Rise and shine, sleeper.

So you’ve just been hauled out of cryosleep, your quiet journey through space interrupted after a couple hundred cycles drifting along to a Better Place.

Sorry, and welcome to the Persean Sector! You’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

It may seem like a bit of a mess, but you should count your lucky stars: you haven’t been carved up for spare parts by some pirate! On a related note, you are going to need credits to put toward interest on the Recovery Installment Plan which has already been attached to your genecode, so let’s introduce the thought that you may indeed wish to sell a kidney, most of your liver, or a surprising amount of skin with very little harm to normal biological function – provided you pass the rad screening, of course. You don’t have to answer now, we’ll give you a bit to think it over.

In the meantime, we’ve prepared a little primer to help catch you up on what’s been going on in the local volume. Your eye movements will trigger text navigation so you don’t have to move your variably atrophied limbs – hope you didn’t go with the cheap model cryotank! Sit back, and please pay attention. We have good statistics which demonstrate that a steady grounding in the present historical context helps cryo-recovered subjects re-integrate with society in 78.3% of cases.

In The Beginning

“Anything that happened before interstellar civilization is only interesting to weird old scholars and Luddics who go on about the sins of this and that. I won’t waste your time, we’ll jump right over to the good stuff.”

The Hopeless Fool’s Holo History part 1 (narration by the author)

The Interstellar Diaspora

“Then, in fits and starts, humanity lifted itself on flimsy hand-engineered craft set atop crude explosives. In the planets and moons above they found unimagined wealth, and with it built the first cities and ships worthy of those names. They looked out to the stars beyond and wondered what could be there and who would be the first to go.

Old Earth cast out its dissidents, its unruly dreamers, its fanatics, and its utopian ideologues in those first leaking starships to build societies fitting their dreams – and sometimes their nightmares. The era of the sub-FTL expansion to the first neighbouring star systems is rife with legend and half-truth, but those insular cultures scattered and mutated, cut off from Old Earth, and created a flowering of unique worlds.”

The Reenactor’s Visual Guide to Pre-FTL Culture (TriMedia Store)

Sol System colonized

Development of first starships, cryosleep technology

First wave of sub-FTL autonomous probes, sporeships, seedships dispatched (none of which have reached the Persean Sector)

The Hyperspace Expansion

“The Luddics make a great fuss about the significance of the devastation of Old Earth. This author will concede that, like stories of the first rockets to escape Old Earth’s gravity, it possesses the mythological resonance of a sort of threshold of history. It allows one to point and say that yes, right then is when it all changed. Certain historians describe this event as an end to the collective childhood of humanity, though a less romantic perspective might reason that the majority of human population and industry was almost certainly off-world and increasingly out-of-system anyway. The Old Earth was just a symbol by then anyway. It is nonetheless a fitting turning point with which to understand the shape of human civilization to come.”

Ayomide Callisto’s Commentaries Vol. III (Galatia Academy Publishing)

FTL technology developed

Earth devastated

First development of true interstellar polities

Second wave of FTL-equipped probes, sporeships, seedships dispatched (hailing from various polities)

The Gate System and the Human Domain

“Nothing was restrained that could be imagined; those journeys of years through the holy void were eluded by trespass into hyperspace. The KL Device was not the first human sin against God’s law of causality, but it was the greatest, for it opened wide the unholy road. The vast domain of Humanity was united in this molochian pact: The Gate-haulers opened the way to each colonized system then, by pen or by sword, the onslaught of the Domain’s vast armada subjugated each world.

The far end of cycles of war and occupation found the edge of the colonized Hyperspace Expanse. But this was not enough for the Domain, driven as it was by a spirit of conquest to never be sated. This infernal mechanization lusted on for celestial spheres beyond, and beyond, and beyond; it would never stop devouring God’s creation.

Humanity was thence scattered abroad upon the face of the galaxy, speaking one tongue, united by the demon Gates in one body of worldly law. But we had forgotten the laws of God, mightier than any fusion lance. God would remind humanity of its place in this universe.”

The Sermons of Caprican Spaceborn (Brassica Paperwrights, Gilead)

Gate system developed

Unitary hegemony forms on basis of Gate technology: The Human Domain

Domain dominates human-colonized space

Domain expands using combination of Gate system and FTL

Third wave of autonomous exploration motherships, sporeships, etc. dispatched. Includes the Gate Haulers of legend, which spread nodes of the Gate network.

