Definitely Not Communists [+]

Nation Name:
The Federated People's Republics of Auriga

Government Form:
Federal Neo-Socialist Multi-Party State

Demographics:
Aurigan's are largely baseline humans, though minor technological augmentation is not uncommon.

Population:
2.1 Billion

Planet Name and Description: Aurora - named for its prevalent magnetospheric disturbances known as "Aurorae" - is a "continental" world, though its oceans comprise a larger amount of its surface than that of Earth as well as being slightly smaller, if more dense, and as such it barely scrapes by on this designation. Nonetheless, featuring two large continents and one smaller, tertiary one, it is a human inhabitable world that featured vibrant but non-hostile and in some cases pseudo-sapient plant life, although with minimal risk or threat to initial colonization efforts.

Aurora possesses two moons, Boralis and Australis, were both pushed into habitable by basic terraforming techniques concerned almost exclusively with inducing a human breathable oxygen content and are themselves resource rich. Boralis is a cold, arid and dry world, whilst Australis, with its much thicker atmosphere and ring system, is a significantly more tropical partner to Aurora, with numerous oceans and and some more enjoyable temperate zones.

History: Initially deposited into the vast local system of the Auriga's resident gas supergiant, the Aurigan colonization effort very nearly ended as it began, with the local system almost entirely devoid of notable "first choice" colonization sites and a difficult entry into the system from the wormhole exit point having damaged a significant portion of the colony flotilla's long range and survey sensors. With minimal information on the rest of the system and unable to countenance exploration of initial astrographical information, the effort's command staff initially detached a small portion of the colonial flotilla with a lion's share of resources to begin developing efforts at long-term habitation of the rocky worlds orbiting the gas super-giant, whilst the rest of the fleet headed to the innersystem on the initially gathered information that indicated a habitable world had been found before damage had obfuscated the effectiveness of the expeditions survey equipment.

Thankfully, the rest of the fleet found Aurora - and while a spectacular and very much unplanned interaction with her eponymous dazzling seasonal lights caused yet further issues with the founding of the first colonies on her surface, grounding much of the colonial expedition upon their first landing, Aurora was found to be welcoming and without issue for the displaced colonists of a dying planet.

While communication with the initial colonies was possible - the grounding of the larger ships of the fleet made relocating them difficult, and consequently the early colonies in the system diverged. With no sapient life on the planet - the closest being dog-like intelligence "migratory" forests and other related plant life - The founding of the first settlement, Rochette, signified the beginning of 0 A.L - After Landing.

By 30 A.L, several dozen settlements had spread across Aurora, though all operated nominally under the authority of a democratic government headed by Rochette - this democracy would last another generation, before cronyism and the rising corporate power behind the scenes began to cripple the fledging democracy - by 70 A.L, Rochette's authority was limited to its most loyal settlements and by 100 A.L, Aurora was home to a dozen different city states, all under some varying degree of corporate control or despotic corruption hiding under a veneer of the notion of democratic processes.

This came to a head in 116 AL, when the premier corporate powers of Aurora, chiefly Ashandra Systems and Miskovsky Incorporated merged and began integrating those settlements, companies and nations in no position to resist it, first by financial means, and as their power and abilities grew, outright violent means - this corporate authority eventually came to control most of Aurora, with only a few isolated settlements, themselves usually "company towns" lost from a ledger escaping direct control. By 170 AL - A small but nonetheless effective expedition forced the capitulation of the outer system colonies, whom had not long established effective means of transportation to Aurora themselves. Conditions on these colonies would become almost untolerable with their economical output redirected towards feeding a nascent stellar state on Aurora and their efforts to tame her moons.

These outer colonies would become the nexus of organized resistance - too far to effectively police - and too valuable to outright crush in absolute terms, small pockets of organized political and later, armed, resistance would continue to grow in the place that had once been established as a worst-case scenarion, meant to save humanity or the Aurigan colonists if no home could be found. Though this had never turned out to be necessary, the radical political thought and defiant attitude - even in the face of deteriorating conditions and sometimes brutal crackdowns - that arose in these underground and glass sealed settlements would prove to be the end of a nation of the birth of a new renaissance.

By 220 AL, what had been isolated defiance in the outer colonies was a widespread campaign of civil disobedience all the way back in the now long since urbanised centres of civilization on Aurora. Worker strikes crippled mines and factories, orbital infrastructure was sabotaged and a brutal and violent repression of a shipyard strike culminated in the death of 235 civilians - the response was the obliteration of a corporate defence frigate in orbit due to repeat the same kind of violence in the now almost uncontrolled outer colonies.

In 230 AL, corporate power had effectively ceased in the outer system and several "nations" on Aurora were effectively independent as soldiers of fortune were concentrated to control areas of economic importance and to repress civil disobedience. This culminated in the collapse of the Corporate Alliance backing much of the shaky "democratic" states on the planet and the beginning of a civil war, independents, revolutionaries and corporate forces clashed, destroying wide swathes of infrastructure and urban centres on the surface of Aurora, though the conflict largely remained confined to the surface - Boralis and Australis had established their own "neutral" regimes, the outer colonies in support of revolutionaries but crippled by their own needs and proto-revolution, and the orbital corporate assets long since rendered non-functional by saboteurs or defectors.

The Auroran civil war lasted 5 devastating years, resulting in the destruction of the corporate alliance and the establishment of a patchwork of independent states of varying degrees of organisation. Over the next several years, many of these states would come together to establish a constitutional convention looking to reintegrate themselves, in 240 AL - a true planetary assembly was convened with representatives from around the planet and from beyond meeting in the ruins of the former corporate haven of Rochette, which itself was slowly beginning to rebuild.

