NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: Anyone who knew my former nations, I'd advise that you read this little snippet first. Firstly, the Maker-Mind and New Realm are gone. If I feel like it, I'll finish the little 'final battle' RP I've been writing (15,000 words in, and.. yeah. My plot-writing skills are poor.), and post it to detail exactly what happened. Until then.. it's a mystery! This new nation is unaffiliated with either of the two factions named formerly in any way, and can be considered, for all intents and purposes, to be an entirely new nation, with links to no-one, and history shared with none but itself. So, yeah. Like a normal FT intro, but a 6-billion nation instead of a 5-million.

IC: "Commander, we are closing on the Thian base."

"Is the Catspaw still within communications range, Jon"

"Yessir."

"Hail them."

"Lightspeed communications, or faster-than-light ones?"

"Lightspeed, of course, Jon. We aren't made out of reactor fuel."

"Of course, sir."

The sight was a tranquil one. In orbit around Theariss IV, two ships floated, serenely speeding towards one another. It was from these two ships that a new destiny would be forged, although those inside did not know it yet. The murky grey-brown of the world below was the counterpoint to the intricate, green-gold designs of the ships, cities sprawling across land, pollution eating away at the roots of the few plants remaining on Theariss, making them dead, and brown.

Commander Boriial, captain of the Eternal Pattern, and commander of a strikeforce of twenty troops, was moving to close with a single renegade ship. The message was sent.

"This is Commander Boriial of the First Allied Fleet. We demand that you reduce speed to match ours, and remove the magfield around your ship, or we will be forced to fire."

After a few seconds, a rough voice came over the radio. "This's Captain Janleas. We're not slowing down for no bastard like you."

Boriial sighed. They weren't going to make this easy.

"This is your last chance. If you continue on your course, we will be forced to open fire."

"Bugger off, you stupid sod."

His face hardened, wrinkles pulled down by his sudden, tempestous frown. "You heard them, Jon. I believe our maser array is operating at full capacity? And we have three faster-than-light antimatter focus-bombs?"

Jon grinned. The weaponry officer, Boriial spoke to him the most. Indeed, Boriial had been a commander of troops long before he had ever set foot in a spaceship, and his grasp of the intracies of the ship itself was poor. His grasp of its weaponry, however, was excellent.

"Yessir."

"Why, so polite, young Jon. Unlike our friends in the sky there. Now.. let's see how much damage their rig can take before their inertial compensators fail, eh?"

The fate he spoke of was a horrific one - stopping the acceleration of a ship was no easy matter, especially when engines could take several minutes to ease off completely. And at the acceleration of hundreds, even thousands of gees.. once the inertial compensators failed, you were little more than a crushed mass of bone and flesh, pressed up against one of the ship's walls.

The ship fired. Space combat, compared to its ground counterpart, was fairly boring and eventless. One-on-one ship combat was won before the first shot was fired. The reactor whirred more quickly, focused microwaves streaming out of the three arrays facing the Catspaw.

"Rotate, Jon."

What Boriial spoke of was an utterly simple tactic - in order to be kept from being taken by surprising, ships tended to have guns spread out across their hulls. And, as other arrays charged, it was simple enough to flip the facing of the ship, so that they could fire their entire set of weapons.

The ship's maneuvering thrusters fired, and it spun on its axis, another maser array discharging its lethal charge.

"Sir, we've got something on the FTL-radar. Their maneuvering has ceased."

"Ceased?"

"Yessir. Their magfield has been turned off, and they are no longer changing acceleration, or rotation. It's possible we disabled them."

"Yes. It's possible. That, or they might just know the Eternal Pattern has superior accuracy and firepower, and can outrange them by a 2-1 ratio. If we close in to board them, we'll be within range of their lasers. Continue firing."

"..yessir."

Another three maser banks unleased, straight to their target - and then it happened.

Perhaps it was happenstance. Perhaps it was deliberate. Or perhaps it was ordained, the single, seemingly random action that gave birth to an empire, set into motion on a cosmic chessboard.

The Catspaw spun, and, as she spun, the masers hit. The engines gave out one last, massive flare of acceleration, and died. Sending the Catspaw heading straight down to the surface of Theariss IV.

What one had to understand, of course, is that, when a ship can skirt by a planet in ten, or twenty seconds, it is travelling very fast indeed. And when a ship is large enough, and weighs in the thousands of megatonnes, as the refitted Catspaw freighter did, it was going to do a lot of damage.

Normally, there were countermeasures, jump-derived defenses, allowing the hapless planet to send the incoming projectile to the end of the universe. Indeed, some of these were brought in - missing the ship by scant metres.

And then, searing through the atmosphere, like a giant burning angel of destruction, the Catspaw hit. The city of Megetis, although that is no longer important. But when it hit.. in that single, brief second, civilization died on Theariss IV. And, in systems around the sector, the message was sent.

