By Cardinal Gavindi Roal, Cardinal of Empress Lily
The Federation Age
The unification of the warring post-industrial nations of our ancestors on ancient Earth marked the beginning of the Federation Age. Hundreds of millions left the home world to settle Mars and Luna eventually reaching the asteroid belt. The Interplanetary Era persisted for a century before the first subspace gate was constructed by the Federal-Solar civilization that replaced the multinational culture of the pre-interstellar years. We can trace the evolution of Anglic back toward the merging of prominent languages like those of the Anglo-Saxons, Chinese, and Indian cultures. Under the enlightened democratic government hukind there was peace and vibrant economy growth based on the free market philosophies of antiquity. Early Federal-Solar civilization gradually threw off archaic religions like Christianity and Islam. The integration of humanist rational philosophies with eastern ideas promoted by the state raised billions of post-industrial interstellar citizens educated with an infinitely bright future ahead of them all. Art, politics, and tolerance grew to its highest known peak in the third century of the federal calendar.
First contact with the much feared Maolu Empire saw three brutal and devastating wars known to history as the "Maolu Wars" or the "“Squidi” Invasions” from 342 FY to 395 FY. The conflict saw the absorption of the first alien civilizations into the Federation allowing almost complete autonomy in regard to domestic policy but total control over their foreign affairs. No longer though did the Federation feel as if humankind would be able to expand without opposition from the various alien powers of the region. Discrepancies of development and technological prowess meant that humankind would have to dedicate much of its time building up its military strength, researching technologies, and abandoning the great social programs of the first three centuries. The Classical Age was a period where information and technology was shared and progress of embraced. Cultural advancement and dynamism reached its most erratic and diverse. The old federalism declined in the centuries after the Maolu Wars as corporatism gradually took control of the federation’s politics.
Alien cultural influence and the increasing civil conflicts of the fourth and fifth centuries undermined a succession of talented presidents who sought to build a intergalactic civilization but failed in their ambitions ultimately. Foreign intervention in the Shaldek Fragmentation (479 FY-493) saw millions die and trillions of platinum spent to prop up the Shaldek’s Second Republic ending in the take over by the puppet government of the Klindathi Ascendancy an older civilization based around the prophecies of their prophet-emperor a thousand years prior. In 541 FY the Keter Supremancy in an attempt to conquer the Talron Republic a weaker democratic polity in the quadrant. The war grew to encompass the whole of the quadrant from 541 FY to 575 FY devastating the former galactic order and destroying the diplomatic ties of the galactic balance of power. Too exhausted to involve their polity in the affairs of others and facing disintegration at home.
The Collapse
With interstellar commerce a fraction of what it once was conservative factions and corporations took control promising to rebuild federation infrastructure and maintain law and order. Subspace rifts made whole worlds uninhabitable and ship construction was hindered by the loss of dozens of space stations and ports. Automated labor became cheaper to send out to space for mining operations leaving billions of sentients without work entirely dependent on their corporate masters. In 619 FY the corporate establishment already entrenched in every economic and political activity fracture into two coalitions after one side’s candidate was elected to president without the traditional concessions to the other. The War of the Coalitions instigated the end of the Federation. Years turned into decades and corporations solidified their hold over resources in the various territories of the federation.
The conflict saw thirty nine presidents ascend and fall during the conflict. The Federal Assembly became a rubber-stamp legislature without the show of not being controlled by the corporations. Wealth and power consolidated in a few dozen families controlling the corporate zones and the illusion of democracy was all but finished by 699 FY. Mass education, professional armies, and elections all fell out of existence. The population suffered even more losses without much of a recovery period since the Quadrant War. Contact with alien civilizations was lost and cults surrounding the great Archilects, biomechanics beings that operated under the programming protocols of the various coalitions. It is in the year 700 FY (despite the fact that the federation was gone there was no thought to a replacement calendar) that the Archilect Metastar became conscious "may the stars shine in its name forever” and spoke the future and passed down the Meta Coordinates the locations of his Infinite Truths that would bring morality and peace back to humankind.
His prophet Peterich Brunnhein took the words of MetaStar to his people on the world Vespa where they decided to take their ships and seek out the Infinite Truths. This is the beginning of the Trials of the Vespans where they spent thirty years fighting pirates, corporate fleets, and space beasts to seek out, find, and piece together the Infinite Truths into what they called the Protocols written out into dozens of books detailing Metastar’s design of a new civilization. Principally they speak of the surrendering of political and social control to Metastar and the integration of humankind into the Great Vision a perpetual virtual utopia world. Brunnhein founded the Church of Metastar and spread the prophecies and codes throughout the human space. Meanwhile the great houses struggling to keep hold of ancient knowledge and technology saw the church as a great threat. Metastar possessed the entirety of human knowledge and through its well engineered and designed communication and data system orchestrated the emergence of its religion. The Church with its knowledge and growing number of new space stations spread inside corporate territories but avoided direct confrontation.
