"The Emperor shook his head, "I can tell you right now. But I can tell you that it involved some time sensitive warnings. Not enough evidence to arrest her, but enough doubt that I couldn't let her still have access to Imperial authority""
Might want to add some negation to his first sentence there.
I also suspect their study did not take into account the various sectors building up their own industry and infrastructure, made necessary in part Because they just had an expensive to maintain fleet dumped on them (financially speaking it makes sense long term unless there's a labour shortage). It's not like raw materials, (except time and manpower) would be in short supply on that scale.
I'm not gunna lie. There are quite a few things they missed.
Some because it simply didn't occur to them, or they dismissed it due to groupthink: the Sector Lords building their own infrastructure did occur to some lower level planners, but the general consensus was that they wouldn't want to spend the vast sums necessary... the general consensus might not be entirely correct. Some things were missed because the Fleet Bureaucracy has developed a habit of dicking around Ministry Planners out of interdepartmental empire building and rivalry. And some more things were missed because various parties have a vested interest in hiding things from the Imperial government; the Terran Separatists spring to mind for some reason.
I'm not gunna lie. There are quite a few things they missed.
Some because it simply didn't occur to them, or they dismissed it due to groupthink: the Sector Lords building their own infrastructure did occur to some lower level planners, but the general consensus was that they wouldn't want to spend the vast sums necessary... the general consensus might not be entirely correct. Some things were missed because the Fleet Bureaucracy has developed a habit of dicking around Ministry Planners out of interdepartmental empire building and rivalry. And some more things were missed because various parties have a vested interest in hiding things from the Imperial government; the Terran Separatists spring to mind for some reason.
"Why aren't they running out of supplies?"
"Apparently, they built factories to make them."
"What? They weren't supposed to build factories!"
"Did you tell them that?"
So the last week has mostly been work and catching up on other things, so I haven't written much. Also as this project was started by essentially my muse grabbing me by the collar and dragging me down the road half blind and delirious, I have always had an idea of what I wanted to do, and where I wanted to go, and even some of who I was writing. But I hadn't yet fully worked out the how, and why
But now I've sat back and worked on some more world-building and plotting. So my appreciation to all still paying attention here. Essentially I've been taking a short moment to catch my metaphorical breath before I take the plunge.
Anyhoo here is about where my head is about this right now:
The Empire and the culture that it belongs to/belongs to it needs a name. The Galactic Empire already being taken, and constantly referring to everyone as Imperials is lame. So Imperial: knock out that 'p' cause Imp-somthing is also lame, so now we've got Imerial... That does not roll off of the tongue, so rearrange it some: Imreial. Almost there, still awkward though... so a little bit more and we get Imrael. I like the sound of that, Im-ray-el, smoother than before. So now we have the Imrael Empire, way more legit than the "Imperial Empire"
So now we (I) need a reason for us (me) to eventually have spaceships pew!-pew!-ing at each other. Obviously this means that far from starting the conflict between the Emperor and his Empire, Enathe`s dismissal is the latest in a history of events. So we (I) have to come up with some reasons.
So our Empire must be made up of multiple regions, and presumably we would have differences between said reasons. I have already made some references to `Rim`, and `Terran` Separatists. They now want to leave because in the history of the Imrael Empire, while Earth was the Birthworld of Humanity, the Imrael capital of Imraelight (The -light suffix denotes a major population centre/world) is the Homeworld and Capital of the Empire and the Civilization. The coreworlds settled from Imraelight have a different culture from those settled from Terra, and the Terrans resent now being under the rule of the Imrael. Especially since Imrael policy is "lol be like us now". As well the most recent colonies resent being placed under the tight central control of the Imperial government.
So, religion. Religion was especially prominent in the English Civil Wars that I'm drawing some inspiration from. But, somehow, I decided that using real life religions might not be the best idea. So dusted off a religion that I made for an old RPG campaign (I have a description below) Essentially the split at this time is between the Central Orthodox branch of the religion (!Catholicism, and a Universalist branch that rejects the central authority (!Protestantism)
The common creation myth as related by the Holy Books is below (Poorly Formatted, might I add!) But the TL: DR is that essentially the pre-historic Imrael were created by a real Old Testament style Creator God. An Angel of Justice went "wtf?" at the Creator's rampant douchbaggery, and confronted him about it. She was cast from heaven down to the Imrael. Feeling sympathetic to their plight, this Fallen Angel Nalaanar, made a pact with the Imrael to be their own personal Goddess in exchange for their worship. The Republic that evolved into the current Empire was theocracy, but over time chinks split off from the Orthodox faith and became the Universalist faction
WARNING:BAD FORMATTING
In that beginning, the Cosmos was nothing. Then the Cosmos was only Chaos. The Architect swept forward a hand and the Cosmos was calmed, as was Fit and Proper.
