Zor
More of a Zor than You
"Futurum est enim omnis"
National Motto of the Unified Imperium
"Whatever differences we have we all hold two things sacred: Self determination and sovereignty, now and forever, at any cost."
Excerpt from the inageral speech of the secretary general of the Coalition of Free Stars
In this scenario it is the future, specifically it's the year 780 After Tranquility, or 2749 CE if you insist on using the old Gregorian calender. Humanity is now fairly widespread across an area some 5,000 light years in diameter, but is divided into two political blocks battling for the future of mankind.
Humanity managed to conquer space and began expanding out of the solar system in 170 AT after the development of Jump Drive. Hundreds of systems were colonized over the next two centuries by the various nations of Terra linked together by a set of quantum relays. Terraforming projects were laid down. Alien life was found by exploration ships, including three species of sapient lifeforms, the most advanced of which had a few small societies of copper age farmers. However, after about fifty years there were scuffles between the various powers on the frontier which would gradually escalate to warfare. For the first 160 years these conflicts were kept limited, well away from sol and they inevitably ended with some trade concessions or the ceding of a continent from the EU to Japan, a newly claimed colony from Brazil to China or the US having to declaring that it's colony of New Wisconsin is an independent republic and severs all connections to them. That was until 387 AT when a war boiled out of scale and eventually ended with fleets moving in on Sol and devastating Terra three years latter. In the aftermath the old Terran nations fell apart.
In the aftermath of this war, the former colonies of the old Terran powers fell into one of two categories. The first of these was by the most common, which was the emergence of localized successor states. Individual settlements, sections of planets controlled by one old Terran nation, planets, star systems and in a couple of instances groups of two or three star systems developed their own governments and emerged as independent nations. This number increased as refugees fled further out in search of a safe haven. Many of these states began to fight with themselves for a variety of reasons, including blaming neighboring powers descended from rival nations for the devastation of Terra, piracy, power hungry dictators and the emergence of a few rather nasty religions. The second group was the Union of Worlds: a group of some of the older colonies which were committed never to let the tragedy of the war happen again. As such these powers adopted a fairly loose federal government in 395. However, the Union would remain fairly small, with less than 5% of the total colonized systems as members.
However, as time went by the Union got itself involved in an increasing number of wars from it's neighboring states. In 458 AT the Union defeated the forces of New Hellas and occupied it for a few years, deposing it's old militarist government and installing a new democratic one. The New Hellanic Republic, however soon reverted back to militaristic dictatorship under the Neo-Spartiate Party. There were other such incidents which led to the emergence of a new ideology which stated that unless humanity was united under one batter, war would be a continuous scourge on mankind. Eventually in 489 to 496, the Union of worlds attacked by a loose coalition of it's neighbors who had the benefit of some brilliant admirals and some early victories. Never the less, the Union managed to gear its military to total war, drive out the invaders and invaded its attackers. This war served to strengthen the union government by necessity and eventually led to the rise of the Unificationists as a political force. Instead of letting these successor states go, they were to be integrated into the Union. Programs of integration were imposed on the conquered worlds to reconstruct them into parts of the Union, including educational programs and, in a fair deal of cases, Neurological Reprogramming of members of resistance movements. Eventually this program was successful, after becoming the most hotly debated part of the Union's politics, which led to the Union of Worlds to be rebuilt and in 544 renamed into a new state. One with the objective of bringing all of humanity under it's banner: The Unified Imperium.
The Imperial Navy and the Imperial Marine Corps began to push out and annexed systems of what they called "Barbarians" (with varying degrees of accuracy) by system either with the threat of force. The Imperium has taken a few page's from Rome's playbook and is divided into two areas, the Provinces and the Reconstructional Zones. The Provinces are well integrated areas populated by citizens, who live in an authoritarian democratic state. Citizens have democratic rights in the Imperial Diet. The Reconstructional Zones are planets comparatively new conquests of the Imperium, which, as the name suggests are undergoing reconstruction and integration. By approval of the Imperial Diet, Reconstructional Zones may be converted into new provinces. Certain laws are set in stone in the Imperium, most notably those which forbid elements of the Empire from breaking off from it.