The Persean Sector Pre-Collapse

“The Luddic faithful contemplate/perform a series of scenes which represent the life and death of the Prophet Ludd. This “spiritual road” is often a literal traversal of space past a number of shrines, dioramas, or live re-enactings, the scale of which may vary wildly depending on the intended scope of the ritual. The scenes are as follows:

The Innocence: The birth of the one-who-will-become-Ludd. Themes of innocence, connection the humanity pre-sin. It is important that the Luddics make no record of any personal characteristics of their prophet and in so emphasize the-one-who-would-become-Ludd’s oneness with the experience of all humanity. This allows any individual to put themselves into the role of Ludd in the stations of the Path, as subject or observer. The Witnessing: The one-who-will-become-Ludd leaves a sheltered existence and witnesses the misery of the world. Figures encountered include some combination of: a starving child ignored in the street, a plant growing from a crack in the deck-plates, a radiation-burned veteran abandoned by the Armada, a penniless merchant used by his partners, a world allowed to choke on ash by those who care only for the moment, a scholar who found truth scorned by the prideful, a criminal condemned despite her repentance, etc. The Ecstasy: In which the despairing one-who-will-become-Ludd is touched by the spirit of God and thereafter adopts the Ludd persona to bring the divine message to humanity The Teaching: In which Ludd starts spiritual “clubs” for those who “seek galactic redemption”. The First Persecution: In which Ludd is mocked, then physically attacked, then hidden from prosecution by followers. The Exodus: In which Ludd is given a vision by God of a promised land, and leads the faithful to settle in the Persean Sector The Blooming: In which the faithful teach the industrial-terraformers how to shepherd the spirit of the land to create a new paradise. The Second Persecution: In which the followers of Ludd again face hardship and persecution at the hands of authorities in the Persean Sector. The Peacemaker: In which Ludd protects one of the mob who had attacked the faithful from a revenge-attack by followers and in doing so is revealed to authorities The Arrest: In which Ludd is arrested by Domain authorities; the faithful are willing to fight, but again Ludd asks them to lay down their arms The Trial: In which Ludd is condemned to die by the Domain Sector-leader. The Discontinuity: In which Ludd enters the Gate system and is taken by God; the Gates are sealed in the promise of redemption for humanity.“

An Unbelievers Introduction to the Luddic Faith (TriMedia Store)

The Collapse

“Fact: Giant fleets of AI warships don’t just show up out of no-where and they don’t just happen to be concentrated in the kinds of numbers we saw in the First AI War in one backwater sector on the Domain’s frontier. Trust me, anyone who examines the facts can see that Tri-Tachyon was prepared to make a move. Some would say they even instigated the Collapse using some kind of super-AI. Is it a coincidence that the Collapse happened just as Domain Battlegroup VI was rotated out of the Sector with Battlegroup XIV not yet arrived? I don’t think so, buddy. The AI mastermind controlling Tri-Tachyon had this all planned out, including the so-called Luddic Church psy-ops project to doubly weaken Domain authority. Facts don’t lie.”

Tri-Truth: The AI Plot Behind The Collapse (TriMedia Store)

The Gate Network instantly ceases to operate within volume of information available to human civilization in the Persean Sector.

This collapse is allegedly concurrent with the transfer of a prisoner named “Ludd” via Gate Network. The veracity of this claim is much disputed.

Battlegroup XIV, including elements of 200th Legion (disgraced after a series of mutinies while deployed against rebels), was cut off from the Gate Network at a transfer point in vicinity of Persean Sector. Enacts network failure protocol: most of the crew is put into emergency cryosleep, many units jury-rigged, and the ships make the hyperspace journey toward the closest civilized volume. Civilian ships and outposts encountered en-route are stripped of fuel and supplies. Many core fleet elements must be mothballed or abandoned.

Remains of various megacorps are cut off in the Persean Sector. Some are established and flexible enough to rebuild a command hierarchy (Tri-Tachyon, Ko Combine, HG Autofab, Bhilai Space Group). Others collapse as local oligarchs carve out fiefdoms, workers abandon their posts, or other polities seize assets; examples include Eridani-Utopia, Altair Exotech, Fabrique Orbitale, Interstellar Dynamics, and others.

Early Post-Collapse (period of roughly c+00 to c+100)

c+5 – Refugees from terraforming collapse on Maxios settle outer Magec system

c+8 – Formation of Church of Galactic Redemption

The Church of Galactic Redemption arose out of a compromise between a handful of the largest sects of faithful who agreed that worldly organizations were necessary to uphold the teachings of Ludd. The Knights of Ludd were formed as a monastic military branch of the Church intended to temper secular wrath with spiritual virtue.

