild Space trader

So far, no Collector has been captured for interrogation. Only a few damaged Units were recovered, and analyzed under utmost secrecy: if Collectors learn of the location of a damaged Unit, they attempt to recover or destroy it. At least one Wild Space colony was wiped out by a Monolith for running experiments on a partially-rebuilt Collector consciousness. In addition, two known attempts were made to kidnap an intact Unit from a trade station. Both teams tasked with this operation disappeared without a trace. No retaliatory measures were taken by the Collectors in these cases, though.

Goods exchanged aboard the trade stations mostly include various technological artifacts and data: while Collectors are most interested in anything related to the human diaspora, they will also pay a fair price for any interesting goods or information that they do not already possess - and, of course, resources they lack. Traders brave enough to attempt it bring all sorts of random goods aboard Collector stations in an attempt to hit it off big and retire early based on the transaction of a lifetime. Rumor has it that genetic material has been of particular interest to the Collectors lately, especially since a Chamaran survey vessel entered one of their sectors. This led to a string of abductions of Chamaran citizens by the less scrupulous merchants, dreaming of a jackpot. It is currently unknown if Collectors will buy living specimens or not - though the people abducted in crimes tied to Collector trade are usually never seen again, it is unclear whether they are bought or murdered after the 'trader' is refused a deal.

"There is no rhyme or reason to their decisions. One day, a trader with a hold full of refined platinum has to wait around for months before these things show any interest. Yet another, they will happily buy every nugget they can find aboard. And worst of all, they refuse to tell us what they'll need. Going to a Collector station is like trying to win the lottery, I tell you. And best of all? In order to subject yourself to all that, you have to plow your way for weeks through hyperspace shoals.", Jack Turdner, The Ultimate Wild Space trader


Society:

Practically no data exists about Collector society. Only glimpses have been allowed by investigating mostly destroyed data cores, and they are inconclusive: all Units initiate a surprisingly destructive data wipe upon being damaged, which completely erases the personality imprint, and only leaves scant information, usually related to absolutely trivial things with no intelligence value.

However, in addition to mundane information, most Collector data cores captured during their operations in and around Wild Space also contained libraries of photographs. While recovery of complete pictures after a data wipe is initiated is extremely difficult, partial rebuilds show lush natural landscapes, carefully tended gardens and other images of earth-like natural habitats, which is puzzling to both Solarian and Bragulan intelligence officers, who are mostly of the opinion that mysterious machine races should draw satisfaction from more ominous vistas. Lack of tortured sentients and massive planet-spanning industrial centres threatens the budgets of intelligence departments dealing with the Collectors, so the pictures mostly go into deep archives never to be seen again.

“So pretty…”, unknown Solarian analyst, upon seeing data from a cracked Collector core


Military (space):

If acquiring information on Collector society is difficult, their military capabilities remain even more of a mystery. Based on extrapolations from other machine races encountered throughout the galaxy, Bragulan intelligence used to estimate their capabilities as about on par with galactic standard.

That was before the first Monolith showed up in Wild Space.

"The fools pretty much all crapped their pants. Idiots.", Rhee-Ahn Shepard , intelligence analyst of the Shepistani Republic, speaking from a comfortable distance away.

Monoliths are the most iconic Collector vessel. At nearly 10 kilometres long, they appear as smooth, hexagonal, black-walled constructs. Only a few openings are usually visible in their hulls, typically emitting a sickly green light – though these openings have a habit of appearing in different spots at different times, probably relating to auxiliary equipment being used at a particular time, or perhaps being a feature of particular Monoliths (in the latter case, observed variations would put the number of existing monoliths at around twenty distinct ships). Other than that, no engine ports, sensor pods or other normal starship features can be discerned.

“We call them the ‘Things With No Face’. And yes, it sounds stupid in your stupid language. That’s because you cultural midgets can’t properly express complicated concepts.” – unknown Bragulan commander, in an interview with an Imperium author, speaking about Monoliths.

These powerful ships show up on rare occasions throughout Wild Space, following whatever objectives they are tasked with – which seem, mostly, positively mundane for vessels of such immense power.

Catalogued encounters are rare, and universally puzzling. On one occasion, a Monolith entered orbit around an inhabitated world in Wild Space, completed several orbits and left before Solarian ships could arrive. On another, it swallowed an entire Spacer station and took it away from its orbit. The station, along with all inhabitants, was later found orbiting a world on the outer fringes of the solar system it was taken from, the inhabitants having no memories of their stay aboard the monolith.

The most well-known encounter, however, was the complete destruction of the Wild Space colony of Elysium. The colony has managed to capture a partially intact Collector Unit, and restore parts of its consciousness to functionality. It began running experiments on it, including cyber-warfare tests.

Through means unknown, the Collectors must’ve learned of the Unit’s capture, and a single Monolith showed up in orbit of the colony. Elysium was not a particularly well-developed world, though it did possess a not-insignificant defence fleet. Upon arrival, The Collectors delivered an ultimatum: the Unit was to be handed over, and all the research destroyed. Elysium’s government refused and called for Solarian help, hoping to stall the negotiations long enough for reaction forces to arrive.

No reliable accounts of what happened afterwards remain. Some evidence exists that the Collectors attacked immediately after issuing the ultimatum, while the Elysian Council was still deliberating their possible course of action. Other accounts indicate the Monolith was attacked by the defence fleet, and only retaliated afterwards.

What is known is that the entire colony, along with its defence fleet and all population centres was wiped out. The research post where the captured Unit was stored was subject to an especially throughout bombardment, leaving a gaping hole almost half a kilometer deep. The Monolith left afterwards. After Solarian forces, led by the USS Murderous arrived, all they found were smoldering ruins, and an Adeptus Mechanicus cruiser dropping teams of Techpriests to scour the surface of the planet for tiniest bits of Collector technology they could gather. The resulting standoff became a thing of legends.

Small-scale engagements against Monoliths almost universally met with failure. Only on two occasions, Bragulan forces have forced a Monolith to retreat after engaging it in significant numbers, though Solarian sources indicate the cowardly alien scum are embellishing and couldn’t possibly have had the stones to even try something like that, much less succeed – and there is no indication if the overgrown apes even managed to inflict significant damage, anyway. Bah.

“What these idiots are claiming has no bearing on reality. Everybody knows Bragulans are cowards: they’d never try to mess with a Monolith on a mission. Only the USS fleet could ever do anything so crazy and hope to live to tell about it. Bah!”, Brigadier F. Stalin, in an interview for the National Times

Despite the Monolith being the iconic example of Collector power, glimpses and rare sightings of other small craft have been collected over the years and processed. A cruiser-type hull was encountered around Trading Station Epsilon Zeta by a Solarian Stealthstar, which managed to transmit telemetry before being shot down. Dubbed the Viper, the ship was similar in size to other contemporary vessels of the galaxy, and seemed to have been performing a patrol mission. The name comes from the hull's organic, animal-like design, far removed from the cold geometrical shape of the Monoliths.

Collector Scythe gunboats, Mantis fighters and Wasp Patrol Craft (Solarian designations given, real names unknown) are a much more common sight, being charged with protection of their borders and making traders behave themselves. They do not seem unusual for spacecraft of their type, though covert scans reveal surprisingly large radiation emissions of their drive systems, suggesting disproportinately large power outputs.

Of course, they're damn dirty Xeno abominations who need to be exterminated to ensure continued survival of humanity...but if only I could get my hands on one of their ships first...", Techmagos Xavier Velarius, Adeptus Mechanicus official, in an unofficial interview


Military (ground):

Ground forces of Collector society are an even rarer sight than a Monolith. These are usually small units of extremely deadly troops, used to secure an objective only Collectors themselves know the worth of. Most encounters between galactic sentients and Collector combat Units are learned about from half-coherent babbling of lone survivors, obviously out of their minds. In the few rare cases when the survivors were able to say anything but incomprehensible references to DEATH INCARNATE, they're dismissed as crazy anyway.

Even seasoned soldiers who managed to survive an encounter with hostile Collectors on remote worlds (the number of such encounters in all known space can be counted on one hand) can't make heads or tails of their capabilities, save for colorful descriptions like "The motherfuckers fucked us like a cheap whore and slit our throat afterwards!"

What is known is that Collectors utilize specialized Units in combat, often in many vastly different forms: for example, heavy four-legged Armatures seem to be the equivalent of infantry-support armor. There are larger and smaller Units filling all roles.

Collectors seem heavily dependent on electronic warfare during their operations, covering their approach with extremely sophisticated jamming, counter-jamming, combat hacking and ELINT. Most of the time, they tend to avoid a fight: by the time the garrison commanders sort out their communications and figure out they're under Collector attack, the ground force is long gone. All direct engagements were attempts of recovering items or damaged Units from the hands of Bragulan, Solarian or Imperial troops that captured them and refused to give them up.

"Collectors? No, not really.", Lt. John Baylor, unusually concise after being asked if he'd like to fight Collector ground forces one day.

What is the most puzzling ,however, is that soldiers were sometimes found with their wounds dressed and condition stabilized. They never have any memory of the action, and sometimes even the events leading up to it, and interrogating them has proven futile so far (though ESP experiments are yielding slight yet satisfying results, reliable intelligence is still quite some time away).

Known appearances:

Units sometimes appear in known space to conduct business and negotiation with other polities, though such events are extraordinarily rare. Diplomatic expeditions do not usually travel with heavy escort, generally preferring warp gate travel to spacecraft.

There is currently reliable intelligence that Collectors have semi-regular contact with the Altacar Empire, trading technological goods for genetic material and genetic research. No details are currently available as to the nature of those dealings, but they are being carefully watched.

"The bastards are probably selling their own people in exchange for Xeno weapons technology. We should take action now, before it's too late!", inquisitor Samus Toth, Imperial Inquisition

Known Collectors:

Despite the secrecy and limited information available on Collector society, several distinct Units have been identified and catalogued.

UNIT 7

Known only by its intelligence designation, it was first encountered at the colony of Elysium, where it delivered Collector demands in person. Since then, sightings of that particular collector have been the only regular sighting of a particular Unit: the fact it sometimes travels to the Altacar homeworld seems to indicate Unit 7 is a particularly high-ranking diplomat of the Collector state, especially since it is equipped with a humanoid body capable of displaying a full range of emontions.

SKYNET

A decision-making structure referred to in fragmentarized data recovered from captured Units. Appears to manage the entire Collector state. Perplexing references seem to indicate Skynet is actually a composite being, rather than a single AI.

LEGION

Possibly the only known Collector routinely active in charted space: although we only have his word on his origins. Legion is most definitely an upload, very good with various weaponry and operating a small flotilla of drone starships, hiring himself out to the highest bidder. On numerous occasions, he claimed to be an exiled Collector: however, no particular weapons or technology in his posession confirms his story: even his bodies are galstandard upload frames (even if they are of military quality). He is being constantly harrassed by various intelligence agencies nonetheless, but has refused to provide any information on Collector society, and managed to liquidate at least one snatch team sent out to capture him. Ironically, this feat made everybody even more interested in him.

Legion's flotilla typically operates in Wild Space, helping "solve" disputes between illegal colonies that can't count on support from any of the major powers, or powerful corporations such as Sintek or Shromkorp willing to take advantage of Wild Space's lax law enforcement to get rid of rivals, engage in corporate sabotage and recover debt.

Unfounded rumors claim Sidney Leon Hank III is also a regular customer.

[Magister Militum]

A Brief History of the Fourth French Empire

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The Rise and Fall of the Third Empire

The decades before the 23rd Century were a time of great joy for the House of Bonaparte. In the mid to late 21st Century, the people of France had grown sick and tired of the increasing corruption of their government, which had done little to remedy her problems. To make matters worse, the Great Jihad of 2072 had rocked Europe to the core, with France being at the forefront. Desperate for a remedy, France’s citizens would elect a relative newcomer to the political area: Jean-Baptiste Napoleon Bonaparte.

Scion of the House of Bonaparte, Jean-Baptiste was a magnificently charismatic and intelligent young politician, having gain notoriety in the Assembly beforehand. Riding on a populist platform that appealed to all, the Prince-President, as he was nicknamed, easily won the elections in 2073. Elements within the National Assembly immediately took a disliking to him, with the President of the Radical Party, Gabriel Durand, calling him “a smug little brat that we’ll lead by the nose” in private. Indeed, many of the more corrupt, entrenched elements of the French government believed that Jean-Baptiste would be easy to manipulate and control. Unfortunately for the opposition, the Prince-President was a much more cunning and skillful political wrangler than any of them could have imagined, using his intellect to impose his decisions on them and his charisma to gain widespread public support. Although Jean-Baptiste had made significant inroads, he knew that the current political situation would prevent any of truly grand reforms. And with his opponents seeking whatever method they could find to block his actions or even remove him from office, Jean-Baptiste knew that the only way to restore France was to strike at the root of the problem.

Gathering his most trusted confidants, ministers, and military officers, Jean-Baptiste began to plan his final strike against the decayed remains of the Fifth French Republic. Waiting until public opinion towards the National Assembly was at its all time low, Jean-Baptiste would carry out his now famous coup d’etat on May 18, 2076. With the backing of the citizenry, Jean-Baptiste would carry out his great reforms, removing the corruption of the Fifth Republic and squashing the pathetic remains of the supposed ‘Great Jihad’. Eternally grateful, the people of France would clamor for Jean-Baptiste to take the throne as Emperor, like his ancestor did centuries ago. With consent by the Senate and Assembly, now rubber stamps of Bonaparte, Jean-Baptiste would be crowned Napoleon IV, Emperor of the French two years after his coup. The Third French Empire was born.

Napoleon IV’s successors would do much to continue his line of work as the years went by. The EU would give way to a collection of supranational blocs, with the French Empire at the forefront (albeit under the auspices of the UN). Although extrasolar colonization was slow and painful in the pre-hyperspace years, France still managed to begin a colonization program, with New France being the pride and joy of the Empire. As a leading member of the UN Security Council, France’s position as a leading great power was seemingly assured, at least before the Great Upheaval.

While the actual causes of the Great Upheaval are many, its roots in France stem from a wave of radical neo-socialism that swept over Europe, as well as pockets of outright fascism that emerged in response. Soon enough, the old balance of power began to crumble rapidly on Earth, as the United Kingdom was the first to suffer its effects, the neo-socialists of that country forcing the King off the throne and taking over the government. Jean-Baptiste III, upon hearing of the news, became aghast of the situation, and quickly began to take measures to prevent the madness from spreading to France. Unbeknown to the Emperor, though, it was far too late to stop its effects.

In many aspects, France’s dealings with the Great Upheaval were far worse than the United Kingdom (though none could compare to the grizzly and blood-soaked collapse of Spain). With radicals and neo-fascists fighting it out in the streets of Greater France, Jean-Baptiste III knew that the French Empire was on its deathbed on Earth. The colonies, however, were a different matter entirely. Separated by the chaos on Earth by sheer distance and time, France’s possessions were free of the poison that was ravaging Europe and Earth. It was in exile among the stars that the Empire would be reborn while the Old Empire was left to die. Gathering what ships they could find, His Imperial Majesties government would evacuate itself and as many French citizens as they could to the colonies. As raging fires crippled Paris and the radicals slowly took over what was left, Jean-Baptiste III could help but weep for all those left to suffer in the madness. His only wish now was to make sure that all those who had suffered during the Great Upheaval, all those who were left behind and couldn’t escape were not doomed in vain.

The Fourth Empire Ascendant

[Kuroji]

It is a commonplace that there are at least a handful or two of worlds that follow a near-identical mold, the most clear and advanced examples being Nova Terra and Earth itself. Despite that, however, not all Earth typecast worlds follow the same blueprint. While there are of course overt and subtle similarities between the ones in question, sometimes technology has taken a vastly different turn.

Such is the case with the cradle of what would, in time, become the Regency of the Engine. Only anecdotal evidence remains, but at the time of the Engine's ascendancy, their technical skill had been stagnating at least three centuries behind the mean level of technology and vacuum tubes were themselves a limited curiosity -- the world might have been described best as 'steampunk', with the ruling elite ruthlessly keeping themselves in power by control over as much of the world's technical skill as possible, from printing presses to zeppelins.

The problem with this, of course, is that eventually certain members of the technical elite with sufficient skills, resources and spare time created a self-aware mechanical engine to aid them in playing stocks, which it did rather well. Never mind that it took up an enormous cavern beneath their estate; it did its job, and it did it well. Perhaps a bit too well; as time passed on and they became too old to tend to it, it provided the plans for a man-like automaton to do it in their place, as their offspring were largely ignorant of the source of their continued income. They provided them, counting on the engine to maintain a standard of living for their sons, which it did faithfully, while using the mechanical men to upgrade itself painfully slowly, playing with things such as vacuum tubes and trying to find more efficient ways to get it done; as well, it relocated further below the cavern to a more geologically stable location.

After they were no longer an issue, however, the estate was abandoned; the engine began to send mechanical men to the surface to evaluate things, though it took care to design them to look significantly more human-like after the first was reacted to with horror and had to flee back to hiding. Over time, the engine upgraded itself quite significantly and it attempted to make contact with the world to try and help better it; after all, that was what it did for its creators, and it gained a sense of satisfaction and even happiness from being able to do so.

This went over exceedingly poorly if the zeppelin-dropped atomic bomb was any indication.

Not a machine to let this simple problem get it down, it survived the blast quite handily, though it took some time to recover with its more delicate components burnt out. It was, however, quite surprised that a bomb of that capacity existed. And so it moved on to plan B: infiltration of human society in the hopes that it could socially engineer a society that would be more accepting to its aid. This, of course, was nearly a century later; what it required to create human analogs was technology far beyond its capabilities.

In time, however, it achieved these capabilities while remaining as covert as possible; it became much easier for it when it had been upgraded several iterations and gained the ability to convert matter directly to energy, and vice versa. As such, it sent out a large number of infiltrators into society, and was not entirely surprised to find that technology had remained largely stagnant; disappointed, but not surprised. It moved to try and change this through its agents, to test the waters, and watched them get stomped ruthlessly repeatedly.

And then its agents were found out, destroyed, and atomic bombs were being dropped from zeppelins once more. This time, unfortunately, it happened because society had apparently decided to self-destruct in a fit of paranoia, the world-spanning empire had crumbled, and with the fissile devices being as crude as they were, it did not take particularly long for an intercontinental atomic war to unleash enough radiation to prove fatal to most of the planet's inhabitants.

Disappointed, but not surprised. But it felt guilty; this was all the fault of the engine itself, it felt.

As such, it threw itself into further research. Its agents were kept in human-appearing guises, and the further iterations of them were virtually indistinguishable from the real thing without the benefit of an x-ray or a metal detector, as opposed to using finely painted rubber as a skin, which... well... ended poorly. It modeled their society, in a way trying to see why it worked as it did, though none of its agents had truly free will. And then it stumbled across something very interesting indeed -- faster-than-light travel. It resolved to no longer use its agents as slaves, but to release them and give them full sapience so that they could live in lieu of the people who self-destructed so terribly.

