Terran Empire
From STDW
| |
| Terran Empire | |
| Information | |
| Head of State | Empress Hoshi Sato II |
| Commander-in-Chief | |
| Societal information | |
| Capital | Kyoto, Earth, Sol Sector |
| Official language | English |
| Currency | Imperial Credit |
Contents |
History
Pre-history
Cro-Magnon systematically hunts down and kills their Neanderthal competition. Mass graves strewn with shattered Neanderthal bones attest to mankind’s primal urge to genocide.
Ancient Egypt
Egypt's King Menes created the first great nation as he institutionalized his theocratic cult under the rule of a twisted image of Anubis. By engaging the populace in his own depravities he insured his continued popularity, the people's wholehearted support of his maltheism contributed to his own reign. The stratified Egyptian priest-kings on top, slave laborers on the bottom—survived until the arrival of the bronze-age Greeks under Agamemnon.
With logical philosophers and analytical weaponsmiths, the Greeks brought intelligent tactics and warfare to bear against the more mystically-oriented Egyptians. Their successful campaign ended in the destruction of the pyramids and the devastation of the Egyptian culture. Over time, the Greeks, lacking a powerful outside enemy, became complacent, and the Persians eventually challenged their rule of the Mediterranean. Both fell before Alexander the Great, whose lust for conquest, aided by his voracious appetite for literary examination (and the literati themselves), combined to make him not only a ruthless warrior but a canny, educated one. Alexander outmaneuvered the Persians and forged a Macedonian empire. Unfortunately for him, his vision could not outlive his demise, and after his death his empire was swallowed by the emerging Rome.
Rome
The Roman Empire broke the cycle of conquest, maintenance, and decadence that had characterized its predecessors. Roman leaders kept the Empire strong by actively recruiting the most promising warriors and kings of the so-called barbarian tribes of Gaul and Germany to stand at their sides. These chieftains became Romanized and thus joined in the backstabbing and intrigue of the capital. They rose to power not by conquering the Empire but by rising within its ranks. The Roman Empire turned potential enemies into allies, except where they could not be suborned—where it paid its recruited outsiders handsomely to function as shock troops, as in the case of its quick and decisive war to quash the weak faiths of Christianity and its parent, Judaism.
The Roman Empire, of course, eventually gave way to the establishment of a Germanic Empire. The continued spread of a domineering ethos and the drive to conquer finally removed the last vestiges of nationalism from Europe, people referred simply to the Empire, without attachment to the despot of the generation. One ruler might fall, but the status quo had become so entrenched that it was accepted as eternal.
Renaissance and Colonial era
Empire stumbled across the Americas in an attempt to find new sea routes to conquer the East. The emerging frontier became home to disaffected rebels and malcontents who chafed against the Imperial seat of power, arguing that the Empire always weakened because its titular head became so entrenched in power that he became unchallengeable. Instead, these revolutionaries proposed that all people should have a hand in the government, both to make the rulers strive to curry the favor of the masses, and to allow power blocs to shift the government in coups that didn’t always involve the total devastation of the land. In their system, Senators would vie for the favor of their followers, and thus would have support from allied groups instead of having to wrest their resources from a ravaged populace. The people would be defrauded into thinking that they had a hand in their own governance, and would willingly offer up their freedoms and their possessions to the "elected government."
20th Century
Coup followed coup among the Senators, but by now a large part of the globe rested under the smothering hand of the Empire. Constant minor conflagrations entertained the populace and kept up the appearance of “security threats,” while Senators bickered and assassinated one another, played by the very game their predecessors had created. Each Emperor sponsored his own brand of “pet projects”—from the genocidal manias of Pol Pot and Adolf Hitler to the dreams of space conquest espoused by Jimmy Carter and his advisor, James Keeler. Eventually, though, the Empire fell under the grasp of one individual who recognized that in the technological world, rulership rested not in the hands of the greatest warrior or politician, but the individual who controlled the very technologies that all Humans required in order to survive. Henry Starling, an otherwise humble software engineer and computer scientist, cemented a grip on the world by producing the computer languages and programs that every citizen of the Empire used and then threatening to bring the entire system down. Even the secret genetically engineered super-soldiers and bionically enhanced Senators couldn’t compete with the man who had the tools to shut down all of the very computers that ran power, weapons, water and government. Starling was content, however, to remain out of the spotlight. Besides the Empire itself, Starling was the largest holder of wealth in the world, and he maintained a position of advisor to all of the Emperors and conquerors that lived during his time, keeping their loyalty to him and swaying them to his opinions by constantly threatening to send the Imperial infrastructure into ruin.
In the early 1990's, the genetically engineered super-soldiers, referring to themselves as the Augments, began a campaign of infiltrating and corrupting the highest offices in the Empire as well as the governments of the other remaining non-Imperial powers. In 1993, the leader of the Augments, Khan Noonien Singh, declared himself the new Emperor. The Eugenics Wars lasted until 1996. With all of the governments on the planet under the rule of Singh, he declared himself the Emperor of the Earth, and the Terran Empire was fully formed.
21st Centurty and Beyond
Politics in the Terran Empire were largely the same as they were before the Eugenics Wars. Emperors came and went. Starling remained in his position of importance, but everything soon changed. Unfortunately for Earth, when Henry Starling met his demise, his computer programs did just what he had always threatened, and without Starling present to maintain them, his failsafe kicked in and shut down everything. In 2023, the Empire fell into a new Dark Age. The demise of the technical apparatus of the 20th and 21st century Terran Empire returned the planet to a state of barbaric feudality, at least for a time.