They were not safe. Where there had once been gluttonous prosperity, now there was danger. The greatest world in the sector had been reduced to a smouldering, glassy globe.



Five worlds came together, on that day, and signed the Articles of Unification. Articles which had long-since been tossed aside as a mere pipe-dream, hosted by a tiny agricultural world on the edge of the sector.

The Unified Starfederation of Hyperspatial Travel had been brought into existence. Each of the planetary governments ratified the Articles, and a plebiscite was held - at least 9/10ths of the citzenry voting for it on each world.

It had been two days since then, that the government decided to open diplomatic ties with other nations. The new capital world, Genar, was to be the home of the embassies of others...


This is the newly-created, newly-ratified Unified Starfederation of Hyperspatial Travel, brought into existence by the Articles of Unification, signed on this most auspicious year, two days hence. We invite you to general discourse, and diplomatic communication on the newly-appointed capital world of Genar, in the Aulinneas system. Co-ordinates are being transmitted. A schedule of Genar's orbit around the Aulineeas star, and Aulineeas's movement in comparison to the galaxy in general is also being transmitted, so that you may move to the star, depending on when you get this message. Please note that armed craft will not be tolerated. Furthermore, faster-than-light, and dimension-hopping inhibiters are in place - you will need to travel on sublight speeds once you reach six lightminutes of Genar.

Tyrant Golheas, elected representive of the Starfederation.

The Starfederation Military
A brief report
- -
Tyrant, the Allied Armed Forces have been instituted, and the first AAF Corps has been formed, consisting of three ten-thousand men divisions. The Corps is currently serving on Tyraxas VI, where a rather vicious predator has been overbreeding due to the colonization program there. Field Marshal Jamil Gren is serving in command capacity, along with three generals, Votimasser, Eletrio, and Bron. We are in the process of disbanding Genar's military forces, and incorporating them into the new command structure. Three hundred-and-seventy thousand of our own troops are currently being absorbed into the AAF.

The First Scintillating Fleet has been formed, consisting of forty ships of capital status, a hundred and sixty ships of frigate status, and four hundred ships of escort or gunship status. The Scintillion Fleets are at your command, and our navies have entered what we term the Six Plan, which, over the course of six phases, will join the Scintillion Fleets entire.

We have, as all other states of the Starfederation have, contributed a minimal amount of our federal policing forces to the Sysenforcement government agency, and will continue to contribue amounts, slowly. We do not wish to lose prisoners due to the changeover.

Yours in the Unity of the Starfederation, Director Malhis, Prime Senator on Genar.
- -


Mere hours after the call for diplomacy had been made, Tyrant Golheas sighed, looking at the mountain of work on his desk. He had suggested that they name him President, or perhaps even Prime Minister - hell, First Representative, or something equally innocuous would've done!

But no. A Tyrant he was, they had decided. Then again, he could hardly blame them. It had been made explicitly clear that the title was a safeguard against what it meant - when a Tyrant became a tyrant, then the truth meant that the system had failed.

Besides, he was elected leader - and the Starfederation elections were deceptive in how they acted. The Tyrant was, for all intents and purposes, a true tyrant. He could send the navies out to fight, legislate at will, and order planets to aid him, under the Articles of Unification.

This was counterbalanced by the fluid 'election' system of the Starfederation. Election times in the worlds had varied, and had been a major point of contention. Election systems had been proposed, and each rebuffed, each time the contentious reason that it would give unfair advantage to the inhabitants of one planet.

Indeed, the system had been worked out in little more than a day - the voting was constant. Citizens could vote for whoever they liked, even themselves, and participate in the Planetary and Sector Senates from the comfort of their own home. Or they could turn their vote over to any representative, and let them use it.

Then, the representatives elected the Tyrant. So, although he wielded massive, near-absolute power, his power could be removed as easily as he had gained it.

The first order of business, of course, was to create a functioning navy, army, and federal police force, the last of which being the most important. Of course, these already existed, being the Scintillion Fleets, the official navy of the Starfederation, the Allied Armed Forces, the official army, and, of course, Sysenforcement, the bureau dedicated to peacekeeping across the newly-formed Starfederation.

But something passed by bureaucracy does not magically wave itself into existence - six hundred ships were currently serving in the Scintillion Fleets, and little over four hundred thousand troops currently served in the AAF. Sysenforcement consisted of a hundred-and-fifty police ships, and forty thousand officers, most of whom were simply former planetary police absorbed into the new body.

When you were dealing with a set of six systems, each containing, on average, a billion inhabitants.. it would not suffice. He sat down, and, opening a drawer on his desk, pulled out a bottle of brandy. Spirits - his personal vice. It was good stuff, from one of the most exclusive breweries on Thearis-

He looked at the bottle glumly. Would it be right to drink it? Over.. eighteen billion people had died on Theariss, just two days ago. "Thinking about that.. I need that drink now."