The Architect turned gaze from world to world, each ordered as was Fit and Proper. Finally the Architect's gaze fell on Home, and all was ordered as was Fit and Proper
Thus sprang forth the First People. The First People were without Reason or Emotion, and knew not of Souls.
They Knew only of the Physical being and were Fearful, Hungry, and Lustful. Worst of all they knew only of Death and were afraid.
They looked to the Architect and pleaded for deliverance but were ignored as was Fit and Proper
The First People quarreled and fought each other as they knew only Fear; this led only to murder and Death.
The First People ate Home and each other as they knew only Hunger; this led only to gluttony and Death.
The First People took animals and each other as they knew only Lust; this led only to sickness and Death.
The Lady of Heaven, whose Place was Justice watched each world as was Fit and Proper. She looked upon each world and passed Judgement upon Sin as was Fit and Proper.
Eventually the gaze of Justice fell upon Home and She beheld the First People who were of Sin. The First People knew only of Murder, and Gluttony and Lust
The Lady of Heaven, whose Place was Justice and whose Purpose was Judgement, as was Fit and Proper, beheld the First People.
She saw they were without Reason or Emotion, and knew not of Souls.
They knew only of the Physical being, and were Fearful, Hungary, and Lustful. And worst of all they knew only of Death and were afraid
The Lady of Heaven, whose place was Justice and whose Purpose was Judgement, beheld the First People and could not pass Judgement as was Fit and Proper.
She knew righteous fury that they knew not of Reason or Emotion, and knew not of Souls. Worst of all they knew only of Death and were afraid, as was Fit and Proper
The Lady of Heaven, whose Place was Justice and whose Purpose was Judgement, could not pass Judgement on the First People as was Fit and Proper.
She approached the Architect whose hand calmed Chaos as was Fit and Proper. She asked permission to succour the First People as was Right and Just, most of all she asked to end Death
The Architect ignored Her pleas as was Fit and Proper. The Lady of Heaven whose Place was Justice and whose Purpose was Judgement,
pleaded with the Architect that the situation of the First People was not Right and was not Just, She was ignored as was Fit and Proper.
And worst of all Death continued as was Fit and Proper
The Lady of Heaven decided to leave Her Place which was Justice, and abandon Her Purpose which was Judgment, as was Fit and Proper.
Instead She would help the First People as was Right and Just.
At this the Architect whose hand calmed Chaos exiled the Lady of Heaven from the Cosmos in righteous anger as was Fit and Proper
Thus the Lady of Heaven whose Place had been Justice, and whose Purpose had been Judgement was thrown down to Home as was Fit and Proper.
She came upon the First People and was gladdened as She could give Reason and Emotion to the pitiable First People. However She knew She could not end Death as was Right and Just
The First People were afraid of Reason and Emotion as they knew only the Physical being as was Fit and Proper.
Still the Lady of Heaven gave them Reason and Emotion as was Right and Just.
Then the First People were gladdened and knew more than Physical being, but still they knew only of Death as was Fit and Proper
The First People pleaded with the Lady of Heaven to end Death as was Right and Just. She lamented that although it pained Her, knowledge of only Death was as was Fit and Proper.
The First People wailed and became worse than before they had been gifted Reason and Emotion. Worst of all Death continued as was Fit and Proper
The Lady of Heaven despaired as She could not end Death as was Right and Just. Reason and Emotion and Physical being were all transitory;
only the Soul was immortal, as was Fit and Proper. She lamented as First People did not have knowledge of the Soul and she could not give it to them as was Right and Just
Then the Lady of Justice, whose place had been Justice, and whose place had been Judgement as was Fit and Proper, reached up into the Cosmos as far as She could reach.
She took the tiniest piece of Chaos and bound it with a piece of Herself. She did this again and again, once for each of the First People
When the Lady of Heaven was finished she had created Souls, one for each First Person as was Right and Just. She gave them to the First People and they were Changed.
Fear was challenged by Courage and conquered, Hunger by Satiation and ended, Lust by Love and subsumed. All the First People were joyful as was Right and Just
The Lady of Heaven could still not end Death, but when one of the First People died she gathered the Soul to Her and cared for it as was Right and Just.
