Emperor Zoey Shae Autumn of the Imperial Free State of Terra Novam, in her uniform as Commander of the elite 104th Army Airborne Division.Pict-cap April 17 3240 CC (Novan Common Calendar) or 0.420.540.M41 (Imperial Standard); Fortress World Alcazar V, Eastern Terra NovamCreated by the incredible Diego Gisbert Llorens: www.deviantart.com/diegogisber… Story of Terra NovamEarly on in the Great Crusade, somewhere in M31, an Imperial expeditionary fleet rediscovered the Telamon Expanse Southwest of Terra, a human-inhabited region once controlled by the ancient Human Federation and existing as a remnant state, beset on all sides by belligerent Xenos empires. The region was purged of Xenos filth and reorganized, and soon became a bastion of the Imperial Truth, willingly annexed into the nascent Imperium of Man. Soon after the Fleet had departed for new conquests, Telamon was engulfed by a Warp Storm which severed all connections with Terra. This did not prevent its inhabitants from building up military strength and continuing to expand its borders in the name of the Imperium of Man, establishing a provisional government and electing an Emperor to rule in the stead of the Emperor of Man on Terra until contact could be reestablished. The entire population developed the Pariah Gene to cope with living inside a Warp Storm, courtesy of a dormant Necron Tomb whose "biological edibles" (I.E. preserved Flayers) were consumed by the Magos Biologis which then spread the Gene. After 1,200 years, the Storm dissipated, and Terra Novam found itself displaced in time in the 42nd Millennium, bordering an Imperium of Man nothing like the Imperium it considered itself to be part of. Incensed, Terra Novam declared itself independent. The ensuing war engulfed Segmentum Tempestus, where Novan technological, strategic, tactical, and logistic superiority, along with its far more pragmatic military and State apparatus and unending zeal for the Emperor's Truth, along with their Pariah nature making the Eclessiarchy and Inquisition shit their collective pants, meant the inexhaustible IoM military threw itself against an unbreakable Novan defense. Fighting lasted for 302 years with neither side gaining much apart from grudging mutual respect. A peace treaty was signed as the Novans realized the Imperium was far too massive to best in a war of attrition and the High Lords of Terra recognized their forces were fighting their own kin. Upon discovering that the Eldar of Craftworld Ulthwe were betting on this war to permanently cripple Mankind, the Imperium legitimized Terra Novam as a sovereign nation, it becoming one of the handful of Human states recognized as independent of the Imperium. In the present day, a tenuous alliance exists between the fraternal Human states, though cooperation is often teeth-clenched due to both cultures regarding the other as irredeemably corrupt; the Novans despising the Imperium's use of Psykers and worshipping the Man-Emperor of Mankind as a God and the Imperium fearing Novan callous dependency on Artificial intelligence and blatant disregard for the soul-corrupting nature of Chaos, the IFS viewing the Ruinous Powers as merely another collection of hostile Xenos.Controlling 50,000 star systems boasting a population of just over 100 trillion, Terra Novam is considerably smaller in both territory and population than its older brother the Imperium of Man. Taking the form of a Federated government with powerful centralized institutions and the armed forces in full control of the State, Novan society is meritocratic albeit extremely stratified. Its entire population is to some degree involved with the Imperial Defense Forces: the Imperial Army, Imperial Guard, and Imperial Starfleet. Its people enhanced by biogenetics and internal cybernetics owing to the prowess of the Novan Adeptus Mechanicus under Fabricator-General Cambrius Wasserman, its starships and vehicles of war augmented by intelligent computers, and the common foot soldier bearing personal refractor fields and Prism Rifle, the Imperial Free State is a military with a country whose popularly elected Emperor's rule is absolute. Only soldiers and veterans are allowed to vote and hold political office, while civil rights and liberties are jealously protected by the heavily armed populace.The language of the land is a simplified version of High Gothic, and its pseudo-religion is an Imperial Truth adapted to accommodate the dangers of the Empyrean (physical and mental though, due to the Gene the Novans do not believe in souls and Daemonic corruption) and praise of technology and scientific knowledge (notably outlawing cloning of living people). All this adds up to a culture of extreme pragmatism to the extent of casually consuming their own dead and using their brains as computer wetware (stuffing brain pans into fire control computers is common practice, for example), with a population in the constant throes of militant patriotic fervor.Terra Novam is a wealthy state, with a mixture of centrally planned critical services and free markets ensuring even the lowest strata have access to Juvenat and cloned replacement bodies, making Novans effectively ageless beings. Socially, it is largely laissez-faire, the rule of thumb being you are free to do whatever, up to marrying your own sister, as long as you stay away from Chaos, Xenos, and the insanity of religion, and do not try to subvert the State.Its purpose is threefold: to purge the Mutant, kill the Xenos, and eradicate the Ruinous Powers of Chaos.