Many sects remain outside the official Church including the infamous loosely associated “Luddic Path”.

circa c+48 – XIV Battlegroup arrives in Persean Sector

XIV Battlegroup claims military authority to seize supplies necessary for its operation.

circa c+49 – XIV Battlegroup enacts a diktat of hegemony

“The Hegemony stands for the overriding cause of the restoration of the Domain and therefore stability, peace, and prosperity for all humanity in the galaxy. This must come first before any other niceties of civilized life. Officers, crew, citizens – the survival of humanity is at stake! It is only the discipline of the Hegemony military that creates a space on our precious protected worlds where some semblance of “normalcy” can be found. Anything that threatens this cause must be neutralized by the power of the Hegemony.”

Address to the Assembly, first High Hegemon Kali Molina

In cooperation with “native elements”, a legal framework is laid for the polity known as the Hegemony and is declared a successor to Domain authority in a ceremony held on Eventide.

early c+82.10 – Destruction of Mairaath by Pather terrorists

“What remains is a charred and broken landscape, the carefully nurtured weather patterns of the great Mayasuran terraforming cabal transformed into nightmarish storms that circle the globe, stirring the ashes of a murdered world.”

(selection from anonymous Hegemony warrant officer’s AAR submitted to Hegemony archives)

c+82.10.22 – The Last Hurrah (mission)

Hegemony attacks Mayasurian Navy. Hegemony is victorious and takes control of Mayasura system.

Figures involved:

Commodore Jensulte of Hegemony

circa c+83 – Formation of the Persean League

“Make no mistake, the Persean League is not egalitarian, it does not protect individual freedom. Their goal is only the freedom of their member polities as entities unto themselves – this is the freedom of the Kazeron oligarchs to enslave the weak, to exploit the masses, to run an archipelago of petty dictatorships against coordinated mass action of the free peoples of the Sector!”

How to Identify and Classify Antis, Hegemony Ministry of Information FactNet

(quotation of unauthorized hyperwave dispatch from suspected ARC cell propagandist)

In response to the Hegemony, a loose alliance of major worlds declares itself the Persean League to uphold independent sovereignty

circa c+84 – Tri-Tachyon Corporation deploys AI warfleets

Due to lack of Domain technology controls and rising tension in the Persean Sector, Tri-Tachyon acts with free hand to deploy AI warfleets developed in secret in various systems on the fringe of the Core Worlds.

The First AI War

c+89-95 – The First AI War

Hegemony declares intent to enforce Domain-era restrictions on AI development against Tri-Tachyon. The Persean League sides with Tri-Tachyon, the Luddic Church sides with the Hegemony. War engulfs the Sector.

Terms of surrender involve acceptance of technological inspection by Hegemony (with support of Luddic Church). Much of the irreplaceable XIV Battlegroup matériel was destroyed in this war. Similarly, much of Tri-Tachyon’s infrastructure is devastated – or dismantled in the post-war settlement.

c+95-107 – Joint Hegemony/Knights of Ludd fleet operations sweep autonomous AI from fringe systems until partnership agreement breaks down.

c+107 – High Hegemon declares victory over the AI threat.

AI War Interbellum

c+148 – Mazalot regime in Zagan toppled by Luddic revolution

League world of Mazalot is overthrown by Luddic majority population

c+153.08.12 – Coral Nebula (mission)

Persean League sends fleet to intervene in Luddic revolution in Zagan system. Successfully defeats Knights of Ludd / Pather fleet.

Involved:

Navarch Mars Kato of Kazeron, of the Persean League

circa c+160’s – Invasion of sector by the Warlord Loke

Rogue fleet of former Domain military warships under command of Onesimos Loke enters Persean Sector after raiding fringe worlds. Scores major victory by catching Hegemony taskforce unaware in Penelope’s Star.

c+160 – Colonel Kanta turns traitor in Magec

Originally a Hegemony logistics officer, Colonel Kanta cuts a deal with Loke to turn the Hegemony base in Guayota’s Disk – and its arsenal – over to the pirate warlord.

c+160 – Andrada defeats Warlord Loke

Much glory earned by the young and upcoming Hegemony officer Andrada in the Battle of Maxios. Hegemony policy promotes hero-worship as means to unify population.

Involved:

Warlord Loke

Phillip Andrada

c+160 – Colonel Kanta declares herself successor to Warlord Loke

Once it’s clear how the tides are turning, Colonel Kanta turns again, spaces the Loke loyalists left on her station, and sets herself up as a pirate Warlord over the remains of Loke’s fleet. Local politics (and heavy weapons) make it inconvenient for the Hegemony to clean out her operation. She proceeds to build alliances and puts herself at the head of a dynasty of pirates and organized crime spread throughout the local systems.

