Howdy folx... the verbose Vargr is back with yet more...
Traveller Tales
being an encapsulated history of future time
Copyright 1991 Jim Vassilakos
(for whatever it's worth)
F.I. 0-1481 * The First Imperium
0-129 Age of Reckoning
129-137 The Reign of Blood
137-461 Athena's Imperium
462-467 The Little Empress
467-483 Emperors of Doomsday
483-1120 The Dim Time
1120-1484 Quest for Solidarity
0-129 Age of Reckoning
The mutant rebellions of the 33rd century combined with the
contempt of an educated population for the corporate state set
the stage for the formation of the First Imperium under Admiral
Draconius. However, as the great stellar estates returned to
their corporate masters during the economic recovery, tensions
resurfaced, forcing the inevitable settlement of accounts between
a once enslaved population, corporate management, and the man who
would be emperor.
Draconius was crowned in A.D. 3516, also the year zero of the
new calendar, during a symbolic ceremony in which his young
empress-to-be, then a palace slave, was accorded the right of
king-maker as a gesture of defiance against the lesser nobility.
The gesture was not taken lightly, as during the Emperor's
marriage four years later, an attempt was made on his life,
killing instead his bride-to-be. Not knowing upon whom to
retaliate, Draconius seized the opportunity to execute each and
every member of the noble families while all were present and had
nowhere to flee. The exercise in Draconian justice made the
archaic roots of his name all the more meaningful as he
personally executed the last of his corporate rivals.
Claiming the wealth and power of his victims via the Imperial
fleets, Draconius mercilessly slaughtered all opposition to his
absolute rule. He indiscriminately butchered entire planetary
populations in the name of his beloved empress, and by the middle
teens, the pervasive anarchy which threatened to consume the
Empire had been successfully quashed. The process of
decentralization began anew, as Draconius called to the upper
echelons of his fleets for his most loyal and capable officers.
To these individuals, he invested the titles of nobility. Large
fiefs and governorships were distributed arbitrarily, in a
fashion which best suited the Emperor alone without consideration
for the regions or peoples to be held subject.
By the early 30's (F.I.), the new order was intact and
functioning. Perhaps to test the bureaucratic machinery,
Draconius began the issuance of royal edicts, the first calling
for an accelerated program of expansion. Production levels were
driven upward to meet the increasing demand, and the median
standard of living rose to all-time highs since the turn of the
Terran millennium making Draconius the most popular and effective
leader in historical memory. No one would foresee that within a
century, his face would become virtually unknown.
129-137 The Reign of Blood
Before the murder of his empress-to-be, Draconius fathered a pair
of paternal twins, Paulo and Athena. The brother and sister were
considered as the two separate halves of their father's double
personality, the former: sinister, evil, rash, and prone to
tantrums, the latter: quiet, reserved, careful, and thoughtful.
Over the years, Paulo grew impatient with his father's rule.
He desired mastery of the galaxy for himself, and in 129, he
murdered his father, seizing the crown and marrying his sister,
Athena. Rebellion broke out almost instantly as Paulo had carried
out his plan without a strong network of conspirators, yet the
ruthlessness with which he crushed the revolt dwarfed Draconius'
cruelty. This policy of terror and intimidation would
characterize the short remainder of his rule as Paulo lapsed into
a guilt-ridden paranoia which drove him finally into an obsession
to eradicate the memory of his father.
Paulo ordered that all the images of his father be destroyed;
anywhere the name "Draconius" was written, it was erased.
Anywhere his father's memory lay, he would put its keepers to
death. Soon, even if he heard that the name "Draconius" was so
much as whispered on such a planet, all its inhabitants would be
killed. Paulo used all the powers he could bring to bear to seek
out and destroy all who would oppose him in his quest.
In a short time, Paulo had canceled every edict his father had
ever decreed, erased every statement, undone every deed,
destroyed every concrete memory he could find of his father.
Soon, he believed, even he would forget of Draconius.