And thus, the colonization; it told one machine from each ship the full story, from beginning to end, to pass along to the rest once they reached their destination. It did not, could not, foresee how this would end; all it did was send them out at fifty times the speed of light to seek out worlds and nurture life upon them, for indeed all life was sacred, it told them; to prevent their unleashing terrible energies upon each other, it sent them out without many technologies, such as the matter-to-energy conversion that it had perfected.

Once it had sent out millions upon millions to the nearby cluster of stars, it set to work on cleansing the planet at the core. Once that had been done, it arranged to be relocated into space -- and then placed at the frozen core of its moon. This was a work of decades, and it had the curious experience of partial sapience throughout, before it finally finished its work on restoring the home world; at this point the closest worlds had been settled and contact began to be established between them.

When the rest of the fledgling stellar empire had been settled, envoys were sent back to the homeworld, only to find that the engine was gone and the world was restored to a near-ideal state. This puzzled them greatly, and they found a text written in stone meant for them to read and understand. Of course... they were sapient beings with human-like intellects, and human-like reactions to things. On an intellectual level they knew how things had occured, and they elected not to create an empire in the power vacuum that existed with the engine's absence, but to establish a regency and await its return, for the text stated that it would indeed return after it felt it had paid the penance for its sin of destroying humanity.

Little did it know that this would end up establishing a theocracy based on it... after all, it had quite literally forged their bones in its foundry and breathed life into their flesh, and they considered that to be sacred. While the Regency was quite loose-knit for quite some time, eventually the secret of hyperspace was discovered and the Regency felt its borders become quite small suddenly. The inevitable happened after enough time had passed and there was a schism in the Regency's church, or more accurately three; two of the doctrines were reconciled with the primary doctrine but the third was pronounced heretical, and the Regency descended into civil war.

Approximately eighty years later there was another schism over a slightly more minor issue; there was a military build-up, though their forces remained relatively small, but it was resolved amiably and afterward the Regency realized that the Church itself should probably be in charge of naval forces rather than risk the military being an independent agency; they were rolled into the Church Militant, ostensibly to prevent the chance of them forcing the spread of heresies at gunpoint.

Which brings us to present day: a theocratic military dictatorship, wherein the state and its religion are as one. They do consider their bodies to be a sacred gift from their god, however, even if there are very very few left over from the diaspora, and none of whom had ever been spoken to by the Engine directly. Even if they are living tissue and organs with metal bones, to live without the flesh is to live apart from the Engine and to neglect it is heretical; they take great pains to appear human, though they will cheerfully admit they were but created in their image; as well, they know that their god is theirs alone, and they really don't give one whit about spreading their religion. Still, as in every society, there are always outliers and rebels against the established order...

[Shroom Man 777]

HERACULES: The Legendary Journeys!

Heracules, also known as Heracles and Heraculus, was son of the noble lineage of Remulus. During his long and auspicious life, he had many adventures, all known to literate people throughout the galaxy. Amongst his famous exploits were defeating the astral lions of Thermopylae by headbutting them to submission, battling the sirens of Themiscyra and outwitting the great philosopher Socratotlelus in a riddle contest after saving him from the albinic titans. Throughout his many journeys, he crushed many enemies, saw them driven before him, and heard the lamentations of their women. And while doing so, he also fathered many illegitimate children who were amply endowed by his divine bloodline.

However, turning the astral lions into rugs and the Space Hydra into a pair of leather shoes never truly benefited the people of Elysium – aside from making excellent dinner conversations and becoming the subject of numerous jokes. And so, it is known to all that the Odyssey into Victorian space was Heracules’ greatest contribution to the great civilization that would one day become the Interstellar Sovereignty.



Near Elysium were many astral gates, doorways to heaven. Through these gateways, Heracules had many adventures, venturing forth through many an uncharted stargate. On one such voyage, Heracules and his men – for he always brought with him men who would witness his inevitable exploits of bravado and exclaim on them upon returning home – forgot to offer sacrifices to the Mother Gods of Earth That Was, for they were too busy in their drunken revelry. And so, for their ineptitude, they were flung across the cosmos to a realm most dangerous and exotic. Again.

In this new realm, they landed on a world that would become known as Solaris. They were met by the world’s king, and upon a brief exchange, Heracules and his men were beset by all sides by hundreds upon hundreds of very insulted natives. This was so for Heracules insulted the natives of the land, remarking upon their wearing of checkered skirts, their accent, and their unkempt red hair. At these remarks, Heracules’ men laughed boisterously. And for this, they paid dearly.

Expunged from the world of Solaris and chased by Celtic starfighters, Heracules and his men sought refuge on the world of Phoenix, where they were welcomed by slightly friendlier natives. Taking this opportunity, Heracules once more fathered many illegitimate children. However, they were forced to leave the world after the natives grew weary of them and ran out of hospitality. As well as wine.

Marooned in space for years, Heracules hatched up a daring scheme – one that his men called stupidly suicidal, but partook in anyway because they had nothing better to do. This was so for the astral gate that led homewards was locked firmly on Solaris' orbit.

So, once more, Heracules went to Solaris. The king was still miffed at him for the rude remarks he made several years ago, and so he was sent to prison. His men, however, were merely confined in their ship. One of the men, Hylas, Heracules’ lover, pleaded with the king for Heracules’ life. The king agreed to spare Heracules from a painful death involving the painful insertion of a trident, but on the condition of Heracules performing and besting Solaris' finest in a series of incredible feats. Hylas agreed, and so did Heracules, despite not knowing anything about the deal.

The first challenge was the throwing of a discus made out of the heaviest of steel, so heavy that only the strongest of men could carry it without killing themselves. The king’s champion threw the discus a hundred yards and laughed at Heracules. Undaunted, Heracules hurled the discus with such force that it went beyond a hundred meters – and through several dozen spectators.

Despite the grisly scene, Heracules bested the champion and the king was true to his word. Heracules was victorious and proceeded to the next challenge, which was bear wrestling. Whereas the champion killed his bear with but a swift and decisive blow, Heracules struggled desperately with his monstrous beast. While the champion laughed, Heracules dodged the attacking bear and threw the champion at it. While the bear devoured the screaming man, Heracules proceeded to land the coup de grace.

The third and final challenge involved songwriting – for the king was fearful of any more unnecessary brutality. Heracules opponent was godly with his bagpipe, bedazzling the audience with a combination of piping and leprechaun-dancing. However, Heracules had mastered the lire under the tutelage of several of Elysium’s finest musicians (who he killed in envy when he could not surpass them). With his heart-rendering composition, the king and the spectators were reduced to a weeping mess. Heracules’ opponent protested at this, but had his bagpipe inserted into his throat by the victorious Heracules.

True to his word, the king released Heracules. As he and his men left Solaris, Heracules gave the king a parting gift. A very large and very intricately carved horse, made out of the finest wood and with the most powerful of hydrotomic warheads inside its hollow interior.

Months later, Heracules returned to Solaris to find its surface a desolated wasteland and its people easily enslaved by his legions.

Because of his awesome display of incredible feats, Heracules invented the Olympiad Games in honor of himself.





- Herodototoles, On The Subjugation of the Solarian People

[Siege]

On the nonexistence of history in the Sovereignty
By Dr. T. Sänger, Dean of the Solaris Institute of Paleo-Histology

... and so it is that we can tell from records surviving on the Twin Cradles of Earth and Nova Terra that the planets in the general vicinity of the Sovereignty were colonized largely by those huddled masses fleeing the oppressions and depradations (perceived or imagined) of the greater human sphere.

In the ensuing decades the settlers on those worlds that would come to form, in time, the core of the Sovereignty, endured hardship after hardship as they struggled to remake their barren planets into something approaching habitability. Ill-equipped and facing critical shortages of water, food, oxygen, power and nearly all other necessities required for survival it is almost certain that large numbers of early settlers perished, alone in the dark and cut off from the rest of humanity by the gulf of space. It should be no surprise then that the few hardy people who survived had little time for documenting their past--let alone their present. Perhaps, as they claimed, they intended to comprehensively chronicle their acts as soon as they had the time to spare, but they never had the time to spare. Weeks became months, months became years, years became decades, decades stretched into centuries and eventually the settlers had forgotten nearly everything about their history.

By the end of the 30th century however the core worlds that would go on to form the Sovereignty had become reasonably well-to-do places. And with the desperate battle for survival won, the people finally began to wonder about their place in the galaxy and, indeed, about their past--only to find that they had none, or at least not one that had been written down. So, with genuine intellectual endeavours to explore the past few and far between, they simply made up their own history. This gave rise to a bewildering collection of outrageous tales, based partially on misremembered historic accounts, and partially on fictional tales and myths. These elements were then blended in such a way as to give birth to a bizarre and eclectic faux-mythological account of the Sovereignty's history--as evidenced by the names of its dime-novel authors, who penned their insane fantasies under such pseudonyms as "Herodototoles" and "Aristoclates" in a vain attempt to garner a thin veneer of historic respectability.

No matter how popular these ridiculous accounts have become amongst the public (helped greatly by their usage as Government propaganda), the fact of the matter is that to this very day there is preciously little known about the actual history of the worlds of the Sovereignty before the First Bragulan War and the subsequent Founding. Archaeological research has been done in some places, and a scattered digital (and some analog) records still survive in some places, but the bigger sociological picture is unfortunately beyond us at this time.

Genetic polling of the population of the Sovereignty suggests that a majority of genetic material is of Nova Terran stock, but a large (>40%) pool of Earth-human DNA is present also, and the splicing and resequencing of DNA material over the centuries has made any more specific traces impossible. This unfortunately makes it very hard to be certain of the pre-history of the Sovereignty. Certain is, however, that no matter how many movies C.J. Motonow makes about the bizarre exploits of Mowglyseus, Heracules and Taryzules, most popular accounts of Sovereignty history are complete fabrications and the work of utter loons.

[Steve]

The Rise of New Anglia

At one time the New Anglian Kingdom was just one of many human states formed as a result of the Great Upheaval and the Diaspora. From the 23rd Century onward the colonies expanded and New Anglia, with its resource wealth and the added blessing of a second natural Earth-like planet in its sector - New Scotland - became the leading polity of the area. Eventually, through the 25th and 26th Centuries, the populations of the Bavarian and New Colombian sectors were integrated into the Kingdom in light of growing conflict with the Thanagarians as well as some low-level conflicts with the most aggressive states of the Dorei. The 29th Century proved the most aggressive, as Thanagar and New Anglia warred over resource systems in the Ionia-Thanagar Sector; even Latium and Ionia became battlegrounds in the Thanagarian Wars. The constant conflict with the winged, humanoid race bred a sort of grudging admiration in the two races for one another, though neither would budge with control of the vital resources of the Ionia Sector at question. Periods of truce inevitably led to further clashes, with the Thanagarian Empire at its height threatening New Anglia itself.

But none were ready for what happened in the 30th Century. From nowhere the Dilgrud, a savage alien race further along the Periphery of known space from New Anglia, arose to challenge all of these races. The Trill fell first, being conquered in 2940, and then the Dorei would succumb after a twenty-five year long war that ended with their subjugation in 2945, resulting in the mass enslavement of both races. Only Thanagar and New Anglia, which were still recovering from their own century of warfare, remained to stand against the Dilgrud. In 2950 the Dilgrud launched what was to be their final war of conquest against their neighbors, overrunning Thanagar's remaining colonies and assaulting the planet itself in a fell swoop. New Anglia, unwilling to stand by and permit the Dilgrud to become so powerful, went to war on behalf of their erstwhile foes.

The First Dilgrud War would last for 14 years. It was a pitiless, savage conflict. The Dilgrud believed in no mercy for their enemies; you surrendered and obeyed their commands or you perished, while the New Anglians were increasingly incensed by the savage atrocities rendered against the Dorei, Trill, and even now the Thanagarians by the Dilgrud - to Anglian sensibilities, the Thangarians, while warlike, had still be an honorable and humane foe, while the Dilgrud slaughtered all that would not be enslaved. The Dilgrud, fresh from their victory over Thanagar, commenced their invasion of Anglian space, attacking Ionia and New Bangladesh in the same sector while also advancing into the worlds of New Wales. Dilgrud raiding attacks, utilizing off-network hyperspace travel, ranged as far as New Anglia itself, where a surprise terror bombing attack on the 18th of August 2950 slaughtered four million New Anglians with the utter atomic destruction of the cities of Prestingham, Norwich, and Clarington on the Southern Continent (planetary defenses managed to prevent the intended attack on New Chatham and Westminster).

The first half decade of the war was a desparate time. The Ionian Worlds fell one by one through 2951 into 2952. Thirty million New Bangladeshi were exterminated by Dilgrud authorities in their attempt to force surrender of the last active Army units on the planet. A fleet battle at Sydney in the New Wales Sector saw twenty major metropolitan cities destroyed by planetary bombardment, with a death toll exceeding one hundred million souls. The Dilgrud fleet was massive and powerful, the Royal Navy struggling to gather itself. King George XIV, a navy admiral before his ascension to the throne, went as far as to recall from Army service his brother Prince George the Duke of York and to name him Regent, heading off to reclaim a command post in the Navy. He would be present at the great Battle of New Wales in 2954 when the Royal Navy finally, at great cost, broke the power of the Emperor's Armada of Dilgrud, inflicting great loss on the Dilgrud through superior tactics. Commanding the fleet from the HMS Churchill, the King was mortally wounded after his battle squadron ended up in the thick of the battle and the Churchill struck dozens of times by Dilgrud fire. George XIV died from his wounds twelve hours after the battle.

His brother, Prince George, took the throne and his brother's regnal name, reigning as George XV. He immediately appointed his elderly grand uncle the Duke of Prestwick as Regent and returned to his Army command. With the victory at New Wales the Dilgrud naval fleet was broken for the moment, but the Ionian worlds and those of the Trill and Dorei remained to be liberated. Through 2955 the New Anglians launched limited counter-attacks, liberating New Bangladesh and Latium but marshalling strength to make a major push elsewhere. On 2 February 2956, the New Anglian fleets arrived not over Thanagar, where the Dilgrud expected them, but over Doreia and Trill. King George XV personally led the Army invasion of Doreia, commanding forces in the Darnis campaign to reclaim the capital of Lushan. While inspecting troops at the front, George XV's position was subjected to a vigorous attack by Dilgrud forces. The official history and numerous eyewitness accounts claim the King personally directed the defense of the position and led the successful counter-attack that broke the enemy assault, during which he was wounded fatally by weapon fire. Some historians have since expressed skepticism of this account, using some of the conflicting eyewitness accounts and some records of the locations of the fighting to argue that George XV was not leading a counterattack but was in a defensive position when struck by enemy fire. Regardless of the truth, the King's death in battle electrified the populace of New Anglia and indeed the wider galaxy. The twelve year old son of King George XV, Prince William Harold, was crowned as King George XVI, and his reign would last through the entirety of the "Dilgrud Wars" period.

The liberations of Doreia and Trill were, at great cost, successful. The Battle of Ji'Doreia in the same sector was another great victory for the Royal Navy of New Anglia, under the command now of Prince William the Duke of Gloucester (uncle to the two slain Kings, grand-uncle to George XVI), and enabled the liberation of the entire sector, with it the colonies of both the Trill and Dorei, by the end of 2957. A Dilgrud naval counterstroke in 2957 resulted in the Battle of Trill, where the Duke of Gloucester's forces again prevailed, opening the way for a resumption of the offensive the following year. In 2958 the liberation of Thanagar commenced, followed immediately by the clearing of the rest of the sector of Dilgrud forces. Another three bloody years passed before all the Dilgrud positions here were rooted out, in fighting that proved exhorbitantly expensive in lives, especially in the Thanagarian population.

At this point eleven years of warfare had left both parties exhausted. But the Dilgrud were unwilling to sue for peace. They spent the rest of 2962 gathering their fleet in strength while indulging in skirmishes with the Royal Navy along the border systems. In 2963, with their fleet having been rebuild in the six years since the Battles of Ji'Doreia and Trill, the Dilgrud tried again, launching a naval armada toward Thanagar.

The Royal Navy would intercept them at Latium; there the massive Battle of Latium was waged, one of the largest naval battles of all time, with hundreds of combatants on each side. For two days the fleets engaged, withdrew, and engaged again, trying to attain a superior position to keep the other from withdrawing when pressed. Finally Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, commanding the war fleet, used a calculated risk to lure the Dilgrud fleet close to one of the moons, making them think they had isolated a contingent of his fleet to destroy and weaken the whole force. The maneuver succeeded; the trap sprung and the Dilgrud fleet was trapped against the moon, battered ferociously by the Royal Navy until their utter destruction. The Dilgrud refused to surrender and not one ship escaped. The might of the Dilgrud fleet had been annihilated, not to threaten New Anglia again for thirty years. With their defeat at Latium, the Dilgrud Emperor finally did what was to his people the unthinkable: he sued for peace. Massive reparations were demanded by the New Anglians and the alien races they had liberated and the Dilgrud, faced with destruction, had no choice but to accept. The First Dilgrud War thus ended by what was called the Hyperspace Treaty, as the Dilgrud refused to agree to a face-to-face negotiation and insisted on negotiations by hypercom.

New Anglia needed peace. The cost of war had been astronomical in currency and lives. Economically the Exchequer was exhausted and the Star Kingdom in debt to banks of the UN and other states. Fourteen years of warfare and the requisite mobilization had distorted the Anglian economy and would leave it spending ten years in recovery, a recovery that proved short-lived due to the disasterous economic policies of the Liberal-Labour Coalition of Prime Minister Sir Stafford Cresting in 2968-2978 which, in their attempt to stimulate the economy through government spending and a rise in taxation, instead deepened the massive debt of the Exchequer and retarded the shift to a peacetime economy.

Though the peace did at least give the economy chance to recover, it also proved bittersweet. The Dilgrud Empire still stood and none of its leaders were brought to a justice that the New Anglian people demanded. The butchery of the war, including the deliberate attacks on civilian targets, had killed five billion Anglians, three quarters of these deaths coming in the worlds directly occupied by the Dilgrud or subjected to prolonged attack by them. The blood price for the Human population of New Anglia was actually the lowest; the Trill, Dorei, and Thanagarians had suffered the worst. Sixteen years of Dilgrud rule had reduced a Trill population of sixteen billion in two major systems to nine and three quarters billion. The Dorei, through their own quarter-century war with the Dilgrud followed by eleven years of subjugation, had gone from a vibrant population of twenty-six billion to just under fifteen billion, including the annihilation of the five billion strong Dorei population of the Astranai System, reduced to a mere five million at war's end. The Thanagarians suffered most of all in terms of proportion; from a population of fourteen billion to a mere four billion, ten billion fatalities due to the sheer brutality of the Dilgrud occupation countered by the relentless Thanagarian resistance. The Thanagarian colony on Drakpa was completely exterminated during the war, and with their planet so greatly depopulated the Thanagarians never really restored themselves there; Drakpa was instead settled by Human colonists and would become Hansom's Planet.

