Excerpts from the Imperial Encyclopedia
The Imperial Encyclopedia is an information system widely used to access the Imperial Library. Collecting official records for thousands of years, it is the pre-eminent information source within the Empire. Some of its records have been excerpted and summarized below, providing an overview of Imperial history and politics.
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A Very Brief History of the Empire
Historians currently divide Imperial history into four eras:
- The Great Clans
The Great Clans are the major historic divisions of humanity, predating the Terran Sphere. Part political movement, part race, part guild, the clans serve now as labels although few people can claim to be entirely descended from any one clan. They first formed in the Federation, when people found themselves split by the conditions of space travel. Some travelled between stars, living long lives at near-light speed while those on planets aged and died. Naturally they grouped more closely with each other, and these groups became clans. The Great War dissolved and reformed the first clans, to further meet the needs of battle. In the thousands of years since the war, they have split further.
- Major Alien Species
There are thousands of known alien lifeforms, most of which are very primitive. It has also been conjectured that there may be forms of life we simply cannot recognize due to vast differences in lifespan or size. Of the known species, a few hundred have evolved to form animated lifeforms of above animal intelligence, and of these some dozens have developed advanced civilizations. The number of advanced space-faring civilizations is much smaller, and here we describe only a few which have been of particular importance to humanity.
- Star Travel
There are three known ways of travelling between stars: direct-drive, c-tunnels and spacefolds.
- Galactography
The Universal Grid Reference system (UGR) allows us to describe any point in nearby space, from entire galaxies to micron-sized specks of dust. It has seen use since the first Imperial Survey thousands of years ago, and understanding it is vital to the career of any spacefarer.
- Languages
- The Great Corporations
Since the Unification War, corporations have divided power openly and equally with planetside governments. While most corporations are small ventures localized to particular volumes of space, a few are vast networks spanning the old Empire. These have come to be known as the Great Corporations, although "the corporations" is often lazily used as a shorthand to refer particularly to large interstellar corporations. Many of these have roots deep in ancient history, dating to the Great War or even earlier. A few are relatively young upstarts, owing their prominence to control of a particular technology or resource.