Paulo's reveled in courtly games of pain and death to relieve
a moment's pressure from the enormous task he had undertaken. He
spent long hours developing new tortures of the mind which he
tested on his chosen mate, Athena, and administrated the Office
of Emperor only where it would accomplish his ultimate goal of
erasing the name of his father.
Despite his repeated attempts to impregnate his sister in the
earlier part of his reign, Athena never bore him any children,
nor allowed any of her ova for use in an artificial womb. This, a
testament to her own psionic prowess, confounded Paulo with the
greatest anger, and in a fit of rage he abused her to such
extremes that she fell into a sleep of eight years from which
even Paulo and all the Empire's sciences could not resurrect her.
He ordered her ova surgically removed, but during the operation
her life signs ceased until Paulo and his doctor's retreated.
This apparent threat of suicide kept Paulo at bay until the
final year of his reign, when losing patience with her game he
fell upon her pushing her to decide between birth and death,
nevermore allowing her to linger in that nether state she had
created through her Psi talents. For those eight years, Paulo
butchered nearly half of the Empire's population, and yet
rebellion seemed a distant hope at best. Paulo grew madder by the
day, until the hour of Athena's awakening when she bore him a
baby boy.
Seized with joy, he resolved to allow her the tradition of
naming the newborn child. She uttered but one word, "Draconius,"
which caused him to plunge into uncontrollable spasms of anger
and fear. Observing her opportunity, she ordered him restrained
and sedated and put him on Psi inhibitors to control his mental
powers. That day, the people rejoiced, as Athena became Empress.
137-461 Athena's Imperium
Athena's first act of office was to order Paulo exiled to the
most remote planet in the Empire where she built a prison
especially for her brother. Continually drugged, Paulo now seemed
as helpless as the infant Athena had borne him. Due to the
strange circumstances of its birth, however, the baby Draconius
was greatly feared by the remaining population, and in a gesture
of sacrifice, Athena had her only son exiled to a distant corner
of the Empire and placed on agathic inhibitors to forestall his
development into maturity. The population was placated for the
time being, and Athena began her rule, instituting several edicts
toward the amendment of the Imperial political framework.
The first of these edicts involved the creation of a Senate of
Nobles who would enact laws with the consent of the Empress. This
proved of tremendous importance, as it ended a long era of
arbitrary legislation and provided the foundation for a firm
legal code. The second of these edicts involved the creation of
the Imperial High Court to interpret law in "cases of magnitude"
for the better consistency of justice. This proved extremely
valuable in centralizing legal authority.
Over the three centuries of her rule, Athena continued her
father's program of expansion, though not nearly at the rate her
father had forecast. She viewed Terra's ties to the outer worlds
as already over-extended. Strangely enough, however, she
continued to enforce Paulo's will that her father not be
remembered. Over the period of a century, the effort proved
effective with respect to the common citizen, however, an
underground historical society eventually formed which preserved
the memory of Draconius.
Athena finally consented to marriage in 449, bearing two issue
to the Archduke of Deneb during the following year. Both children
died shortly after birth, and rumors of an assassin within the
Imperial palace circulated among the populace. Athena ordered the
palace psi-shielded and sent a secret communique to Paulo's
prison ordering that her brother be executed. By means unknown,
Paulo escaped only hours before the receipt of the message, and
Draconius mysteriously disappeared a short time later.
Fear of Paulo swept through the masses, and Athena ordered the
suppression of psionics to counter the panic; however, her
actions were too slow in coming, and rebellion ensued from the
Siri (psionic class). For a short period, a movement called the
"Draconian Front" challenged the Imperial Right of Suppression,
borrowing its name from the centuries old censure as a show of
defiance against the Empire.
Lacking the ability to survive direct battles, the front
relied on piracy and sabotage as its primary arguments, harassing
Imperial shipping and communication routes during the early 50's.