Involved:

Warlord Kanta

c+180 – Beginning of Askonia Crisis

Civil war breaks out in Askonia system. Ostensibly over domestic issues, flashpoint occurs around Persean League membership consideration, but much outside interference as well.

c+181 – Hegemony intervention in Askonia

Askonia is powerful independent system considering League membership to shore up domestic support in face of ongoing civil war. Hegemony moves to counter expansion of the Persean League by intervening.

Involved

Admiral Phillip Andrada of the Hegemony

c+181 – World of Opis is destroyed, Andrada takes Sindria, declares Sindrian Diktat

“The captain stood up from his chair and asked again that it was a PK deployed against Opis. The junior lieutenant on sensors confirmed, and the captain asked once more, like he was angry at the fact of it. It was still true. In one quick motion the old man pulls his sidearm and shoots himself in the head, right there, blam. Everyone on the bridge was stunned for a moment, felt like forever with just the small arms alarm going. Then shouting, and some kind of bomb went off, I think, and there was more gunfire; CP arcs across the holotank. I remember that; the beams sparkled through the smoke. It was chaos.”

Audio report from survivor of the HSS Potentate mutiny, Hegemony Naval Archives, Eventide

The moon Opis, capital and population center of the Askonia polity, is destroyed by a Planet Killer. Andrada blames rebels, rebels blame Andrada, other rebels blame each other, others blame outside agents.

The Hegemony executive council considers Andrada’s actions erratic and ill-judged, issuing a recall order which he ignores, declaring it “weak-willed treason”.

Phillip Andrada starts purges throughout Askonia system, declares himself executor-for-life aka Diktat Executor over new polity formed from the Hegemony intervention fleet.

Most of the Hegemony task force declares for Andrada – Hero of the Battle of Maxios – while a minority remains loyal to Hegemony and a smaller minority joins the Askonian rebels. A chaotic battle breaks out in the Hegemony armada in orbit around Sindria with fighting both in ship corridors and between ships of the Hegemony fleet.

Involved

Phillip Andrada, leader of the Sindrian Diktat, “The Lion of Sindria”

The Second AI War

“The Second AI War saw five terrible cycles of war between Tri-Tachyon and the Hegemony with rising stakes as the conflict proceeded. As before, the Luddic Church tended to back the Hegemony while the Persean League tended to back Tri-Tachyon, though neither openly or enthusiastically. The war resulted in a greatly weakened Tri-Tachyon Corporation, though the personal power of Artemisia Sun was vastly increased within Tri-Tachyon due to her ouster just before and return just after the greatest defeat of the war. Despite the material losses, Hegemony internal politics recover from the unstable state post-Askonia Crisis as a new generation of officer leadership is tested and proven. Both powers end up more desperate and depleted, but with stronger leadership. It is a peace that cannot last.”

Ayomide Callisto’s Commentaries Vol. IX (Galatia Academy Publishing House)

early c+189 – Outbreak of Second AI War

With Hegemony weakened by fallout from the Askonia Crisis – loss of fleet, loss of standing, loss of stability in officer corps, CEO Artemisia Sun uses tech inspection negotiations to instigate casus belli.

Involved:

CEO Artemisia Sun

mid c+189 – Hegemony destroys hyperwave network

In response to discovery of Tri-Tachyon backdoors installed in hyperspace relay hardware, the Hegemony orders its internal hyperwave network destroyed. Interstellar communications falls back to packet ships

c+189.08 – Hana Pacha destroyed by Planet-killer

Also known as the “Hana Pacha Atrocity”. Neither Hegemony or Tri-Tachyon claims responsibility. Diplomatic fallout leads to temporary cease-fire, diplomatic talks.

c+189.08.20 – Ambush (mission)

Hegemony war efforts suffering under logistics attacks; using peace talk cease-fire to resupply. Tri-Tachyon uses advanced raiders to covertly attack logistics fleets. Hegemony surprises raiders with special anti-raider patrol in Valhalla system.

c+189.11.07 – The Wolf Pack (mission)

Tri-Tachyon mercenaries raid Hegemony logistics. Raid is successful and Kane Gleise captured by Tri-Tachyon.

Involved:

Commander Kane Gleise, Hegemony officer

c+190.04.12 – Dire Straits (mission)

Raesvelg blockaded by Tri-Tachyon Corporation. Hegemony forces and mercenaries relieve Raesvelg successfully.

