The Codexian Saga

by The Barbarian
1. The Choicening
2. The Consequencing
3. The Future is Here
3b. The Future is Here: The Second Attempt
4. A Great Penis Across the Stars
5. Oh, noes!
6. Codexia Wants You!
7. The War of the Penis Ring: Continued
8. War Pigs
9. The End of the Beginning
10. Shits-n-Giggles: The Raumen and You
11. Pax Codexiana
12. Codexia uber alles: The Genetic Intermission
13. Codexia the Brave
14. The Chase Scene
15. Behind the Curtains
16. Codexia Goes Forth!
17. Turning Points
18. War Stories
19. Cry Havoc, and Let Loose the Dogs of War!
20. The Great Dying
21. Codex Entry: The Phyr
22. The River of Death
23. The Aftermath
24. Dreams of the Future
25. Fate and Destiny
26. State of the Union, 250AU
27. Where No Man Has Gone Before
28. Codexia, the Unbound
29. The Feast of Bones
30. The Winter of Discontent, Raumeni-style
31. New Kids on the Block
32. Disaster, Presiding
33. Codex Entry: Codexian Military Primer, 266AU
34. Out of the Frying Pan: the Fire Beckons
35. The Textbook SNAFU
36. The Sinews of War; the Price of Peace
37. A Series of Unfortunate Events
38. In Hephaestus' Forge, in Hell's Kitchen
39. The Renaissance of Pain
40. Respublica
41. Clawing at the Stars
42. Codex Entry: The Hin'in
43. State of the Union: 340AU
44. Clouds on the Horizon
45. The Will to Power
46. Last Month on the 'Codexian Saga'
47. A Space Sonata
48. The Sharp End
49. The Road Not Taken
50. Costs, Benefits, Opportunities
51. In Media Res
52. A Fell Moon
53. Cold Delivery
54. Errant Hope
55. Pacification
56. The Wheel Keeps on Turning
57. A New Age (Part A)
58. A New Age (Part B)
59. The Triumphant March
60. Altered States
61. Et tu, Brutus?
62. Codexia Reforged
63. The End of the Beginning
64. The Rise of the Tyrant, the Loss of Heaven's Mandate
65. Snake Eyes
66. The Hourglass of Sand
67. Whimpers in the Dark
68. Human Nature
Epilogue. Reign of Blood; Moments in Time

1. The Choicening

Excellent.

The Barbarian will then commence the proceedings.

***

Choice One - The Choicening

It is the dawn of the space age. The world stands on the brink of the heavens, mere figurative steps away from breaking the bonds that chained us to our increasingly fallow planet. Scientists from many of the leading powers of the day come together in a congregation of minds and expertise, in order to discover the long sought-after solution to a decades-old query; how to explore our system - and beyond - economically. Solutions soon thereafter seem on the cusp of realization. A golden age seems to lie just beyond the horizon. However, the obvious fault lines are soon exposed.

National self-interest rears its ugly head, and the grand project of your race comes to a shuddering halt. In this perilous time, you lead a powerful faction, composed of peoples with a singular vision for the future: the world must be united in this endeavor, one way or another, or you will forever stay moribund on the rock you call 'home'. The choice before you is simple, at first glance, but should be considered with care.

Do you... lead your faction to glorious victory over its foes in a scarring war of global unification?

OR

Do you... seek consensus through multilateral compromise? Your foes will be your foes no longer. You might be labeled a gaping vagina in some quarters, but at least none will perish on the road to the stars.

***

PROTIP:

Since there are no 'mechanics' to this circle-jerk, as such, think about your choice carefully. There are pros and cons, either way.

Some notes:

1) The vote is open until either a) tomorrow or b) until five votes are reached, whichever happens first.

2) The Barbarian will try to spice things up with pictures, here and there, but his HTML skills are paltry, so he will have to take a crash-course in posting pictures from tinypic or Photobucket. Forgive his idiocy.
 

2. The Consequencing

Codexians choosing the peaceful option! My, my.

While this is starting up, the Barbarian will break his own arbitrary rule. A two-man consensus is still a consensus. Let us move on to Consequence, followed by another Choice.

***

(The Barbarian is now experimenting with PhotoBucket, bear with him)

[​IMG]

The Consequencing

No wars shook Codexia, as one century tilted into another. No battles damaged the landscape, forevermore. The fighting that took place happened behind closed doors in National Assemblies; in Parliaments; in Chambers of Government - and when it finally subsided, there were no more nations and no more borders. There was simply the World State. Colossal and sanguine. Home to a multitude of billions of peons milling about, whiling away their days for the benefit of their superiors.

Of course, the process was not instantaneous. It took a great deal of time to convince each and every minor state to give up its sovereign rights. In fact, it was almost four decades before the economic reality of the Codexian World League convinced the most intransigent of petty rulers that it was in their best interest to subordinate their petty nationalistic concerns to the greater interest of the species entire. An extraordinary quantity of resources was then poured into bringing the world in line, and ready for the next great push against the stars.

When all was said and done, Codexia was united, though government remained very decentralized and somewhat unstable. The new executive, however, remembered its original pledge, and pushed the space program aggressively. By 43AU (After Unification), exploitation of the home system was in full swing. Yet, even as Codexian miners began to exploit the extensive asteroid field and several of the larger in-system planetary bodies using newly developed ionic-drive vessels, one recurring question jarred: Who is to be responsible, ultimately, for colonization?

Do you... decree that colonization is a super-national matter and that it should lie solely in the hands of the government, with all the cost and responsibility implicit therein?

OR

Do you... decree that colonization funding should come from private sources (corporations), while the government concentrates on more pressing concerns (such as education, public health etc. etc.)?

***

Full steam ahead.

:smug:
 

3. The Future is Here

For the first part of this exercise in collective masturbation, the Barbarian will continue to laugh and point at the Rule of Five (votes).

And now, without further ado...

The Future is Here

***

Between 43AU and 85AU, Codexian development of the homesystem continued, albeit slowly. It took a great deal of time for individual corporations and conglomerates to gather the capital necessary, in order to open space up for true colonization and exploitation. Longer still, before it was profitable to do so. As such, the first serious investors in these ventures will go down in history as visionaries. The men and women who helped found CoMiCo (Codexian Mining Conglomerate) Inc became legends, in their own right. By 90AU, the first burgeoning colonies on several planetary bodies and moons were extending Codexian influence beyond their homeworld.

In the meantime, government investment in societal concerns proved sufficient in dealing with potential trouble-spots. Education was extended to the poorest regions of the World State. Healthcare received a major boost. The bureaucracy grew larger, to support the growing bureaucracy. Yet, of course, no happy home is without skeletons lining the walk-in closet. In Codexia's case, CoMiCo and its ilk quickly became major players, as their mineral import profit margins blew out dirtside competitors. Money turned into power with consummate ease. Soon, the mining sector's government lobby group became the most powerful around, by far. CoMiCo's executive directors could say that they wielded influence over regional governors - and it would have been no great exaggeration.

Furthermore, once the terraformation projects on the earliest colonies began operating in 112AU, the government was left to deal with the embarrassing fact that the MegaCorps, in truth, controlled Codexian assets, off-world. Colonial ventures became business ventures. It was not about the pride inherent in conquering space, it was about the almighty Codexian dollar, and the bottom line. Competition was light, at first, due to the real-estate available. But ambition filled the void, quickly enough, and several colonies were soon developmental basket-cases, as the corporations jostled for position and the 'prime' territory.

By 133AU, the decentralized nature of the Codexian governmental system had snowballed the problem. Individual senators were treating their offices like victuals to be sold on the open market to the highest bidder. Corporate influence became pervasive - perhaps even dangerous. Yet, somehow, the caravan rolled on. The system was strained, but it did not break. Eventually, the beleaguered government tightened up lobbying laws, preventing - what amounted to - further blatant bribery. Government regulations gave birth to the Colonial Authority, which regulated corporate activity outside of Codexia itself, and thereby instituted limits to corporate authority.

Things were finally going well. Before long, words like 'extra-solar' and 'travel' were being bandied about by a populace truly ready to burst forth into the cosmos. The obvious question remains: how? How will you expand beyond the Codexian homesystem?

Do you... pour resources into wormhole research, in the hope of discovering the means by which to travel through naturally occurring folds in space and time?

OR

Do you... pour resources into vehicular-centric FTL-travel, which would allow your vessels to move faster than light without folding space-time?
 

3b. The Future is Here: The Second Attempt

The Future is Here: The Second Attempt

***

The grand World State of Codexia could not, in the end, rationalize leaving colonization in the hands of kleptomaniacal sharks-in-suits. Unbelievable quantities of money were earmarked for exploitation measures. The first Codexian colony was flagged in 56AU. Iconic imagery of the colonial declaration was propagated far and wide; assured of its place in the history books. Colonel Angthoron took his place beside Columbus, Polo and the Unknown Cossack who, together, helped open up Codexia itself to 'civilization'. Soon, thousands were settling the domes of the first colony. It was not long before this colony began moving forward on the road to self-sufficiency - in the first instance, by selling serious quantities of mineral goods on the trans-planetary market.

Yet, the good times were not kind to all. The poor of Codexia railed against the space program. Trillions that could have been spent on social welfare, education and healthcare were, instead, spent on colonial development. Winners of the colonial lottery were subsequently subject to attacks by the disgruntled underclass. The hardest hit regions began lashing out at the World State, accusing it of having absolved itself of the responsibility it undertook upon Unification. Serious recriminations followed. Large stretches of Cofrica, Condia and Cohina withheld federal taxes from the government. The crisis remained delicately balanced for some time. At the end, however, the possible civil war was averted by brutal crackdowns and local purges.

Government authority was increased at the expense of serious social upheaval. Yet, the silver lining was starlit. A centrally planned colonial program allowed for a systemic approach to colonization. Though it seemed slow, it was well organized, and relatively efficient. Terraforming would begin on several planetary bodies in 87AU. Though the continuing cost of colonization proved crushing, Codexia strove to convince its populace that the future was only guaranteed via the stars. These attempts succeeded, for the most part, and for the time being.

Finally, by 110AU there was the sense that the status quo was settled, and that things were going well enough. Before long, words like 'extra-solar' and 'travel' were being bandied about by a populace truly ready to burst forth into the cosmos. The obvious question remains: how? How will you expand beyond the Codexian homesystem?

Do you... pour resources into wormhole research, in the hope of discovering the means by which to travel through naturally occurring folds in space and time?

OR

Do you... pour resources into vehicular-centric FTL-travel, which would allow your vessels to move faster than light without folding space-time?
 

4. A Great Penis Across the Stars

Counting laclongquan's vote (the Barbarian is confident in his ability to count to five, thankfully), it seems that the cut-off of five votes is instituted with Cenobyte's post... which means that Wormhole travel takes it. Onward and upward.

***

A Great Penis Across the Stars

[​IMG]

The news had hit like a thunderbolt: the CSS Black Cat had done it! A four lightyear jump to Alpha Centauri, in mere weeks! The ship had made the 'jump' by folding space using an artificial, short-term 'wyrmhole'. Between 110AU and 125AU the World State had spent billions of credits and millions of manpower hours on a program that promised a future bounty beggaring belief. And the all-star science team had finally come through. Within a few short years research teams, prospectors, explorers and untold numbers of others poured through the gateways to the stars.

Though as many as one in twenty of the ships entering the earliest artificial wyrmholes never reached their destinations, the trade-off was seen as worthwhile. The inevitable and tragic losses were mourned, and Codexia moved on. Extrema became the first extra-solar colony in 134AU. More years passed, and soon dozens of systems had been charted by intrepid, government-sponsored explorer vessels. The total colonial population would exceed one million by 137AU. Though this was seen as a definite success (and proof of Codexian superiority over natural obstacles), terraformation simply was not working quickly enough to produce colonies truly capable of handling massive human populations within a reasonable timeframe. Codexia, herself, was bursting at the seams - the home of fourteen billion souls, with nearly four billion existing below the poverty line.

The colonies were needed as a release valve, but the valve was not yet operational. Therefore, either the process needed to be sped up, or a habitable world needed to be found, ready for exploitation. The choice staring the government in the face was stark.

Do you... decree that more resources be funneled into terraformation and terraformation techniques, so as to hopefully speed up the creation of habitable environments?

OR

Do you... issue private licenses to would-be explorers? Though less regulated a means of expanding the Codexian domain, it would surely produce a host of willing Codexians in the government's search for a habitable world.
 

5. Oh, noes!

Oh, noes!

[​IMG]

This decision, like many others before it, had reason as a calming backdrop. A rational, empirical chain of logic existed, which inevitably drove the policy makers to the conclusion in question. It did not take on the appearance of calamity immediately. In fact, for more than a decade it was a roaring success. Exploration licenses were bought by, quite literally, throngs of the bravest - if not brightest - Codexians. They fanned out across hundreds of stars, searching for the ultimate prize: Paradise. And, eventually, they found it, much to the government's relief. Alexandros, of the CSS Ghostdog, was the first Codexian to land on Xanadu, a lush garden world of tranquil green lakes and blue fields.

This young, beautiful world did not become Codexianity's second home immediately. Rather, it became a beacon of hope for the masses. Some day, the teeming billions of Codexia would have the living space they needed. Hope for the future. It was a notion the people could really get behind. The colonization effort that followed the monumental discovery dwarfed anything that had come before it. By 150AU, almost two hundred thousand men and women were poking and prodding Xanadu's expanses - as well as each other. It seemed as if our collective problems were resolved in one flicker of a planetary scanner's screen. Destiny smiled upon Codexia. The sky was the limit. Other idioms were invoked, in this heady time. Historians would come to label it differently.

On 15 June 152AU, a grizzled veteran of the void, Mads Bringer, stumbled upon a system that, at first instance, looked to be utterly inconsequential. Yet, that fateful day, Bringer would pick up a puzzling signal from the system's extensive asteroid field. He was, after all, the only explorer with a license to roam in this sector. Curious as to its origin - and eager to nail some asshole to the wall for encroaching on his territory - Bringer began a sustained pursuit. By the end of the second day, and after suffering the total silence of his quarry in the face of many attempts at communication, Bringer fired explosive tipped survey drones at the other vessel.

He was not an overly vicious man. The makeshift weapon was intended only to serve as a warning to the duplicitous scoundrel on the other end. In any case, the drone was destroyed mid-flight. Understandably, Bringer panicked, and began a 'strategic withdrawal' from the system. He escaped, and ran to the nearest Codexian outpost to report the incident. He needn't have bothered. Within two months (and only weeks following his return), attacks were being reported against Codexian assets across the Colonial Territory. Ships and outposts had begun disappearing, with nary a trace.

The worst-case scenario of Codexianity's first contact had just played out. It was at war with an unidentified foe, who had so far made no attempt to communicate, during its obliteration of Codexian vessels and their crews. The attacks steadily increased in frequency, and scale. Something had to be done.

Do you... mobilize Codexia immediately, and unleash the dogs of war?

OR

Do you... explore alternate means of ending the conflict, while trying to keep it contained and on the fringes of Codexian space?
 

6. Codexia Wants You!

'Codexia wants you!'

The posters were splayed all over Codexia itself. Stock footage from brutally attacked vessels played day and night on television channels across the Codexian sphere. Rousing speeches propped up the fighting spirit of the masses in rallies attended by millions. Codexia would go to war. It would unleash Codexianity's rage against the unseen enemy. They would, in their turn, come to understand the depth of their mistake. This was the Codexian pledge. The engines of war were spooled up with unheard of rapidity. When survival was at stake, Codexians were determined to not be found wanting. Civilian factories were retooled, ready to churn out the means by which our people's enemies would be destroyed. War materiel stocks were replenished. The people was ready.

The enemy, however, did not co-operate. Striking with ease against hapless human targets, they broke the back of the war effort in the outer colonies before it had truly even been set into motion. Logistical trains were ambushed repeatedly at warp points - thousands perished without cognizance of the threat they faced. Codexian fleets were slowly chewed up by a tactically precise, capable foe, who always seemed to know more of the battlefield than its human adversary. Stand up fights were few and far between, and seldom in favour of the demoralized defenders. Amidst the carnage, the unanswered question remained; where was the enemy coming from? Within eight months of its unfortunate onset, the conflict was clearly turning into a potentially fatal defeat for Codexia. Morale stayed up only with the most stringent of government propaganda efforts.

Overmatched across the technical spectrum, the hard pressed Codexians were faced with a choice of great significance.

Do you... invest heavily into weapons technology, to even the battlefield odds?

OR

Do you... invest heavily into sensor technology, in the hope of tracking the enemy forces more successfully, and learning what you can about them?

OR

Do you... institute conscription and martial law under a state of emergency, placing your hopes in victory through a brutal war of attrition?

OR

Do you... sue for peace immediately, in the attempt to stave off further destruction?

(More choices, so if any of them reaches three votes, it wins.)
 

7. The War of the Penis Ring: Continued

The Barbarian apologizes for the length of this update.

The War of the Penis Ring; Continued

In the worst days of the war, it seemed as if Codexianity itself would burn at hubris' funeral pyre. The alien threat was mighty, and its forces legion. The finest crews and vessels of war were blown away like so much chaff, time and again. It was a terrible period in our history. After the Battle of Proxima Star, the war appeared lost. The Second Fleet - the World State's strongest - was smashed in a pitched engagement that put to bed any hope of our ability to stand up to the foe by the available means. In response, other means had to be sought. The greatest problem posed by the alien threat identified by the strategists boiled down to a matter of KNOWLEDGE. The enemy had it; Codexianity suffered from its lack. A remedy was frantically sought. Codexianity's finest minds were put to the ultimate test.

The result was a high-end echo-locator sensor array, capable of detecting the elusive extra-terrestrial vessels, as well as their emissions. It was to be many months, before the technological marvel would prove its true worth. Slowly, however, nuggets of invaluable information were gleaned from the sadly continuing battlefield defeats. The enemy finally had a name: the Raumen (a Codexian phonetic approximation of their actual name - nothing else was learned about this mysterious race, during this time). And we learned that they did not travel as we did. The faster-than-light drives that they used enabled unparalleled tactical mobility. They could virtually dance around our lumbering fleets, weaving a deadly web of destruction all-the-while. To this, there was no answer in the short-term. However, Grand Admiral Laclong Quan saw the opportunity amidst the ruin.

He saw that FTL-drives offered staggering advantages, in exchange for two very significant and exploitable drawbacks. The first was that the tactical mobility offered by FTL was offset by the strategic mobility offered by wyrmhole travel. The enemy had mounted no strategic campaign because it chose not to concentrate the forces necessary to do so. He instead intended to bleed Codexia to death slowly, via a thousand cuts. The second, corollary drawback was that FTL slipstreams were easier to track, once the techies had figured out what to look for. The residue those engines left as they accelerated away from Codexian space 'painted' their staging areas with a high degree of accuracy. Perhaps even their homeworld(s). All that the bedraggled humans needed was the initiative, in order to use this knowledge with some effectiveness.

But how are we to take that initiatve?

Do you... ramp up industrial production and introduce general conscription in order to produce a strategic reserve with which to act offensively?

OR

Do you... strike immediately, with existing forces, hoping that your audacity will put the enemy off his stride?

OR

Do you... attempt to engage the enemy on a more even footing using your new sensors, hoping to wear down his strength and, perhaps, his willpower to continue the war?

STATE OF THE UNION

Government

Codexia is a realm more than two-hundred lightyears in diameter, centred on a Class-M yellow star known by the same name. It is ruled by a democratic, federal regime, wherein all decisions pass through a Senate composed of representatives from various regions of the Codexian sphere. The executive branch of the government is fairly centralized, and directs the administration of the burgeoning state from Unity Megalopolis, on Codexia itself, though the legislative branch remains diffused. It is considered to be a moderately successful and stable regime, and faces little domestic opposition. Currently, it is engaged in a medium-intensity conflict with the Raumen, which it is losing.

Society

Codexians are a relatively peaceful people, who only recently were stirred into action by shameful alien attacks on Codexian lives and property. Their passions have been stirred, but their previously high morale has been drained away by a steady stream of battlefield reverses. War weariness is accumulating considerably. Hitherto, government attempts to control access to information have been successful, and the people are unaware as to the true, sad state of the war-effort.

Economy

The economy of Pax Codexiana was booming until the onset of the terrible war against the Raumen. Government capital expenditure on new vessels of war and other materiel has been absolutely staggering. War taxes are forcing people to tighten their belts beyond any previous such experience of their lifetimes. Prices are rising and inflation is nearing critical levels. Domestic consumption is falling, though the war effort keeps the jobless rate at two percent (practically, full employment).

Technology

The Codexian technological base remains much as it was around the time of Unification, excepting certain high-technology items such as the wyrmhole drive. These items remain prohibitively expensive. Most people continue to drive vehicles using hybrid combustion engines, and the most common weapons of war remain traditional needlers for the infantry and solid/liquid fuel missiles for the space forces. The greatest advances continue to develop in the fields of computing and medicine - though neither has experienced a quantum leap in recent times, merely incremental upgrades.

***
 

8. War Pigs

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The Barbarian will respond to this, because it raises a pertinent point. Each choice bears a fairly significant set of consequences. There are options that can lead to the End Game. In this very juncture, one of the three choices available leaves the voting body about two steps away from 'the End', and one away from outright defeat. Colloquially, Conan has labeled such options 'Bad Ideas'.

Though the Barbarian is loathe to kill off the game with a 'bad' choice, or two - especially this early - such is the nature of choice and consequence. Later on, there will be a natural end to the proceedings, and an epilogue.

Bottom line: Yes, there are choices that will End the game. There is a structure.

Characters (at least, recurring characters) will not be introduced. Grand space opera takes place over proverbial epochs, rather than moments in time. However, the Barbarian would claim that Codexia itself is the 'player character'. One that your decisions have, and will continue to shape.

***

War Pigs

The General Staff of the Codexian Armed Forces took days to reach a decision, in that infamous meeting. By its end, punches and shoes had been thrown, shirts had been torn and tears had been shed. Not all were convinced that it would work, to put it mildly. Finally, Grand Admiral Laclong Quan and Field Marshal Angthoron made their presentation to the World State's Consul and, thereafter, the Senate. Codexia was to undergo total mobilization, and to undertake a strategic build-up of forces with which to crush the Raumen. The people, of course, were less than amused when the twelve hour workday was introduced for industrial laborers, machinists, technicians and all other essential service specialists. They became outright hostile when it became apparent that the new strategy would not yield immediate results.

Meanwhile, word of heavy civilian losses continued to pour in. First Jack's World, then Neo-Codexia were raided and sacked by alien forces. Physical descriptions of the Raumen became available for the first time. Spindly, four-legged blue insectoids with complex, delicate manipulators. This was the bug-eyed face of the enemy. Codexian troops, fighting with fervor borne of the arachnoid response, had some success during the vicious ground combat. There was some good news, amidst the bad, at least. And the bad got worse, before it got better. While the Strategic Reserve was forming up over the first six months of 154AU, the Regular Fleet was decimated - whittled away by fighting in the outer reaches of the Colonial Expanse; protecting every colonial possession as best it could, and suffering ghastly casualties, in return. And the Raumen, for their part, were getting cockier, readier to stick around after a fight. Public morale plummeted. The economy wilted under the immense pressures exerted by the war. Codexia approached the brink.

Oh, to be sure, there were isolated victories, here and there. Necessity had always been the mother of invention, and the Codexians were no slouches. The Regular Fleet and its Ships-of-the-Line mustered every technical resource in evening the odds. The Raumen were by no means invincible. Although the 'exchange rate' remained painful, the men and women of Codexia destroyed an increasing number of their sleek, green vessels. Salvaging them proved largely useless; nuclear detonations seldom left an intact superstructure, and the Raumen often came looking for the broken husks of their losses. The materials that were being recovered might have borne fruit down the line, but there was no time. Never enough time. The savage fighting continued without respite.

For the General Staff, the war was becoming an exercise in watching casualty reports with gritted teeth, and keeping a vigilant eye on the rapidly expanding Reserve. It was becoming a mighty force. Soon, thereafter, it was deemed ready for offensive action. The first targets of the Grand Counter-Offensive were selected. Timetables were established. Crews were readied, and families were informed of what awaited their loved ones in uniform.

The attack was launched on 7 August 154AU. Two major Raumen bases were selected for the honor of receiving the long-awaited Codexian riposte. And it was a thing of beauty, it was. The bugs were taken by complete surprise. The strategic mobility of wyrmhole travel was something they understood - but in no way were they prepared for the scale and force of the Codexian counter-offensive. Hundreds of ships participated in those first jumps. Though scores would find their destruction on the other end of the journey, it was to be considered a heroic sacrifice in a glorious victory. The Battles of Proxima Centauri-B and Cerces Star were to be recorded as the first major Codexian victories of the war. The Raumen losses were both catastrophic, and well cataloged.

Morale received the shot in the arm it had needed for more than a year.

For the first time, Codexians could speak of possible victory.

Do you... press on with the Counter-Offensive and attempt to smash the insectoid threat decisively?

OR

Do you... try to communicate with these creatures from a position of strength?

OR

Do you... dig in, replace your losses and gird yourselves for the next phase of the war effort?
 

9. The End of the Beginning

The End of the Beginning

The success of the Great Counter-Offensive had been total; a victory crushing enough to take the wind out of the Raumen sails. The decision to conduct diplomacy thereafter had been made difficult by that fact. The public was baying for blood, now that it seemed the blood flowing might be from Raumeni wounds. Codexia, proud winners of the most significant battles of the war, hitherto, was now determined to extend the proverbial hand of peace, or the olive branch, if you will. It was not destined to be a simple process. There were a number of further skirmishes, as Codexian vessels attempted to approach known Raumeni concentrations with their missile ports closed; disengaging when attacked, only to return later and probe further.

Continuous offers of a dignified cease fire were broadcast on all frequencies, with no Raumeni response. Laser comms were similarly unsuccessful - it was weeks before the techies finally figured out that the insectoids considered them to be target designators. It was only after a happenstance switch to MASER communication arrays was made that a flicker of a startled response from a Raumen outpost was picked up. Long messages were exchanged of what must have been garbled nonsense to both sides. Eventually, the universal language of mathematics came into use, and a rudimentary understanding was reached. Contact had finally been established! That contact was followed by a wave of initial euphoria. What the Codexian government learned over the next several months, however, proved almost impossible to digest.

The Raumeni turned out to be a deeply individualistic (even hyper-individualistic) and family oriented people. Artisans and merchants with a mean streak, they nonetheless avoided conflict, unless attacked. They may have resembled oversized Codexian insects very closely, but they were not those insects, in fact. The war Codexia had been so desperately waging was considered by the Raumeni Confederacy to be a 'local dispute' between outsiders and two Raumeni clans who had laid a claim to the area. It had never been a strategic war of annihilation for them. Rather, it was a traditionally Raumeni conflict of feints, small-scale confrontations and raids. The insectoids were deeply surprised by the Codexian reaction to the affair. When the Codexian General Staff learned the scale of the Confederacy as a whole (a thousand lightyears of settled territory and almost two dozen densely settled worlds) the implications gave them nightmares.

Almost purely by chance, they had avoided drawing in more than two clans and their closest allies into the war. And now... it was all over. Peace. Peace was finally upon Codexianity. Nearly two years of suffering was at an end. The de-mobilization that followed was slow and ponderous; the economy ruined. The people were both thankful that the war was over, and unhappy at the futility of their sacrifices. Getting back to 'normal' was going to take time. The government now had to prioritize.

Do you... concentrate your resources in the resuscitation of the shattered economy, alleviating the pressures of the war on your people?

OR

Do you... let the economy stitch itself back together naturally, instead prioritizing technological development?

OR

Do you... use this opportunity to strengthen your fleets, maintain a powerful military and to institute laws fortifying the powers of the central government?
 

10. Shits-n-Giggles: The Raumen and You

Shits & Giggles Insert: The Raumen and You.

Physical Description:

The blue, chitin covered, insectoid extra-terrestrials known colloquially as the ‘Raumen’ (a simple phonetic term that is largely meaningless in the insectoid language) generally stand between 1.3 and 1.9 metres tall, and weigh between sixty and two hundred pounds during the adult stage of their lengthy development. Females are larger than males by a significant margin. Although they seem rather uniform to the naked eye (size difference notwithstanding), the many subtle hues of their exoskeleton can impart a great deal of information – from social status, to lineage, to sexual primacy and condition, and, of course physical health. The Raumen are quadrupeds with additional manipulators extending from their bulbous torso, exhibiting excellent overall dexterity and off-the-charts agility, but rather subpar strength, in comparison to the average Codexian. Their compound eyes provide them with unparalleled visual coverage, but poor depth perception and ability to perceive minute detail.

The Raumen are generally long-lived, with their lifespans regularly exceeding two and a half centuries. Native legends often refer to semi-mythical Lazarus-types, who manage to reach their millennial birthdays. Birth rates, on the other hand, are less prodigal. Or, to be more precise, birth survival rates are downright poor, with an infant mortality rate of seven in ten. As a result, population growth is painfully slow, averaging 0.4% per year. Reproduction depends on potent males (most Raumen males are incapable of ‘fathering’ offspring) fertilizing the eggs of the comparatively rarer females over the course of many months. Multiple males are often involved in this process, and a unique genetic profile is inevitably the result for the next generation. Mutation rates are, as such, fairly high.

Society & Psychology:

The Raumen are, some would say, a hyper-individualistic people. Their long lives, inherent curiosity and familial ties prove a powerful recipe for developing... personalities. The Raumen clans are extraordinarily tightly knit – clan and family ties override all other loyalties. This is part of the reason behind why Raumen society, as a whole, is generally segmented along clan lines. These units of social organization often conduct their own governmental policies, outside of the aegis of the Confederacy. They raise their own military forces when necessary, and often have unique codes of laws reflecting their clan tradition. The Confederacy, in truth, is a very tenuous link, providing a sort of ‘neutral’ ground for the various Raumeni factions. It can exert very little actual control over its domain. In fact, the two clans involved in the Codexian-Raumeni War of 152-154AU only agreed to the Confederacy-brokered cease-fire because the Codexian offensive had shattered their main familial military bases. The Confederacy still had to pay them a ‘blood’ remedy (monetary and material compensation for lives lost during the conflict), in order to satiate their desire for vengeance.

Raumeni families are largely matriarchal – a byproduct of female reproductive importance and general rarity. Though, it must be said that their physical size superiority certainly does not hurt their standing. The young are nurtured by the entire extended kinship group over the course of two decades, after which Raumeni specialize their education and vocational aptitude. Most Raumeni enter the technical fields, and the species as a whole seems to have a knack for precision work. In this vein, perfectionism is a valued personality trait, as is loyalty (but only to the clan) and general cunning. When compared to Codexian norms, the concepts of bravery and honour are almost entirely absent (insofar as they are considered virtues). The Raumen instead appreciate mental acuity, wit and are enamoured of the idea of outsmarting opponents, whoever they may be.

Technology

The technological products of the Raumen tend to be handcrafted, exceedingly well made, but hideously expensive and time consuming. When compared to Codexia, the Raumeni enjoy a clear-cut advantage in the fields of information technology and information gathering, as well as FTL/sub-light propulsion, machining, weaponry and energy production. On the other hand, Codexians have access to a wider range of consumer service technologies and better means of mass production. The Raumen are excellent engineers, generally speaking and gifted scientists.

***

EDIT:

Juggernaut:

As far as the Barbarian is aware, there is no Codexia, either. :smug:
 

11. Pax Codexiana

Lads, the Barbarian must be firm about this: Flashpoints, such as the Raumen War, will not extend into eternity. Mega-scale choices will be just as common, and will advance the timeline considerably until the next Flashpoint. Like he said before, the game is not truly open ended.

***

Pax Codexiana

It was a long road back from ruin. The aftermath of the Raumen War was devastating. Millions of industrial workers were turned over to the general workforce during the de-mobilization – and promptly found themselves unemployed, and without the means to support their families properly. Funding dried up for the defence forces and military R&D in particular, as a variety of embryonic projects were shelved or outright discarded. Services and social welfare were slashed, to cover the gaping hole in the government’s finances. Those were hard times. The brutal conflagration of years previous had simply drained the government’s purse, the public’s confidence and the economy’s lifeblood. It would take years to recover, and to explain why it had all been worthwhile. All available resources were expended on hastening this process.

Colonization was encouraged and subsidized in an effort to funnel and ‘up-skill’ the vast reservoir of redundant soldiers and labourers. Major infrastructural projects were begun, in order to provide baseline paid work for millions. Small business loans and micro-finance was guaranteed for those eligible, in the hope that they would forge their own way ahead. Slowly, bit by bit, and year by painful fiscal year, the tide turned. Meagre economic growth was recorded in 157AU. By 160AU it was up to 6.5%. For many thousands, however, it proved to be too little, and too late. They struck out on privately funded surveying and colonization missions, hoping to escape government control and, of course, taxation. Many were lost to the void. In other cases, the government was forced to put down public resistance – mostly in the hardest hit areas of Codexia itself.

Yet by 165AU the troubles were thankfully subsiding. Trade between Codexia and the Confederacy flourished and, though the Raumeni proved to be cutthroat merchants of the highest (some would say lowest) order, the volume of goods crossing the agreed boundary lines ultimately benefited both parties. Time passed. Codexia’s colonies grew and developed by both natural means and the exertions of the central government. In 182AU, the Codexian government was finally afforded the opportunity to learn of their other galactic neighbours (at least, those the Raumeni maintained contact with or knew about), as Codexianity’s sphere expanded to over four hundred lightyears, and began approaching the territories of the races in question.

Though the rulers of the Codexian state were unhappy about the reticence of the Raumeni to reveal this information for over three decades, the Raumeni ambassador waved away their protests by claiming that they had only been protecting the young power from its own aggressive tendencies. The existence of three other regional powers was revealed. Firstly, there were the Turanei; a race of powerful, winged reptilians who exhibited intensely xenophobic tendencies, coupled with an unfortunate predisposition toward emotional instability. Secondly, there were the Phyr; vaguely ursine, six-limbed creatures possessed of primitive technology, but vast in number and ambition. Lastly, the Amoneth: enigmatic, crystalline creatures controlling an indeterminate area of space.

Knowledge of this frightening alien menagerie gave rise to the obvious question: what will Codexia do with this information?

Do you...

A. Expand in the direction of the Turanei with a view toward making contact.

B. Expand in the direction of the Phyr with a view toward making contact.

C. Expand in the direction of the Amoneth, with a view toward making contact.

D. Expand elsewhere, purposefully avoiding contact with these new races.

E. As above (D), but also begin disengaging from the Raumen, whose merchants are establishing monopolies in your markets and making money off the backs of your citizens. Filthy insects.
 

12. Codexia uber alles: The Genetic Intermission

Codexia uber alles: Genetic Intermission

***

Gentlemen, intermission updates do not disrupt the timeline of the game, they merely inform future choices and flesh out the universe. Therefore, consider the following, before we continue with the furry saga (which will be the subject of the next update).

***

The period of 160-185AU would come to be characterized by a widespread economic recovery, followed by an outright boom across Codexian space. A multitude of novel goods and services hit the market with aplomb, tearing away savagely at rising disposable incomes. High fidelity, virtual reality gaming would rake in multi-billions over those decades. Omni-customized designer drugs kept the wealthy on preternatural highs for months at a time - or for as long as their carefully secreted personal credit accounts held out. And the government quickly learned that some pleasures had to be controlled, and that some vices required forceful suppression. Heavy taxes were introduced, many substances and dangerous items were criminalized. Yet there was no fad as widespread - no service that could boast of similar levels of market saturation - as body modding (modification of physical/genetic characteristics).

It all started innocently enough; a road paved with good intentions. We had access to low-level genetic tampering techniques previously, but it was not until Raumen medtech experts found employment in fertility clinics, cosmetic surgeries and dermatological treatment centers that Pandora's Box creaked open. Their knowledge unlocked our genetic markers with remarkable ease. Soon enough, gen-mods available to the public ranged from genetically superior offspring (illnesses and genetic flaws became easy to screen for and, for but a few thousand extra credits, particular features could be improved), to natural changes in hair color across just about the entire visual spectrum. More complex procedures gained ground soon enough, with bio-mods allowing almost complete customization of the human body. The first four-armed Codexian was 'born' in 177AU. Cybernetic tech-mods, used for many years in the military, also proliferated. The ability to 'jack' into a computer system, as well as cybernetic augmentation of human capabilities, was finally offered to the public during this time.

Price, in truth, was the only limiting factor to the practice of modding. The government, as usual, was a few years behind the state of the social art, and prevaricated on introducing regulation repeatedly. We had learned nothing from our popular culture of earlier centuries, that much was now obvious. Social pressures eventually forced the government's invisible hand when 'purist' rioters clashed repeatedly with the 'modded' on several worlds, but especially so on Codexia itself. Deaths were reported. Some purist businesses then stopped offering services to those with ascertainable mods. A major social rift threatened, with purists/the poor on one side and the modded on the other. How would the crisis be handled?

Do you...

A. Decree that all mods be banned henceforth (or otherwise heavily regulated), aside from cases with special dispensation.

B. Allow regulated gen-mods, but no others.

C. Allow regulated bio-mods, but no others.

D. Allow regulated tech-mods, but no others.

E. Allow all mods, as was the case previously, championing the right of Codexians to lead their lives as they will.
 

13. Codexia the Brave

madbringer:

The smallest FTL drive fits on a frigate - ditto for wyrmhole generators. Wyrmhole and FTL fields generated by the larger craft can encapsulate smaller craft - but those craft cannot use them independently. At least... not yet! Remember, these are very, very expensive pieces of high end technology. A very serious investment in a fairly disposable machine, such as a fightercraft.