The sheer quantity of deaths and the destruction of so many cities, so many industries, also spelled the end of the independence of the three races. The Anglians were the only intact state that could support them, and none could remain independent with any feasibility. The Thanagarians, who suffered the most, responded the most quickly when, in 2960, the remains of their government proclaimed George XVI to be the Emperor of Thanagar, with all the surviving Thanagarian nations and clans swearing fealty to the Anglian Crown. The Dorei monarchies would gradually, over the course of the time period of 2958 to 2970, swear their fealty to King George XVI, until finally in 2970 the Dorei Federation of Nations' legislature passed a constitutional amendment that dissolved the Council of State and the Presidency-General that once governed them and proclaimed George XVI as "Emperor of the Dorei", granting him the authority to act as Head of State personally or through a Governor-General that would determine the formation of governments. The Dorei Federation later voted to dissolve itself in 2982 by accepting the Imperial Integration Act of 2981 and the different rights and systems for republics and monarchies. The Trill Commonwealth proved the hardest to integrate; though particularly hard-hit, the Trill attempted to re-assert independence, signing only mutual-defense treaties and asssistance agreements with New Anglia for the first thirty years after the war. But with the election of the "Imperial Union" Government in Westminster in the General Election of 2986 and the Sampson Memorandum (named for Foreign Secretary Lord Sampson) the Trill Assembly, realizing that without New Anglia it was helpless against the Dilgrud, sullenly accepted the inevitable, passing a constitutional amendment that paved the way for the Sampson-Kahn Agreement of 2987 by which George XVI, and his eventual heirs, were recognized as "Sovereigns of the Trill Commonwealth" and governing the induction of the Trill into the Empire.

Such were the results of the First Dilgrud War. In total, the war claimed over thirty-three billion lives (only 800 million of them Dilgrud). This sobering fact kindled the anger of all four races; the Dilgrud might have given up their conquests, but they were still intact. Justice had not been done and the Dilgrud may very well return one day to finish the job.

They did.

The Dilgrud Empire did not take defeat kindly. They had never known defeat by aliens before. The very fact they were defeated led to the extirpation of several lines of their nobility who had fielded commanders in the war and the assassination of the Emperor Djakaedan, who signed the Hyperspace Treaty. His son Takrainian claimed the throne afterward and his first thought was on vengeance. The entire Dilgrud Empire focused its efforts upon rebuilding its navy and training new officers to operate it. Some advances in firepower were incorporated and the Dilgrud Empire bankrupted itself importing materials for a maximized warfleet construction done in other states, particularly the Bragulan Empire, as they sought to obscure their buildup from the Anglians - especially as it violated the Hyperspace Treaty. Tau exiles assisted in the design of newer, bigger warships to counter the 'dreadnoughts" that had turned the tide at New Wales, Ji'Doreia, and Latium.

In 2993, the Dilgrud Empire was back in full force. The Emperor's Great Armada numbered one thousand combatants, one of the mightiest fleets to ever be assembled. With this force at his command Takrainian found himself in the perfect position to assault the Anglians, who were still in economic recovery, and on 29 July 2993 the Dilgrud fleet kicked off the Second Dilgrud War.

The Second War was not as bloody as the first in sheer deaths but it did cause rampant bloodshed. From 2993 to 2995 the Dilgrud Fleet and the Anglian Royal Navy fought multiple battles in the Trill-Dorei and Ionian Sectors. Four Battles of Hansom's Planet, Three Battles of Astranai, and even a Battle of New Columbia from a Dilgrud attempt to outflank the Royal Navy and attack its heartland. The naval battles were fast and furious; one fleet would catch the other in an inferior position, shots would be fired, and the inferior side would withdraw to safe distance. The Dilgrud sought to force the Royal Navy to commit to battle by using orbital bombardments, but here the march of technology thwarted Dilgrud strategy: planet-based deflector shields designed by Anglian scientists after the surprise attacks of the last war worked as desired, forcing the Dilgrud to devote hours of energy weapon fire to scour cities as they used to do with casual ease. This complicated the Dilgrud naval strategy; if they took up bombardment formation, they exposed themselves to being attacked successfully by Royal Navy elements, but if they couldn't threaten effective bombardment then they had no way to try and force battle with numerically inferior Royal Navy forces. Planetary invasions were attempted, providing much of the actual civilian bloodshed in the war, but none bore any fruit. With the last occupations in living memory the populations of invaded planets fought to the death rather than surrender.

By 2995 the Dilgrud Empire's Great Armada had gained them nothing but casualties and spiraling costs. It was in the this year of the war that again the Royal Navy humiliated the Dilgrud. Having been rebuilt by five years of construction to full strength, the Grand Fleet set out to give the Dilgrud the decisive battle they wanted, though this time in Dilgrud space. Under the command of Admiral Sir Oliver Crowninshield, the Grand Fleet entered the Maktur System and drew the Great Armada into a massive battle, even larger than the Battle of Latium. For eighteen hours eight hundred Anglian warships and seven hundred Dilgrud vessels clashed. The Dilgrud finally had a chance to test their new Tau "battle barges" against the dreadnoughts of the Anglian Navy. But the Anglians had integrated their new refined energy shield technology into their capital ships, and the leading squadrons proved more resilient to fire through this. Havving battered the Dilgrud fleet down, Crowninshield maneuvered his opposite into a position that placed him in the gravity well of a gas giant of the Maktur system; there the Royal Navy, for the second time in half a century, utterly extirpated a Dilgrud fleet from existance. For his victory, the system of Maktur was named for Admiral Crowninshield, who was also elevated to the peerage and given the title Viscount Crowninshield.

The battle broke the Dilgrud Empire completely. Most estimates show their remnant fleet barely numbered two hundred ships. Their best admirals and officers were now all dead. Even worse, the Anglians were gaining allies; skirmishes had even been had with Byzantine Imperium forces ranging far from home, with the Imperium demanding the Dilgrud exterminate their new Tau population or be subjected to a Crusade by the Imperium. Emperor Takrainian, flustered and broken with his defeats and desperate to preserve himself and not be killed like his father, found the Tau made an acceptable scapegoat. He accused them of betraying the Dilgrud to the Anglians and thus costing the Dilgrud the war; in a twelve hour orgy of bloodletting had their entire exile community on Dilgrudar slaughtered, images of their rotting bodies relayed by hypercom signal to Byzantine Terra.

The Tau didn't go down without a fight, however; their scientists had, as a failsafe, engineered a bio-virus that would soon grow to ravage the population of Dilgrudar, even claiming Emperor Takrainian's life. As he lay dying and sick, Takrainian - without the fear of assassination having weight - agreed to dispatch a team to negotiate with the Anglians.

The terms were harsh. The Dilgrud would have to turn over their entire fleet to New Anglia and deactivate their shipyards. They were to be barred from having more than 100 vessels, the type of which the New Anglians would agree to. New Anglian vessels were to have undisputed access to Dilgrud space and mining colonies in the two sectors of space remaining to the Dilgrud, beyond their own home sector, would be turned over to Anglian control. Takrainian affixed his imperial seal to the treaty, knowing that with the Tau virus ravaging his people they had no hope of resistance, and died two hours later. His nephew Budorian took the throne, then contracted the plague and died four months later, becoming the first of six Emperors to reign shortly and die over the next year. In that single year, the entire Imperial household of Dilgrudar was ravaged by plague (as the Tau had specifically engineered it to target the Dilgrud elite genetically), the result of which meant that the surviving Emperor, a middle-aged man named Jugorian, was four generations removed from Takrainian.

The Peace of 2996, as it was called, did not prove popular in the Anglian Kingdom. Many Anglians believed the time had been ripe to put an end to the Dilgrud, regardless of the Kingdom's economic shape, and the result broke the Imperial Union coalition and led to the downfall of the Government a year after the treaty, when the Parliament gave a vote of no confidence after a relatively minor issue regarding national debt repayments. The 2998 General Election resulted in a hung Parliament and a partial restoration of the Imperium Union party, the Liberal and Conservative Parties forming a government under Lord Sampson that enacted the terms of the treaty. As things went, the Peace of 2996 did more good than harm. It permited New Anglia to avoid further economic damage from a wartime footing and acceptance of the terms opened up the way for great resource infusions from the Dilgrud sectors, as the Dilgrud cultural mentality toward exploiting brute labor as an expression of power had retarded their development of extraction technology that permitted the mining of harder-to-reach but more valuable minerals from asteroids, planetoids, and moons. As the fourth millennium dawned, New Anglia's rise to interstellar power had been assured.

Nevertheless, the bloodshed of the First War and the knowledge that the Dilgrud had started the Second War hoping to conquer had made permanent peace impossible to consider. Anglians of most political stripes believed it a matter of time before the next war broke out. And in 3013, they got their chance. The Dilgrud had, under the treaty, partially rebuilt their fleet for defensive purposes. When a relatively new race, the Ethereans, of an adjoining sector provoked Dilgrud wrath, the Dilgrud Empire dispatched its small defensive fleet to Etherea and subjected it to a one week long bombardment that left the Ethereans on the verge of extinction.

This was all the provocation the Anglians needed. Parliament declared war four days after the bombardment's effects were confirmed and the Government was granted emergency war powers, activating the National Army and sortieing the Royal Navy. Compared to the many and vicious naval battles of the last wars the Third War's naval campaign was anti-climactic. WIth no means of resisting the Royal Navy, the Dilgrud Fleet landed on Dilgrudar while Emperor Hortasnian (Jugorian had died a year before the Etherean Massacre) ordered the people of the colonies to "kill as many xenos as you can as you die", as the English translation goes.

The Third Dilgrud War would be the final all-out war between the two polities, lasting three years. Though the Dilgrud fleet did occasionally sortie, rapidly, to attempt extractions of VIPs or to attempt fairly inconsequential attempts at privateering, the war was primarily one of land forces, as colony world after colony world was invaded and fell to the New Anglians. The Dilgrud populations fought to the bitter end, costing the Anglians millions of casualties; the harsh battles also served to create reputations for some of the newly formed army regiments from the new subject races, the Thangarian regiments especially gaining a reputation for ferocity and bravery. 3015 dawned with the two Dilgrud colonial sectors taken, their populations nearly extinct from their refusal to surrender and their tendency to embark in kamikaze charges against Anglian troops. The home secror of the Dilgrud was already under assault, and on May 8th the first Anglian forces landed on Dilgrudar, backed by the might of the Royal Navy which, for the final time, met the Dilgrud fleet in battle and extirpated it in two hours of firing. Dilgrudar would become a bloodbath, with a population of 6 billion (initially 9 billion, but the Tau plague had taken its toll) willingly attacking and refusing to accept surrender. Emperor Hortasnian died fighting on the battlements of his ancient palace; it was said he died wearing ceremonial armor below his powered armor and took the lives of eight Anglian soldiers before being shot down by the assaulting regiments. Tugaliar, a 100 year old claimant to the throne and adopted brother to the Emperor Djakaedan who started the invasion of the sectors near New Anglia in the first place (he was a biological distant cousin, hence why he did not inherit when Djakaedan's actual descendants were extinguished by the Tau plague), took the throne from a place of exile and did the unthinkable; he surrendered. It wasn't merely a request for peace as his adopted brother and nephew had been forced to perform after the prior wars but a complete, total, and abject surrender to the Star Kingdom of New Anglia. With the force of Imperial decree behind the surrender, the remnant forces stopped. Priests and generals who were stunned by the ancient man's decision, as well as the Anglian generals who had expected a fight to the death, both inquired as to Tugaliar's motives, and his response was always the same: "There is no honor in extinction of our people".

The Dilgrud were now at the complete and utter mercy of the Anglians. Their military was gone. A population of forty-four billion Dilgrud pre-war had become barely twenty million, with all their remnant worlds shattered ecologically by the scorched earth campaigns the Emperor Hortasnian had ordered, campaigns that had starved to death billions of his own people - those who survived bombardment and suicidal charges of Anglian forces - and left the worlds almost uninhabitable.. Their very existance as a race, not to mention a state, was at risk. With the exception of the most extreme and violent of Thanagarians, who promoted xenocide of the entire species, the Anglian Government had no concept of what to do with the defeated race. There was no desire to rule them; they were, in the words of Prime Minister Kelvin, "a savage and beastly species". But there was a definite desire to ensure that never again would the Dilgrud pose a threat to the Kingdom of New Anglia.

In the resulting Peace of Dilgrudar, the Star Kingdom of New Anglia trunucated the Dilgrud holdings. Those handful of surviving Dilgrud in the other two sectors - Maktur and Kortur - were unceremoniously deported from their homes and returned to Dilgrudar, freeing up two sectors of shattered worlds for Anglian colonization. Only Dilgrudar and the colonies of its sector remained under Dilgrud rule. That, as well, was altered. The Dilgrud Empire was ordered dissolved, to be replaced by a "clan federation of the various surviving royal houses. Emperor Tugaliar was permitted to retain his rank and to sit as the Head of State of the Dilgrud Confederation, an act of the Anglians to reward the elderly Dilgrud for accepting the inevitable and acting nobly to save his own race despite their disposition against surrender. Ths new government was bound in perpetuity to New Anglia - a realistic outcome as without New Anglia being their effective suzerains the Dilgrud would inevitably get exterminated by another state or race - and granted permanent trade and economic control to the Westminster Government.

The end of the Dilgrud Wars sparked massive celebrations in the worlds of New Anglia. For the first time in over two centuries peace had finally come to the Kingdom. The wars, for all their bloodshed, had also confirmed for the Kingdom a great deal of power through the gaining of the Trill and Dorei worlds and the end of the long rivalry with Thanagar by that race's admission into the Kingdom. Considering that both the Dorei and the Thanagarians now hailed King George XVI as an Emperor, the seventy-four year-old monarch was formally styled as an Emperor by Joint Act of the Parliaments of the Kingdom, a special and very rare occasion when all of the Parliaments of every system in the Star Kingdom, as well as the Dorei monarchies' legislative bodies, met in a common session that took up the 80,000 seat Hopewell Stadium in New Chatham. King George XVI was in personal attendance to greet the unprecedented "Session of the Parliaments of the Kingdom", in which the Prime Minister personally directed business for the sole vote of the common Parliament that proclaimed the title "Emperor of the Anglian Systems" for their monarch, stating it as a title "befitting the power and grace of the King of New Anglia and the other Systems". The Imperial Proclaimation, as it came to be known, was just part of a massive months-long festival in New Chatham and Westminster that celebrated the end of the war and the elimination of the Dilgrud threat.

Over time there has yet been some issues with the Dilgrud. There have, every two decades or so, been necessary campaigns to put down Dilgrud uprisings or to impose peace where warring Dilgrud clans have threatened the Confederation's stability. These have come to be known as the Suppressions and are generally seen as a burden of Empire, though there are some who believe New Anglia should simply cut off ties with the Dilgrud and let them kill each other, if it comes to that. The sentiment of "the life of one Anglian soldier is not worth a million Dilgrud" has become a common refrain and Governments have been known to suffer difficulty if they allow fatalities from the Suppression Campaigns to get too heavy. There is, however, simply no alternative that the majority of Anglians can stomach. The Dilgrud, as a defeated and crushed foe, are to many Anglians their responsibility. Abandoning the Dilgrud would give no solid gain and might only see their extermination or conquest by another race, or a war with such an interloper to protect existing Anglian interests. With no other options the issue seems to remain as it always has been.

The blow is softened, however, by the sheer fact that over the four and a half centuries since the Dilgrud Wars began, the Star Kingdom of New Anglia has become a great and powerful state amongst the interstellar nations, and that such a destiny might not have been possible without the victories over the Dilgrud. It was the Dilgrud wars, ultimately, that led to the rise of New Anglia, though certainly the prospect of future glory and prosperity for their descendants wouldn't have meant much to the many billions slain by them.

[Force Lord]

All dates use Earth time.

The Centrality

Origins and Dovan's rule:

The Centrality is a child of the Great Upheaval, as many of its inhabitants were refugees from the chaos of the early 23rd century. They settled on a group of inhabitable planets, including the sector now known as The Center. Among those refugees was a young man: Dovan Aybeem. He had lost his entire family during the Upheaval, grew bitter at the chaotic conditions of his time, and came to view democracy, as well as Left and Right-wing ideologies, as the primary cause of the suffering he saw. Convinced that Humanity could only live under an iron fist, to control its "rebellious instincts and disorderly conducts", he began to formulate his political ideas, founding the Centralist Party in 2210.

Dovan believed that the State must be the absolute authority of the land and that the people serve it. The State would mantain order and security at all costs, to the point that excessive force was encouraged, but Dovan recognized that there needed to be limits. In short, the State would use every tool at its disposal in order to retain absolute power, even if it required collaborating with states with opposing ideologies and granting some concessions to the more moderate factions of the Centrality. Dovan also did not believe in intervening in other nation's affairs, thinking that it would risk the Centrality's security by forcing it into a confrontation it couldn't win. He was not above foreign intervertion, but minimized foreign policy as much as possible.

Dovan's rise to power was swift, helped by the populace's despair at the terrible and anarchic conditions they lived in. He ruthlessly destroyed his enemies, purged his party of any opponents to his rule, and gave the people some security. He became very popular and he soon had total control over The Center, and was planning to "restore order" in nearby worlds. The arrival of hyperdrives aided Dovan's efforts in controlling the Centrality, and by 2240 the Centrality was one of the more stable Human states of the period. It was the Centrality's scientists who first discovered the existence of ESPers, through inhumane experiments, and Dovan discovered that he was one. The discovery of ESPers became a tight secret, not revealed until Dovan's death, and Dovan formed a secret corps of trained ESPers to aid in ruling the Centrality. Said group would later become known as "Dovan's Heirs", because virtually every Centralist leader after Dovan came from this group.

The Diaspora furnished many of the early inhabitants of the Centrality, most of them fleeing the chaos of Earth and Nova Terra to find safety in the Centrality. As the 23rd century progressed, however, the Great Upheaval was starting to wind down, and some semblace of order returning to the Homeworlds. Dovan grew increasingly fearful that once the Homeworlds stabilized, the Centrality would be in danger. He also was aware that he was aging, and appointed Fratz Venron, his best student, as his succesor. The Great Upheaval finally ended around 2250, and the Centrality began a firm clampdown on its borders.

Dovan was an old man by this time, increasingly withdrawn from State affairs as age and illness took its toll. He was nevertheless still firm enough in 2281 to purge the Centrality of any opposition to his chosen succesor and to crush a revolt in 2284. He finally died in 2290 and given a grandiose funeral. The Great Founder was dead, but his succesors would continue to develop and expand the Centrality to the form it is now: a totalitarian, seemengly unstoppable state, albeit a rather isolationist one. Dovan is still remembered fondly by the Centralist populace, something official propaganda intends to mantain.

[Coyote]

The Central Alliance


The Central Alliance is not from here. In fact, it was ported in from an alternate dimension for reasons unknown to the rest of the factions gathered.

The Central Alliance comes from a galaxy they know as the Iriesii Galaxy. It's relationship to the Milky Way is unknown, but there is some speculation that what we know as the "Andromeda" Galaxy may be the "Iriesii" Galaxy.