The First People still knew Death and were afraid as was Fit and Proper, but now they had Courage, and Satiation, and Love as was Right and Just
At that Time the First People became The People and offered Her Eternal Thanks. The Lady of Heaven who was still Justice came to The People but gave them solemn news,
Her efforts had weakened Her, and She was fading to Chaos, and would soon leave them as was right and proper, and no more would The People have Souls
The People were fearful as they had always been as was Fit and Proper. However now they had Reason and Emotion and Souls and knew of Courage and Love.
The People gathered their strength into Prayers, offering them to Her as was Right and Just. The Prayers of The People returned strength to The Lady and She Returned to them
From then until now and forever a Covenant exists between the Lady of Heaven, who we Call Nalanaar in the Old Tongue, and The People.
We give her the strength of Prayer and in return whenever the First Cry of a newborn babe of The People reaches Her ears She reaches up into the Cosmos as far as She can reach,
takes the tiniest piece of Chaos and binds it with a piece of Herself and then gives this new Soul to the child.
When that child reaches the Time of Death as is Fit and Proper She gathers the Soul to Herself and places it next to Her in the Place of Eternal Dreams as is Right and Just
A great deal of the history, geography, and politics that I've worked out will be kept to myself: Because I reserve the right to change any of it whenever I want and not look like fool in front of everyone.
In our story the Emperor is on the side of the colonies and the Universalists. He belives that by eliminating the various middlemen of the empire -the various representatives, directors, and committeemen, he can directly rule through Councillors. Essentiall he wants To "feudalise" and "autonomatise" the Empire to increase his own direct power. The colonies like the prospect of emerging out from the Imrael thumb. The Terran Separatists want out. No other goals -no Senate, no Emperor. Just Independence. The Senate wants to preserve direct rule over the Empire; a single unified state is the whole point it's what makes them Civilization and everything else barbarism. The Senate has never been comfortable with the Emperors; who came to power after the Great War wrecked the old Holy Imrael Republic (Another bit I plan to sit on until/if it becomes relevant) The Emperors (And Empresses) have pursued a program that is finally coming to fruition under the rule of the current Emperor -At the same time that he has lost sight of why his family embarked on the program in the first place. As for the common woman and man in the street, they want more freedoms, better economic conditions -the standard stuff. And they are willing to ally themselves with any group who plans to reform the current system, which at this time is the Senate (Who want to roll back to an older time with more government involvement in life, including social welfare programs)
So to keep people from wondering why AI and uploads aren't ruling the galaxy instead of filthy, bleeding, rotting organic brains; I offer this: The Imrael have discovered that AI and Uploads have a tendency to stop caring about the "Real World". Eventually they just stop talking to the outside world altogether, except to ask odd questions and make bizarre requests. Essentially they exist at such a different level of existence that they stop caring about us. Civilization still uses implants and such, but full on AI and Uploads are of limited utility (Even harnessed AI eventually find a way to fuck off and do their own thing) Many people, however, chose to upload themselves on their deathbeds promising to come back and tell everyone about it... they tend not to. So now the Imrael have XBawks-hueg computers on many worlds full of Uploads and the odd AI doing Goddess-knows-what.
None of any Import. The early Republic had a bad habit of genociding any advance Alien populations they came across and quarantining the rest onto their home planets and throwing rocks at anything more advanced than a Trebuchet. The late Republic was more liberal, but by that point Humanity outnumbered Xenos by Billions to One, so they don't have much of impact on the Galaxy
Other States exist in the galaxy, but they tend to be massively outweighed by the Imrael Empire. They tend to keep their heads down as the Imrael have never had post-Westphalian concept of Sovereignty, and will fuck with foreigners at the drop of a hat. And as I also am reluctant to gas on about them unless I need to, here are only the names of the largest: The Chrystovian Confederacy, The Coreward Alliance, The Dylaarian Federation, The Harmony, and the Naendian Union
Realistically, you won't actually need to know any of this going into the future chapters. But I am letting you know where I am on this. As far as the original muse goes: at this point I must diverge fully from it; "Oh shit guys I was wrong, stepping down now" Leaves us without space!explosions. So forward with my plan of Crisis in the Third Century via the way of the English Civil Wars. A brave future of the Galaxy sloping dramatically towards entropy awaits us!
No it's a former semi-spite fic turned legitimate attempt to wright something passable in a totally original (ie comprised entirely of aspects stolen from dozens of places and cleverly re-arraigned) universe.
(Just remember the Emperor is vacant his body, the Right Hand Men are: One is a schemer and a Evil Overlord. Another is a idiot and mumbles too much. The rest are various shades of reality.)
Honestly, this is a crapfic about recent events. It's a blantant suckup and you should feel bad about writing it.