***

Codexia the Brave

Time passed, as time is often wont to. The years, for their part, rolled on with a steady rhythm, a cadence that marked the continuing entropy afflicting the universe, and Codexia continued to grow and prosper. The population pressures on the Codexian homeworld slowly eased, as millions migrated to the Colonial Expanse, settling a dozen worlds and setting up outposts of Codexianity on a score more. The frontiers of the rising young state steadily expanded in a predetermined direction. Lightyear by lightyear, humanity inched toward the Phyr territories. The oldest of the human colony worlds was, by this point, a burgeoning, metropolitan project in its own right – and quickly developing a planetary identity. Other colonies were well on the way. Of course, it bears mentioning that there were also the Undocumented Settlements: pockets of humanity on nearly uninhabitable or very distant worlds, of which Codexia was largely unaware.

These settlements tended to be peopled by outcasts. They were men and women who either felt suffocated by the heavy Codexian tax burden, or stifled by government regulation. After the bio/gen-mod Ban of 187AU, tens of thousands of the most ‘customized’ persons also fled to these hidden ‘havens’. However, in reality, life in the Undocumented Settlements was harsh – often brutal. Terraformation technology was hideously expensive, and the only recourses left to the rogue colonists were unreliable habitation-tech solutions. A form of resentment flowered. During this stable, yet animated period (182-195AU), Codexian power, as a whole, grew significantly. The fleet was heavily restructured to accommodate hundreds of new vessels (the armada was estimated to number over two thousand ships of all types) and a ground arm was finally constituted (the Drop Troops were considered Naval rather than Army forces). Though Raumen monopolies on high-end products continued to dominate that marketplace, cheap Codexian goods also made their mark.

The two economies began to synthesize, in effect. But distrust at the highest levels continue, due in part to continuing Raumeni reluctance to share more detailed information about the galactic neighbourhood, which they themselves were known to be furiously exploring. Codexian INTOPS were convinced that, in actual fact, the Raumeni knew little about the Amoneth and avoided the Turanei, but the Phyr had become a Codexian matter of interest, and so little information had been released about them. It was, simply put, very frustrating. Nonetheless, a few details did emerge through various means. The ursine creatures controlled a significant belt of territory between the Raumen clans and the Turanei. Serious suspicions arose that they were at war with the latter – and the status of that conflict was unknown. Interrogation of Raumeni far-traders revealed little. No other option remained but to pursue the matter directly.

When contact was finally made in 196AU, it happened in a most surprising fashion. A lonely, recently constructed outpost in the farthest reaches of Codexian space received an uninvited guest. A small unidentified craft entered sensor range, scanned the outpost and its small complement of support vessels and began withdrawing. Silhouette recognition software identified it as a Phyr-probable, based on Raumen data. Two patrol ships were on hand to intercept its egress.

Do you... instruct your erstwhile vessels to intercept and pursue the Phyrrie vessel?

OR

Do you... allow it to withdraw without interference?
 

14. The Chase Scene

The Chase Scene

The pursuit of the Phyr veseel lasted for hours. The Codexian patrol ships blared comm signals over every radio, laser and maser frequency, hoping to calm the fleeing Phyr, and to initiate first contact. But to no avail. The ursine creatures hit the gas, proverbially speaking, and ran for their lives. Unfortunately for them, the larger Codexian vessels were faster. Much faster. Or, at least, they were, until the Phyr disappeared from their sensor screens. As the range closed to mere light minutes, the significant sensor contact simply... vanished. It did not get weaker and then trail off, it simply was no longer there. The Codexian crews were dumbfounded. Captain Jack O’War, descendant of one of the heroic defenders of Jack’s World during the Raumen War, ordered a thorough search to be conducted by the Codexian naval forces in the area. The system was swept end to end, ultimately without any success or hint as to what had actually happened.

The Case of the Vanishing UFO took on a new dimension when – two days later – a trio of sensor contacts appeared on long-range sensors for a few minutes, then once again blanked the interceptors sent after them. Over the next few weeks, there was a rash of such instances, with sensor contacts appearing then disappearing with incredible rapidity. It simply made no sense. That is to say, it made no sense, until a lowly sensor tech noticed something peculiar. In one instance, a squadron of contacts appeared and disappeared, much like the others – but the sensor tech finally found an underlying PATTERN. The formation of Phyr craft went silent in a very particular way. The echeloned flight vanished in such a specific sequence, as to suggest that they snuck through a ‘curtain’. Soon enough, a troubling hypothesis arose: the Codexian system was playing host to an elliptical field of ‘dead space’ in the sensor net.

Main implication: that field seemed to be a technological means of hiding the Phyr. The other implication, however, was more worrying; its immense size indicated either a powerful stealth generator, or the presence of a massive vessel holding the ‘curtain’ closed. In any case, this presented a difficulty for the Codexians, to put it blithely.

Do you... rush forces to the area and concentrate them in ‘defence’ of the colony?

OR

Do you... approach the field and make an attempt at piercing the veil?

OR

Do you... feign ignorance, and hope the bad thing goes away?
 

15. Behind the Curtains

Behind the Curtains

At the helm of the CSS Megadeth, beads of sweat ran down Captain Jack O'War's face. He had received his instructions, and was to probe the perimeter of the sensor 'dead zone'. The Codexians, forever a deliberate people, approached the task with their usual vigour, taking up positions three light minutes away from the suspected mothership - before unleashing a torrent of sensor drones. Further hours of collective consternation expired, before the zippy little machines broke the sensor barrier with nary a whimper. Seconds later, their sensory-visual transmissions began reaching the naval patrol. The mystery was finally solved. On the other side of the veil lay the biggest, ugliest piece of space debris ever witnessed by any living Codexian. It was at least two kilometres long, and was swarming with smaller craft. Analogically speaking, it resembled so much horse dung being feasted on by hordes of ravenous flies.

Finally, the sensor techs observing the spectacle realized that this, in fact, was a VESSEL. Dilapidated and pitted across its body it might have been, but the undeniable signs were there. There was an immediate reaction on the part of its escorts, and a number of them peeled away from the main body to intercept the drones. The machines were quickly snared and taken back to the mothership, as the Codexians continued to observe - under strict instructions to avoid any diplomatic incidents, or to initiate conflict. In the end, this strategy can be said to have paid off. A solar day after the 'abduction', the probes were sent back to the waiting patrol vessels, loaded with linguistic data and various equations. It was deemed to be the beginning of a successful first contact. Over the next several weeks, Codexian scientists pored over the data with customary thoroughness. Much head scratching was involved, for the Phyr tongue relied on body language that was difficult to reproduce. The result, of course, was never in question.

The historic first contact had already been made earlier - but the first dialogue eventually took place planet-side, where the representatives of Codexianity met with their Phyr counterparts, in order to officially open diplomatic relations between the two powers. It was a meeting that consumed another week entire. The mendacious aliens ate and drank copiously, and all the while were only too happy to discuss the 'mighty Phyr Dominion', its eons-long history, and to confirm (amidst a great deal of cursing) their age-long, hateful feud with their Turanei neighbors ('lizard scum'). According to their mission's Prime (the equivalent of 'leader'), the war against the Turanei was going well, and the Phyr were interested in both Codexian wares and in offering Codexianity the opportunity to partake in the 'glory' of the fight against the hated foe. They were very interested in details about the Codexian state - especially its strength and its conduct of the war with the Raumen.

Codexian ambassadors uhm'd and ahh'd, while their aides frantically shuttled messages back and forth between them and the government. The Phyr interrupted the process by simply making an outright offer of a treaty of friendship, simultaneously hinting at vast riches and a technological bounty, were the Codexians interested in a more involved relationship (i.e. an alliance), down the road. Therefore, it is now time to make a pivotal decision: how do we approach our relations with these strange creatures? What will the Codexian state concentrate on?

Do you... accept the treaty of friendship, but abstain from developing the relationship further in future?

OR

Do you... accept the treaty of friendship, and take advantage of the offer of alliance with these strange creatures?

OR

Do you... refuse to establish any official relations, preferring to keep Codexia removed from regional politics?
 

16. Codexia Goes Forth!

Codexia goes forth!

The treaty of friendship with the Phyr was warmly welcomed by most sections of Codexian society. It presented this young and vibrant people with enormous opportunities. A new market was now open to Codexian traders, and enormous quantities of goods poured over the rapidly lengthening mutual border almost immediately. The Phyr, for their part, were courteous and cordial enough. They proved to be a temperamental, boisterous people – braggarts, in truth – with some very strange tendencies. One characteristic they shared with Codexians, however, was that they hated losing. And Codexian intel services suspected that their war with the Turanei was not going nearly as well as advertised, from the get-go. As such, the frequently dropped hints regarding a possible alliance between the two peoples were politely ignored by Codexian diplomats.

The ursine creatures exhibited a great deal of patience, at the beginning. But that palpably turned to disdain and then outright scorn over a period of some years. Accusations of cowardice and intransigence were liberally thrown around, even as trade continued to flourish, and we began to understand the space bears more thoroughly. They seemed to be growing desperate. The Raumen agitated against the Phyr influence in Codexian circles of power, casting some aspersions of their own against the six-limbed critters. It was a tangled web these aliens wove. Matters would come to a head soon enough, in any case. In 202AU, Codexian border vessels received a number of distress signals. Automated outposts and individual explorer vessels were being picked off by an unknown enemy. The Phyr pointed their stubby little fingers at the Turanei – and, sure enough, video logs of what seemed to be Turanei warnings recorded in Phyr and Raumeni languages were left at a number of attack sites.

The situation was growing dangerous. If the Turanei were aware of human entanglements with the Phyr, they might assume that the friend of their enemy is their enemy. Were they behind the attacks? Or was it some kind of Phyr scheme? Shortly after the incidents began to occur, Raumen diplomats informed the Codexian government that they had convincing evidence that this was all, in fact, part of a Phyr plot to draw the Codexians into the Turanei war. Trust was quickly becoming a premium quality. The Codexian people, upon learning of the attacks, began vehemently calling for a decisive response. As the situation continued to unfold, a very interesting offer was laid on the table by the Phyr.

‘The lizard scum attack you. They attack us. We fight them together. You... you get our stealth technology. Much glory. Great riches. Do you not want great riches? We friends. Lizards have no friends. They make only enemies. Be wise.’

It seemed a simple enough offer. But its even more surprising Raumeni counterpart bore other enticements:

‘The Phyr are no friends of yours, human-clan. They are no victims in this war. Many apologies for not telling you sooner, but Raumeni have many disagreements with Phyr. A shameful history. They chose war with Turanei. Stay out of this fight. If you do, we provide you with favourable trade terms. You will grow fat and opulent – our promise to you.’

Myriad options suddenly present themselves...

Do you... trust the Phyr, and mobilize for war against the extremist Turanei?

OR

Do you... trust the Raumen and merely strengthen your border defences against further attacks from any party?

OR

Do you... take matters into your own hands and try to determine the intentions of the Turanei directly?

OR

Do you... take this opportunity to sever your ties with these treacherous alien creatures? Codexia the Brave, Codexia Uber Alles!
 

17. Turning Points

First the update, then a limited Q&A.

**

AUDIO DATA LOG #534.623/B1 - Turning Points

Prime Ha'grien:

"Ambassa-dohr Denver, be clarifying, please. Your government signals intent to approach lizard scum, despite our alliance negotiations. Why?"

Ambassador Denver:

"It is very simple, Prime. We must act to ascertain the intentions of the Turanei. We will not involve ourselves in a war, without knowing our supposed enemy. You must understand that this is absolutely beyond negotiation, for us. We have no choice in this, whatsoever."

Ha'grien:

"There is always choice, Den-VER! We offer you so much, but you spit on such treasures. Do you wish to side with the Turanei? Is this why you contact them? How are we to interpret this gesture of ill-faith?"

Denver:

"In every great friendship, my dear Prime, there must be trust. If the Turanei are truly as you say, there is no need to concern yourselves with our diplomatic mission into their space. Since, in that case, it will most certainly fail anyway - and we will be forced to begin our war preparations shortly thereafter. However, before that time comes, we MUST discover why they are attacking our border posts and vessels! It is imperative that we know, whatever the answer."

Ha'grien:

"If there was trust here, you would respect our word, Codexian. You do not. Our Council will be forced to reconsider this relationship, in the long term."

**

Not long after the minutes of the above meeting were taken, a Codexian diplomatic mission set off for Turanei space. News of it spread like wildfire, and it certainly went a long way towards easing public criticism of government inaction in the face of irritating attacks on Codexian ships, bases and personnel. On 3 January 203AU, however, the mission ceased transmitting its co-ordinates via wyrmhole launched communication drones. It was last reported to be somewhere deep in the largely unsettled space between the Turanei and the expanding Codexian frontier. Foul play was strongly suspected, though there was no way of finding out what, exactly, had happened to the diplomats and their escorts. The Codexian military institution expressed outrage, over the incident.

Numerous demands were issued, from across the political and institutional spectrum. The so-called 'Raumen' lobby of mercantile factions harped on vociferously about 'Phyr treachery' - stopping just short of accusing the Phyr of having ambushed the convoy themselves. Hawks in the military nearly frothed at the mouth, figuratively speaking, demanding a sustained and instantaneous response to the attacks, which they laid at the feet of the 'Turanei and their insectoid lackeys'. But there was no compelling evidence to be found, anywhere. Something was clearly amiss, but the culprit(s) remained well hidden by a veritable cloak of shadow. For its part, the best that Codexian military intelligence could offer amounted to little more than 'it was probably the Phyr'.

Though it was easy to dismiss those levelling accusing glances at the Phyr as conspiracy theorists, the subsequent embargo against Codexian goods and services certainly did not help the ursine alien cause in the public eye. Their indignation and bitterness over having their advances rejected by the Codexian government ran deep. Yet, strangely enough, the Raumen also recoiled at the human attempt to contact the Turanei. Emergency conferences with their elders yielded little concrete information, but highlighted for the Codexians just how badly the Raumen desired human neutrality in the conflict - one that they were not officially party to, themselves.

And, just when it all seemed beyond the ken, a Codexian spy struck the mother lode...

**

Do you... wish to be accurately informed of Phyr motivations and actions during this last period?

OR

Do you... wish to be accurately informed of Raumen motivations and actions during this last period?

OR

Do you... wish to discover the truth of the conflict between the Turanei and the Phyr?

NOTE: The above are not 'attempt' choices. Rather, the voting body WILL be given concrete information regarding ONE of the above. As such, You've Caught a Break (TM)!
 

18. War Stories

War Stories

The broken husk of a man slumped in his chair, a low death rattle escaping his lips, as his eyes slowly rolled back into his head. The information now in the hands of the Codexian Security Bureau had cost a great deal, indeed. Likely, it was to cost Codexianity more still. The dead spy had spent the last months of his life amongst the largest of the Raumen clans - the Rau'dey - combing his usual sources for any and all information on the Phyr and the Turanei. As usual, his luck had been poor to middling. Nothing of true worth had been gleaned from the exercise. That was still the state of affairs a mere four weeks before his death. It was then that he was given a data-chip 'obtained' from clan archives by a very ambitious and suddenly wealthy file clerk.

The files it contained were marked as 'non-knowledge' - the Raumeni equivalent of 'top secret', in the sense that the existence of such knowledge was to be denied vehemently by Clan officials, and was deemed absolutely beyond valuation or public access. It was, obviously, most certainly not for outsiders. The spy was not aware of what he had, until the file clerk came looking for him the next day, desperate to get it back. The spy did not oblige him (despite pleading and begging on the part of the Raumen), and was instead informed, later, that the unfortunate clerk had met a grisly end at the hands of unknown perpetrators. Needless to say, the agent then made a run for it, and was extricated successfully - but not before an incident with local security forces left him mortally wounded. Jaymes Jebediah Treave would eventually be listed as another one of Codexia's fallen heroes.

The documents he purchased with his life and delivered to the Codexian government concerned the origins and current status of the Turanei-Phyr War. In short, they explained that the war had begun more than a hundred years previous, when the Phyr - who are considered a relatively young race - began to encroach on Turanei-claimed territory. They had been paid to do so by the Raumeni Confederacy, who were themselves deeply engaged in fighting the Hin'in Empire (no explanatory entry); a period of time that is today remembered as the 'Fourth Great Muster of the Clans'. The Turanei, who occupied only three hundred lightyears of galactic real-estate, shrugged off the Phyr invasion, and burned a number of their colonies, in response, with fearsome weapons.

By the fourth year of the conflict, the Phyr were losing badly - totally outmatched by the Turanei, whose dreadnoughts quickly became the stuff of legend. It was then that the mysterious and usually aloof Amoneth intervened, for reasons unknown, gifting the Phyr with a number of advanced technologies, including the stealth cloak they employ today. A sort of 'balanced stalemate' was achieved over the next decade. The Phyr were better able to combat the Turanei, who for their part seemed relatively disinterested in taking any Phyr territory. However, ursine incursions into the Turanei home systems were defeated with unbridled ferocity and remarkable efficiency.

The stalemate lasted for over thirty largely uneventful years, before the Fifth Great Muster of the Raumeni Clans, under Magon do te Gargiis (the Clan Father) poured across the borders of both the Phyr Dominion and the Turanei, simultaneously. It was a brutal episode in the conflict; a general conflagration over a thousand lightyears of space. It ended with the death of te Gargiis in the Battle of the Eye, three years after it began, when an entire fleet of Turanei dreadnoughts confronted the bulk of the mighty Raumen host, and barely defeated it in pitched battle. The death of the Clan Father broke the back of the Raumeni war effort. They were left to prey only on the much weakened Phyr, having been entirely evicted from the Turanei expanse, thereafter.

The ursine aliens, however, waged a desperate war of resistance that eventually saw them drive back the insectoids. A peace treaty was finally signed, after the Raumeni ceded swathes of systems to the suddenly reinvigorated Phyr horde. The truce between the two races generally held, with a few notable exceptions, as the Raumen tacitly acknowledged their weakened position. Yet, no treaty was ever signed between the Phyr and the Turanei. The former, who reportedly could not 'leave well enough alone', continued to prod the latter. Small-scale raids were organized by commanders hungry for glory and the riches that invariably followed glory. Twelve years ago, a single raid did - finally - manage to piece the Turanei defensive net. One of their major colonies was heavily bombarded by the Phyr, before they withdrew. The Turanei have not relented from their reprisals, ever since, and the conflict has been steadily escalating. Recently, several Phyr worlds have been entirely depopulated by the 'lizard scum'.

***

A short time after the above information was received and analyzed, a border picket was attacked. By sheer good fortune, the picket escaped, and finally was able to confirm that the attackers were the ursine Phyr, all along. Difficult choices await.

***

Do you... order your fleets to fortify your borders against further attacks?

OR

Do you... issue a warning to the Phyr, threatening action?

OR

Do you... mobilize immediately, in preparation for war?
 

19. Cry Havoc, and Let Loose the Dogs of War!

Cry Havoc! And let loose the Dogs of War!

Recruitment offices were swarming with impressionable minds before the declaration of war even went out. Hundreds of thousands volunteered immediately; millions more were right behind them. It was the greatest call to arms humanity had experienced in over three hundred years. Patriotic fervor had reached a fever pitch. The duplicitous Phyr would pay for their attacks on Codexian innocents with their lives! Soon thereafter, fuel cells were being loaded up intoo ships heavily burdened with terrifying complements of weaponry. Star charts for the campaign were being drawn up on translucent tables, underneath the steely gazes of flag officers and the General Staff. This time... this war... would not be a repeat of the Raumen debacle. Codexianity would be prepared.

And, in truth, much had changed since those heady days of yore. The Navy had ballooned to more than two thousand vessels of all types, and its manpower had grown to well over two and a half million. This was a different beast, altogether, to the one that fought the Raumeni to a standstill some fifty years ago. There was a silent determination amongst the collected war leaders that it would never again come to the mad scramble of survival that characterized humanity's only previous interstellar war. This conflict would be a controlled, firmly handled procedure, with a clear goal: to punish the Phyr for their transgressions. Codexianity would show no weakness to these xeno scum. There was no room for such weakness, anymore.

Before your mighty armada sails off to war, you must decide...

Question One

Is the armada... organized into a number of 'fleets in being', wherein the battleships play the major role, and the aim is to engage in decisive battle with enemy units? Drone and craft carriers play a secondary role according to this model.

OR

Is the armada... organized into 'carrier task-forces', wherein the carrier-class vessels play the major role, and the aim is to engage enemy units only as a means toward attacking their staging points, major bases and logistical arteries?

Question Two

Is the armada... armed primarily with missile batteries launching salvos of high explosive warheads at enemy targets?

OR

Is the armada... armed primarily with laser/maser banks, lacerating the hulls of enemy vessels with high energy beams?

Question Three

Is the aim of the war to... force an unconditional Phyr surrender?

OR

Is the aim of the war to... subjugate the Phyr entirely?
 

20. The Great Dying

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The Great Dying

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In the end, what was most surprising was how hard the Phyr fought. They proved a savage foe - even against virtually insurmountable odds. The Codexian invasion was well planned, well organized and ruthlessly prosecuted. It ran like clockwork; a success for the textbooks of the future. Though the Phyr had a number of advantages, those proved largely tactical... and short-lived. The Amoneth-provided stealth technology indeed cloaked the behemoth carriers preferred by the ursine threat. At the onset of the Codexian offensive, they mauled a number of Carrier Task Forces, taking them by surprise and utterly destroying them. But... the Codexian Navy was by now a remarkably resilient institution. Soon enough, counter-tactics were developed. The Phyr penchant for ramming their cloaked vessels down the throats of human carriers and unleashing an endless wave of fighter-bombers was rendered null and void when the Codexians began deploying picket-vessels light minutes in advance of their main bodies.

If the Phyr attempted to bypass them via FTL, they were invariably detected by the residue left extending from their point of origin (which allowed Codexian sensors to triangulate their vector and position). If, instead, they attempted to get into tactical range via sublight means, they would begin any engagement at a hopeless disadvantage, with even the slowest Codexian vessel being much faster than their lumbering motherships. One by one, those kilometres-long stealth carriers were hunted down and broken up by massed missile barrages. Codexian fighter pilot aces ran into the hundreds within months of the war's onset, as thousands upon thousands of their cumbersome Phyr counterparts met their ends in that darkest of places that separates the lonely points of light we call our homes. By the sixth month of a conflict that was rapidly turning into a massacre, over twenty of the Phyr super-carriers were reduced to particles of interstellar dust.

And, yet, it could all have been very different. The Phyr had obviously not contemplated nor desired a strategic confrontation with Codexia. Their forces were arrayed on the other end of their vast domain, where they still fought a desperate holding battle against the Turanei. By some estimates, the Codexian Navy faced a mere quarter of the total Phyr naval tonnage. Employed against the Codexians, such a force might have turned the tide. But the Codexian advance was being treated as an irritation, even as it choked the life out of the Phyr Dominion. The strategists could not understand it. And still, the 'bears' fought on. With dwindling forces; outgunned, outmanoeuvred... still, they fought. Derided in some quarters, they earned the grudging respect of their human adversary - bought by endless torrents of their syrupy yellow blood, and an unmatched resolve. Their sheer force of will and their immense capacity to sacrifice lent them a sort of tragic, noble air, entirely out of whack with stereotypical portrayals of this faltering race.

It was only as the Codexians carved their way into the heartland of the Dominion that they finally began to understand. Phyr prisoners and a rising flood of refugees were all telling the same story: the Turanei were determined to end their species. A war that had previously been a jostle for territory and resources had turned very, very ugly, indeed. The Phyr had 'profaned' something very, very important to the Turanei, in their single successful raid against the latter's homesystems. And now, billions of Phyr were being immolated on a dozen worlds. The weapons of the Turanei were terrible, but it still took weeks to 'kill' a world - to sterilize it utterly. There was much suffering, before the end.

The Phyr surrendered to the Codexians a week into the eighth month of the war. It was unconditional. Their only request was simple: help them avert extinction! Or, at the very least, do not interfere in their attempt to stave off total defeat against the Turanei. Their desperation was entirely palpable.

Do you... take what you can and what you will (technologically and economically speaking), and leave the Phyr to their fate?

OR

Do you... do as above, but take in as many Phyr refugees as feasible, in case they are not lying about their battle for survival?

OR

Do you... intervene militarily against the Turanei, heroically standing up for the right of the Phyr to exist?
 

21. Codex Entry: The Phyr

At some point, these Codex entries will be expanded upon.

***

Codex Entry: The Phyr

a.k.a.

URSIDAE HELIARCTUS EXTRA TERRESTRIALIS

Physical Description:

The Phyr are a robust race of ursine aliens generally standing between 1.2 and 2.2 meters tall, adult specimens of which tend to weigh more than eighty kilos, once fully developed. They are covered by a dense layer of fur, which points to a long evolutionary history with temperate, if not cold, regional climates. The color of the aforementioned fur ranges from a dull brown to a crimson red, though a genetic anomaly also intermittently produces an almost platinum colored coat in a tiny minority of the population. This minority is known by the colloquial term: 'the Sun Phyr'. They are uniformly esteemed by their peers, and are especially prized as mates.

As a species, the Phyr can be described (when compared to the Codexian natural baseline) as powerful creatures; energetically fast over short distances and remarkably resistant to many forms of trauma and are well shielded from cold temperatures. They are also possessed of six limbs. These can be characterized as a pair of primary arms, a smaller pair of secondary arms just below the primaries along the torso and, finally, a pair of immensely strong (if stumpy) legs. The smaller arms - known as the 'ninqueh' - can be used for a variety of tasks, but their most ostensible purpose is holding younglings to allow easy feeding access (for females) and transportation (for both males and females). Those younglings are produced via coupling between adult members of the two sexes. After fertilization of the female's eggs is complete, she will carry them for three months, while they gestate. Generally, a female will give live birth to litters of three to four cubs. Since they can theoretically birth such litters four times each solar year, the Phyr have copious reproductive capacity.

Other notable features of URSIDAE HELIARCTUS include their somewhat deficient cranial structure and sub-optimal neural system. While it is true that the Phyr have an excellent memory, their average intelligence is rated at below the human norm. In terms of their maturation process, the Phyr reach adulthood within six solar years of birth - but, conversely, can expect to live no more than thirty five solar years. The Phyr are omnivores.

Society:

Phyr appreciation for nuanced humor is low, as is their sense of physical aesthetics. They are naturally territorial and somewhat aggressive creatures, with a propensity for violence - such violence, however, rarely gets out of hand. It is merely a means of displaying seniority. These ursine aliens, in truth, have a complex, advanced culture that is irrevocably marked and somewhat dominated by the higher concepts of honour and gravitas (personal glory/worth/bearing). The eternal quest for the latter consumes many foolhardy young lives, while raising others to the forefront of Phyr society. Since families are vast and resources limited, familial kinship is given less emphasis in everyday life than personal friendship - which is considered a sign of independence and ambition, requiring greater effort on the part of the individual (and therefore being seen as more worthwhile).

The Phyr reside in dwellings built for extended family groups. These dwellings then form the communes that are the basis for social life on the microcosmic scale. The commune also happens to be the lowest level administrative unit enforced by regional governments. The Dominion, as a whole, is ruled by a 'Lord Prime', who is invariably the wealthiest, most successful and/or most famous Phyr of his generation. Since these qualities are relatively subjective, the Council of Notables that elects the Lord Prime tends to fall out quite often. At times, civil strife is the direct result.

It should be noted that the Phyr practice a form of ancestor worship, but no recognized 'deities'.

Technology:

The Phyr, to put it bluntly, are not known for their technological prowess. Having been gifted with their most advanced devices (i.e. the stealth field generators), the Phyr are better known for the grand scale of their construction projects, than any other achievement in the technical field. Those projects, however, are duly impressive. The ursine aliens do not only manufacture massive stealth carriers, but also truly vast buildings (Phyr arcologies are legendary) and public works. Generally speaking, their propulsion technologies consist of low grade FTL and sub-light drives. Their sensor technologies should not be spoken of in the same breath as their Codexian equivalent. And, although Phyr weapons are not to be regarded lightly, their limited tactical utility has been decisively exposed.
 

22. The River of Death

Please note:

This update will jump the timeline ahead an undisclosed/indeterminate number of years. Bear that in mind when making your choice. The Barbarian will soon try to create an index of all updates hitherto on the first page, for easier access...

The River of Death

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Ten million dead on one world. A hundred million on another. The astronomical, unbelievable number just kept climbing, as the Turanei clawed their way across the pitiful remnants of the Phyr Dominion. The broken, battered fleets of the ursine aliens made their last stands, and ignored calls to retreat with the rapidly growing refugee armada. Its Codexian escorts watched on, as their signals were extinguished, one by one. The macabre display seemed endless. The Phyr left no one in doubt as to their bravery in the face of death, but it was all for naught. The doom of their race was at hand. It was to be at Phyrenar, the homeworld of the ursine race, that the final act played out. Those few stealth carriers that had managed to limp back to the cradle of the Phyr species fought a last, desperate holding action. And then Phyrenar was burned to a cinder.

In Codexia, the public reaction to the genocidal slaughter was somewhat muted. Many mourned the dead and spoke of the Turanei in fearful, hushed tones - but others proved fairly ambivalent. The misfortune of the Phyr was their own. After all, the 'bears' HAD attacked human vessels, destroyed a diplomatic mission and tried to manipulate Codexianity into a possibly unwinnable war. Given such attitudes, the resettlement of the refugee armada became a thorn in the government's side. There was widespread resistance on the outer colonies to refugee settlement. These worlds had suffered the most from alien depredations, and were caught in the throes of an intense wave of xenophobia, in the immediate post-war period. The central government ignored these protests. Soon, four million survivors of the Phyr Genocide were cohabitating with Codexian colonists on more than a dozen worlds. On the ground, the tensions were evident immediately.

Meanwhile, the economic fallout of the war also badly affected the industrial sector, which had exported enormous quantities of goods to the Phyr territories. The effect of job and profit losses was such that there was widespread talk of recession. Action had to be taken, but there were other concerns burdening the government's decision-making body, at the same time. Not only was there a treasure trove of technological artefacts awaiting analysis and a research budget from the Phyr War, but the Turanei were still out there - for the moment busy liquidating the remaining pockets of Phyr across their old domain. Finally, the Raumen were giving Codexia the cold shoulder over their involvement in the demise of the Phyr. Certainly, there seemed to be no aggressive intent in the posturing, but feelers for more information on the Turanei were rudely rebuffed.

Do you... emphasize the economy in the post-war period, growing Codexia's industrial and financial muscle in order to meet the challenges to come?

OR

Do you... concentrate on internal stability, in the hopes of averting socio-political problems in the future?

OR

Do you... invest heavily in technological progress, striving for parity with the region's most advanced races?
 

23. The Aftermath

The Aftermath

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The decades following the Phyr War were, in many ways, unkind to Codexia. Though it had been victorious - and decisively so - a serious, underlying socio-economic malaise threatened future Codexian development, and rendered the state itself a tottering, decrepit institution. The period of heady colonial growth starting in 205AU and ending around 230AU had a number of economic side effects. Firstly, it drained state coffers badly, as the government continued to spur and subsidize colonial development under severe pressure from a pioneering-minded public. Secondly, the expenditure was accompanied by crippling debt, which could not be adequately serviced. Thirdly, the Phyr War had badly damaged the precarious balance of trade, and Codexia found itself running at a serious deficit. The government then went a step further and funneled the limited moneys available into a cavalcade of research and development programs, intended to 'catch up to the xenos'. It was a dangerous concoction the Codexian administration brewed.

The practical consequences of the aforementioned came to a boil just as the first of the research projects was finally bearing fruit, in 221AU. The troubles began on Leonid, which was even then a major colony world, and was at the time home to at least fifty million souls. Protests against Phyr refugee settlement were followed by long, drawn out clashes with the authorities. When the state then imposed a heavier tax burden to pay for its various social, infrastructural and development programs, the clashes turned into outright urban battles with the police, resulting in a number of deaths. It did not take overly long for cries of 'Down with the Government!' to turn into 'Down with Codexia!', and for 'Leonid is Codexian!' to become 'Leonid for Le-landers!'. In truth, it was a congruence of variables that threatened to bring on a bloody civil war. Recession tore at the very purse strings the government had to loosen to quell deepening social unrest. Resources were spread too thinly. Immense hostility toward Phyr settlement was ignored by a government caught between a rock and a very hard place, indeed.

By 223AU, Leonid had become a warzone. Tens of thousands perished in a brutal guerrilla war that stopped the development of the planet dead in its tracks. For a time, however, it seemed as if the government had brought the problem under a degree of control, by deploying a colossal garrison to the planet and maintaining a vice grip on the space lanes. Then the whispers began in the Grand Assembly of the Council. Representatives from a number of 'young worlds' (as these particular colonies now preferred to be called) voiced their constituents' discontent over the government handling of the Leonid situation, and the Colonial Expanse, in general. One by one, more voices were added to the gaggle, until the whispers became an outcry.

The boldest of them called for the establishment of the most developed colony worlds as autonomous states in their own right. The most radicalized wanted even more. It took a while to register just how deep the resentment ran. Strict regulations limiting personal freedoms, a heavy and growing tax burden, unpopular xeno policies, direct government meddling in colonial development... all this (and more) produced a generation of men and women in the Colonial Expanse without any great love of Codexia. Meanwhile, the people of Codexia itself (the homeplanet, that is) seethed at the impudence of the 'pathetic colonials'. The cheek of them! Their belligerence toward the agitating parties was difficult to overstate.

To add insult to injury, the government also subsequently realized, at a certain stage of the crisis, that substantial portions of the military might actually not side with the state in the event of an armed confrontation with the Colonial Bloc (the 'Young Worlds Bloc', officially). The situation clearly demanded an appropriate resolution.

Do you... grant the Young Worlds the autonomy they seek, and thereby prevent civil conflict?

OR

Do you... act decisively to 'sanitize' the worlds in question? This would involve purging the local leadership and deploying massed garrisons to police the rebellious colonials.

OR

Do you... borrow heavily from the Raumen? This would give you the funds to mollify segments of the population, ease the tax burden and fund socio-economic programs of intrinsic value?
 

24. Dreams of the Future

Dreams of the Future

The most damning indictment resulting from the Codexian civil crisis of 223-225AU was that it proved, conclusively, that any attempt at interstellar government - even under Codexia's relatively decentralized and inclusive system - was the ultimate exercise in the delicate balancing of interests, priorities and the allocation of perpetually limited resources toward the satisfaction of the aforementioned. We had come to within a few ill-chosen words short of a war pitting human against human; brother against brother, for the first time in almost three centuries. Salvaging the situation, as it stood in 224AU, required vision, finesse and, most of all, MONEY. Copious, jaw-dropping quantities of it. Enough to satiate the gaping maw of existing social and colonization programs for entire election campaigns to come. Enough to buy off hundreds of politicians and their endless entourages - the men and women who would clamp down on separatist dissent, and make it look like it was the dissenters' own idea.

And so, the Codexian government appealed to the Raumen. Trillions of credits were humbly requested... and grudgingly handed over at painful interest rates. It would prove to be just enough. Eventually, the fires of Leonid sputtered out, and the tendrils of rebellion were choked to death by the power of suddenly limitless currency. By 230AU, Codexianity seemed back on track. The shadow of planetary proto-nationalism still haunted domestic policies for many years following the crisis, to be sure. However, at least this dangerous realization of self-identity no longer asked questions of Codexia's sovereign integrity. It turned into an ever-present background noise; always buzzing, to one's irritation, but not loud enough to warrant drastic action. All in all, it was now abundantly clear that much of Codexianity no longer had an inborn loyalty to the homeplanet, or its ruling government. The underlying problem was not resolved - its resolution had been postponed until the next great stress test for the Codexian state.

Perhaps the only truly positive outcome of the whole episode was an extraordinary scientific development in 223AU.

Is this discovery... a true AI? Capable of controlling everything from production floors to combat vessels, it signals a quantum leap in computing and systems management, amongst a host of other fields. Its implications are astounding.

OR

Is this the discovery of... a brand new synthesized mineral? Not only will it prove immensely profitable on both the domestic and the interstellar market, it also has the added benefit of increasing the explosive power of your missiles at least two-fold, and the sublight speed of your vessels significantly.

OR

Is this the discovery of... an ancient hulk of unknown origin in the orbit of a lonely star in the Colonial Expanse? The hulk may yield secrets beyond imagination in years to come - or it may prove completely useless.

OR

Is this the discovery of... a small and heavily damaged Turanei vessel, courtesy of the Phyr? It would reveal a great deal about the true state of Turanei technology, were it properly examined by experienced Codexian techs.

OR

Is this discovery... the humble beginning of a super-weapon program? Though the journey is long, the reward at the end might be worth it.
 

25. Fate and Destiny

Fate and Destiny

Though Codexian racial memory had recoiled at the very thought of a true Artificial Intelligence, it nonetheless became a reality on 27 December 223AU, when a crack team of scientists, programmers and neurological experts 'awoke' Adam-2, the known galaxy's first AI. Much back clapping and many congratulatory toasts ensued. It was a miraculous development. They had jointly given birth to a non-Codexian SENTIENCE. When the news was initially promulgated, there was widespread public puzzlement. What did a 'true AI' imply, after all? Over the next few years, Adam-2's 'neural matrix' was copied many times over, and separate personalities were allowed to evolve. This was the only known means of creating additional AIs, without rebuilding from scratch (an expensive and deeply time consuming process). The infant digital entities were studied, for a time, and fed dribs and drabs of information so as to gauge their abilities and inclinations. The barrage of tests proved successful.