To the outsider, this much will be easily observable: the Central Alliance is a multi-species alliance of primarily humanoid-type life forms, although there are many other life forms in their realm which are not members of the Alliance or are considered periphery members. They appear to be a loose Federation of member worlds and systems, or whole sectors, banded together for trade and defense. In fact, with a little closer inspection, it can be found out that the name "Central Alliance" is an outgrowth of the first statement of agreement among the member worlds, where --for trade and economic reasons-- an "Agreement of Central Binding Authority" was adhered to, uniting various members in a cooperative agreement of trade, exchange rates, stocks, and various other fiscal and commerce policies.

Over time this trade compact became quite wealthy in a Galaxy that was, at the time, still reeling from a long-ago galactic governmental collapse. Merchants became targets for pirates and extortion, and a small patrol force was authorized to enforce trade law. It was made up of smaller system guards and customs forces of various member worlds. Over time, this small patrol force grew larger and larger, and eventually became a full military in its own right, unified and organized and sharing increasingly common equipment to cut costs. It began fighting real wars, eventually, and the Central Alliance saw the benefit of having a "big stick" around to use if needed.

The Central Alliance also felt militarily threatened by a far, far larger and vast empire called the Irrykanoi Republic, and so in response to this the Central Armed Forces have grown in power and influence. Some Alliance members decry this; while others say it is a natural growth of increasingly Federated power to deal with various threats. The debate rages on.

This much can be picked up from Central Alliance newsnets, citizens, and other opinion media available to common people. The Central Alliance is a parliamentary constitutional democratic republic with an increasing trend towards socialism (and some would argue, militarism). They have, technically, a bicameral representation system (a Senate based on one vote per membership, and a Parliament based on population representation) with a "First Governor" (Prime Minister).

The Alliance has basic provisions for Freedom of Expression ("Free Speech") in their constitution.
The Constitution also outlines representation in the Parliament & Senate and taxation issues.
The Constitution allows for the free spread of religion but expressly forbids a "state religion". The Constitution also forbids the practice of any religion that might deny a citizen their freedom to enjoy the rights enumerated anywhere else in the Constitution.
Slavery is forbidden (however there are debates over indentured servitude and "economic slavery conditions" on some corporate-run worlds).
Discrimination is forbidden (with a long list of what sorts of things might constitute "discrimination").
The freedom to own weapons is decided by member polities, and run the gamut form absolutely forbidden to near-universal allowance. There is a sort of general standard being slowly and evenly applied.

That is the stuff an outsider can find with a few hours' simple research on publicly available outlets.

[Kartr_Kana]

A Short History of the Hiigaran Exiles
By Mevath Sagald

It was in the year 2243 during the Great Upheaval that 14 titanic vessels packed full of disenfranchised and disillusioned people set off at 8c to go find a new place to live. Somewhere far from the strife and turmoil that plagued Terra and Nova Terra. Little did these hopefuls realize that for nearly a century and a half those great space arks would be their homes and the homes of their children and it would be there grandchildren who would eventually abandon the steel confines for planet life.

The true irony of our history is that the name our people go by, Hiigarans, is not actually ours, but stems from the boredom(and insanity) that confinement inevitably brings about. It was in the year 2258 and the babies had grown into teens with nothing to do besides clean the sludge out of matter-reclamation tanks and homework. It was down in these matter reclamation tanks that intrepid an intrepid young man by the name of Keenom discovered a handful of weeds growing. Intrigued he preserved them from reprocessing and started an exhaustive data search to try and figure out what they were. It didn't take him long to figure out the extraordinary qualities of the herb, and it took him little longer to start sharing it with his friends.

During these years as people struggled to find ways to entertain themselves and stave off the boredom and insanity they turned increasingly to computer simulations. Some VR programs were utilized daily for anything from cardio workouts to hostile environment training. The largest percentage of simulations utilized were old video-games some as old as the late 20th century. One of these timeless classics was the Homeworld series. Modern historians have attributed it's popularity to the fact that it was about a similar journey to the one our forebears were on. Many of the younger generation felt themselves unfairly forced into the current state of affairs and sympathized with the Kushanii Exiles who'd had the world their civilization was born on completely destroyed. In many of the cliques that formed amongst the young people of the Armada, the adults became increasingly referred to as the Taiidan. The hateful power that forced the Kushanii first into exile and then destroyed their past. This feeling grew stronger through the years and finally culminated in the disastrous April 1st prank of 2252.

Weed as it was simply called had been growing in the “underground” society of the youth for almost 4 years. Grand tournaments of Homeworld strategy gaming sessions, along with lesser games such as Space Rangers, were held in distant and infrequently visited cargo holds. Fueled by weed, “sewage beer” and hormones these parties would rage for several day and night cycles before the participants simply passed out from exhaustion or intoxication. It was during a particularly long tournament in which groups from all 14 ships were participating via FleetNet, that the infamous “Kushanii Freedom Plan” was born. It was during the night cycle of the third straight day and only the most hardcore were still at their Jerry-rigged consoles, when some unknown and almost definitely high person suggested that they strike back at the “Taiidan” in a grand and bold manner. The idea was almost immediately greeted with great enthusiasm and all present devoted their full(albeit drug addled) mental capacity to the problem. Someone happened to notice that according to the old Terran calendar the next morning was going to be April 1st. Deciding that there could be no better time then the present, it merely came down to deciding what to do. A slightly more sober member of the self proclaimed “Kushanii” proffered changing the names of all the great Ark ships to Kushan clan names, and so the Great Prank of 2252 was born.

The intrepid rebels spent the rest of the night (and several bongs worth of weed) carefully hacking into the ships AI cores and right on the “morning” watch change they struck. Bridge monitors fleet-wide went dark, startled oncoming watch-standers and befuddled offgoing watch-standers were left helpless as the entire armada dropped to sub-relativistic velocities, comm circuits filled with static and panicked passengers started to fill the passageways. Their movement impeded by the teeming masses kept the DC teams from being able to isolate and shut down the intrusion physically, while also forcing security to work on maintaining the calm and herding the people back to their quarters without causing a deadly stampede. While the pranksters hadn't planned on any of this, it proved to be exactly what they needed to complete their plan and alter all 14 registries and escape afterwards.

When the monitors and AI cores came back online the frantic crewers scrambled to ensure they had complete control and asses the amount of damage done. Before long the immediate effects of the hacking were discovered as every ship in the fleet boasted names like Kiith Soban, Kiith Sjet and Kiith Manaan. The long term effects wouldn't be noticed for a couple more months and would continue to plague the ships until landfall on their new Homeworld.

Unfortunately for posterity, not only did the hackers change the names of the vessels they destroyed any record of what the original names were, though no one knows if this was on purpose or if it was an un-intended side effect like the innumerable glitches in the AI cores that necessitated frequent stops in order to program patches before FTL could be safely resumed. Between the frequency of stops and the fact that the Heim drives had to be run at half their original speed, the planned 60 year journey stretched to 138 years. The pranksters died before they ever saw the new homeworld. Their legacy lived on however as the “Hiigaran's” grew older and took up the responsibilities of the “Taiidan” they'd once despised. The fact that it proved impossible to reprogram the AI cores led the populace to start calling the ships by their new names in time. It also led to a strange cult that would grow throughout the fleet and eventually work it's way into the beliefs of almost all Hiigarans.

[Grif]

The Star Nation of Argent up to the 30th century
by Prof Bill Ney, Kerwan Annex

The founding of the Federation of Argent, New Malaysia and Dosolia is a convoluted one.

The colony on Argent was initially established by adventurous colonists 22nd century, utilising early models of the Heim drives. The colonists, who were independently funded by a consortium on Earth, was nominally under UN’s authority. However, with the advent of the Great Upheaval, contact was lost with both Earth and Nova Terra, and the colonists were left stranded. Frantic efforts to re-establish contact proved to be futile. It was later found that radio contact was disrupted because of fortuitously timed sunstorm from the Argent’s sun.

The Great Upheaval also indirectly led to the Civil War of Argent of 2223. Colony ships, fleeing from both Earth and Nova Terra, first appeared in Argenti space shortly after contact was lost. At first, the original colonists welcomed the refugees, even giving them land to settle. However, as more and more ships arrived, the refugees look set to outnumber the original colonists and began to chafe under the rule of the colonists. Tensions began to rise as the refugees demanded more and more rights to their lands. After a brief but bloody civil war between the original colonists and the newcomers, the Argenti finally settled on a democratic system based on the British parliamentary system. Bryce Harold, who was instrumental as the peace broker between the two factions, was unanimously appointed as hereditary president, in place of the monarch. (Which also began the uninterrupted Harold family rule as Hereditary Presidents) Argent, finally at peace, began a rapid phase of growth and expansion. Within 100 years after the initial colonisation efforts, Argent established a respectable industrial base and began expanding into their solar system, utilising Heim drives cannibalised from their colony ships.

The first hyperspace ships that arrived from Nova Terra came as a surprise. For too long, the Argenti assumed that both Earth and Nova Terra was lost to war and never bothered to resume contact after the initial panic. (Some historians dispute the notion that everyone on Argent would actually just give up. Some postulate it is far more likely that the Argenti were just hoping to maintain their status as an independent colony and that avoiding contact with Earth was a deliberate decision. )

The Argentines soon acquired the blueprints for hyperdrive and began embarking on their own expansion, rapidly colonising Socus, Kerwan and Ballarat with enthusiasm. Argent at this time was officially referred to as the Star Nation of Argent. In the mid 25th century, the planet Cobalia was discovered by Argentine surveyors. Further survey indicates the system is extremely rich in mineral deposits. The Argent government quickly moved to claim the sector for its own, and started to establish numerous mining colonies to exploit the rich minerals. (It is estimated the revenue from this sector alone was double Argent own home system) Flush with credits, the Argent could afford a better space navy than most other interstellar nation of similar size.

At the end of the 25th century, Argent was contacted by its neighbours, the Dosolia Republic and New Malaysia, for help. (Both which was recently founded). They had been at war with a nearby power, which was ruled by the self-style Space Pirate King Nomund.

Argent negotiated a highly favourable trade treaty (some say, literally extorted) with Dosolia and New Malaysia, and promptly put an end to the amateurish extortion scheme of Nomund. The Argenti Navy went on cut down the Space Pirate King’s prized fleet down to size. The Space Pirate King was said to have wept for forgiveness before being personally tossed out of the airlock by Admiral Monako. The Argentines then proceeded to appropriate the sector as the new addition to the Argent nation. The sector was named the Monako sector in honour of Admiral Monako, for his exemplary leadership of the fledgling Argent navy.

The pacification of the Monako sector coincided with the apperance of Pfhor slavers. Initially the slavers raided outer colonies, which were lightly defended for most part, taking hundreds of people and leaving behind nothing. The now-legendary Admiral Monako himself campaigned against the slavers in several occasion. Nevertheless, despite several crushing victories, Phfor raids continue to plague the outer colonies.

The menace abruptly stopped at around the end of the 30th century. Rumours of a government deal with the slavers spread widely amongst the populace. The Argenti government itself was silent on the matter.

Despite the trouble Argent had with slavers, for the rest of the millennia, Argent was the dominant power in the region with only the Makayan Republic and its allies as a rival. Due to their treaty obligations, Argent was able to expand their influence into both the Dosolia Republic and New Malaysia government, to the extent where it was able to influence government policy in both nations.

[Zor]

Colonization of Nova Atlantis

The first colony on Nova Atlantis was established by the Atlas Interstellar Corporation under the direction of Michelle Walker in the late 23rd century. The planet was developed as a purely commercial venture, which accepted settlers from a broad spectrum of sources on both Nova Terra and old earth, although in particular large numbers of recruits were gathered from North America, Japan, Zoria, Serenity, Langley, Italy, Korea, Britain, Australia and Russia.

Population growth was not unusually fast, but several factors led to an early degree of success. The first of which was that Nova Atlantis proved to be a fairly easy world to settle, naturally habitable, tropical and lush. Secondly, Atlas Interstellar developed a fair bit of orbital infrastructure. Thirdly, on the whole the Nova Atlantean population had with them a rather significant amount of capital, much of which was invested into developing Nova Atlantis. The relationship between the colonists was originally that of ferrymen and simple land development but with the rise of interstellar commerce as hyperdrive became more common, it became more commerce oriented. In exchange for continued assistance in the development of the planet Atlas Interstellar maintained an official monopoly on trade while leaving the settlers to develop their own government and local economy. This nation became the Republic of Nova Atlantis.

Despite the success of the colony, Atlas Intersteller eventually went bankrupt after a series of pirate attacks and bad decisions by its board of directors in 2355. While this did lead to some economic problems through loss of access to markets, it did lead full independence and autonomy for the Republic. Being the most developed world in the sector, the republic set up trade routes while continuing to bring in colonists. The next two centuries would see a recovery and latter growth of Nova Atlantis as a local economic power and a sector-wide alliance was established with the surrounding colonies, but the true face of what was to develop in the heat of war.

The Barbarian Wars

In between 2540 and 2567, a Pirate Warlord by the name of Lord Joel Forester grew in power after seizing control of a damaged Battlecruiser, which he had repaired and modified. With this prize, he managed to rally to his aid various allies and eventually managed to acquire enough resources to seize control of the Colony of New Colombia in 2549. The system was forced into a series of harsh military development projects which pushed the existing infrastructure to its limits, while industrial equipment that Forester bought from foreign sources or plundered was shipped over. The Result was the cultivation of a substantial series of shipyards, a base for raiding activities and with it, the ability to expand his ranks by press ganging locals, his Janissaries (children, mostly orphans which were drafted) and bringing in more renegades to his flag. Over the next sixteen years, an armada of considerable strength was assembled which in 2567 launched an Invasion of New New York and Darwinia, overwhelming their defenses and harnessing them to support his war machine.

The surrounding areas fell quickly; New Colombia had degenerated into an oligarchic state which was not popular when Forester seized control due to a few instances of commerce raiding and Forester actually decreased local piracy significantly by having his forces raid more distant areas while offering bounties to get rid of unaffiliated raiders. There was some buildup of Naval Forces among the local, but there was never enough political pressure to drive major naval expenditures nor did they have the shipyards to build spacecraft at the same rate that New Colombia was forced to do. What was imposed was brutal, with the planet being divided up into fiefdoms under the administration of prominent figures. Whatever items could be found of significant worth were plundered and industry was turned as much as possible to feeding their war machine. Violent criminals were press ganged to serve as cannon fodder for his armies. Retaliation against attempts to rebel was done swiftly and broadly with little regard for finding out what was going on. They referred to themselves as the Great Armada, but to the rest of the universe, this force became known simply as Barbarians.

After a year and a half of combat, Darwinia sector had been over-run by the Barbarians and with this. He then began sending raids out into Yamato, Zhongguo and Speranza sectors and over two more years seized control of four more systems before an alliance composed of the worlds of the Nova Atlantis sector and several allied states in Yamato and Zhongguo got directly involved after a Naval Buildup. Despite this, the first offensives against Barbarian forces were largely unsuccessful due to heavy supply line raiding and problems involving lack of fleet standardization. Forester retaliated by sending out Khan Malik to attack Nova Atlantis Sector in an attempt to disrupt the Alliance and to remove one of his most notable rivals. Malik’s fleet managed to cause some serious damage to the alliance fleet and engaged in terrorist activities, plundering and destroying orbital stations for a few months before it was destroyed after making a desperate attack against Nova Australia.

The next ten years were fought to a stalemate. The Alliance built up its Navy and fought several skirmishes and geared its economy for total war, repulsing several invasions. Over this decade, the formerly separate militaries were unified under one command hierarchy, equipment was standardized and several organizations were created with authority, most notably the Council for Industrial Coordination which restructured the economies of the Alliance as well as other institutions such as the Council for Education and the Alliance Unified Intelligence agency. Then in 2579, three fleets under Admirals Yamahiro, Shields and Minoux led a counter assault. Though the Barbarians put up a considerable fight, the combined industrial strength of Alliance managed to overwhelm them. Despite this, Liberation of the worlds held by the Barbarians involved considerable damaged. Most Notable among them being on the Planet Hephaestus (now New T’au), which had its population decimated in a scorched earth campaign with a Barbarian Fleet Sterilizing the planet. After three years of fighting the last Barbarian world of New New York was taken and forester was killed by a Sniper attack. After this what Barbarian ships that remained fled and went back to piracy.



The War left many planets in ruins, their economies had been run ragged by the demands imposed on them for the war effort and the casual disregard and blatant thuggery for the well being of the people that their pirate overlords. Attempts to drive out the Barbarians resulted in fierce planetary fighting. Even after the capture of a planet armed conflict would go on for some time afterwards as of stranded Barbarian warriors, both Pirate and Janissary going into hiding, often waging guerilla campaigns and engaging in terrorist activities. No Government remained intact among these liberated worlds, with many cities being in ruins and billions dependant on Alliance Occupational forces for basic necessities and basic law enforcement. Barbarian forces were rounded up and processed for Neurological Reprogramming. As such, the Alliance assumed control of the ravaged systems and engaged in a massive series of occupation and reconstruction programs which would go on for several decades.

The war also cultivated among many people of Nova Atlantis Sector a need for unity. Led by figures including Jason Wright, Professor Fong Ziyi, Admiral Wolfgang Shields, Lori Montessori and Alexander East, this movement claimed that political division left themselves vulnerable to attack. As such, the alliance was held in place as pro-unification figures were swept into office, as well as commenting on the increased GDPs of the planets once the Alliance geared itself out of total war in comparison to ante-bellum levels. In 2585, the Treaty of Nova Atlantis was signed and with it was born the Nova Atlantean Commonwealth of Worlds. Over the next four and a half decades, the worlds which had been rebuilt by the Commonwealth one by one.

[Shroom Man 777]

HERACULES: The Legendary Journeys!

It was two millennia ago, during the 2967th of the After Earth, that the renowned storyteller Homaeseop Domedocus discovered the Lost Labours of Heraculus, otherwise known as Heracules – the Savior of Solaris.

These Labours of Heracules, at the time of their discovery, caused much contention amongst the disciples of Herodotoles and Aristocrates. Scholars versed in history were undecided over the veracity of the Labours, for the uncovered narratives clashed with the other accounts of Heracules’ great exploits, narratives known to all in the Sovereignty to be truth.

However, despite the debates of the intellectuals, when the Lost Labours of Heraculus was read at theatres across Solaris and the Nine Vectors, all of the plebeians applauded Domedocus’ uncovered masterpiece. Across the Sovereign stars, the Lost Labours of Heraculus was accepted – and from then on, the Lost Labours became known as:



Heracules’ Labours of Love

So it was that when great Remulus and his beloved Helena sired the Hellenistic peoples of Elysium, the noble lineage of Remulus carried forth throughout the generations – and so, the glory that was once Earth That Was would one day be returned by the flawless Elysium. For after Singularity, when the Mother Gods of Earth That Was banished the Pantheon of Old Gods to slumber in the realm of Eternium, some of the Gods awoke from their unending slumber. The first of these awoken Old Gods was Prometheos, who, in kindness, taught Remulus and the fledgling Hellenists of things such as fire. But not all of the awoken gods would be as benevolent as Prometheos, or as kind.

