Imperial History - The Golden Age

The period of history following the Great War and up to the Juba Dynasty, some four thousand years, was one of great expansion and growing prosperity. The basic structure of the Empire became fixed in this time, both physically and politically. The lesser of the Great Clans mark their origins in this period, and it is here that humanity first ventured into truly alien worlds. In total, it was perhaps the period of greatest human achievement. For that reason, historians generally refer to it as the golden age.

Imperial history is traditionally divided into dynastic periods. Dynasties were often literal families of emperors but as often were political alliances or other succession arrangements. All of them share a common pattern, beginning with strong emperors who built or reformed but eventually degenerating and falling prey to corruption. Violence and regicide characterized the latter days of most dynasties.

While Imperial history tends to focus on the achievements of the Emperors, it should be noted that the Emperors are only one force in Imperial politics. From the earliest Emperors, there has always been an Imperial Senate containing elected officials from the major planets, and a semi-official Imperial Court consisting of prominent families from the Great Clans. Corporations have historically organized themselves into various trade organizations, which have intersected with official Imperial bodies to different degrees at different times. Imperial power, meaning that of the Emperors themselves, is typically wielded first within the Imperial Court, by the Emperor gaining the agreement of the Great Clans. If the Great Clan leaders agree, then Senators will be pressured to go along — although the actual power of the Senate has varied greatly with time and no Emperor has ever had to depend totally on Senate approval. Corporations might be pressured indirectly from Clan or planet leaders, although some of the most powerful Emperors, including the Founder himself, have derived their power from corporations. Ultimately, the effectiveness of the Emperor varies directly with the number of planets and corporations that can be induced to support Imperial plans. Power has shifted to and from the Emperor many times in history.

The Freyr Dynasty: Consolidation

The first of the dynasties was a single family descended from Jan Freyr, the inventor of the spacefold drive. In the history of the Great War it is well documented how the new drive led to the end of the Great War and the rise of the Founder clan. All the Freyr emperors were Founders, ruling for just over a thousand years in total.

On the whole, the Freyrs were characterized by their sharp political instincts and ability to build. The Founder, Magnus I, immediately displayed a flair for leadership by resolving the loose ends of the Great War, in particular bringing about an end to the conflict between the Pilgrims and Spartans over the planet of Xarus. In many less dramatic instances he worked steadily at creating policies and an overall Imperial culture, which would bring stability for millenia to come. Perhaps the greatest of all his social achievements came when he abdicated the throne in IY 61 so that his wife could rule instead, setting a clear and incontrovertible precedent that women were to be equals in power.

The Freyr Dynasty was largely without major conflicts, although there were several small territorial battles and local wars not worth mention here. With the threat from the Crucians substantially gone, the nature of the human leadership gradually changed. Although there was no longer any need for a large war machine, there remained the need to root out and destroy the remaining Crucians, and as well to maintain guard against future unknown threats. Spacefold travel made it possible to spread alerts and respond rapidly, resulting in a situation somewhat similar to that during the period of the Great War where humanity was safely walled behind Tunnel. Power devolved hierarchically, with star systems organized into networks and sub- and super-networks. Fleets would be maintained at well-connected systems, guaranteeing the security of less powerful neighbours.

This gradually led to a feudal system of government where the Emperor directed a court of nobles who ruled the forces of local systems. Planets themselves were ruled by local officials, an eternal divide first realized in the Treaty of New Mecca thousands of years earlier. Where there was conflict in the Empire, it often came here. Relations between the Empire and its member worlds were complex to the point of bewilderment. In some systems there was a sharp separation; the local governments agreed taxes and services with the Empire through direct explicit treaties. In other systems relations were muddier, with the noble families themselves residing on the planet and often related to local officials. The capitol of the dynasty, Safe Harbour, was somewhat of a special case, being ruled locally by the Founders as well as being the seat of the Empire. The tradition (also established in the days of Magnus I) was that the Emperor would appoint some cousin to rule the planet's local affairs, and that this cousin must be out of the direct line of Imperial succession.