However, it lacked the momentum of a full-scale rebellion, and
was soundly defeated at the battle of Aranruth in 456. The
Empress rejoined her husband later that year and bore a daughter
in 457 on the world of her victory. She stayed until 461,
refusing to venture into the spacelanes until she was finally
persuaded by her longing for Terra. There, the Empress and the
Archduke both perished in a surprise attack by pirates.
462-467 The Little Empress
Christine of Aranruth assumed the crown of Empress at five years
of age, almost a full year after the death of her mother and
father in an act of spacelanes piracy. Prior to her ascension,
various dukes of the Deneb clusters, all nephews and cousins of
the late husband to Athena, formed a grand alliance and waged a
siege on Terra in anticipation of the power vacuum soon to
result.
The ransom of Christine in 462 provided the Terrans with a
golden opportunity for home rule. Thus, crowning the young
Christine as Empress gave the Terrans the legal authority to
summon their defense. Once reinforced, the Royal Navy drove back
the rebels in a gallant victory, but the winds of anarchy were so
easily quieted. As various dukes attempted to win favor and
influence over the young empress, competition to control the
Empire through Christine serving as its puppet figurehead led to
open hostilities among the nobility. This, in turn, resulted in
Christine's assassination in 467. She was ten years old.
467-483 Emperors of Doomsday
Before the young empress could even be accorded a proper funeral,
the vacuum of authority left in her wake swept in all the worms
of the muck. Over the following sixteen years, no less than
forty-seven individuals proclaimed themselves autocrat of the
Empire. Each new wave of invaders brought forth a new noble,
admiral, or crackpot opportunist to power. To capture Terra was
to rule the Empire, yet as the entirety of the 1st Imperium
swiftly collapsed into desperate anarchy, numerous duchies
announced their separate independence. Finally, during the Battle
of Doomsday, F.I. 483, 3999 by the old calendar, Terra was
destroyed.
483-1120 The Dim Time
As humaniti entered the fifth millennium, the psychic blow of
Earth's destruction carried with its passing an air of
misanthropy. Although without focus, the war continued in
sporadic outbursts for well over century.
Finally, the economy of the Empire became so depleted and
ravaged by internal war, and the political system so fragmented
and disarranged that no true Empire could be said to exist.
Within the core worlds, a long depression ensued, in which key
industries fell apart, the caste system was destroyed, and
communication and transport between the stars came to a near
standstill. However, near the rim, colonization still continued
and new states were built from the various duchies, kingdoms,
domains, and governorships which remained.
Humaniti slowly re-established itself during the final
centuries of the Dim Time, however, it was so politically
fragmented that the more powerful states squabbled amongst one
another for greater power and prestige, leading once more to
outbreaks of armed conflict. An interworld trade language soon
arose among the merchant class, facilitating exchange and
communication, and many national leaders found their authority
waning as merchants flocked to the least aggressive and least
trade-restrictive of their counterparts abroad. Since trade
wealth and privateering were still considered paramount to a
state's prestige and defense, there was a concerted movement on
the part of all nations to cease their hostilities and to renew
their ancient bonds.
1120-1484 Quest for Solidarity
As nation states became tempered by the economic realities of the
age, the ceaseless forces of political centralization countered
the peace ethic inherent to a re-developing interstellar
community. Ultimately, neither force could defeat the other, and
in 1120, a solution was discovered with the first of several
arranged marriages which would eventually rebind the Empire and
make it once again whole.
Over the next three and a half centuries, the route to power
was clear. As the fragments of the first Imperium steadily
coalesced into ever more powerful states, political leaders
became increasingly concerned that their progeny should one day
rule all of human space.
The mergence was completed with the marriage of Prince
Frederick of Omicron and Princess Anastasia of Sol in 1484,
coinciding with the sixth millennium celebrations scheduled over
the entire year. The young couple was paraded before the media,
announcing a new era of peace and prosperity as their families
continued to hold the real power behind the scenes.
_ /|
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