Since time immemorrrial, Fierias has been ruled by a single, powerful dynasty of warrriors, a dynasty whose rule has been enforced against all resistance, in spite of the skill and might of all who dared to challenge them. To discuss the entire dynasty in depth would be the work of more lifetimes than yet remain to me, so I shall only prresent a brrief summary, by way of introducing the main subject of my work: Raiju Bastet Ocelot the 17th - perrhaps the grreatest leader ever to rule the Mrrshan people.
Which isn't saying much, frankly.
Many rulers of Fierias have been known for their brrief, cruel reigns; others were longerr lived, and typically even crueler. The policies of our ruling dynasty have been universally reviled by historrrians and political observers throughout our people's history, a case which has only resulted in more needless death - in this case, the deaths of historrrians and political observers. From the bloody wars that brrought them to power to the endless revolutions they suppressed by force of arms, from their corrupt and luxurrriant lifestyles to their heedlessness of the needs of their people and their world's environment and resources, the ruling dynasty of the Mrrshans has been a perrpetual disaster, culminating in the reign of the late Queen Rrrasp, who in spite of warnings from her own advisors and independent researchers like Jarrred Diamond Eye, exploited our most advanced mining and extraction techniques to completely drain Fierias of the last of its once-rich mineral resources, leaving us with no building materrrials at all, apart from royal luxury goods and refuse frrom which successful resource extraction will be massively expensive, if it can be done at all. When Queen Rrrasp was finally killed by a lucky revolutionary's rifle slug, shortly before the assassin too was killed by Imperrrial Guards, the new heir, young Raiju, was faced with a world holding only thirty factories, and less than fifty million Mrrshans, thanks to the bloody ruthlessness with which Rrrasp had put down countless revolutions. She and her advisors - chief among them Rrref Steelclaw - had to contend as well with a furious population faced with hopeless conditions far beyond the lower limits of poverty.
The Early Years
Raiju's inaugural policies won her little love among her people.
Queen Rrrasp had intended to build warships that could rain death upon her people from outer space, because (as she put it to her advisors in a major policy meeting) "That would totally rrrock!" The plan had to be mothballed when Fierias ran out of resources with the doom ships' weapons systems not yet installed, but with the corrronation of Raiju Bastet Ocelot XVII, the ships of "Rrrasp's Folly" were restored and prrepared for interstellar travel, officially renamed from the "Hunters" and "Rrrasp's Fury" to the "Scouts" and "Colony Ship." Maintaining these relics cost nearly a quarter of the entire planet's GNP, and Raiju exacerbated the situation by raising taxes to unprrecedented rates, pourrring all the reserves into the royal treasury on the prretense of saving it "to support a future extra-Fieriastrial colony." Two million cats - mostly factory engineers and their families - were forced aboard the "Colony Ship," and opinion on the streets was divided as to whether they had been killed outright or forced to work on a prroject to find new sources of metal and energy so they could retrofit the ships with weapons systems and carrry out Rrrasp's original plan. Hoping that their young monarch would still be imprressionable enough to listen, many economists begged her to build more factories, explaining how they were sure to pay for themselves in time, in spite of the massive investment needed. Theirrr advice was ignored; Raiju was philosophical about it, saying, "People should do what they're good at, and the same goes for planets. We will instead work on agriculture, to support a higher population, and a pilot research program in planetology." Her closest advisor, Rrref Steelclaw, added, "Besides, by the time those factorries start to brreak even, they'll be too late to aid ourr master-plan's crritical earrly expansion phase!" No one liked the idea of a "master-plan," but there were encouraging signs already for those who were paying attention: The economists' requests were answered politely, and none of them were killed!
The Folly fans out to the galactic southwest as work begins on Controlled Barren Environment technology.
It was soon discoverred that the "Colony Ship" and "Scouts" had left the Fierias system, cementing public opinion that they were seeking the minerals needed to return with deadly new weapons systems. The murrder of innocents in their homes by government forces was at an all-time low, but with taxes still at an all-time high, most Mrrshans were inclined to believe Raiju was just saving victims up for her ships. Careful observerrs were beginning to take notice howeverr: Though undisguisedly disappointed in her pilot prroject's researchers, who could devise no way to work on either of the two types of technology she desired, she not only let them live, but increased the funding for the Barrren prroject they were prrepared to begin. Moreover, a new pilot prroject was begun the following yearrr, in the incredibly difficult research field of Construction, and even when the scientists came back without plans for the simple upgrrade to factory-building efficiency she had wanted for her as-yet-mythical new colony, she didn't even cut off their funding entirely, though it would be many years before they had more than a shoestring budget for Reduced Industrial Waste 80%.