With time, the Freyrs became the template for Imperial rule. They encouraged the Imperial model by naming and numbering themselves in the traditions of ancient Earth rulers. The court, and its connected families across the Empire, became a class of its own and eventually intermarried to the point of becoming a de facto Clan. The new aristocracy grew steadily in power, rivalling the Founders themselves. Although there was no direct conflict between the two, intrigue grew steadily and eventually brought about the end of the Freyrs. The last Freyr ruler, Lars V, avoided naming a successor because he could see no choice which would not cause controversy and change. When he died in a flying accident in 1028, all his worries came to pass anyway. After a court rebellion lasting months, a new non-Founder emperor was named.

The Lind Dynasty: Expansion and Decline

Emperor John, the first of the Lind line, was a scion of the aristocracy. He came from no particular clan himself, and could trace his ancestry back to prominent members of many of the Great Clans. Like the Freyrs, the Linds were a family dynasty. In theory the next Emperor would be the oldest child of the current Emperor, regardless of sex. In practice, several senior daughters declined the throne as well as a few senior sons, for reasons personal and political.

The Lind Dynasty, in contrast to the Freyr, presented several dramatic milestones. During the rule of Emperor James, two new systems were discovered to be significant hyperspace intersections, each hosting numerous spacefolds. Exploitation of these began quickly. The first, Tabora, had 7 known spacefolds of which 4 led to major trade routes. The second, Starhub, had 12 known spacefolds which served as avenues for new expansion. Power shifted subtly and slightly in reaction to this, and Emperor Albert II moved the Imperial capitol from Safe Harbour to Tabora in IY 1389.

This new structure led to the largest war of the age, the Miller War. One of the new avenues of expansion was along the "Barrett arm," a small network of systems connected to Starhub through the Barrett system. The spacefold to Barrett was discovered by a private group in IY 1450, who exploited it outside of official Imperial involvement. When new parties discovered it in parallel they were co-opted, forming the "Barrett cartel" to squeeze as much profit as possible from any who wished to travel to the arm. Like all cartels, the Barrett cartel was inherently unstable and fell apart due to internal feuding in IY 1684. Planetary governments in the arm naturally chose to deal with the less exploitative corporations, and the more rapacious members of the former cartel attempted to extort fees from them regardless. This led quickly to armed conflict. A particularly scornful corporate executive for Hara Group, now remembered only by his words, said in an interview "How long do these peasants and millers think they can hold out against us?", and the conflict quickly became known as the Miller War. The significance of the Miller War went far beyond its limited physical scope. A battle between interstellar corporations and local planetary governments struck directly at one of the ancient themes of the Empire, that these two spheres of power should be separate. It is the only such conflict of any significance recorded in all history since the early Unification War. As a result, the Emperor could not afford to ignore it. When news of the war reached the court, he quickly ordered a fleet to be mounted and deal with the problem, naturally siding with the Millers against the corporations. By IY 1725 the war had been decisively resolved, with the dissolution of Hara Group and the other offending corporations, along with the execution of several of their executives. This not only reinforced the traditional planetside-spacer division of power but also set a precedent for the Emperor as arbitrator.

Emperor John IV

The Miller War marked a turning point in Imperial history in another way; to finance it, Emperor John IV raised taxes. The outcome of the war left the Emperor with somewhat more personal power in the court than previously, and succeeding emperors tried to expand on this further. By IY 1925, the Emperors had reached a peak of power, and their actions had become positively shameless. Basileus III made mass appointments to government to pass several bills which advanced his family's power even further. The most notorious of these cases came when he ennobled his pet cats.

