Prospera! - an interstellar AAR

[Felicity]

"For after all, what is man in nature? A nothing in regard to everything, everything in regard to nothing, a single point between nothing and everything and infinitely far from understanding either." - Blaine Pascal

Flag of Prospera​

Welcome to my Stellaris AAR. I'm doing this primarily as a writing prompt, so I can practice my exposition without being permanently writer's blocked as usual. I also want to take particular years from this match and translate them into a sort of campaign guide that could be used as a supplemental setting for a Traveller campaign, which is a tabletop system I strongly suggest anyone check out if they are looking for something special instead of boring old D&D or GURPS.

I'm posting the thread now with an introductory post instead of waiting so perhaps I can force myself into writing a bit more instead of letting it die. I find the start of pdox games INCREDIBLY dull, especially since I've played the exploration segment of Stellaris to death, so I may end up skipping ahead to when things are a little more interesting- my last campaign involved the complete eradication of an assimilator, total war with a machine race, an AI takeover that caused total anarchy for years, and the slow democratization of Prospera while being influenced by those damn Terrans. I hope this campaign will have fun things in the mid/late game too, and won't just end early.

There are a few mods- primarily visual ones, with the only gameplay changes being me utilizing the "Intervene" mod which lets nations join wars after they start, as well as some changes I made myself in a personal mod which 1. sets the start date to year 1 so I can see how long the game has been going in a glance (ie, anno space, years start from when spaceflight began rather than at some random point in the past with the death of some random fox), and 2. delimits the amount of civilizations that can spawn on smaller maps, allowing me to play with more civilizations on a smaller galaxy which might make things start a bit faster, additionally the dimorphism mod to make space foxes and other races a little more diverse in appearance. I can post a full mod list if anyone is interested.

My empire has a custom name list with dozens if not over a hundred names for leaders and ships, some of friends but mostly from biblical sources and adjusted to fit my own setting which you can find more details of (predating stellaris) at my personal website which I won't directly link here because I'm not sure of the rules, but would be pleased to share, a wiki I wrote as a combined source of my own writing and fiction in encyclopedia style. No leaders will have their name changed from being auto-generated.

The only notable thing regarding the name lists is that any name ending with -el; which is the hebrew suffix for 'of God', is a marker for the aristocratic class, so any individual with that on the end of their name (sometimes making that their full name 'properly') is of the aristocratic class of merchantry. As well, I mostly used Islamic spelling for many of the angelic names, because they are cooler, and no other reason.

No, I will not be focusing too much on my use of the fox avatar (words like guardsmen will be used, not guardfoxes which would be a bit hammy (foxy?)), I just like foxes.

Specific empire details:

~The Prosperan Federation~
Executive Committee / Oligarchic
Fanatic Materialist
Authoritarian
Mining Guilds / Aristocratic Elite
Natural Physicists+ / Thrifty+ / Solitary-
Desert Homeworld / Prospera

Olam's little red dot in our little corner of the galaxy that will soon all be OURS​

Asariel, the first head of state of the newly formed interstellar government​

Coming from a desert world, the Prosperan race is tried and hardy, a fox-people of merchantry and trade owing to the mineral wealth near the capital of Prospita, which holds the world government unifying several continents and nation-states with their own stories and histories. The government is headed by a council of patricians, the heads of wealthy merchant families, though their position as political entities in this modern era demands them to be always suitable for the job, lest change come fast.

They are very open to learning and discovering new ideas, but very reluctant to let go of old ones. Discipline, prestige, authority, and above all, profit, are the cornerstones of Prosperan life. If you are not in, you are out. The common worker lives a very solitary life compared to those aristocrats (aristofoxes?) above them.

Without further ado, on to the first post, so the fox wordplay can stop.

