I get the feeling those generation ships will come into play later.
The Lost Cradle: A Space Opera
- Thread starter inquisition
- Start date
Ugly, and pointless. I hope there are at least some consequences for this in the years to come?
Genocide in a time capsule to come back to bite them centuries later is my guess.
inquisition
Not Affiliated With the Spanish Church
- Location
- Valkenheim
If you practically blow up a planet, there are going to be very few states willing to deal with you. In fact, this will have a large impact on the progression of the next state to come: the Confederation.
Beyogi
and a fairy
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah, I get the feeling that any war they're going to be in afterwards will be a total one. With no mercy given, for they didn't give any either.
You don't want to behave like the Imperium of Mankind unless you actually have the sheer power of the Imperium of Mankind.
You don't want to behave like the Imperium of Mankind unless you actually have the sheer power of the Imperium of Mankind.
Got this from the front page.
19
inquisition
Not Affiliated With the Spanish Church
- Location
- Valkenheim
Sagittarian Republic: "A Nation of Butchers"
(814 BFD—600s BFD)
(814 BFD—600s BFD)
With the destruction of Taucanorg, and with it the remains of the centralized Caedhewe state, there was little opposition to ASCOM and its increasingly worried "allies." The Genocide of Caccia, the high-water mark of the Great Holocaust, led to a massive backlash against the OGS among the other nations of the galaxy. The Anglyskiyan Federation promptly cut off all trade with the nations compliant in the brutality, and the Hellenic Alliance and the UNCM reduced their trade output to them by 40 percent. [1] Even the OGS's civilian leadership was horrified, but their influence had long been dwarfed by the growing power of the military.
As the war wound down, the remaining Caedhewe systems began surrendering en masse—not to ASCOM, but to their reluctant co-belligerents. Survivors of the ASCOM purge fled to systems occupied by these more benevolent human powers, as well as to the UNCM's "Caedhewe Protectorate," based in Scutia. ASCOM protested, but the exhaustion of almost sixty years of war was simply too much, and even the military was loath to throw itself into a destructive conflict against the more powerful Federation. The Federation itself had also guaranteed the independence and territorial security of the other two nations as well as the Caedhewe Protectorate, making it impossible for the OGS to continue their destruction spree without fatal consequences.
The war did not end for several more years. The true cessation of armed conflict came on August 6, 811 BFD in the Kakka system. Most historians call the Battle of Kakka the true ending of the Scutum War, as the tattered remnants of the last Caedhewe fleet were annihilated by a force of ASCOM warships after a brief battle. The Scutum Arm was effectively scoured of functional life, and strip mining was no reason to maintain long-term control, so the majority of ASCOM's forces withdrew from the Scutum Arm, only maintaining listening posts and small colonies in the oasis systems and the Messier nebula.
By this time, the various governments of the Sagittarian Arm were either utterly terrified of their own military, or effectively dominated by it—sometimes both at once. As stated privately by Union of African Republics Director [3] Leonard Motebe, "We are the prisoners of our own defenders!" However, the military was without a doubt the most capable organization to aid in the rebuilding. They absorbed the Galactic Life Society, along with several other charities, essentially assuming control of the rebuilding efforts and much of the economy in the embattled regions. Colonists saw ASCOM soldiers distributing food aid and rebuilding structures, and watched as ASCOM ships brought in enormous quantities of medical supplies and personnel. Such efforts had tremendous effect on public opinion, and the Public Communications Division made the most of it.
By this time, the military had its tentacles curling around every aspect of life in the OGS, and it was through them that the idea of a fully unified Sagittarian Arm truly came into play. Preventing rebellion would be paramount; in a region of such diverse cultures and languages (complete with two entire species), how would one promote unity? The answer, said ASCOM Grand Admiral Jamal Barre, lay in government-level autonomy combined with military-enforced loyalty to a decentralized federal government. The resulting federal republic would leave most economic, social, and domestic policy to colonial and planetary governments, while defense, foreign policy, intercolonial trade, and the "commanding heights of the economy" would be designated to the central government on New Kinshasa.