Reconstructional Zones are populated mostly by Subjects. Subjects, unlike citizens can not vote in anything other than a town or (in the case of those subjects living in cities with more than 50,000 people) district elections, don't have freedom of movement and are required to Kowtow before Imperial Officials, though they do have some legal rights. Subjects are classified into five classes, Class-I subjects are the least likely to rebel but are not fully integrated and have the greatest degree of individual freedom, Class-V subjects are from populations hostile and are kept under tight watch with far more heavy handed policies are employed. The raising or lower of subject class is used as an incentive. The punishment for rebellion or insurrection is Neurological Reprogramming, a process in which memories are deleted and new memories and compulsions are installed onto people's brains. In extreme cases (which are the exceptions), widespread Neurological Reprogramming has been used on large sections of rebellious subject populations, even so it is rare for more than 10% of a planet's population to be reprogramming. Subjects can become Citizens through a variety of means, in some cases citizenship can be bought, citizenship is often given out to exceptional individuals as a reward as well as either 30 years of service as a Police Officer or 15 years of service in the Imperial Military (which involves being subjected to a neural probe to deal with potential saboteurs and infiltration), almost inevitably stationed elsewhere in the Empire. The Imperium makes extensive use of cheap military robots to police its conquered planets under observation of human commanders at either the squad or platoon level. When an Reconstructional Zone becomes a province, it's subjects becomes citizens (automatically for adult Class-I and II subjects, after a six month probation for Class-III subjects, one year probation for Class-IV and after an indefinite probation for Class-V subjects though children automatically become full citizens). Most of the Imperium's army are Armed Keepers of Order (AKOs), forces of motorized infantry trained in urban combat as well as policing.
However, the rise of the Imperium got people concerned. In 610, after the Unified Imperium had tripled in size, two hundred established non Imperial powers gathered together and formed the Coalition of Free Stars with one goal in mind: defense against this new power which sought to conquer all of mankind. In 615 the Coalition went up against the Unified Imperium in the first Coalition/Imperial War and managed to defeat their latest attempt at expansion by sheer force of numbers and liberated a few newly conquered planets. However in 622, the Imperium launched a counter offensive which retook those lost worlds and managed to take a few coalition planets. Thus began a series of about thirty on and off war
The Coalition is a loose organization dedicated almost entirely to warfare against the Unified Imperium, either as a central command of the various militaries of coalition states, maintaining a quantum relay network for communication or as a means of coordinating resources to help develop and expand military production. In the coalition are a wide variety of states and mostly leaves internal affairs in the hands of local government. The Coalition has in itself a wide variety of states, many of which are democratic, but it also includes a few monarchies, military dictatorships and theocracies. Many of them have longstanding rivalries which, while they have put aside with the looming threat of the Unified Imperium. Each world is required to provide military manpower and material to the war effort.
Membership in the Coalition is theoretically a voluntary affair. That said, the Coalition takes a dim view on neutral powers and does use strong arm tactics to get other states to join it, including sponsoring the campaigns of pro-coalition political parties in perspective members and coup d'etats. Occasionally they will use some pretext to use military force to force a system to joining them, but this is the exception rather than the rule. On the occasions in which they occupy Imperial territory, they come down hard on Imperial sympathizers (which as a rule don't role over to what they call "renegades and barbarians"), though they have agreed not to use Neurological Reprogramming. The aim is not conquest, but to create/restore independent governments to imperial territories though exactly what shape said governments take is dependent on who's in charge of the occupation. Both the Imperium and the Coalition have expanded somewhat since the wars began.
It should be noted that the Coalition comes with a termination clause. Should the Unified Imperium be defeated the Coalition, having served it's purpose is to be dissolved. Some Coalition States have agreed to form a peaceful economic alliance in such an event, but far from all of it' members have signed up on this and there are others who want to go back at it with their current enemies.