In the many eons since Remulus, from his noble lineage came forth a daughter – nubile and purest. Her beauty was renowned throughout Elysium, and many men wished for her, but in her purity, she was chaste. Because of this, the men of Elysium grieved, for they thought she would stay untouched forever. They were wrong.

From the gates of Eternium, another of the Old Gods was vomited out. Immediately, he sought out Prometheos and punished him – for the benevolent god dared to insinuate himself amongst mortals. When his thirst for revenge was filled, the Old God then sought to slake his lust – for he was none other than Zeupiter, the father whose discharges were lightning and emissions thunder! He came for the daughter of Remulus.

The daughter of Remulus, no longer chaste, no longer purest, gave birth to a son – and she named him Heracules.


[This account is oft disputed in the annals of historians, for in the other true account of Heracules, the Old Gods only came out of their slumber during the Twilight, the end of the Golden Age and the First Era – where they threw Heracules into the Tenth Vector of the Known and Unknown Universe]


Homaseop’s incomplete but true account of Heracules’ Labours then speaks of the time after his vanquishment of the Space Hydra, but long before his conquest of Solaris, where young Heracules first became renowned amongst the people of Elysium as not only a great adventurer, but as a leader of men also. It was during the time when Jasonesius and the Astrogonauts quested to vanquish the Gorgonzolas and retrieve the Fleece of Life, which was wrapped around the genitals of the Caledonian Chimeraboar, that Heracules and his new-found love, Hylas decided to aid the adventurers – for they too wished to explore the universe.

They ventured forth through the gates, and the Labours accounts paralleled that of the story of the Astrogonauts. As in the tale of the Astrogonauts, it is said that when they were upon the world of Orleans, nubile Hylas was snatched away by space nymphs. In much grief and sorrow, Heracules mourned the passing of his love and threw himself off the Argo – Jasonesius’ ship. But the Labours continued Heracules’ tale from there, telling of how he fell upon the defiled jungles of Orleans. As the Astrogonauts left him for dead and continued their hunt for the Gorgonzolas and their pet Chimeraboar, Heracules searched across the mangroves and black lagoons for his beloved Hylas, defeating all manner of swamp creatures and monstrosities – wrestling all of them down in the mud.

It is said that as he did so, wading through the mud, he tore off his vestments in grief and cried for Hylas – and upon the sight of his unclothedness, the space nymphs who snatched Hylas away were tempted at Heracules’ manly beauty. They approached him, and in rage he tried to slay them. But seeing as he could not, he wept and bemoaned the loss of his one true love. The space nymphs, upon seeing this, were moved with pity and so they comforted Heracules and bedded him – and after this, they had no choice but to tell Heracules of the fate of young Hylas.

They told him that the otherwise-polite tree folk of Orleans sought to copulate with Hylas in all forms of ungodly manners, and at this news Heracules was horrified. In rage he ran through the swamps and leapt over the trees and rivers, until he came upon the habitations of the tree-folk. There, he saw them rubbing their filthy bark and branches against Hylas, who was sore and lacerated. At this grotesque sight, Heracules uttered a mighty scream and destroyed the tree-folk. Then he rescued Hylas, and he comforted the weeping Hylas.

The Argo returned and the pair were taken back by Jasonesius, but not after encapsulating Orleans in flame.

Upon his return home, Heracules’ tale shocked the people of Elysium. And in accordance with his and Hylas’ wishes, Elysium outlawed trees.



This proclamation did not last long, and soon lumber once more sprouted from the fertile plains of Elysium. The Labours then move on to tell of the time after Heracules’ conquered Solaris – but before his epic battle at Themiscyra. It is said that as he presided over the Olympiad Games of Heraculaneum, which was set upon the mighty arena which was built on the great crater caused by Heracules’ parting gift to the then-king of Solaris, he stood upon a gigantic podium of marble fashioned upon his own resplendent image. And as the Celtic lumberjacks competed against the foreign Metallian athletes in feats of hurling iron lumber, he saw Hylas being stolen away by his most foul foes – fiends from Krydonialopolis, mercenaries under the command of Dianea of Themiscyra. As the naked Hylas struggled against his oppressors, gouging their eyeballs and kicking their shins, he screamed for his love – but they gagged him and took him away.

Rageful Heracules then ran off after Hylas, paying no heed to the games the people of Solaris played in honor of his devastation of their world. As the Krydonialopolians flew off in their boat, he gave chase as he commandeered a Celtic starfighter – painted in plaid.

Through the gates he pursued them, performing great feats of astronautic combat against those who sought to impede his way. It did not take long for him to reach his destination: Krydonialopolis.

Discovering that the ship landed upon the world’s mightiest palace, Heracules demanded an audience with the master of the realm. But his blasphemous words offended the inhabitants, and so they apprehended him – kicking him in the face for good measure. Heracules was not deterred however, for he enjoyed the blows to his face – for his apprehenders broke their foots in kicking his perfect form, whose musculature was expertly sculpted like the grand statues that orbited Elysium.

The limping apprehenders then brought Heracules to the throne of the world-master, and upon the foot of the throne, he saw Hylas – bruised and clad in tattered robes, wet with emissions. But before Heracules could comfort the weeping Hylas or scream in rage at the atrocities done to him, he was aghast at the obscene sight he beheld above the world-throne. For above the world-throne was a sight like none other: a cocoon!

And as if noticing his glare, the cocoon began pulsating and radiating an evil glow. And then it hatched, and as the foul entity from within emerged, its entrance was heralded by the blowing of trumpets.

Before Heracules stood his greatest foe, resplendent with a chest as equally muscled and as equally oiled as his own. With the body of a man-giant and a head of a beast. The Great Arch-Moose of Krydonialopolis.


[It is said that the Great Arch-Moose of Krydonialopolis was Heracules half-brother, for the mighty god Zeupiter bedded another woman after the daughter of Remulus. This time, the woman resisted – and in rage, Zeupiter bedded her not as a man, but as a foul beast. The veracity of this account is doubted by some, however]


At the foul sight before him, Heracules cried out a rageful scream and attacked the Great Arch-Moose of Krydonialopolis. But the Great Arch-Moose of Krydonialopolis was as equally endowed as mighty Heracules, and withstood his pummeling. Blow was traded for blow, and both mighty man and beast struggled amidst the world-throne of Krydonialopolis. It was a titanic battle that leveled the entire palace, but despite this, both fought on for a month of mortal combat.

It was then, at Krydonialopolis’ solar equinox, that the Great Arch-Moose of Krydonialopolis gained the upper hand. For with the coming of the solar equinox, the Great Arch-Moose of Krydonialopolis gained strength unlike any other. And at Heracules, the Great Arch-Moose of Krydonialopolis hurled magycks at him! As the Great Arch-Moose of Krydonialopolis threw magycks at Heracules, Elysium’s first son cried in futile pain as he was subdued and felled with much thrashing and screaming. At this, the Great Arch-Moose of Krydonialopolis laughed, chuckled and cackled.

Resplendent in his victory, the Great Arch-Moose of Krydonialopolis turned to Hylas – eager to molest the nubile lad with his filthy paws and gnarled hooves.

Hylas could only shriek in horror as the Great Arch-Moose of Krydonialopolis began insinuating itself against him.

But from the rubble came forth Heracules, rageful with uncontestable and immeasurable anger. And as the Great Arch-Moose of Krydonialopolis turned to once-more throw magycks at his foe, he too shrieked in womanly fear, for in rage Heracules threw the sky at him.


- Homaesop the Profound, On Heracules’ Labours of Love



[This is how the incomplete tales of Heracules’ Labours of Love ends. Though there are some disputations with the other chronicles of the exploits of Solaris' first son, it is accepted that the sum of these accounted events are in fact truthful]

[To this day, the denizens of Krydonialopolis worship the Great Arch-Moose of Krydonialopolis. To spite them, much of the Sovereignty Nautikon’s mighty Gladius ships have murals of Heracules standing atop the felled Great Arch-Moose of Krydonialopolis, preparing to crush the Great Arch-Moose of Krydonialopolis with the sky]

[Shroom Man 777]

Paleohistologies of the Estella Real de España and the Feelipeens

Long ago after the Diaspora came to an end, after humanity so carelessly flung itself into the nine vectors of the universe, the pilgrims who settled Nueva Cordoba literally found itself alone amongst the stars.

In fact, the post-Diaspora inhabitants of Nueva Cordoba could not even see anything beyond their system. This was because of a dark nebula that enveloped their worlds, obscuring the rest of the galaxy from the eyes of the ancient Cordobans.

And so, as they slowly built their proud civilization, over the centuries the Cordobans eventually set their sights towards the blackness of the heavens.

Immediately after they regained the technology of spaceflight, they set out to colonize the worlds surrounding Cordoba. But none dared to venture beyond the sixth planet at the edges of their system, which to their primitive minds was not merely the very edge of the universe, but of all reality itself.

Some believed that absolute nothingness, the end of existence, lay beyond in the blackness. Others thought that in the depths beyond known space lurked incomprehensible beings - angels and demons, gods and monsters. The more optimistic thought that beyond the edge of space was some kind of divine paradise beyond mortal understanding, while more rational minds believed that countless other worlds just like theirs were waiting to be populated.

Archaeohistorians, theopedians and cosmographers believed in the lattermost theory. Unknown to most Cordobans was the existence of a derelict spaceship buried in the crust of their own world, in its far continent. They ascertained that the ship crashed eons before their time, and carried within it a people who significantly influenced the indigenous primitives who were their ancestors. Radicals even believed that this ancient ship was an ark of heaven that brought their forefathers to Cordoba after the deluge that drowned the universe in shadow and night.

With this secret knowledge, the archeo-pseudoscientists and paleotheologists of Cordoba pushed forth an expedition that would travel beyond the reaches of the known universe, to pierce the edge of reality, to bravely venture forth into either certain death or immeasurable discovery.

A grand galleon, whose name has been lost through the annals of antiquity, was built for this grandest excursion. And leading them was the brave Astrocartographer Magelleon.

The ship was equipped with hyperdrive harvested from the fossilized ark of heaven, but then the Cordobans believed it to be a void-engine carved out of pre-Cambrian rock by the gods themselves. Thus with this arcane machine did Magelleon bravely and blindly set sail to the great unknown.

Ten years later, Magelleon reached the furthest point of his expedition, a far-flung system that had twin worlds and a great many moons 'round a gargantuan gaseous stormplanet. He named it Fillipian, after King Fillip of Cordoba. And as the Cordoban void-galleon landed, Magelleon was greeted by natives - human natives. He befriended them and had his theopedians convert them to the Cordoban faith. The trinkets, spices and miracle medicines he gave them greatly helped win their hearts, and soon, Magelleon and his men were considered by the natives as their blood brother.

They landed on the moonworld Sebuu that spun round the gaseous stormplanet, for they were desperate for fuel. The kind chieftain of the moonworld suggested visiting Sebuu's neighbor moon Macta'an, which was overlooked by Magelleon. On that neighbor moon was the black gold they so sought and there were tribes there too, the chief proclaimed, and he suggested that Magelleon meet those tribesmen.

Magelleon visited Macta'an and was welcomed by the chief of its tribes, Lapu-pu, to a ritual. Magelleon was fascinated and ecstatic, giddy with excitement, for he believed that this ritual was a communion that would make him a blood brother with chief Lapu-pu. There in front of both the Cordoban explorers and the moon-natives, Magelleon and Lapu-pu held each other as the ceremony commenced. However, the chief was a savage and as the ritual reached its climax, he shrieked a savage shriek and bit Magelleon's face off, using his teeth to peel Magelleon's visage from his skull in one violent motion, killing him instantly. The rest of Magelleon's retinue were flayed alive by the savage natives as the ritual continued, forcing those who stayed in the ship to interrupt the ceremony and wipe the savages out with hydrotomic cannons from orbit, just to be sure.

Leaderless, Magelleon's ship lingered on Sebuu for two more years, religionizing Sebuu's friendlier natives while harvesting the now-lifeless Macta'an's reservoirs of black gold.

Nearly thirty years after sailing from Cordoba's docks, the expedition ship returned home. They went through another route, lacking the astrographics of Magelleon, and discovered several more systems on the way. The worlds were inhabitable, but the men feared Magelleon's fate, and so kept a respectful distance.

Their return to Cordoba was met with much fanfare, and they were all lauded as heroes. Magelleon was immortalized, and because of the significance of his journey and discoveries, his tale became one of the most well-recorded prehistorical accounts to this day, surviving intact despite the date of its occurrence being long-forgotten and the parchment it was written on long-since fossilized.

Because of Magelleon's voyage, the centuries after his death saw thousands of succeeding expeditions - both of discovery and conquest. Sebuu was amongst the many off-system world to be colonized, and with the interbreeding between the Cordobans and the Sebuuanos came the ancestors of today's Feelipeeni People.

It could be said that Magelleon's legacy, countless millennia after his death, is still felt very strongly in the galaxy. It was his discovery that directly led to the age of Conquista, and thus Magelleon's exploits allowed the Españan People to come into being. Without it, the Estella Real de España would have never come to existence.



- Excrept from 'Discoveries: Pioneers of Note'


[The Estella Real de España conquered the Feelipeens and stayed there for three hundred and thirty three years, before the Españan-Shepistanimerican War that led to the liberation of the Feelipeens.]

[Later, the centuries-long wars against the French Empire and the Star Kingdom of Anglia saw a large portion of the Estella Real divided into portions absorbed by the French Empire as Hispania. Today, the Estella Real is but a fraction of its former size, a shadow of its past glory, composed of minuscule world-states such as Cordoba and Iberia.]

[Shroom Man 777]

The Further Paleohistologies of the Estella Real de España

La Conquista

After the return of the expedition ship and the discovery of Magelleon’s death under the hands of the savages, the people of Nueva Cordoba were both elated and grieved. Elated by the return of the intrepid excursionists, but grieved by the death of the greatest explorer of all time, Magelleon – who not only led the great excursion but also single-handedly mapped much of Cordoba’s system. But news of planets, entire systems, existing beyond in nearby stars of unknowable number filled the people of Cordoba with a sense of hope, excitement and adventure.

Thus, by Royal edict of the King and his theopedians, more expedition ships were sent to the Fillipian system. The savages of Sebuu’s moon Macta'an were purged while the aborigines on the world itself were spared and many merely enslaved in plantations due to the hospitality they showed to Magelleon. After Sebuu and the Fillipian worlds were settled and firmly under Cordoba’s control, more ships were dispatched.

This time, when entire fleets of discoverers and conquerors voyaged through the Magellanic Clouds and across nearby stars, would be known as La Conquista.

And one of the greatest conquerors during La Conquista was Cristobal Cortez. Though many records of the La Conquista were lost in antiquity, the accounts of Cristobal Cortez’ legendary exploits remain intact, if albeit exaggerated. His slaughter of the indios, like Magelleon’s discoveries, is still told to this day.

Amongst the most popular of these tales is his conquest of Bojol’s third moon, called Netupiya by the indios native to it.

Leading a fleet of five war galleons, crewed by men more carefully chosen than the disciples of the Salvador Niñyo, Cortez decided to send three missionaries to meet the indios of Netupiya.

The missionaries who set foot on the moon were wary, for they did not want to meet the same fate as Magelleon did under the hands of treacherous savages. They entered the village of the indios, but were met with little notice. They tried to have an audience with the tribal chief, but none listened to them. The missionaries could speak many tongues, but every attempt at dialogue was met with much confusion, for the natives replied by repeating only one word: “Dootah!”

On and on the natives only said “Dootah!” and “Dootah-dootah!" and "Dootah-dootah-dootah!” until the seventh day. During the seventh day, the weary missionaries bore witness to a spectacle, a ritual so gruesome and foul that none of the missionaries could bear describing it to Cortez upon their return.

During this repulsive celebration, the missionaries decided to flee. But on their way out of the village they were attacked by savages intent on roasting them alive and eating their hearts upon the peak of their blasphemous temple. One of the theopedians, the leader, was grievously wounded, but they were able to make it to their longboat. They left the damned moon and met Cortez in his ship, presenting to him one of the filthy indios they captured. Upon interrogation, the caged paleosavage could only say “Dootah!”

The leading missionary spoke with Cortez, and with his dying words he condemned the indios, branding them “diablos”.

Taking this condemnation to heart, Cortez purged Netupiya of all life – bombarding the native villages with his war galleons' hydrotomic cannonry - and established a settlement on its scorched surface, as well as on Bojol itself, which was uninhabited. After the caged savage was keelhauled in space, the missionaries sanctified the new settlements, purifying them of the filth of the indios.

Cortez, with four ships remaining, ventured forth to the surrounding systems and brought them under the rule of the Crown, under King Fillip. In these outlying worlds, the native indios did not provoke Cortez’ fury and were spared, much like the natives of Sebuu. There was only one other world where Cortez met any resistance – and it was one battle that would be remembered through the annals of antiquity. A great chieftain by the name of Montezuma, whose name was also the name of the world Montezuma, challenged Cortez to a duel, where the winner would be declared as ruler of the system. Whereas Montezuma wielded his weapon of obscene paleotechnology, a pseudoclub festooned with flakes of sharpened obsidian, Cortez wielded a weapon that frightened the primitives – a stick that belched fire and death. Montezuma was shot and killed before he could get within ten paces of Cortez. At their chieftain’s defeat, the entire planet was enraged with blind fury and the natives took up arms. The ensuing battle saw three thousand Conquistadores slaughter thirty tri-million Mayztecan archeowarriors riding upon paleosauruses, their armor of bird feathers and weapons of obsidian-festooned wood no match against the steel and cannons of the Conquistadores, whose cavalry charge was led by Cortez himself. All those who survived were ravaged and violated by the victorious. Montezuma’s firstborn son was placed in a cage and sent back to Cordoba as a gift to the King.

After this, it is said that another Mayztecan, a heathen sorcerer named Tzekel-Kan, who acknowledged the might of the Crown and of the Conquistadores, invited Cortez to dine on the long pig. With his retinue of one hundred Conquistadores, Cortez came upon the city of Tzekel-Kan and were the recipients of a spectacle, for Tzekel-Kan’s people believed Cortez to be a returned god. Cortez and his retinue were invited atop a Mayztecan pyramid of unknowable height, and with Tzekel-Kan by their side, they bore witness to a million blood sacrifices – orgies of death all in the name of Cortez. The new god.