Once removed from the laboratory and study sampling, the Adam series did not disappoint. They were far more efficient than the most supremely augmented tech-jobs, and were utterly superior to their non-sentient AI counterparts. Within a mere two decades, the Adam series and the Betty series that followed (in essence, two 'true' AIs copied many times over in the 'prenatal' stage) had become plant managers, nervous systems for combat vessels, reference points for government officials, city planners and the best professionals in fields requiring extraordinary dexterity and precision. Though retaining no official status as citizens, the AIs were individuals - capable of discovering and absorbing information independently of any instruction - naturally inquisitive personalities, to a fault. Inbuilt with manifold failsafe systems, they proved to be reliable, as well as able. Their core programming stripped them of the ability to harm - or by their inaction allow to be harmed - Codexian beings.

The AIs integrated into Codexia's economy and society with an almost practiced ease, and remarkable results followed their introduction. Industrial efficiency, for one, virtually exploded. The total volume of goods produced in Codexian space rose by almost 40% during the 230s, even when taking into account population growth and natural economic expansion. Contrary to many popular fears, they also created a great number of more jobs than they took away. Resource intensive as they were (the AIs, despite being digital entities, required massive data stores and servers), hundreds of thousands of technicians were required to maintain the thousands of AIs in operation by 240AU. It was a relationship of co-dependence, at every stage. And, for the moment, it functioned well. However, one disappointment did lie in the fact that the AIs were, by their very nature, closed systems. They would bring no exponential scientific advancement. In some ways, they were saddled with many of the same limitations imposed on human beings.

And yet, despite the many positives of the new status quo, there was still a minority of Codexian citizenry with a strong distaste for their new compatriots. Political opposition to AI expansion was growing more vocal by the year. The Raumen faction in the Council was particularly vitriolic in their attacks on the digitals. This was so, despite the fact that the AIs were helping Codexia to continue to pay off its morbidly large debt to the Clans. There were even a few clumsy attacks by Codexian vandals on AI servers - though these were easily rebuffed by security forces. But beyond these vocal and petty physical attacks on the newest addition to the Codexian family, life was - overall - finally normalizing for Codexians. Nothing had been heard from the Turanei in decades, and no overwhelming threat seemed to lie in waiting. A steady rhythm of colonial and economic growth was developing.

The future appears wide open...

Do you... begin exploring the Dead Zone (the old Phyr domain), after an enforced absence of more than twenty years?

OR

Do you... explore in the direction of the Amoneth, hoping to make contact with these mysterious aliens?

OR

Do you... explore what lies beyond the vast Raumeni territories?
 

26. State of the Union, 250AU

State of the Union, circa 250AU

The State

Codexia is a Federal Republic spanning almost six hundred light years. Its citizens have settled more than forty worlds in thirty-eight systems, and control dozens of others via outposts of varying sizes. Several of the aforementioned worlds are now home to more than a million people. The Republic is an increasingly decentralized form of state government. Administration of far-off colonies and the continued assurance of their loyalty to Unity Megalopolis is reliant on the parcelling out of many legislative powers to planetary governors. Splinter settlements are also suspected to exist outside of patrolled Codexian space - they are peopled by independents, outcasts and outlaws, primarily. There is an element of internal resistance to the central government, with a large number of citizens (at least, in an absolute sense) resentful of a heavy tax burden and various government policies. However, for the moment, they are no threat to the ruling authority.

Society

Codexian society at large remains much as it was at the turn of the second century. Which, of course, is not saying much, considering that said society was exceedingly complex, fraught with many ideological fault lines, and prone to fracture. It is a society full of subcultures, religious movements, cults, fads and obsessions. The ties that bind these disparate peoples together are those of death, taxes, culture and a largely shared everyday experience. A difficult history with aliens has left them embittered, distrustful and very belligerent toward other life forms. The growing Phyr minority (their population is rapidly expanding in the refugee settlements) is giving many citizens the opportunity to interact with xenos on an everyday basis. This is both alleviating the problem, and exacerbating it in some quarters.

Economy

The economy of Codexia has been through some very difficult times, recently, but has come through the recent recession with gusto. Although the government is faced with repaying an extraordinary debt, growth has been very strong in recent years, and the economy has expanded at least four-fold since the recorded 200AU gross domestic product. Industrial production is extremely healthy, spurred on by steady exports to the Raumen clans and excellent AI stewardship. Slowly, surely the trade balance is tilting in favour of the humans, for the first time. For all the precision engineering of the Raumeni, Codexian industry is ultimately proving to be the greater economic force.

Technology

Apart from the advent of true AI in 223AU, Codexia has not advanced a great deal technologically in the past fifty years. Economic instability and a lack of impetus have together acted to prevent much of an investment in a variety of technological fields. The greatest advances have come in the private, commercial sector, where innovation is tied to consumption. Here, the endlessly evolving Codexian society has acted as a catalyst for novelty.
 

27. Where No Man Has Gone Before

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Where No Man Has Gone Before

Prosperity. It was the new name of the game. Codexia was expanding in all directions, and its citizens were reaping every benefit of a mini-Golden Age imaginable. Some called it the 'AI Revolution' - others simply looked at the hard facts; the increased production and export figures, massive growth in the services sector, almost full employment and the prospect of more to come sitting on the horizon. The Turanei were sitting pretty in their own territory, as far as the Codexian government knew, and the Raumen seemed happy enough to grow rich, in their own right, from the massive debt repayments they were due (at least, for another decade, or so). All in all, it was the sort of era that begged for the flexing of state muscles.

It was deemed, eventually, that exploration and further colonization were the means by which said muscles would be flexed. Intrigued by the prospect of finding out more about the now-legendary 'Amoneth', numerous vessels and crews were given contracts to explore in the general direction of the crystalline aliens, as indicated by the limited Raumeni information on the subject. It invoked very peculiar feelings, hunting legends. A unique rush, of sorts. However, after five years of relentless searching, the Amoneth were nowhere to be found. Habitable (with some terraformation required, of course) worlds were discovered in what was reputed to be their region of space, but none housed any indication that they had ever been home to anything but the native and generally primitive flora/fauna. By the eighth year of the quest, both the explorers and the government despaired.

Billions of credits had been spent on what may have amounted to a myth. Angry questions were subsequently asked of the Raumen and the Phyr. Their rather persistent replies invariably pointed to very real experiences with a race of crystalline beings referred to as the 'Amoneth' - beings who had access to incredible technologies, but chose not to involve themselves with the 'younger' races, for the most part. These silicate life forms were rather proving to be an enigma, to those who sought them. Eventually, policy makers were tempted to simply label the Amoneth a 'rumor' and open up their space to exploitation. Other voices in the government vehemently rallied against such actions, arguing that encroaching on Amoneth space without knowing for certain, one way or the other, whether they still had an interest there was tantamount to suicide.

An obvious choice must now be made...

Do you... open up Amoneth space to the public, taking advantage of colonization opportunities and removing the expense of exploring their former territories from your federal budget?

OR

Do you... continue to explore their territory with government-sponsored missions only? Determined to discover the truth, you would invest an even greater sum of money into outfitting more expeditions with even better equipment.

OR

Do you... cut your losses and focus on other issues?
 

28. Codexia, the Unbound

Codexia, the Unbound

The edict that opened up Amoneth space to colonization and exploitation came as a great surprise to the public. Initially (and, to some extent, thereafter as well), there was a great deal of trepidation. After all, this was the territory of the fabled Amoneth in question. Masters of high technology; Godlike beings; the ghosts of ages past... People did not fail to see the potential disaster in treading upon their hallowed territory. As such, for the first few years, only the bravest (most foolhardy?) of prospectors and pioneers took the plunge and set out to discover riches beyond dreaming. The first outposts were set up gingerly, with one ear to the ground at all times, waiting for some kind of sign. And, as befits giving credence to fables, none came. Whether or not the Amoneth really existed - or had ever existed - came into open question, in Codexian circles. Soon, tens of thousands swarmed the space they allegedly claimed, and each passing year saw less stock put into the legends.

For their part, the Raumeni and the Phyr continued to warn humanity of serious repercussions were they to anger the Amoneth. But Codexians were in no mood to entertain their petty superstitions, anymore. Though caution continued to be the watchword, the exploitation program not only continued on its present course, but increased in scope and tempo over a period of some five years. No old ruins were being discovered on the surveyed worlds, no artefacts, no skeletons, exo-skeletons or fossil remains. All signs pointed to the legend of the Amoneth staying precisely that. The economic benefits of the enterprise were proving very significant, indeed. Yet, officials were becoming perturbed by a spate of 'incidents' that took place during this time. In one instance, a small surveying vessel ceased transmissions to the local comm-buoy for more than three days. It eventually re-appeared and made contact with regional authorities - puzzled as to why three solar days had gone by, without any of the crew noticing the lapse. They had simply 'skipped' them.

This was by no means an isolated incident. At least five other vessels reported similar occurrences, with intervals of varying length. There was no pattern to this mysterious activity. And, despite a well publicized leak to the media regarding the phenomenon, the overall consequences for the program were quite subdued. After all, none of the crews in question had been harmed. None reported any abnormalities, or strange experiences, as a result of the lapses. Though scientists could not explain them, they eventually simply formed a part of the legend of the Amoneth, and a sort of 'local flavour' - just another thread in the tapestry of the Amoneth expanse. In the meantime, good money was being made from the project. Economic growth was strong across the board for Codexia, and the boom seemed destined to continue in perpetuity. The good times were on a roll.

What is Codexia's next step to be?

Do you... now wish to expand into the Phyr Dead Zone? Who knows what forgotten bounty it still may hold. The Turanei, after all, had not seemed that interested in pillage - merely destruction.

OR

Do you... believe that exploring beyond the Raumeni territories might be the better idea? Do other sentients await, beyond? New markets, perhaps?
 

29. The Feast of Bones

The Feast of Bones

Codexian expansion would continue well into the 260s, spreading human influence further and further into the galactic 'hub'. This time, Codexia directed its main efforts at colonizing the Phyr Dead Zone - a program that proved highly unpopular with the Phyr refugee population living on Codexian colonies. Besides the dearth of popular support for - what amounted to - 'grave robbing', the whole endeavour was, initially at least, an expensive waste of time. Dozens of worlds scarred by the war with the Turanei littered the Zone. Some were merely 'damaged' by selective orbital bombardment. But others had been completely sterilized. The Turanei had proven themselves highly thorough exterminators of Phyr life. Eventually, however, finds were made that mitigated the expense involved in exploring the former warzone. They included minor triumphs, such as the discovery of a largely intact stealth carrier (the famous Ur'esh; a carrier that had participated in at least four wars and survived them all), as well as a major one of singular importance.

The databanks of the Ur'esh included full recordings of a lengthy and very nearly fatal engagement with a Turanei vessel. A Codexian analysis thereof revealed some startling facts. Firstly, the Turanei ship that had nearly claimed the Ur'esh's scalp was almost twice as large - a truly monstrous machine of war. Secondly, the battle had been a terrible mismatch from start to finish. The Phyr had combated the Turanei ship heroically and knowingly, evading its extremely powerful beam weapons through the clever use of their stealth cloak and constant maneuver. In the end, however, the continuous suicide runs of the Phyr fighter pilots proved insufficient. The Dreadnought (as the craft was labeled in the Phyr database) shrugged off both their weapons and their final, desperate collision runs. The battle had ended only when the monumental Turanei vessel had run down the fleeing Phyr carrier, having ultimately closed off every route of egress. It had been a 'beautiful' and tragic ballet of death, throughout.

In any case, the tactical data the 'black-box' afforded the Codexian military was absolutely invaluable. It gave a proper insight into Turanei weapons and tactics (the former of which, at least, were confirmed to be very dangerous, indeed). Though the Dead Zone otherwise proved to be largely, well, dead, it nevertheless was a smorgasbord of resources that were now no longer being utilized. Despite the vehement protests of the Phyr, these resources were soon being mined and harvested by Codexian prospectors and corporate agency. Aside from the aforementioned, however, the exploration of the Dead Zone had otherwise proved somewhat uneventful; perhaps even dull.

When the relative stability of the previous several decades did come to an end, it did so rather unexpectedly, and the occurrence had very little to do with the Great Dying or the Phyr. In 266AU, the Raumen Confederacy convulsed under a serious rift between five great clans. A disagreement over territorial boundaries and strategic resources soon escalated into open conflict, and pitched battles shook the Raumeni domain. Codexian trade with the Raumeni was catastrophically affected.

How do you wish to approach this problematic conflict, which is still in its infancy?

Do you... remain neutral and hands off, allowing the Raumeni to resolve their own problems?

OR

Do you... give political support to the side that seems to promise the greatest concessions to Codexia in the event of its victory? In this scenario, the support would consist of money, supplies and political validation, not military might.

OR

Do you... intervene directly on behalf of a faction? This scenario plays out much like Option B, however it also includes military support.
 

30. The Winter of Discontent, Raumeni-style

The Winter of Discontent, Raumeni-style

The Raumeni of the Three-Tone Alliance (three major and several dozen minor clans fighting under the same banner) had always seemed a 'decent enough sort' to the Codexians. Borderlanders, through and through, they included some of the most enterprising 'bugs' around. One of their member clans had even participated in the long and ill-advised war of first contact against the humans. Yet, they were still the ones who did most of the trade with the humans, and were most certainly the ones who dealt with them on an everyday basis. These clans, young and vital as they were, rankled under the strictures of the Confederacy. As an institution, it existed solely to prevent a radical schism amongst clans with inherently distinct interests. However, it could do so only with the assent of its constituent members, and was barely suited to actually resolving internecine grievances. When one of these escalated in the 260s to the point of open conflict, there was little the Confederate 'government' could do.

After all, the Raumeni clans each maintained their own militaries. None depended on the Confederacy for protection - quite the opposite was true, in fact. Therefore, as soon as the Three-Tone Alliance began fighting the Four Suns of the Red Nebula, and its other enemies across the Raumeni Confederacy, the situation immediately became untenable. The Confederate government collapsed in a ruined heap within eight months, and bloody battles began to exert a terrible attrition on the Raumeni belligerents. Hundreds of vessels were destroyed in mere months, and a great many of the insectoids perished. Simply sitting back and observing the course of the conflict was certainly an option, but for the Codexian government the only possible course of action became clear, as soon as trade volume dropped by some thirty percent. To allow this state of affairs to go on would ruin innumerable Codexian businesses, not to mention the unpredictable consequences for long term relations that the conflict might have entailed.

It was quickly decided that Codexia would have to act. In 263AU, roughly a year and a bit into the Raumeni Civil War, the bulk of the Second and Sixth Fleets transitioned into Three-Tone space, as part of a 'peacekeeping' initiative. Led by Admirals JP Gromyn and Michael Augustus, the Codexian Naval forces involved were to act 'in a humanitarian fashion, protecting Raumeni civilians from wartime depredations and thereby helping to resolve the conflict.' This, essentially, was a diplomatic veneer 'covering up' the outright military support the Codexian government had allotted to the Three-Toners. Codexia itself did not mobilize, nor adopt measures that would put it on a wartime footing. Rather, the Civil War was treated as a limited conflict requiring only a moderate military commitment to ensure a favourable outcome.

Unfortunately, this evaluation of the situation at hand proved to be highly optimistic. The presence of the Codexians certainly won otherwise unwinnable battles for the Three-Tone Alliance, but the strategic balance remained precarious. And losses began mounting rather quickly. The Raumeni were deceptively powerful. Though no single clan or collection thereof could match Codexia's potential during a full blown war, the Raumeni, as a whole, were clearly a different story. The smallest of the clans could still call upon some military might - while the greatest had entire Codexian fleet-equivalents in their orders of battle. The armadas of the Four Suns were, in their own right, quite vast. And they made the humans bleed. By 264AU, units of the Seventh and Ninth Fleets were dispatched to the contested frontage. Then, the Seventh was fully committed. Yet, it was clearly not enough. The Battle of the Brothers Epsilon was as decisive a victory as any of the war, for the Three-Toners, but the Four Suns refused to give in. Though possessing superior strategic mobility and working stealth cloaks, the Codexians could not tilt the war decisively in favour of their client faction.

It was in 265AU, the third year of the war, that the Codexian government began suspecting that there was another party to the conflict, backing the forces of the Four Suns with military intelligence, funds and other forms of clandestine support. The hints had been there all along, but no one was looking for them. Within months, Codexian intelligence operatives had uncovered a name. The Hin'in. Aside from that, there was not much information on the unseen foe. It was clear that their horse in the race some called the Civil War was the deadly foe of the Three-Toners. None of the other factions involved seemed to attract their patronage. Said patronage of the Four Suns was having a deleterious effect on Codexian efforts at resolving the conflict, once and for all. Something had to be done. And quickly! The public would not long stand for an undeclared war that was costing thousands of human lives, and that would result in a flood of insectoid refugees into Codexian territory.

Do you... bolster your forces in the Raumeni territories and launch a savage, direct offensive against the Four Suns, in the hopes of flushing out the Hin'in?

OR

Do you... work the back channels, in an attempt at establishing a line of communications with these new aliens? Perhaps they could be reasoned with.

OR

Do you... ignore the Hin'in involvement in the conflict and concentrate on solidifying the gains of the Three-Toners, by calling the Four Suns to the negotiating table? After all, they are also businessmen, and this was not proving so good for anyone's business.

***

The Barbarian apologizes, lads, he was not trying to give the impression that this war was going to entail the full mobilization of Codexian resources. That sort of thing requires - much as in the real world - the impression of an existential threat, at least.

EDIT: Just for the sake of clarity: you have knowledge of both, but only use wyrmhole drives. In this sense, it's an either/or proposition. The drives in question are too big, too power-consuming and too expensive to be used jointly on any practical vessel. The Raumeni still possess a very clear superiority in tactical mobility, as such.
 

31. New Kids on the Block

New Kids on the Block

The Raumeni Civil War stretched on into 266AU, without an end in sight. The casualties of the conflict now numbered in the millions. Broken hulls littered the space near contested worlds, which played host to hundreds of ongoing landside campaigns. The Raumeni made for bitter enemies, especially unto themselves. Codexianity, for its part, was growing impatient with the undeclared war being waged in the Raumen territories by the Codexian Navy. All the government had to show for the ongoing support it provided to the Three-Toner Alliance was a growing mound of toe-tagged body bags and extravagant extra-budgetary spending. Luckily, the news that another force was actively involved in the conflict remained a private reserve. Codexia was determined to discover exactly who the Hin’in were, and what they wanted. To that end, they employed every information gathering technique available to them, from SENINT (sentient intelligence) to ELINT (electronic intelligence) to active reconnaissance.

After a long period of frustrating failure, they finally discovered an ‘in’ through a largely neutral minor clan that had avoided taking part in the war directly. Human intelligence operatives and their Raumeni counterparts managed to follow a long arms dealing paper trail back to its source, which turned out to be a Raumeni front for a Hin’in sponsored operation. Establishing contact with the Hin’in through such dubious links required a delicate diplomatic touch and deft timing. To Codexianity’s credit, both were in evidence when contact was successfully initiated on 18 June 266AU, in a landmark covert action. A number of clandestine meetings followed, in which the Hin’in – confirmed to be short, robe-wearing, four-eyed humanoids – met with their human equivalents on neutral ground. There, they began hashing out their differences and looking for common ground. Before long, the Hin’in were more or less confirmed to possess telepathic powers, at the very least. They could communicate amongst themselves without any verbal address.

On the diplomatic side of the exchange, the Hin’in position was very clearly defined; they desired control over their ‘side’ of the Raumeni domain. Their client faction had already relinquished control over strategic systems to the Hin’in Empire, which was slowly making ready to assume control in force. There was very little ambiguity or wordplay involved, the Hin’in did not mince their words or utilize double-speak. The Codexians sitting opposite them were often taken aback by their oft-brutal honesty. The bottom line they presented was that the Confederacy was finished, as a state construct. The future of the Raumeni was vassalage. Codexianity was offered a simple deal, several months into the negotiations: a 50/50 divide of the Raumeni territories, and the opportunity for lucrative trade and development deals down the road. The alternative given was struggle. ‘Uncompromising’ is a term that came to characterize the Hin’in rather accurately, during this time.

Do you... refuse to let the idea of the Raumen Confederacy die? These aliens are clearly tyrannous monsters, and must be stopped. Furthermore, the Raumeni themselves might have something to say about vassalage.

OR

Do you... choose to accept the Hin’in deal? It means money and territory on a platter. It means more power. Perhaps it is the start of a beautiful friendship.


OR

Do you court disaster by inviting all the warring clans to witness evidence that clearly shows the Hin'in are acting to subjugate large swathes of Raumeni territory?
 

32. Disaster, Presiding

Disaster, Presiding

‘Tell us, human-clan, why should we believe you? Your evidence may have been doctored. Your designs on Raumen are no more honourable than the Hin’in, and we KNOW you ply a trade in falsehood. Look at the broken sons of the Three Tones; they believe in your lies wholeheartedly! You seek to destroy the independence we so dearly treasure!’ The representative of the Four Suns levelled the accusation in a machine monotone, courtesy of the translator. The Raumeni’s own chirping voice quivered with barely suppressed rage. The conference was now running into its third day – a hive of activity and conflict, wherein the human delegation struggled to make its case to the largest gathering of clan heads in years.

‘Elder Churrol, please Sir, calm yourself,’ the Codexian ambassador gave reply, ‘This petty mudslinging serves no purpose. We Codexians seek to preserve what the Hin’in would tear asunder. Survey the proof before you. See the Hin’in for what they are; manipulators, deceivers and destroyers of your sovereign right to rule your clans, as you will. How can you ignore the truth, when it sits before your very eyes? Elder, Codexia has long been the friend and ally of the Rau-‘

Another Four Suns Elder rose on its hind legs with a start, ‘No! Apologies to the Gathering for the interjection, but I must refute this HUMAN’S ridiculous attempt at obfuscation. Do not underestimate us, Codexian. Do not think us idiots! We all know why you side with the Three Toners. What makes you any better than the Hin’in, who we of the Four Suns use to our ends – and admit are used by, in turn? You aliens impose your machinations on us, in our time of pain. You feed off our suffering, bloodsuckers that you are. Clan Elders, where does this road lead? The Raumen are in ruin. Six clans have already been extinguished by this fighting, and yet the humans would see us sacrifice on THIER BEHALF, compounding our misery. Our quarrel is not simply with the Humans, or the Hin’in. It is with all those that would enslave us by our own hands!’

A raucous choir arose, ‘Hear, hear! Hear, hear!’

The Elder conducting the proceedings rapped on the podium he sat behind, ‘Calm, fellow Elders, calm, please. The humans have proven themselves to entertain notions of supremacy over us. The Hin’in duplicity is now also a known quality. Where does this leave the Clans? Even as we deliberate, our fleets continue to wither away fighting each other. Our strength is failing. We must put this matter to a vote. Where do we go from here? When we leave these chambers, is the war to continue as is? Can we allow it to continue? What is our duty to our kin and kith?’

The room erupted, as hundreds of voices rang out simultaneously. The debate would now begin in earnest.

***

When all was said and done, the conference called by the humans to rally support against the Hin’in had resulted in unmitigated disaster. Firstly, the Clans did rally – but against the ‘alien menace’, generally, not the Hin’in. Secondly, the Hin’in found out about the conference almost immediately, and correctly deduced the obvious intent behind it. Their response was evident even before that of the Raumeni, when elements of the Second Fleet were ambushed and destroyed in Tau Omicron, a few lightyears away from their the regional headquarters. The faces of the attending admiralty paled, when they were first presented with the still-developing situation at a general staff meeting thereafter. This was a nightmare scenario; war against the majority of the Raumeni clans, and the Hin’in themselves.

Not every Clan joined in the Muster against the Codexians and the Hin’in. Some, weakened by the war or otherwise disinterested in its course, abstained from joining in. But out of two hundred-odd Clans, almost one hundred and fifty pooled their remaining strength to wage war against both of the alien factions now besetting their territories. A three sided conflict began to spin out of control. The Hin’in, cognizant of the underlying danger, quickly committed a huge number of vessels against the ‘bugs’. The Codexians, meanwhile, found their fleets facing constant attacks from an array of local clans. Some had even turned away from the Three Tone Alliance, in order to fight the Codexian threat. It was all becoming a ghastly mess. Explaining the situation at home was going to prove exceedingly difficult – even as thousands of Codexians became casualties of the war enveloping Raumeni space.

You are at war. It is time to decide on its conduct.

Do you... begin a general mobilization, in preparation for a high intensity conflict? This might anger your populace, but it will leave you better prepared to deal with wartime losses and other consequences of the struggle.

OR

Do you... pull back your fleets from the conflagration, in order to consolidate a defensive perimeter along your borders? This will see you pull away from the everyday conflict, in preparation for fore decisive action, later on.

OR

Do you... wish to both a) mobilize and b) pull back? This will increase your fighting strength greatly over time, and reduce casualties in the short term.
 

33. Codex Entry: Codexian Military Primer, 266AU

The Codexian Military Primer – 266AU

Codexia’s Armed Forces are comprised of a number of military institutions employing upwards of nine million persons, directly or indirectly. As such, they are one of the largest employment sectors in Codexian space. Roughly two million men and women constitute the Codexian Army; with the more technically intensive Codexian Navy retaining the services of some five million employees on its books. Most of the personnel in question are actually in the support services, especially with regards to the naval forces. Comparatively few can expect to see frontline combat. The CAF is taxed with defending and expanding Codexian sovereignty against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Its overhanging head of power can be traced back to the Codexian Constitution, which gives the executive branch of government the authority to command and control the realm’s military structures.

Codexian Army

The Codexian Army is a longstanding military organization charged with prosecuting offensive and defensive operations on the surfaces of contested worlds claimed by the Codexian state. This includes those worlds that are not strictly considered ‘Codexian’ by law, but represent a matter of strict Codexian interest. The Army is subdivided into Strategic Commands (e.g. Central Strategic Command), Operational Commands (e.g. Sol Operational Command) and regiments. Additional levels of organization (i.e. Army/Manuever Group) can be installed depending on the necessity thereof, given the strength of the force committed. The regiments in question are generally mechanized infantry, with a smattering of armoured units and organic (that is to say, permanently attached) artillery and support units. Armaments are very similar to what was commonly available during the mid-21st century. Support forces, however, have advanced considerably.

Codexian Navy

The Codexian Navy is an organization consisting of twelve (12) permanent fleet structures garrisoning and protecting the systems and space claimed by the Codexian government, as well as a powerful Strategic Reserve Fleet providing a steady stream of replacements to frontline formations. Each fleet is estimated to number around two hundred vessels. In terms of pure naval tonnage, the CN is believed to be second only to the Raumeni at the apogee of their power (since the Raumeni Civil War began, it is widely believed that the Codexians have achieved an overall naval superiority), with almost four thousand vessels of all sizes (the vast majority obviously being patrol ships, cutters and corvettes) patrolling the space lanes. These vessels are, for the most part, capable of wyrmhole propulsion only. FTL drives are reserved for system defence ships (which are invariably small patrol vessels). Furthermore, the largest vessels in the Codexian fleet are also equipped with an advanced cloaking system that presents a unique challenge to Codexia’s opponents (courtesy of Amoneth technical expertise, via the Phyr).

Codexian vessels are generally armed with missile batteries of various potency. Secondary laser/maser cannons are used for point-defence, communication and fire support.

When compared to its potential opponents, the Codexian Navy is rated highly in most areas, with a strong logistical network and well developed infrastructure; finely trained crews; excellent numerical strength, and a proven capacity for achieving victory in the face of some adversity. However, as the Hin’in have shown in several recent engagements, Codexia’s claim to supremacy is open to a committed challenge. One that is likely forthcoming.

***

No positioning info is available, because a very detailed map would be required for said info to be relevant.
 

34. Out of the Frying Pan: the Fire Beckons

... Out of the Frying Pan; the Fire Beckons

After the bedraggled and somewhat battered Codexian fleets withdrew from Raumen space in order to prepare for a more general conflict with the Hin'in, the war took on cataclysmic proportions for the insectoids. The Hin'in chose not to hold back any of the strength they had so carefully husbanded for a generation, and launched a general offensive as soon as the humans were momentarily out of the picture. Thousands of vessels swarmed over Raumen space. Vicious fighting shook the stars themselves, as the Raumeni, in turn, directed most of their strength against the humanoids. Though a few clans did begin probing Codexian defenses (even managing to raid Ossian III in March 267AU), they were generally rebuffed with little fuss. Human strength along the border was overpowering.

To say that the war effort was unpopular - even without the extensive mobilization that would soon follow - in Codexian space would be a monumental understatement. The Raumeni had been long-time friends and neighbors. Their plight was felt keenly, especially in the core worlds where most of their handcrafted wares ended up. The bilateral trade that had powered both economies for decades slackened, at first, and then fell away almost entirely. Tens of thousands lost their jobs in the first month or so; millions were to follow. In order to cope with the strain of the war effort, the government once again began spending heavily on efforts to soften the blows of the war, whilst at the same time making preparations for the institution of an outright war economy. A few very ugly scenes of rioting and other forms of public disorder made the headlines throughout April. There were deaths, mostly amongst the rioters.

By June, it had become obvious that the Raumen were well on the way to losing their struggle against the telepaths. Funeral dirges for entire clan fleets were sung, as they fought manfully against a superior foe. Of course, this was no mismatch of the Phyr-Turanei sort. The Hin'in were taking frightful losses, in slowly subjugating the Raumen. In a wartime first, human journalists were able to cover a great deal of the conflict as it happened, by attaching themselves to the formations of those few clans that were still friendly to Codexianity. This extensive coverage did not, unfortunately, help the public to overcome its unease with the conflict. If anything, consternation rose, as the Hin'in clawed their way into the Raumeni strongholds. October was to prove a pivotal month. Codexian strategists had ascertained that, if the Hin'in were not halted during October, the tenuous hold the Raumeni maintained over their most sensitive territories would be severed. That would leave the Hin'in with the vast majority of Raumeni space under their thumb, and humanity with the odious task of retaking it through a fight against a 'dug-in' foe.

Do you... unleash your fleets at their current readiness, in order to catch the Hin'in 'flatfooted'? Though not yet one hundred percent, the combat readiness of your forces is much higher than previously.

OR

Do you... hold off on launching the offensive, until you are absolutely certain you have a force superiority over the Hin'in?
 

35. The Textbook SNAFU

The Textbook SNAFU

On 3 October 267AU eight of the twelve over-strength Codexian fleets were launched into the depths of Raumen territory, in order to halt the considerable progress being made by the Hin'in. The campaign was named 'Plan XVIII', and it was to be humanity's single greatest military undertaking to date. More than three thousand Codexian vessels were to take part in a battle that would define a generation. And, at first, everything seemed to be going exactly right. The Hin'in were too caught up in trying to flatten the remaining Raumen strongholds; too committed across a broad swath of space removed from Plan XVIII's main targets. As a result, the initial battles were one-sided massacres. Both sides used wyrmhole propulsion systems, so there was little disparity there - but the humans concentrated great masses of ships against their enemy, and sent him reeling.

Dozens of small engagements were decisively resolved very agreeably. Soon, more than a hundred Hin vessels were lifeless husks decorating the spacelanes, at negligible costs to the humans. But there were signs, even then, that this would be no 'Operation Bear Tamer' Mk II. To be more specific, the humanoid aliens had an uncanny ability to co-ordinate on their forces on the battlefield. Whereas Codexian formations relied on a complex network of laser/maser comms and comm-drones, the aliens could effortlessly shuffle around their forces within systems. While the available formations were small and limited - as was the case at the onset of the campaign - the effect was far less noticeable. However, once the Codexians encountered strong Hin'in forces for the first time, as they did at Helios, everything changed. Though their ships were only slightly faster in-system (and had marginally more powerful wyrmhole drives), it was to be the telepathic ability of their senior leadership that would give the advantage to the aliens.

Helios marked a turning point. It was a drubbing. A uniquely epic, tragic drubbing. An entire human fleet fought and died at Helios. 'The Fall of the 11th' (as the defeat would come to be known) was endlessly reflected upon both in history and Codexian popular culture, thereafter. In military science, too, it was to become timeless - as a classic example of strategic overextension and the logical conclusion of an engagement with an enemy that could co-ordinate formations with such incredible efficacy. Once the Hin'in had gauged human tactics and the sensor ranges of their reconnaissance/picket vessels, they were able to combat the humans on their own terms. Though Codexian cloaking systems were supposed to be a game-changer, they did not fool any larger body of Hin forces for long. Stripped of their advantages (except in raw numbers), the Codexians saw themselves transformed from hunter to prey.

The campaign, however, was not an irrevocable disaster, at that point. Though the Battle of Helios (fought on 28 October 267AU) took the wind out of its sails, it remained a closely contested affair. Destructive encounters raged across the frontier, as human and Hin grappled for supremacy, and the Raumeni interjected where they could. Fortunately, time and experience showed that the Hin'in telepathic ability was not beyond the ken. It was a useful tool for communication, command and control. It even gave the Hin'in some limited sensory ability, when large numbers of their most sensitive leaders could utilize their powers to the same ends. But it was not a war-winner, in and of itself. As the war stretched on into November and December, casualties mounted, but human commanders adapted to Hin tactics well, and were able to score a few more smaller victories.

Yet, to their chagrin, it was to be the Hin'in who would once again draw more blood, when a Hin'in armada of some three hundred vessels surprised the elite and lavishly equipped 2nd Fleet in Keparo. The unlucky formation was badly mauled, losing upwards of fifty percent of its strength in only eight hours of fighting. Twenty-six thousand men and women perished in that short span of time. After Keparo there were few large engagements. In fact, between December 267AU and May 268AU casualties actually rose. But it was more due to a steady stream of bloody skirmishing and horrifying attrition on the 'frontline' than any single engagement. Almost a thousand vessels had been lost since the start of the campaign. Three hundred replacements had arrived, leaving the combined Codexian fleet noticeably weaker. Corresponding figures for the Hin'in cannot be certain, especially as they retained several key battle-sites, having triumphed over their human foes. Intelligence estimates put the number of Hin'in losses at somewhere around five hundred vessels of all types. It was not a favourable exchange ratio, in any case. Codexia's commanders were loathe to continue the campaign in 268AU. Any serious fighting was going to further sap the already badly depleted strength of the Codexian Navy - perhaps pushing it past the breaking point.

On the home-front, the situation was as yet calm. Though there were protests in the streets, these were largely peaceful. If the war continues to go badly, however, this could change in a disastrous instant. Codexia's leadership is flummoxed. How do we proceed?

Do you... raise war production and put further strain on your economy and domestic situation? The Hin'in bleed, and we can bleed them to death if we have the willpower!

OR

Do you... open negotiations for a settlement, in secret? At this point, a diplomatic outcome will be immensely dissatisfying (due to the concessions that would have to be made), but surely preferable to losing the war outright.

OR

Do you... continue fighting, but do so defensively? This will lower the need to strain the economy or Codexian society any further, casualties will likely remain steady (but manageable) and the Hin'in might be inclined to offer terms, once they see you are committed.

***

And yes, in retrospect, this was a pretty epic update (longest to date!).
 

36. The Sinews of War; the Price of Peace

The Sinews of War, the Price of Peace

A thousand ships lost. Losses that should be beyond imagining. Yet, when the Codexian government asked for more, the people relented. They gave it - and everything else demanded by the state. Conscription was enacted, but proved hardly necessary. Millions of volunteers were clogging up the recruitment system, essentially overloading it. Enormous numbers of new vessels were built, as Codexia's famed industry shifted into gear. Even as the 10th Fleet was almost destroyed in a fleet action around Indigo V, the reconstituted 11th was deployed along the front. Casualties rose into the hundreds of thousands. The Hin'in were a cold and calculating foe. They would strike human formations and then quickly retreat, before reinforcements could arrive. When confronted by strong Codexian forces, they would give way, conducting masterfully co-ordinated fighting withdrawals. The humans - bless them - kept pouring new meat into the grinder.

And, as the months rolled on, and a thousand more ships were added to the loss tally, this stratagem began to produce results. The Hin'in, for all their battlefield prowess, were obviously less inured to casualties than their human foes. Whereas the Codexians would throw a hundred ships away to destroy a battlegroup of twenty Hin'in vessels, the psionically gifted aliens were never comfortable with such arithmetic. The clean, sterile war they had seemingly wished to fight became a death grapple. As 269AU dawned on the universe, the Hin'in found themselves giving ground. To be certain, they continued to savage human formations with uncanny regularity, but it was a struggle they were coming perilously close to forfeiting. The sons and daughters of Codexia bled for their nation. Their resolve was grim.

It was at that point, in February 269AU, that the unthinkable happened. The young world (a new politically correct term replacing 'colony') known as Leonid declared its independence from the Codexian federal republic, unilaterally. It had already previously had its far share of separatist struggle (in the 220s), but now it seemed as if more of the (much larger) population had decided that this was the best course of action. The local Codexian Army garrison voluntarily surrendered their arms, for the most part. Those that chose not to were given safe conduct off-world. A few small formations entered into open battle with the separatists, but those engagements seldom ended well. Leonid had simply become fed up with the central government. Behind the overweening paternalistic nationalism of the core worlders was a sad picture of impending socio-economic failure. This is exemplified by the following: a single frigate cost more than nine hundred million credits to produce. Nearly four hundred frigates had so far been destroyed during the conflict, and another five hundred had been built. The economic cost of the whole affair was by now approaching about twenty percent of the GDP.

