Traveller - A Very Brief Background to the Setting (Updated 3/19/16)

It is the third age of the Galactic Imperium of Humaniti.  Our ancestors have travelled to the stars, and found them to be bustling with life, and even stranger, we found other humans were already there ahead of us.  Humans also from earth.

A little over a century from today, humanity discovers the secret of travelling faster than light.  Einstein was correct that it is impossible to accelerate any object to or past the light barrier.  As an object approaches the speed of light, it’s mass increases, requiring more and more energy to accelerate it further, until it reaches infinite mass requiring infinite energy to make it go any faster.
The trick, was to slip the ship out of space and time altogether, using the “jump drive” to inflate a small pocket universe around the outside of the ship.  When the pocket universe re-emerges into space time after a week, the ship is lightyears away from where it began.

Using this technology, humanity explored nearby star-systems, and discovered an outpost on the edge of the Vilani Empire, later called the First Imperium by historians.  The Vilani in all respects were human, and did not seem overly surprised to see humanity.  Apparently, seeded across the stars were many branches of humanity.

The Vilani had an old empire, and had long since fallen into complacency, self-assured of their power.  All aspects of Vilani life were controlled by tradition, procedure, and protocol.  There had been little in the way of scientific advancement or innovation in over a thousand years.

Despite the Vilani Empire’s large technological superiority and control of thousands of star systems, war soon broke out between the newly formed Terran Federation and the Vilani, as Earth refused to be made a part of the Vilani Empire.  The Terrans were tenacious, winning strings of unlikely victories, all the while learning and adapting new technology.

Against all odds, the Earthlings defeated the Vilani Empire, and created the Second Imperium, the Rule of Man.  Called the “Ramshackle Empire” by historians, the Rule of Man was short lived.  We earthlings, now calling ourselves the Solomani, were ill prepared to administer a galactic empire of over six thousand systems.

After a few centuries, trade and the economy collapsed, and with it the light of galactic civilization.  A period of time called The Long Night began.  With the fall of the economy and interstellar trade, most systems became entirely isolated from the larger galaxy.  Over the centuries, they devolved in technology, some revering to a primitive pre-industrial state.

The long night lasted well over a seventeen hundred years.  Then, in a section of space called the Sylean Worlds, systems began to trade and bind together once again.  This formed the basis of the beginning of the Third Imperium, and the crowning of Emperor Cleon Zhunastu.  The world of Sylea became known as Capitol, and the calendars were set to year zero.

Systems that had been left isolated for over a thousand years were contacted and one by one brought into the Imperium and rule of the Empire and the Iridium Throne.  Over the centuries, the Imperium expanded well beyond the borders of the first empire, and soon reached the edges of neighboring alien empires.

Counter-clockwise to the direction of the galactic disk’s rotation (trailing) from the Imperium are two large civilizations.  The Hive Federation and the Two Thousand Worlds of the K’Kree.  The Hivers are very advanced, more advanced on average than even the Imperium.  The Hivers themselves are starfish like with six-fold symmetry.  They seem content to have neighborly relations with the Imperium.

The K’Kree are individually massive, with four legs and two arms.  They are evolved from a herd species, and are naturally inclined to open spaces and groups.  The K’Kree, unlike the hivers, consider humans and any other meat eater to be vermin, fit only for domination or extermination.  It is fortunate there is a rift of space between the borders of the K’Kree and Imperium or war would be unavoidable.

Between the Imperium and the galactic core (called corward) lay the Vargr Extants, an ever shifting collection of kingdoms and domains of the Vargr race.  It was a strange discovery when Imperial scientists learned that Vargr were genetically descended from canines and wolves on Terra.  It was theorized that the same ancient race that had scattered humanity across the stars had created the Vargr race as well.

In the direction of the galactic disc’s spin (spinward) was the proud and noble Aslani Hierate.  The Aslani were furred bipedal humanoids, described as looking almost like lions.  They have no genetic heritage with Terran felines, and the similarity is pure coincidence.  The Empire established peaceful relations with the Aslani.

Between the Aslani Hierate and the Vargr Extants is another human civilization, the Zhodani Consulate.  Solomani and Vilani humans had intermixed and intermarried since the rise of the second empire, and so Vilani and earthling ways were not strange to each other anymore.  The Ways of the Zhodani, however, were repulsive to the sensibilities of either race.

The Zhodani are a race of psionic humans.  Telepaths and psions, they can read minds, see visions of the future, and move objects with the power of thought.  Zhodani culture is predicated on the principle of maximizing happiness and contentedness.  The citizens of the Consulate have the right to be happy, whether they want to be or not.  Thought police patrol searching telepathically for any sign of discontent, and then psionically re-educating citizen to be happy and accept their lot in life and the Zhodani way.

The conflict of cultures between the individualistic imperials and communal Zhodani quickly turned to war.  No less than four wars have been waged in the sector of space between the Empire and Consulate, called the Spinward Marches.

The Spiniward Marches are the most coreward and spinward of the sectors of the Impirium.  The Spinward Marches are part of the Domain of Deneb, along with the Trojan Reach, Rift, and Deneb sectors.  While the capitol of the Domain was traditionally on the Deneb system, Archduke Norris maintains the domain government on the system of Mora in the Marches.  The Spinward Marches is a sector of particular importance to the Impirium, as it is the frontier with the Empires most persistent enemy, the Zhodani Consulate.

The Empire had fought five wars with the Zhodani of various intensities.  Even though there is a tense peace at the moment, there is a significant military buildup, especially in the Jewel sub-sector along the borders.  The Empire has historically devoted the larges concentration of its forces to the Spinward Marches and also to the Solomani Rim to suppress Terran extremists.

In addition to the Zhodani and Empire, there are several other independent polities in the sector.  The two strongest are the Swords Worlds and the Darrian Confederation.

The Swords Worlds are a lower tech but ruggedly independent alliance on independent world that have resisted being incorporated into empire through stubborn orneriness.  They are descended from Terran colonists who populated the region before the long night.  While the Swords Worlds are hostile to the Empire at large, they have close relations with the Imperial Colonies.

The Darian Confederation are populated by humans and some Aslani in a region of space coreward of the Five Sisters.  The Darrian humans are a sub-race of humaniti transplanted there hundreds of thousands of years ago by the ancients.  They are tall and slender with angular features.  They culturally disdain battle and bloodshed, seeing a military as a necessary but distasteful expense.  The Darrian civilization was once more technologically advanced than any other civilization in known space since the ancients.  Their technological age came to an end thousands of years ago when a super-weapon was tested on the Darrian star, causing it to pulse huge amounts or solar matter, reducing their civilization to rubble.  Since then they have been slowly rebuilding, but are still a shadow of what they once had.  The Darrians still have technology and ships from that age, but don't know how to build more.

Reserved

reserved

I'm sorry, everyone. I can't resist...

Reserved for Psionic Suppression history chapter

Milamber wrote:The Empire had fought five wars with the Zhodani of various intensities.

Don't you mean six wars, including the last one that ended about five years ago?