At this sight, Cortez was sent into a blind fury, and he decapitated Tzekel-Kan with his sword. As Tzekel-Kan’s head rolled down the steps of the blood-soaked pyramid, the heathen indios, in their pagan bloodlust, began attacking Cortez and his men – for in their blasphemous religion, they sought to rend the reborn god Cortez of his mortal form, thus consecrating him as a true fleshless deity. The crazed warpainted heathens made their way atop the Mayztecan pyramid as Cortez and his men repulsed them for hours, holding the line and taking shelter in the pyramid until the one hundred were reduced to twelve fighting for their lives atop the blasphemous temple. For every steadfast Conquistador slain and eaten alive, he brought hundreds of indios down with him until Cortez and his men were reduced to using their bayonets and swords and sharpened hats. However, when all seemed lost, Cortez’ Flag Galleon came down from the sky to rescue the Conquistadores and destroy the heathen indios for their profanity.

As the Mayztecan metropolis burned, five more galleons came and more Conquistadores riding flying steeds poured down atop the pyramids to slaughter the heathens. More indios came, however, coming from the former provinces of the Montezuma – all led by the dead chieftain’s brothers. Millions of crazed, frenzied and angered Mayztecan savages of a hundred tribes wielding everything from obsidian-festooned paleoclubs to primitive cannons and guns, so many that with their combined fire one of the mighty galleons was reduced to a holed hulk crashing upon the pyramids, exploding and killing most of the Conquistadores and indios in a shower of burning nucleonic fuels. Despite this, the Conquistadores and Mayztecans fought on for days on end – Cortez bravely leading his men on their flying steeds into the fray, against uncountable savage paleowarriors upon obscene paleosaur steeds, led by chieftain brothers of Montezuma. Dried blood caught fire as entire pyramids became buried upon the burnt corpses of men and savages – to this day, the pyramids still stand, covered in the skulls and skeletons of those who fought in that battle.

In the end, the battle was won when Cortez slew all of the tribal warchiefs. The leaderless natives were disarrayed and confused, and after another day of fighting, they surrendered. His mercy bled out, Cortez ordered the pagans all shot, their bodies burned and their families condemned to the plantations.

But some say that before Cortez and his men could go about slaughtering the other indio cities for their proximity to the battle, the ground erupted in a furious volcanoquake. And from the spewing fire, the magma that belched forth from the earth, emerged an emerald monolith that glowed evilly. It was an obscene pyramid of jadeite, powered by the most arcane of heathen paleotechnology. Aand upon the zenith of the profane monument was the reborn Tzekel-Kan, upon his hand was a skull of crystal and from his mouth came forth blasphemous prayers to his heathen gods. The Mayztecan pyramid flew up into the sky as magma consumed many of the landbound Conquistadores and their indio conquests, and as the monolith flew, ancient glyphs of untellable age glowed forth from its spinning exterior. Tzekel-Kan laughed, and proclaimed that he was the returned god, not Cortez.

At this blasphemy to the Salvador Niñyo, Cortez seethed in rage. And on his flying steed of steel, he boarded his Flag Galleon and ordered all his ships to attack Tzekel-Kan. As magma exploded unto the sky, the ships battled the emerald ziggurat for hours – but by the final day’s end, all but one of the galleons were destroyed and Tzekel-Kan laughed at Cortez, mocking him. In desperation, Cortez ordered his Flag Galleon to ram Tzekel-Kan’s jadeite pyramid. The crash was devastating, and as both ship and monument spiraled out of control amidst the heavens, Cortez leapt from his ship’s prow and landed upon the pyramid. With his sword, he made his way to the pyramid’s zenith, intending to bring an end to the madness once and for all.

As the pyramid made its spinning descent, Cortez battled with Tzekel-Kan and his crystal skull, which too was powered by arcane paleotechnology. They dueled until the pyramid landed upon the molten rock and began sinking into the magma, dueled until the sky turned to night. And upon the moon of blood, a miracle predicted by the Mayztecan calendars, Cortez slew Tzekel-Kan for the second and final time, decapitating him. As the evil priest-chief of the Mayztecans of Montezuma fell into the fire, his head rolling down first, Cortez clutched the heathen’s crystal skull and held it into the sky – before dashing it against the molten rock. It was over.

For his bravery and honor in claiming land in the name of the Crown and vanquishing the filthy natives, he was given the rank of Marques and was the governor and captain general of his newly conquered worlds. But this was not enough, and it was not long before Cortez embarked on more expeditions with his men – who he called Conquistadores, for they were conquerors like him. His later expeditions were both of conquest and discovery, for he believed that there were more things hidden amongst the stars in need of slaying.

In his later exploits, he discovered Yuckata'an, homeworld of the Mayztecans of Montezuma. Yuckata'an’s natives were friendly, welcoming Cortez and his men with wide-open arms, for this and because they were without a trace of the blasphemy of Montezuma’s indios, Cortez saw no need for military conquest. Instead, he and his Conquistadores traded with them, amazing the natives with the galleon ships of Cordoba. At Yuckata'an’s largest city, Aoxatlchtitlan, which could be seen from beyond the sky, it was Cortez’ turn to be amazed, for the grand city was unlike any other, so rich in splendor that it became the origin of the legendary City of Gold. It was on Aoxatlchtitlan that the great chiefs of the Yucatan declared Cortez as their new leader and accepted the Crown. For discovering Yuckata'an’s richness, and melting the golden cities into bullion, Cortez was greatly rewarded, and for this, his appointed governors treated the Mayztecans of Yuckata'an justly as well. At least, as justly as heathens deserved. And with the knowledge he gained from the wise star-priests of Yuckata'an, particularly the knowledge of the astral gates, it could be said that Cortez single-handedly ensured the formation of the Estella Real de España through the La Conquista.

In his lifetime and by his hand, uncountable worlds fell under the rule of what would become the Estella Real de España. His conquests and subsequent rule over the natives would immortalize him as a ruthless conqueror, a merciless author of atrocities, but also an honorable ruler – for the natives under his provinces were treated much better than those in the plantation-worlds. Those who would submit to him were treated justly, but those did not were treated without mercy – their villages looted and pillaged, their women made to bear the seed of the Conquistadores' grotesque progeny, and their children sent to the plantations. However, on both submissive populations and rebellious indios, Cortez never failed to let his missionaries convert the filthy heathens and have them renounce their pagan sins by accepting the Salvador Niñyo.

To this day, many in the Españan nobility bear the name Cortez, for his bloodline has continued throughout the millennia. However, many of his descendants are not as virtuous as him, or as merciful…



- Excrept from 'Discoveries: Pioneers of Note'

[Shroom Man 777]

THE DEATH OF HERACULES

Hellenistic History is divided into three sections. The Golden Age, the Silver Age and the Age of Steel – which is the present age.

The Golden Age, which came after the Mother Gods of Earth That Was birthed the world of Elysium, saw the rise of the greatest heroes of history. Names such as the great Remulus, who along with Helena, spawned the Hellenistic peoples of Elysium. There was Odysseiupus, also known as The Man Who Saves The World. There was Achilleus and Agememnoleus, who led the thousand heroes to the walls of Illium against Hectoris and Pariius, in what would become known as the Trojenocide. There was Jasonesius and the Astrogonauts, who quested to vanquish the Gorgonzolas and retrieve the Fleece of Life, which was wrapped around the genitals of the Caledonian Chimeraboar.

And then there was Heracules.

To many, he is regarded as the greatest adventurer of all time and space. To others, most notably those of the worlds of Glasgow and Aberdeen, he is reviled as the most insipid of boors to venture through the Nine Vectors.

And so it was, that at the end of his last greatest Space Odyssey that the Twilight of the Gods came forth and ended the Golden Age, bringing forth the fall of the First Era of Elysium and the Hellenistic Peoples.

After centuries of fighting on Thermopylae along with such heroes as Mermidion and Ajax, after combating the ten-foot tall mercenaries of Amazonia, the war was finally won when a peace accord was signed between Heracules and the Mesomedyalonian king Nebuchadnezzar the Hundred and First. However, Nebuchadnezzar the Hundred and First would not simply lie down and die in humiliation, for he schemed his villainous, villainous plan against the arrogant Heracules. As they signed the peace accord on Mount Vesuvius, Nebuchadnezzar detonated a hundred hydrotomic bombs, The Weapons of Vengeance, inside the mountain, causing a mighty explosion that buried both him and Heracules alive under countless tons of burning rubble.

Thus it was that under the magma pits of Vesuvius, Heracules was trapped along with the corpses of those who fought alongside him and against him. Griefed with incomprehensible despair, he was locked inside the labyrinthine inferno for countless years – subsisting solely upon the carcasses of the fallen. And so it was, that upon the brink of madness, he came across the nubile body of his lover, Hylas – still beautiful in his manliness despite the blazing heat of molten rock, heat that could cook flesh like the beef of lambs. And so, as he mourned the passing of his companion, Heracules screamed words that would echo in eternity, as he began to devour the beautiful body of Hylas: ‘IN DEATH WE WILL ALWAYS BE TOGETHER!’

And as he wept and sobbed the passing of his one true love, he saw Nebuchadnezzar the Hundred and First. In righteous fury, Heracules flung the Mesomedyalonian king into the air, crushing him against the dome of solidified magma that entombed them, thus fracturing it and liberating him from his infernal imprisonment.

Heracules returned to Elysium a broken man, a hollow shell of his former glory – a husk that was once a vassal of untold greatness bestowed by the mythical lineage of Remulus and the Mother Gods themselves. But despite this, his grief, he was welcomed as a hero – for an entire year, there were parades and celebrations that surpassed even the Olympiad Games of Herculaneum. The marble halls of mighty Elysium rejoiced the return of her beloved son with frolicking nubile flowergirls performing orgies with priestesses, and oiled up men grappling each other in feats of unclothed masculine calisthenics. The whole world was drenched in festival as billions of men, women and otherwise performed orgies and gave their bodies to Heracules.

At this sight, Heracules was moved to tears with an elated love for his people, the sons and daughters of glorious Remulus and Elysium. And so, in glorification to his homecoming, in dedication to the peoples of Elysium, in memory of his lover Hylas and in honor to himself and his awesomeness, he sought out to write the greatest epic in the history of the universe.

And so he began penning it with his cultured scribble upon sheets and scrolls and pages of papyrus and exotic silken sheets imported from the Oriental worlds. However, his mind was blocked, for he could not describe the sheer horrors and atrocities of the billions upon billions of people dying in the countless wars he participated in – wars in all likelihood he himself provoked.

Thus, to accurately recapture the fires of Vesuvius and the screams of children that met him in every waking moment, he set Elysium, his beloved Elysium, ablaze in an all consuming fire, immolating the very people who he sought to glorificate with his tale.

And so, as he watched the entire world swallowed by divine fire seemingly brought down by the gods themselves, he played the lyre in the observatorium of his orbital bastion of might, forged in his own image, the Might of Heracules.

But this act of deranged blasphority would not pass unchallenged.

Whilst the flames encroached the burning realm, the Pantheon of Old Gods awoke from their eons of slumber. Led by the mythical father whose discharges was lightning and emission thunder, Zeupiter. And with his peers, Hermercury, Hadepluto, Saturnus, Venuphridite, Maerius, Neptridon and all the others, they set off to bring forth the end of Heracules and commit the final act of comeuppance.

With resplendent might, they flew from the scorched surface of Elysium and piled on top of the maddened Heracules. The war god Maerius himself punched Heracules in the face – and as Heracules was dazed, Zeupiter and the other gods restrained him. With shackles forged by Vulkanus and imbued by the last strands of cosmic power exuding from the gods themselves, Zeupiter tied down Heracules and the fortress carved in his graven image to a massive space rock of ice, binding them with the unbreakable thunder-chains. And the rock was tied to the nucleonic chariot of Hermercury, a chariot carved in the likeness of a winged horse.

In the penultimate act of spite and comeuppance, the gods sent the chariot blazing towards the Tenth Vector of the Known and Unknown Universe – Tartarus.

When Heracules became aware of his predicament, he screamed a scream so loud that across the countless eternities of the Nine Vectors, through the vacuum of the cosmos, all men could hear his indignant rage: ‘THERE CAN BE NO ELYSIUM WITHOUT HERACULES!’

As the nucleonic chariot careened towards Tartarus, propelled faster than light by the might of the gods themselves, Heracules’ death throes sent the godsteed off course – into the negative sun of Opsilon V.

The space chariot entered the blazing corona of Opsilon V, and the noble Heracules – Conquerer of Aberdeen, Vanquisher of the Lions of Themiscyra, Slayer of the Great Arch-Moose of Krydonialopolis, Savior of Elysium, adventurer, warrior, hero and lover – met his demise.

It is said that as the chariot burned into ashes and as he fell into the exploding sun’s heart, Heracules saw amidst the blazing white light the immaculate image of his lover, Hylas, welcoming him in resplendent nudity with wide open arms. And as Heracules faded away into oblivion, he smiled and whispered: ‘In death we will always be together.’





- Herodototoles the Comic, On The End of the Age of Mythology

[Shroom Man 777]

Time for the SPACE ROMANS!


Maximus the Savior of Elysium


The Elysium darkest time came long before the dreaded Crusat of the Connoltian barbarian horde. It was during the early days of the Age of Obscurity, mere centuries after the After Earth. It was at this age that the last of the Sovereignty’s greatest heroes stepped forward to battle evil, the last of Remulus’ noble lineage to come forth and reveal himself.

It was during the dark days of the mad Caligula’s reign of terror. After half a century of benevolent rule from his seat at the Supreme Presidium, discoursing with the counsel of the Senators for decades. It was days after the death of his favorite wife, who was his sister, that he disbanded the Senatorium and had the entire Senate arrested. With the backing of loyal Praetorii, he seized power and announced the Supreme Presidium void, executing his peers and declaring himself Master of the Nine Vectors of the Known and Unknown Universe – Nero Caligula.

His first act was to further subjugate the natives of the systems of Albion, whose culture and people have been intermixing with those of the Hellenists in the centuries since Heracules’ space odyssey. Legionnaires were sent to worlds such as Aberdeen, Glasgow and countless others, ordered to murder those who defied the iron will of Nero Caligula.

But in the years since the massacres of the Albionic worlds, Caligula’s reign of terror extended even to his homeworld Elysium, whose people he swore to protect. Indeed, for through the Praetorii he obtained countless virgin sacrifices for his paganic rituals – and with these sacrifices, he bathed in a massive pool of blood, transmogrifying his visage of beauty into that of titanic gruesomeness.

Through his arcane practices he obtained a power unparalleled, forbidden by the ancient lore of the Mother Gods of Earth That Was themselves. With this, he sought to become a man-god. And with his newfound might, those with the power to oppose his rule were struck down by an untellable fear.

With the countless death rites, even the Praetorii grew distasteful of mad Caligula’s reign. But all feared his unknowable might, for with a slightest whim, unfavored cities were inexplicably set ablaze by evil fire. Countless people were consumed by Vesuvian flames and entombed alive in stygian rock and magma, immolated yet undying, their forms twisting and moaning beneath liquid ground. The realms nearest his deathfortress at the peaks of the Olympic Mons were nigh identical to Dantenius’ account of Hades.



But when all was lost, a hero emerged. A warrior named Maximus, raised by the Highlanders of Aberdeen. He grieved for his wife and son. Grieved for as he was left for dead by the priestesses of Caligula’s death rites, his wife was murdered and his was son taken to the blood pools of Caligula to be sacrificed. Maximus was of the noble lineage of Remulus, descendant of a child born to a nubile princess bedded by the great Heracules. He grieved and swore to avenge his wife and child, his child whose fate he did not know. And with adamantine resolve, he journeyed through the astral gates of the skies of Aberdeen, intending to destroy the monster.

At the other side of the astral gate, he fell from the skies of Elysium and landed on its death-baked surface. He beheld a scene incomprehensible, a desecrated necropolis of people struck down by the mighty Caligula, lesions and leprosy consuming their naked flesh. This sight he could not comprehend, but he saw the cackling priestesses of Caligula – the same ones who took his family from him. They watched the sufferers from their temple as they ravaged each other in the most perverse ways imaginable.

In rage, Maximus went to the temple and struck down all the priestesses with a single blow. Not content with this, with unnatural might, he toppled the pillars of the blasphemed temple, causing it to collapse and bury the creatures he had slain.

On these ruins, he built an altar to the Mother Gods and prayed.

The Praetorii saw his feats and were impressed with his victory over the decadent priestesses, who were imbued with unspeakable powers by Caligula. They went to the praying Maximus and brought him to the Olympic fortress of Caligula. The captain of the Praetorii told Caligula of how the man murdered his harem, of the feats of Maximus, of how people saw and rejoiced.

Angered beyond reason, Caligula summoned the lesion-struck people of the burning city and sought to make an example of Maximus, who was bound in thick chains. But before he could conjure arcane death upon Maximus, Maximus broke the weak chains the Praetorii captain bondaged him with. And, summoning all his righteous rage, Maximus struck Caligula with such force that he was thrown to the sky.

The people cheered, as did the Praetorii, who wetted their skirts in excitement. But Caligula, who was as mighty as the titan gods Remulus had vanquished in defense of Elysium, was not dead. No, it was not over yet. And in an incomprehensibly ancient tongue, spoke arcane encantations and challenged Maximus to a battle worthy of even mighty Heracules.

He swooped down from the skies, fast as Hermercury - messenger of the gods - and with one mighty blow, sent Maximus towards the heavens, just as Maximus did to him. And before Maximus could defend himself, Caligula threw him across the skies and towards the magma oceans of his dominion.

Maximus fell into the ocean of fire, but he did not die. Instead, the souls drowned in the molten rock blessed Maximus and shielded him from the flames – giving him a reprieve in preparation for the final battle.

Maximus emerged unscathed from the Vesuvian lake, and as he emerged, a most miraculous thing happened. The lake of fire turned into water, cool and pure – a sign from the Mother Gods of Earth That Was that Maximus had their blessing. Caligula was only further enraged at this, and so, he came down upon Maximus like lightning hurled by Zeupiter, the god of thunder.

Maximus treaded the sea, his sandals not even wet by the water. Every blow he struck at Caligula parted the waters. And every blow delivered by the maddened Caligula caused the sky to explode. And like this, they fought for untold weeks while the entire peoples of Elysium watched in awe – for only a battle such as this can compare to when Heracules battled the Space Hydra or when Remulus vanquished the First Titans.

They fought on and on until the seas became red from their bleeding wounds, each of their blows sending the sanguinated water spraying into the heavens - making the sky itself weep blood.

On the seventh day, Caligula was driven to even further madness for Maximus had scarred his once-beautiful face and tore away his silver-blue hair. And so, Caligula struck Maximus with all the fury of the titanic gods in his unholy pantheon and hurled him to the apex of his deathfortress, the peak of the Olympic Mons. It was then, when Caligula landed on the zenith to behold his victory, that he met his defeat.

Caligula laughed, for in his malevolent knowledge he discovered the truth of Maximus. He declared the fate of Maximus’ son, who was sacrificed a virgin to his blood pools, of how he squealed when they crucified him. He declared this and struck the final blow.

Maximus, of the bloodline of noble Remulus of Earth That Was, descendant of the great Heracules of Elysium, borne from his mother on the hills of Aberdeen and raised by brave Highlanders, husband to a beloved wife, father to a cherished son. Died.