Something had to give. There were no foreign partners to secure wartime loans from. The banks were dry, as a source of capital. Private investors were completely overcommitted, already. The public was already having its marrow sucked out, taxation-wise. Codexia (the homeworld) and the oldest colonies nonetheless stood proudly and accepted the privations as a matter of course. The younger worlds, however, were outraged. Five other worlds quickly followed suit, after Leonid, and together they officially announced the formation of the Commonwealth on 26 April 269AU. A new interplanetary state now existed, in a de-facto sense. The independence proclamations rocked Codexia to the core. Stock markets crashed overnight, liquidating multi-billion credit investments and wiping away almost a trillion credits from the economy. Social welfare no longer had the funds to pay out pensions and other benefits. The warchest was running completely dry.

Codexia faces the darkest period of its history. It is threatened with an enveloping, catastrophic system failure. How will it respond to the challenge posed thereby?

Choice A: The Independents

Do you... wearily recognize the Commonwealth as a peer?

OR

Do you... refuse to recognize the Commonwealth, instead claiming that it is an illegal construct? However, you also choose to concentrate on the Hin'in War, rather than expending your martial energies on your fellow Codexians. They can wait.

OR

Do you... pull requisite forces away from the front, and intervene militarily on Leonid and the other separatist colonies?

Choice B: The Hin'in

Do you... unleash your forces against the Hin'in in much the same way as you have done so far, in an attempt to overwhelm the tottering aliens decisively?

OR

Do you... slow down the tempo of operations, giving both sides a strategic breather, while you resolve outstanding issues on the homefront?

Choice C: The Homefront

The war has had catastrophic consequences for the Codexian homefront. Choose an effect:

Do you... badly slow down shipbuilding, as funds dry up? Your fleets will begin declining, steadily, if they are still committed to the war.

OR

Do you... slash social programs further? Healthcare, education and social welfare will be the main victims of your belt tightening, as you look for funds to continue the struggle with.

OR

Do you... begin printing money recklessly? This will buy you (literally) perhaps three months of breathing space, before inflation spirals out of control.
 

37. A Series of Unfortunate Events

A Series of Unfortunate Events

There are many examples in human military history of leaders gambling on desperate, all-or-nothing offensives against terrible odds. The Germans undertook Operation Michael in 1918 knowing full well that it would either win the war for the Empire, or make it utterly un-winnable. In WW2, they launched the Ardennes and Lake Balaton operations in 1945 - the last, gasping convulsions of a dying regime and state system. The Russian Empire, too, had its own Brusilov and Kerensky Offensives - dire efforts at breaking the stalemate of the Eastern Front and achieving a decisive victory against a capable foe. Napoleon had the Battle of Waterloo etc., etc. The exposition of such cases could go on for some time. But it must be said that there is a certain romance - perhaps elan is a more appropriate term - to such obviously doomed ventures. And there is something special about the men and women who throw themselves into the furnace of history, by participating in them. One would not be amiss in characterizing the Codexian offensive known as 'Operation Godhammer' thus.

Even as economic collapse threatened the Codexian state in May 269AU, and more young worlds swirled around the 'proverbial toilet' (a term coined by core worlders) known as the Commonwealth, the Codexian military prepared for a do-or-die effort against the hated Hin'in enemy. The complications besetting the offensive, of course, did not end at economic ruin and possible civil war. In addition to the aforementioned, the government's bid to put a halt to the economic decline was based on cutting military production to the bone. Codexian commanders could expect no serious reinforcements beyond the already badly denuded Strategic Reserve. Therefore, the campaign HAD to be successful; decisively so. Even partial failure could spell disaster. Restarting production of full-fledged military vessels would take months, and would require far greater funds than the government had at its disposal, by this time.

While the military finalized its preparations for the looming offensive, another two worlds haphazardly declared for the Commonwealth. Though it was still a burgeoning state entity, the new additions to its growing family allowed it to now boast of some actual industrial potential and economic heft. Furthermore, by absolving the Commonwealth of Codexian government debt and taxation, its newly appointed statesmen essentially wiped the slate clean. The worlds in question could once again begin developing naturally. This contributed to a real sense of progress in the 'Commo', however fleeting. A complete lack of response from the central government regarding the secessions both emboldened the population of the Commonwealth and enraged that of the core worlds. While most of the latter understood that the Hin'in War had to come first, they nonetheless girded themselves for what many believed to be an inevitable civil war. The Commos, for their part, also considered it merely a matter of time. They immediately began retooling various industrial concerns for the production of arms and munitions. There was a determination there not to go down without a fight.

Such a confrontation, however, was not yet in the offing. Firstly, the little matter of Op. Godhammer had to be resolved. On 15 June 269AU, the greater bulk of the Codexian Navy set off from dozens of established jump-off points - off on their grand attempt to finally break the four-eyed aliens in a sweeping battle of attrition and maneuver. Military leadership and the public alike awaited the results of the offensive with baited breath. The first reports were encouraging. They spoke of rapid victories against diluted concentrations of Hin'in power. Several systems fell quickly and easily, with minimal casualties. An initial euphoria took over on the homefront, in particular, where the people cheered their 'boys' on, as if following an especially heated sports derby in progress. This first period of gain gave rise to that worst of all things: hopeful expectation. When disappointment came, it hit hard. The Hin'in absorbed the force of the Codexian offensive over a period of more than a month, retreating deeper into their portion of Raumeni space, before unleashing a devastating counter-offensive, made up of some two thousand vessels.

A savage spectacle ensued. The Codexians would not accept defeat - and the Hin'in proved unwilling to concede victory. Some five thousand ships battled across six systems, simultaneously, throughout the first half of August. Taken as one compound engagement, it was the largest in human history, bar none. The blood-letting was hideous. Simply indescribable. The humans knew exactly what was at strength, and it gave them preternatural discipline. The Hin'in must have steeled themselves for a decisive struggle, for they did not give. In the end, the extent of the carnage ended the fighting almost by default. The Codexians had lost upwards of sixty percent of the forces engaged. The Hin'in fared better, comparatively, but still lost at least two fifths of their strength during the cataclysmic fighting.

There was no real victor. The two sides were completely exhausted; a pair of punch-drunk boxers deep in the championship rounds, unable to put any power behind their strikes - content to paw at each other pathetically in the endless wait for the bell. There was no more potential for a decisive outcome. The Hin'in took back the systems they had lost, almost as an afterthought, after the Codexians had withdrawn to their bases. But neither side exhibited any will to continue the mortal struggle in an offensive sense. Rest, recuperation and reconstitution was desperately needed on both sides. Plenty of skirmishing followed, thereafter, but no more pitched battle. Now, there is nothing to show the people back home why such sacrifices had been asked of them. The situation is beyond simply 'dangerous'. In the coming weeks, the homefront could veritably explode in discontent. You must handle it very, very delicately.

How do you proceed?

The Barbarian chooses to experiment, in this instance. The voting body will not be asked to make a simple choice between several different options. Rather, you are requested to posit a CLEAR and CONCISE (no more than a short paragraph of less than one hundred words) answer to the above question, as you see it. The Barbarian understands that this invites twenty wholly different responses and a hopeless deadlock. In defusing that potentiality, the Barbarian would ask you to CO-OPERATE with one another to produce joint answers. Whichever one has the most support after a day or two will 'win'.

Alternatively, if we do end up deadlocked (or this simply doesn't function as envisioned), several choices will be presented in the traditional manner, based on the discussion held. The experiment will most likely be discontinued, at that point, and we will return to the standard voting method.
 

38. In Hephaestus' Forge, in Hell's Kitchen

In Hephaestus' Forge, in Hell's Kitchen

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That is what they would come to call it, much later: the Age of Fire. A dark time of great pain and terrible loss for humanity, as a whole. History, for its part, would remember this Age as a grievous wound to human ambitions and aspirations. The Codexian state had faced trials aplenty during its first two and a half centuries of life, but when the Hin'in War began winding down in abject failure (at least, that is how the public saw it) and the Commonwealth broke away in protest against increasing centralization and an onerous tax burden, the floodgates of misery opened wide. The government, desperately hoping to arrest the chain reaction before it truly began, responded with a now-famous 'Five Point Plan'. This set of sweeping reforms would see the governance of Codexian space undergo a monumental shift. It was to give rise to the 'Neo-Codexian Republic'; a new state institution for a renewed nation.

Furthermore, it was intended to provide a platform for peace with the Hin'in, friendship with the Raumen, liberalization of goods and services within Codexia, the extension of civil rights to AIs and, most of all, reconciliation with the Commonwealth. Its grand aims would come to be matched only by its extraordinary failure and disastrous results. Bad enough that the government had failed to competently wage war against the 'dreaded Hin'in menace', now, in the afterglow of that awful failure, it sought to pussyfoot with the separatists and enshrine the right to various formerly criminal vices for the public. The extremely conservative core worlders, who made up more than sixty percent of the total population, recoiled in horror. Rioting began. Within weeks, full blown civil disturbances were recorded on more than a dozen worlds. A month later, as the plan began to be implemented, several planetary governments began forming militias.

The homeworld itself was deeply divided. Some saw sense in extending a hand of friendship and reconciliation to various enemies of the state (and advantage in the liberalization process it engendered). Others saw a government attempting to repair incredible economic damage and serious social unrest by offering a tax-free membership to the new 'NCR' for the entirety of the Raumeni population (more than thirteen billion sentients), all of whom the government and the tax-paying human populace would have to support. The citizens of the Commonwealth saw no point in the association offered, as it gave them few advantages and a host of well remembered disadvantages. Some asked the obvious questions: 'No taxes or the draft for five years, and then what? More kow-towing to a centralized government body looking to suck our veins dry the next time a big war comes around? No, thank you. Oh, a DECENTRALIZED government body, you say? Sure. But for how long? Until the next big war comes around? Once again, no thank you.'

The core worlders were thus angry and divided over the incredibly nebulous government plan to deal with the Raumeni and the Commonwealth, and they could not believe that the government was ready to give free license to all those scum who sought to change the human form at its most basic level. AIs, who had never asked for citizenship or civil rights, were suddenly afforded the former with no real explanation. More astonishingly, they were therefore also given the opportunity to join the government. An already suspicious population was utterly incredulous. They asked questions of their own: 'Are we to be ruled by machines? A seat on the council today, right. Then tomorrow, a seat on the throne, perhaps?' The unrest began taking on dangerous proportions.

Government negotiations with the Hin'in and the Raumen also failed spectacularly. The Hin'in were insulted to be dealt with by AIs, for starters. When the humans later demanded full Hin'in withdrawal from Raumen space, the Hin'in could only laugh. What were the humans going to do about it, in any case? The Raumen, to whom the very idea of authority is anathema, responded very negatively to human offers of membership in the NCR. In fact, their response would better be described as 'threatening' and 'hostile'. While they no longer considered the humans to be a serious opponent in regaining sovereignty (that honor now fell almost wholly to the Hin'in), they were no longer in any mood to co-operate with them. Humanity's ambassadors were simply told to vacate Raumen space, as soon as possible - or else. The 'or else' never eventuated, as the Codexian Civil War began in 270AU, and necessitated a full military pull-out from Raumen space. The incredibly bloody conflict in question started when a military coup-de-tat on Codexia itself failed to kill off the entirety of the ruling government, after a surprise attack on a Council session. It seems as if many in the military had simply had enough. The leaders responsible had ties to a number of right-wing conservative groups in the core worlds, and had a great deal of support there. That support only grew, thereafter.

Let us set the mood. Click for musical pleasure.

When the government managed to muster a number of formations still loyal to the Constitution and its authority, a devastating conflict wracked the cradle of Codexianity. Battle lines were rapidly drawn. Sadly, the two sides were too evenly matched for a quick, clean and decisive conflict. The Neo-Liberals, led by Councilman Ezekiel Root, fought to bring about their re-envisioning of Codexian values in the new era. The True Codexians, under Brigadier General Quan Long III, instead aimed to return Codexia to its original ideals - the ideals that had brought them greatness, in their eyes. A long and harrowing conflict developed, thereafter. The first battles occurred on Co-Earth (and especially around the capital, itself), but the wildfires of war swept over the rest of the Codexian Federal Republic with astonishing rapidity. By March 270AU, every Codexian planet was embroiled in the strife. The fleet and the army more or less fell apart. Internecine slaughter smashed the military's already badly weakened forces - few commanders were able to prevent former comrades-in-arms from killing each other over ideological differences.

It was brother against brother; liberal against conservative; core worlder against fringer - and just about every other archetype existent against its nemesis and counterpart. Tens of thousands were dead within months. Then hundreds of thousands, as steadily more terrible weapons were used to gain an advantage. It was mostly ground fighting, but was all the more horrific because of it. Needless to say, the economic fallout was apocalyptic. Trade basically stopped, as the civil war intensified further and further. Refugees flooded into Commonwealth space, looking for safety. But even the Commonwealth provided no guaranteed sanctuary, as the reactionaries used some of the fleet units loyal to them to harangue traffic entering Commonwealth territory, and instructed them to maraud, once inside the Commonwealth. AIs were unwitting - and perhaps the most innocent - victims of the worsening ordeal. On the core worlds, they were amongst the first to be targeted, as symbols of the civic reformation. Lacking human egos, they allowed their servers to be viciously attacked. Thousands of AIs were 'disabled' over the course of 270AU.

Drawn out battles began attaining names, and therefore places in humanity's historical lore: the Battle of Unification City; the Second Battle of Unification City; the Battle for the Tipstien Wells; the Coanatolian Campaign; the Coindian Campaign; the War for Haven etc. Great commanders emerged from the heat of battle, and many a new legend was forged. But war... war never changes. It is a magnificent, terrifying and an uncontrollable beast. And it would devour many more Codexians, before it had had its fill.

Overall, the conflict is in the balance. You represent a number of worlds hitherto largely spared from the worst of the fighting. Your industrial and economic strength remains (relatively) intact. The Neo-Liberals and the True Codexians are locked in a struggle to the death. Many millions will likely die, before this conflict is ended. The way that conclusion is reached will alter Codexia's future, forever. You must make a choice.

Do you... back the conservative True Codexians?

OR

Do you... back the Neo-Liberals?

OR

Do you... stay neutral and observe, for now?
 

39. The Renaissance of Pain

The Renaissance of Pain

The Codexian Civil War was fated to last seven long years. The death toll could never be conclusively ascertained with any degree of accuracy, but most reliable sources estimated that there had been roughly one hundred and forty-four million victims (military and civilian). By the end of that dreadful conflict, very few crimes that man could perpetrate against man remained 'unthinkable'. Bio-weapons, nano-weapons and, naturally, nuclear weapons became par for the course - a horrifying reality belying description. The Neo-Liberals and the Conservatives had fought tooth and nail to establish the supremacy of their respective ideologies. They sacrificed just about everything to realize their visions for the future. Codexia Prime was in ruins. As was just about every major core world and colony. The fact that the factions involved matched up so evenly doomed more people than perhaps any other. Codexia's Civil War escalated beyond all reason because it had to; there was no choice.

A battle gone awry, here, a strategic misfortune, there - and soon the phrase 'We had no choice' came to explain untold atrocities. From the strategic nuclear exchange on Codexia itself, to the political death camps on Gennaro, to the 'Purification' projects on core worlds, these were all measures taken to 'restore the balance' between the warring factions. Fear of humanity's extinction at the hands of irresponsible generals and their armory of massively destructive weapons had evaporated, long ago. After all, had not man spread his seed to the stars? Were there not almost a hundred worlds with some sort of human population, or presence? 'Extinction' was no longer a likelihood, nor was it an 'in vogue' threat. And, so, man finally gained the ability to justify and rationalize death on a vast and terrifying scale. Many worlds burned because of our smug rejection of the long-held 'Mutually Assured Destruction' doctrine. Our overweening hubris once again proved just how costly it could be. That said, it did not take too long for these weapons to wear out the respective combatants' taste for annihilation. Twelve months of unrestricted warfare was more than enough to bring both sides to their knees.

Sporadic fighting would continue for years thereafter (generally, this was the third period of the conflict, between 275 and 277AU), but the end was finally in sight when the Neo-Liberal stronghold on Haven was destroyed by a directed Massive Kinetic Penetrator (MKP). This slab of ultra-dense material launched from orbit was enough to wipe out a city of more than a million people - and to bring the Neo-Liberals to the negotiating table. Soon, the Civil War would be ended. It had claimed almost a hundred and fifty million lives. The material damage to human worlds was simply beyond quantification. Insane acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide had seen the 'liquidation' of many 'undesirables', particularly in the core worlds. There, aliens, bio/gen-mods and political dissidents had become fair game. The Phyr, unwilling to take part in this human lunacy, began buying up private licenses to explore and re-settle the Phyr Dead Zone, in effect escaping the worst of the conflict. Their gradual flight from the refugee towns would come to form a part of the legend of the conflict.

The Commonwealth, meanwhile, has spent seven years growing stronger. They have created a small, but capable fleet. Their army is now over a hundred thousand strong and expanding. It has become a state with rapidly strengthening bonds of mutual protection, trade and a budding, shared identity. Though involved to some extent in the Civil War, the Commos have admirably withstood being dragged into the worst of it, and have avoided the excesses and extraordinary slaughter that characterized the conflict in its later stages. Whatever happens with Codexia, the Commonwealth is an issue that must be dealt with, at some point. From a weak, separatist, rogue state... they have achieved something much greater. Lastly, the Raumen and the Hin'in have kept an eye on the human tragedy, but have also avoided direct involvement, preferring instead to sell arms and supplies to all sides. These aliens have concerns of their own to deal with, and have been locked in a renewed, bitter struggle for the past three years - ever since the Raumen called another Clan Muster against the 'Hin'in occupier' in 274AU.


Codexia is at an undeniable cross-roads. The Civil War is ending. But what has this awful period resulted in? Did the Neo-Liberals attain favorable terms? Or was the Conservative victory total? The following choices will allow you to decide the very nature of the new government.

Government Type

Choose a government type:

A. Autocracy (ruled by an individual with unlimited power)
B. Oligarchy (ruled by a number of individuals, a small group or an organization)
C. Representative Democracy (ruled by elected representatives)


Choose a government style:

A. Militaristic (the government is centred on a military institution, such as the army)
B. Theocratic (the government is centred on a religious institution, such as the church)
C. Mercantile (the government is centred on one or more mercantile institutions, such as corporations)
D. Populist (the government is centred on public institutions and popular support, such as political parties)
 

40. Respublica

Respublica

The ashes of the old Codexian Republic proved fertile soil for the seeds of something quite extraordinary. As the Civil War was wound down, and the worlds of the fallen giant were consolidated under a new regime, neither Neo-Liberal nor fully Conservative, a sort of apathy set in. More than fourteen billion people called this new state 'home', but they found it to be a difficult place to live; fraught with instability, economic turmoil and absolutely riddled with crime. Such was the extent of the damage caused by the war that it took almost ten years just to clean up the rubble. The homeworld, especially, was a veritable junkyard. It had borne the brunt of the conflict in its most terrible stage, and had seen a host of major cities burned by nuclear fire. The living, in some respects, envied the dead. Humanity's 'Golden Age' was at a definite end. Or, at least that was true for the majority of humans.

The neighbouring Commonwealth spent the next twenty years positively BOOMING. Its relative stability, good living standards, excellent job growth and favourable immigration terms caused a vast number of humanity's best and brightest to leave the 'old world' behind during the 280s and beyond. Doctors, engineers, specialists from every profession, all seemed to be keen on fleeing the terrible mess that the core worlds had become. The new government tried in vain to stop them by offering lucrative employment packages, but was only moderately successful. The Codexian state had enough other problems to deal with and found itself unable to devote the requisite resources to retain these talented individuals. The brain drain, in turn, damaged its ability to clean up the fallout of the war, figuratively speaking. The economy simply could not shift gears, having only mildly improved in the aftermath of the 'Brotherly Conflict'. Unemployment remained high, colonial development ground to a halt, and the 'Navy' (if such a term was even appropriate, at this stage) was a pitiful remnant of a shadow of its former glory.

These were sad times. Sad, desperate times. While the Commonwealth prospered throughout the 290s, Codexia looked on, enviously. The trade that had spurred on the high economic growth of the last seventy-odd years had badly slackened, with the Raumen-Hin'in War. When that finally ended - after the failure of the Second Raumen Uprising in 284AU - a third of Raumen territory was in Hin'in hands, and a Hin'in 'protectorate' occupied another. Though things began getting better thereafter, ever so slowly, it was just not enough to make a serious difference for the Codexians. They suffered, while the ruling regime floundered. It was then that a small movement arose from the slums of the largely destroyed Unification City, and began gathering momentum, as it exploded across the homeworld and beyond. This movement was known as the 'Children of Santi Maria'; a pseudo-Christian organization with obvious Buddhist and Islamic influences. It was a religion for the New Age; all-encompassing and re-assuring of one's cosmic utility, but grounded in committed charity work and harsh discipline.

It was enormously successful in selling its image to the poor and the middle class. They, who had experienced the worst of the last fifteen years, began flocking to it from 292AU onwards, after its aggressive proselytizers had spread to many parts of the homeworld. There were no Marianite hedonists, junkies (of any sort) or (known) criminals. This was a religion for the 'unsullied', the disciplined, the pure and the vengeful. It promised salvation only through the strict pursuit of personal perfection and the rejection of all 'vices'. These vices would come to include just about every materialistic symbol: from means of sensual gratification, to drugs, to body-alteration etc. etc. It was an attractive ideology simply because it offered something the government could not. That is to say, it offered CERTAINTY. A sense of belonging and the comprehension of one's place in the greater scheme of things. Soon, the Children were nearly everywhere. By 310AU, they numbered over a billion.

The resolve and drive of the Marianites was impressive. Though organized religion had taken a backseat to secular government for hundreds of years, the trend was reversed in mere decades. The multifaceted failures of the various governments of Codexia were largely to blame for a new blossoming of belief in the intangible and the aspirational. The ruling government of the period in question did not see the mortal danger the Children presented, until it was too late. They were 'hands off' during the rise of the nascent cult, and they delayed acting when the cult began to take on a political aspect. When it formed a political party (with clear affiliations, despite legal distance), there was no reaction. When it formed lobby groups and spent tens of millions of credits on influencing various political bodies, there was no reaction. When the Charitable Party for Progress (CPP) won the second election it contested, there was still no reaction.

It would take the Marianites another decade in power to drop all pretence of democratic inclinations, but by then they had become a part of the furniture, so to speak, in any case. Led by the enormously charismatic Pure Alonso Jaymes Mariano (born to one of the first Marianite preachers on Codexia), they used every opportunity to pulverize big business, consumer culture and anything else that was seen to afflict the common man. They infiltrated various public institutions, introduced their own (very popular) schools, raised their own 'security forces' and generally made themselves the centre of public life for a very large number of people. Resistance, when it finally came, was mainly on the part of the largest corporations, the upper class and a certain segment of the population that, for whatever reason, could not stomach the Marianites, their policies or their religion. The Marianites, who did not take kindly to such resistance, crushed it using socio-economic pressure and, in a few instances, force. In 327AU, Constant La Berre, Mariano's 'successor', dissolved the Council, had its members arrested and declared that the Republic was no more. In its place, the Marianites introduced the Venerable and Resplendent Codexian Respublica (or the Venerable Respublica, in short).

There was virtually no resistance to this development. The military almost immediately pledged its loyalty to the new regime, having been guaranteed a steady expansion and increased funding in future. Citizens who were unhappy about the coup held their tongues. They knew full well what the regime was liable to do in case of aired protests. Intellectuals, too, generally erred on the side of caution. At most, the steady stream of upper class economic migrants to the Commo became a flood. By 328AU absolute power was in the hands of Wise-Earl Neymar, the first leader of this new state. The work ahead, such as it is, remains monumental. The Venerable Respublica faces many challenges. The first amongst these is a simple choice. How is the state (and Marianism) to treat outsiders?

Do you... decree that the Respublica is open to all, and that Santi Maria embraces all sentients (those who conform to Marianism, that is) lovingly? This will help ingratiate the state with its alien neighbours, specifically, and may prompt the spread of the religion, perhaps. However, such an open attitude is not very conducive to aggressive action or militarism.

OR

Do you... decree that the Respublica is repelled by alien monstrosities? Santi Maria reserves the salvation she offers for Man alone! This will adversely affect alien trade (thereby the economy) and relations, but will help inspire an us-against-them attitude in the people that may be useful in maintaining stability, and will not allow for economic dependencies, like those of our past.
 

41. Clawing at the Stars

Clawing at the Stars

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'... Brothers and sisters, for they were impure! They were the get of sin. They were the progeny of vanity, bonded to decadence. THEY put themselves above the Highest, the blasphemers. They reached for unlimited power, and the skies unleashed a nuclear torrent, in response - the tears of a heaven in turmoil. The Highest loves goodness, my brothers and sisters. The Highest loves irreproachably pure intention. He does not love you. There is no mercy in him for flesh. You have the love of the One only when you hav- ... only when you have cleansed yourselves of filth, and have become more than flesh! FLESH is the domain of the weak and the ersatz! The One does not accept the platitudes of the weak. He wants you to be strong! He does not coddle his children. Either you choose, here and today, that your life will be the search for spiritual perfection, or you abrogate your right to live in the Kingdom of the One - HIS Respublica! Our God does not cajole, he DEMANDS! Pay lip service at your peril; remain diligent or wither; be good, be pure, be the Sword of the One!'

- Wise Earl Neymar, recorded during the 12th Convocation of the People of the Respublica, 332AU

Between 328AU and 336AU the Marianites took steps to consolidate their power over the Respublica. In 330AU the Mandate passed into law. It was a deeply religious constitution for a stringently religious state. And it was to prove to be only the beginning. Those years also saw the empowerment of a retrograde movement that doomed the Adams, the Betties and the Charlies (AIs of the first and second generation) remaining in Old Codexia to 'oblivion'. Tech-mods fell into disuse - first amongst the general population, and then even in the military. Society was simply overhauled from the bottom up and problematic social actors were made to 'disappear' with unnerving regularity. Critique of the state (and, due to the wording of the Mandate, Marianism by extension) became unacceptable and was punished with extreme prejudice. By 340AU the faith could justify any excess under the banner of religious imperative. All this resulted in stagnation. Not only did the post-war economic recovery in Codexian space stall badly, it was further exacerbated by a principled refusal to trade with xenoforms. Tentative private initiatives on the part of Raumeni merchants were strongly rebuffed.

Neither the government/church or the adherents of the faith particularly cared. Economic stagnation was accepted nonchalantly by a population increasingly used to frugality. The old generation, which still remembered how things were when plenty was the norm, shrugged powerlessly. Consumer culture declined. The Golden Age of Codexia was characterized by Post-Fordist consumer micro-culture. Its New Age was to be a time of fervor and discipline. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth continued to strengthen. Another fifteen years of development saw it slowly become a burgeoning industrial powerhouse, in its own right. Commo citizens were getting rich, while their Respublican cousins wore their frugality like a badge of honor. There was no love lost between these increasingly divergent peoples. The situation in Raumen space remained complicated, with the Hin'in holding dominion over most of the Clans, in one way or another. Though the Raumen stayed belligerent and resentful, they had failed to take back their independence twice, already. Their strength had failed.

The ursine Phyr were increasingly aloof. Most had fled Codexian space in the aftermath of the Marianite Revolution and the Brotherly Conflict. They either settled in the Commo, or joined their pioneering kin resettling the Phyr Dead Zone. Several colonies were already doing quite well, by this time, although the Phyr would likely never even approximate their old power. For the Respublica, these alien activities were significant only insofar as they were perceived to be a threat to the Faith. Even if no conflict seems immediately forthcoming, underlying tensions inevitably drive Marianism into a confrontation with the Commo, at the very least. It is time to make a choice.

***

The following is a medium-term choice (2-10 years)

Do you... concentrate on rebuilding the economy? Frugality is all good and well, but ships don't pay for themselves!

OR

Do you... concentrate on rebuilding the military? We can afford to keep our promise to Codexia's proud military institution! Furthermore, we will give it a Marian complexion - our warriors should be the banner carriers of our religion.

OR

Do you... concentrate on strengthening the regime's grip on authority? Heretics, infidels, apostates and sinners are everywhere. This state is threatened from within. We must cleanse it, before we turn to outside threats! Our people will be incorruptible!

Please note: 'Concentrate' implies that all three policies will be pursued by the government to some extent. The one chosen will be specially emphasized.
 

42. Codex Entry: The Hin'in

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Just a quick Codex Update:

Codex Entry: The Hin'in

***

'Raumeni, you should not resist the Hin'in. We will give you the freedom of order and the certainty of being. Look at yourselves. You bicker and quarrel endlessly. You battle your own kin. You prey on each other. And to what end? Embrace what we offer you. Criminality will trouble you no more. Disunity will become but a fading dream. Then, your pain will cease. You should not resist the Hin'in.'

- Ha'cua Be'veh, Hin'in Alpha Six, during a meeting with Elders of a Raumen clan.

'The Hin'in, fundamentally, are still recreating the pack behavior of their early social evolution - but on a wider scale. The alpha male is still the 'biggest dog' in the pack, even if becoming that alpha has become a far more intricate process over the eons. He or she still gets the most desirable mates, the greatest wealth and, of course, absolute authority. It is a system difficult to reconcile with our own - but, gosh darn it, it works. Look how long they've maintained it!'

- from conversations with Alberto Bertuzzi, Head of Xeno Studies at Leonid Planetary Higher Education Complex

Physiology:

The Hin'in are bipedal, mammalian creatures descended from carnivorous pack animals. They are generally between three and five feet tall, and their weight tends to range from thirty to seventy kilos. Covered with rough, somewhat mottled gray skin, they are highly mobile and incredibly agile, on average - though noticeably weaker and less 'dense' when compared to humans. They are very well adapted to a natural environment with many vertical features and low visibility. The latter is made evident by their poor vision and highly sensitive echolocation/biosonar organs - which are infinitely more developed than our closest fauna-equivalent cerebrum-based audio cortex (for example, in bats and toothed whales). The extent of this organ cluster is unknown, but it is clearly responsible for Hin'in 'telepathy'. These creatures also possess brilliantly hued eyes (blue, red and purple are prevalent) and very long, sinewy limbs. Tendrils extend from the backs of their heads, the exact purpose of which is unknown.

Hin'in 'Telepathy':

This xenoform exhibits one very unique trait: a well-developed psychic ability. Empathy and telepathy are the only hitherto confirmed aspects thereof. It is widely known that the leadership cadre/caste is particularly powerful, in this regard, and it is not unlikely that said strength plays a major role in their authority over Hin'in with a 'lesser' psychic capacity. Though dissections have not proven as fruitful as hoped for, the echolocation organ cluster is the obvious source of this facet of Hin'in physiology. The way it can function over great distances is of particular concern, given the tactical implications thereof. Telepathy gave the Hin'in unprecedented tactical advantages over Codexian forces in our last war, and understanding it might be of paramount importance in our future dealings with this race. Initial fears as to 'mind control', 'mind reading' and 'telekinesis', however, have been shown to be unfounded.

Society:

The Hin'in inhabit a large interstellar state encompassing dozens of worlds. This state is ruled by a conclave of powerful individuals who may, in fact, be a sort of 'telepathic oligarchy', and who rule by consensus. Generally, they are the most gifted telepaths a particular generation of Hin'in produces. Hin'in society, in a wider sense, is organized along similar lines. Authority is only afforded to the strongest and smartest mature Hin - and only until a stronger and smarter Hin comes along. This 'meritocratic' organization of society is based on the lack of 'familial' units in Hin'in communities. Progeny are raised collectively, and there is little sense of individual loyalty. Competition for primacy is very intense, especially when considering that the only relevant benchmark is one's physical, psychic and mental capacities. Mediocre specimens are relegated to menial labour and base services, while the 'best' are promoted and made to compete against those of similar ability. The Hin'in social experience from birth is one of constant testing and rivalry. The human concepts of 'love' and 'friendship' seem entirely inapplicable.

Though this would suggest that Hin'in society should be fairly fragmented and susceptible to struggles for power, or other internal conflict, the opposite is actually true. Hin'in society is famed for its stability. Whatever conflict does happen is usually resolved quickly, efficiently and with minimal fallout/damage.

Technology:

Hin'in technology is somewhat more advanced than the human state-of-the-art, circa 270AU. That advantage lies primarily in sensor and propulsion technologies - it is strongly believed in the military community that Codexian weaponry is just as effective, if not more so. In fact, various commentators have suggested that, while Hin'in technology is perceptibly more advanced, generally, it is not a strategically significant advantage.
 

43. State of the Union: 340AU

State of the Union – 340AU

The State

The Venerable Respublica of Codexia is ruled by a cabal of powerful religious leaders, who have concurrent control over the Marianite Church. The executive branch of government is essentially appointed by this cabal, and answers to it in all administrative and legislative matters. The widely respected scholar and theologian Wise-Earl Neymar is the current head of the executive, and has held the office for well over a decade. The government, as a whole, can be characterized as a ‘revolutionary’ government, and is singularly responsible for a series of atrocities and human rights abuses against perceived domestic enemies and ‘dissidents’. Its authority is firmly established on more than sixty worlds of varying significance. Opposition to the Marianite regime is sporadic and, for the moment, very disorganized.

Society

Codexian society has undergone a planar shift since the second century AU. The Marianite Revolution has brought on numerous changes touching on every facet of social, professional and political life. With religious doctrine now constituting law, the previous conception of a ‘private sphere’ has been shattered. Private and public behaviour is strictly monitored and enforced by the authorities. Old rights, such as the freedom of speech, expression, political activity etc. have been made obsolete. Whereas previously Codexian citizens were bearers of rights enshrined in statute, they are now recipients of very conditional privileges. Government regulation is now far more onerous and pervasive. Though church attendance is not yet compulsory, churchgoers and ‘believers’ are afforded invariably greater opportunities – belief is, therefore, ‘incentivized’. This includes legal rights (esp. with regards to property), employment and socio-economic status.

Economy

Codexia’s economy has also been transformed by the Marianites. The consumer culture of old has been washed away, and in its place is an economy based on the equal distribution of valuable resources and general economic ‘flattening’. That is not to say it is a communistic contraption; rather, Codexia’s religious economy is based on principles drawn from the ‘divine laws’ of the socio-economic sphere. The emphasis is not on material gain and the trappings of luxury, but on religious symbolism and personal discipline. Spartanism is ‘in’. Frugality is now a way of life. Fortuitously, this aspect of the Marianite religion is well harmonized with the material circumstances of the Venerable Respublica. Not only has industrial production slackened, but the economy as a whole has badly contracted since the glory days of the mid second century. Material luxury is at a premium. But, strangely enough, the people are not too bothered. At least, in their minds, relative poverty is the norm. Wise-Earl Neymar, for example, has endeavoured to be a role model for the populace. He lives in a small apartment in Unification City, with few concessions to material needs.

Technology

The technological levels of the Venerable Respublica are very uneven. In the military sector, the high end commercial sector and in specific government institutions, the state of the art is competitive by any comparison. The leadership of the Respublica is not asinine in its rejection of materialism. Technologies with a strong practical basis are maintained and, yes, continue to be researched and developed by the Respublica’s cohort of scientists. Though the AI programme and human modding have both been clamped down on, technological progress as a whole remains slow, but steady. Consumer technologies, however, have experienced a disastrous decline, which has greatly affected the competitiveness of Codexian goods and services on the market.

Military and the Power Relationship

The military of the Venerable Respublica consists of ‘Space’ and ‘Terrestrial’, the two primary branches of the armed forces. Space maintains four fleets and roughly five hundred vessels of all types (larger than a corvette), whilst Terrestrial’s TO&E provides for some seventy combat-ready regiments (primarily mechanized infantry) and a larger reserve force. Both Space and Terrestrial are staffed by a highly motivated corps of officers and enlisted personnel, even if they are not quite as professional as the Armed Forces of the Commonwealth; their nearest potential opponent. This is due to the fact that the latter are, more or less, a reincarnation of the old Republican model, whereas the Respublican forces are modelled on a new line of military thinking (one concerned with ‘elan’ and moral fortitude, in particular). In a material sense, the forces of the Respublica are well equipped, though not quite as well equipped as Republican formations during their heyday. Reforms, modernization and procurement continue to gather steam as the Venerable Respublica pours more funds into defence.

In terms of the balance of power, Respublican Codexia has been labelled a ‘sleeping giant’ by various commentators. Decades of calamity, decline and disrepair have attrited its strength terribly, but it’s nothing a few good years of economic expansion and committed investment could not fix. In fact, the Marianite administration has promised this to the military establishment, and most expect that promise will be kept in the medium term. The nation’s latent industrial potential puts it in a good position to ‘catch up’. The Commonwealth, for its part, now has roughly the same number of military vessels deployed – though a much lesser ground-based military component. The technologies employed by the AFC are very similar to Codexia’s standard. The Hin’in represent the only other truly credible opponent in the immediate term, and at this time they are far more powerful than the Venerable Respublica. In the Raumen occupation zone, alone, they have been reported to field more than a thousand vessels of all types. Their hold over the territory they have taken from the Raumen is near-absolute, and their various Raumeni protectorates put them in direct or indirect control of two thirds of the Raumen Territories.