He opened the bottle up, microscopic robots suddenly working to fling the lid carelessly off, allowing him to open a bottle that had been all but welded to its lid with ease, and drank. He tipped his head back, and shivered as it burnt a path down his throat. Not letting up, he drained the entire bottle, and, shakily, screwed the lid back on, and tossed it back into his desk drawer.

He couldn't deal with this - the pressure, the rebuilding of a nation - he had just wanted to see the planets unified! It was just.. just a dream! It had never had any bloody chance of succeeding. But oh, no. He had written the Articles of Unity, and so he had to direct the damn thing!

He opened the drawer again, and pulled out a second bottle of the same fine stuff. Drinking it, more slowly, his thoughts turned to his life before the past few days, and how much he'd like to return to it - and how much he was going to bollocks up this new government..

After his sixth bottle, he slumped down over his desk, and fell asleep, dreaming of giant, warped spaceships looking at him, muttering, and shaking their hulls, laser fire streaming off to kill him...

He was not a good drunk.

And so it was, the Tyrant of the Unified Starfederation, absolute ruler of six vastly powerful systems, director of what was soon to be the most disciplined and efficient navy in the galaxy, and possesser of enough power to send men to their certain deaths on a mere whim, was found drunk in his office by his secretary - for the third time, out of his three-day reign....

"Yessir. Absolutely, sir. I understand."

Tyrant Golheas looked sternly down one end of a videophone - it was another bureaucratic problem. Strangely, and perhaps luckily enough, none had responded to his call to meet with them, and to open diplomatic discourse.

The Five Worlds were the centre of the Starfederation, each conviniently close to another, each able to share militant aid in times of attack, and single freighters able to haul cargo without using the prohibitively expensive Jumpgate routes. There were more, now, deciding to come in, to join the Starfederation - but the massive populations of each of the Five Worlds, industrialized and powerful, meant that the balance of power would not, could not shift, at least, not for a long time.

He looked at the list scribbled on a scrap of paper on his desk - simple, but it represented what he needed to stay in power.

Genar - 875 million
Tentano - 710 million
New Thyan - 625 million
Birricha - 950 million
Eldmark - 840 million

Totalling out, it came to a nice, round, four billion. His original estimate of six, had, admittedly, been somewhat generous. That, and the fact that the population of the worlds had been dropping considerably for almost fifteen years - and censuses were few and far between.

He sighed. The problem was, of course, the planets New Thyan had in its holding. The government had no right to remove planetary claims that had already been made, as the Tentano embassy had so doggedly pushed forward during the negotiations to create the Starfederation, in order to protect their planet in which semi-sentient creatures, furry, small, and adorable, were bred wholesale to be sold as pets, or, occasionally, the garnishing of a rather fine soup.

That was a minor infringement on his beliefs, however. New Thyan, following the ways of Old Thyan, the now-dead empire which had spawned them, had summarily claimed damn-near every hopeful star within thirty parsecs. Out of the sixteen-thousand odd worlds now under the jurisdiction of the Starfederation, around two hundred were inhabited by humans. New Thyan controlled ten thousand, eight hundred of those worlds. And, in those worlds, a grand total of one-hundred-and-ninety six were inhabited. By aliens.

Oh, some were just lost swimmers from the genepool of humanity, but most, most were.. well, evolved life from.. elsewhere.

The problem itself was palpable - what was he going to do with them? There were no specific laws for dealing with undeveloped alien species, however, they were technically citizens, being sentient, and under his jurisdiction. Well, perhaps not citizens, but still members of the Starfederation.

If he decided to remove his jurisdiction, all hell would break loose between New Thyan and his new, still-shaky government. If he decided to try and govern them.. what right did he have interfering with another species who's language he couldn't comprehend, let alone comprehend them? And, of course, if he merely accepted New Thyan's claims, then he was forced to accept them. As it was, he didn't have the fleet to protect ten worlds, let alone the two hundred assorted minor one-city colonies and mining stations he was supposed to guard! And adding in another two hundred worlds would be a nightmare. He could not stretch his fleets that thinly without failing, nor build fleets large enough without bankrupting the Starfederation a dozen times over.

He opened the drawer to his desk - and sighed. He had ordered it cleaned of all alcohol. The fifth time was five times too many - and people were talking. And then it came to him - hide them. That was simple enough, and easily done. A few probes in-system to tell people to, well, bugger off, and send warnings to the fleet, coupled with minor installations on worlds nearby - build a few old installations, claim the system, and no-one could tell the difference!

He smiled. It was a rough-and-ready solution, and no-doubt one that would fail, but.. what the hell. It'd keep the whiners and the burueacrats happy.

(OOC: So, if anyone wants to start an RP with me with the alien races under my.. jurisdiction, feel more than free to do so. Just keep in mind I've got minimal fact-files on each, so you'll need to get a bit of info off me before we start.)