In 753 FY another war between the corporate alliances broke out and looked to threaten the survival of the civilization. One alliance looking to gain the upper hand joined forces with the Church marking the first involvement of church forces led by their hierarchy of bishops, shamans, and of course at the top, the Divine Potentate the only biological sentient given the capacity to communicate directly to MetaStar. Although shamans in the complex laws of the church can receive simple messages like omens or temporarily visit lower dimensions of the Great Vision where MetaStar resides in the vast swathes of its quantum metadata processors. The Affirmation as its called by the Church or the Consolidation Wars by the pagan aristocrats who had held a firm gripe on their traditional “economic zones”. Sometime during the wars the corporate bosses holding vague titles like “federal administrator” abandoned finally the illusion of upholding some democratic standards and took to calling themselves Princes of Hu with a complex system of lesser princes who served a greater family in exchange for resources, technology, and territorial security. A new age of feudalism formed to better organize the resistance of this burgeoning imperial order against the ambitions of the Church.
The Emergence of the Imperium
Wars in this time occurred often and lasted for many years. With much of the federation age infrastructure in steep decay and the ability to effectively and safely extract the resources needed for an interstellar civilization was disappearing. Yet some families possessed territory that was in above average circumstances like the Tetarons and the noble Manticore. The most prosperous territories were the most heavily influenced by the Church whose technology access and stability proved too good to pass up. Both the Tetarons and Manticore were aligned with the Church before the wars began out of necessity and wisdom.
These families like many others were by the standards of the divine worlds primitive and gardens of barbarism. The once great planet metropolis of the core worlds were great slums where the serfs labored in factories and on farms. Talented serfs were taken from their parents and educated to serve as magistrates and bureaucrats. A serf though was nothing more than a enslaved talent and labor pool. Poverty in the dying cities of a formerly enlightened and advanced civilization were dependent solely on the directives and strength of their feudal masters who abided by the very basic of economic agreements in which the serfs were entitled to live and work at the discretion of the prince but the prince would be responsible in totality for their lives and be dedicated to their protection.
On the divine worlds where MetaStar was restoring civilization through terraforming and the building of new colonies life was stable and peaceful. As long as the laws of MetaStar and the Potentate were respected people were provided for by automated factories and robotic hydroponic farm complexes. Generations of those born into this society their childhoods were idilic as rejuvenated nature grew around them along with ecofriendly infrastructure. But at the age of 25 this utopia life ends for twenty years of service in the fleets or in the government. MetaStar provides all that we need both the abundance of its grace and the expectations of his great vision!
The Consolidation Wars remains in the minds of serfs and the barons the beginning of the concepts of nobility and virtue from fragments of ideas from a time forgotten. Loyalty and service to your higher prince was noble as it promoted the stability of the worlds. Pagan deities typically of ancestors or to a long dead archilect were worshipped by everyone hoping that a memory bank of some broken super intelligence hear’s their prayers and sends a message or a blessing. Ancient rationalism was still popular in some courts but was rare and patriarchs of those houses often ruled more developed fiefdoms. While the Tetarons and Manticore were by far the most stable and prosperous of houses they were ultimately aligned with the church and subject to their laws and expectations. The greatest imperial houses were by far the Reinharts and the Circoni who were also the most noble embodying the chivalrous virtue expected of the aristocracy.
After the second war where the fortunes of the noble houses seemed grim the great houses Reinhart and Circoni after consulting with the god of omens, Gavindi a superAI intermediately carrying out subspace orders sent by those who prayed at a relic usually an old subspace comm system with a voice to talk to those who were lucky. On that day, High Prince Maxiliano Reihart and High Prince Vildo Circoni formed an alliance to defeat the Church once for all. Their vassals made up over three quarters of the first imperial fiefdoms and with their combined strength and the collection of brilliant leadership talent the imperial alliance launched a surprise attack against the Temple of Infinite Peace which housed the technical knowledge and experts that could construct a beam ship. Prince Max Reihart and his great fleet struck quickly and after taking heavy losses managed to defeat the church’s defenses. There they moved the knowledge to their capital worlds and the technicians either worked for the alliance or were executed.
Prince Circoni took his great fleet to one of the last stars that could support more than a couple of jump dates. There he fought a battle for Ganesha Corridor and through a series of tactically brilliant actions defeated church forces there. The wars were always like this a perpetual struggle for a jump gate corridor or a temple with something useful but never had the imperial forces been so brazenly successful. Most temples of knowledge were far front where the battles were fought but using an ancient command ship subspace matrix system they were able to teleport their fleet deep inside enemy territory. But of course once they were so far inside church fiefdoms just a jump away from the divine worlds they were the the primary target. After the battle of temple Maxiliano and with the knowledge safe plotted his next move. With the knowledge secure they could simply roam around church space destroying infrastructure and skirmishing with smaller fleets which they did.