The result was a rejection of everything that had come before barring the principles of direct representation of the people - but little else. Several political groupings from across the spectrum that existed in what was left of Auroran politics held their appeal, but it was the widespread new wave Green Socialists that held sway in most of the organised states left - while the outer system was certainly more hardline, it was the Australis and Boralis representatives, themselves the swaying vote and arguably the most able to actually act at this juncture, who backed the "Green" Socialist movement on Aurora but pricing it at their own independence. The convention ultimately organised the multiple republics that had come into existence on Aurora into a cohesive federal system to be seated in a new capital on the planet - Svoboda, whilst also recognizing the independence of the Outer Colonies.

The ultimate success of the unification of Aurora was viewed favourably by Australis and Boralis, already politically aligned domestically - and in 265 AL, despite their initial desire for independence, Aurora's moons collecttively petitioned for membership in the Aurigan state, with the outer colonies ultimately petitioning for membership in 275 AL.

The Last 25 years have been spent rebuilding, undoing years of ecological degredation and the consequent decline in the preservation of native life, embracing the need for civil liberties and the redistribution of hoarded resources and wealth across the system whilst simultaneously building up the transport and orbital infrastructure of the Aurigan state, and consequently the system at large. A recent effort to devise an artificial intelligence to manage the necessary matters of state operating under what a socialist system intends to achieve free of human bias has also recently achieved fruition, with the advanced Red Star Intelligence coming online with its authority over the allocation of resources and suggestions for policy already lauded by the political class.

Culture and Society: Aurigan culture and society is currently undergoing a golden age - or so they would say. Freed from the trappings of greed and with information largely uncontrolled with even the original colony ships Earth databanks open to all without cost, old and new are melding together in a uniquely Aurigan way, though often considered a "Neo-Classical Fusion" in as much as Earth before its fall could be considered "classical". Advances in technology no longer confined to the elite and state sponsored programs have opened up formerly commercialised augmentations, allowing every day citizens access to implants and prosthetics to aid in daily life and in particular helping remedy the situation of those who suffered greatly under corporate rule.

Aurigan society has now nearly almost completely embraced enviromentalist and socialist principles wholesale, though there has been a very strident attempt to avoid creeping authoritarianism - the rejection of corporate authority should not be replaced by a socialist or communist tyranny either, and much of the military force built up during the times of conflict has been reduced or re-organised into civil police forces under local authority, even the formerly disabled but potent corporate space forces have been relegated to minimal deployment against the few pirate forces that exist in the system, though the potential for a corporate hold-out to be discovered on some asteroid or in a bunker somewhere has prevented a completely wholehearted embrace of pacifism.

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Governance and Politics: The Government of the FRPA is organised into the following branches;

The Presidium:
The Presidium is the highest office encompassing the majority of exercisable legislative power and oversight vested into the the collected council that makes up the Presidium, selected cross-party and headed by the General Secretary, whom is the leader of the largest party in the elected Assembly of the Republics. The Presidium is not unbound - with the Assembly able to challenge through vote his or her decisions or force an ousting of the General Secretary oor of the Council wholesale, however, for all intents and purposes the General Secretary, serving as the Head of the Presidium and the Aurigan State, pursues most elements of Foreign Policy and traditionally serves to approve legislation passed by the Assembly.

The Presidium also discusses and potentially acts on suggestions from the Red Star Artificial Intelligence, with the Presidium providing oversight for the AI as outlined by the Freedom from Tyranny constitutional amendment.

The Assembly of the Republics:

The Assembly of the Republic's is a somewhat traditional legislative body made up of proportional representatives from each of the constituent republics of the Aurigan state. The Assembly divises legislation, votes on said legislation to pass to the Presidium and approves judicial appointments as well as being the only body able to propose or approve constitutional amendments, effectively functioning as the primary element of the legislative process. The Assembly functions as the core of the Federal Government, and it is from these members that most government appointments are made.

Federal Republics:
Each Federal Republic is free to organise its own administration provided it adheres to the principles of the federal constitution, its own founding documents and continues to allow the free expression of political power by its citizens. Whether the Republic be organised by workers councils or traditional parliamentary systems, all republics must also organise a federal vote to appoint members to the Assembly of the Republics, and all must contribute to the continued freedom of the working class through whatever means they are able to do so. The People's Republics consequently make up the majority of citizen facing government.

Technology Overview: Whilst the majority of the working class was kept ignorant by the Corporate Alliance that came to dominate the Auriga system, it did preserve the databanks of the initial settlers and further, invested in anything that could potentially provide profit - while most of these innovations were largely beyond the working class, such innovation created and maintained an academic base that has persisted throughout even the harshest times. Whilst the Auroran civil war damaged much of the infrastructure, the knowledge of times past and of corporate innovation was by and large preserved - and the opening of all information to every citizen where practical has caused another scientific revolution.

Technological augmentation has become a widespread possibility, although corporate innovations in genetic fields has largely been restricted to gene therapies to treat illnesses - memories of tragic corporate genesplicing have rendered exploitation of this field largely taboo, especially an in a new born age of equality.

Military Overview: The Soviet Armed Forces includes the Red Guard & the Red Space Forces. The independent but small Red Strategic Forces consists of the limited mass destruction assets available to the Aurigan State.