The status of the Turanei and the Phyr resettling the Dead Zone is unknown. The independent strength of the Raumeni, collectively, remains lesser than that of the Commonwealth.

***

Next on the agenda is the update. THEN a little something on Marianism.
 

44. Clouds on the Horizon

Clouds on the Horizon

The 340s finally saw some real economic expansion in the Respublica. The government poured its limited resources into high impact socio-economic programmes. They created a slew of jobs in infrastructure and local industry by judicious investment, and micro-financing afforded millions the ability to start up small businesses and community services. The number of people who depended on the state for the basics decreased substantially. Even the poorest were able to partake of the rise in living standards. The military, for its part, also saw some expansion. Though the Fourth Revolution in Military Thinking was not yet fully realized, materially speaking, at least the blueprint was better fleshed out by the end of the decade. In other words, progress was picking up pace, even as the theocracy tightened its grip on absolute authority.

In 347AU Wise-Earl Neymar died from complications related to heart surgery, and was mourned by billions, across the known worlds. His erstwhile successor, Upstanding Karl-Vincent Sturmer, would find Neymar's shoes hard to fill, but his subdued approach to governance was an interesting change from his predecessor's more forceful manner. He would find his hands full, nonetheless, almost immediately. In 348AU, the Commonwealth signed a treaty of Non-Aggression with the Phyr colonies in the Dead Zone. The wording of the agreement made it clear that the Commonwealth was, in essence, extending to the Phyr an independence guarantee and protection from any unwanted Marianite advances. Though there was nothing explicitly aggressive about the treaty, it was certainly a statement made to the Respublica's leadership. Furthermore, the Commonwealth went a step further, by also outright annexing several worlds in open legal dispute; former colonies lost to Codexian authority during the Brotherly Conflict, and never recovered.

These planets were primarily settled by those who had no desire for Marianite discipline, and were, in any case, located in territory outside of the formal jurisdiction of the Respublica. Amongst the settlers, tech-mod refugees, political dissidents and other social outcasts were particularly prominent. Regardless, the Respublica saw itself as the natural successor state to the old Codexian Republic, and the latter's boundaries (at their most expansive) were considered to be the fledgling state's 'birthright'. Suddenly, the inevitability of conflict with the Commonwealth - almost universally accepted in Marianite political thought - seemed poised to become a matter of some immediacy. For their part, the Commos appeared to labour under the same apprehension. Their fleets, too, continued to grow stronger with every passing year. Between 340AU and 349AU, the number of vessels they disposed of grew by some two hundred. According to Marianite intelligence services, they would prove to be a fell and terrible foe, in the event of a conflict. Their people consider Marianites to be some kind of giant bogeyman next door; a clear and present danger that threatens their collective future simply by existing. Marianism presents a fundamental clash of ideologies: secularism vs theocracy and capitalism vs the 'divine' economy.

The obvious question remains: is the Respublica ready for a conflict of this nature? Its society, though relatively cogent, remains frayed at the edges. How much societal stress would it take to undo the enormous strides made by the Marianites, and to bring about a renewed Time of Troubles? A choice must be made.

Do you... decree that the Respublica MUST be ready for war? Armament will continue and accelerate - within economic tolerance - while the military trains and prepares for the coming clash. However, you will not actively pursue conflict. If it must come, let the Commonwealth be the transgressor! [This approach is PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE and entails a MODERATE chance of conflict]

OR

Do you... decree that the Respublica sees nothing but disaster in this treaty, and MUST act decisively? Letting the filthy Commo swine influence the Phyr and gain access to the resources of the Dead Zone would be a terrible mistake. Better to fight this battle now, if it must be fought. Push for war! Find a convenient pretext, and break these dogs! [This approach is ACTIVELY AGGRESSIVE and entails a HIGH chance of conflict]

OR

Do you... decree that the Respublica has no interest in such a war? The Commos act out of fear. Assure them you mean no harm, by unilaterally recognizing their independence and sovereign right. This is the will of Santi Maria. Enough have died! [This approach is LEAST AGGRESSIVE and entails a LOW chance of conflict]

* All references to conflict are regarding an immediate conflict, or one in the near term.
 

45. The Will to Power

The Will to Power

Tensions across the human sphere rose during the period of 349-355AU. Greater prosperity was in evidence, throughout, but a great deal of capital was funnelled into meaty military contracts. Both Space and AFC were seriously bolstered. The Commonwealth was, by this point, spending some 9% of its GDP on defence related budgetary items, whereas the much larger Respublica only slightly edged that figure, with 10.2% expenditure. The ideological foes were evenly matched; a potential Respublican Goliath against the Commo's burgeoning David. Events seemed to be slowly coalescing into real danger, when a strange twist disrupted the proceedings. A small flotilla of Raumeni vessels began raiding several de-facto independent human worlds, near the territorial boundary between the two races. At first chalked up to opportunistic banditry, both Marianite and Commonwealth intelligence services were soon reporting that a Hin'in hand was guiding the bugs.

Curiously absent from human affairs for half a century, it seemed as if they were finally taking an interest in the holdings of former Codexianity. Not only were the Raumeni involved reputedly from a client clan, they were also based out of a local Hin'in stronghold. It's where their logistical trail ended, in any case. The Raumeni marauders, however, were not causing a great deal of damage or loss of life, and the human response was correspondingly muted. At least, that stood until the Raumeni occupied Schadenfreude, a colonial outpost home to some eighty thousand humans, early in 356AU. The Commonwealth almost immediately dispatched forces to evict the Raumeni, as per their policy on 'neutral' human worlds outside of Respublican territory. Expecting to present a simple 'cease and desist' show of force to a weaker foe, the fine men and women of the 80th Battlegroup walked directly into a holocaust of fire. Within hours of arriving in-system, the entire formation of some forty vessels was annihilated.

The Hin'in responsible immediately claimed the right of self-defence, and insisted that they were simply there to protect a legitimate Raumeni colonial effort on a disputed world. To effect that protection, they had brought with them almost a hundred and fifty vessels of all types. Their declaration of war against the Commonwealth was soon forthcoming. The claims laid out therein stipulated that the entire belt of the disputed worlds near the Raumeni border were, in actuality, Raumeni worlds 'stolen' by the treacherous humans. It was thinly veiled and implausible, but the Hin'in leaders did not have to justify themselves to their lessers in the general population. They instructed, and the pack followed. Though the declaration of war was made only against the Commonwealth, the situation is a most delicate one for the Respublica, too. While the Commo put their mobilization plan into action and pulled forces away from the Respublican border in order to constitute their fleets (for action against the Hin'in), the war signified both threat and opportunity for the Marianites.

It seems quite likely that, alone, the Commonwealth will suffer defeat against the Hin'in. Given their stated objectives, it seems quite unlikely, on the other hand, that the Hin'in will attempt to take over the Commonwealth outright. But what if that is simply a cover for a methodical conquest of human space, generally? What is to be our approach?

Do you... decree that the Commonwealth stands and fights alone? Once their fleet is destroyed (after all, how can they hope to combat the Hin'in without assistance?), we can far more easily 'reintegrate' the fools into our proud and beneficent Respublica. We will keep our fleets in condition to resist the Hin'in, too, if it comes to that. Divide and Conquer, as Caesar would say!

OR

Do you... jump into the conflict on the Commonwealth's side? How dare these disgusting xenoforms take human populations captive, in the throes of their lust for power? They will be made to pay for besmirching human dignity! Also, if the Commonwealth falls, how far behind is the Respublica? We are human brothers, under a human banner, against an alien void!

OR

Do you... jump into the conflict, but AGAINST the Commonwealth? Faced with a two-front war, their collapse would be swift and assured. The Hin'in can take the scant few worlds they have claimed. We will take the heretics' worlds. Tomorrow, we will be that much stronger, so as to wage holy war against the xenos.
 

46. Last Month on the 'Codexian Saga'

Last Month on ‘The Codexian Saga’...

Much as in the lead-up to the Great War of the early 21st century, the slide to war in the later 4th century AU was both rapid and shocking for the general public. It seemed as if the conflict arose from a vacuum. One week, Raumeni pirates were being a celebrated nuisance to the Commonwealth (indeed, there was a certain spiteful satisfaction at the news on the part of many Marianites) and in the next, the Hin’in were shown to be the puppeteer behind the curtain, an existential threat was facing all of humanity, the sky was falling and catastrophe was rapping at the door. Events were hurtling toward yet another painful experience for humanity. It would therefore be... inaccurate... to say that there was no consternation, when the Respublican government issued its public declaration of war against the Hin’in menace.

Questions were immediately being asked and aspersions cast. Why was Holy Codexia helping the heathen? Did not the creed mark the apostate as the worst of all offenders? Did not the Most Holy Maria herself call them ‘spittle upon the face of God’? There was bewilderment among the peoples. The government’s motives in this conflict were unclear, though institutional cynicism was the suspected culprit. Simply put, it seemed as if the government was fearful of the threat posed by the Xeno, and were intervening in order to pre-empt the problem. For many, this was unacceptable. Killing the Xeno was fine. But helping the Commonwealth was anathema to Marianite doctrinal bread and butter. Worse yet, some of the most vociferous opponents of the intervention were also high ranking members of the church, ideologues and influential persons in their own right.

Nonetheless, overt opposition to the executive council was not forthcoming. Such opposition had historically proven to be deeply unhealthy for the offending parties, and this instance was no exception. The most outspoken critics of the war effort were silenced, via any of a number of means. Furthermore, despite the initial hesitancy and the widespread distaste for the Commo, the People did – in the end – manage to muster some enthusiasm for bringing the light of Marianite truth to the Hin’in heathen. There was something both moving and comforting about the self assuredness of the faithful, as they proverbially marched off into battle. The Respublica, in truth, probably needed this fight. It needed a crucible; a trial by fire. And the Hin’in were about to oblige Codexianity’s truest sons.

The strategic situation, however, remained tenuous. Space’s fleet arm was, by now, almost six hundred operational vessels strong. It was a powerful and flexible tool of the state. The Commonwealth could just about match it ship for ship – though the Respublica had a significant advantage in overall tonnage and firepower. The Hin’in fleet, however, was another matter entirely. Respublican intelligence could account for only three hundred odd vessels in the recognised theatre of operations. Their overall estimate, on the other hand, was sobering: there were some twelve hundred Hin’in vessels holding down the Raumeni territories and investing corridors of human space, all up. These creatures had already proven a terrible foe – and that was when Codexia had the advantage in numbers. The question of how to tackle such a foe was of paramount importance.

The first steps of this deadly dance had by now been played out, one week into the struggle. Hin’in raiding groups were already hitting Commo shipping, sowing terror and chaos throughout. The AFC , in turn, was struggling to keep up, and seemed to already be on the back foot against an aggressive, capable enemy. What is to be the Codexian approach? The General Staff must keep several things in mind: 1) the Hin’in are approaching the conflict tentatively at this stage, and have not yet committed to a concrete offensive effort; 2) the AFC seems similarly paralysed and is apparently waiting for the Hin’in to act; 3) there is still no formal contact between the Respublica and the Commo regarding any joint operations; 4) the Raumeni are relatively minor players in this, contributing barely fifty vessels to the Hin’in complement.

Option 1): Do you pursue...

a) A joint operations strategy? Surely, the war effort will be better co-ordinated in co-operation with our newfound Commonwealth ‘allies’?

b) An independent command strategy? How could we ask Marianites to serve under apostates and heathens? Better that we confront the enemy separately, and with honour. Let the Commonwealth fight its own battles; we will win the war.

c) A ‘work together; fight separately’ strategy? We must be flexible! We will wage our own war, absolutely. But let us share our logistical networks and intelligence assets. Let us show that we can co-operate on SOME level.

Option 2): Do you conduct...

a) An aggressive campaign? These Hin’in are rabid dogs. They can smell blood. Let’s break their nose. Take the battle to them! We can catch them flatfooted, strategically.

b) A defensive campaign? We must be careful; the xeno is powerful and advanced. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread! Let us fight them defensively, and discover their weaknesses...
 

47. A Space Sonata

A Space Sonata

The decision to fight a defensive campaign against the hated Hin'in could never have been an easy one for the Marianite elite. Nonetheless, they committed themselves to it, remembering the days of yore when their grandfathers and their great-grandfathers were dying under Hin'in cannon fire; the victims of an ill-advised death grapple across the Raumeni territories. As strategy went, it seemed relatively sound. After all, it would force the traditionally 'counter-punching' Hin'in into fighting an offensive war. They were the masters of the backhanded slap, but the General Staff remained unconvinced that they could translate that talent into true offensive flair. As the first weeks of the war dragged on uneventfully, some even began wondering whether or not the Hin'in would even move beyond commerce raiding and the occupation of a scant few outlying Commonwealth holdings. What if the grand struggle became nothing but a phony war, in which neither side dared engage?

Luckily, perhaps, they did not have to wonder overlong. On 5th June 356AU, a Hin'in fleet of some two hundred vessels jumped into Sonata. The local AFC forces consisted of 17th Battlegroup, 23rd 'Green-Gold' Battlegroup and 81st 'Hammer of Leonid' Battlegroup. That is to say, roughly one hundred vessels of all types. The Hin'in armada likely represents the bulk of their strategic strength in the active theater of operations. They have seemingly elected to crush the AFC piece-meal, by segmenting it into more easily digestible 'chunks'. The looming Battle of Sonata will likely prove pivotal in the future conduct of this war. As fortune would have it, the leadership of Space - in their infinite wisdom - has allocated a very serious force (eighty vessels) within easy jumping distance of Sonata. Further reinforcements of some one hundred vessels can reach the system within two weeks.

The situation, such as it is, affords the Venerable Respublica both opportunity and danger - maybe in equal measure. Hin'in tactical knowledge will be poor to middling, as they have no spies or existing infrastructure to precisely determine the disposition of human forces, as they so capably did during their previous, 2nd century conflict. Speculation it might be, but it is highly likely they are not aware of the proximity of Respublican forces, or their extent. The General Staff needs to consider the potential of this scenario carefully. The options, after all, are manifold. Should the Respublica commit its strength early? Or should it wait, and hope that the AFC can hold out as Space masses for the counter-offensive?

***

Do you... order the eighty nearby ships to jump in immediately and help the AFC defend Sonata from the Hin'in? Not only will it be great propaganda - win or lose - but it also gives the AFC forces the best chance of holding the system, Generals! Think of the wider conflict, please! If we cannot hold the line here, our epitaph awaits.

OR

Do you... order the nearby ships to jump in immediately, but to fight this battle independently? Generals, we can catch these filthy xeno rats tactically unawares. While they maneuver their forces against the heathen, we will stay out of sensor range. Then, when they commit to a set-piece battle... so shall we. We can crush them between hammer and anvil! They will never see it coming!

OR

Do you... order the nearby vessels to wait? Tell the Commos that help is on its way, and that they must fight the battle evasively and defensively. If they stay in open space, they should be able to play cat and mouse with the rats, until we have another hundred ships in place. Then, dear Generals, we jump in and clean house... It is a simple, beautiful plan.

OR

Do you... order the nearby ships to wait? Say nothing to the Commos - the communication might be intercepted anyway. Instead, mass our fleet secretly. While the AFC rushes forces in and the Hin'in crush them in Sonata, we can take the battle to the enemy, operationally. Mass the fleet and then hit the Hin'in jump-off point. Smash their theater logistical hub. We can exploit their rear echelons ruthlessly and decide the campaign, if not the war! Think of the possibilities!
 

48. The Sharp End

The Sharp End

The Battle of Sonata was a disaster for the Commonwealth. In the first instance, it saw the virtual destruction of the 17th Battlegroup - as well as the brutal decimation of two others. Secondly, it saw one of the Commonwealth's major worlds fall to the Hin'in invader, with the all the loss of industry, commerce and manpower that entailed. Thirdly, and mayhap most damagingly, however, it also saw the first significant victory of the war for the humans. Unfortunately, it was to be credited solely to Marianite arms and ingenuity. There truly was no upside for the bedraggled Commos. When the Hin'in jumped into the system and proceeded to systematically maul the erstwhile defenders, the nearby Respublican forces chose not to render any assistance. Rather, they waited. And waited. And then waited some more.

Two weeks passed, during which time the Commos fought tooth and nail for Sonata, constantly sending out pleas for reinforcement, by every available means. These fell on deaf ears, in the case of the Respublicans. The latter, instead, massed all available local forces and struck out for the regional Hin'in logistics hub, known to be located on a lifeless rock named 'Modica', thanks to a spectacular tactical intelligence coup. The infrastructural set-up present on the dead world was extensive: the Hin'in had concentrated a large number of fuel tankers, repair tugs and even a nascent manufactory in orbit. The surface, for its part, played host to a major, yet obviously mobile docking complex. It was in fact a veritable fleet base, modularly constructed and capable of independent wyrmhole jumps. A marvel of engineering prowess and, worryingly, naked ambition. But it took barely two days to destroy.

The humans initially transitioned to the outer edges of the system, carefully cloaking the bulk of their two hundred-odd ship fleet. These vessels then moved into the system's interior slowly, making a beeline for the Hin'in hub, making certain that maximum advantage was gleaned from their Phyr-engineered stealth systems. A squadron of some twenty vessels guarded the complex. It was annihilated in short order. Powerful atomic, fusion and kinetic weapons savaged its relatively paltry defences, before shattering its extensive facilities. It was a triumph, at an absolutely minimal cost. And it left the Hin'in in an enormously difficult position. They could not hope to hold Sonata, removed as they were from their logistical network. Seemingly in dribs and drabs, the fleet that had weeks before won a major victory against the Commonwealth dissipated. There was obviously some disagreement in that fleet's hierarchy regarding how to best respond to the disastrous developments in question. Local observers even noted that several skirmishes took place, destroying upwards of ten Hin'in vessels.

Eventually, however, the armada broke apart. Convoys of vessels departed Sonata for different destinations, all in the Raumeni territories. However, as of early August, the AFC is yet to officially reclaim Sonata, still recovering from a bitter defeat and the disorganization that followed. The Marianites now face a choice.

***

Do you... order your triumphant fleet back? If we make for Sonata now, we can take it from the Commonwealth! Perhaps not 'legally', but possession is nine tenths of the law! If we land our crusaders and occupy the major population centres, what are they going to do about it? Shoot? Hah! Let us think past this conflict.

OR

Do you... order your forces to wait? We must reinforce what we have in Modica. Let us throw another one hundred vessels into the mix. Sure, we will be committing half our total strength, but if we build the critical mass we need, we can break the back of the Hin'in war effort, here and now! They do not have the forces to stop us.

OR

Do you... order your forces to now assault the jump-off point for the entire invasion? If we act QUICKLY, we can roll up this impudent scum all the way to the Raumeni boundary! Really show them how well righteous men fight! But we must act now. No pussyfooting around with reinforcements. Two hundred ships is more than enough.

OR

Do you... order that your forces split up into smaller taskforces and lead a multitude of attacks to further destabilize the Hin'in? We do not need one mailed fist to smash this enemy. We need the flexibility of fingers, to strike many targets at once and keep our foe from recuperating. Though not immediately decisive, the results could well make this conflict impossible for the Hin'in, without major reinforcement.
 

49. The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken

When all was said and done, the massive strategic victory at Modica represented a real turning point in human battlefield fortunes against the Hin'in. The psychic aliens were not omnipotent, after all. They could be beaten. This point was driven home thoroughly by both Marianite and Commonwealth propaganda services, in the aftermath of the battle. And, in all fairness, it did boost public morale. Though the Marianites did not really have morale issues on the homefront, at that point, the Commonwealth certainly did. Victory was a fantastic countermeasure to the deleterious effects of rising discontent. The combined human forces suddenly found themselves revitalized - their faith in an eventual victory restored.

Yet, in the political backroom, trouble brewed. The Commonwealth elite hated the fact that it was Respublican forces that scattered the Hin'in. They certainly hated the fact that the contemptible zealots of Santi Maria got all the credit for the victory, while Commo men did all the dying. Most of all, however, they feared the shift in the strategic balance engendered by the operations in Modica and Sonata. Which is exactly why they then refused to pledge Commo forces to the Respublican-planned offensive that was supposed to bring the conflict to a decisive conclusion. When the Marianite admiralty and general staff put 'Vae Victis' on the table, the Commo liaison officers scoffed. 'Too ambitious', they said. Too risky. Plausible excuses were bandied about, but all knew that they were simply that: excuses. The Respublicans grew exasperated.

Reluctantly, they decided to conduct the operation on their own. It took some three weeks to make ready the fleet. The two hundred vessel armada in the active theater of operations was reinforced by an additional detachment of one hundred warships from nearby task-forces. Truly, all would be required, if there was to be any prospective of success. Little intelligence was available as to Hin'in strength at the jump-off point, but conservative estimates put it at near-parity with the Respublicans. This was seen as bad news for the latter - the human track record against the Hin'in with force parity was not good. Considering the overall strategic situation, however, it was still seen as a worthwhile gamble. If the Hin'in springboard could be sufficiently denuded, they were that much less likely to consider a longer, drawn out war to be cost-effective.

It was all very rationally calculated and reasonably thought out. Vae Victis was seen by most to be a necessity and a strategic imperative. And then something very peculiar took place. A Raumeni vessel entered human-held space under a flag of truce, requesting an audience with Respublican and Commo authorities. Though this took a number of days to organize, when the meeting finally happened the humans found the bugs to be the bearers of some very interesting news... and an intriguing offer. They spoke at length of longstanding Raumeni efforts to achieve independence from the Hin'in who now ruled their former domain, and of clandestine resistance. They also spoke of ranging far and wide in search of those who could help them achieve this goal, noting that they had left the humans out of the endeavour due to both practical concerns (human infighting and instability) and bad blood between the Clans and humanity over the latter's 'betrayal' last century.

They had apparently found the allies they needed, on the other side of the Hin'in Empire. A race known as the 'Bron'; mighty in their own right and fearsome enemies of the Hin'in. But both the Raumeni and the Bron needed the Hin'in to be distracted elsewhere, if they were to confront them successfully. For some fifty years now, according to the bug envoy, the Raumeni had thus been secretly building up their strength in preparation for a Great Muster to retake their homes - a noble crusade in the mould of the ancient epics. The Clans were more or less united in this. They had warred amongst themselves viciously before, but the Hin'in were an enemy that demanded unity. So the Raumeni had put aside their differences, for the moment, and patiently conspired against their overlords...

The envoy's proposal to the Codexians was simple:

'The Clans are ready to fight. The Bron are ready to fight. Will humanity join us in the struggle? At this moment, you are a minor distraction to the Hin'in. They have sent their least Alphas against you, so that you may blood them. We know you plan to strike their foothold in human space - the world you call 'Neu-mann'. Our information is well sourced. But this campaign means very little to our foe, you must understand. If you defeat them, they may even entirely withdraw from human space, for the time being. We hope you see that such a solution would work only in the short-term. We will launch our uprising soon and we want you to help us! If you advance into occupied Raumen space after Neumann, the Hin'in will bring their occupation forces to bear against you. Yet you will not have to face them alone for long, as we will strike as soon as they are out of their strategic positions... We can drive them out completely!'

Respublican and Commo representative alike scrambled to put the proposal before their respective governments.

A weighty decision beckons...

Do you... agree to the proposal? The xeno is correct. This foe is beyond us. We must bring them low by working in unison. A momentary victory and a fleeting white peace cannot substitute decisive triumph! This is an opportunity like no other! Certainly, there is risk. But there is risk at every turn! We may come out of this conflict with new allies, more influence and great spoils of war. One of our greatest enemies would be struck down, perhaps permanently. How can we say no?!

(Launch Vae Victis; follow up with immediate drive into Raumeni space)

OR

Do you... decline the proposal? The heathen bugs insult us with this! Firstly, they may very well be lying to our faces. We do not know. We do not know if their supposed fleets and distant allies even exist! And we are to risk all on the word of this scum?! We fight our war, our way! If they wish to wage their own war against the Hin'in, let them do so without another torrent of human blood spilled across the Raumen expanse. Our people would never forgive us, if we did this...

(Launch Vae Victis; stop at Neumann)
 

50. Costs, Benefits, Opportunities

Costs, Benefits, Opportunities

The Battle of Neumann: A Theme

The battle of Neumann itself was bad enough. Three hundred human vessels jumped into that accursed system, and found themselves facing well over one hundred and fifty Hin'in warships, arrayed in defensive formation and waiting for the humans with open arms. The brutal melee that followed has been recounted numberless times since by survivors of the mutual slaughter. Books, vids, documentaries... Fiction and non-fiction galore: an entire industry was inspired by the bloody spectacle that took place on the very extremes of Codexian space. The news channels called it a 'victory'. They spoke of 'heroics' and 'infinite courage'. Well, there was plenty of that, too, one can suppose. Marianite strategists took one look at the casualty sheets that bought those labels and wondered if the war was now unwinnable.

Of the composite flotilla that had initially transitioned into the system, barely a hundred ships were still able to report in, three days later. The Hin'in, for their part, fared even worse - escaping Neumann with a motley collection of twenty or so space-worthy craft. It was a ghastly business. The Hin'in had fought savagely and resolutely. The analysis offered by Space intelligence officers was that a very senior Alpha had 'held court' at the site. Its powerful psionics had spurred the Hin'in to prodigious feats in combat, but it was all to prove to little avail. The lethal, yet fragile Hin'in craft had died gloriously, and had fought well. The Marianites could not begrudge them that. Neumann was triumph and disaster, brought together in a perfect symmetry. It was the height of the military art and the depth of macabre savagery, all in one. Yes, the battle of Neumann was bad enough.

Then the Raumen Uprising began, a mere month later. The Hin'in occupiers, who were apparently not moved by the recent plight of their kinfolk in human space, were taken by surprise. Where the Raumen built the vessels that now flooded the starlanes, few know. But one thing is certain: the insectoids clearly wanted their homes back. A dozen battles raged across the Raumeni territories, while the Venerable Respublica organized its defensive effort and watched. New ships were being brought into the line, new recruits were being trained, morale was high and so was confidence. Now that the Raumen had joined in the fight against the Hin'in, the everyman was convinced that the war would be 'over by Christmas'. But the psychic xenos proved once again why they were such finely adapted pack hunters. Their mobilization was sickeningly rapid and undeniably awesome.

The Raumen, who fought both gracefully and manfully, were obviously absorbing hideous losses to achieve local successes. They defeated the Hin'in several times in rapid succession in the G'ovan cluster, only to find a liberated clan world retaken by a brazen Hin'in counteroffensive. The psychics had previously ruled with 'temperance', one could say. Their iron fist was wrapped in silk, and their governance light. According to available reports, that ended rather quickly when the Raumen massacred several thousand of their administrators, state officials, officers and various other personnel, across more than a dozen worlds. The reprisals were decisive. The Uprising became a pitiless, primal struggle for dominance. Raumeni populations were decimated on a number of planets.

Of course, there was nothing inevitable about any seemingly preordained outcome. Certainly, the rapid Hin'in response and the lack of human distraction were serious obstacles to Raumeni success. Yet, the vastly more powerful psychic xeno was clearly not committing the majority of his strength to the fight. Reserves were being held back; deployments were reduced to the bare minimum. Something, somewhere, was distracting the Empire. The Marianite leadership believed that, perhaps, the Raumeni were not lying about the existence or the intention of the so-called 'Bron'. That a thousand lightyears away another conflict was enveloping contested space. Would it prove to be enough? At this stage, none could venture anything but a guess.

The Respublica, as such, was faced with some choices:

Option A:

Do you... intervene in the Raumen territories, now? Though the insects will be displeased that we adopted a wait-and-see approach, they could not help but appreciate assistance now - they need it. Our fleets are being rebuilt. Our people will us onward. Do we dare strike at the Hin'in Empire, while their vulnerability is evident?

OR

Do you... rebuild, recuperate and concentrate on retaining what the Respublica has achieved? The Commo has not intervened against the Hin'in, either. We hold a number of their territories, including Sonata and much of the border zone. What if they strike at us, while we gallivant around meddling in xeno affairs? Let us make sure we are unassailable!

Option B:

Do you... accelerate your shipbuilding programme? We need hundreds of new vessels. We NEED more recruits. We need a military that can hold its own against anyone and everyone, if need be. Our economy and the government bottom line will be meaningless if the Hin'in come back with a vengeance, and burn our worlds while we sit on piles of unspent moneys.

OR

Do you... strive to reduce the impact of the war on the economy, significantly lowering the output of war materiel and new vessels, but preserving the health of the Marianite economy? Our people have faced this choice before. We chose wrongly, then. Let us not do so again, Councilmen! The Hin'in will not come back. We have bloodied their nose without taking their honour. Our only enemy is ourselves... and the Commo. But we can beat them good and proper, without a far vaster navy.

Option C: (this option will be counted separately; please denote choice with a + (e.g. AB+B))

A: Your scientists have discovered something truly groundbreaking. By 'modulating' the laminar flow of warp slipstreams, they have managed to erect a 'forcefield' around a small object. We do not even need a true FTL drive, for the field effect. This field can take a great deal of stress, before collapsing. The applications of the invention are nearly limitless. A few years from now, our shielded, impervious fleets could carve their way across the sector, with but a little investment. Think on it, Councilmen!

OR

B: Update: Peaceful contact with the Amoneth
 

51. In Media Res

In Media Res

The wholesale slaughter across the Raumeni expanse continued unabated, well into December 356AU. The war had been raging for almost six months, now. Its playing board had changed irrevocably with the Raumeni Uprising. Now, instead of a bilateral struggle for dominance between an ambitious and, perhaps, an overweening Hin'in Empire and a resurgent mankind, the conflict was a vicious four-way knife fight. The Hin'in were slugging it out with the Raumen and the Bron simultaneously across a massive region of space, while the momentarily triumphant humans carefully husbanded their strength for a decisive clash, their fleets poised on the edge of Respublican and Commonwealth space. Both human militaries were being heavily reinforced. The Respublica funneled untold wealth into jump-starting the long dormant orbital assembly complexes around Codexia, but the benefits thereof were almost immediately apparent.

Between October and December, almost forty new vessels were brought into the battle line. This went a long way toward replacing the bitter losses of Neumann. And the pace of the construction program was accelerating rapidly. The December/January period was to see another fifty ships join the growing armada. The moral economy took the heavy blows with admirable aplomb. It buckled, but did not give, as billions upon billions of credits were spent on armament, recruitment, R&D and military infrastructure. For its part, the Commonwealth, too, attempted to increase the size of its much denuded fleet - with somewhat less success. Though the heavy losses of the early period of the war were now just about made up, the state coffers were running dry. Simply put, the Commonwealth was not on an even economic footing with its much larger partner, and its construction capacity even less so. Vast numbers of tiny corvettes and gunboats were brought into service, as a makeweight, but the firepower advantage was now firmly on the Respublican side.

February 357AU would prove a pivotal month for all parties concerned. Firstly, it saw the Raumen suffer a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Amau'rie. The insectoids lost more than seventy ships in the conflagration - a significant portion of their operational strength. Running battles and drawn out skirmishes thereafter claimed another thirty, at least, including the Shoguh-yei, the flagship of the Uprising. Though this did not signify the end of the Raumen war effort, the humbling defeat served as a powerful reminder of just how potent the Hin'in were. Three systems were retaken by their triumphant war packs, in the aftermath. It seemed as if the bugs were now on the back foot.

Secondly, on 25 February 357AU, the Commonwealth ambassador to the Venerable Respublica issued a courteously worded demand - but a demand, nonetheless - that Marianite forces were to withdraw from Sonata as soon as was practicable. They had been occupying the system since their victory over the Hin'in forces that besieged it, early in the war. And now, almost four thousand Marianite personnel were entrenched on Sonata itself, with a powerful cruiser squadron patrolling the skies above. These forces maintained the martial law then in effect and were the primary security force on the planet. The Commo obviously feared a 'land grab'. The ambassador further informed the Respublican government that an AFC squadron would soon enter Sonata and 're-hoist' the flag of the Commonwealth.

Thirdly, and finally, the SFS (Space Force Ship) Schiltstrom - the first 'shield'-equipped (in truth, a warp laminar flow modulation system) vessel in the Respublican arsenal - underwent trials at the St. Elijah Central Military Institute (SECMI) on 21 February. Developed a month into the Hin'in War by intrepid Codexian state-sponsored military research teams, the system was touted as a divinely wrought miracle of science. Though the initial tests proved that there were still many kinks needing ironing out, the buzz over the new 'shields' spread like wildfire amongst those in-the-know. It could protect a vessel from almost all energy based emissions (laser, maser, plasma etc) for a considerable length of time. As such, it was a potential game changer. All it needed was time. Time... and investment. The cost of equipping Space wholly with this system would prove crushing in the short term. But the possibilities...

Choices remain to be made.

Option One:

Do you... rush the newfangled shields into service, as widely as possible? The cost might be astronomical, as each ship would have to be more or less gutted to incorporate the equipment required by the system, but think of the advantages! We are not engaged in any fighting, we can safely cycle our fleet through the orbital yards and still be at 60% operational strength, round-the-clock. Total refurbishment time: Six months.

OR

Do you... keep a level head? The shields will take time to bed in. We have spent enough, already. Let us only begin installing the system across the board when the opportunity avails itself. If it comes down to it, we are confident of winning the war with or without this device. There is no need to strain our finances and economic capacity any further. Besides, it has never even been tested in the field! Who knows what the specifics of Hin'in weaponry could do to it. Total refurbishment time: 2-3+ years (estimated)

Option Two:

Do you... tell the ambassador sweet lies about your presence in Sonata? They cannot have back what we bought with Marianite blood. Cite security concerns and reinforce our squadron in Sonata. We see their bluff for what it is; they will not risk conflict with us now...

OR

Do you... order your squadron to withdraw? This seems like an easy enough way to purchase some trust at no cost at all. We cannot possibly be considering fighting on another front now - not to mention against our allies, however nominal. Let us withdraw and concentrate on our primary foe.
 

52. A Fell Moon

A Fell Moon

Caution was the name of the game. Though the Schiltstrom and its sister ships presented a quantum leap in Codexian military technology, the Marianite leadership prudently chose to hold back on implementing the shields widely. As they saw it, it was a matter of money and the maintenance of combat readiness. The Codexians were unwilling to excessively draw upon their reserves of either. And as the Hin'in War stretched into April of 357AU, the number of shielded vessels in the Space fleet remained very low.

Meanwhile, in the Raumen territories, the high intensity battle for supremacy teetered on a knife's edge. The Hin'in were masterful, consummate warriors. Time and again, they had proven it beyond any doubt. But the Raumeni were resourceful, brave and disciplined, in their own right. With the majority of their strength tied down in fighting the mysterious Bron, the Hin'in could not tilt the balance decisively. The ongoing give-and-take of the campaign, post the Battle of Amau'rie, surprised many human observers, who had expected the Raumeni to collapse in short order. Somehow, the fiercely independent insectoids continued to cling to hope with a strength borne of desperation.

Slowly, and far too prematurely, the Codexian war leaders began to breathe a sigh of relief. Looking at the xenoform belligerents, they saw only weakness. The inferior alien heathen was showing exactly why the adherents of Marianism were destined to rule the stars, in perpetuity. Perhaps it should not have been so surprising, therefore, that the agents of disaster would once again be fellow humans, after all. When the Commonwealth struck up and down the shared frontier on 15 May 357AU, the Codexians were caught flatfooted. They had been hoodwinked classically. Once upon a time, the ancient Soviets had called it 'maskirovka'. The art of military deception, in practice. And the Marianites had bought it, hook, line and sinker. In early April, they had withdrawn from Sonata, removing a significant combat grouping from contested Commonwealth space. They had also helpfully concentrated the majority of their forces across the frontier belt, facing the Raumen territories.

The first few weeks of this deadly new phase of a seemingly ever-escalating conflict told a tale of absolute woe. Some three hundred Commonwealth ships were thrown into the action immediately, with at least another fifty in an operational reserve. Codexia's token patrol forces were swept aside without much fuss or fanfare. Initially, it appeared as if the Commos could pull off a coup-de-grace, as they advanced across a massively broad front against extremely limited resistance. But it was not to be. Hamstrung as they were, the Marianites were not entirely without resources. Over a hundred ships were deployed successively against the onrushing Commos - twenty of them equipped with the new shielding systems. The confident, experienced Codexians engaged the Commos with a high rate of success. They utilized every tactical trick in the book to keep the fight honest. And the shielded vessels performed according to expectation. The Schiltstrom, for example, was lost with all hands on 7 June 357AU - but not before it managed to destroy several corvettes and an escort, having absorbed the fire of a full support squadron in the interim.

The Codexian people were bewildered by the brazen assault. Had not Codexia mere months previously helped the Commo stay on its feet against the hated alien foe? What could possibly warrant such an attack, at a time like this? Truth be told, the common people were not the only ones confused by this turn of events. The Marianite leadership, too, wanted to understand what had transpired, in order to bring about this flabbergasting, new war. Eventually, the mystery was cleared up when the propaganda the Commonwealth was using on its people to justify the war against Codexia was finally made generally available. They called it a 'pre-emptive strike', against an 'enemy' who might very well soon be 'invincible'. In other words, they had found out about the shields, and considered them an existential threat. Clearly, the only answer they could find was to strike the Venerable Respublica down, before it could outfit its forces with this breakthrough technology.