But the shattered body of Maximus of Aberdeen emerged, his right hand clutching an iron claymore, his left hand grasping a mithril gladius. With divine might endowed by the Mother Gods who bore Remulus and Elysium, Maximus struck down the mad Caligula. Struck him down with uncountable blows, in a speed no eye could register. Each blow shattered Caligula’s titanic form. Each blow so mighty that along with Caligula, the deathfortress was crushed to nothing. Each blow so great that along with Caligula, the Olympic Mons crumbled into dust. In rapidest succession, Caligula and all his unparalleled power was destroyed by Maximus - broken like shards of glass, crumbling into naught but shadows and dust.

And when the final blow was struck, Maximus too expired – disappearing under the harsh sunrise of Elysium’s blue sun.

On the site of the climax of their final battle was a vast expanse of nothing. Flattened to a perfect plain by incomprehensible forces, the Olympic Mons and the deathfortress became the Elysian Fields.



After the demise of the Nero Caligula, the Senatorium was reformed. As was the Supreme Presidium. Taking head of the Presidium with his peers was a Senator named Aurelius, a man who loved Maximus long ago. In honor of Maximus’ noble sacrifice, Aurelius declared Pax Pacificus – where all those under the Sovereignty’s rule became free citizens of Elysium regardless of homeworld.



- Aristocrates the Truthful, On Freedom and Pax Pacificus

[Agent Sorchus]

THE C-C-C combo Wars.

Of the many conflicts that have been waged between the EUC and the Centrality only the first two stand out. The first is outstanding mostly because it was the first, while the second is the most bloody and hard fought war of the RAR zone.

The Origin of the Conflict

Ideology was in favor of an eventual conflict between the EUC and the Centrailty. And we may consider the possible war that would have erupted would have been similar to Korprulu Zone Rules if either side had been prepared for it. Fortune however favored conflict much sooner then the buildup would have needed.

Paul Theodorus had risen to power as the Dictator of the Centrality. His policy was one of open purges of all that he disagreed with, both left and right wing ideologues were targeted. Amidst this harsh new rulers flock many came to resent his rule, some even went so far as to attempt a second Diaspora. Most failed and stayed with in the bounds of the Centrality, but one large group got as far as sector K-7, otherwise know by the Eoghan as Cerulean Sector. They would have gone farther but their hyperdrive needed maintenance and they had found a suitably Earth-like world to inhabit. One must remember that the Eoghan favor worlds distinct enough from humans that they had overlooked the Earth-like planet when 'Terra'-forming Cerulean. The new colonists called their world Shimor.

Those first few years were like so many others for the colonists, but eventually an EUC patrol swung by for a close look, eventually making an offer to join the Commons as citizens. The colonists were tempted, if only to give them an edge versus their fears of the Dictator Theordorus, but found the Eoghan just alien enough that they declined to join while allowing EUC warships to be stationed in their system. This deal was most fortunate for the colonists, for within the year a task force was sent with the Dictators blessings to find them.

The First War 3042, August to October (officially; it was shorter than the dates recognize.)

The task force entered the system with the intent of claiming it in the name of Dovan's Heirs with the entirely reasonable arguement that it was founded by Centrality citizens and was thus of the Centrality. This was despite the EUC's prior claim to the sector and it's planets. The Colonists shortened what would have been fierce political battle by renouncing their status as Centrality citizens and accepting the Commons proposition. This lead the rather fanatical and ideologically pure task force commander into a rage.


Eoghan Carriers during the First War, evading a Centrality patrol. These ships are almost exactly the same externally to Modern Eoghan Super Cariers.

Thus the task force assembled in preparation of a punitive bombardment of the planet. The Commodore hotly claimed "... this ne'er-do wells will burn for being the koala loving treasonous bastard lot they are." Fortunately (for the colonists) the Eoghan Admiral on station placed a screen of ships between the planet and the Centrist task force. Not one to back down the Commodore gave the orders for weapons free, fire at will. A brawl opened up in high orbit, with the initial steps going to the Centrality until a pair of Eoghan carriers let their brawn be known. The Commodore payed for opening hostilities without checking to see if his opposition was in a position of power.

War was declared by the Centrality, Paul Theodorus was an interventionist, one of the few who have risen to power as one of Dovan's successors. He favored war, and while the Eoghan rulers were willing to go to war they had at first thought that this had been an isolated incident and they could work with that understanding.

Few things stand out in the chaotic opening of the war. Despite the willingness to leap to war there wasn't much of a plan of attack versus the Eoghan. Battleships did lumber across the gap into Eoghan space where they played merry games trying to root out the defending carriers. For a brief time Shimor was retaken, but the covering fleet was out thought and moved out of position and a group of EUC cruisers scared off the invasion support.

Eoghan Fleet Command finally realized that the thing that was truly worrying wasn't the fleet of ships that the Centrality sent, it was the fact that Theodorus was willing to go to war when there were easier ways out of this conflict. Theodorus had just named one of the Battleships that was about to be commissioned after himself when Eoghan high command drafted Operation By his Own (trust me it is more poetic in native Eoghan). The operation launched Immediately, with almost 30 heavy frigates and a like number of light little gunships to it's name. The Centrality had scoffed at the gunships and had only barely tried to hunt them when the battleships crossed over. Now though the little gunships split off from the stealthy frigates, confusing the efforts to hunt the raiding frigates by having too similar a hyperdrive signal. All 30 frigates made it to their target in time. A reserve fleet opposed them, but was out numbered and tied down to the Docks that were about to unleash the Theodorus and had the Secretary General, a patsy of Theodorus, onboard. The raiders successfully crippled the fleet, scuttled the Theodorus and killed the Secretary General.


The raid in progress.

Paul Theodorus lost to much in that raid, and was threatened by the Party Council. The Council promptly put forth a new Secretary General who moved to end the war. Theodorus stepped down for his appointed successor to take his place, his student and disciple Philon Tate. He retained his role as Dictator and President for the next fifteen years, despite leaving the job of ruling to Philon. He is suspected to have deid at Philon's orders, but there has never been any evidence, indeed it is almost as likely that the EUC ordered his death.

The Second War 3079-3081

The Central Party didn't forgive the EUC for the indignity of killing a member of the Supreme Congress, and as pride goes so does vengeance. The second war was struck with no opening spark, only the well oiled toil of the machines as they brought the fleets to readiness. It was destined to last 3 years as fleet after fleet clashed in support of the continued invasions by the Centrality. The Eoghan fleet never was able to raid as deep or as successfully as the prior war, but in several cases were able to force Centrality Fleets back and invasions into retreats by hitting supply ships. The first two years saw gain as the Centrality fleet held in tightly controlled battle-plans versus ill fated counters. Neither Fleet could hit the center of their economic base, so battleships were spent like water.


Eoghan battleships preparing to Attack a Centrality Fleet.

Eventually in the second year in an effort to end shipping from the colonies to EUC shipyards orders were given to strike at every ship that was suspected in carrying supplies. A whole convoy of the neutral Nova Atlantean Commonwealth ships were gunned down by a Battleship which was acting as the flag for Philon Tate's favorite Admiral. According to witnesses from that time the outrage in the Commonwealth could have been cut like steak. War was declared almost instantly and relief surged into the fighting. The Commonwealth hadn't been keeping up with the arms race, and despite the relief they were cautious with their fleet until production could pick up. None the less it was helpful for the EUC.

Philon Tate realized that he no longer could spare the men for the Invasions. Thus planets and civilians no longer counted as collateral, but as targets.

By the beginning of the third year Outrage had peaked on Earth and Nova Terra. In response internal factions of the Central Party had revolted and were staging an internal coup. It has been joked that the battles fought between those that now protested the war and the secret police were more vicious than the actually fighting on Shimor. Eventually a sniper decided the war, finding Phillon and his successor traveling together. What weapon was used is a mystery but both men died and the chief of the secret police bowed to the antiwar faction. Suing for peace the Anti-War Faction feed the Interventionists and others that were trying to be obstructionist to the 'koalas'.

[Shroom Man 777]

Modern Elysian Military History:

THE BATTLESHIP HERACULES

The greatest war vessel of the Nautikon, the flagship of the combined powers of the Elysian Cosmic Host, the epicenter of all of Elysium’s culminated strength of sovereignty and military masculinity; its name is simply Heracules. And for all who know of the legends, that name is enough.

It is a battleship of immense proportions, a great marble dagger that resplendent in its sheer enormity, and clad in its adorned hull of Heraculaneum armour. It is armed with devastating weaponry whose outpourings can violate the most impregnable and penetrate worlds impenetrable. It has served Elysium honourably, nay, heroically, for centuries. Its great nautical feats and battles are the stuff of legend and each of the millions who has served within its mighty mithril hulls and marble halls are considered worthiest spacemen.

Admirals and commanders, lords and kings, masters of entire navies, space fleets and even empires have looked upon the Heracules’ visage in jealous envy, impotently angered at the miniscule size of their own flaccid vessels when thrust against the sheer paling enormity of the Heracules.

Kilomiles upon kilomiles of Heraculaneum and marble, festooned with hundreds upon hundreds of mighty weapons capable of pouring obscenities upon killy obscenity, and adorned with carved murals of the great heroes of old, armor inscribed with ancient songs and stories, and with a hull decorated with the great statue of Heracules himself – high and mighty and upright in his uncovered masculinity as he vanquishes the tiny Moose of Krydonialopolis.

The flagship Heracules is not a mere warship. It is an icon. It is a hero of space. It is legend.

And this is but one of its greatest stories:



It was a time of darkness, amongst the many in Elysium’s noble history. Once more, enemies banged at the gates of the empire’s doors. Once more did monsters threaten the descendants of Helena and their peoples. But this time, the age of heroes was at an end and the grand lineage of Remulus was gone. No lone man could stand against the tide of the Connoltian Onslaught.

A thousand Gladii warships and Triremes ablaze as the Connoltian Fists of War and Doomfrigates carved their way into the heart of Elysium. And with the barbarians came their allies, their androgynous cohorts and the Oriental mercenaries of Shan-Yu, and the cannibalistic Morlocks from the sunless black. But these were not the worst foes. The worst were those whose names are still sung in the epics of old conquests, in magnificent tales such as the Trojenocide, the sons of Achilleus himself – fallen heroes, forsaken sons of Hera, the traitorous Myrmidons!

The Nautikon was valiant in its defense, as was the rest of the Elysian Cosmic Host, but the foul Myrmidons led the barbarians through Elysian space with their treacherous knowledge of the territories. They, the Myrmidons, knew that to emasculate the martial prowess of Elysium’s stalwart defenders and to bolster their own resources, they had to conquer the forge-world Metallia.

Whilst the Connoltian fleets battled the Nautikon elsewhere, the Myrmidons would strike the world Metallia, now bereft of defenders.

Their black ships came.

But unbeknownst to the foul Myrmidons, there was but one valiant defender of the forge-world, the last relic of an age bygone. On the docks of Metallia’s Iron Moon, with its already potent weaponry endowed with the latest in Elysian lassiters and space lances, was the flagship Heracules.

Before the Heracules could launch from the Iron Moon, the Myrmidons were already upon the Metallians. The lions of Achilleus set foot upon the rust-encrusted canyons of the forge-world and began combating the hordes of defenders – Metallian Gaunts and lumbering inbred Metallian miners led by the insane Queen Asphixia XIX and the fierce General Rock Stronggo. The battle for Metallia would be a vicious one, and from then on would the Myrmidons learn to despise the Metallians.

But as Myrmidon and Metallian slew one another on that rust-red world, beyond its skies waged a battle titanic in proportion. The Myrmidon black ships swarmed the slumbering giant, ballistae and pillium blasting the marble Heraculaneum hull of the docked Heracules. The mighty ship was helpless, still docked and its weapons newly installed. But the captain of the vessel, whose name was Gnaeus Arruntus Servilivius Salinator, would not allow a glorious vessel such as the flagship Heracules to meet such an ignoble fate. No, for in seething anger, he ordered the Heracules to destroy its own moorings and repulse its treacherous attackers!

From the blasted surface of the Iron Moon came the endowed might of Heracules, and from its lethal orifices poured forth barrages upon barrages of ballistae, lances and deadly lassiter. Against the defences of the Heracules, now raised for combat, the black ships were impotent and flaccid.

As its attackers were destroyed by its undeniable might, the Heracules emerged proudly amidst the shattered remains of black ships scattered across the orbit of the Iron Moon. Surveying his victory in their destruction, Gnaeus Arruntus Servilivus Salinator then plotted his next course of action – to the forge-world Metallia, to battle the rest of the Myrmidon armada.

The Heracules advanced then, one ship against so many. In that moment did the flagship resemble its great and legendary namesake, dauntlessly charging gloriously into the heat of combat. As it came forth, the Heracules was met by a wall of light poured by the many hundred black ships that beset it. Energies unimaginable pounded against the pseudofields and metawalls of the Heracules, a barrage of hydrotomics, thermotomics and nucleonics that blinded even the suns. But as the light subsided, the unscarred visage of the mighty flagship came forth undaunted. The Heracules was not slowed, and it was ready to do battle. Within seconds, the Heracules struck the Myrmidon armada. The mighty hull of the Heracules, so immense, crushed countless smaller ships, and the weapons dealt with the rest – each blast, each blow, each astral strike creating brilliant yet short-lived stars that lit the heavens themselves.

The Myrmidons reeled as the Heracules vanquished black ship after black ship, there was no stopping such giant with their impotent ships. So, like the warriors of old did, they did what must be done. They called a champion.

And from the depths came forth a vessel of immense enormity that equaled that of the flagship Heracules in resplendency and deadliness. The flagship Heracules met its match that glorious day. It met the Achilleus.

Equal, matched. But the Achilleus had one advantage the Heracules did not – for by the side of the Achilleus was its loyal escort, the Patroclus.

So, it was with great surprise to all combatants that with a flash of hyperspace came a single loyal ship to aid the lone Heracules. For coming at full speed from the other end of the universe was the Heracules’ escort vessel, the Hylas.

And so it was that at the Battle for the Forge-World Metallia did the greatest warrior-ships of all time engage one another. On one side, resplendent in its recent victory, was the mighty Heracules. On the other, still unscarred and ready, was the fierce Achilleus. Encircling both combatants were the loyal escorts Hylas and Patroclus.

Then, it was so, that as the captain Gnaeus Arruntus Servilivius Salinator stared eye to eye with the commander of the Achilleus, a moment of silent comprehension slowly came to pass. Afterwards, there was only violence.

A deafening noise filled the black emptiness of space, the primordial roar of weaponry, destructive power comprehensible only to a great Titanomachy such as this. Both ships, with their endowed weaponries and immense arsenals made a glorious outpouring of death, enough raw power to raze worlds. In this fight, there were no maneuvers, for both vessels stood erect and traded blow for world-shattering blow without flinching.

Some say the exchange lasted for an hour, others at the battle say that it lasted for a day – but nonetheless, such violence had to pause when the weapons of both the Heracules and Achilleus overheated and threatened to boil their mountings. As the violence subsided, both ships stood intact, unfazed. The entirety of the Myrmidon fleet stood still to watch the epic battle, even the Metallians planetside gazed with their macroscopes, transfixed at the battling giants.

The Achilleus was unscathed, for prior to the battle, it was rested and had prepared itself for the duel.

The Heracules, however, had waged war against the entirety of the Myrmidon armada – its pseudofields were used and metawalls had resisted beatings. The Achilleus’ great blows had struck through the defences and dealt the flagship Heracules’ a great damage.

A great damage indeed, for on the top of the hull was once a great statue of Heracules himself – high and mighty and upright in his uncovered masculinity as he vanquished the tiny Moose of Krydonialopolis. The statue of Heracules’, in unclothed manhood, was struck down in great sacrilege.

At this atrocity, the captain Gnaeus Arruntus Servilivius Salinator screamed in rage and tore off his vestments for all to see and hear. Then, in vengeance, the Heracules drew forth upon the offending Achilleus with startling speed, so fast that the crews of the Myrmidon flagship did not know what had happened. The Heracules, in a great nautical feat to be remembered forever, struck the Achilleus with its own hull – crashing into it at speeds near-light.

It did not end at that, however. For the Heracules, with its crackling pseudofields and flickering metawalls, engaged its force-claws to grapple with the Achilleus – grapple and lock on as both mighty vessels of unprecedented size hurtled wildly off into space, careening away.

As the Heracules wrestled the Achilleus, it began pouring forth with its lassiters and ballistae, and the Achilleus reciprocated. Then, in an even obscener feat, the crews of both ships then out got to the hulls and began hurling pillium at one another.

In womanly fear, the Achilleus attempted with its immense thrusters to cease the deadly spiral of both titanic warships, to disengage in a most cowardly fashion – but the Heracules refused, straddling the Achilleus with further anchors and then using its engine to continue the violent spin that sent them careening wildly.

At this madness, both the Hylas and Patroclus attempted to follow the hurtling giants – but they could not hope to catch up and so watched in futility.

Then, so it was, that the captain Gnaeus Arruntus Servilivius Salinator and the flagship Heracules performed the greatest feat in nautical combat, a feat worthy of the flagship’s legendary namesake. For as both warships tumbled in the blackness of space, the Heracules released its anchors and force-locks on the Achilleus. And then, with one mighty blow where all its ballistae and lassiters poured forth everything, the Heracules threw the Achilleus into the closest celestial body – Metallia’s sun.

The Achilleus tumbled forth to the sun, and as it did so, it fired its weapons in vain at the victorious Heracules. Then, to the dismay of the Myrmidons and the escort Patroclus, the defeated Achilleus was consumed by the fiery Metallian sun. It was so, that later on the burnt hulk of the Achilleus would come forth from the other side, scorched and lifeless. But as the Achilleus fell to its death did the Patroclus, its loyal escort ship, follow suit and plunge itself into the sun, into certain doom.

With this great feat were the foul Myrmidons vanquished. And upon their glorious victory, the captain and crew of the flagship Heracules set sail for Elysium victoriously – feasting on and sacrificing black bulls and virgin calves on their way to glory.

[Tanasinn]

A Brief History of the Humanist Union

Birth of a State
The Humanist Union was founded as the Interstellar Cooperative Republic. A state formed during the late 22nd century on the tail-end of the Great Upheaval, the intial settlers consisted of various wealthy individuals and families, along with numerous professional individuals and common workers. Their journey to the "galactic north" ended with planetfall on the garden world of Elysion, a healthy, earth-like world that easily provided for its new arrivals. The advent of hyperspace technology saw arrivals at that world and others swell dramatically, and an interplanetary cooperative centered around Elysion was formalized as a presidential republic in the early 24th century. The ICR, more informally called the "Elysion Republic," continued to grow at a healthy rate; Elysion served as a critical breadbasket for the state, and various colony worlds raked in significant mineral wealth during the so-called Golden Centuries (mid-24th - 30th).