On June 26, 800, the Act of Union—the founding document of the new Sagittarian Republic—was signed on New Kinshasa, rubberstamped by the OGS Congress but, in reality, orchestrated by the military. ASCOM, despite its title of the Allied Strategic Command, retained its name as the central military command for the new nation, and, for all intents and purposes, the government. The Republic would be rather decentralized due to the multitude of cultures and languages in it, unified only by proximity and necessity. Its capital would be the seat of the old OGS Congress, New Kinshasa, renamed Sagittarius as a symbol of unity.
The parliamentary Congress would be headed by the Diet Chief Secretary, who would also act as Head of Government. The Head of State was the President, a powerless ceremonial position much like the USPS's Prime Citizen or the Dominion's Tsar. Congress was bicameral; the upper house, the Directorate, was made up of three representatives from each nation (renamed "autonomous republics") or colony, while the Diet would represent the population. From the start, the military was dominant; former ASCOM flag officers made up almost thirty percent of the Diet after the first election, and a further fifty percent of the seats were heavily influenced by ASCOM in some way. Accusations of rigged elections and bribery were brushed off as lies and foreign slander.
The first Chief Secretary was Nassis, the former leader of the now-defunct Phalodi Union who had been a loyal ASCOM lickboot for years. His power and influence paled next to the real masters of the ship of state: the New Troika [2] of ASCOM. So-called by political experts elsewhere in the galaxy, the New Troika was comprised of three Sagittarian war heroes, all of whom were complicit in the Great Holocaust: Barre of course, as well as, Burmese Grand Admiral Bogyoke Nu Kyin and Hindustani Grand Admiral Damyanti Kaur. Wielding the dual weapons of PCD censorship and a compliant Diet, these three admirals turned a disparate group of allies into a functional federal state.
The news was utterly shocking to those who had been hoping that ASCOM would break up after the war and therefore remove a loose cannon that had shown its willingness for extreme violence. For the first few centuries after its creation, the Republic was a pariah state; a slew of sanctions were placed on them by the Svoboda Prime Pact, the Holy Mandate, and the worlds that would eventually become the Confederation of Perseus and the Carina Consortium. Several nations, out of necessity (such as the UNCM or the Alliance) or apathy (the distant Xacree), maintained trade relations, but often at reduced volume. Due to the sheer size of the new Republic, and as a result the large resource base it had, the economic ramifications were muted; most necessities could be obtained within its borders.
There were problems, however: the Republic had just ended a sixty-year war that had caused enormous damage to many of its border systems. Rebuilding in the damaged systems was difficult under the circumstances, especially after the Federation declared that it would be patrolling the Scutum Arm to prevent strip mining of the destroyed planets. An overextended ASCOM had no interest in engaging in further conflict. "The Republic," raged the Troika through their mouthpiece of Nassis, "will meet these sanctions with discipline, frugality, and sacrifice!"
For several centuries, the Republic would be locked into this mindset. Self-reliance became the phrase on everyone's lips; if the Galaxy would not accept the Republic's "perfectly justified" actions, then the Republic would not accept the Galaxy. In the 600s BFD, the military cast its eyes "south," to the scattered systems of the Perseus arm. For the more cynical, the move eerily reminded them of another power that had decided to do something very similar only a century before. Their misgivings, although shouted down, would prove to be very prophetic in more ways than one…
[1]: This may not seem like much, but the OGS and its raw materials, by this point, were vital to both states' economies. Efforts to import more from the Federation and cut down on OGS imports would take decades.
[2]: "Troika" is an Anglyskiyan loanword that, thanks to the prevalence of Federation media, became commonplace in the human galaxy.
[3]: The bicameral legislature of the Union was known as the "Directorate," a name that would carry over to the lower house of the Sagittarian Congress.
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inquisition
Not Affiliated With the Spanish Church
- Location
- Valkenheim
Earth actually is in the Orion Arm, but you're not wrong about the second parrticipant.
Beyogi
and a fairy
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh well, that's emberassing. *remember to google before posting*
In that case, who's in the Perseus arm?
inquisition
Not Affiliated With the Spanish Church
- Location
- Valkenheim
Take a look at the map:
That should clear it up.
inquisition
Not Affiliated With the Spanish Church
- Location
- Valkenheim
In the immediate timeframe, the CoP doesn't even exist, the next few updates will talk about their creation. The DMZ actually comes much later.