Space warfare involves fleets of dozens to thousands of ships ranging in length from 300 to 1500 meters armed with long range missiles, lasers with ranges of about a light second (or two in the case of really heavy weapons which cruisers are built around and battleships will carry two of in huge turrets), counter missiles and laser clusters and plasma cannons for close quarters fighting at ranges of 100,000 to 50,000 km, as well as smaller 10 to 30 meter long fightercraft for point defense, scouting and fighting and heavy customization flagships between 1500 and 2000 meters long. Capital ships have shields, but only cruisers, battleships and flagships can form bubbles around them. Destroyers can only form shields on two of their sides and forwards while frigates can only mantain a forward shield. FTL communication exists, as do FTL sensors. However, all FTL sensors can do is state that a ship with a certain mass had jumped to hyperspace or into X area of realspace with two light years. Ships can not jump too close to big objects like planets and stars. Sol's jump limit is about an AU more than Uranus's orbit. Ground warfare is similar to modern ground warfare, only the tanks can fly. Imperial Navy Ships as a rule are more durable, have slightly longer ranged weapons, are better supplied and are standardized. Coalition ships are more often than not faster at STL and have a 1.5 numeric advantage, but have logistical problems made all the worse by a lack of standardization while the Imperium has a more developed network of core swapping stations allowing troops and supplies to be delivered more quickly within its borders.
So far neither side has turned to planet sterilization, partially because there are defenses such as planetary shield networks and interception boeys to deal with KKVs, partly because the Imperium has no interest in conquering radioactive rubble, partly because it would incur similar devastation to be wrought due to retaliation. Both do some degree of scorched earth policies when they have to abandon their systems. The Imperium usually destroys shipyards, relays and military bases. The coalition will do that, as well as damaging general infrastructure to hinder the Imperial advance. About 33% of coalition ground forces can be pretty nasty in their way of doing things with little regard for civilian lives, a fondness for petty abuses of power, cramming their own ideologies/religions down people's throats even without aid of neurological reprogramming and some "hard men making hard decisions while hard" type policies.
The conflict is now at turning point, and it could go either way ending in the conquest of the Coalition of Free Stars or the Unified Imperium being broken apart in the subsequent ten year. Of these two powers, which one would you have win?
Zor
National Motto of the Unified Imperium
"Whatever differences we have we all hold two things sacred: Self determination and sovereignty, now and forever, at any cost."
Excerpt from the inageral speech of the secretary general of the Coalition of Free Stars
In this scenario it is the future, specifically it's the year 780 After Tranquility, or 2749 CE if you insist on using the old Gregorian calender. Humanity is now fairly widespread across an area some 5,000 light years in diameter, but is divided into two political blocks battling for the future of mankind.
Humanity managed to conquer space and began expanding out of the solar system in 170 AT after the development of Jump Drive. Hundreds of systems were colonized over the next two centuries by the various nations of Terra linked together by a set of quantum relays. Terraforming projects were laid down. Alien life was found by exploration ships, including three species of sapient lifeforms, the most advanced of which had a few small societies of copper age farmers. However, after about fifty years there were scuffles between the various powers on the frontier which would gradually escalate to warfare. For the first 160 years these conflicts were kept limited, well away from sol and they inevitably ended with some trade concessions or the ceding of a continent from the EU to Japan, a newly claimed colony from Brazil to China or the US having to declaring that it's colony of New Wisconsin is an independent republic and severs all connections to them. That was until 387 AT when a war boiled out of scale and eventually ended with fleets moving in on Sol and devastating Terra three years latter. In the aftermath the old Terran nations fell apart.
In the aftermath of this war, the former colonies of the old Terran powers fell into one of two categories. The first of these was by the most common, which was the emergence of localized successor states. Individual settlements, sections of planets controlled by one old Terran nation, planets, star systems and in a couple of instances groups of two or three star systems developed their own governments and emerged as independent nations. This number increased as refugees fled further out in search of a safe haven. Many of these states began to fight with themselves for a variety of reasons, including blaming neighboring powers descended from rival nations for the devastation of Terra, piracy, power hungry dictators and the emergence of a few rather nasty religions. The second group was the Union of Worlds: a group of some of the older colonies which were committed never to let the tragedy of the war happen again. As such these powers adopted a fairly loose federal government in 395. However, the Union would remain fairly small, with less than 5% of the total colonized systems as members.