Involved:

ISS Black Star, mercenary ship outfitted by House Rao of Eventide

Orcus Rao, disgraced dropout from Hegemony naval school on Sphinx

Gan Bower, Hegemony-appointed magistrate of Raesvelg

c+190.04.23 – Predator or Prey (mission)

Hegemony interception of Tri-Tachyon carrier detachment sent to reinforcement Raesvelg following the setback in “Dire Straits”.

Involved:

Baikal Daud, up-and-coming Hegemony officer from slums of Chicomoztoc

c+193.03.14 – Sinking the Bismar (mission)

Kane Gleise was released during prisoner exchange, now commands Onslaught-class battleship “Bismar”. Gleise defeats Tri-Tachyon ambush, but is defeated in follow-up battle by advanced Tri-Tachyon recon detachment.

Involved:

Captain Kane Gleise, Hegemony officer with unsavory reputation

HSS Bismar, Onslaught-class battleship

c+193.03.16 – Defeat of Bismar spurs emergency measures by Hegemony Council

Hegemony imposes additional war taxes onto civilian administrations, massively funds fleet-wide upgrades and additional mobilization of auxilliaries.

c+193.07.21 – Mission: Nothing Personal

Galatian Academy sponsors independent expedition to Tia-Tax’et, accidentally discovers secret Hegemony base refitting hulk of Bismar to renamed HSS Phoenix, and is wiped out by the Hegemony fleet.

Involved:

HSS Bismar / HSS Phoenix

late c+193 – Artemisia Sun removed as CEO of Tri-Tachyon Corporation

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

intercept 193.08.04-11:13 // Hegemony COMINT archives, restricted

Shake-up of Tri-Tachyon leadership leads to major change in strategy.

c+194.01 – Tri-Tachyon attempts to invade Chicomoztoc

And fails.

Involved:

Baikal Daud, future Hegemony space marshal

Orcus Rao, Hegemony naval officer

Ardis Soloman, Hegemony naval officer, pre-infamy

c+194.01.07 – Mission: Forlorn Hope

Tri-Tachyon battleship holds off Hegemony Defense Fleet to cover retreat of remaining Tri-Tachyon forces, including phase cruiser with planet-killer device.

Involved:

Vice Fleet Director Kader, commander of surviving Tri-Tachyon forces

TTS Invincible, Paragon-class battleship

c+194.02 – Treaty of Crom Cruach ends Second AI War

Allows Tri-Tachyon to remain power in Sector, though diminished. CEO Artemisia Sun returns to lead Tri-Tachyon after the “new guard” executives are completely disgraced.

Hegemony prestige is renewed and new faces enter the ranks of executive council membership.

The Present Era

c+198.05.17 – A Fistful of Credits (mission)

“He winked and sold me twelve containers of low-grade ferrous ore hiding four hundred thirty two CP-carbines with enough ammunition to fuel a small insurgency for an entire muggy Volturn summer season.”

Anonymous, audio log (recovered from derelict in outskirts of Askonia system)

c+201.09.12 – Hornet’s Nest (mission)

“A barren but promising world well-situated to become the center of culture and industry of Magec; our models project vast investment in resource exploitation from Guayota’s Disk.”

TriTachyon strategic development memo, pre-Collapse

“Between our contractor’s inexperience and the updated intel on the Kanta front, this deal is looking worse all the time. You say, why don’t we pull out now? And I say: think of the penalty clause on the outfitting, to say nothing of the mercenaries. We don’t want to spoil that relationship. So consider: if we run the numbers even a failure can result in a net-zero operation provided the insurers don’t know that we know about Ibrahim’s little exaggeration – then if the mercs don’t make it out, that takes care of it itself.

Are we agreed? Nothing leaves this channel?”

intercept 201.09.11-23:47 // TriTachyon, Experimental Statistics Subdivision

c+203.11.24 – Turning the Tables (mission)

“Practical cynicism stoked by rumours of a Luddic Path cell operating in the local volume have led the Hamatsu’s captain, seasoned combat-salvage veteran Callisto Ibrahim, to retain a mercenary ship with a particularly tenacious reputation for protection en route to buyers in the Core Worlds.”

c+204.01.22 – For the Greater Ludd (mission)

“Out of nowhere in low orbit around Nortia came a transmission for the captain of the ISS Black Star from one Brother Cotton, “a humble traveler on the Path of Ludd”. A meeting was arranged.”

c+206.01.01 – Now

Discussion thread here.

Tags: domain, hegemony, lore, luddics, obviously I'm not covering for Alex on the blogging front while he develops new features, Persean League, pirates, tri-tachyon