The strategic situation was now an exceedingly ugly one for the Codexians. Three hundred ships, with additional reinforcements, were now bearing down on their core worlds - opposed by fewer than one hundred vessels of all types. The bulk of Space's strength was on the frontier, waiting for the Hin'in. It would take weeks to redeploy these forces. In the meantime, the Commos could wreak untold havoc upon Codexian property, interests and infrastructure.

Choices remain to be made...

Do you... disperse your available forces, hoping to slow down the Commos and buy enough time to redeploy your fleets on the frontier? Their forces are superior for the moment. Let us follow the teachings of the great Sun Tzu, and yield territory, but maintain constant defensive pressure on the enemy all across the front. With any luck, they will spend more time chasing shadows than engaging in attacks on our assets.

OR

Do you... maintain a fleet-in-being, instead? A hundred ships with a shielded cadre is a potent force. Let us concentrate them, and offer set-piece battle to our erstwhile foe. We cannot lose. If they ignore the armada and attack our planets and installations, we will manoeuvre and destroy them in detail. If they, in turn, concentrate and attempt to destroy the armada, we will have bought plenty of time to bring our boys back from the xeno front.
 

53. Cold Delivery

Cold Delivery

The Marianites and the Commos were like two weathered old boxers from a nearly forgotten era. Wary, constantly circling, they kept their distance, waiting for that illusive opening. Rapid, staccato jabs intermittently punctuated this deadly ballet, keeping both gladiators honest. The Marianites had loaded up a killer right hook in the form of their massed fleet, while their misguided brethren kept up relentless pressure, swarming their opponent, striking from every angle; gangly, awkward and unpredictable. The Respublican ducked, dodged and weaved, in response. Unwilling to commit to a rash counter, he kept up his stolid guard, absorbing shots all the while. Sadly, the opportunity for the knockout blow never came. The Commonwealth armada continued to advance across a broad front throughout June. As the Marianites concentrated their forces, their resistance to that advance actually slackened across the strategic theatre.

The cumbersome one hundred vessel fleet moved to counter the largest groupings of Commo vessels, and was singularly successful in wiping out several taskforces at minimal cost. The Battles of Teegarden and Caynan were instructive in the value of the newfangled shielding systems, and their tactical utility. There were few Commo survivors from either clash. But, all in all, the troublesome heathens did not take the bait. They refused to accept the set piece battle so graciously offered by the valiant Respublicans. Instead of confronting the mustered Commo fleet, they dispersed their forces even further. Individual squadrons raided targets of opportunity with near impunity, unimpeded by the badly denuded and poorly deployed Marianite defensive forces. The Respublican admiralty was dumbstruck. This enemy did not seem to want to occupy territory. They attacked industry, infrastructure, economic and logistical arteries, in turn. Serious resistance was bypassed. Strategic analysis suggested that the overall aim seemed to be to hamstring the Marianite state’s war-making capacity.

Vicious bombing raids on individual worlds left thousands dead. The Commos did not mind a little inaccuracy, if it meant that they could hit their targets in a timely manner. Factories, refineries, shipyards, supply depots; all were subjected to the tender attention of Commo warships. By early July, when the main body of the Respublica’s Space forces finally began streaming back into Marianite space, the damage was heavy, indeed. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands, were dead. The people of the Respublica bayed for vengeance, but frustration continued to mount. It was only around mid-July that the Commo offensive finally ran out of stream. The supply tugs that had accompanied the various raiding groups on sorties finally expended the last of their fuel and materiel reserves. Quite literally, the Commos stopped in their tracks - but not before the reserve grouping of fifty AFC vessels that had hitherto been suspiciously absent from the fighting burst on to the scene. Sadly for the Venerable Respublica, they did so in the Marianite home system, having leapfrogged their way there.

The ongoing disaster was now nearly complete. This small flotilla smashed its way past the paltry defensive network present, settling into a low orbit around Codexia. An initial terror bombardment followed, hitting multiple Land force facilities and some civilian infrastructure. After a few hours, the ultimatum was delivered by public broadcast: ‘Surrender, or suffer.’ It was a terse statement of intent. But one that induced panic, generally. The Commonwealth wanted the Marianites to surrender unconditionally; to capitulate without reserve. Unfortunately, the relief forces were too late - the barbarians were inside the gates. And they were threatening to burn down the city, if the defenders did not lay down their arms. The bulk of the Marianite fleet was now just a few days away. Given the chance, they could turn the far smaller Commo fleet to ashes and scattered junk in a matter of hours. But the Marianite leadership faced a grim choice. If they attempted to grind the Commo forces to dust, the retribution would be savage... and sustained. A vast arsenal of nuclear weapons and other strategic devices loomed large over the homeworld. Were the Marianites ready to accept the sacrifice required for victory?

***

Do you... lay down your arms? We bear a responsibility for millions. If we do not capitulate, our people will pay the price. Our world will pay the price of our vanity. Let us take our revenge later, whatever the terms of the surrender.

OR

Do you... crush this scum? If they bombard our homeworld, they had best be ready for the revenge that we will unleash upon them. The Maker will be their judge and ours.

OR

Do you... neither crush them nor capitulate? Let us not force their hand. Every day that passes is another day for us to gather our strength. Their supplies are almost gone. If they begin the bombardment, we can intervene, in any case. If they are bluffing, we will know soon enough.

***

Voting is open for the next 72 hours. Conan wishes to update on Sunday.
 

54. Errant Hope

Errant Hope

When the orders first came down, they were greeted with incredulity. Many of the officers and enlisted men crewing the Respublica's warships had families on Codexia - and they were simply to wait and see if the Commos would burn all they cared about to a cinder? Desperate times required action! As the crisis developed, a few ugly incidents of unrest were reported and put under control. Other personnel expressed the view that, perhaps, surrender was preferable to the death of millions, if not billions. After all, who would indict the Respublica for reneging on a capitulation made under this sort of duress? They, too, were silenced. In the end, the government's instructions were carried out to the letter. Space was let the Commonwealth make the first move, and wait they did. The AFC flotilla, naturally, did not make it easy for them.

Unity City was the first to be hit. Kinetic weapons were used to flatten a number of fixed structures. Among them was the Chamber of Commerce and the Ministry of Defence. Though the casualties reported were few in number, the psychological shock was severe. The Respublican government was stretched thin, as millions of people fled the major cities, making for the open countryside and small settlements that were less likely to be subjected to bombardment. Law and order were tested to the limits as individuals and small groups took advantage of the difficult situation. Robbery, murder and rapine shot up, as the normally stringent Marianite authorities were forced to carefully allocate the resources available to them. When rioters attacked the Central Complex of the Marianite Authority, however, harsh measures were imposed, in order to keep the peace. Within a week, ten thousand 'irrevocably immoral individuals' (the so called Tri-is) were executed and strung up in public spaces.

The General Staff of the Respublica, in the meantime, gnashed its teeth. The Commos seemed determined to escalate the situation very slowly, indeed, imposing a gradual sort of 'punishing pressure' on the recalcitrant Marianites for refusing to give in to their ultimatum. The bombing of Unity City was followed by the systematic annihilation of every major Land and Space force facility on the planet. But there was still no general bombardment. Instead, Codexia was being pulverized in small, easy steps. The death toll climbed to thirty thousand within two weeks. And still the massed Space forces waited, just outside of the Commo occupied zone around the homeworld. Obviously, the earlier muttering over the best way to approach the crisis could only grow, under these circumstances. Soon, it was at a fever pitch. In several cases, outright mutiny was only prevented by the quick thinking and moral fortitude of the flag officers attendant. Would-be-villains were quickly shown the methods by which the Respublica dealt with traitors to the cause.

The penny finally dropped in mid-August. The Commos, nearly completely out of consumables (there was no truce in place while this situation developed; almost the entirety of the Commo invasion force was either destroyed or chased out of Respublican space, in the interim) instituted a deadline for general bombardment. As the week slowly passed, they increased the intensity of their targeted bombardments. Even if the crisis could be resolved without any further bloodshed, Codexia would require decades of redevelopment. It was of scant comfort to the huddled masses that the highest tiers of government were safely sheltered almost nine hundred meters underground, in the biggest and most elaborate hardened complex ever devised by mankind. As the deadline approached perilously close, the iron discipline of the Marianites did not waver. It was to be the Commos that would blink first.

At 1730 hours on 16 August 357AU, Commandant General Giovanni Price of the AFC broadcast a surrender message on all bands from the Ascot Vale, his flagship. It outlined that the Commonwealth government had instructed its invading forces to inflict defeat upon their Marianite brothers to guarantee the future security of the Commo state - but not at the expense of their humanity or the occurrence of what would be an infamous act of genocide. Finally recognising that the Marianites would not surrender under threat of annihilation, the Commonwealth was forced to acknowledge its own defeat. Space forces thereafter cautiously advanced against the spent Commo flotilla. True enough to their word, they kept their guns and electronic suites silent, as they were overtaken by the Respublican vessels. The ships in orbit around Codexia were swiftly captured by Marianite rapid ingress teams, which reported no resistance from their weak and malnourished crews. In several instances, a form of frontier justice was evidenced by the immediate executions of a number of the highest ranking Commonwealth officers present. These ad hoc war crimes tribunals were halted immediately, though punishment for the offending individuals seemed half-hearted, at best. A hundred thousand dead on Codexia could be directly attributed to the lengthy bombardment campaign and its indirect effects. It was all that Marianite authorities could do, simply preventing the large-scale slaughter of the prisoners of war from the flotilla.

The outstanding issue, however, was clear enough.

What now?

Do you... re-absorb the Commonwealth forcefully and wholly? Those animals can hardly complain, after what they just put us through. Now that we have broken their resolve, let us break their spirit, too. Only then can we reforge it anew, in the Marianite form. We must expunge their sickness. Liquidate their leadership, their intellectual elite and anyone else who could resist what our faith demands we make of them. Let us be swift, thorough and merciless. Our people demand justice. Maria demands piety.

OR

Do you... re-absorb the Commonwealth, but rule with a light touch? They have been our enemy for decades, but they were our brothers for millennia. These misguided fools must be made to understand the error of their ways. Let us not show how cruel we can be. Instead, let us show them that which they do not expect at all: mercy. Marianism is strong enough to spread and flower amongst them without imposition. We will defeat the idea of the Commonwealth by proving its basic tenets wrong.
 

55. Pacification

Pacification

They called it the ‘Fourth Great Terror’, thereafter. In hindsight, perhaps it was inevitable. A hundred thousand dead demanded retribution. Though, who is to tell what the greater sin of the Commos was; their murderous rampage, or their ignominious defeat? Whatever the case, the triumphant march of the Respublican fleets across Commonwealth space was part theatre, part funeral procession. The Commonwealth had to be humbled before the real ‘work’ began. And there was certainly grim work to be done. Within three months of the capitulation, the bulk of available Space assets were deployed in what was formerly the Commonwealth’s domain. A few small-scale battles broke out, as stubbornly recalcitrant local commanders acted out against what they perceived to be treachery on the part of the Commo’s senior leadership. These clashes tended to be short, brutal and one-sided. The victorious Respublica was in no mood to apply a delicate touch, at that point. The gloves were well and truly coming off.

It did not take long to break the back of the remaining ‘resistance’. When the dust finally settled, the inquisitors began their holy labour. It all began innocuously enough. First up was the war crimes tribunal. Thirty generals, legislators and members of the executive were tried, sentenced and executed with alarming speed. Nonetheless, the day-to-day business of administration remained in local hands, with Respublican military and religious governors providing strategic directives and overseeing regional government. It was six months into the occupation that the so-called ‘Leonidian Purge’ would rattle the Commos to their very core. In early 358AU, the Integration Governor of Leonid, Maxim Cassano, instituted the Department of Public Security and Internal Affairs (DPSIA) on the former Commo capital world. Ostensibly, it was an effort to speed up the integration of the Commonwealth back into the Respublican fold.

Sadly, its real purpose was revealed soon enough. The churches, shrines and temples that sprang up almost overnight across virtually every Commo world (but especially so on Leonid itself) provoked protest and resentment from ambivalent and hostile locals. This, however, was very quickly proven to be the least of their worries. Maxim Cassano was a prodigious talent, and a man noted for his energy and drive. Tasked with destroying the very idea of the Commonwealth – wiping it away forever from the public consciousness – he poured every iota of his considerable ability into completing the bloody assignment. The Commo elite were to be the first, though not the last, victims of the resulting Terror. Leading intellectuals, successful capitalists and industrialists, community leaders, heretics and the former officer corps were ‘liquidated’ in vast numbers between 358AU and 360AU. The DPSIA was efficient, ruthless and beyond any institutional or legal restraint. Conservative estimates place the numbers of individuals they ‘processed’ at over 185,000. Of those, more than half were deemed ‘irredeemable’. Fear gripped every tier of Commo society as the purges continued to ravage the traditional fabric thereof.

The next step in the process of integrating the heretics was re-education. That step would likely take decades to bear fruit, but the Respublica was patient and supremely confident of a final victory in the war against an old idea. In the meantime, the wider Hin’in War continued to rage without pause. Raumeni space, so long occupied by the psychic aliens, was by now an almost wholly devastated battleground. Four worlds had already been ‘burned’ by the Hin’in as punishment for Raumeni stubbornness and ongoing resistance. Millions upon millions of the insectoids were dead. The effect of those losses would reverberate for generations to come. In response, the Raumeni expanded the scope of their operations. Uncertain reports made mention of ‘suicide swarms’. Dozens of small, easy to manufacture vessels would enter a Hin’in system and thereupon make for the nearest inhabited settlement. Reaching relativistic speeds, they would then crash into the most populated areas, doing incredible damage and inflicting vast loss of life. The success of this tactic and its actual usage remains ambiguous, with reliable intelligence reports being few and far between. This was truly a war being fought on a foreign shore.

However, it was apparent that the Hin’in simply could not spare the resources they required to crush the insectoids outright, caught up as they were in fighting the Bron. Major battles were being fought in the depths of Hin’in space, with nary a whimper reaching Respublican ears. Information was at an absolute premium, despite the relative excellence of the human intelligence agencies. Simply put, gauging the state of the conflict, on the whole, was proving extraordinarily difficult. Nonetheless, the Respublicans had to make some very important decisions about their participation in the war.

Do you... wash your hands of this war? We have plenty to worry about at home. Let us recuperate and consolidate. Who cares what happens to the bugs and other assorted aliens? We could be THE pre-eminent power in this stellar region, if these endless, costly wars could finally be set aside.

OR

Do you... stay out of the fighting, but support the anti-Hin’in coalition? Money, supply and materiel can go a long way. We can at least help the Raumen overcome some of their basic resource deficiencies. Even if it doesn’t decisively impact the conflict, it will drag it out, and the xeno scum can bleed each other dry.

OR

Do you... organize your forces and intervene in the short term? We have built up our shielded fleets over the last few years. We have trained our officers and men to a higher standard. The Respublica is ready for this fight. We can break the Hin’in!

OR

Do you... organize your forces and intervene in the medium term? We need to be fully prepared for this fight. Instead of jumping into the thick of things, let us intervene after the Hin’in do a little more bleeding. Every month they fight is another month’s worth of destroyed ships we don’t have to face. We must be smarter than we were in the past.

Please Note:

The Barbarian did not want this update to stretch on into forever, so he did not include this relevant tidbit to the extent that he wanted to: yes, the Codexian economy is tottering, and, yes, propping up the war machine has taxed it heavily, and, yes, the home world is still scarred from the war. No, not every ship in the fleet is shielded yet, but the percentage is much higher than at any time previously.
 

56. The Wheel Keeps on Turning

The Wheel Keeps on Turning

The Fourth Great Terror and the Leonidian Purges would wrack the newly reincorporated Commonwealth space for almost half a decade, in the aftermath of the Respublican-Commo War. During that time, the much maligned Maxim Cassano’s DPSIA and its various political-religious instruments reshaped Commo society. The period of 360-363AU saw monumental changes take place in the governed territories, with draconian measures put into place against all forms of heresy, apostasy and dissent. Thousands more fell victim to Cassano’s holy ‘ghazi’ (a derogatory name for his security personnel, coined by bitterly resentful Commos), who left no stone unturned in stamping out evil (as they saw it). Insult was added to injury, as children orphaned in the security sweeps were ‘adopted’ by the state, to be raised as model Respublicans. Even back on Codexia, many were left with a sour taste in their mouths, as word reached home of Cassano’s ‘efficiency’.

The historian, of course, must always beware of hasty characterisations. Governor Maxim Cassano was a harsh man and a brutal overseer, but, according to all available information, he was also an uncompromisingly professional, astute and personally pleasant individual. Calling him a ‘monster’ is, perhaps, a distortion of the reality; an unlimited mandate with a lofty goal is fertile ground for excess. Cassano was just a man. His was an evil lurking in all men of ambition. In any case, the repression of the Terror years was wound down very carefully, as the Commos became acclimatized to their new lives as citizens of a theocratic republic. By 363AU, resistance had slackened to almost nothing. The throngs of Leonid and the shanty towns of New Bristol alike were by then resigned to their fate, and apathetic as to the future. Cassano was well rewarded for his efforts in that achievement.

In the meantime, the Venerable Respublica, as a whole, began to recover from the strains of a long and costly conflict. The damage to the home world was slowly being repaired. Monuments were put up to honour a heroic and a righteous people. The economy was given a major boost by the eventual inclusion of the old Commonwealth into the Respublican free trade zone – though productivity remained subpar. All in all, defence spending stayed high, but fell as an overall percentage of the gross domestic product. Shielding was finally installed on all major warships in the ‘Space’ fleet, and combat readiness was strongly emphasized in the published White Paper, and was thereafter maintained as a matter of course. New vessels of war were coming out of the slip yards at record pace, as the state girded itself to take part in regional politics.

The wider Hin’in War dragged on. At times intermittent – even uneventful – and at others brutal and frenetic, it was a strange sort of conflict. Months would pass without a notable clash, and then a seemingly random, swirling melee would result in the destruction of dozens of vessels. Planetary bastions were fought over methodically, with manoeuvre substituting brute force, where brute force was lacking. In Raumeni space, the Hin’in hoarded their resources, only grudgingly engaging significant forces of the insectoid resistance. They were evidently becoming misers, when it came to spending their limited available resources. The state of the fighting in the Hin’in domain, itself, was still relatively unknown. The Bron had made appreciable gains – that much seemed obvious – but had been stalemated for some time. The entire affair was becoming almost routine, and war the status quo. The longer they considered it, the more many Respublican officials wondered aloud whether or not, in fact, there was anything to gain by taking any further part in the endlessly conflict.

Searching eyes instead locked on to other possibilities for the advancement of Marianism and the human race as a whole. In particular, the Phyr Dead Zone offered a unique opportunity for renewing the colonial dynamic that had been stilted for so many decades now in the human sphere. Not only were there many known, habitable worlds strewn across the Zone, but they were also unclaimed for the most part. After all, the Phyr were a scattered, broken people, the remnants of which could hardly be expected to put up much of a fight in the face of a determined Respublican colonial drive. Another option presented itself in the form of the huge, largely unexplored expanse of space that lay to the ‘galactic north’. Though rumoured to be home to the crystalline Amoneth, Codexian pioneers had found little trace of those mythical beings over the centuries. Even if they still resided there, they were either unwilling or unable to present themselves to make contact with the encroaching humans. Finally, a Neo-Confucian school of thought strongly advocated an insular approach to state building, pushing for a virtually sterile colonial environment. They were concerned by needless expansionism, and wanted instead to focus on the internal health of the Respublica.

A long-term choice is, thus, required.

Do you... prepare the state to take advantage of the fallout from the Hin’in War? Sooner or later, the time to strike will be right. Our enemies are weakening by the day. Let us orient our economic, social and political policies toward successfully defeating these xenos, and claiming what we will from them.

OR

Do you... concentrate instead on exploiting the territories of the scattered Phyr? Their resistance would be weak – perhaps even non-existent – and their dead worlds are ripe for the taking. We could glean almost endless resources at next to no cost. The Turanei seem to have no interest there, whatsoever.

OR

Do you... choose to expand into the empty expanse to the galactic north? The Amoneth are myth and legend. If they were going to show themselves, they would have done so already. Who knows what lies beyond? Let us take advantage of this lull by exploring this stellar wilderness.

OR

Do you... look inward? The Neo-Confucians are right. Why look elsewhere for salvation, when our people continue to face uncertainty and difficulty in everyday life? Let us pursue peaceful, internal development. Let us expand our economy, broaden our horizons and carve out our own destinies. We will not be weakened by peace. Quite the contrary; it will cement the Venerable Respublica across the stars. Our fleets will be strong and our people happy.

Please Note: Long-term, in this case, signifies that the choice will affect at least a decade of game-time. Consider it from that perspective.
 

57. A New Age (Part A)

A New Age

The 360s were a transitional time for the newly reforged Respublica. Early on in the decade, the Fourth Great Terror was still raging, and fear gripped the old Commonwealth territories. Eventually, however, the need for a Maxim Cassano and his brutal – if effective – methods eased. Ever so slowly, the independence-minded citizenry of the broken heathen state was ‘integrated’ into wider Respublican society. Intransigence was met with cold steel; acceptance with open arms. Commo converts multiplied quickly, as individuals began recognizing that one of the few ways to escape the frugality of the moral economy was to achieve status in the socio-economic hierarchy of the theocratic regime. Principled stands, which were in vogue during the initial stages of the occupation, were becoming few and far between, as the common folk elected to ‘get with the programme’. The last of the organized resistance was famously snuffed out at the Abaoji Park Shoot-Out on 26 December 365AU, during which the core of the withered resistance movement was destroyed by security forces.

As the decade wore on, the emphasis of public policy began to undergo a subtle shift. The state’s decision makers, acknowledging the fact that the seemingly endless Hin’in War need not necessarily involve the Respublica any further, began looking at more peaceful ways to expand the faith and strengthen Codexia as a whole. Though Space remained a firm priority in budgetary committees and reviews, colonisation was also finally given a boost as a major discretionary spending item. Many believed that the Phyr expanse was the proverbial ‘promised land’. After all, initial surveys showed that there was the potential there for hundreds of human colonies – virtually centuries of guaranteed growth – and that the present Phyr population was small, scattered and weak. It seemed to be a perfect recipe for uninhibited, dynamic colonialism, of the sort that had initially propelled humanity to greatness. The period of 365-370AU saw the groundwork being prepared for a general annexation of large swathes of the Dead Zone into the Respublica’s recognised boundaries.

That period also saw the culmination and eventual conclusion of the Hin’in War. The Raumeni has simply refused to fold. Though ten of their core worlds were by then little more than husks, they steadfastly and adamantly would not submit to the psychic xenos known as the Hin’in. A painful distraction that necessitated a large Hin’in garrison deployment until the very last days of the war, it is perhaps they that were the most instrumental factor in the humbling of the Arrogant Ones. In the end, the Hin’in simply could not defeat the Bron with their forces divided. Some analysts, of course, quickly pointed out that the real turning point of the war was in March 364AU, when Prime Alpha Mai’cor Uighar Bai’de perished in the Scorpion Star Cluster campaign. One of the most powerful Alphas of his time, the loss of Mai’cor almost shattered the Hin’in war effort against the Bron in one fell swoop. It badly demoralized his extensive forces and prompted a number of successive defeats at the hands of the Bron. Though the war would drag on for another two and a half years, the general armistice of September 366AU had been in sight for some time.

Though some would come to call it the ‘Humbling of the Hin’in’, the peace treaty that resulted would ultimately prove dissatisfying to all parties concerned. The terms of the treaty saw the Hin’in dominion over the Raumeni ended, and a dozen star systems ceded to the hated Bron. The packs howled with frustration and rage, but a peace needed to be made, and after many years of brutal fighting there was not much else on the table. The Bron, for their part, were convinced that a final, decisive victory had only been a year away, at the most. One cannot be sure of that, but it is somewhat indicative that their leadership saw the merit in concluding the war diplomatically, when they did. It is not unreasonable to suggest that the Bron, too, were exhausted by that point – if not quite to the same extent as the Hin’in. Nonetheless, there was no small amount of frustration over the fact that enormous quantities of blood had been spilled in exchange for a paltry dozen star systems. Finally, the Raumen were understandably overjoyed to have been freed from Hin’in depredations. Yet, the nature of the peace deal meant that it was now up to individual Raumeni clans to carve out their new clanholds from the smouldering ruins of their ancient civilization.

The unity that was characteristic of their magnificent war effort dissipated almost immediately after the war itself ended. In its stead, the age-old Raumeni traditions of clan politick once again took pride of place, and political infighting resumed with full force. All in all, the war had been a ‘humanitarian’ disaster of cataclysmic proportions, with little discernable result. Millions upon millions had been killed, or died as a result of the war, but there was little appreciable difference in the interstellar balance of power, thereafter. The Raumeni were once again a weak, terribly diminished regional power prone to political fracture. The Hin’in were themselves injured by the incredibly costly fighting, but probably remained the strongest active natural power across known space. The Bron were yet an unknown quantity, but all available reports continued to suggest that the Hin’in were their closest rivals, but that they continued to be slightly inferior in technology, if not numbers.

In any case, once the proverbial ink had dried, the starscape ‘settled’ for a time. Fleets of warships were now moored at space docks awaiting refit, or mothballed, or awaiting the scrap heap – but there were no more imminent battles to be fought, no more planets to be conquered, no more bitter struggles to a soundless end. Instead, a semblance of tranquillity began to take effect. At least, it was tranquillity when compared to what had come before. The 360s ended with a whimper and not a bang. The 370s promised a different sort of adventure, however, as the Respublican government fermented a wanderlust amongst millions of the poor, the brave and the enterprising. The grand project was almost ready: a veritable exploration and exploitation flotilla would flood the Phyr expanse and gobble up as much real estate as it could, before settling down to begin the gradual process of expanding the Respublican domain.

The green light was given in the early months of 374AU, and more than a thousand private and commercial vessels were unleashed on the Dead Zone, in short order. Many had pre-determined destinations: colonists, terraformers, miners and a plethora of experts in various fields were ‘allotted’ particular, already surveyed worlds. Others were simply given license to roam as they would, exploring and surveying a huge expanse that was still considered ‘wild’ and ‘untamed’. Accompanying this torrent of humanity was a large number of Space escorts – there to make certain that the civilians were not actively opposed by the remnants of the Phyr, at a significant monetary cost to the Respublican government. It was to be almost a year, before the first significant incident took place.

TO BE CONTINUED...

The Barbarian regrets that he was forced to cut this one in twain, but it was either this, or it would be tomorrow before you got anything.
 

58. A New Age (Part B)

A New Age – Part Deux

The Respublican pioneers expanding the domain of Santi Maria in the Phyr Dead Zone did not truly know what to expect from the endeavor. The comms buoys were rife with rumors. The fabled Amoneth were never far from the proverbial mill. Neither were the dreaded Turanei, whose destruction of the Phyr from a century ago still elicited fear and wonderment in those who saw the ruins of that civilization first-hand. But, as the months wore on, no ships disappeared mysteriously. There were no unexplained sightings and no energy sources that required intense investigation by foolhardy Space officers and their well armed escorts. Rather, the exploitation of the Dead Zone was going smoothly, comfortably and even – strangely enough for a government project – remained on schedule! Everything was going very well. That is to say, it was all going very well, right up until the point when Respublican settlers stumbled upon a war in early 375AU.

The identity of the combatants was revealed quickly enough, and it proved itself to be quite a revelation, indeed. On the one side, there was a Phyr state, based around a small cluster of worlds (including a surviving splinter colony from the time before the large-scale annihilation of the Phyr nation at the hands of the Turanei) deep in the Zone. Though Codexian historians and policy planners knew that the significant Phyr refugee population in human space had left the Respublica for destinations unknown more than half a century ago, in order to escape perceived persecution at the hands of the rising Marianite movement, the scale of this resurgent state still took them by complete surprise. There were now quite obviously millions of Phyr living. Their population had exploded, since the immediate aftermath of their near-extinction. Further, it was apparent that they had been developing their small patch of space furiously, since the exodus from the old Republic.

The foe they were grappling with, however, was even more unsettling. They were humans! Well, they were humans in some capacity, at least. Their story - unraveled over several months of low-level, tentative contact with Respublican settlers and explorers - was bizarre. Back in the late 2nd century AU, when bio-mods and gen-mods were outlawed by various government regulations, tens of thousands of highly and irreversibly modified trans-humans were left in the lurch. Though some elected to stay and take their chances with increasingly discriminatory public and private behavior with regard to the visibly modified, tens of thousands fled government space. Since this was during the heyday of the colonial movement, a number of worlds were open to small communities of such individuals, who collectively bought land and settled it, thereafter. At some point, however, a plurality decided to go one step further, and left human space entirely. Since the Phyr Dead Zone promised vacant (if damaged), habitable worlds, that’s where they ended up, sometime between 225-250AU.

The deepest reaches of the Zone were settled, escaping the Codexian survey effort of the 260s by the closest of margins. Over the next century, the nascent Free Association of Independent Trans-Humanity (FAITH) developed rapidly. An industrial base was laboriously established, and a number of worlds settled by this ambitious collection of transhuman communities. While the rest of the human race was wracked by terrible civil conflict, they flourished. Cloning programs increased the population substantially, across the proceeding generations, and FAITH’s economy virtually exploded. When Adam-2 (True AI) schematics were smuggled in during the late 270s, the FAITH project experienced another quantum leap in development. The Free Association would continue to grow quickly, and by the Age of the Respublica, had come to represent a wholly different and fully realized notion of humanity. It was a society of the mind and of ideas, in which form had little import. As such, when the reborn ‘New’ Phyr Dominion came upon a FAITH settlement in the 360s – and after formal contact was established – the ursine aliens quickly realized their predicament.

This was a competitor in the Dead Zone, and not a minor neighbor to be overlooked and, perhaps, absorbed. Though relations stayed cool but correct for some time, their breakdown was almost inevitable. In late 368AU, as the general conflict known to many as the Hin’in War died down across the rest of the stellar region, a limited, but brutal conflict began between the New Phyr Dominion and the FAITH over the ownership of a formerly Phyr-inhabited world. Neither had serious warfighting resources or extensive armed forces, but they used small vessels, raiding forces and sheer bloody mindedness to inflict great damage upon one another. By the time the Respublican flotilla began making its way across the Zone, the fighting had reached its seventh year. It was an inconclusive, exhausting contest between foes that could not decisively damage one another. The immediate question is obvious: what action should the Respublican government take, with regard to these peoples?

Do you... ignore the conflict? Let us continue to colonize the Dead Zone. We have the forces on hand to protect our interests against any potential aggression by either the Phyr or the transhumans. They are minor annoyances, at best. We do not need to expend resources on such non-entities. Instead, let us continue to focus on our own concerns.

OR

Do you... assist our human brethren? The Phyr make war against our brothers. We must show them the error of their ways. They are weak; we are strong. This is a mismatch. The xeno must not be given the impression that he can attack humans without consequence or repercussion.

OR

Do you... assist the Phyr? We have lived alongside the ursine xeno. They are misguided, but not beyond comprehension. These transhumans, however... they are scum. Look what they do to their God-given bodies! Let us smash this FAITH. The heathen is salvageable; the heretic is not!

OR

Do you... suppress both? The Dead Zone is ours. Why would we share it? Did we not spend bucketloads of blood and treasure on achieving supremacy in our space? Let us teach these fools an object lesson.
 

59. The Triumphant March

The Triumphant March

There was not a great deal that the FAITH or the New Phyr Dominion could do, once the Respublican government had decided to crush their fledgling domains. Though the bulk of the colonial armada and its lengthy logistical ‘baggage train’ was not made up of vessels of war, there remained a significant number of Space Force assets on hand to deal with emergencies. Besides, reinforcements were not that far away, relatively speaking. The resulting campaign was an intrinsically one-sided affair. Between June 375AU and August 376AU, Space elements amounting to perhaps a hundred odd platforms fanned out across the affected areas of the expanse and liquidated the insignificant forces available to the belligerent states. After the last-gasp Battle of Buchanan-Szemsil, where the remaining vestiges of FAITH’s military battered themselves to death against a vastly superior (and well shielded) foe, the ‘short, victorious war’ was effectively over. Their worlds were subjugated quickly, easily, and with only moderate collateral damage to the civilian population.

The aftermath of the conflict was somewhat predictable, and immediately foreshadowed by the arrival in-theatre of an aging Maxim Cassano – the fabled Terror of the Commonwealth – and his protégé, Lucius Roi Wandervelt. This terrible duo then set out to ‘work’ on the newest subjects of the resplendent Respublica. What they quickly discovered, however, was that pacifying the Commonwealth was one proposition, whereas pacifying the Phyr and the FAITH was to prove quite another. Base ideological differences aside, there was nothing truly setting the Respublicans apart from the Commos. They were both peoples of standard human stock, with only the most basic and unobtrusive modifications offered to their civilian populations. The FAITH (the people of that state were soon labelled as ‘the Tainted’) and the Phyr, on the other hand, were either so extensively modified as to barely be considered human – or were entirely alien, to begin with. Theirs was a mindset and an existence utterly foreign to the Respublican occupier and his inquisitorial overseers.

Breaking down such disparate socio-cultural nexuses required finesse and time, and the Respublicans were not particularly enthused about parting with either. Marianism, as a whole, in fact, was poorly suited to coping with xenoforms and xeno-cultures, despite its declared universal principles. Deciding how to deal with these creatures was to prove a significant decision for the Marianite leadership, over the coming years. Certainly, there was already a great deal of public backlash over their annexation to the Respublica. Though individual xenos were not unknown in Respublican territories, seeing a six armed so-called ‘human being’ proved to be too much for many of the pious. They grumbled and gnashed their teeth in frustration, reeling from the perceived assault on their core values. More importantly, however, many senior Marianite religious figures also took umbrage. It is not that they wanted to cleanse the universe of xenolife. Rather, their vision of the Respublica did not have a place in it for the malformed and the impure. After all, the Marianite essence was a human essence, was it not?

In any case, though the social implications of integrating the FAITH and the New Phyr Dominion posed serious challenges to the Venerable Respublica, most were confident that destroying these burgeoning states was the right decision, in the end. Who knows what they might have evolved into, given another century of explosive, uninhibited growth? With these rogue entities out of the way (figuratively speaking), the exploration and exploitation of the Dead Zone could continue, unabated. And so it did, after the initial furore over the discovery of the xenoforms. Dozens of new colonies were soon founded by enterprising Respublicans who carried the blazing torch of their faith far and wide. Between 376AU and 385AU, tens of thousands of hardy settlers moved across the old boundary between the human sphere and the Phyr, populating brave new worlds being added to the growing Respublican sphere of influence.

The harsh economic climate of decades previous slowly eased, and then markedly improved. The various real estate and mineral wonders of the Dead Zone fuelled somewhat of a boom, back home. Codexia’s moral economy, so long a stalwart of the regime during times of hardship, found it difficult to cope with the rising tide of plenty. In a system wherein no real middle class was ever envisioned, the rise of one during the 380s was to prove a cause for concern. Frugality was a celebrated value of the Marianite religion. That value was by 390AU being steadily eroded by numerous forces, not least of which was the flow-on effect from the integration of the market-oriented Commos. Though politically beaten down, they were by no means naive. By the time of the conquest of the FAITH and the New Phyr Dominion, Commo financiers were behind many of the independent initiatives across the Dead Zone, Commo merchants were transporting and disposing of goods and materials derived from the expanse, and Commo bankers were securing the transactions that stemmed from the above.

That is not to say that they were the dominant group in Respublican banking and finance – but they certainly took advantage of the skills imparted to them by the now-defunct, but previously open market system of the old Commonwealth. The relative abundance of capital, increasing overall economic prosperity and the effect of ‘outside’ influences slowly, subtly distorted the long-running Marianite status quo. Questions began to be asked, both at home and across the colonial territories. Broad, all-encompassing questions about the nature of Santi Maria and Marianism, generally. ‘Middle class’ also came to mean ‘people with enough money and education to indulge their delusions of socio-economic grandeur’. Though, in reality, the rise of the Respublica did not mean the extinction of the middle class as a whole, the 380s were the first point post-Civil War at which one could objectively identify a middle class, as opposed to a group of individuals. This was to prove a portentous development for the state; one that invited scrutiny from the Marianite leadership, as well as its inquisition.

And it was during this time that a number of choices made were to begin shaping the destiny of the Respublica for decades and centuries to come.

Option One

Do you... crush the middle class? They are infidels in all but name! Our moral economy has saved us time and again. Now, our respite from war threatens the very basis of our Grand Idea. How else can we preserve our hard-fought victories, if not by eliminating those who would render them meaningless? This scum is beyond contempt. Let them flower at your own risk.

OR

Do you... not rock the proverbial economic boat? We are doing well, are we not? Our economy grows, our people prosper. Marianism is strong – very strong, even. Let us rely on that strength, and not our force of arms, to decide the ideological battle. These merchants and officials may ask all the questions they want. Our religion will not be destroyed by platitudes. Better that we weather the battle of ideas, than suffer more instability and economic uncertainty.

OR

Do you... actively encourage the middle class? Why not reform the moral economy? It served us well during times of need, but we need a system better suited to success, now. The only constraints on our vitality are those in place because we put them there. Let us cast off dead wood. There might be some pain in the short term, but our long-term prospects will shine all the brighter because of it.

Option Two

Do you... take brutal measures against the Tainted and the Phyr? No more mutation, no more augmentation, no more xenforms. We have had enough. Let us sterilize those Tainted who cannot be salvaged, and strictly impose our laws on those who can. We must weed these monstrosities out, as soon as possible, lest the corruption spread. As for the Phyr... shackle them. We need no competitors, here. A few, select preserves, where their breeding is closely monitored is all the Phyr need – and all that we should offer.