The Aurigan Military is an academy based, voluntary system. It consists of three official branches and their constituent subbranches, as well as independent elements - The Aurigan Navy, referred to as the Red Space Force, the Red Guard, a union of all terrestrial ground, air and water based forces of the republics, and the Main Intelligence Directorate under which intelligence services are performed.

However, The effects of the civil war are long lasting - whilst building up and exercising a great deal of military power, most of this has been disposed of or mothballed in a rejection of violence. This has left the Aurigan state with an elite, voluntary core maintained "just in case" alongside a formerly competent naval force that has been left to play spaceborne coast guard. All the same, these forces are kept supplied and technologically up to date, just in case something was missed.

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Red Guard:
Once the tip of the spear that was the revolution, the formerly large and disparate militias of the civil era, transitioned into national militaries, and then downsized, now find their place in the Red Guard. The Red Guard controls all terrestrial military assets from corvette to supersonic fighter craft down to the standard logistical truck. The Red Guard is present in all the Republics to varying degrees, and takes pride in its slimmed down elite status. A lingering fear of corporate shadows has kept this elite force well maintained and equipped, for now, and pride, particularly on Aurora and in the Outer Colonies, for some of its oldest veterans service in the liberation of the system is not without a small part to play in its maintenance even in the face of the pacifist trends of the Aurigan State.

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Red Fleet:
The Red Fleet is notable for largely consisting of former corporate assets, though these are slowly being replaced as practical - whilst the Red Fleet is most certainly a competent and reasonably advanced space-based force, its role as primarly anti-piracy has slowed this down to as budget and innovation demand. While the Red Fleet is not considered particularly prestigious - the Red Fleet played no role other than disabling or taking over the neutered Corporate Fleet during and after the civil war, and rarely actually faces any real combat, it is not considered inglorious either. The Red Fleet is certainly somewhat popular in the outer system, where much of it is based and its presence has ameliorated what was once crime ridden spacelanes, whilst also serving as a beacon of Federal Authority in the shadow of the ever looming Vastergeant.

---

@Tortoise

Xandalian Republic [+]

Nation Name: The Xandalian Republic

Government Form: Unitary Democratic Republic

Demographics:

***Humans (Homo sapiens sapiens fotis) - The humans of the Xandalian Republic, looking the same outwardly save for their notably improved physiological capabilities and denser bodily tissues (see the first part of the “History” section for further details). Can interbreed with other humans who haven’t been too varied from the standard, generally passing on a few improvements to the children in the process, but are incompatible with wholly-changed humans or those whose genetics are too twisted to pair with theirs.

***Gusb - Sentient and sapient silicon-based life forms that originated from the planet of Karag in the same home system as Xandal. Their bodies might be silicon-based, but are hardy and can subsist on even carbon-based worlds due to generations of evolutionary adaptation (and some gene therapy) and the odd way their homeworld evolved to sustain life. Their race eventually became advanced, and detected human technology from afar...yet thought it was another sentient species itself. They thus arrived at Xandal, but were unable to recognize humanity as a sentient species and the machines as just tools at first and engaged in a war until the truth was discovered. Feed on electrical impulses and silicon-based foods primarily back home, but on carbon-based worlds their cells utilize a form of Cellular Nuclear Transmutation to form the needed silicon from carbon and so forth with other materials for their nutritional needs.

They do have a division of sexes, though in total there are 3. “Sex A” and “Sex B” can both mate with C and give birth to young, but note mate with each other. A only produces young of the C sex, and B only produces A and B young.

Gusb Example [+]

Population: 3.2 Billion (3.1 Billion Humans, 0.1 Billion Gusb)

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Planet Name and Description: Xandal - (describe the planet here)

History:

Long History [+]

When colonists in three of the larger colony ships first emerged from the wormhole, they got their first look upon the world of Xandal. The literal size of Jupiter, the planet’s surface was from space visibly covered in flourishing climates and oceans and fauna untold. A total of 62% of the planet’s surface was composed of sprawling oceans and two massive frozen North/South poles, as the colony ships’ sensors read to their respective captains, and the other 38% that was pure landmass. The landmass alone was equal to the landmass of Earth several times over, though the atmosphere of the planet had more of a peculiar mix of gases in it alongside the usual three (the ‘usual three’ in this case being: oxygen, nitrogen, and argon). The gravity was 25% greater than that of Earth to boot. Even so, at the first of the three landing sites in the planet’s northern hemisphere the first impression was that the world would provide a most splendid home to settle upon. The air was ‘breathable enough’, though initial settlers would be exposed to extensive genetic therapy on the colony ships to ‘adjust’ them before embarking.

Such ‘adjustments’ were simply an increase in bodily resilience, body density, and enhanced respiratory and circulatory system capabilities to properly make use of the alien air with immune adjustments to compensate for the new internal chemistry. The treatments would take two years to be fully distributed and to take full effect, though this one option was only one among the many the colony ships had to potentially use for settlement purposes. A number of genetic and chemical and other ‘adjustments’ options had been prepared for the colony ships beforehand, ones that the populace would be exposed to in order to settle new worlds more efficiently. All that was needed was to find what option was seemingly the ‘best’ for enabling expoplanet habitation for the populations of the colony ships. In this case the genetic therapy used here had been a once experimental therapy from Japan back on the original Earth. Considered a ‘blanket’ option to cover the myriad potential issues the planet’s climate and gravity would pose, and a faster option than most of the other approaches that involved things like longer-term or multi-generation therapies and extensive building of pressurized habitations and so forth, the long-term side effects were distinctly less understood for subsequent generations but were at least proven to be safe for same-generation treatment and adaptation.