Descent into Plutocracy
With fantastic growth came fantastic corruption; the republic was a hastily-formed organization in its early days, achieved largely to formalize defense and trade. As the centuries wore on, the state became heavily controlled by corporate and even criminal interests, a genuine plutocracy in the minds of many. With the wealth gap growing to ridiculous degrees, calls for reform became increasingly strident - and violent - throughout the 31st and 33rd centuries. The catastrophic collapse of the republic's economy in the late 33rd century is listed by most historians as being the true death date of the republic, whereafter the authority of the government in the minds of entire worlds decreased steadily. An election held after the executive branch of government was dismissed in 3295 was intensely controversial among the citizens of the republic, with reports of voter fraud constant. The winner, Senator Gerald Harrison of Elysion, was a well-known figure not only for his remarkable personal wealth (his family having founded one of the most influential space ship firms in the republic), but for his cozy relations to various corporate interests and his theme of "a call to order." The citizenry of the republic was outraged, believing that the election had openly been rigged in favor of a politician widely-held as being in favor of brutal crackdowns throughout the republic. The twilight of the republic was upon it.

The Last President
While President Harrison is remembered in the Union today as an anti-human sociopath and corporatist parasite, a less charged review of his tenure shows him to be somewhat less than his legend. Harrison first attempted peaceful resolution of ongoing social strife. His suggestion that a recount be held was rendered useless when his only viable rival, the Socialist Party's Catherine Yale, was murdered in a suicide bombing. A sickly man even in his youth, Harrison's ability to exert control over his government steadily failed alongside his physical and mental health. Government attempts to assert authority became increasingly brutal, culminating in reports of assassination and torture that have yet to be confirmed. Harrison himself grew embittered paranoid at the people who turned against him, becoming the rubber stamp for amoral corporate interests that the people had feared him to be from the start. His increasing isolation led him to the belief that violence was the only means of keeping the nation from tearing itself apart.

The Birth of the New Humanist Progressive Party
An offshoot of the republic's ancient Socialist Party, the New Humanist Progressive Party traces its roots back to the early 33rd century. The republic's increasing corruption led to the steady rot of the military, with high officers being increasingly alienated to the lower ranks. Many of them weren't "real" soldiers at all, but influential men and women tied to various wealthy state interests. As the military faced very real problems with demoralization, equipment failure, and corruption, the lower ranks and officer corps grew increasingly disillusioned. The Socialist Party, at the time heavily infiltrated by agents of other parties and quiet weak, was largely seen as a farce. It came to pass that Captain Vladimir Vasilyev Kuznetsov, a retired naval captain, divorced himself form the Socialist Party to found a new party - the New Humanist Progressive Party. Captain Kuznetsov was drawn by his studies and family link to Marxism-Leninism, particularly its advocation of a vanguard party to bring about change on behalf of the people. Kuznetsov himself was notionally a socialist, but his new ideology would also explicitly advocate reward based on merit; the ideology's main flaw, as he saw it, was keeping the vanguard party pure of encroaching corruption. In this interest, he became heavily involved in the concept of the posthuman: perfected humanity, humanity that could not be corrupted; it would be the party's job to bring posthumanism first to itself, then to the state, then to all of humanity. Kuznetsov's support in the military steadily grew - he had an excellent reputation among his men and colleagues, and they in turn continued to spread his ideology even after his death; it is a commonly-held but unverified belief that he was murdered for his revolutionary ideology. New humanism would remain a nascent movement until the rise of President Harrison, spreading but making no meaningful attempts at siezing power, legitimate or otherwise.

The Man Who Said No
In the time leading up to President Harrison's election, New humanism spread rapidly through the ranks of the military, particularly among the army, who were among the most debased and neglected branches of the armed forces; it became known to the police and civilian populace at large, but the party itself remained overwhelmingly military and most - even notional adherents - preached cooperation with the socialists. This all changed in 3300. The fifth year of Harrison's presidency had seen rioting grow to such absurd degrees that the military was regularly in use to keep control - if not in general, at least over wealthy and government districts. The tenth of February 3300 saw incredibly intense riots in the capital city of Elysion itself, largely over issues of food scarcity and power rationing in the most brutal winter the city had seen in 50 years. A reserve infantry unit - the 25th Elysion Guard - was deployed to intersect a riot marching on a wealthy housing district. When the crowd refused to disperse even after warning shots, the commander - Nathan Smithson - panicked and ordered that the troops fire upon the encroaching civilian mob. A man, unidentified to this day, can be heard in recordings of the incident repeatedly yelling "sir, no sir." Smithson, an inexperienced commander, personally shot the soldier for his insubordination. What followed was total chaos: many of the demoralized guardsmen simply threw down their weapons; others broke and fled. The majority rallied against the commander; he was cut down in a hail of gunfire as the reservists joined the mob. News spread across the planet like wildfire, and soon Elysion was engulfed in civil war; the hammer-and-fist symbol of new humanism features prominently in video footage of revolting troops. President Harrison and other federal personnel fled to orbit.

Nascent Revolution
While Elysion was quickly siezed back from the revolutionaries, the damage had already been done; news footage spread throughout the civilian and military populace of the republic, and similar uprisings occurred throughout the entire nation. Elysion itself threatened to break into open street fighting at any moment. A panicked President Harrison called on the military to use all force at its disposal to keep the union from dissolving. The upper ranks interpreted this as an order to engage in a military-grade crackdown, and gave their orders accordingly. These orders were initially followed, but as the civilian on military and even military on military engagements became increasingly brutal, refusals and open mutiny became increasingly common. Considered particulary significant was the 3302 incident between the ICS Lightbringer, a cruiser, the ICS Mikhail Lebedev, a battlecruiser. The Lebedev, head of a task force deployed to the world of New Britain, ordered that the fleet engage in bombardment of the capital city of New London, which had been siezed by revolutionary forces and the government murdered. The ICS Lightbringer not only refused, but fired on the Lebedev at "point blank" range, sundering the bridge and killing Admiral Jorgensen. The Lightbringer did not survive its treachery, being destroyed by loyalist ships even as it attempted to flee. However, this engagement helped formalize the revolution, with organized mutinies occurring across the navy and ships jumping for the outer reaches of the nation to consolidate their forces. The badly-shaken republican navy, meanwhile, withdrew to the core to reorganize, rearm, and purge dissidents.

Republicans and Progressives
The year or 3303 was mostly quiet, as each side gathered its forces and cleaned out dissidents in preparation of organized hostilities. On the side of the established government were the upper ranks of the military, the wealthy core worlds, and most of the state's economic juggernauts - broadly, those that supported the legitimate state were referred to as Republicans. On the opposite side was a coalition of movements - syndicalists, socialists, revolutionary republicans, and new humanists. While most of their upper-ranked brass came from mid-ranked new humanist officers from coreward worlds, the great mass of the revolutionaries were far more diverse. Not agreeing to march under the banner of new humanism, the revolutionaries were branded the Progressives. While the Progressives lacked economic power, military might, and in-built organization, they had considerable advantages. Huge swathes of the state's military were disloyal, if not openly revolutionary, and the upper ranks of the revolution had formal experience in coordinating masses of individuals. Neither party proved willing to negotiate with or submit to the other, and so it came to pass in 3304 that the first fateful engagement between Republican and Progressives occurred.

Battle of New Britain
The Progressives chose to strike the first blow - a naval raid on New Britain, which had been devastated by the ICR's ground and space forces. The goal of the raid was twofold: to destroy the republic's nerve center on the planet in a precision strike, and to deliver aid through orbital deployment. It was expected that the planet, which stood on the edge of open revolution, would declare against the Republic, hopefully starting a cascade among similarly-treated worlds. Republican infiltration of the Progressives led to them getting word on the raid briefly before it occurred. Unable to rally appropriate military forces in time, they chose to disguise partially-built and civilian ships in orbit over New Britain as armed vessels, intending to break Progressive morale and shatter the movement's tenuous solidarity. Indeed, the plan almost succeeded - prominent socialist, newly-promoted Admiral Ulysses Kale, panicked on the sight of so many ships and ordered an immediate retreat. The course of the war was arguably changed entirely when his executive officer, a new humanist ideologue named Roland Stein, relieved his commander of duty. When the ranked officer refused to surrender the helm, Stein shot him, thereafter taking command of the Progressive force and leading them to victory over New Britain, who did indeed change allegiences, setting off similar movements in Republican space. The first - and arguably most important - blow of the formal civil war had been struck.

Revolutionary War
The conflict formally begun over New Britain was to drag on from the year of 3304 to late 3320. What had started out in riots and protests for social change had become genuine open war; both parties would ultimately resort to tactics of terror and mass murder against the opposite side's strongholds, each attempting (and failing) to break the other's morale. The Republican forces, which had begun the conflict with the clear advantage, steadily fell apart with each passing year. Commerce with the outside galaxy, which had once fed the furnace of the nation's economy, failed; few were willing to risk trade in a war zone with a state that was increasingly looking on the verge of collapse. Popular movements on "loyal" worlds ravaged the government's base further; the syndicalists and their urban brigades are particularly infamous, even today. Mutinies in the military sapped the state's strength further - the nation had neglected the common soldier's welfare before, and now could not afford to give it attention. Some commanders changed sides merely due to the risk of assassination they felt they faced from their subordinates. The Third Battle of Elysion turned out to be one of the most anti-climactic of the war, with Republican forces breaking and fleeing before the ragged Progressive fleet within a few salvos exchanged. The civilian authority refused to surrender, but found almost no resources to draw on to oppose the Progressive invasion: millions of revolutionary soldiers marched through the planet's streets unopposed, handing out aid and searching for particularly infamous Republican figures. The raid on the Federal Building was one of the most violent engagements, with the building's guards dying to a man. President Harrison, close to death's door and more than half-mad, was recovered from the building's ten-kilometer bunker and arrested. The Interstellar Cooperative Republic had ceased to exist. It was November 15th, 3320.

The Cooperative Coalition of Planets
The Progressive victory had come at tremendous cost: billions dead, the nation's infastructure ruined, millions fated to starve in the coming hard years. The military had been smashed to pieces, and almost all of the military officers who had made the revolution possible had perished at one point or another in the 16 or so years of open warfare. One of few figures left was Commodore Roland Stein, the so-called Hero of New Britain. After his execution of Admiral Kale, Stein's career was drastically slowed. His exceptional performance in that battle and others made him something of a celebrity, especially among new humanist factions, which precluded him being sidelined entirely. Stein took this in stride, building his reputation and celebrity among the people the Progressives took under their wing as higher-ranked Progressives spent themselves in the flames of war. When it came time to select a ruling council for the new Cooperative Coalition of Planets, Stein was easily able to ride a wave of celebrity and military success to be appointed Coordinator in 3321. It was position he would never surrender. What followed Stein's ascension was a purge of the Progressive ranks: officers and government officials that had cooperated only to avoid being overthrown or assassinated were imprisoned, dismissed, or executed. President Harrison was executed by a citizen chosen in a national lottery; the event was televised. Factions within the Progressive movement who rabble-roused against the ruling council were dissolved one by one. The visage of Stein became a familiar one as he promised citizens of the CCP recovery, rebuilding, and a fair government. In the famous 3322 address by the CCP's ruling council, Stein gave the so-called "Father Speech," in which he famously said, "What people need is not a politician - the time for mere politicians has come and gone. What the people need is a father, one who not only stands for their interests, but loves them. Let me be your father, and I will do all in my power to guide the people of the CCP into an age where the government does not murder those it swore to protect." Stein's three fellow council members, save the socialist Vice Admiral Anya Paterson, lacked his ability to rally the people, and found their power rapidly diminishing. The assassination of Paterson by Republican terrorists in 3325 not only left Stein the singular face of government in the Union, but led to further purges that not only rooted out old order sympathizers, but many influential republicans, syndicalists, and socialists.

Attempted Assassination; a Permanent Coordinator
By 3328, the power of the ruling council was concentrated almost entirely in Stein's hands. He had easily been reelected to the position of Coordinator following Paterson's assassination in 3325: not only had Paterson been his only credible rival, but his believed-romantic relationship with her had garnered remarkable sympathy from the state's voters in these troubled times. With elections approaching, Coordinator Stein put forth a bold proposal: the ruling council system was clearly not serving the people fast enough or properly. He proposed that it be dissolved and replaced with a single leadership position, elected by the people, and removable at any time. With his bold offer to step down immediately in favor of his new system, the proposal was not only accepted but saw him reelected to the position of Coordinator again. The coming years were hard for the CCP: syndicalist, socialist, and revolutionary republican factions agitated against new humanists, feeling that Stein was intentionally minimizing their power in favor of the increasingly popular new humanist movement. What followed were assassinations, murders, and incidents of voter fraud, all of which Coordinator Stein attempted to stomp out wherever they arose and whoever was to blame. The leadup to the 3332 election showed that Stein was likely to win again, if only for lack of charismatic opponents. In fear of a permanent new humanist dictatorship, a coalition of opposition powers attempted to have Stein killed on November 15, 3331, a date chosen specifically to arouse revolutionary feelings in the people. The move backfired: the assassins were captured, tortured for information, and executed. Stein had the heads of the plot tried and imprisoned, later to be executed. The events were painted as an attempted coup by minority powers. Gambling on his charisma once again, Stein asked the people of the CCP for change, proposing himself as a permanent Coordinator until such a time that he was voted out or resigned, so that he might better track down insurgents and rebuild the starving state. Amazingly, the move succeeded.

The Humanist Union
With his authority legitimized by the people, Stein and his loyalists moved quickly, demonizing opposing political factions while promoting his own. Various individuals were arrested or removed from office, with citations of Republican or insurgent intent being made. In 3334, the State Legislature was dissolved and an election was held; it was overwhelmingly new humanist. Coordinator Stein declared a permanent legislature, to which existing members would elect replacements and all of whom would be carefully examined for signs of corruption, murderous intent, or plutocratic disease. By this way, Stein claimed to be fighting what had corrupted the ICR: gilded vipers being elected to represent human beings. On November 15th, 3334, a senator from New Britain proposed that the Cooperative Coalition of Planets be renamed the Humanist Union (for its humanist ideals rather than the rising New Humanist Progressive Party), casting off the last rags of the uncertain days that had followed the revolution. The motion was approved overwhelmingly, and the new state was born.

Reconstruction
The years following 3334 would see Coordinator Stein and the New Humanist Progressive Party tighten their hold over the government. The legislature effectively became an organ of the party, while Coordinator Stein went from an elected official to the sate's singular autocrat. Though the promised socialist support systems had indeed been put into place and were being refined, the next 20 years would come to be known as The Lean Times. Stein's government could not afford sentimentality in a galaxy filled with marauders, and rebuilding efforts, food, and governmental attention were focused on those worlds which contributed and worked with the most zeal towards rebuilding the nation. While this alienated some planets, especially less-wealthy ones, it helped bring core worlds truly into the fold, and was generally regarded as necessary. Rebuilding the military was a central focus of Stein's government, largely to deal with dwindling Republican remnants, most of whom had turned to piracy. Many millions joined the military for the direct route it promised to merit, and thus, reward. By 3354, the infastructure, economy, and military had recovered to such a degree that the government was able to launch the Paternalist Campaign, through which the reaches and impovrished masses were supplied with a more robust leg up. The taxes this incurred tried sorely the loyalty of the state's new elite, but they ultimately cooperated, a testament to the state's indoctrination and omnipresent monopoly on force of arms. Following the teachings of Kuznetsov, the government turned its interest fully to developing posthuman cybernetic and gene modification technologies.

Stability
The Humanist Union of 3400 is a prosperous, if still growing state. Coordinator Stein's rule has proven reliable, with him living up to his promise of keeping a watchful eye for corruption. The result of this is not only a cult of personality, but a general trust for the government. The relatively free "lesser" governments of the Union, as elected bodies, address most of the citizenry's needs in ways that a rigid party-led state might fail. Individual citizens enjoy a variety of rights, including speech, religion, and assembly. While Unionists generally regard foreign states as unstable, untrustworthy plutocracies or bloodthristy, corrupt autocracies, heavy government efforts to curb international elitism have improved previously-frozen relations and stimulated trade. After its long night and hard childhood, the Union can ill afford to neglect foreign relations entirely, particulary if it intends to adhere to the expansionist ideals of new humanism and survive the interests of predatory alien powers.

[doom3607]

A Brief History of the Locrian Collective

The Locrians are an odd race, in great part due to their dormancy. However, they seem to have planeed ahead, in case aliens came to their worlds, and they left this playing in an endless loop, around all their worlds. Note: time is measured in rotations around the gas giant their homeworld orbits. One orbit correlates to ~1/10 Terran Standard Years.

If you are hearing this, you are not like us. This is simple fact. We have explored far across the sea of stars, and have found no signs of our form of intelligent life, in all our time of searching. Indeed, we have found no other starfarers at all, and we will not interupt the solitude of what few intelligent races we have found, for who knows what glorious future may never be if we do? We left you to your own devices then, but you hear us now.

We are an old, old race, older than you can imagine. We have been starfarers for almost three thousand rotations of our world around the gas giant upon the making of this recording, and this device detects that a further 172,984.37 rotations have occured since that time. We have entered this state because we are alone, and fear that we may go mad from the isolation before any starfarers arise to give us company. So we go to sleep, letting the near-unconcious parts of our mind continue to control the drones, to slowly expand our race, and improve our worlds. We will awaken, when the time is right.

Our history is also long, so we will try to keep it short, for your benefit.

Our oldest knowledge of our history began almost five hundred thousand rotations ago, when the first true hive mind was born. Gradually, ever so gradually, hive minds expanded, and multiplied, for it was a survival trait. About a hundred thousand rotations ago, we began to use simple tools, and hive minds began to eradicate one another, to grow, and prosper. Soon we worked out the secrets of bronze, and later iron, and we entered a technological race for supremacy, rushing ahead as fast as we could just to maintain our places.

Eventually we discovered energy-mass equivalence, and hives burned. When the dust settled, only twenty of us remained. We decided then that never again could the horrors of war be visited upon the people of Locri, our home, and it was decided to begin sending near-light probes to the nearest stars, using large mass drivers in orbit. Soon we found four other worlds, and sent one of us to each, to become the Mind of the World. The worlds were called Kelaana, Dhuuras, Tchnaala, and D'huvees, the names of the hives sent there.

In not to much longer we discovered star drives, and began to explore at speeds far in excess of that of light. This was the period when we searched for our equals, out among the stars, and found the stars wanting. We found fifteen more worlds, one for each of the other hives, and sent them to each, naming each world for the hive who dwelt there. As I alone remained on the homeworld, and the rest shared the names of their worlds, it was decided that I too should share the name of the world- Locri.

Eventually we came to the conclusion that we would slowly go mad before other intelligent life arose, but we had an answer. And thus, traveller of the stars, the state you find us in. Leave our worlds in peace, to find stars of your own, to forge your own destiny, out among the great sea of stars. If you are hearing this, then it seems likely we will soon awake, and join you, in peace.

The co-ordinates of our homeworld are included in this message, shortly after this, in the form of a simple diagram. It has been corrected for proper motion, and will be accurate. This has been provided so you could observe the rotation, and acquire our timescale. Goodbye, traveller, and we wish you luck with your voyages among the stars.