History
From The Shakaroo Sector
Note: Historical records are constantly being updated and revised as more and more information is collected and translated.
It seems that approximately 5000 years ago, there was a Great War among the worlds of a vast human empire. During this war a doomsday weapon was unleashed that nearly wiped out the human race. These doomsday weapons, known as Drutseka, were satellites that had been designed to release a nanotech cloud that would rain down upon the planet below destroying all metals and plastics it could find. These self-replicating nanos basically destroyed any manufactured items that it found. It left the inhabitants of these worlds without any of the tools of which they had come to depend upon for day to day living. See Ancient History for more info.
Society was thrown back to basically stone-age times and the survivors had to rebuild their cultures from scratch. Once the nanos had died out, the people were able to mine for metals and begin rebuilding their technological base. This took a long time.
The planet of Tansansia was the first to reach a TL 8 and begin exploring space. They found the relics of ancient war ships floating in their system. From these they were eventually able to extract knowledge of advanced technologies that would have taken a century or more to develop on their own. Soon they were able to build their first FTL drive (Hyperdrive) and begin deep space exploration. The more they explored, the more artifacts they found and the more knowledge they were able to collect.
The remains of an old Stargate network was discovered and they were soon able to activate and use this network to travel great distances without the need of huge Hyperdrives. This allowed for smaller, cheaper ships to be used for exploration and it was much safer. They also discovered a network of T-Gates (Tachyon Gate) that are to this day a mystery as to how they work or who built them, but they are very useful as they transport ships instantaneously between themselves over distances that were previously thought impossible..
They also discovered that they were not the only survivors of the Great Devastation. The Stargates were set up to take ships between the major planets of the old human empire. The Tansansians soon located humans on other worlds. Many worlds were on their way to rediscovering lost technologies. Soon the Tansansia Alliance was formed and worlds began having open technological exchanges.
As the Alliance grew there was a need for more and more laws to protect the people and trade. The Planet of Jabrio had become the largest trade port in the Alliance as it had several connections to the Stargate system. As it was already a center for trade, it was chosen to be the capital for the newly forming Federation. The planets agreed that they wanted to have a standard set of laws to govern all the planets. This would make trade and travel that much easier and therefore improve interstellar trade.
The Federation flourished and the peace and prosperity was wide spread. There were of course growing pains and soon the Federation was so large that it was becoming difficult to control such a vast area of space. The Federation Council was depending more and more on the planetary governments to maintain law and order as the communication lag time was beginning to be quite large and quick decisions were not possible without having someone at the scene to represent the Federation’s interest.
Soon a large group of planets on the fringe decided that the Federation was not providing them with the services that it had promised. Because they were so far away from Jabrio, it took far too long to get anything done and they were fed up with this situation, so they declared independence and formed the AfrEal Empire. They maintained limited trade agreements with the Federation, but they were going to follow their own destiny. The Federation was growing concerned as the Imperial Navy was seen using precursor ships among their forces. The number of these precursor ships was growing at an alarming rate and many within the Federation were wondering where they were getting all these ships. Most of the precursor ships that the Federation had restored had been in pretty rough shape and they were still trying to learn how to operate the precursor equipment on board.
The Empire began running more and more military exercises along the Federation boarder and they had occasionally crossed over that boarder, but always claimed that they were experiencing navigational problems, but they always returned without incidence. Then in a quick move, the Empire’s fleet moved in mass and took several Federation planets, saying that they were annexing them into the Empire. The Federation Fleet moved in and there was a short war. In the end, the advanced precursor warships crushed the Federation forces. The Empire eventually took control of all the Federation planets and the Federation was absorbed to form the first large empire since the Great Devastation.
Although Emperor AfrEal was a dictator, people soon realized that their lives did not change much under his rule. His military units policed the streets and crime dropped to an all time low. True, they did not have any real say in the government, but things were moving along smoothly under his reign.
General Shanza took the Throne when Empress Shawny AfrEal died with no heir apparent. She had left instructions that she wanted Shanza to be the next Emperor. He too was a relatively good Emperor, though he was more controlling. He insisted that all the MegaCorporations give him 30% of their common stock so that not only would the Empire have a vote on how these companies would be run, but also provided more income to the Empire to maintain its armed forces.
Emperor Shanza granted a license to Sunstrider Technologies, Inc. to actually dissemble one of the Stargates that lead to a dead world with the goal to reverse engineer it and learn how to reproduce them. Seventeen years later and over 32 billion credits of Imperial funding, Sunstrider was indeed able to build the first "new" Stargate. The Emperor then granted Sunstrider a patent on the new technology and contracted Sunstrider to begin construction of Stargates to link all the worlds of the Empire. In return for the initial funding and patent, Sunstrider gave the Emperor 49% of the corporation’s stock. Since that time, Sunstrider has linked most systems that are within 10 parsecs of each other. They have yet to be able to configure a Stargate to reliably and safely transport a ship over 10 parsecs.
The Emperor had five sons during his reign. They were all power hungry military leaders and as their father became old and weak, they began fighting over who would take the throne. The eldest son, Markus, was assassinated. Andreaus and Gintavian killed each other in a dual of honor. Shortly after this William killed Cornelius, leaving himself the only remaining heir. He grew impatient waiting for his father’s death and so made an attempt to kill his father and take the throne. The Imperial Guard stopped him and saved the Emperor. The Emperor made a statement that there had already been too much bloodshed within his family and that William would be listed as an outlaw and banished from the Empire forever. He then named his favorite niece, Katherine D’Lodria to be his official heir. He died three months after this.
