TIMELINE (as promised)
1143 CE - The Rorrox develop the modern era's first faster-than-light drive and begin to colonize worlds suited to their requirements. Forming of the Rorrox Association.
1518 CE - The Entat Star League achieves FTL travel and encounters the Rorrox. Initial contact breaks down, and the two races enter into a short period of hostilities. The brief war ends when Entat attempts to invade Rorrox worlds fail spectacularly.
1551 CE - The Xvorzit develop their first FTL drive and begin spreading out, forming a series of independent though associated hive-colonies.
1582 CE - First contact between the Xvorzit and the Rorrox. Peaceful relations are established, although misunderstandings with the Entat lead to a short conflict before the fragmentary, independent nature of the many Xvorzit hives is explained.
1609 CE - The Entat Star League develops the galaxy's first reactionless drive system, and the accompanying sustained-field FTL drive. The Entat release the technology to the rest of the galaxy in 1635 CE.
1637 CE - First encounters between the Entat and the Sodality of Aamanthorat, who had not yet developed FTL technology. Initial identification of Aamanthorat vessels as asteroids leads to hostilities between the two races. Within a year or so, the rest of the galaxy realizes that the Aamanthorat actually exist and are not far from becoming an advanced spacefaring race.
1639 CE - Official First Contact with the Aamanthorat- the uniqueness of Aamanthorat physiology and technology stymied initial efforts to communicate, but peaceful contact was eventually established. Examination of Entat FTL drive blueprints, given to the Aamanthorat in apology for the initial hostilities, lead to the Aamanthorat developing their own technological equivalent.
1667 CE - Discussions are held concerning the forming of a diplomatic forum between the races of the galaxy, smoothing the process of interstellar diplomatic relations. The Entat Star League shows no real enthusiasm for the project, and the idea is eventually shelved.
1695 CE - The forming of the Trade Coalition. Instead of a political and diplomatic body, its purpose is almost entirely mercantile, regulating trade between galactic powers. All four races are represented, though control lies largely in the hands of the Rorrox and Entat.
1760 CE - The Barsa achieve FTL travel and make contact with the races of the Galactic Trade Coalition shortly after. The various independent Barsa colonies are given representation in the Coalition as junior members, in the same way that the various Xvorzit hives are.
1790 CE - First contact is made with the Theocracy of Hexamar. Like the Barsa before them, they are welcomed into the Trade Coalition as a junior member.
1799 CE - Hexamari resistance to the Entat Star League's domineering trade & economic policies leads to the Star League declaring war on the Theocracy. The war lasts less than a year- the Entat fail to make any territorial gains and back off, securing a white peace. In the decades to come, the Entat will repeatedly warn the galaxy of the dangers posed by the Hexamari and in letting them build up their strength. Meanwhile, the war with the Entat has brought new, fundamentalist leaders to power, who begin a rapid militarization of the Theocracy.
1846 CE - The leaders of the Theocracy of Hexamar declare war on the Entat Star League, using covert Entat interference in Hexamari politics, as well as the previous war, as pretexts.
1849 CE - The war ends with the Star League's surrender. The terms of surrender are harsh- among other things, the Entat are forced to cede around half of their territory to the Hexamari, disarm a large portion of their remaining military, and pay the Empire indemnities, both for losses during the most recent war and the earlier one. The members of the Trade Coalition censure the Hexamari but otherwise do nothing, reassuring themselves that the Hexamari were simply exacting revenge for the previous war.
1853 CE - The Theocracy of Hexamar declares war against a number of Xvorzit hives on the flimsy basis that they'd traded with the Entat.
1854 CE - The Theocracy of Hexamar declares a holy crusade against the Rorrox Association. Troops of the Theocracy invade the Trade Coalition headquarters in orbit above the Rorrox homewolrd, and, on live broadcast, announce the dissolving of the Trade Coalition. The delegates present are then executed, and the station destroyed.
1855 CE - The Xvorzit hives that the Theocracy had declared war on are completely subjugated.
1859 CE - The crusade ends with the complete subjugation of the Association, despite outside support and Entat technological aid. All Rorrox worlds are under Hexamari control, as well as those of their Xvorzit allies. Particularly shocking is that Hexamari cyborg modification allows them to successfully invade Rorrox worlds, where before the ideal environment for Rorrox had always been considered too hostile for all other species save the Aamanthorat. The creation of the Holy Empire of Hexamar is announced.