The renewed dark age lasted for nearly two generations, as barbaric conquerors slowly re-seated their holds on the territories of the Earth. Petty tyrants ruled over the remnants of the dormant cities until finally the few remaining scientists and computer criminals managed to restore some of the power and computer systems of a few major settlements. From these ashes came the rapid consolidation of primitive territories under the newly technologically-enthroned leaders.
Two leaders emerged as the predominant world powers, Colonel Green, a cunning and charismatic man with a penchant for genocide, and Lee Kuan, a barbaric tribalist who fused his empire’s reborn technologies with the hardened lifestyle of nomadic tribesmen.
The two sparred warily, engaging their respective territories, for the better part of a decade, before enlightened self-interest finally resulted in a détente. Unwilling to risk their conquests on an uncertain battle, both commanders decided that a final cataclysmic clash would be too risky and so the two met in secret to carve up the remainder of the world and rebirth the Terran Empire.
As Green and Kuan set about taming the remainder of Terra, they stumbled across an unexpected bonus. Hidden in an old missile base in Montana, a maverick inventor named Zefram Cochrane gambled his future on the development of the new warp drive. With his revolutionary engine, Zefram Cochrane planned to colonize the Solar system, and then return to master Earth. Green and Kuan discovered him before he could finish his experiments, though, and his only recourse was to offer up his research and work for them in return for his life. Cochrane’s ship, the Phoenix, broke the light speed barrier with the backing of the Terran Empire.
Cochrane’s experiment attracted the attention of a Vulcan survey ship—the Ravok. This ship, though, was not a peaceful scientific survey vessel, but a spy ship designed to scout out places where the Vulcans might emotionlessly harness and exploit natural resources to their own benefit. After surreptitiously following the Phoenix, the Vulcans found themselves captured and tortured by their Human neighbors. Eventually the Vulcans were executed, but not before Cochrane and his team had learned of the location of the Vulcan homeworld and stolen their technology.
The threat of extra-terrestrial invasion unified the planet under a common banner. The territories that weren't yet under the control of Green and Kuan quickly fell into line.
The new Empire's unified first attempt to build an invasion of Vulcan ultimately failed. The Vulcans arrived en masse with a proposal. Terra would be too difficult to conquer easily, the Vulcans opined, and could not itself fight the technologically superior Vulcans without both sides sustaining atrocious losses. Instead, the two races joined together to exploit nearby prewarp cultures and the natives of Alpha Centauri.
While Alpha Centauri proved a veritable jewel of conquest, other planets still loomed nearby, waiting to be plucked. The Empire’s improved war machine raged on. Eventually, when it was calculated to be a decisive victory (though still costly), the Empire turned on their Vulcan allies and waged war on Vulcan in 2075. The war lasted for 13 years and was showing no sign of ceasing when Vulcan inexplicably ended hostilities. As punishment for the war, the Terran leader of the invasion forces ordered all of the Vulcan High Council members to be decapitated and their heads displayed on the streets of Shir'kahr City. Rule of Vulcan was granted to a junior diplomat, T'Pau, as a planet under Imperial rule.
A few decades later, the Empire was sufficiently rebuilt from the war to continue its expansion efforts, tackling the crafty Tellarites and then subjugating the stubborn, berserk Andorians. In both cases, the war effort cost the Empire dearly - Tellarite engineering savvy and Andorian bloodthirst both cost many lives. In the end, though, the Empire won out and in the tradition of the ancient Roman Empire, the Terran Empire offered the defeated states "client status," a privilege of continued existence in exchange for placing their special skills at the feet of the Empire. Tellarite engineering ingenuity, backed by the threat of extinction of their homeworld if anything should fail, caused the Empire’s technology to rocket ahead, while the Andorians displaced their fury by becoming shock troops in the Empire’s ground wars and occupations.
The Sato Dynasty
In 2155, a young Starfleet officer by the name of Hoshi Sato obtained command of a futuristic warship called the USS Defiant. This starship was from the Federation universe, but knowledge of this alternate universe was kept secret by imperial propaganda. The general public was misled to believe that the Defiant was from their own future. Hoshi waged civil war with the Terran Empire, eventually won, and was crowned Empress.
In the 2150s, a powerful Resistance movement that united several of the Terran Empire's subject worlds threatened the stability of the empire. This Resistance was unable to stand up to the ISF after the Defiant became a part of the fleet. They were quickly crushed after Hoshi came to power.
After crushing the rebellion, the overconfident Empress decided that the mysterious Romulan Empire would be her next target for conquest. A war between Earth and Romulus was fought from 2156-2160. Both sides lost most of their fleet in this conflict, and the Defiant was destroyed. Truce was declared without a victor.
After the Earth-Romulan War, Hoshi recognized the Vulcans for their invaluable assistance in the war and in the post-war rebuilding effort. Vulcan slaves were freed, and the Vulcan colony was granted a seat on the Imperial Senate.
In 2177, Hoshi Sato was assassinated by Admiral Shran, whose last words, before he was executed, were that his debt to Archer was finally repaid. Hoshi's 19 year-old son Tadashi Sato was crowned Emperor. Under Tadashi's rule, social and political reforms were made to grant Andorians similar privileges to what the Vulcans were given under Hoshi's rule.