OR

Do you... employ a hands-off approach? As long as they follow our laws where they count, and as long as they pay their taxes, we do not particularly care what these things do or how they do it. They have been neutralized, and let that be the end of it. There is no advantage to using brute force where a less costly and a less direct approach will work just as well.
 

60. Altered States

The Triumphant March

There was not a great deal that the FAITH or the New Phyr Dominion could do, once the Respublican government had decided to crush their fledgling domains. Though the bulk of the colonial armada and its lengthy logistical ‘baggage train’ was not made up of vessels of war, there remained a significant number of Space Force assets on hand to deal with emergencies. Besides, reinforcements were not that far away, relatively speaking. The resulting campaign was an intrinsically one-sided affair. Between June 375AU and August 376AU, Space elements amounting to perhaps a hundred odd platforms fanned out across the affected areas of the expanse and liquidated the insignificant forces available to the belligerent states. After the last-gasp Battle of Buchanan-Szemsil, where the remaining vestiges of FAITH’s military battered themselves to death against a vastly superior (and well shielded) foe, the ‘short, victorious war’ was effectively over. Their worlds were subjugated quickly, easily, and with only moderate collateral damage to the civilian population.

The aftermath of the conflict was somewhat predictable, and immediately foreshadowed by the arrival in-theatre of an aging Maxim Cassano – the fabled Terror of the Commonwealth – and his protégé, Lucius Roi Wandervelt. This terrible duo then set out to ‘work’ on the newest subjects of the resplendent Respublica. What they quickly discovered, however, was that pacifying the Commonwealth was one proposition, whereas pacifying the Phyr and the FAITH was to prove quite another. Base ideological differences aside, there was nothing truly setting the Respublicans apart from the Commos. They were both peoples of standard human stock, with only the most basic and unobtrusive modifications offered to their civilian populations. The FAITH (the people of that state were soon labelled as ‘the Tainted’) and the Phyr, on the other hand, were either so extensively modified as to barely be considered human – or were entirely alien, to begin with. Theirs was a mindset and an existence utterly foreign to the Respublican occupier and his inquisitorial overseers.

Breaking down such disparate socio-cultural nexuses required finesse and time, and the Respublicans were not particularly enthused about parting with either. Marianism, as a whole, in fact, was poorly suited to coping with xenoforms and xeno-cultures, despite its declared universal principles. Deciding how to deal with these creatures was to prove a significant decision for the Marianite leadership, over the coming years. Certainly, there was already a great deal of public backlash over their annexation to the Respublica. Though individual xenos were not unknown in Respublican territories, seeing a six armed so-called ‘human being’ proved to be too much for many of the pious. They grumbled and gnashed their teeth in frustration, reeling from the perceived assault on their core values. More importantly, however, many senior Marianite religious figures also took umbrage. It is not that they wanted to cleanse the universe of xenolife. Rather, their vision of the Respublica did not have a place in it for the malformed and the impure. After all, the Marianite essence was a human essence, was it not?

In any case, though the social implications of integrating the FAITH and the New Phyr Dominion posed serious challenges to the Venerable Respublica, most were confident that destroying these burgeoning states was the right decision, in the end. Who knows what they might have evolved into, given another century of explosive, uninhibited growth? With these rogue entities out of the way (figuratively speaking), the exploration and exploitation of the Dead Zone could continue, unabated. And so it did, after the initial furore over the discovery of the xenoforms. Dozens of new colonies were soon founded by enterprising Respublicans who carried the blazing torch of their faith far and wide. Between 376AU and 385AU, tens of thousands of hardy settlers moved across the old boundary between the human sphere and the Phyr, populating brave new worlds being added to the growing Respublican sphere of influence.

The harsh economic climate of decades previous slowly eased, and then markedly improved. The various real estate and mineral wonders of the Dead Zone fuelled somewhat of a boom, back home. Codexia’s moral economy, so long a stalwart of the regime during times of hardship, found it difficult to cope with the rising tide of plenty. In a system wherein no real middle class was ever envisioned, the rise of one during the 380s was to prove a cause for concern. Frugality was a celebrated value of the Marianite religion. That value was by 390AU being steadily eroded by numerous forces, not least of which was the flow-on effect from the integration of the market-oriented Commos. Though politically beaten down, they were by no means naive. By the time of the conquest of the FAITH and the New Phyr Dominion, Commo financiers were behind many of the independent initiatives across the Dead Zone, Commo merchants were transporting and disposing of goods and materials derived from the expanse, and Commo bankers were securing the transactions that stemmed from the above.

That is not to say that they were the dominant group in Respublican banking and finance – but they certainly took advantage of the skills imparted to them by the now-defunct, but previously open market system of the old Commonwealth. The relative abundance of capital, increasing overall economic prosperity and the effect of ‘outside’ influences slowly, subtly distorted the long-running Marianite status quo. Questions began to be asked, both at home and across the colonial territories. Broad, all-encompassing questions about the nature of Santi Maria and Marianism, generally. ‘Middle class’ also came to mean ‘people with enough money and education to indulge their delusions of socio-economic grandeur’. Though, in reality, the rise of the Respublica did not mean the extinction of the middle class as a whole, the 380s were the first point post-Civil War at which one could objectively identify a middle class, as opposed to a group of individuals. This was to prove a portentous development for the state; one that invited scrutiny from the Marianite leadership, as well as its inquisition.

And it was during this time that a number of choices made were to begin shaping the destiny of the Respublica for decades and centuries to come.

Option One

Do you... crush the middle class? They are infidels in all but name! Our moral economy has saved us time and again. Now, our respite from war threatens the very basis of our Grand Idea. How else can we preserve our hard-fought victories, if not by eliminating those who would render them meaningless? This scum is beyond contempt. Let them flower at your own risk.

OR

Do you... not rock the proverbial economic boat? We are doing well, are we not? Our economy grows, our people prosper. Marianism is strong – very strong, even. Let us rely on that strength, and not our force of arms, to decide the ideological battle. These merchants and officials may ask all the questions they want. Our religion will not be destroyed by platitudes. Better that we weather the battle of ideas, than suffer more instability and economic uncertainty.

OR

Do you... actively encourage the middle class? Why not reform the moral economy? It served us well during times of need, but we need a system better suited to success, now. The only constraints on our vitality are those in place because we put them there. Let us cast off dead wood. There might be some pain in the short term, but our long-term prospects will shine all the brighter because of it.

Option Two

Do you... take brutal measures against the Tainted and the Phyr? No more mutation, no more augmentation, no more xenforms. We have had enough. Let us sterilize those Tainted who cannot be salvaged, and strictly impose our laws on those who can. We must weed these monstrosities out, as soon as possible, lest the corruption spread. As for the Phyr... shackle them. We need no competitors, here. A few, select preserves, where their breeding is closely monitored is all the Phyr need – and all that we should offer.

OR

Do you... employ a hands-off approach? As long as they follow our laws where they count, and as long as they pay their taxes, we do not particularly care what these things do or how they do it. They have been neutralized, and let that be the end of it. There is no advantage to using brute force where a less costly and a less direct approach will work just as well.
 

61. Et tu, Brutus?

Et tu, Brutus?

***

Please note: This is the second of the reform choices. It will inform the basis of the new government.

***

The Venerable Respublica of 402AU was one of the great powers of its time. Almost thirty years had already been invested in the colonization of the old Phyr territories. Trillions of credits were expended in the grandest endeavour of its age. Not even the old Republic could boast of settling dozens of worlds simultaneously, with hundreds of more outposts, installations and missions sprinkled across a mind-boggling expanse of space. Millions of human beings were funneled through the colonial program. At first, they were rigorously interviewed for political reliability and piousness. Then, slowly, the pressure valves were released, and there was an en masse population transfer. The Dead Zone was a veritable gold mine. Land, precious land, was available to any who could pay for transport. If they could prove that cultivating it was not beyond the logistical ability of their persons, families or associations, lots of virtually unlimited size were available.

The productiveness of these virgin worlds was slow to pick up, as development continued – but when it did, it was a shot in the arm for the Respublica. There were mega-credits of resources and an untold industrial potential out there, awaiting only the congruence of opportunity and willpower. In a people who were increasingly driven by the thirst for wealth and material satisfaction, such willpower was in plentiful supply. Respublican society was changing – and, in truth, had been changing for some time. Services long considered verboten were once again becoming available widely. Even Unity City itself bore witness to the socio-religious revolution, as the first adult entertainment centre in almost a century opened for business there. Thousands of fortunes were made overnight by business savvy, mostly young individuals. By 400AU the bonanza was well and truly in swing. And it enraged the traditionalists.

The natural instinct of the Codexian state, of course, was to smash the interlopers, proclaim an evisceration of heresy and destroy the nascent political/economic movement before it became unstoppable. Fortunately – or perhaps unfortunately, in the eyes of some – the traditionalists were too busy and too devoted to wrangling with the reformers to be able to affect any truly repressive measures. Furthermore, they were losing that political struggle. Elder Pius Taizong was able to outmaneuver the aging Elder Benoit Charles Certo in the legislative backrooms. His clandestine campaign was effective in isolating Certo from most forms of support. The funding Taizong received from the military-industrial complex and various ‘interested parties’ was enormous. It allowed him to bribe the men he could not sway by other persuasive means. Where he could not buy men, he bought ideas. His promises envisaged plenty, opportunity and wealth that would make a difference. Certo could only appeal to history, to traditional values and to Santi Maria.

Needless to say, the former was more attractive, generally. Most clergy-officials soon came to see things from Taizong’s perspective. All in all, it was looking increasingly likely that the next Synod of the Faithful of Santi Maria would bring about great changes in Respublican government. Was it then a surprise that, in his desperation to preserve a floundering way of life, Certo would resort to violence? The Paladins of Santi Maria – a praetorian guard for the senior-most leaders of the Marianite religion – seemed to be the instruments of his response to the reformist challenge. Though he knew that he risked the anathema of civil war, to Certo’s mind it could not be helped. The ends justified a terrible means. On 2nd September 402AU, Elder John Theocrite Miccoli was assassinated after a cabinet meeting on the outskirts of Unity City. Though the culprits were neither caught nor identified, the reformist faction was not naive. Miccoli had been one of the greatest proponents of their cause. There was only one group with a strong motive for killing him. However, it was only when Tombe A’lualua himself was shot and killed at a political rally in Ile de France that the stage was set for a final showdown between the two factions.

But there was still the question of what, exactly, Certo’s plan was. The assassinations of Miccoli and A’lualua – were they the first shots in a purge? Or were they the last gasps of a desperate leader? Was the intent to hurt, or to demoralize and intimidate? Did Certo have the Paladins behind him in their entirety, or was this the work of individuals? If so, what was the appropriate response from the reformist faction?

There was a great deal of mutual respect between Taizong and Certo. Both Elders expressed regret over the course events had taken – one that had driven them to antagonism. In the end, sorrowfully, they both were prepared to do what had to be done, in pursuit of victory. There was simply too much at stake. Not in a personal sense, but, rather, in the sense of the future identity of the Great Human Nation and the Marianite faith, itself. To that end, the two sides set their plans in motion, and anxiously awaited the outcome.

A choice remains.

Do you... initiate a ‘Night of the Long Knives’? Miccoli is dead. A’lualua is dead. We know who is at fault. Our reforms have popular support. There is no choice now but to destroy the traditionalists. If we allow them to run amok, or if we allow them to intimidate us, we will lose. It is simple enough. Break them!

OR

Do you... choose the path of law? Investigate the assassinations, Councilmen, but abstain from a bloody massacre. How can the Synod reform a government without legitimacy; a government born in senseless violence? If Certo is guilty of these crimes, let us prove so in a court of law. Must we always bathe in the blood of our foes? Let us bask in justice, instead. It will leave us cleaner.
 

62. Codexia Reforged

Please Note:

This is the last of the reform choices.

Codexia Reforged

When Benoit Charles Certo fell, it was with a whimper and not with a bang. Arrested in the dead of night by Respublican Gendarmerie officers and charged with conspiracy, second degree murder, heresy and a host of other abuses, the Elder’s power base evaporated almost instantaneously. This was partly due to the fact that he was not the only Traditionalist arrested that August morning. Lord Paladin Alphonse Steward, commander of the Paladins of Santi Maria, was captured at the same time and accused of co-conspiracy, aiding and abetting and fraud on a massive scale. The trials of the two men (and the veritable horde of their colleagues and subordinates also taken in during the massive police operation) became THE public spectacle of 403AU. Many millions were tuned in to watch the trial proceedings, at any given time. When the verdict eventually came back, it was unanimous: guilty. Across the board, the men who had been the bedrock of the Traditionalist movement were sentenced to long prison terms and, in a few cases, execution.

Certo was spared the latter fate after Elder Taizong himself intervened as amicus curiae and convinced the Grand Tribunal that life imprisonment was the more suitable punishment for an individual of such standing. Nonetheless, by October 403AU the Traditionalists were, in every meaningful way, no more. The Reformers had triumphed. When the Synod of the Faithful of Santi Maria finally convened that December, the Reformers pushed through enormous changes in governance, public law and the Respublican state institution as a whole. Though the Respublica retained its religious underpinnings, much power was removed from the church and delegated to a civilian (though not secular) government. It was a painful process, but there was no serious resistance to it. The Traditionalists had squandered their opportunity to fight back in a real sense. Now, they were relegated to a political minority of little import.

The smoothness of the ‘transfer of power’ and socio-political reformation previously alluded to was pivotal for the Venerable Respublica. It meant that there were no disruptions to an economy that continued to boom, and no pause for a strengthening colonial effort across the Dead Zone. Furthermore, the instruments of state remained whole and effective. The military, for example, continued to function as per normal throughout the crisis. There was no infighting. The forces of the Respublica remained disciplined and cohesive. Of course, that is not to say that all would simply continue as before, but in a more moderate fashion. After the dust settled in 404-405AU, the Respublica was still ruled by a Council of Elders, but many of its executive powers were now in the hands of a civilian political body. The Reformers had ‘bought’ support for their agenda by pursuing understandings with various other pre-Reform governmental bodies. It was now time to ‘pay the piper’.

Pavel Zub’s Ministry of the Interior, James Jules Vaingroff’s Ministry of Defence and Timor Denisov’s Ministry of Innovation, Industry and Science were the primary drivers of the Reformer success story. Their demands in its aftermath were relatively straightforward: money, money and more money. With a little extra influence thrown in, for good measure. In a sense, the new government then had to make a choice. Would it cave in to the demands of its political support system? Or would it instead resist the pressures of government lobbies, with all the potential difficulties that entailed? In truth, it was a decision not to be made lightly. The balance of power between and internal to the various branches of government is always delicate. The consequences of a skewed balance can be serious. On the other hand, smooth sailing often requires quite a bit of elbow grease, even if that grease proves quite costly.

Do you... keep your promise to the Ministries, and allocate extra funds to them in the coming budget review?

OR

Do you... invoke necessity and risk alienating them by not handing over the promised resources/money?
 

63. The End of the Beginning

The End of the Beginning



In the grand tradition of full circles, Codexia’s revolutionary socio-political movement was standard fare. Elder Taizong’s government cannot be described as liberal. In fact, very little about Codexian society in 405AU could be so described. But it was slowly leaning toward greater liberalism. Every year, it edged a little closer. The Grand Idea of Marianism was no longer under an existential threat from internal or external forces. Its previously vice-like grip on state and people was gradually relaxed. All in all, it was a strange time to be alive, for the older generations of Codexians. The freedoms ‘won’ by their successors were strange, previously forbidden fruit. All manner of vices were indulged by a nation whose sensibilities were finally unshackled. By 415AU, secular government was actively vying with the theocracy for everyday control. It had become a winnable struggle.

After Elder Taizong’s natural death in 418AU, the torch passed to Elder Hierophantius, who shared many of the iconic leader’s political beliefs. Change within the Venerable Respublica accelerated. By 423AU, military officers no longer had to be vetted by religious institutions. Temporal law was being divorced from its moral counterpart. There was resistance, early on, to be certain. The conservatives railed long and hard against the tidal forces that were annihilating the theocratic bedrock of their precious Respublica. But it was to no avail. Their bolt had been shot at the turn of the century, and their cause failed. Opportunistic as only Men can be, even the stalwarts of the movement made peace with the new order. For a very long time, this tenuous balance continued to function. The central government of Codexia held dominion over a vast tract of territory and the greatest bulk of the human population. Though its authority was now practically secular (still nominally religious), it maintained its status as the focal point of human governance.

By the 430s, however, even that began changing. Too many concessions were made in too many quarters. The efficiency of the administration began to collapse, as legislative instruments were locked up in endless council debates. It was hard to keep track of the manifold different influences on the Council of Elders and their Ministries. Budgets were spent frivolously, maintaining the happiness of various lobby groups. After Hierophantius retired in 431AU, Elder Tostigo was elected and Council-approved to the highest position of power. He would come to be known as ‘the Wastrel Tostigo’, during his six years on the Auburn Chair. Perhaps such a characterization is unfair. After all, Tostigo had less real authority than just about any Marianite leader in living memory. His was a reign marked by administrative factionalism, spiraling corruption and increasing tension. Many of the worst excesses were firmly outside of his control. Interestingly, Tostigo’s time was also remembered by many as the first post-Marianite Cultural Flowering. Literati, poets, musicians, artists and other persons of culture prospered in this iteration of human society. Now almost unbound by moral convention (the last Immorality Laws were abolished in 438AU), they truly began expanding the scope and daring of human thought.

Many thinkers would later make the claim that it was the absorption of the Commonwealth and the FAITH that brought on these incredible changes to the Respublica. Perhaps that much is true. The subversive elements of those counter-cultures could not help but affect Codexian society at large. On the other hand, surely, there was also an internal impetus for reform. Marianism had been built on conflict. Its greatest triumphs were on the warpath, wreathed in the glories of blood and metal and suffering. Without the wages of war, the strict discipline of the Grand Idea somehow seemed less... relevant. By the 450s, the transformation was nearing completion. At Green Estuary, on the world of Ferrofon, a Plenary Congress of Representatives drawn from across the Respublica met and drew up the Reformation Accords, over the space of two months. Noting that administrative inefficiency was threatening the life’s blood of the state as a whole, planetary governments were extended a great deal of independent prerogative and a sound basis for self-rule. Lauded in some quarters and derided in others, the Accords were in keeping with the spirit of this ‘new’ 2nd Respublica.

Though potentially disastrous, this particular reform yielded some positive outcomes fairly quickly. Tax income rose momentously, as planetary governments instituted local taxation agencies. Trade and development also picked up. Left to their own devices, the people knew where the money was. The dismantlement of top-down rule in everyday life proved to be a blessing in disguise for the ailing Respublica. It was also the death knell of the theocratic state. The next Elder in power, Socratius, could do nothing but meekly watch it happen, as the secular arms of government consumed his ability to impose the will of the Church on the populace. By 462AU, the 2nd Respublica was fully realized, as the old Marianite state was put to death in its sleep.

Meanwhile, outside of human space, momentous events were taking place. The Raumeni were finally stitching their broken nation back together – though it had once again become as disunited as ever. The Hin’in, however, had long recovered from the disastrous Great War of last century. In fact, by most estimates, their strength had expanded in the interim. In and of itself, this was not surprising, they were always known as an ambitious, industrious people. In the 440s, they fought another bloody war with the Bron. It was barely recorded in Codexian lore and historiography, but by all accounts was almost as destructive as the first Hin’in War itself. In the end, the Hin’in drove the Bron back, retaking the systems they had previously lost to them. Their eye was cast on the Raumeni, once again, but by the 450s they found themselves embroiled in a war with both the Bron and the Kirali – neighbors and longstanding allies of the silicates. These mysterious amphibians proved to be a deadly foe. Respublican intelligence services posited their deployed forces at over fifteen thousand vessels. Hin’in space became a charnel house. But, to their grudging credit, the Hin did not bend or break.

Humanity – vain, proud humanity – paid no heed to the wars of the xenoforms. It had already won a vast space to grow into peacefully. Carefully avoiding the well-policed boundary with the Turanei, the human colonial effort saw dozens of worlds seeded and many others become major centers of population, power and production. Economic growth was so strong that it had to be managed (lest the economy overheat), throughout this pivotal period. This was another Golden Age for humanity. A convulsive burst of expansionistic energy that saw humanity ascend into the very upper echelons of regional power. Even scientific pursuit, always considered an unwholesome, if necessary enterprise during the heyday of Marianism, awoke to the sound of the 2nd Respublica. Breakthroughs were made across many fields. In the military sector alone new weapons and propulsion systems were developed in the later decades of the 5th century AU. ELINT, ECM and ECCM systems were heavily and innovatively updated. Thousands of new and refurbished keels were laid down, as the fleet grew to previously unseen proportions.

By 485AU, there were few in the human worlds who would claim that there was a creditable threat to human power within reach. The Turanei were still afforded a healthy respect, as a perennial unknown. The Amoneth were ignored – seemingly aloof to the age-old human search for the crystalline aliens – as an archaic legend. The Raumeni were by now considered novel, barely civilized barbarians. Their clans, some dating back ten thousand years, with a rich and unfailingly recorded history, were seen as societies of rustic, noble savages. Many were warmly received as traders and ‘tourists’, but they were no longer afforded the respect one holds for an equal. It was a very good time, indeed, to be a Man.

The question now awaiting the greatest and most resplendent society in human history is simple: what challenge awaits this most glorious of generations?


Does Codexia... face yet another war with the hated xenoforms? The Hin’in are the most dangerous predators hitherto known to Man. Theirs is a query that must be answered with resolve. Events will quickly spiral out of control, much blood will be shed – and everything humanity holds dear will be put to the most harrowing of tests. Can Pax Humanica survive the xeno onslaught? This choice will result in a strategic wargame being played out over the next month or more, as the Saga takes on a new and previously unseen aspect. It will be far more detailed and exhaustive than previous wars experienced through this format.

[​IMG]

OR

Does Codexia... suffer the rise of the Tyrant and his supermen? Uncontrolled eugenics, unsupervised genetic alteration – Holy Maria will never forgive our crimes against nature. Perhaps it is She that sent the Tyrant to judge us. Will we be found wanting? The Tyrant is a monster who would bring humanity low, to realise his horrifying vision of the future. This choice will result in traditional gameplay, though heavily focused on the Tyrannic Age.

[​IMG]

OR

Does Codexia... fall prey to the weakness of giants? Disunited, lacking purpose, the 2nd Respublica, in the end, could not hold itself together. There were too many independent minds; too many conflicted interests. Spilling forth like the innards of a wounded beast, a dozen states secede by the dawn of the 6th century. What happens next? What is to be the fate of a humanity hopelessly shattered across like a pane of glass? This choice will result in a multiplayer 4X game that will last several months. Players will adopt states of their own design and run them during a fraternal struggle that will decide the future of the Codexian Saga.

[​IMG]

Decide!
 

64. The Rise of the Tyrant, the Loss of Heaven's Mandate

The winner was B, by a fair margin, by the way.

***

The Rise of the Tyrant, the Loss of Heaven’s Mandate

Evil? Me? Where you see evil, I see only the will to achieve an end. All the greats were ‘evil’. They just weren’t evil to you. Is that not apparent? How small your universe must be. Good, evil... you bandy these words about like they matter. They are nothing but fodder for simple minds. Ahh, but ‘victory’... now, there’s a word I could always appreciate.

- From ‘Conversations With the Devil’ by Leon Jai-Hoskens

The Tyrant (real name believed to be Alexander, Iskander or Ander, though before he was the Tyrant he was simply known as ‘John Newman’) was ‘born’ around 491AU, on the colony world of Sand, deep in the old Phyr Dead Zone. A poor, infertile place, terraformers saw little value in making it properly hospitable to its rapidly expanding, yet impoverished population. In truth, the only reason why habitation of the small planet continued was because Sand produced significant quantities of heavy metals, and there was a living to be made there for the willing and the reckless. Of course, one would be remiss in not mentioning that it also doubled as a regional hub for sin, vice and many depredations of the worst sort. The latter may better explain Sand’s popularity with a particular ilk.

Most things were legal on this misbegotten chunk of rock, by way of an administrative quirk contained in the planetary charter. For better and for worse, this meant that a huge array of peoples was drawn to it like moths to a flame. Trans-humans , especially, saw Sand as an escape from persecution and prejudice, and their community in Jarvis – one of the few major urban centers – was particularly large and clustered. If anything, however, their multitude exacerbated norm/trans-human tensions. Hate killings were relatively common – general violence and public unrest even more so. While the 2nd Respublica was stable and its authority unquestioned, this was not an issue of vast import. Local authorities, while often impotent, were nonetheless able to keep a lid on the worst of the problems.

However, few living at the close of the 5th century AU could predict how quickly strength can turn to weakness. In truth, the inevitability of the decline of this gigantic state should have been more apparent to onlookers and analysts, quite early on. Some would say that is the perfection of hindsight talking. But even they would at least have to acknowledge that the symptoms of the malaise were evident enough, by any measure, as early as the 470s. Essentially, the fabric of the 2nd Respublica began coming apart at the seams, as conflicting societal factions began pulling at the strings holding it together. Gradual liberalization and increasingly planetary autonomy meant that restrictions on various measures against moral deviance were stripped away in many places, piece by piece. Gen-mods, bio-mods and tech-mods came back into vogue quite suddenly – the number of modified humans exploded within a generation. And with them came conflicts of a nature unseen since the 2nd century AU.

Norms (that is to say, unmodified humans) objected by every available means to what they saw as an Age of Moral Danger, including subjecting perceived deviants to horrifying violence. Even as the 2nd Respublica itself prospered culturally and economically, its bonds of nationhood were slowly and perceptibly weakening. By 515AU, numerous worlds across Old Phyrria (by then the name widely in use for the Phyr Dead Zone) were either openly pro or anti ‘deviance’. On many others, the practice of bodily or genetic modification was grudgingly tolerated. This conflict, like few before it, soon grew to encapsulate every aspect of Respublican society. After all, it was a fight over the Nature of Man, and the most basic elements of what it means to be human. The state found it difficult to intervene directly. Elder Delmunde was a weakling – to put it bluntly. In fact, a succession of inept rulers was perhaps the overriding factor in the mortal peril then facing the Second Respublica. When it came right down to it, they were unwilling to make the hard choices, and Codexia as a whole would suffer because of that.

The Rise of the Tyrant would, therefore, take place amidst a sea of uncertainty. The scope and incidence of internecine violence was steadily expanding across the human sphere. On Sand, the ideological scuffle between the norms and the transhumans took on a vicious character just as this extraordinary being was reaching maturity. Sand’s planetary authority had been questionably authoritative at the best of times. When open fighting erupted between transhuman and norm political groups in 518AU, the struggling world found itself playing host to an incredibly bloody mutual slaughter. Thousands died, as both sides turned to extreme measures to push their respective worldviews. No detailed account of the Sand War is necessary, at this time. Suffice it to say that - in the end - it was not an even struggle. Though the norms were superior in number, better resourced and generally wealthier, the transhuman Freedom Army extremist group/militant faction had a unity of purpose, unique human material at hand and... the Tyrant.

The latter’s ascent had been meteoric. A lieutenant during the early street battles with norm rioters, the Tyrant of Sand was an off-the-charts genius. His ability to store, recall and process information became legendary. As did his instinctive anticipation of human folly, and his willingness to exploit it. This was a man who could orchestrate the destruction of a battalion of Intervention Police with but a demi-company of poorly armed and poorly trained transhumans – and managed to do exactly that in May 519AU, in one of the more famous episodes of the war. His mental capacities defied belief. Of course, he had been genetically engineered and vat grown. We don’t know by whom, or under what pretext. What we do know is that he became the pivot on which the Freedom Army turned. And especially so after the assassination of its wizened leader, Carabolo, in 520AU. Before the Tyrant, the Freedom Army was the militant wing of a nascent political movement. Under the Tyrant, it became something much, much more grandiose, and something far more dangerous.

Events on Sand unfolded in a stilting, unsettled fashion. The street battles of 518-519AU were replaced by a more-or-less open civil war in 521AU. The Respublican government hastily intervened in the spiraling fracas, but managed only to staunch the flow of blood. The wounds themselves remained. Its ability to control the situation was, by this time, fairly limited. Sand was not the only world on which the ‘battle for the human soul’ was being waged. Civil strife wracked dozens of planets. It had even permeated the core worlds themselves. Ground Force was committed to such an extent across so many operational theaters that only an emergency strategic reserve remained on hand, as a contingency. Analysts generally point to this period as the time when the 2nd Respublica lost the Mandate of Heaven.

Meanwhile, the Tyrant loved every minute of it. He was an ambitious man, after all. Communicating with trans-human leaders on other worlds (especially in Old Phyrria), he began coordinating efforts and exporting his brand of ‘revolution’. It did not take long to settle things on Sand. After he replaced Carabolo in 520AU, the Tyrant solidified his grasp on power. But he did not do so in the tradition of so many revolutionary leaders before him, by purging the ranks of the faithful. Rather – and this was one of the most terrifying aspects of the Tyrant’s true ability – he inspired fanatical devotion, even in the advisers and lieutenants who might have sought to usurp his new found power. The footsoldiers of the Revolution, for their part, saw him as a living God. He knew when to reward success, and how to admonish failure. This was not simply a genius in a general sense, but rather a genial analyst of the human condition. He knew what made people tic.

By 523AU, he won the Sand War and forced the planetary representative for the Respublica to acknowledge his political supremacy. It was an incredible loss of face for the government, but, in many ways, became necessary. The crisis elsewhere was by then reaching a boiling point. This would prove a seminal time for the Respublica.

Ground Force is committed, our grasp on many worlds is becoming tenuous at best and our political legitimacy may be at stake. Decisions must be made.

Option One

Do you... rescind the Reformation Accords? We must have a free hand to deal with this crisis. The autonomous planetary governments are preventing us from acting directly, and re-establishing Respublican authority. Rescind it, consequences be damned. We can then put a stop to this nonsense by bringing the freaks under control, which will give us both the support of the church and the majority of the norm population. Do it NOW.

OR

Do you... call for a Plenary Congress of Representatives, seeking agreement on jointly regulating bio/gen/tech modification once again? Even the errant planets will have to fall in line or risk censure (or worse) if they lose the vote. This way, at least, we will govern by consensus. This situation needs rescuing.

OR

Do you... institute martial law on affected worlds and bring in the cavalry? We can see the first signs of separatism and irredentism taking root on many of our worlds. Let us rip those roots out. Ground Force will require heavy investment, and some time to expand. We will need to raise planetary militias to support our actions in the field. Firm action is required, here, gentlemen.

Option Two

Dealing with Sand, its stellar region, and the Freedom Army is of vital importance to our sovereign authority. The right man must co-ordinate that effort for the Respublica. Who shall it be?

Do you appoint... Governor General Marc Luis Ferrero? A gentleman of the old code, Ferrero is cultivated, intelligent, charismatic and decisive. He personifies the finest aspirations of modern Codexian governance. Not afraid to apply force when it is absolutely required, he will look at every alternative means of conflict resolution in the interim. A man of the Core Worlds, he has relatively few connections in Old Phyrria, but we have no doubt that he has the ability to forge his own path quite quickly, given the opportunity. His only obvious weakness is his ego.

OR

Do you appoint... General Wayne Hamilton? Brash, bold, ballsy... Hamilton is a military man, through and through. He has no background in governance or diplomacy, but he is intimately familiar with negotiation at gunpoint. And he was born in Old Phyrria – a local, if you will. His bullish approach to governance would be invaluable in breaking down resistance to Respublican authority. Hamilton has a strong work ethic and almost boundless energy. He will fight tirelessly for our cause, until the end. He is also loyal, almost to a fault. On the flip side, he can be quite... blunt. And his propensity to enforce authority at the end of a gun has previously escalated situations that did not need escalating.

OR

Do you appoint... Governor General Oleg Brandt-Holstein? Brandt-Holstein is a political animal. He will do what needs to be done. Regardless of what that entails. Equally comfortable with finesse, with guile and with force, he is a flexible answer to a difficult question. On the other hand, his ability goes hand in hand with an acute ruthlessness and ambition. He has some connections in Old Phyrria, though they are mostly with those firmly entrenched in the ‘norm’ camp. All in all, Brandt-Holstein is a blade; pen-knife, dagger and longsword, all in one. But he can cut both ways.

***

Longest update to date, by a stretch. It was required, though, to 'set the scene'.
 

65. Snake Eyes

Snake Eyes

’This government’s incompetence continues to astound and bemuse. Ground Force is committed on a host of worlds where Man kills his fellow Man over petty externalities. Why? Freeborn or vat-grown, are we not all human? An extra arm does not cheapen a man’s soul, surely. At the very least, are we not all citizens of the Second Respublica, in any case? Every year, trans-humans help fill this authority’s coffers with their taxes and contributions to the economy. Ladies and gentlemen, you are failing a great number of your taxpayers. You are failing your people. You are pushing them to take a stand.’

- Excerpt from the ‘Plenary Congress Speech of Representative John Newman, 12 August 524AU’

It had been a bold move, holding the Plenary Congress in the midst of the greatest crisis facing the Respublica in more than fifty years. And, as bold moves so often do, it held the potential for both greatness and disaster. But it was a necessary gamble. After all, the troubles on Sand were neither isolated nor aberrant in their seriousness. By 524AU, the year of the Congress, tens of thousands were dead from communitarian violence right across the Respublica. Several worlds were seeing fighting so fierce that the word ‘war’ proved a more apt descriptor than mere ‘conflict’. The appointment of ‘the Gentleman’ Marc Luis Ferrero to the Master Governor General office for the stellar region had proven wise, but inopportune. A diplomat and an administrator, his ability to negotiate truces, concessions and compromises was quickly becoming legendary, but he was not the man to cut the Gordian knot of the underlying conflict. That is to say, he did not fan the clashes, but neither could he prevent their recurrence.

The conflict was exacerbated by the rapid spread of the ‘Freedom Army’ and its politics across Old Phyrria and some of the Core Worlds. John Newman, its leader on Sand, was accused in many quarters of masterminding this spread – an allegation he continued to vehemently deny. The organization and its ideology concentrated on trans-human rights and open resistance to norm violence. Ironically enough, that resistance often took the form of violence verging on terrorism and insurgency. In other words, it fought fire with napalm. But the movement was proving popular with numberless millions of the modified, the poor and the otherwise discontented. It promised liberty and fundamental changes to outmoded thinking in the Respublica. In a very real way, it was quite attractive to right thinking, civically minded folk as much as trans-humans consumed by bitterness and loathing of the ‘inferior norm’. In the heritage territories of the Commonwealth, for example, its emphasis on small government and individualism bought it sympathy, and a fair bit of active support. On the other hand, it had the active allegiance of the vast majority of trans-humanity, who saw in it their government of choice, above and beyond planetary or Respublican authority.

By the time the Plenary Congress met in 524AU on the world of Rebrant, the political landscape had grown very complex, indeed. The Freedom Army was becoming a real player. And so was the unquestioned ‘star’ of the Plenary Congress, John Newman. The trans-human leader, who had been given official recognition only the previous year, had found the perfect platform for his rise to true prominence. As the Representative of Sand and the face of the Freedom movement, he had garnered enormous regional support – as well as the support of those in the Core Worlds who had an axe to grind against the government, or were hoping to replace it. When finally given the opportunity to speak, after some dalliance and stalling on the part of uncomfortable Respublican representatives (who had considered Newman a terrorist, for his part in the Sand War), he became something more than he had been, up until that point. It was a magnificent speech, broadcast across much of the human sphere. A historical speech, even. Newman was absolutely magnetic. Railing against hardline authority, oppression, hate and regression, he left billions scratching their chins.

And to top that effort off, he spent the rest of the Congress successfully combating Respublican attempts to cast him and his movement in a bad light. They were at times clumsy, and at times quite devious, but he managed to bat them away with the practiced ease of a career politician. In the space of a month, Representative Newman had become a household name. Elder Delmunde, for his part, did not acquit himself well in the affair. He made his government look impotent, as charge after charge was left at its feet, unanswered. In the end, the Congress was concluded with no solution to the antagonism between norm and trans-human, and none to the tension between the central government and its planetary ‘vassals’. Instead, it was a showcase for regional politics and the failure of Respublican governance. Most of all, it was Newman’s show to run – and run it he did.

Thereafter, the violence worsened noticeably and the stability of the Respublica, as a whole, became threatened. This powerful, opulent state was being eaten from within by its many demons. Master Governor General Ferrero could not control the situation in Old Phyrria. In mid 525AU, he began to engage Representative Newman with a view to stabilizing the situation and establishing a dialogue, of sorts, with the ‘other side’. Though there was no direct proof, many saw the Freedom Army behind regional dissident advances against right-wing norm groups. In this endeavor, the Gentleman failed profoundly. The trans-human was not to be toyed with. Though Newman was at first co-operative, Ferrero found himself accommodating the Sandian more and more, as the months wore on. Then, he worryingly began expressing sympathy for his political adversary’s position. In 527AU, the Respublican government was forced to sack Ferrero, having discovered a trail of leaked documents leading back to him. Immediately thereafter, he was found openly consorting with Newman, and was soon appointed as a senior official in the Freedom movement.