Empress Katherine took the throne upon her Uncle’s death and immediately started making changes. She began downsizing the military in favor of more social programs. She was well liked by the people, as she seemed to listen and respond to their needs. She decided that from now on that the title would go to the first born female child rather than the male, as women were better suited to take care of the Empire and its people.
The D’Lodria Dynasty survived through 12 generations before Lord Tsianzi assassinated Empress Ellen and then claimed thrown for himself. Tsianzi had a great deal of backing among the aristocracy and they quickly confirmed him as Emperor.
The Empire under Tsianzi became dark and powerful. The Emperor believed in military rule and built his forces up so that nobody would dare oppose the Empire. He ruled with an iron fist. He increased taxes to the point that people were being driven into poverty while the Royal family lived in extreme luxury. He had huge monuments built on every planet of him so that everyone would know his greatness. His megalomania became more and more apparent and soon he was beginning to even scare his military leaders. He would have people killed for the least little offense. He became a tyrant and was soon killed by his advisors.
Franklyn R. Stavrianash, Grand Admiral under Tsianzi, was voted to become the next Emperor by Tsianzi’s advisors. He was a popular choice among the military leaders and he proved to be popular with the people as well. He lowered taxes, returned freedoms, and yet maintained a strong military presence. He was a very well educated man and restructured much of the Imperial Hierarchy. He established a more feudalistic system where each planet had it's own ruler who owed allegiance to the Imperial Throne. This was a move to allow better and faster control given the size and relatively slow communications system. He was heavily steeped in military tradition and he carried this into his new system. He established formal ceremonies and rituals that would stand the test of time and are still used in today’s Empire.
The Stavrianash line ruled for seven generations. Their rule ended when the Royal family was killed in a freak starship accident. It seems that there was an accident down in the engineering section and the ship’s antimatter containment system broke down and the ship was vaporized before anyone could escape. The next surviving member of the Royal family was a distant cousin, Edward Ezbrial. Edward took the throne and became the next Emperor.
The last ruler was Jakob Ezbrial, fifth generation of that family to lead the Great Empire. He was a very pacifistic ruler and did not believe in violence. The Military had seen its budget cut many times in favor of more public education in cultural sensitivity and classes on stress management.
Although seen as a rather week ruler, Jakob was well liked and was a fairly charismatic ruler. He had given planetary rulers more discretionary powers and allowed them to have their own military units rather than depending on Imperial forces. Jakob had even commissioned studies to be done to see if it would be possible to change the government structure from an Empire into a Federation, giving everyone more say in what the government did and who was in charge. These were changes that most citizens supported, but the old aristocracy fought it every inch of the way. They wanted to maintain the status quo, as they would most likely be without a job if this change were ever to take place.
In 3711 there began to be attacks on several of the outer colony worlds by alien forces yet unidentified. These attacks drew many of the Imperial Fleet away from the core of the Empire. The Emperor even sent his Elite 1st Starmada out to track down the source of these attacks.
Miguel Attoe, leader of the Resistance Party, is suspected as being behind these "alien" attacks. He took advantage of the fact that so many of loyal military units were away from the capital, and assassinated Emperor Jakob Ezbrial at the New Years Festivities in 3713. Attoe had built up a strong military backing and made his move. Things have not gone as smoothly as he would have liked. Almost 45% of the Imperial Fleet attacked Attoe’s forces and refused to back this Usurper of the throne. There are also many of the Nobility that are against allowing Attoe to become the new Emperor.
Attoe has admitted that the alien attacks were indeed part of his own elite naval force, but noted that they had never attacked human civilian targets. Aliens and military targets were hit hard and fast.
Several sectors have declared independence and have formed their own Empires, Federations, and Alliances. War is raging throughout many star systems as various factions fight for control of the once great empire.
This is the beginning of the campaign.
The Shadakar T-Gate has been destroyed. This has isolated the Shakaroo Sector from the rest of the Empire. It is currently impossible to construct a T-Gate, so this area will have to deal with the situation at hand and survive on its own. The only Imperial Fleet in the area was all but destroyed at the battle of the Shadakar T-Gate. When the T-Gate blew up, it totally destroyed everything within 2 parsecs. All that was left was a silvery globe that appears to be the molten remains of the T-Gate and the ships that were in the area. There is some hope that the Empire will build a series of Stargates that can link them together once again, but that will take a great deal of time and money. With the political unrest that lead to the destruction of the T-Gate, it doesn’t seem likely to be a very high priority for the Empire at this time.
Political unrest is being felt throughout the sectors here as well. Since the assassination of the Emperor and losing all contract with the Empire, many are wrestling with the idea that they no longer have that strong leadership. The Sector Nobility is struggling to hold on to power and convince the populations that everything will continue as it always has and that there is no need for alarm. The nobility intend to remain loyal to the Empire in the hopes of one-day being reunited with their glorious Emperor.
Several of the MegaCorps have gotten together to put up a reward of $100 million to the first person/company to discover a verified route back to the Empire. The problem with this is that there are no star charts that show the distance and position relationship between here and the rest of the Empire. The T-Gate provided a corridor leading to this new area and nobody ever bothered to research what the actual route traveled was. No T-Gate had ever been destroyed before in known history, so it was assumed that it would always be there.
--Srhoag 22:00, 20 February 2009 (EST)