For the most part the lingering side effects of the gene therapy would remain unknown for a few generations, until scientists discovered that the descendants of the original gene-modded settlers had developed well beyond in comparison. The humans’ skeletons became notably denser, their tissues and organs become more potent and far more resilient to disease, their respiratory system and circulatory systems became superhumanly good at adapting on the fly to where they could even breathe fine in the thin gases in space (though the lack of gravity there would still mean their lungs don’t function without a pressurized suit), and their other bodily tissues like muscles had become likewise much denser and stronger. Yet the people simply took it as fact, as by then people and civilization had all become passively acclimated to how things were and what they could do, and society in everything from building to individual workloads and the like had already been adjusted to it.

However, the settlers and their myriad descendants would also discover, and then make use of respectively, a unique mineral on the world that came to be called “Thalarite”. This mineral, named after the scientist who first made the breakthrough of its uses (that being one ‘Thatcher Larsson’), had little known about its properties once it was first dug up in the 3rd year after the colonists settled. Many thought it to have been ionized by natural deep underground radioactivity, as being a decaying nuclear byproduct of some kind from some long lost ancient civilization or former settlers on the planet that left, or even as being the leftovers of ancient fossilized life. The theories would greatly abound until Thatcher discovered the mineral’s true nature: It was at base a simple mineral with many potent, versatile properties. The more it was refined the more energistic it became, and likewise the more compressed it was the more exponentially dense (and more energized in this case too if refined enough) it became, making it perfect for powering machines and vehicles and reactors and forming metal plates and such out of in the long term. The molecular structure was able to be compressed with minimal-to-low levels of refinement to create a passively semi-charged metal that could be used for military armor and so forth, as well as making civilian things such as dense metal sheets whose semi-charge would be able to be transmitted to weak electronics designed to take in that passive charge. Thalarite could also be turned into liquid fuel through much processing, though the mineral with low-to-moderate refinement was proven to make better quality and longer-lasting fuel than the unrefined mineral.

Transmitting the energy of the Thalarite was also found to be possible, albeit only some time later, making wireless power transmission and wireless charging and so forth rather viable. All of this combined pushed the colonists into a frenzy of development and expansion on Xandal, and technological development as well as the population afterwards began to greatly boom. New roads, new towns, new settlements, all of it began to spring up at an accelerating speed. Whilst this led to population super-booms and the various towns and cities growing in size and scale, this boom in everything in turn led to occasional ‘civil wars’ and various conflicts as the lure of power became apparent and the governmental apparatus was overstretched and had issues to cope with the sudden boom in technology and population. This whole 100-year period of technology/population boom and the wars and conflicts that ravaged it from Year 25 to roughly Year 125, as it started as things began to snowball hard a few years after the Thalarite breakthrough in Year 21, became known as “The Thalarite Century”. By the end of this century the planet had been brought under heel once more, emerging as the government finally caught up with the times and order was re-established as the many settled areas of the planet united bit by biu by the end of the Thalarite Century. Cities and towns were destroyed and rebuilt, governments of various kinds arose, but from this point progress and order would return as the “Golden Boom of 25” (as the century’s start is referred to) finally simmed out.

For the next sixty years Xandal would settle down into a measure of calm, with highway systems and business and advancement in civilian and military matters moving along. Nothing is of much note from this sixty-year-period aside from the world healing from the scars of the Thalarite Century and general progress in the technological field regarding Thalarite and its technologies being pushed further. Humans returned to space after a dark period of being kept planetside, and space stations began to pop up as citizens also moved to settle the two large and habitable moons moving about Xandal: “Hiron” and “Thalyssra”.

Yet in the year 186, something else came to loom over the world of Xandal. A massive ship of an unknown origin, from seemingly farther away in the Xandalians’ home system, approached the planet. It blared no signal, nor spoke a word at first, and then after a few weeks of this they simply began to fire. It then launched a bombardment of stone-like monoliths down upon the surface of the planet, which began to emit alien organic-tissue-decaying toxins, even as smaller ships emerged from the ship’s massive bays on its sides to attack. The oddest thing was that mechanical things were left alone, but any humans were targeted with anything organic in the environment being generally just collateral. Thalarite technology and pressing needs for bigger military advancements allowed humanity to respond without being utterly devastated, but it would take another five years of struggle and battling before humanity would develop a sufficient space military to go from the defensive to the offensive by Year 192. In this year the first major space retaliation against the unknown attackers began, launching an assault on one of their carriers that used Thalarite-Uridium bombs to blast holes in their dense metal hulls.

War would continue for two more years after this, with humans trying to find any way to understand the seemingly silent enemy comms...until in late 194 ‘something’ would be intercepted. A clear signal from an alien ship, faint but coming from inside. The first to be properly identified, after it was found to be using a frequency far higher on the electromagnetic spectrum than anything humanity had ever known before. From here it took only two more months to decode the language spoken in the message. Yet...what the humans heard once they could understand it was something entirely different than they had expected.

“Our sensors indicate other lifeforms upon this planet’s surface. Do you read? Repeat, do you read? We detected your electronic life-signals from afar, and we have come to speak.”

“...Blast, more silence. They seem to be mindless drones, just as Command feared. Primitive electromagnetic communications, focused on inputs and outputs and simple calculations. You think with destroying those strange parasites in them that they’d be able to respond...but perhaps it is too late?”