It was not treason, per se, but it was a hammer blow for Respublican efforts to rescue the situation in Old Phyrria. After Elder Delmunde’s death in 528AU, the Respublican decline accelerated (Elder Hertze was as inept as he was corrupt and nepotistic) and by 530AU most of Old Phyrria, much of the Commonwealth heritage territories and even some Core Worlds either supported or were openly sympathetic to John Newman’s Freedom movement. Worse still, he had also managed to buy or charm numerous senior officers in Space Force and Ground Force. The stage for a showdown was almost set, and something had to be done. Decisions await.

The Respublica is broken. From without, it still appears whole. But there is a cancer at its heart. If we do not cut away the tainted flesh, we risk it all. Choose our last roll of the dice, in stopping the looming avalanche.

Do you... send the greatest assassins in our employ to cut short the career of this would-be ‘liberator’? John Newman is the menace at the root of our problems. He is a conniving, ruthless gangster whose existence threatens that which our hands had built. Kill him. We can always blame norm groups in Old Phyrria. And better we risk more unrest than outright usurpation.

OR

Do you... attempt to remove him from power, legally? This man has broken the laws of the Respublica. He leads the Freedom Army’s clandestine war against our state, and we can prove it, if only we have the fortitude to make the process formal. Yes, there is risk. If we fail, we might cement his legitimacy and moral superiority. But, if we succeed, we can undo much of his work overnight. It is better than risking more violence or even civil war.

OR

Do you... raise the forces you will need to actively suppress the violence across the affected territories and to eliminate the Freedom Army? It will be costly and unpopular, but we can take the rug out from under Freedom’s feet. We just need the manpower and the resources to put in a credible effort. So far, the government has provided neither. Our military is a tool of the state that has gone underused. Let us give it meaning once more.
 

66. The Hourglass of Sand

Please Note:

Setting the stage, in this case, is a labor intensive process, but one that is required for making the story arc plausible. Though there is no actual choice for this installment, bear with the Barbarian. The next update will be fairly significant, choice wise.

***

The Hourglass of Sand

’Arise, you dispossessed and scourged! Arise, you broken and scarred! Take the freedom they will not give you! Earn the liberty you would enjoy!’

- Representative John Newman, speech delivered on 11/3/531AU

At some point during the 520s, Representative John Newman transformed himself from a nuisance and a thorn in the side of the Respublica to the greatest contemporary threat it had to face. On dozens of worlds, and in hundreds of millions of households, his word had become something akin to law; his speeches and gestures the subject of countless dinner conversations. It is relatively straightforward, today, and in an academic sense, to say that Newman was the center and subject of a booming ‘cult of personality’. It is quite another thing, however, to have lived in those times and to have experienced his inherent magnetism. Respublican church leaders were becoming increasingly ineffective, even as their policies took on a more civic, liberal aspect. Standing opposite them was a living icon, advocating human and trans-human rights under what was still a conservative, theocratic regime. Even an admitted association with the sometimes terroristic Freedom Army could not destroy – or even curb - his reputation. By 531AU, he was nigh untouchable.

And then the Respublican government elected to touch him. An in-depth criminal investigation was launched in April 531AU into Newman’s public and private dealings by the Ministry of the Interior. The intent behind it was proving that Newman was a corrupted official, possibly a terrorist and a definite public enemy, as part and parcel of his ties to the militant wing of the Freedom movement, with a view to prosecuting and imprisoning him on charges of treason. Information was gathered, accounts were forensically examined and known associates were arrested and interviewed. It was an undertaking involving thousands of Respublican police, intelligence officers and public servants. Unfortunately, it was also very much so ill-advised. To the surprise of many, Newman voluntarily surrendered himself to the authorities in late April, ready to refute the charges leveled against him in court. The Riots began mere hours later. Untold numbers of Codexians took to the streets in often violent protest. Even on Codexia itself, millions marched in support of a beloved ideological and political leader. It was all that Respublican public security forces could do, preventing a general social paralysis.

By the time of the first closed hearing in May, Newman’s supporters had made a mockery of the Respublican security apparatus. For the authorities, it was all very unbecoming. Torrents of humanity were making this individual out to be the next coming of Santi Maria Herself. They thronged the streets of Reunion City and picketed the government facility where the court was in session. It was absolute chaos. Counter-marchers took to the streets in response – skeptics who saw something unsettling in John Newman and his trans-human politics or otherwise conservative traditionalists who despised the rocking of the proverbial boat. The resulting clashes were bloody and sustained. As the weeks rolled by, tens of thousands were arriving from all over the human sphere, bolstering both sides of the divide with fresh anger and self-righteousness. Codexia had not seen that level of near-space congestion in a very long time, indeed, as shuttles inundated the homeworld.

The pressure on the government to release Newman was considerable, to say the least. By June, it was almost overpowering. Even Space Force commanders were sending in written statements in support of ‘civil rights’, and using their political clout in Newman’s favour. The ‘Turncoat’, former Master Governor General, Ferrero, arrived on planet with a cadre of Freedom leaders and the best lawyers money could buy. In July, after months of inconclusive wrangling in a court of law – and utterly impotent politicking – Elder Hertze finally caved in. The gambit had failed, and failed badly. Newman had won. To the jubilation of billions, and the contemptuous disgust of billions of others, he left police custody in late July. His ‘Victory Lap’ around Reunion City subsequently entered the realms of legend, as his people, flush with triumph, treated him to a parade characterized by its frenzied euphoria. All in all, it had been a masterful riposte. Newman well understood that the only way in which the Respublican government could save face was to publicly shame him. Giving himself up had been a risk, but he had correctly judged (and found wanting) the strength of will in his captors. Killing the trans-human leader, or sentencing him without trial, would have brought about some form of civil war – that much should be beyond doubt.

Thereafter, he returned to his power base in Old Phyrria, to consolidate his rule there. In Codexian history, this was a very strange period. Nominally still very much so Respublican, many colonies scoffed at the government’s authority. They took their autonomous status to mean more and more, with every passing day. Similarly, in what had been the Commonwealth, local leaders began looking askance at Newman, rather than the regional Respublican authority. Political legitimacy was slowly, but surely, slipping away from the Elders of the Marianite Church. Its response to the challenge was lethargic, at best. The vitality of the state was ebbing. The upstart Freedom movement had no formal place in Respublican politics, but it had already become the most powerful faction therein. A great many saw it as the only natural rival to the Church itself.

During the period of 531-536AU, this tenuous balance continued to hold. Newman built up his contacts and influence in every governmental department, even as the comically inept Hertze tried to have them constrained. But it was obvious that if the Upstarts were not to become the Usurpers, something decisive had to be done. Belatedly, Hertze opted to overplay his hand, in a move of historically and rightfully ridiculed desperation. Relying on an already feeble Respublican administrative grasp on Old Phyrria, the Church imposed a heavy new import tariff on its burgeoning colonies in 537AU. The ex-Commonwealth territories and Old Phyrria were the fastest growing, most rapidly developing parts of the human sphere, and the imposition of an import tariff on their resources heading to the core worlds would prove absolutely crushing to local economies.

Many regional leaders, in response – and quite likely in active collusion with Newman himself – essentially proclaimed that they no longer recognized the sovereign rights of the Respublican government on their worlds. Though not an outright secession, the colonies had thereby laid a challenge at the doorstep of the Respublica that could not go unanswered. Soon, troopships and Space Force elements were being rushed to the theatre. The sequence of events that followed is incredibly difficult to piece together in any concise way, but, in a basic sense, the Commonwealth worlds threw in their lot with Old Phyrria, and a third of Space Force would no longer respond to Respublican orders. The chain of command in the latter was broken beyond repair. John Newman and the Freedom Army, for its part, began evicting Respublican garrisons in Old Phyrria with extensive assistance from the renegade Space Force elements and local forces. In a number of cases, these incidents turned violent.

As matters span out of control, the violence steadily worsened. August 537AU saw the first fighting between the Loyalist Space Force elements, and those supporting Newman’s politics. The Respublican government quickly entered panic mode and instituted martial law right across the human sphere. Travel to and from Old Phyrria and the Commonwealth became extraordinarily restricted. In September, two garrisons on Gleiste that refused to be disarmed put up a fierce resistance to Freedom Army attempts to dislodge them from their barracks. The resulting battles saw hundreds killed, and widespread outrage. The whole system was approaching a terminal breakdown at breakneck speed. It was an absurd scenario. In one system, all would be well and order maintained, though the tension was nerve wracking. Just a few lightyears away, men fought tooth and nail over allegiance and ideology. It took many months for a semblance of the new status quo to emerge.

With Space Force in complete disarray, the government’s response to the robust Freedom play for sovereign rule had been meagre. This allowed the latter to carve out the first iteration of a state within a state, based on the majority of Old Phyrria, much of the Commonwealth and even a few core worlds by early 538AU. At the head of it all was John Newman and his Freedom cronies. Wheeling and dealing, they made their way across dozens of worlds, amalgamating local authorities into Freedom itself – or replacing them outright. Many observers noted that, by this time, Newman went nowhere without a full contingent of Freedom Army personnel – many of them hardened ex-Ground Force professionals, who were helping him make the Freedom Army into something more than a political militia. These contingents sometimes numbered into the thousands, and a combination of Newman’s popularity, personal magnetism and outright intimidation saw local leaders quickly fold, or face forceful removal. It was not incredibly liberal or civil of Newman and his new order, but most were quick to forgive, in consideration of the ‘harsh necessities of a critical time’.

The Freedom movement and its Army was becoming truly ubiquitous.

Part Two coming soon
 

67. Whimpers in the Dark

Whimpers in the Dark

’You say we are destroying the Respublica – I say we are only acknowledging that it destroyed itself years ago. And what are you doing? Sitting in your ivory towers as the whole edifice rots beneath you? The people cry out for leadership. What they get is just another sermon impugning the purity of their souls. Leave be, old men. Let history conclude this business naturally and mercifully.’

- Representative John Newman, Missive dated October 538AU

The Second Respublica died sometime in 539AU. One cannot be entirely sure as to when, exactly, or how, but die it certainly did. There was no great blow-out; no horrific civil war that tore it apart in a violent cavalcade. Instead, it just faded from the public consciousness, like a dream. Some clung to fragments of its memory, desperately, whereas many were happy to see it go. They were looking askance at the future. The actual process of its passing was entirely anti-climactic. One by one, systems were either falling to Freedom influence, or were reeling from its advances and turning on the moderating hand of the Marianite Church. The latter remained almost uniformly hapless. The clergy officialdom refused to brook serious military action against the Freedom Army. It was as if their spine had simply given out, and they could not stand up for themselves, their creed or the state their institutional ancestors had built with blood, ashes and the sweat of their brows.

In the end, the mourning period for the theocracy was a low-key affair. Though the office of Elder remained the ‘officially’ recognized Head of State and primary executive office in what was still – at least nominally – the Second Respublica, the reality of the situation was far bleaker. Sol’s authority extended to a shallow, though heavily developed set of core systems. The Old Commonwealth and Old Phyrria were the new bastions of a rising Freedom state. Lastly, a slew of ‘middle belt’ worlds remained unaligned, or were by now controlled by a conservative, military based alliance of convergent interests. The latter had begun to coalesce after it became obvious that the Respublica would not defend itself from obsolescence. Poorly defined, the members of this new faction nonetheless saw themselves as a bulwark against Freedom agitation and the useless authority of the decrepit Respublican government.

Of course, this New Order could not hope to last. The proponents of the Freedom movement did not declare their independence from the Respublica, because Newman and his cronies hoped to replace it entirely. They were not sated with ‘merely’ holding down the colonial expanse and a few core worlds. They saw themselves as the legitimate successors to and the inheritors of the Respublican mandate in its entirety. Attaining the latter was proving difficult by 540AU, however. For all of John Newman’s style, substance and charisma the reality was that there was no political breakthrough for Freedom in the Core. Demagoguery, propaganda and agitation – as well as plenty of good old fashioned campaigning – had proven ineffective in social environments where the majority of the population was comprised of relatively wealthy baseline humans, with a strong interest in maintaining existing power structures. When this became apparent, John Newman was forced to show his true colours... and the human sphere would finally witness the Rise of the Tyrant.

Maintaining historiographical objectivity in the face of Newman’s actions (and those of his regime) during the period of 540-543AU is rather difficult. Like many monstrous crimes, it all began innocuously enough. In late 540AU, planetary assemblies on every major world in Newman’s domain passed legislation requiring that all adults register with local security bodies, so that bio/gen/tech mods could be carefully cataloged and recorded. The bills were justified by the ‘need to give practical and vital state support’ to trans-human populations. Often ostracized by their local communities, this was a well received effort to improve the lot of transhumans under the jurisdiction of Newman’s allies. At first, it functioned exactly as advertised. Employers were encouraged to give preferential consideration to those who had previously lost out on opportunities because of their visible modifications. Sums of money were paid out as compensation to victims of discrimination. Various social benefits and subsidies were afforded to all eligible transhumans, as a means of improving their socio-economic status.

After a certain period, however, other things began happening, too. Positive discrimination in favor of transhumans when it came to employment turned into a terrifying brand of discrimination against norms. Norm youths were being pressured to accept bio-tech mods during their primary and secondary education, as a means of ‘improving’ their quality of life and ‘competitiveness’. The availability of mods exploded across the board, as millions succumbed to that pressure. Pre-natal genetic manipulation was deemed standard medical practice – regardless of parental wishes. And the Freedom Army was at the forefront of it all. On 7 January 542AU, it became a ‘trans-human only’ institution. The resulting outcry was stifled quickly and quietly. After all, were not modded soldiers absolutely superior to their norm counterparts? Were they not more efficient? More powerful? Military mods were an order of magnitude beyond what was offered to civilians, of course. Extraordinary strength, speed, alertness, dexterity and mods of other physical parameters were commonplace. Freedom Army stalwarts submitted themselves to ever more extreme surgeries, transplants and gene therapy. The more radical the alteration, the greater the glory.

Hostility and barely repressed resentment against norms began to build up at a frightening pace. It did not take long for serious incidents to take place. In March 542AU, an equally violent norm response to an attack by modded assailants on a norm wedding was used by the Newman regime to legitimize a government crackdown... on the norms. In order to ‘protect public safety’, tens of thousands of norms with ‘questionable political allegiances’ were moved to detention camps, indefinitely. When multitudes protested against this heinous act, they suffered similar fates. The propaganda machine then ratcheted up a gear. Norms went from misguided to actively subversive in a matter of months. Norm extremists were thereafter classified as a ‘problem and a threat’ to the ideal transhumant society. Things were getting rather ugly, to put it blithely, and hundreds of thousands elected to flee Newman-controlled space.

They were justified in having done so quickly thereafter. In February 543AU, the first reports of massacres began to seep out of Old Phyrria. Initially believed to be isolated incidents perpetrated by parties partaking in communitarian violence, their true scale would only become known in the months that followed. By then, millions were dead. The Freedom Army, the hardened core of transhumant extremism, was annihilating the ‘problem’ posed by the norms. Those who would not accept extreme modification as proof of their new allegiance to a ‘liberated’ transhumanity were liquidated in the most bestial of ways. On Firkan, forty thousand were crucified in a mockery of Marianite symbolism. On Bidoni, tens of thousands were hacked to pieces by frenzied mobs. The savagery was utterly unimaginable. It was not the same everywhere. In some places, the transhumans went to great efforts to protect their norm neighbors, friends and – sadly enough – relatives from the Pogrom. Many were hidden from the death squads, or smuggled out of affected areas. But the miasma hung heavy in the air. Torrents of norm blood flooded the streets and the vid screens. It was insane. It was all so insane. Explaining the insanity has proven a task verging on the impossible.

When the carnage came to light, Newman became ‘the Tyrant’, in all other parts of the human sphere. Or, more accurately, the Tyrant shed Newman. He no longer needed him. The Pogrom was to be the ultimate test of loyalty to his cult, and the Freedom Army did not disappoint its political and ideological leader. There was some dissent, here and there, in all fairness. A number of FA officers did refuse to take part in the bloodletting. They were dealt with severely. The Tyrant had no room for those of a weakly constitution in his Grand Plan. Some have argued that it was developed haphazardly, as he began to believe his own legend. Others, myself included, would argue that this maniacal genius had never believed in any other course, and that – implausible as it may sound – he had been pursuing this very outcome relentlessly since his teenage years. The Tyrant was a being on a mission. He sought to remake humanity wholly. And now, he was getting started.

For its part, the Respublican Remnant was both shocked and terrified by these developments. Already up to its eyelids in troubles stemming from its continuing political decline, there was little the Respublicans felt they could do. What forces remained on hand, they mobilized in piecemeal fashion. But in the Respublican General Staff CnC, it was anarchy. Arguments raged for weeks over how to best deploy the badly weakened Space Force and Ground Force. Some even argued against war, under the belief that the Tyrant already had superiority in arms. These voices were shouted down, and a number of targets were eventually chosen. There was, by that time, overwhelming public support for war against Freedom.

Finally, in May 543AU, a Respublican armada transited from a number of jump-off points to a series of destinations in the Old Commonwealth and Old Phyrria. Almost a thousand vessels were committed to this effort – a massive undertaking for a government under seemingly perpetual siege. They did not have the support nor the assistance of the Middle Belt worlds, which refused to bow to Respublican authority and calls for political unity as a matter of principle. But the forces involved were nonetheless driven and motivated to exact a bloody vengeance on the transhumant foe. They surged into battle on a dozen fronts with wild abandon, utterly convinced that this moral crusade could end only in victory.

The end result was a staggering series of defeats for Respublican forces. Quintessentially, everything that could go wrong, did. The Freedom Army knew when and where the strikes were coming, and prepared accordingly. Elaborate traps and ambushes decimated the bewildered invaders. The few set piece battles that took place had attacking forces facing impossible odds. The enemy knew everything. They had made fools of them all. When the initial conflagration subsided, there were almost 80,000 dead to show for it. Worse yet, the invasion of Freedom space had only served to incense the transhumans even further, and atrocities against norms actually escalated in both intensity and scope. An immediate Respublican inquest revealed that the hastily drawn up plans for the attack on Freedom territories had been leaked almost as soon as they were approved. The very command structure of the Respublican armed forces was compromised and infiltrated by Freedom operatives!

By June, the three sides were preparing for a drawn out conflict. Materiel was being stockpiled, ship production increased and citizenry mobilized. Humanity was to once again bear witness to a war for its very soul.

It is now time to choose...

Do you... order a thorough official investigation into the leaks, in order to find the parties responsible for the deaths of so many Respublican fighting men and women, and the failure of the Intervention? We cannot afford to take any further hasty steps. The investigation must be by the book, and should not target any particular group. We are not of the Tyrant’s ilk. Besides, many of our staffers are modified. Imagine the disruption to our warfighting forces! Imagine the affront to our loyal citizens!

OR

Do you... instead conduct modification testing on all staff, removing those who come back positive from positions of authority? We cannot take the chance that the culprits might evade justice. The guilty parties were surely transhumans, so let us make sure that the weight of this investigation falls where it should. This is the only decisive way to protect ourselves from further harm at the hands of the enemy.
 

68. Human Nature

Human Nature

‘Chuang Tzu in dream became a butterfly,
and the butterfly became Chuang Tzu at waking.
Which was real--the butterfly or the man?’

- Li Po ‘Chuang Tzu and the Butterfly’ 750AD

’Baseline humans refuse to understand that sapience is not their private reserve. We have met, befriended and warred against alien species as complex and as deserving of recognition in their own right as we are. We have created artificial intelligences that dwarf unmodified intellects, and yet combine them with a distinct gentleness and regard for all life. If you ask me today ‘why’, then I must answer ‘to teach’. Teaching the Homo Sapien that he is not the sole proprietor of goodness, righteousness and greatness requires an object lesson in pain. I am but the instrument of a harsh universe. Through me, it wants to tell Man: ‘enough!’. My people modify themselves because they know that their bodies are utilitarian contraptions. Their true worth lies in their sapience. And for this, they are hounded by moribund fools, who use their religion like a club, and their conservatism like a blanket.

I have this recurring dream in which ‘Mankind’ no longer exists. In that dream, we are limited not by some tactile conception of skin and tissue, but only by the boundaries of our own imagination. Sapience is our strength. ‘Humanity’ is a cocoon, to be shed when we are ready to undergo maturation and metamorphosis. If I thought for a moment that those fanatics would have allowed this to happen naturally, none of this would have been necessary. Unfortunately, to err is human, is it not? And they are so very human. We are tired of being looked on contemptuously by beings whose limitations define them. They insist on being sentients without an ounce of sapience, so we must treat them as such. And if that means making sure that they can never harm us again, then so be it. Do you understand me, sir? Do you? I do not hate the unmodified. I feel pity for them. But my birthright is not humanity. It is sapience. So my kin are like-minded sapients – not simply homo sapiens. To us, the intrinsic worth of your lives directly corresponds to your valuation of ours. If you want to explain my ‘vile genocide’, start there.’


***

The Respublican government took the initial series of defeats against the forces of the Tyrant in its stride. Like Roman senators after Hannibal savaged their field armies at Cannae, Respublican leaders simply explained to a bewildered, angry public that errors were made, regrettably, and that ousting the monstrous Newman would require more than a band-aid military approach. Rather, a true war effort was needed, one that would necessitate mobilization on a scale unseen since the 4th century AU. Somewhat surprisingly, the people proverbially nodded their collective head, and got to work on facilitating the refurbished approach to quelling and halting the Tyrant’s murderous rampage.

Internally, the Respublican military leadership refused to bow to bigotry and knee-jerk responsiveness, and instead conducted a thorough institutional investigation into the intelligence leaks that resulted in Respublican war plans being made available to the Tyrant and his cronies. Eventually, two norm and three modified sympathizers were discovered in Space Force’s Logistical Planning branch. These erstwhile fellows had been delivering deployment details to the Freedom Army for years. The elimination of the cell provided a morale boost during a difficult period, but uncertainty over whether there were other moles embedded in Space Force continued to hound the General Staff. Nonetheless, preparations for a renewed offensive continued apace. Almost eight hundred previously mothballed vessels were re-activated and brought into service to replenish Space Force’s mustered strength. Dozens of rapidly deployable Ground Force brigades were also readied for action.

But the greatest boon of all was the co-opting of the Middle Belt into the Respublican fold. In truth, the Middle Belters had little choice. After all, the Tyrant would ostensibly go after them first, before any decisive effort against the Respublica. They were, in an overall sense, the weakest faction. And Respublican officials had gone out of their way for months to ease Middle Belt apprehensions about the Respublica’s longstanding structure and governance. Nonetheless, their six hundred-odd vessels were nothing to be sniffed at, and they were to be a welcome, if belated, boost to Respublican power. By December 543AU, the Second Offensive was almost ready. The best Respublican estimates put the Tyrant’s forces at some nine hundred ships, in all. Facing them along a tremendous, disjointed front were almost three and a half thousand Space Force vessels of all types. It was seen to be an unassailable advantage. The 5th, 6th, 9th and 14th Fleets were concentrated for action against Old Phyrria, whereas the 2nd, 7th and 16th Fleets were arrayed against the Old Commonwealth. The 1st, 8th and 10th Fleets were being husbanded in a strategic reserve.

New ships were entering service on a weekly basis, swelling the Respublica’s already considerable strength. With the addition of the Middle Belters, such was the confidence of the Respublican military leadership that a criminal tribunal was set up in anticipation of the Tyrant’s looming demise or capture. He would be tried before all of humanity for his crimes against it. The example that would be set by his downfall would serve to bring the recalcitrant back into the loving embrace of the Marianite state.

As they say... ‘The best laid plans of mice and men / Go oft awry’

The ponderous strength of Space Force was something to behold. A seemingly endless procession of warships and transports awaited transit at every jump-off point for the Second Offensive. Hundreds of thousands of men and women crewed these proud, gleaming monstrosities, ready to give their lives for their idea of humanity. Many more would twiddle their thumbs in the troop compartments of the lumbering modern galleons. Foot soldiers, they would spring into action at the very last. Or maybe they would die wordlessly, soundlessly in the depths of space, without ever having seen their killers. On 12 January 544AU, the wait was over. The manifold forces of the Second Respublica transited into enemy space. And the merciless din of battle once again resounded throughout human space.

The offensive prong aimed at the Old Commonwealth achieved immediate success. At Yuris it met the first line of Freedom resistance, in the form of an over-strength battlegroup of decrepit cruisers hastily retrofitted for combat duty. It must be said that they fought well and died gallantly. But that is all that need be said for them. The ‘Southern Front’ (the Old Commonwealth being in the galactic ‘south’ of the human sphere) burrowed deeply into Freedom territory. Within six weeks, it had made enormous inroads and soundly defeated the nominal resistance facing it. By then, ground invasions were underway on three separate worlds. Hoping to recapture those worlds without extensive collateral damage, the troops went in with the assistance of tactical orbital support only. And they met a veritable wall, in the form of the Freedom land army.

What were once men had become something... else. The Freedom Army’s ‘Newmen’ were incredibly varied. Many had retained a basic human shape. Others were sheer biological and technological horrors. Most were somewhere in between. But all had been catastrophically altered throughout their lives. And, uniformly, they were the most terrible foe any human has ever faced. Insanely tough, intelligent and resilient, the Newmen were proving themselves to be peerless warriors with every passing day of the incredibly vicious ground fighting on planets like Yuris Prime, Tortica and Romariq. Time and again, individual companies of Newmen (‘Newies’ to the Respublican fighting man) would halt Respublican battalions in their tracks. The 31st Ground Force Regiment ‘Doomriders’, for example, were pulped down to 20% effective strength in only two days of combat against a roughly comparable Newie force on Tortica. Without the ubiquitous orbital support available, all three invasions would have failed within the first week. Nonetheless, the Respublicans continued to grind forward across the Old Commonwealth.

Meanwhile, the Northern offensive prong met calamity. Not only was the resistance it faced far greater, on the fourth day of the effort the worst fears of the Respublica were realized. The Tyrant had concluded an inconceivable pact with humanity’s most hated foe – the Hin’in. An entire Hin’in fleet was involved in the fighting for Delorentis. The humans were, of course, not outclassed this time. The advantage of the Respublican shields was telling against still-unshielded Hin’in vessels. But the latter were seemingly available in abundance. And what did the involvement of the xenos mean? Did the Tyrant promise them territorial concessions? Or maybe the transfer of human technology?

What about the Raumeni? What had their reaction been to all this? Respublican intelligence services were blindsided by these startling developments. Then again, the Second Respublica had been deeply insular for so many decades, perhaps it shouldn’t have been that surprising. The aliens were still out there, living, fighting and dying. We had simply thought ourselves above noticing – secure in our obvious superiority. ‘Pride cometh before the fall’, no? In any case, the Northern offensive prong was stalemated almost immediately. Hundreds of ships were lost on both sides for little discernible gain. From all appearances, the Hin’in were pouring more strength into the theatre as the weeks wore on. An undeclared war was now on between the Respublica and the hated Hin’in.

A decision must be made...

Option One:

Do you... throw your strategic reserve behind the Northern Front, hoping that it is sufficient to break the Newies and their Hin’in allies before the latter could concentrate any greater force in the stellar region? If we break them now, we can break them forever. Then we can consolidate to deal with the Hin’in threat. We cannot afford to allow this stalemate to continue indefinitely.

OR

Do you... throw your strategic reserve behind the Southern Front, hoping to quickly finish off the Freedom presence in the Old Commonwealth, before swinging the combined force northwards for a decisive strike? The strategic reserve may not be enough to deal a concussive blow to the enemy, in and of itself. If they spring any more surprises, our range of responses will be severely reduced once we are committed. Instead, let us finish off their weaker disposition in the South. After that, we have the latitude to concentrate our own forces. Our churning industries can keep our forces in the North in fighting shape, in the meantime.

Option Two:

Do you... attempt to bring the Raumeni into the war on your side? The Clans have been quiet for a long time, but surely they have been building up their strength. If the Hin’in have crossed their territory without permission, surely they will be amenable to a joining of forces? It goes against the tenets of the Faith, but necessity is the mother of compromise. And if concessions must be made, thereafter, we can deal with it then, from a position of strength.

OR

Do you... forgo the assistance of the bugs? We can conclude this war without them. And the concessions they would demand would surely be onerous beyond reason. Leave well enough alone.

Please note: You can assume that the concessions the Raumeni demand would be extensive and may include territorial or technological ‘gifts’. Nothing is free.
 

Epilogue. Reign of Blood; Moments in Time

The Final Update of the Codexian Saga

Reign of Blood; Moments in Time

'Everything I did, I did for my children, and their children to follow. In the belief that I was doing a greater good, I did evil knowingly and without remorse. Today, let it be said that I die as a Man without regret. My people sacrificed their all so that we could have a tomorrow that is free of prejudice, discrimination and the hatred of those who do not understand us. My folly was hubris; theirs was the trust they put in me. The only apology offered today will be to them. Those who followed and died for a worthy cause. Those who believed in something great and something beautiful. I will not apologise to you, my executioners. Your right is might. I only hope that your dreams, hopes and aspirations burn on a pyre not too far from ours. Let this be the final word on the topic of what I stood for: the betterment of All, by whatever means necessary. The only quarter I would ask is that, when you write the history books, don't paint me a two-bit villain; insane and depraved, Murderer and Terror. Trust those who will come after you to make up their own minds. Now, don't just stand there. End it, already.'

- The Final Words of the Tyrant: A Critical Interpretation, 559AU

Yes, some would say that we 'beat' the Tyrant and were all the stronger for it. Me? I look at scores of lifeless worlds, and I wonder. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant? Did we make a desert and call it peace? The fighting in the Old Commonwealth was apocalyptic enough before the thermo-nukes were used to decide the issue once and for all on Tortica. The Newmen certainly burned, and we watched them burn with glee. We forgot that beside those monsters burned three million norms just trying to live their pathetic lives as best they could, on an inhospitable and oft treacherous world. Rest assured, our arithmetic was sound. We could not, after all, sacrifice another three precious Ground Force brigades in breaking the back of the Freedom Army on the planet. The entire Southern prong of the Great Offensive was tottering, and the Hin'in were battering the Northern prong. We had to act, that much is understood.

But we unleashed something, that fateful day. An unwritten rule from an age long past was broken; a taboo invoked. An entire planetary community was, more or less, snuffed out from above on Tortica. It was not malice that killed those people. Only the coldest of rational calculations and considerations could be so apathetic to such suffering. All moral concerns aside, why were we so surprised when the Newmen responded in kind? Why were we even more surprised when the nanites gifted to the Tyrant by that most hated psychic alien filth began gnawing at Horst and its hundred million benighted souls? Naturally, the conflict would escalate, thereafter. We produced ships by the thousand. The Hin'in and their opportunistic allies did the same. If anything, the terrible wars the Hin'in had fought over the last century had only strengthened their resolve and given their blades a keen edge.

The months and years rolled on, and the conflict swallowed a generation of humanity's finest. Desperation was the Tyrant's greatest friend and counsel in this struggle for survival and vindication. In truth, is it so difficult to understand his actions, at the time? Why abstain from mass cloning, when your worlds are threatened with a complete and utter annihilation? Why not experiment with the most horrific of cybernetic 'enhancements' and replacements on a population ready - even eager - to accept death for the sake of transcendence? The Tyrant's propaganda in those years may have become more and more laughable, as the tides of war washed away humanity's resolve; his weapons were no laughing matter, however. The great battles of that terrible time are too many to recount here at any real length. The Third Battle of Faustus (Ground Campaign) was a bloodletting barely paralleled in human history. How many died there, we will never know. Once again, we found it too difficult to beat the Freedom Army in a stand-up fight on a planetary surface, so we glassed it and moved on, instead. Strategic considerations - just strategic considerations, my sons. Slowly, ever so slowly, our Grand Strategem worked. Every once in a while, a Newmen suicide convoy would sneak through and hit one of our worlds. Gagarin died in just such a fashion, along with its millions of men and women. But it just made us angrier. We hit them back, just as hard. Increasingly, that little bit harder. In 548AU, Sand itself was subjected to a combined Space / Ground Force offensive.

In that horrifying, swirling melee - a ballet of death amongst the stars - six hundred ships met their doom. But the Tyrant had already fled deeper into Old Phyrria. He did not get to see his homeworld rendered lifeless, after two attempted landings were beaten back, and numerous ultimatums fell on deaf ears. The Hin'in took on a senior role in the Coalition, thereafter. Freedom Army troops were still their shock forces on the ground, but more and more often Hin'in ships were forming the main battle line in clashes with the Second Respublica and its Space Force. And throughout it all, we steadfastly refused to ask the Bugs for help. Santi Maria knows, we might have used it. Who can truly tell. We never asked. They certainly never offered, after what happened at Tortica, Gagarin, Sand and others. Likely, they were afraid.

Death, death and more death. The Newmen were more fanatical and intransigent than the greatest Soldier Saints of the First Respublica. Prisoners? We took so few after the first year that not one new prisoner-of-war or detention camp needed to be opened to accommodate them. Large stretches of human space were nothing but a mortuary. Old Phyrria was suffering yet another cleansing; this time norm humans were cleansing terraformed worlds of near-humans and modified humans alike with fire and sword. No one questioned this atrocity. No one who dared make an issue of it, anyway. We were winning, after all. Slowly, yes - but surely. The ancient philosopher, Thomas Hobbes said it best: "To speak impartially, both sayings are very true; That Man to Man is a kind of God; and that Man to Man is an arrant Wolfe. The first is true, if we compare Citizens amongst themselves; and the second, if we compare Cities." The City of Norms and the City of Newmen were locked in a death grapple; two ravenous Wolves in a mortal combat.

Yes, in the end, it can be said that we did 'win'. Some years after Sand, we had killed enough of them that they quit, and then we killed a few more for good measure. The sweetest of victories? Reader, I tell you, one more such victory will be the ruin of us.

Fin.

***

'In the end, the Second Respublica beat the upstart Tyrant and the hated Hin'in. A heavy-handed puritan reaction against all forms of human modification once again followed a crisis of faith, and human history see-sawed yet again. Eventually, the war weariness subsided, and humanity flexed its muscles anew. The Raumeni were absorbed into the expanding human domain with little trouble. Their weakness, after all, was well known. Neither particularly advanced, numerous nor nuanced, the Clans fell easily and quickly. Many did so without a fight. There had been enough war in their lifetimes.

After that, a final, brutal war against the Hin'in saw those beasts subdued once and for all. What survived of their population was placed in strict quarantine - stripped of technology and know-how within a generation. The destruction of the Hin'in was totalitarian in its scope. Perhaps it was all that they deserved. Perhaps, instead, we saw too much of ourselves in this ambitious, opportunistic and clever race. It was not to be tolerated. Decades passed, and Old Phyrria was re-developed. With some difficulty, even a few of the heavily damaged worlds from the Tyrant War were rehabilitated. Sand, the much maligned home of John Newman, became a tourist attraction for millions of the faithful and the curious. More decades passed. The Bron were crushed, after they attempted to stall human colonisation of the Pegrean Expanse. Little quarter was given - or, in truth, asked for. Humanity continued to reach out in just about every direction. Lesser peoples made way, submitted or died fighting. The Second Respublica became the Third Respublica in 830AU. Then the Fourth in 890AU. At some point around 1051AU, the human population in the known worlds surpassed five hundred billion.

Great men and women came and went. They led, and thought and did, and then died - becoming blurbs in a glorious, increasingly complex history of the galaxy's most feared power. More wars rocked the frontiers in the 1100s, but they were shortlived and victorious. The Gul'dar were the primary foe of the 1200s; a plague upon the seemingly inexorable human advance. They fought like savages and died well, taking many brave Men with them. In 1288AU, the Fifth Respublica was born. It would be the last. Almost a trillion humans populated the known worlds at the turn of the fourteenth century AU. The Human Sphere was too large to govern effectively any more by a central authority. Decentralisation efforts proved to little avail, and brutal civil wars followed. Many millions died in countless conflicts, large and small, fighting for a thousand different creeds, ideals and principles.

Eventually, a number of powers emerged, coalesced and shattered again between 1300AU and 1900AU. Conflict was interminable, and the humans were fabled warriors, technicians and scientists. Their feuds could unravel the very stars. Eventually, the foolhardiest were certain that the Turanei themselves could not challenge humanity. The Great War, as it would come to be known, unravelled many a star, indeed. It was a cataclysm beyond compare. But the foolhardy were ultimately right, and even the Turanei could not withstand human ingenuity for more than a blink of a galactic eye. An age passed. Then another. Then another. 'Home' (or Codexia Prime, as it was once known) would be forgotten by most - it was no longer very important.

By the 3200s, that was true for much of the old ways. Another galactic giant arose in the northern arms a little while later, around the 3500s. Humanity, always searching for a new challenge, soon attacked the newcomers with wild abandon and a healthy enthusiasm for energetic struggle. It was a time of great dying and great glory. Human ships, many the size of small moons, indulged in an increasingly elemental battle with a prodigious and highly capable foe. Their triumph was complete a few short centuries later. Soon thereafter, however... something... happened. The historical record goes silent for almost fifteen thousand years. It is astounding that, so far, we have found nothing but the most ambiguous of hints regarding what, exactly, happened. Filling in this blank space between our own era and that of our most ancient ancestors' remains the greatest socio-archaeological and anthropological concern of our time. Progress, sadly, is slow.'


- From 'A New History of the Most Ancient Proto-humans, 19th Edition', 21,207AU / 6,119NE (New Era)

***

The Barbarian hopes you have enjoyed our circlejerk, friends and allies.

Treave, Black Bart, laclonquan, many thanks for your kindness and camaraderie.