 

[Felicity]

Year 0
And little did they know of their fate as they ascended from the endless blue of their oceans to the endless black of eternity. A world unified and flag aloft, the Prosperans made their first steps into the galactic stage, and their place in the cosmos. President Asariel, then appointed Director of Space Exploration and Governance, stood atop the first of the Frigates, the PRN Ivory, prepared to fly and eventually drift through space, in search of new places to explore, discover, and brave.
Onwards, she points. To eternity!

Year 1
Prospera proper is located near the edge of the galaxy named Rhea (all translations herein are made with the Prosperan tongue and vocabulary at the expense of all other possible nomenclature for these concepts), and is the third stellar object orbiting a small red dwarf sun named Olam (class M star), with multiple other stellar bodies nearby, including Prospera's molten moon of Sanada. Its principal leaders are Director Asariel, the head of state, and several science directors who each also command a specific division of the PRN (the Prosperan Republican Navy, the primary spaceship government and military organization).

The physics director, Pazhiel, is in charge of exploration, overall research and development, hyperdrive and experimental technologies. While not in charge of many parts of society, this division is also in charge of the others, which is in turn checked by the head of state.

The societal director, Izharel, is the Prime Minister (or minority leader, in some rare instances), oversees colonial and sector governments, as well as supervises the Navy and military as a whole. While not directly a commissioned officer, the societal director has a great amount of power within the military.

The engineering director, Ouri Siskin, is in charge of fleet logistics, land, air, and space construction, colonial development (As opposed to colonial governance), industry and economics.

Currently, due to the small size of the Navy, there is no Grand Admiral.

There are often several other key individuals, namely the Captain of primary exploration vessels and sector governors.

Governor of Prospera; Ridwanel

Captain of the Ruby A; Captain Wolf Maier

Nothing of note happened in year 0-1, aside from the launch of the first exploration crews and initial exploitation of nearby resources.

Year 2
Izharel accepts a commission and captaincy to the new exploration vessel Sapphire A.

Pazhiel​

On 02.06.18, Pazhiel, physics director, goes missing, along with a highly experimental and advanced exploration vessel. The authority vacuum and seemingly endless list of questions leaves Asariel unsure of what to do about it. Izharel returns home, one day before disembarking into space with her new crew. An APB is put out, and all explorers and PRN vessels are redirected to search for the missing- and possibly insubordinate- director.

Elfu Leru accepts appointment as societal director.

Year 6
Four years pass without sign of the missing director, until 6.04.25- finally, Asariel and Wolf Maier make contact. Pazhiel seems well and healthy, speaking confidently on the line, though in an insubordinate manner. You will return to the capital at once- this is unacceptable of a most praised leader of our society. No, Pazhiel replies- I think not. I have much more to do, far from here. The line disconnects, but not before the warning klaxons start up as a number of hostile drains train their weapons on Capt. Maier's exploration vessel, which narrowly escapes back into hyperspace, taking note of the stellar coordinates for later PRN intervention.

The first outpost, and first claims to infinity, are made in the Padjit system near Olam. As well, a most incredible discovery is made in Meredith- a fully functioning, but very foreign, space station of unknown origin. Elfu Leru is put on the case and all societal research is focused on that. Soon after, with several large leaps of scientific understanding, first contact is made with... survivors. Indeed, Prospera's dreams of running into either an interstellar empire of great power, some totally alien idea, or perhaps a similarly advanced upstart nation (or nothing at all) was unfounded. Indeed, they were not so special after all, and a whole other time and epoch of war, strife, discovery, life and death, had already happened. Those survivors, lovers of knowledge and history, have stuck around to maintain those records so that perhaps we may not repeat the same mistakes... though, they don't seem to have much as it is, nor do they actually contest any space. While this does mean we are not alone, it doesn't bode well for how alone exactly we may be.

The very first Admiral is appointed, to command the growing military force orbiting Prospera, named Abihel. They take command of the first Patrician's Fleet, and set course for Pazhiel's last location, the system of Escant.

 

[Lupis Volk]

Yeah writers block is my eternal bane.

This is looking interesting so far.

 

[stnylan]

Right up on the edge of the galaxy I note