Well, the lines were more an aesthetic decision to further differentiate the systems of the Great Powers than anything. I've looked at space maps like this before, and the ones where you just see a bunch of colored dots makes things difficult to discern sometimes.
20
inquisition
Not Affiliated With the Spanish Church
- Location
- Valkenheim
The Confederation of Perseus:
Excerpt from The Heart of Darkness: Travels in the Perseus ConfederacyBy Dr. Jutta Cheng, Prof. of International Studies at Volksuniversität Hashemstadt
Chapter 3:
When travelling in the core worlds of the Confederation, the first thing you will likely notice is the complete and utter lack of aliens—any aliens—walking the streets. On most major worlds anywhere else in the Galaxy, you'll likely see a few Xacree, Liisii, Nasama, or Demlas walking about. In our own Union, a large minority of the population is non-human, and there are three departments specifically designated as semi-autonomous for them. On the crowded streets of Forrest City, capital of the Confederate homeworld? At best, you will see the occasional Gomoran, scurrying along meekly beside his or her human master. You can watch the Skuyuk fighters playing gladiatorial sports in the great arenas, if you have a strong stomach at least—I did not, and had to leave the ghastly scene before I was forced to watch one person dismember another for the sick amusement of the Charleston gentry. Slavery and its related racial "science" are central to the culture and society of the Confederation, and it's one of the strongest uniters of such a diverse region of space.
The second thing to notice is the constant monitoring. There's a reason Perseus only rakes in a trickle of tourism money; most tourists don't like having their luggage pawed through and their every move watched. The Union Foreign Service tells people that they should refrain from bringing a lot of valuables, or at least keeping them anywhere except their person, and there's a good reason for that—the customs officers who inspect bags do tend to have sticky fingers, as many of them are members of the "citizen" caste and, therefore, can make a quick few credits on the black market selling items on the prohibidot list. When I reached the government-run tourist hotel and started unpacking in my room, I noticed that my Zauber [1] was no longer there—or at least the dummy version of one that I'd made out of the shell of a long-outdated model. Finding out for certain that my luggage had been searched was certainly unnerving, if not entirely unexpected…
…As a tourist, the city was actually surprisingly nice. The Confederation's government may be a foul dictatorship dominated by the most evil of ideologies, but damned if they can't be polite. Maybe it was the fact that I was one of the few customers in a very empty hotel, but I don't think so; watching Citizens and Contribuyenters [2] bustle about in their menial duties, I noted that they were generally polite, kind, and talkative, always with some words of encouragement for a downtrodden coworker or with a funny joke to tell during their meager downtimes. They were also eager to talk to me, as I was one of the few new faces in the hotel; apparently I was the first new customer in almost a week in the entire building, and their curiosity was obvious. They asked me whatever they could about my life, how it was in the Union, and life on other worlds was, at least without getting me, themselves, or their families in trouble. After all, there were obviously cameras set up everywhere, even in the hotel rooms themselves…
…As for activities, there was little to do at first; as fate would have it, I was in the Confederation for one of their many holidays, although calling them "holidays" might not be entirely correct. In reality, they're simply excuses for the Presidium to parade the bloated Armed Forces around like toy soldiers. I was awoken, on my first morning, by the crashing of drums and the crump crump crump of marching boots. I distinctly remember, after stumbling over to the window and setting it to "day" mode, seeing an utter sea of light gray parade dress uniforms marching past. I will never understand just how they managed to organize such a vast parade down the Main Concourse, but there it was, plain as day, complete with tanks, exoskeletons, and aircraft. There were many civilians lining the concourse, cheering and waving behind a holofence that appears to have grown right out of the ground. I constantly heard, shouted through speakers from who knows where, "A happy Heroes Day to all! Celebrate the paragons of our great nation with your family!"