That was 2303, the year that all Fierias began to wake up to the new reality. In spite of all the rumors, Raiju was nothing like the planet's prrevious kings and queens - and her hand-picked advisors seemed at times to actually know what they were doing!
The foundation of Artemis, and attendant changes in Imperial policy, persuaded many on Fierias to begin trusting their young queen, even to the point of emigrating to the new colony.
The engineers and their families sent aboard the Colony Ship reported planetfall at an arrrid world of decent size, dubbed Artemis in tribute to our own beautiful virgin huntress, young Raiju Bastet Ocelot XVII - these millions had reason to be thankful to her, for they had been sent frrom the sub-poverrty of Fierias to a world abundant in minerals, with their Colony Ship already disassembled and converrted to living quarters for them, and subsidies on their way, as prromised, consisting of the entire Imperrrial treasury! At the same time, Raiju cut taxes to nothing, saying, "It's bad enough robbing Peter to pay Paul, but taxing the empire - and therefore Artemis - now would mean robbing Peter to pay Peter!" Our northern Scout's discoverry of a small, rich, radiated world nearby also gave the Artemisians reason to thank Rrref, for corrrectly prredicting grreen stars like theirs were more likely to support life than neutron stars like slightly-more-coreward Regulus. Indeed, even on Fierias, so many people flocked to transports to join the queen in making Artemis their new home that many had to be turned away. 18 million went - enough to bring Artemis just to one third of its planetary maximum while barely dropping Fierias below a third of its own - and more would follow in the next few years, keeping Fierias stable above that critical one-third mark until it was ready to fill Artemis to capacity. With Fierias helping as best it could - both by sending population and by turning all its efforts to research, mostly in the field of planetology - the rapid construction of sustainable factories at Artemis became the Mrrshans' top prriority. Artemis paused in this only to build three long-range, unarmed "Newscout" starships to help our Scouts map out our corner of the galaxy.
Age of Exploration
The Newscouts, with no noticable maintenance cost in such small numbers, contribute to our knowledge of the lush planets surrounding our worlds.
The first severral years of RBO-17's reign revealed a corner of the galaxy brimming with habitable worlds, all ripe for the taking, if only our pitifully weak empire could ever generate any more colonies! Trusting that the east of the galaxy would remain in our "back lines" for some time, Raiju had sent our Scouts southwestward, and one reached the star six parsecs southwest of Fierias, perhaps just in time for the encounter we had there with a Darlok Scout. The Darlok ship rretreated at once - rumors of the Mrrshans' skill in warrr and the deadly reputation of our ruling dynasty may have prreceded us - and we found a world as abundant in minerals as Artemis and almost as large and homelike as Fierias itself! Apparrrently on the frront lines with another species, already within range of such colony ships as we might someday build, that planet at once became the centerpiece of Raiju's plan for the galaxy.
Patience and Peace
The completion of Barrren research in 2314 brrought another disappointment from the planetology labs, as no prrojects could be conceived there except further controlled environment technology for as-yet purely theoretical planet types, and deadly bioweapon technology. Under the prrevious regime, the Mrrshans would have shuddered at the thought of death spores, but no one was surprrised to learn that Raiju ignored them in favor of a simple Controlled Tundra Environment project, that might suggest new research prrojects - perrhaps even in terrraforming or ecological restorrration - relatively quickly. The young queen who had taken Rrrasp's place was young no longerr - not in cat years! - but was patient with her people, and remained in good health as we developed superrrior techniques for imprroving longevity. Of the four worlds that were to be discoverred overr roughly the next decade in the north and east, some to be watched over by additional Newscouts prroduced during this period, two even prroved to be ice worlds after all, and so Raiju's patience was in some sense rewarded.
The completion of Artemisian factory infrastructure in 2331 led to a new era of galactic colonization. Here, RBO-17's New Homeworld is seen preparing to drop its first "Litter" of kittens, due in 2336.
While some sensationalists like to say that Raiju died of anguish when her Tundra prroject, finished in 2331, led her scientists to no other ideas than Controlled Inferno Environment, the truth is that she was prepared to accept even that, and even spoke warmly of our future on fiery Xudax. She survived well into the year, long enough to see her chosen homeworld's factory prrojects complete, and to order the construction of a new colony ship. She passed away peacefully in her sleep, loved by her people and happy with her lot.
The people of Fierias and Artemis might have expected to cringe in horror at the thought of Raiju's death, but in truth they gave thanks for the fact that, when she took the throne, she had been truly young: The contented life she lost in 2331 was only the first of her nine!
Read On!