“Don’t give up, Comms Officer [indiscernible alien name inserted here]. Even if their race, as peculiarly varied as they are, does not respond...we shall ensure the odd carbon-based infestation that took them down will be stopped at least. As sentients it is our duty to ensure we figure out what is going on, and those Deterioration Bombs should be doing the trick.

Tch.

To figure a pest-control measure would be used on a planet here though...it is strange. As strange as these lifeforms akin to us living upon a mostly carbon-based world.”

“But it makes me wonder if there’s something we’re missing here? If these are carbon-based parasites without sentience, aren’t they just doing what their instincts indicate?”

[A brief but somber silence over the line]

“I pray there isn’t anything we are missing, but let me reiterate the situation for you, Officer, and the others I know are listening to the general comms line here.

These things have seemingly infested a whole race of silicates akin to ourselves in some fashion. It is unsettling at best with disturbing implications if anything else like this exists in the system and could reach our people. We even on arrival sent the greeting signal for days, as the diplomats on-board desired, but no response came from the life forms below. We did all the scans, found the seeming problem after much debate, and then tried to see what freeing some of them from infestation would do. Then still nothing.

Carbon-based life doesn’t have the capacity for sentience as we do, at least as far as our science has been able to indicate thus far. We are far from home as well, and we have had to harvest materials from the local moons and corpses of the fallen infested. It is unseemly, but it is all we have had to defend ourselves against this threat.

Even long-distance comms back home have been telling us to do our best to survive until the infestation is lessened. Then perhaps they’ll let off long enough to engage a retreat to home.

So hold strong, [indiscernible word here], we shall endure to the end! For our people!”

[a general repeating of ‘For our people’ echoes over the line in a myriad of voices]

The aliens...had no idea they were sentient. Most had thought even the enemy were robotic or were simply engineered organisms sent to assail a world, or perhaps some non-sentient hive wanting to harvest them in turn, but the discovery of this key message opened up the serious issue at the core of all of the conflict thus far. Upon reversing the process of decoding to encode a message, humanity would quickly work to figure out their own response. On one hand the war had been going on so long that there was no easy way to make up for it, scars had been left and devastation made manifest, and yet at the same time it was all some great misunderstanding that had to be rectified. Either way they chose to go about it, something had to be done.

Thus eventually, the top officials of the government would decide to send a message as soon as possible to the alien ship in hopes of getting them to talk, and two weeks later the humans sent this message:

“This is a message from planetside. Repeat. This is a message from planetside. Repeat.

We are not parasites. I repeat, we are not parasites.

We are humans, sentient carbon-based life-forms who settled here almost two centuries ago from a dying world. We created complex tools we call ‘machines’ out of metals and other minerals to form powerful tools of no sentience, ones that we use to maintain our civilization. I repeat, these are not sentient mechanical or silicate forms or husks of former sentient life, but are wholly mindless machines built as tools for a sentient and civilized society.

We’ve no idea how you read our technology as sentient life, but we are very much alive and sentient. We did not have the technology to understand your initial messages or notice them, but all of this has been a grave misunderstanding.

We do not wish for war. I repeat, we do not wish for war. We did not know you were sentient either, and thought you were drones or engineered organisms sent to conquer us or kill us. Your ‘pest control’ weapons have been killing our people and any living carbon-based matter around them en-masse. Our grasp of your language is poor at the moment, and we have sent this message as soon as we could after finally decoding a conversation from your mothership.

Please, cease combat operations. I repeat, please cease combat operations. If you cease operations, we shall as well. I repeat, if you cease combat operations we shall as well. Let us stop this bloodshed.”

A set of two comms would be heard that were coming from the main alien ship soon after. The first read as followed:

“...S-Sir! We have received comms from planetside!”

“What?!”

“It is a communication from...it seems...the parasites. It didn’t come from one of our own regardless. It is rough, very rough, but it seems to get across a clear message from initial analysis.”

“T-T-The parasites?! Are you sure???”

“Yes, that word is clear so far from what I can translate, but the rest of it is worded very rough in our language. Very rough. I can make out a few words right now, but that’s it.”

“Then tell me what you can, Comms Officer! If not that, then the gist if you must!

Meanwhile, from the rest of you I want every damn hand on this right now...and someone get the diplomats and scientists to the bridge immediately! As in NOW!!!”

[echoes of orders being quickly and calmly confirmed by other comms officers on supposedly the alien ship’s bridge]”

This was followed by a second comms conversation a bit later, much more clear this time and far more widely broadcast even as far as the moons:

“Everyone I have opened the general comms link for the rest of the ship. We are opening channels to the battle fleets and other operations in this as well. This is a fleet-wide order, of the utmost urgency, so all of you need to listen.”

[the tone matching what is assumed to be the ship’s commander seems considerably more...shaky, as if he’s just seen a ghost or a terrible fright]

“...Ahem. Several hours ago we received a message from planetside, the first message we’ve been able to decode. A copy has been sent homeside by our ambassadors.

Our initial determination of the ‘parasites’ infesting the world below have been proven...incorrect. Gravely incorrect, all after these past few years. What we thought to be non-sentient parasites, potentially working in a planetary hive, are not the animals we assumed. I repeat, these are...we’ve been...the creatures are sentient organisms. Analysis of the message and so forth has made this most grim fact clear now.

As such I am ordering all hands, all personnel deployed beyond the Carrier, to return to base right now and leave behind all materials and resources you might have. Right. Now/

Any who do not obey this order will be court-martialed on sight, and those who return promptly will not receive punishment. I will only say this only once.