1864 CE - The Holy Empire has grown prosperous from the toil of its subject peoples. A coup attempt is staged by a faction that believes that the next correct course of action is to finish off the Entat Star League- when it fails, their opponents, who favor turning their attentions to the Aamanthorat and the Barsa, ascend to power.
1865 CE - The Holy Empire of Hexamar declares a holy crusade against the Aamanthorat
1866 CE - The Holy Empire declares a holy crusade against the Barsa, who, in anticipation of the coming attack after the crusade against the Aamanthorat, had banded together into a loose precursor to the Confederacy. The stated reason of the Hexamari is revenge for Barsa colonies intervening against them during the Rorrox Crusade.
1867 CE - With the Aamanthorat fleets destroyed and their worlds under siege, the Holy Empire decides to offer them a peace treaty, already intending to break it once it has finished dealing with the Barsa. The Aamanthorat accept.
1868 CE - The Holy Empire, anticipating imminent victory over the Barsa, casually breaks the peace treaty it'd signed with the Aamanthorat only the year before, destroying their rebuilding fleets. They then commence a campaign of ground invasion that is considered to be one of the single most humiliating military defeats in history. Not a single Aamanthorat world is taken. Fleets are also transferred away from the Barsa front to deal with rebellions among the Empire's subject peoples.
1873 CE - The war between the Hexamari and the Barsa ends with a white peace, after the Barsa had pushed the Empire's invasion back enough to begin encroaching on the outer Hexamari colonies. The Barsa are exhausted, lacking the strength to push the Hexamari back any further, and the Hexamari are increasingly occupied with a spate of rebellions at home, so both sides accepted a return to the pre-war status quo.
1880 CE - The various Barsa colonies come together in the view that the Hexamari threat has almost certainly not ceased. Together, they build on the brief alliance that had allowed them to successfully hold their territory in the previous war, and form the Barsamen Confederacy.
1882 CE - The Holy Empire declares a second crusade against the Barsa, fearing retaliation by the newly-formed Confederacy.
1887 CE - The Second Crusade against the Barsa ends in a bloody draw. Both the Empire and the Confederacy are severely drained by the conflict. The Confederacy is on the point of falling apart, and many parts of the Empire are in open rebellion, combined with an attempted breakout by the besieged Aamanthorat. While it fails, it comes too close to success for comfort. Many observers at the time predicted that both would collapse, and both almost certainly would have if the war had continued any longer.
1897 CE - The Barsamen Confederacy, now with a new, more solid constitution, judges that, if it waits any longer, the Empire will be able to recover in ways that the looser Confederacy wouldn't. Thus, the Confederacy declares war on the Holy Empire of Hexamar.
1900 CE - The Barsa War, which up until this point had been inconclusive, starts to turn in favour of the Barsamen Confederacy.
1904 CE - The Hexamari start stripping local defense forces in an attempt to halt the continued Barsa advance over the past four years. When they cannibalize the forces besieging the Aamanthorat, that race explodes into action, swiftly assembling themselves into a fleet. Most of the Empire is in open rebellion at this point- the Entat, Rorrox and some Xvorzit hives join the war on the side of the Barsa and Aamanthorat.
1905 CE - The Hexamari Wars comes to an end with the complete surrender and disarming of the Holy Empire. All races but the Entat were present at the final battle over Hexamar- the Entat had ceased to participate in the war once they'd finished reclaiming the worlds taken from them by the Hexamari half a century ago.
1910 CE - The Galactic Consensus is agreed upon by the representatives of all species and all polities currently known in the Galaxy, save the Hexamari, who will join about a century later, and the Entat, who have still, to date, not joined at all.
2001 CE - The Barsa establish first contact with the Mercantile Republic. Since the New Galactic Consensus, the only conflicts within the galaxy have been internal problems within the Confederacy, and disagreements with the Rorrox over terraforming.
2004 CE - The Mercantile Republic declares war on the Barsamen Confederacy, working on the assumption that the Barsa will have gone downhill in the century since their victory over the Hexamari. They are proven dramatically wrong, and quickly sue for peace once it becomes apparent that they are outmatched. The treaty that ends the war cuts down the Mercantile Republic's military, reducing it to a self-defence force, adequate for defending their space, but no more than that. In actuality, their military is dispersed into a large number of 'independent' mercenary groups, ready for recall when necessary.
2193 CE - Humanity achieves FTL travel and begins to expand outward in the Orion Arm, colonizing the worlds that will eventually form the Republic of Sol.
2201 CE - A Human expedition makes first contact with the Hexamari, and the various other races shortly after.
2248-51 CE - Various human colonies begin to seek independence from the central government and are allowed to break away, forming the various minor human powers.