However, as time went by the Union got itself involved in an increasing number of wars from it's neighboring states. In 458 AT the Union defeated the forces of New Hellas and occupied it for a few years, deposing it's old militarist government and installing a new democratic one. The New Hellanic Republic, however soon reverted back to militaristic dictatorship under the Neo-Spartiate Party. There were other such incidents which led to the emergence of a new ideology which stated that unless humanity was united under one batter, war would be a continuous scourge on mankind. Eventually in 489 to 496, the Union of worlds attacked by a loose coalition of it's neighbors who had the benefit of some brilliant admirals and some early victories. Never the less, the Union managed to gear its military to total war, drive out the invaders and invaded its attackers. This war served to strengthen the union government by necessity and eventually led to the rise of the Unificationists as a political force. Instead of letting these successor states go, they were to be integrated into the Union. Programs of integration were imposed on the conquered worlds to reconstruct them into parts of the Union, including educational programs and, in a fair deal of cases, Neurological Reprogramming of members of resistance movements. Eventually this program was successful, after becoming the most hotly debated part of the Union's politics, which led to the Union of Worlds to be rebuilt and in 544 renamed into a new state. One with the objective of bringing all of humanity under it's banner: The Unified Imperium.
The Imperial Navy and the Imperial Marine Corps began to push out and annexed systems of what they called "Barbarians" (with varying degrees of accuracy) by system either with the threat of force. The Imperium has taken a few page's from Rome's playbook and is divided into two areas, the Provinces and the Reconstructional Zones. The Provinces are well integrated areas populated by citizens, who live in an authoritarian democratic state. Citizens have democratic rights in the Imperial Diet. The Reconstructional Zones are planets comparatively new conquests of the Imperium, which, as the name suggests are undergoing reconstruction and integration. By approval of the Imperial Diet, Reconstructional Zones may be converted into new provinces. Certain laws are set in stone in the Imperium, most notably those which forbid elements of the Empire from breaking off from it.
Reconstructional Zones are populated mostly by Subjects. Subjects, unlike citizens can not vote in anything other than a town or (in the case of those subjects living in cities with more than 50,000 people) district elections, don't have freedom of movement and are required to Kowtow before Imperial Officials, though they do have some legal rights. Subjects are classified into five classes, Class-I subjects are the least likely to rebel but are not fully integrated and have the greatest degree of individual freedom, Class-V subjects are from populations hostile and are kept under tight watch with far more heavy handed policies are employed. The raising or lower of subject class is used as an incentive. The punishment for rebellion or insurrection is Neurological Reprogramming, a process in which memories are deleted and new memories and compulsions are installed onto people's brains. In extreme cases (which are the exceptions), widespread Neurological Reprogramming has been used on large sections of rebellious subject populations, even so it is rare for more than 10% of a planet's population to be reprogramming. Subjects can become Citizens through a variety of means, in some cases citizenship can be bought, citizenship is often given out to exceptional individuals as a reward as well as either 30 years of service as a Police Officer or 15 years of service in the Imperial Military (which involves being subjected to a neural probe to deal with potential saboteurs and infiltration), almost inevitably stationed elsewhere in the Empire. The Imperium makes extensive use of cheap military robots to police its conquered planets under observation of human commanders at either the squad or platoon level. When an Reconstructional Zone becomes a province, it's subjects becomes citizens (automatically for adult Class-I and II subjects, after a six month probation for Class-III subjects, one year probation for Class-IV and after an indefinite probation for Class-V subjects though children automatically become full citizens). Most of the Imperium's army are Armed Keepers of Order (AKOs), forces of motorized infantry trained in urban combat as well as policing.