This is not unusual. No other nation in the galaxy is as dominated by historical personalities as the Confederation. In Forrest, there is a thirty-kilometer stretch of avenue, the Main Concourse, lined with nothing but trees and statues—hundreds and hundreds of statues. Since its inception, there have been many leaders, each with a different cult of personality, and the statues of them reflect that fact in their art style. Mitchell Ricardson stares down at you with empty blue eyes, arms open and palms up in the flowing, surrealist style of statuary from his time period. Lucille Bath stares forward, gripping the lapel of her gray military jacket like it's the last scrap of food in the galaxy. And of course, there's the big man himself; Louis Fennic, greatest Confederate of all, resplendent atop a majestic farstrider [3] with his blade outstretched and ready—all in the glorious, colorful art style of the late First Confederate Era. There are no businesses, no houses, no buildings along the Concourse, with the exception of a few government offices and near-empty tourism centers. The odd building out is the Capitolio Perseos, the center of the empire and the residence/office of President David Peláez. History is extremely important to Confederate society, and for a pariah state, its fate has constantly been entwined with that of its neighbors…
[1]: Refers to the Zauber Collective Model 296-E Personal Computer System, also known as a holowatch. The Zauber is a cheap, common holowatch that is one of the most popular personal computers in Union space, and is small enough to fit on one's wrist. It projects a holographic interface complete with "hardlight" keyboard.
[2]: Contribuyenters, or contributors, are the third "caste" in Confederation society., above Citizen but below Capataz.
[3]: The farstrider is a beast of burden originating in the Charleston system, with some similarities to a wooly mammoth from Earth.
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inquisition
Not Affiliated With the Spanish Church
- Location
- Valkenheim
Ah, got that. Thanks. Just an extra footnote marker in the text that I put there by accident.
I aim to please.
inquisition
Not Affiliated With the Spanish Church
- Location
- Valkenheim
In some ways, yes; 40k does have its influences on this universe, although they generally are in the idea of SPESS MEHREENS (or at least something similar) and in certain nations' politics. Otherwise, I didn't really set out to get that kind of vibe; how do you mean?
Beyogi
and a fairy
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well, the surveilance state, the kill the Xeno policies, the fact that most polities are military dictatorships or controlled by nobles of some sort...
inquisition
Not Affiliated With the Spanish Church
- Location
- Valkenheim
Not all of them are military dictatorships. The Dominion and the Union are attempted subversions of The Empire trope and USSR-clones respectively, with both being democracies in one form or the other--the modern Dominion is no less democratic than the United Kingdom, and the USPS isn't a true communist state despite having communist trappings. The Mandate and the Sagittarian Republic are far less democratic, but they're not totalitarian hellholes like the Imperium or the Tau Empire. The first can be compared to China if the Communist party was the Church, and the other, while it's a military dictatorship now, will get better later on.
The Confederation is all of those things, but they're the exception to the rule, and they're a pariah for precisely that reason.
Beyogi
and a fairy
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ah okay. I got the impression the Dominion was basically feudalism in space.
The USPS is kinda interesting truth to be told. They've apparently learned from the mistakes of the past, so they've actually managed to build something that works. I guess being big enough to be autonomous also always helps.
The USPS is kinda interesting truth to be told. They've apparently learned from the mistakes of the past, so they've actually managed to build something that works. I guess being big enough to be autonomous also always helps.
21
inquisition
Not Affiliated With the Spanish Church
- Location
- Valkenheim
Confederation of Perseus: The Early Exodus
1850s BFD —600s BFD
1850s BFD —600s BFD
In examining the history of the Confederation of Perseus, one must look back, as with many human nations, to the Great Disaster and the exodus that followed it. As North America was ravaged by disaster and the desperate resource wars that followed, a large number of generation ships took off from the Western hemisphere. Among other organizations, the US government launched its own vessel—Freedom Star—from an orbital base, travelling for an unbelievably long time and eventually founding the isolated United American Systems in the outer rim of the galaxy. Mexico, Canada, and the various South American nations conducted similar missions, some with more success than others.
In several cases, groups of US states banded together to launch their own vessels—the parts were available despite the social collapse, and the multitude of starports established across the country and in geosynchronous orbit above it gave ample space for the launch of many arks. The ship New York launched towards the center of the galaxy, and would, many centuries later, eventually found a colony in a system they named "Hell's Kitchen." The vessel Frémont launched from an offshore facility, populated by Californians, leading to the establishment of a colony in the Barnaby system. However, for the purposes of this historical treatise, we will be examining a few of these missions in closer detail—most notably, the ship Lee, launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida and containing the best the US South had to offer, as well as the Mexican generation ships Obregon and Porfirio Diáz. These three vessels were the first to travel directly to the Perseus Arm, and therefore formed the core of the Confederation.