2251 CE - The creation of the Republic of Sol is announced, incorporating the human colonies that remain under central control.
2265 CE - The Ilwari achieve FTL travel and make first contact with Humanity. The Ilwari begin to expand, though slowly- the race is still fragmented into a series of kingdoms, and these are as interested in curtailing their rivals' expansion as they are in expanding themselves. The Colony Wars will continue almost right up until the Corporate Era begins and the kingdoms cease to exist. The Kingdom of Stravrium makes considerable territorial gains. The Republic of Sol becomes one of the foremost economic powers of the galaxy, and is acknowledged as one of the galaxy's major powers. Scaremongering over human aggression, given humanity's rapid expansion of both its territory and its economy, reaches an all-time high.
2280 CE - There is increasing and vocal concern in the Republic of Sol over Stendar's oppressive treatment of its populace. In response to Sol's attempts to intervene, Stendar sends its entire fleet to attack the Republic, and is decisively defeated. Sol's attempt to invade the Corporate World and liberate its people is brought to a sharp halt when Stendar threatens to use nuclear weapons on its own populace if the Republic's fleet approaches within a certain distance of their planet. Sol backs down. As a result, the Republic of Sol rejects policies of intervention and expansion.
2304 CE – The beginning of the Corporate Era on Ilwar and its colonies. The corporations, eclipsing the power of the various kingdoms, take control and declare the beginning of Corporate Rule. Corporate Ilwar becomes a key trading partner and ally both of the Iashec and of Stendar.
2371 CE - The Ilwari Overturning begins, as the remnants of the Stravrian military rises up against corporate rule, with the aid of a large patchwork of irregular militias formed from minorities.
2383 CE - The Ilwari Overturning comes to an end, and the Articles of Union are signed into law, forming the Ilwari Union and uniting the Ilwari race for the first time in their history. The cost is high, though- more than 3 billion Ilwari are dead, most of them civilians, and the infrastructure and economy of Ilwar and its colonies are in tatters.
2393 CE - The Tawasi develop FTL travel. They make first contact with the Ilwari Union later that year.
2395 CE - A splinter faction of the Barsamen Confederacy launches an attack on the Ilwari colony of Rast, triggering the Rast War. The rest of the galaxy, who'd expected a quick Barsa victory against the shaky, still-rebuilding Union, received a surprise when the besieging Barsa fleet is all but completely annihilated by the Ilwari counter-attack.
2397 CE - The Rast War ends. The Ilwari recapture Rast after a long ground battle, and the Confederacy reins in its splinter faction and offers peace. The Ilwari accept, mainly because the Union lacks the strength to successfully take the war to the Confederacy. Ilwari-Barsa relations will be strained for some time however, and the Union's large military build-up in the decades following begins to make the Confederacy decidedly wary. After all, someone building a gun that big is surely going to point it at someone eventually.
2402 CE - For the next decade, there is an increase in tension and small wars fought among the human factions and others, the Barsa Confederacy begins its attempts to centralize, while the Hexamari Heretics break off from the main group and survive, over the next two and a half decades, several attempts at conquest. Meanwhile the Ilwari Union begins stepping up patrols and actions against slavery, actions which lead to the Iashec and several other groups protesting, privately and publically.
2405 CE - The Deiah Incident. In retaliation against increasing Ilwari pressure on it's own government-sponsored mercenary and slaving outfit, the Republic of Deiah arrests a number of expatriate Ilwari and proceeds to subject them to an elaborate show trial, barely even bothering with the pretense that the charges are genuine and the verdict not already decided on. The attempt to teach the Union an object lesson by making it watch it's citizens go through these proceeds backfires badly for Deiah- their assumption that the Union would not be willing or able to intervene is wildly off the mark, and leads to an Ilwari fleet sitting in orbit over their world, having casually blasted the Deian Navy to glowing dust on their way in. The Ilwari prisoners and their families are freed, and Deiah left for Sol to deal with. However, the fallout for the Ilwari was considerable, resulting in a distinct cooling of relations- such acts set a very bad precedent after all. The Deiah Incident was also notable in that it saw the first use of dreadnoughts in naval combat- the first example of the type had been commissioned into the Ilwari Navy in 2400 CE, but they had not yet seen battle until this point.
2415 CE - The Repatriation Treaty is signed by Barsa, Sol, and Ilwar, as well as other minor signatories. It indicates a slight warming of Barsa-Ilwari relations in the wake of the Rast War. It is also a blow against slave-trading that is yet another provocation in the eyes of the Iashec.
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