For those in the weapon bays: Do not continue deployment of Orbital Sprayers or other assault activities. I repeat, cease all offensive activities. Maintain the defensive shields instead.

As of this moment, we are to cease operations post-haste and wait for a return message from homeside.”

And so the war came to an end. And as a phrase coined about the war, officially called on both worlds “The Seven Years Tragedy”, and its tragic futility in later years would go: “No victory, no glory, but simply survivors”.

Even so, in the aftermath it was a more welcome thing for both sides to sign a proper peace. Likewise in the following century there were attempts at reparations, as well as the budding of interplanetary trade within the same system the two worlds shared. Inter-cultural exchanges, as well as even some immigration, would occur as the two worlds, two nations, and two species attempted to learn and coexist together in the wake of newborn understanding.

In this new era there was a boom in the technology sector for the people of Xandal, as well as those from the now-identified “Greater Union of Grusbrakg” the silicates came from, though the inevitable emergence of silicate and human space piracy would come as the two worlds figured out the interplanetary trade. Militaries in space and on-worlds would continue to advance, even as the march of time and civilian technologies would continue down their own path of advancement.

Peace in enough of a sense would reign as the humans of Xandal recovered and blossomed once more, but soon even this peace and stability would be eclipsed by a new event…

...what would happen after the Gateways opened up once more? What would happen once the humans were exposed to their long-lost kin, and a world long left in ruin?

Only time will tell.

Culture and Society: Xandalian Society is one that generally embraces the efficient and latest in advancements, emphasizing a preparedness for bad events and sustaining the freedoms of its citizen species. Citizens as a general body enjoy the latest in civilian products and technologies made possible by continued advancements in Thalarite and its studies, ranging from clean energy producing miniaturized Thalarite-Engine vehicles to appliances that generally make daily life easier to manage for busy citizens. They are generally an industrious and resilient bunch, generally respect their elders, enjoy anime (the original colonists took to it and evolved it on their own), and who will on one hand work their hardest to accomplish their goals but also raise up arms to shoot anything that threatens their home with a zeal.

Whilst not unfriendly to outsiders, and even adaptable as immigrant species might come into their fold and are welcome to, they are also stalwart about being able to live their own way of life freely and frankly are stubborn about it. For others to force that on them is a terrible thing to do, but ironically likewise can relate to getting involved in things for their own interests. The desire to rehabilitate or at least study the old Earth of their ancestors is a matter that has floated about in the public eye at some point, and with the opening of the Gateway things have become even more interesting as unknown empires or friends or nasty things lurk beyond.

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Governance and Politics: Governance of the Xandalian Republic takes the form of simpler but more efficient unitary models at the local and district and regional levels. Excessive amounts of staff and overcomplicated bureaucracy are avoided, and as such the elections for these positions are usually big turnouts and a major deal.

Above this there is the simple and full power of the Central Government. The Central Government takes the form of the neatly organized Senate, which represents the various groups and constituencies of the republic and is elected from all over, but which has the ultimate power. This body of the Senate controls the legislation, appointing by two-thirds majority an Executive Officer who is fully answerable to the Senate and executes the law and leads the military as the Head of the Military by the Senate’s permission. The Senate also appoints the Head Judge, who presides over a council of 7 judges they appoint and that the Senate approves and confirms.

Being a Unitary state the Central Government has the power, and has delegated power to the elected lower authorities to maintain over a given area (but with these lesser authorities still being answerable to the Central Government). As the Senators of the Senate represent the will of the people from all over the nation, they seek to reflect that lest they not be able to be re-elected to their Senatorial office. Functions of the various levels of government are kept streamlined and effective, from the judges to the legislation, and whilst the Central Government is given full political power it is also legally formed by the will of the people (thereby keeping it in-check from going full-tyrant).

The system can respond to threats and other actions with great speed, maintains a consistent system of communication on all governmental levels, and is ultimately the final form of governance formed during the Xandalian Republic’s history.

Technology Overview:

***Thalarite Technology -

<Snipped quote by About Thalarite>

A unique mineral of Xandal that, by current times, is both mined and synthesized to power the nation’s technology and fulfill other uses. When mined it looks like a silvery-gray rock that can’t be seen into (much less seen through), but as it is refined and purified it becomes a silvery/dark purple colored mineral. The more refined it is the more crystal-like its appearance and structure becomes, and the most highly purified Thalarite looks like a stunning pure light purple (as the coloration gets lighter and the faint silveriness is lost the more it is refined) cluster of crystals that is actively glowing said color and has raw energy literally crackling over its surface constantly and is too dangerous to not be contained within proper measures.

The uses of this mineral are incredibly diverse, ranging from fuel to engines to reactors to bombs and powering mechs and appliances to being used as armor and even medical applications and so forth. It is what revolutionized Xandalian technology the most of all things that have been found or developed there over the last three centuries. Also due to this revolution of technology, citizens are not rather used to non-Thalarite technology and its operation...though contact with the Gusb has mitigated this issue ever so slightly over the last century. Historians have records about non-Thalarite tech, as do the archives of the old former colony ships that remain public displays and are well-maintained as national history/planetary history exhibits. There are also a few major museums that display Thalarite artifacts and teach about the origins of Thalarite and the time period of “The Thalarite Century”.

(Aside: Was inspired by Ragnite and Ragnite-applicable tech from the “Valkyria Chronicles” game series.)