This growing corruption was inherent and proably inevitable in the nature of the Lind Dynasty. Where the Freyrs had been builders, the Linds were much more political. Although it is often claimed that the Freyrs power came from their control of spacefold drive production, this is not quite accurate. At least as early as the days of Empress Wilhelmina, there were many systems capable of building spacefold ships, and this is likely true even as far back as the Great War. They did not do so because they feared the consequences; the Founders had accumulated significant respect and political power by then and could wield political pressure to isolate systems which dared to defy them. During the drive to end the Great War, this gave them overwhelming power. With time, it became less of an advantage. As well, there was probably a general desire to maintain stability, and while the Founders guarded their power they were generous with the material benefits of ship production. In any event, the Linds had to rule without this inherent advantage; their power came from compromise and deal-making. Since they could only achieve their aims by trading favours, they naturally traded many of them. This led inevitably to corruption and the emperors themselves led the rush to grab money and power.

The downfall of the Linds began in IY 2067. Emperor Elvor had broken with tradition and taken personal control of the planetary government of Tabora, a step even the Freyrs had never taken on Safe Harbour. This gross violation of thousands of years of tradition led immediately to a mass rebellion, and when many members of the Aristocracy sided against the Emperor, the Taboran rebellion turned into a civil war. A distant Lind cousin became Emperor Cran, seizing the throne by force with support from disaffected Aristocrats. He relinquished claims to local government and ended the Taboran rebellion. However, he then tried to raise taxes, ostensibly to pay the costs of rebuilding on Tabora but in fact far beyond what was required for this. This stirred old anger among the other members of the Aristocracy, and the Spacer clan rebelled openly, declaring themselves independent of the Imperial Court. They began to construct their own spacefold ships and promised fair treatement to all who joined them. The Spartans threw their weight behind the Spacers, as did some lesser clans, and the Imperial court split.

The First Schism

The Spacers and Spartans promised lower taxes and egalitarian government, with planetary heads voting directly in a council and all with equal weight. From the beginning many were suspicious that this was simply an attempt to restore the old pre-Imperial leaders of humanity, and large numbers of worlds chose not to follow. With time the idealistic structure of the rebels disappeared and the ruling Consuls became known as the "Kwok Line," emperors by another name.

The loyalist stream of the Empire fared no better, however. They continued on in the same vein with the Emperor and his family massing more power to themselves. Empresses Maria and Maria II figured prominently in shadowy rumours of nefarious court activity, and it is widely believed that Emperor Hin, son of Maria II, was nothing but a puppet. Grumblings reached such a stage that it became impossible to rule, and Hin was forced out in favour of Emperor Juvenal, the last of the Lind line. Juvenal attempted to rescue the situation by brute force, with mass purges at home and assassinating his rival Nyoman 2. In the end he failed, having destroyed his power base. Juvenal's last days in power were marked by growing isolation and ineffectiveness, as the ruling houses of the Imperial court dealt with each other directly.

The Kwok line ended equally ignominiously. Consul Ketut 2 was a plutocrat who took the throne at an advanced age and died naturally soon after. Consul Wayan 3 had little chance to do anything before dying in a mysterious accident. The tenth rebel ruler, Consul Made 3, saw little to no support ahead and began his rule with the announcement that he would open negotiations to cede power gracefully and peacefully to a new ruler, ending the schism.

The Juba Dynasty

In the last decades of the first schism, the Imperial court had fractured into groups and individual factions, vying and occasionally warring outright with each other. In this climate it was not possible for a prominent member of an old-line Imperial faction to ascend in real power. Emperor Abdullah began his illustrious career as a minor courtier from Juba, representing the Tauran faction. Like the Founder but unlike many contemporary members of court, his power came not from inherited aristocratic prestige, but from his family's business connections. With the power vacuum of the schism, he was able to trade political favours for business favours and gain influence at court. His initial lack of fame also worked to his advantage, since he had no ancient political opponents or serious enemies. While problems accumulated that could not be solved by the existing Emperor or rival Consuls, Abdullah gained a reputation as a capable leader and mediator. Finally, in a historic meeting in IY 2412, prominent members of the remaining loyal factions agreed to depose Juvenal and back Abdullah unconditionally as the next Emperor. Only the Masons demurred.