Other ships like the Houston or the Simón Bolivar would found colonies in the Arm between the Exodus and approximately 1000 BFD, by which point much of the arm had been populated by the colonies that would eventually form the galaxy's greatest pariah state. Chief among them, of course, was the colony of Charleston Prime, descendant of the starship Lee and the capital world of the Charleston system. Charleston, as colonies went, was very unusual, and in many ways it was the precursor to what the Confederation would eventually become: an authoritarian state dominated by a powerful gentry, ruling a large population of lower-class, uneducated workers and farmers. Founded in approximately 1450 BFD, the colony started out under the guidance of Ethan Fennic, the popularly elected leader of the colony, and his wife Carla.
Ethan and Carla Fennic would be the mother and father of the Charlestonian and later Confederate society, with their vast family playing a vital role in the shaping of the modern Perseus Arm. Many Charlestonian leaders would be descended from these two—Louis Fennic (both I and III), Ricard Fennic, Manuel Ramirez, William Gears, and many more. The first known Fennic's presidency [1] would be as rather uneventful one, where Ethan and his "constituents" would construct the beginnings of Freedom City—the precursor to Forrest City and the capital of the Charleston system. Much like the Anglyskiyans on Svoboda Prime across the Galaxy, the Charlestonians took several centuries to build themselves up before exploring the galaxy; unlike the Anglyskiyans, however, they were not alone in their local neighborhood.
The ship Fitzgerald, on a routine transport mission in December of 927 BFD, came across another human vessel—the Luisa Ruíz, an exploration ship hailing from the colony of Nuevo Lima in the Titicaca system. As was the case with many regions before and after it, the Charlestonians and Limans made contact with the wider galaxy piecemeal, starting of course with their local arm. Like the Sagittarians and the Carinics, in the era of the sluggish Chomsky-era drive, the various peoples of the Perseus Arm had little contact aside from each other. There was considerable contact between some colonies and the colonies of the Sagittarian arm (something that would come into play later on), but the cleft created by the "Orion Fault," a gulf of empty space (much like the Khali TImahi) that separated the Sagittarian and Perseus Arms, made large-scale interaction more difficult prior to the Fujiwara drive.
As the region of known space expanded, Charleston became wealthier from the riches of trade—the system possessed significant mines of hadrium and uranium, making it a central hub of commerce and a massive exporter—and closer to its neighbors. However, its political system had evolved over the centuries from a true representative democracy to the meritocratic oligarchy mentioned above. Despite being a net exporter and with a fantastically wealthy upper class, the system nevertheless was extremely socially stratified—the beginnings of what would eventually become the Confederate caste system. A cadre of wealthy businessmen and farm benefactors formed the political class and a large part of the officer corps, while an overseer class exercised their will over the underpaid masses.
This system did not endear Charleston to some states in the Perseus Arm, but its profits often did—by the 780s BFD (several decades after the establishment of the Sagittarian Republic), the system was a hub of commerce for the Perseus Arm. Raw materials went out to the various industrial colonies of the Arm, while manufactured goods flowed in. The Charlestonian nouveau riche prospered, becoming unofficial leaders in this galactic economic community. As early as 731, the origins of a unified Perseus Arm began on Charleston Prime, with the creation of a "joint trade treaty" to grow the less powerful economies in the Arm, protect trade routes, and (as a less publicized sidenote) alienate the new pariah state in the Sagittarian Arm. However, this would prove to be a mistake—the Sagittarians were still well-armed and functional despite the long recovery from the Caedhewe War, and they were feeling none too merciful…
[1]: Records of pre-Disaster American personalities are limited due to the collapse of the Internet, the loss of enormous amounts of server data worldwide, and the loss of many material records by the enormous ash cloud that blotted out North America when Yellowstone erupted some years after the Thor impact. However, there are records of a "Governor Charlie Fennic" of Alabama that have been unearthed by Anglyskiyan Dominion researchers working on Terra with colleagues in the Empire of York. Apparently Governor Fennic sat in the governorship in the mid-1900s BFD, making the Fennic family's political history over 4,000 years old.