***Xandalian Mechs - A technological innovation whose roots began within The Thalarite Century, their idea beginning in the form of worker-piloted Labor-Frames (as the tech was called at the time) that used a humanoid designs scheme. When Labor-Frames were often weaponized for their use in revolts and various conflicts, those with humanoid frames were found to be more versatile in application. By the end of The Thalarite Century, many of these had been built or converted into military-style bots to be used alongside standard types of military vehicles or cobbled-together ones that so colored that time period, and came to become the blueprints for the Central Government that emerged from the end of that time period.

Sixty years of peace would allow for a semi-active development of these in order to raise effectiveness and hold them to a higher standard. In this vein the “Military-Frame Type 1” would emerge as the first ‘proper’ humanoid mech unit, and at first was mostly used in ground operations. It sported a wide base variety of equipment that it could both carry and have attached to it, but lacked the sophistication and fine-tuning of much later models. Whilst this would be the primary line that was used and upgraded, later experimental sub-types would emerge including (but not limited to):

-The “Military-Frame Type 2: Underwater Model” initially emerged as a design for deep sea operations and underwater combat, using long-reach melee weapons like harpoon-tipped spears, ranged components such as sophisticated torpedo launchers, advanced propeller technology for swift movement and evasive potential, and having both a far denser armor and an ‘Antique Diving Helmet’ style look around the cockpits for pilot protection/insulation. These units proved to be rather poor in effect when trying to move on land, making the design not good for amphibious assaults as the designers had hoped for, leading to the creation of the more successful “Military-Frame Underwater Type 2.5: Deep Sea Model” that abandoned the legs altogether, increased propulsion power, increased torpedo armaments, and kept the arms as the design became more compressed and crab-like aside from the head that sat on-top. These would be held underneath naval vessels, or dropped from the air, entering the water to perform operations.

-There was also the “Military-Frame Type 3: Paratroop”, which initially used a glider-style design and took on the role of a paratrooper-style mech dropped into combat zones by larger aircraft. Armor was lightened for carrying purposes, and their weapons standardized and lightened for swift and versatile use in the field, but proved to be ill-effective against heavily-fortified or highly-entrenched positions unless paired with a proper ground assault. In this manner they were successful, but ultimately led to improvements in aircraft and glider technologies that culminated in the making of the “Military Frame Attachment Line: Aviator” line of equipment that allowed standard ground mechs with better armor and far greater speed to deploy in the air for a limited time and land behind enemy lines.

Ultimately, the development of Xandalian mechs would close in on its speak during the shorter but far more intense fighting of “The Seven Years Tragedy”. Here the mechs would finally take on a space-variant simply dubbed the “Military-Frame Type 4: Exocombat Model”, which would prove effective at moving through space and landing on either of the two moons of Xandal (whose atmospheres were not as intense as that of Xandal itself). By the end of the war, the mechs received significant upgrades, mostly as an all-purpose unit was desired for the various theaters of war, and thus was born the “Military-Frame Version 2.0.”, which took the best from different models and past instances and data from the war to create a highly-advanced warform that could go underwater, fight in space, fight on the ground, and could make use of hard-mounted specialized loadouts (ones that admittedly had to be changed prior to deployment) to take on various types of missions from the same base frame. Versatile carried equipment that could be carried was also still made available, though it was far from the main emphasis now, which could act as Supplementary Equipment for units in the field depending on one’s tastes or the given operation/situation at hand.

This version of the mech could also undergo atmosphere re-entry, and exit with rocket assistance, directly. They could withstand the vacuum of space and the farthest of underwater depths, and utilize attachments updated for them to get behind enemy lines in planetary engagements. Omni-Adaptive Thruster technology made maneuverability in space or underwater much easier at that! Thalarite Armor and use of alien-inspired Thalarite energy shielding technology, the latter of which plays into atmospheric re-entry and exit capabilities directly, would give suitable versatile defensive capabilities for the Military-Frame Version 2.0. as well.

By current times, the design of the latest version has been ongoing, already seeing another generation of the Military-Frames pass on to the distinctly better “3.0.” version in regards to armaments and attachments and even the base mechs in full. Currently there are highly experimental but even more advanced “4.0.” versions, but none have been deployed into the field yet beyond limited experimental test runs thus far. Rumors say some of these fourth-generation Military-Frames themselves wield even more incredible highly experimental technology, ranging from micro-thrusters with manyfold the output of current standard ones...to even incredibly miniaturized supercomputers that analyze the battlefields the pilot is one, learn from them, and beam predictive battle info directly into the pilot’s mind for moment-to-moment battle adaptation capabilities (better and better so the more the mech is used in battle against various types of foes and strategies).

In the end, the Xandalian Mech is a technology that is no slouch when put to proper use.

(Aside: Was inspired by Gundams, because I thought that was cool. Experimental 4th generation models are highly experimental for a reason too, but still cool Gundams. Yeah!)

***Gusb Technology - Some of this has been imported alongside immigrants, but most of it has been adapted or converted to Thalarite power sources or is in its ‘true’ form only ever kept in scientific labs for study and research. This tech originated by the Gusb species works originally off of electrical/unidentified-alien-gas hybrid form of power created from a form of advanced-fusion energy tech. This Gusb energy tech utilizes a naturally-occurring and distinctly radioactive (by old Earth radiation detector measurements at least) alien mineral nicknamed “Gusbite” by those on Xandal (since the Gusb name for it is indecipherable by the human tongue). This mineral, which goes far beyond the old Earth period table, produces a more violent and far more intense reaction when enriched and used to create a far more advanced and potent fusion reaction. Little else is known or understood about it, save that it isn’t used on Xandal and the Gusb use it to create ‘batteries’ that are used to power their tech on the small scale and to make ‘reactors’ that power larger-scale tech such as their battleships and cities back home.