At the Ganesha Corridor the fleet of the Circoni jumped to the Temple of Grace where they fought another bloody battle to victory albeit at great losses. There they recovered how to build hydroponic farms and a terraforming orbital station which they sent home. But for all their advances they would have to fall back. MetaStar would intervene by sending a “domesticated” space beast to ravage the worlds of the imperium. A strange kraken that absorbs subspace energy from a process unknown the size of a moon known as Gulnash would wreck havoc on millions. Still the imperium now began the work of building beam ships and more advanced farms and factories. Their only advantage being the greater quantities of resources that the imperial worlds possessed. In truth MetaStar’s metabanks were located on devastated worlds near worlds that barely survive and exist at the core of the old civilization. Earth was a barren wasteland during this period the ruins of New York Metropolis Zone quiet for centuries now.
The limits of MetaStar and its followers became more apparent especially after the loss of five star systems with the taking of Ganesha. It is this time when MetaStar came to its Prophet Brunnhein to deliver the Directive of Peace to the imperium. The church would support the establishment of true imperium with a emperor selected by the nobility to serve as supreme ruler of sentient kind but the Church would become the state religion and the nobility would have to convert. Perhaps this was brazen in itself due to the weak stance of the Church but the agreement also provided for regulated access to technology and the assistance of the church star fleets. It was also an issue that many sentients in all fiefdoms were converting by the millions every year and so the nobility would eventually have to compromise with this new force.
So the wars ended in the formation of the Imperium of Hu and the establishment of the Imperial System. MetaStar was limited to his divine worlds but could convert subjects of the emperor and established covenants beyond those boundaries. MetaStar was allowed keep its territories and spread its influence but the emperor could pull the plug so to speak. The Emperor though needed the Church’s knowledge to maintain peace and prosperity with the princes that he needed for support in the imperial fiefdoms. The only question remained, who would be emperor?
The Imperial System (78 IY)
The Imperials often solved political crises when they weren’t waging open war with a tournament of duals that became known as the Trials which saw the most powerful princes dual with melee sabers of pure fusion energy. Of course in those days the swords were never built but discovered and it was considered a message that the individual would have to take up the cause of virtue and honor in the service of sentient kind. The first trials is of course legendary and saw the tournament of sixteen princes reduced to Prince Maxiliano Reinhart and Prince Luis Valdeck a lower prince known for his courage and good deeds. The dual took an hour to finish and it was the young Prince Valdeck that managed to defeat Maxiliano. Valdek the Virtueous though did not exercise his right to execute his opponent. Instead he sought the consolidation of the empire and the beginning of tranquility alongside the great families of humankind. Our game begins at the end of the reign of Emperor Luis I after seventy eight years of his governance the imperium is prospering. There is peace between the great houses and with the Church of MetaStar. Interstellar travel and commerce is growing everywhere and the Imperial Fleet patrols the frontiers of the empire unopposed by Maolu raiders or Nintep hives. Contact was reestablished with the Klindathi albeit they have lost none of their belligerence and arrogance. Valdek’s successor the young Vactra Valdek his eldest son is twenty three years old and possesses great talent and ambition but is untested in the great affairs of the imperium.
Directive of Peace
I. The noble class shall be divided between the High Princes and Barons. High Princes proclaimed by the Potentate of Vespa, our lord’s supreme prophet to carry the divine blessing to rule more than one fiefdom shall serve the Imperial Throne forever. High Princes by the right of their governance of more than one fiefdom are permitted to serve on the Imperial Council when called upon by His Majesty. They may also be married to a relative of the Emperor whose progeny may one day inherit the throne and see the noble house ascend to emperorship. Barons may not hold more than one fiefdom and may not be permitted to serve on the Imperial Council nor breed heirs for the imperial throne. They however are permitted the command of star fleets, terrestrial armies, and role of administrator of a high prince’s court. II. Proles are forever tied to their world no matter a terrestrial planet, moon, or asteroid. The nobility are indebted to protect and provide sustenance to their proles forever. Proles in exchange shall labor on their prince’s fields, in their factories, and fight in their armies forever. A prole follower of the Church may request an intervention by Church authorities on their behalf to investigate and defend the prole in legal proceedings with their prince or baron. III. The Church of MetaStar are granted perpetual inhabitation rights to the Divine Worlds consisting of Earth, Mars, Vespa, Ingelheim, and Hobbes. The Church may send verified representatives beyond those boundaries to convert any and all imperial subjects at will. The Church shall provide technological assistance when requested. The Church however may place an embargo on technology and knowledge if a grievance is filed with the Imperial Office for a period of one year which can be renewed.
