After generations of stable progress and unimaginable prosperity, the elders of the Daoine have lost their sense of reality and came to think of themselves as Gods. The off-planet Unseelie Oligarchy, entangled in rivalries millennia old, their interests conflicting with those of their peers and homeworld-bound juniors, strained the fabric of the seemingly eternal Commonwealth of Danann until it degraded and then failed. From the comfort of their opulent Palace Worlds, surrounded by loyal militaries and corporate courtiers, an Oligarch ordered the launch of a nuclear missile on the assets of his rival, and thus triggered a flurry of retaliatory launch commands that brought Danann to the very brink of annihilation. But for a group of junior officers who disobeyed their orders and shut closed the gates of oblivion.
A combination of foresight, political connections and the physical distance of his superiors gave the Seelie Colonel Cathuallan Cu Fiach the opportunity he needed to rally his peers and juniors into the Clique of Sparrows with the singular goal of preventing nuclear annihilation of their home planet by his power-mad Elders. The Clique managed to install enough loyalist officers at critical launch points to prevent the destruction of major population centers and seize the majority of military depots on the planet. These pre-emptive maneuvers decided guaranteed the Sparrows' victory in the ten-year Filicide War, as the rapidly shifting climate and atmospheric conditions separated the Loyalists from the vast resources of their Unseelie masters and left them stranded among hostile Daoine who, for the first time in the history of their species, stood united behind a single goal.
One decade has passed since the Day of Betrayal, and Danann's situation is no less precarious. Regional and corporate rivalries died with the Old Order and Generalissimo Cathuallan leads the absolutist Committee of Salvation under the mandate of saving his entire species from death on a rapidly dying world. His officers, now in charge of implementing post-war Central Policy in their assigned Emergency Districts, are more used to military command than civilian administrations. The Daoine's traditions of political participation and client-patron relations are slowly making themselves known and an opposition of intellectuals, socialites and former politicians is quickly coalescing to demand the restoration of democratic government and civic rights.
…and in the orbits of gas giants, the Unseelie Oligarchy is licking the wounds to their egos and halting their hostilities to prepare for the restoration of their assets.
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