***Basic Translator Technology - Basic translation technology developed within the last 100 years after the advent of “The Seven Years Tragedy”. Gusb immigrants usually equip themselves with these for an ease of communication, though more have begun to learn the human tongue and some humans have learned to speak what of the Gusb tongue they can pronounce. Mostly acts as a basis for more advanced translation technology for the Republic post-Gateway-opening at some point.

Military Overview:

***Planetary-Level Combat - On-planet battles are predominantly divided into Land, Air, and Sea divisions.

Land Divisions are initially begun by deploying Xandalian Mechs, who take territory and handle enemy entrenchments/fortresses along the way. They are the vanguard of the Xandalian military, and generally will soften up areas and handle larger-scale threats, large enough warforms, and larger enemy numbers. Infantry equipped with protective insulated Thalarite-polymer armor and effective Thalarite laser weapons, brought in by and working alongside hover-tanks, hover artillery, and armored/armed hover APCs that can move over virtually any terrain (and all have rather limited ‘flight’ capability), will swiftly move in to secure and then hold the taken ground and clear out smaller threats left over. Infantry use their armor and Thalarite weapons alongside things such as portable shield generators to secure camps and deployable scouting drones as well as specialized deployable antennas attached to stronger portable scanning modules to thoroughly scan the area and search for holdouts or hidden traps and so forth as they more greatly secure the foothold on the area.

Air Divisions are usually composed of Jet-Glider-using Mechs that will provide land support by taking down anti-air emplacements by swiftly entering the area and rushing those positions. Massive armored airships will fly in and generally utilize high firepower and high defense to lay down fire on enemy positions on land or otherwise, even being able to safely fire smart torpedoes into oceans from high up in the air, and can deploy from its own hangars smaller helicopter-like aircraft with two rotating wings and two powerful jet engine-esque propellers on them for rather rapid acceleration and movement speeds. Such smaller craft are “Reliants” that can lift off from a stationary position and swiftly move about akin to a Jet airplane in the air as well. Each Reliant has four missiles or rockets on the underside to fire, dual-gatling-style Thalarite guns that can lay down high rates of fire, and can carry a small amount of infantry or other personnel to drop off to help secure points or board similar large enemy aircraft if such a thing is needed or frankly possible. The Reliants are employed as anti-small aircraft and ground-securing or boarding/transport measures, whilst the main Airship also has anti-smaller-craft measures installed alongside its array of bigger guns.

Sea Divisions are usually composed of advanced craft called “Maru” that can hover to the correct positions and submerge into the water from there to navigate the seas. These craft are basically super-sci fi submarines, and usually are only deployed on-world when submersible craft are needed for a given operation. They can then leave the water and hover back to their carrier after operations, or if their hover capabilities were damaged the carriers (called “Crane-Frame Carriers” can hover over the location of these craft and pull them up into themselves for storage and repair. At times the Maru can also carry and deploy a number of Version 2.0. upgraded “Deep Sea” model Mechs, which are akin to the old version but with improved systems and equipment and such all-round.

***Space Combat - Xandalian Mechs dominate the smaller-craft level battles of space, having incredible maneuverability and enough defenses and loadouts to take on that they can cut down smaller craft and assault larger ones in a combat role. These possess point-defense and defenses that make ships smaller than them generally a moot point, and they are supported by smaller, sleeker ships that usually sport high speed and run interference or harry enemy craft or even intercept small automated craft/drones/ships in combat as well. Destroyers are the first real ‘larger’ ship used beyond this, containing high defenses and firepower to lay into the enemy fleet with distinctly less speed but exceptionally good range ranging from close to long range capabilities at maximum. These Destroyers usually have the smaller sleeker craft, dubbed “Corvettes”, with them in some numbers.

Larger Carriers come after this, carrying large numbers of Xandalian Mechs and very high defenses in exchange for rather limited firepower and carrying capacity. These deploy their Mechs and receive them back after battle (or during battle if injured need to retreat), as well as designate a portion of their mechs as reserves that are saved for use when or where such reserves are needed. Some also carry even larger amounts of Corvettes to bolster those numbers in battle.

Beyond this, grand Battleships also carry their own contingents of Xandalian Mechs and are escorted by a couple of Destroyers, as well as the Destroyers’ accompanything swarms of Corvettes, and a couple of Carriers as well. These ships are far larger in scale than the rest of the ships previously mentioned, boasting a titanic size, high defenses, and even higher offensive capabilities and weapons that can be fired into the enemy from super-long-range (or other weapons for closer ranges) as the situation demands. These are usually the flagships, the ships on which the commanders from the Republic are placed in order to direct the battle, and as such these ships have the most robust and potent comms arrays that keep the fleet interconnected. Taking out the Battleship is the best way to weaken a Republic fleet, though is tough to do, though as an aside comms between their other ships will still be generally possible without the Battleship...just not as smooth as the chain of command rather ‘suddenly’ shifts to backup and ultimately emergency measures.

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Additional Info: (None yet)

@an abomunist
Still here, broski?

@Ekreture
Approved

The Alchemist seems like a strange figure. He appears kind of randomly through your History, like a recluse or a spiritual hermit.

@Taeryn
Hey buddy, I approved your sheet a while back. You still here?