However, the rise of the Imperium got people concerned. In 610, after the Unified Imperium had tripled in size, two hundred established non Imperial powers gathered together and formed the Coalition of Free Stars with one goal in mind: defense against this new power which sought to conquer all of mankind. In 615 the Coalition went up against the Unified Imperium in the first Coalition/Imperial War and managed to defeat their latest attempt at expansion by sheer force of numbers and liberated a few newly conquered planets. However in 622, the Imperium launched a counter offensive which retook those lost worlds and managed to take a few coalition planets. Thus began a series of about thirty on and off war
The Coalition is a loose organization dedicated almost entirely to warfare against the Unified Imperium, either as a central command of the various militaries of coalition states, maintaining a quantum relay network for communication or as a means of coordinating resources to help develop and expand military production. In the coalition are a wide variety of states and mostly leaves internal affairs in the hands of local government. The Coalition has in itself a wide variety of states, many of which are democratic, but it also includes a few monarchies, military dictatorships and theocracies. Many of them have longstanding rivalries which, while they have put aside with the looming threat of the Unified Imperium. Each world is required to provide military manpower and material to the war effort.
Membership in the Coalition is theoretically a voluntary affair. That said, the Coalition takes a dim view on neutral powers and does use strong arm tactics to get other states to join it, including sponsoring the campaigns of pro-coalition political parties in perspective members and coup d'etats. Occasionally they will use some pretext to use military force to force a system to joining them, but this is the exception rather than the rule. On the occasions in which they occupy Imperial territory, they come down hard on Imperial sympathizers (which as a rule don't role over to what they call "renegades and barbarians"), though they have agreed not to use Neurological Reprogramming. The aim is not conquest, but to create/restore independent governments to imperial territories though exactly what shape said governments take is dependent on who's in charge of the occupation. Both the Imperium and the Coalition have expanded somewhat since the wars began.
It should be noted that the Coalition comes with a termination clause. Should the Unified Imperium be defeated the Coalition, having served it's purpose is to be dissolved. Some Coalition States have agreed to form a peaceful economic alliance in such an event, but far from all of it' members have signed up on this and there are others who want to go back at it with their current enemies.
Space warfare involves fleets of dozens to thousands of ships ranging in length from 300 to 1500 meters armed with long range missiles, lasers with ranges of about a light second (or two in the case of really heavy weapons which cruisers are built around and battleships will carry two of in huge turrets), counter missiles and laser clusters and plasma cannons for close quarters fighting at ranges of 100,000 to 50,000 km, as well as smaller 10 to 30 meter long fightercraft for point defense, scouting and fighting and heavy customization flagships between 1500 and 2000 meters long. Capital ships have shields, but only cruisers, battleships and flagships can form bubbles around them. Destroyers can only form shields on two of their sides and forwards while frigates can only mantain a forward shield. FTL communication exists, as do FTL sensors. However, all FTL sensors can do is state that a ship with a certain mass had jumped to hyperspace or into X area of realspace with two light years. Ships can not jump too close to big objects like planets and stars. Sol's jump limit is about an AU more than Uranus's orbit. Ground warfare is similar to modern ground warfare, only the tanks can fly. Imperial Navy Ships as a rule are more durable, have slightly longer ranged weapons, are better supplied and are standardized. Coalition ships are more often than not faster at STL and have a 1.5 numeric advantage, but have logistical problems made all the worse by a lack of standardization while the Imperium has a more developed network of core swapping stations allowing troops and supplies to be delivered more quickly within its borders.
So far neither side has turned to planet sterilization, partially because there are defenses such as planetary shield networks and interception boeys to deal with KKVs, partly because the Imperium has no interest in conquering radioactive rubble, partly because it would incur similar devastation to be wrought due to retaliation. Both do some degree of scorched earth policies when they have to abandon their systems. The Imperium usually destroys shipyards, relays and military bases. The coalition will do that, as well as damaging general infrastructure to hinder the Imperial advance. About 33% of coalition ground forces can be pretty nasty in their way of doing things with little regard for civilian lives, a fondness for petty abuses of power, cramming their own ideologies/religions down people's throats even without aid of neurological reprogramming and some "hard men making hard decisions while hard" type policies.
The conflict is now at turning point, and it could go either way ending in the conquest of the Coalition of Free Stars or the Unified Imperium being broken apart in the subsequent ten year. Of these two powers, which one would you have win?
Zor
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