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Jedrek

Chronicler of the Light
61 Badges
Aug 21, 2006
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A short foreword

A few technical notes before we begin: I'll be playing version 2.02 beta, with Apocalypse, Utopia, Leviathans and Synthetic Dawn DLCs. A number of mods is also active (I am one of those who get withdrawal symptoms if they try to return to vanilla game) - if anyone's interested, I can provide a list as well.

I am not giving this campaign any fixed goals or objectives - I am not the type of player who gets a lot of fun from chasing preset objectives or following scenarios prepared in advance. What I am, however, is a player who loves roleplaying his civilization - so expect this AAR to lean a lot towards this side.

Anyway, let's begin!

Table of Contents:
 
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I
The Pomorets Civilization

The birth of Pomorets civilization is shrouded with mystery. Only one thing is certain - their biology, distinct to all other fauna of their home planet, means that their ancestors arrived from outside their 'native' planet's atmosphere. Numerous expeditions have been conducted in search for whatever remains of the ship that brought the Pomorets to the place they now call their homeworld - but no solid proof has ever been obtained. Dreams of learning their past had to give way to more practical issues - and those were aplenty.


Covered with vast, seemingly bottomless oceans, the planet of Baikal offers little in terms of dry land for bipedal, humanoid mammals to thrive on. Instead, the Pomorets had to rely on technology to sustain their existence. Some habitats, carved deep into few insular cliffs durable enough to withstand the storms and typhoons ravaging across the planet, dated from times immemorial; others, braving the waves in their infinite, aimless voyage, were gradually constructed and expanded to house the growing population.

Harsh climate and weather conditions shaped the Pomorets civilization in a very distinct way; each habitat had to act as a self sufficient, separate settlement, with independent power source, food supply and life support systems. Maintaining them with limited manpower required a great deal of discipline to be maintained - which in turn lead to development of specialized work units, organized in a strict hierarchy. This again proved itself very beneficial when defending settlements against renegade groups of dissidents who decided raiding and piracy were a better way to survive the hostile conditions of their home planet. Discipline, efficiency and by-the-book mentality became engraved in Pomorets society - becoming one feature they were to be known of.

As their mastery of the waves grew, contact between individual settlements became more and more frequent. Some created alliances and federations. Some waged wars for resources and influence. All those events, however, converged at one point - when most habitats and settlements accepted a single, unified government overseeing them. Thus was born the Union - or, in Pomorets' language, Vyaz'. And it wouldn't take long for the unified civilization, with its combined resources and wealth, to reach for the stars.


The sailors of Baikal have taken their first step into the new, dark sea that was the void beyond their world...
 
Once they sailed the seas - now they begin a different voyage
 
@stnylan - that was exactly my idea when I created this race :D

Anyway, time for 2nd episode... Hopefully 3rd and further will come more regularly ^^'

Also, a bit of a shameless plug - the AAR also gets posted on my blog, where I also post various nerdy things - manga/anime recommendations, Kerbal Space Program AAR and stuff. The blog is pretty much in its infancy, but feel free to drop in from time to time and have a look :)
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II
Explorers and Soldiers

Despite its hierarchical and structured character, Baikalan society put great emphasis on equality; as long as a person could pull his or her weight and serve at least a single tour of duty in the military, a road to promotion and even the highest governmental posts was open. To facilitate promotion and encourage versatility, most functions - from individual habitats' governors to central Union command - were kept elective.

02.PNG

At the time of "Emergence", as Baikalan historians later called the era of first expeditions outside their solar system, the Union was led by Athena Kozlov. A charismatic and innovative officer, she rose to prominence in the years immediately before the Emergence, as the head of Pomorets' deep sea research division. Kozlov's vision of interstellar Baikalan presence was one of curiosity and reason. Each distant star contained a piece of the puzzle that was the Universe - and it was Pomorets' destiny to combine all those pieces into a coherent whole.

01.png

And it didn't take long for expeditionary ships to find first signs of alien life; and even though the species discovered in one of neighbouring systems showed only rudimentary signs of sapience, their discovery caused a great deal of enthusiasm on Baikal.

Under direct orders of archontess Kozlov, those primitive species - named Piredazay - were given special protection, as their homeworld was declared a reserve and forbidden from any for of active study for fear of disrupting the primitives' development.

It didn't take long for the Union to meet its peers in the black void above, either; first fully sentient contact came in the form of humanoid aliens, calling themselves the Abystarans. The first encounter was far from amiable; Abystaran ships interdicted Union's research ships, forcing them to hastly evacuate back into Union's space. Further attempts to establish more cordial diplomatic relations met an equally straightforward answer.

04.png

Soon, a series of incidents in 'no-man's space' between the two states' systems resulted in the already strained relations deteriorate into a state of cold war. While neither the Union, nor the Alliance, possessed resources or fleets to wage an open interstellar war, it was obvious that such state of affairs would not last forever...

05.png

Seeing the perspective of an arms race unlike any in Baikal's past, archontess Kozlov attempted to direct the Union's momentum in other areas of unhabitated space. However, before long, yet another galactic civilization came into contact with the Pomorets; the cautious and distanced avian Brums also closed their space for Union's ships, refusing any form of contact other than sporadic remote messages. What differed them from the Abyastarans, however, was their absolute and unquestionable disgust towards violence. Baikalan parliament - the Sich - recieved those developments with sort of relief; although the Union found itself sandwiched between two superior factions, at least one of them appeared to pose no threat.

For the time being.

06.png

Realizing the limits of their expansion, the Union geared itself towards internal development. An ambitious colonization program has been announced - aiming at settling as many systems as possible in order to provide the Union with resources, and even more importantly, manpower it lacked.

Twenty one years after the Emergence, the first Pomorets colony ship arrived at the virgin world of Groezhda. Far from their home, under an alien sun, the first generation of pioneers began constructing their new homes.

07.png

The Age of Explorers came to an end. In its place came the Age of Soldiers.
 
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War is never far away - new lands means new conquests/new places to defend against conquests :)