Abdullah began his reign with the clean sweep that had been expected of him, but it is likely many did not anticipate the extent of his reforms. Within months, Abdullah had repealed substantially all of the tax increases of the Lind Dynasty, disbanding and privatizing Imperial-sponsored organizations while turning over military roles to individual factions. Shortly after, he ended the schism by ceding power to the Imperial Senate. In addition to its old, mostly bureaucratic, roles it would now confirm heirs to the emperor after nomination from the reigning emperor, and it gained more direct control over many Imperial organizations. Prominent members of the Aristocracy and old government were put on trial in these early years for corruption, and ultimately imprisoned or executed. In the years IY 2412-2420, these convictions numbered 48 members of the court, 734 civil servants, and uncounted thousands of military leaders. Of the courtiers and civil servants, 102 were executed including former emperor Juvenal himself. Ex-Consul Made 3, in contrast, lived out his final years as a semi-retired advisor to Abdullah.

The Juba Dynasty as a whole carried on with the reforms set in place by Abdullah. Where the Freyrs and Linds had been essentially family dynasties, the Juba Emperors were unrelated members of the Imperial Parliament, chosen (in theory, at least) by their predecessors for their abilities. The need for confirmation by parliament meant that in practice Emperors were very often lesser-known and uncontroversial figures as Abdullah had been. Where the Freyr Dynasty had been a period of building and the Lind Dynasty a period of consolidation, the Juba Dynasty on the whole was characterized by decentralization and devolution of power from the Emperor to Imperial organizations.

One of the major problems faced by the Juba emperors was that the volume of human-settled space grew by expansion through spacefold, extending the network of trade routes in unpredictable directions and continually changing the distribution of the population. One emperor after another found himself answering the same protests that the Imperial Capitol should be moved to some new planet or other. In 2705 Emperor Cirian set out to settle this debate once and for all, announcing a twenty-five year long commission to study the problem and recommend the ideal location for a new capitol. When the Commission reported in 2730, its findings were less than impressive; the members had largely been unable to come to any consensus. They had only the single limp recommendation that the capitol would be most efficiently located at Starhub, which had outgrown Tabora as a crossroads and then hosted fifteen known spacefolds. This raised an immediate and vociferous counter-protest from military leaders that Starhub was indefensible and therefore unsuitable as a location for the capitol. Although never proven in war, they had previously raised similar objections to hosting the capitol on Tabora.

Another commission was formed to study the problem further, and happily found a solution to satisfy everybody. In 2744, after years of expensive surveying, they reported the discovery of a sixteenth spacefold at Starhub, which connected it with a system hosting a Terran-class planet that could be easily terraformed. Even better, it was theoretically unlikely that Indo's system hosted more than one usable spacefold. On his accession to the throne, Emperor Ali I announced the construction of a new Imperial capitol here and named the planet Indo. Terraforming of Indo took more than thirty years, and moving the government another dozen. The move was completed in 2787 and Ali I announced his retirement, abdicating the throne in 2788 after the first meeting of the Senate at its new home. The network of spacefolds extending from Starhub and Indo grew over the next few centuries and became known as the "Royal Approach". Its connections were heavily travelled and its spacefold parameters universally known. It remains among the busiest trade routes in the galaxy even now.

The major crisis of the Juba Dynasty began as a technological breakthrough. Although the techniques of genetic manipulation had been known and practiced for thousands of years, mostly to the significant benefit of humanity, there had always been those not content merely to tweak the human genetic system, but who wanted to surplant it with a better system of their own design. Research efforts in this area met little progress and were mostly scorned or derided, seen alternately as unnecessary or undesirable by most people. It carried on despite this, until in 3582 microgenetic researchers on Boliar succeeded in creating a technique to rebuild the human genetic system into something quite different. Using a cocktail of viral agents, protein fragments and various organic and inorganic chemicals, they managed not only to exploit genetic coding but to subvert the entire chromosome system itself. Their first creations were "reduced" humans in which the vast bulk of gene pairs were replaced by a standardized chemical base. Their cells were incapable of reproduction by the normal method, but instead all cells in their bodies were produced by tailoring stem cells. In addition to the biochemical processes mentioned, this required a degree of micro-mechanical engineering for conscious neural control. The reduced humans, or "R-humans" as they came to be known, were a significant success — created with the ability to consciously shape themselves for whatever task they desired, as well as inheriting the benefits of thousands of years of conventional genetic engineering. They were also nearly totally immune to disease and very adaptable, being possessed of a basic ability for biofeedback that no ordinary human could match. Although incapable of reproducing without the assistance of technology, R-humans grew much faster than humans and took on the responsibility of engineering and self-populating themselves. Perhaps contrary to expectations, the R-humans themselves created no significant political problems. Humans and R-humans saw each other as different species and, as usual, were chiefly interested in learning from and trading with each other.