22
inquisition
Not Affiliated With the Spanish Church
- Location
- Valkenheim
Greater Anglyskiyan Dominion
Anglyskiyan Imperial Navy
The ensign of the Dominion Imperial Navy.
Anglyskiyan Imperial Navy
The ensign of the Dominion Imperial Navy.
The second-largest navy in the galaxy and arguably the most well-armed, the Imperial Navy is the space branch of the Dominion's armed forces. Consisting of well over five million ships of various classes and roles, the vast Navy is the fulcrum of the Imperial military doctrine.
The Imperial Navy can trace its lineage back to the Federal Starfleet of the old Anglyskiyan Federation, as well as three other branches—the Federal Discovery Corps, the Aerospace Force (in charge of aerial and orbital defenses), and the DVR (Direktsiya Voyennoy Razvedki, or the Directorate of Military Intelligence). After the Anglyskiyan Civil War, the collapse of the Federation, and the formation of the Anglyskiyan State that would later become the Dominion, Federal Starfleet was merged with these organizations to streamline command. With Admiral Vladimir Nikolayevich Windsor (better known as Tsar Vladimir I in the modern day) holding complete loyalty from those Starfleet factions that had supported him in the Civil War, the protests of the rump Federal Army, Federal Seafleet, [2] and Federal Marines [3] were muted.
Conforming to most Dominion-based schools of military thought, the Imperial Navy is heavily based on overwhelming firepower applied over a wide area. Huge railgun and torpedo barrages are commonplace, and most Dominion warships are built around a massive main gun—sometimes a mass driver, and sometimes a MAHEM [1] cannon—that runs the length of the ship, the largest of which can cause mass extinction events. Their resolutium armor belts are approximately 1 meter thick at their thinnest, which is nothing to sneeze at, even if their armor is often dwarfed by that of a Sagittarian or Mandate vessel. According to Dominion doctrine, the role of a warship is to get hit as little as possible; their ships are not fragile like those of the Union, but the shields of their sub-capital ships (cruisers and below) are nowhere near as tenacious as those of some of their rivals.
The typical Dominion warship can be identified by an angular, almost "sharklike" design, with every available centimeter of surface bristling with weapons or plated with thick armor. Aesthetics are low on the priority list of the Navy, giving its ships a flat gray color scheme with the occasional Imperial insignia stamped on the side. The main battery of most ships (with a few exceptions) runs much of the length of the vessel, and usually consists of the main cannon and its separate powerplant.
In the era of the relatively speedy Fujiwara drive, the subluminal propulsion is often notably smaller than that of a Chomsky-era spaceship; antiproton clusters move the vessels forward at extreme speeds as opposed to the ion drives of previous eras, and with the much more efficient and powerful singularity reactors of the modern era, operational range is increased by orders of magnitude, practically limited only by basic supplies to keep the crew alive.
The Imperial Navy, like the navies of the other Great Powers and many of the smaller navies, builds its fleets around the theory of the "dreadnought group," the basic unit of most larger navies. The dreadnought, the largest and most powerful vessel in space, is accompanied in battle by enormous supporting fleets of battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers, missile boats, destroyers, and the like. However, while the Dominion follows this doctrine, their preferred dreadnought is not their home-grown Tsar-class. Instead, they prefer the colossal Yamato-class titans, designed by Japan and built under license. All dreadnoughts are effectively space cities for crews that number in the tens of thousands, but the Yamato-class takes the cake; it measures 5.13 kilometers long (dwarfing the Tsar-class by a good 1.8km), and its colossal main cannon can theoretically fit a heavy cruiser down the barrel.
[1]: Magneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munitions; basically a railgun that fires enormous liquid-plasma slugs.
[2]: The "Wet Navy" of the Federation.
[3]: The "amphibious" branch of the Federal Armed Forces, although "amphibious" has generally come to mean "conducting orbital drops"—the wet navy operates its own amphibious marine corps.
((A little something while I work on the next history update. I think I might start writing these little "fluff" posts on the modern day galaxy as I continue the history, unless y'all think it's a bad idea.))
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Evillevi
A Pikachu for everything - Shadow Pikachu,2015
Not to be a downer but this sounds like the Death Star in miniature