Unfortunately for history, progress in this genetic mechanical research did not end here. Buoyed by the success of R-humans, researchers kept tinkering, seeking to create "worker beasts" that could be dropped on a xeno-class planet and adapt themselves to local conditions in such a way that they would terraform the planet as they bred. If it worked, this approach would save decades or centuries of effort in each colonization of a new planet. The researchers had moderate success but overlooked basic principles of biology to such an extent that historians ever since have wondered if they could truly have been so stunningly stupid, or if some other force was at work. As the number and type of re-worked genetic creations expanded, there naturally occurred random variations - which would be called mutations in traditional biology but here had a quite different effect, much like that of putting a malfunctioning machine into a complex system. At some point, some unknown worker beast varied its programming to produce not just human-consumable materials but materials which were consumable by humans yet which contained active genetic machinery. The researchers tested their project by feeding the results to test animals, and in the process somehow bred a complex organism which actively produced virii and chemicals to terraform the animal tissue itself. Not only that, it adapted its produced substances for better effect, following the "conscious evolution" design it had inherited. The result was a devasting lifeform, the "Boliaran Breeder" that not only resembled a disease itself but consciously created newer and more dangerous ones with time.

The path of this phenomenon from there was entirely predictable; the Breeders escaped from their laboratories and caused the Boliaran Plague. To people now and then this was a nightmare come true, the ultimate (if accidental) biological weapon. It spread quickly and consciously. The Empire had long had quarantine measures in place but these were inadequate to stop the spread of the plague off-planet, being aimed at hazards which followed known biological predictions rather than this complex multi-faceted new sort of organism. Boliar itself was quickly overrun and its population wiped out. A few nearby systems were also infected, but the plague proved self-limiting due to two factors. First, in the majority of cases the plague acted so continually and quickly that infected ships became aware of the problem before reaching their destination. Second, in cases where this did not happen it was because the breeders had redesigned themselves further, producing newer organisms with less destructive (and obvious) purposes. Empress Adai V ordered prompt, and largely effective, containment measures to stop the plague. The loss of life on Boliar and its satellites was total, but outside the system few died directly from the plague.

The real consequences of the Boliaran plague were political. The redesigned breeders produced new life forms of various designs, some no more than monsters, others with capabilities similar to humans or the known alien species. Boliar itself became a living showcase for this strange new ecosystem, and within a few decades had reached an equilibrium. It remains populated by the descendants of the Breeders now, although they have long since bred themselves away from compatibility with Terran life. The new masters of the planet, as well as the original R-humans (who had now spread to multiple systems), had still been taught all that was known to their human predecessors. They wanted to be considered part of the Empire and forced an official answer to an issue which had long been settled unofficially: Adai V declared that only original humans capable of unassisted interbreeding could be considered members of the Imperial court or admitted to the Senate. Genetically modified humans, R-humans and any such modified creatures forever after would be regarded as aliens and not allowed in the corridors of power. Furthermore, the Boliaran plague heightened prejudices against the Clones, and to a lesser degree also the Inlookers and some Empaths.

The end of the Juba Dynasty came hundreds of years after the drama of the Boliaran Plague, not as a result of any crisis but after the inevitable growth of corruption within the court. The last Juba emperor, Abdullah IV, spent his power fruitlessly trying to combat corruption much as Juvenal had. When he died on the throne having named no successor, a brief interregnum followed with no emperor named at all.