Imperium 26 - Tragedy Strikes

The Alkari were victorious, in spite of never arming a starship larger than a tactical fighter, in spite of never equipping armor or shields on any of their ships, nor - according to their own scientific reports - even researching shield technology.

As this planetary survey shows, they had conquered the galaxy, in spite of four-front war...

...without ever building a missile base at any of their worlds.

Yet there are no records anywhere that speak of a 2500 galactic council. The matter seems nearly inexplicable, but the facts are there. In the final years of war and in the years of peace that followed, the Alkari had neglected to build colony ships to take advantage of the newly-vacant worlds throughout the galaxy, and a self-recriminating entry in what purports to be a copy of RBO-26's personal diary suggests that this might have been the problem: Some ancient law that forbade a council meeting unless at least two thirds of the planets in the galaxy were claimed. At all events, whether or not the Galactic Council met, no resolution came. The Alkari belated swarmed the stars with colony ships and claimed every planet on which they could live, but years would pass before the next council could convene - years in which the reconciliation and sheer power of the Alkari could be forgotten. Before long, the other peoples of the galaxy would re-declare war. An earthquake passed on Lyae Prime apparently unnoticed - at least with no notice surviving outside of a GNN report - outside of that star system. And then the ultimate tragedy struck - or ancient feelings came to the fore; so few records survive that the question is debated still. The Mrrshans continued to send nuisance fleets into Alkari space until at last a force was sent to Dolz, the the last remaining Mrrshan star system, to destroy the remnants of their military infrastructure. But in error or by instinctive will, from inattention or from some ancient racial hatred kin to what the Mrrshans felt for them, they sent too large a force.

Perhaps the destruction of the Mrrshans provides some hint to the final fate of the Alkari and the other ancient races of the galaxy. Perhaps something can be learned from the strange case of the Meklar, who declared war just before the Mrrshans were destroyed: Not long thereafter, a still-surviving GNN report claimed that the Alkari ambassador had attempted to assassinate INT-986 without the sanction of his government, in spite of the fact that no such ambassador was present; the Meklar people were still refusing any diplomatic contact with the Alkari. It was already my understanding that such an assassination attempt inevitably led to war no matter how strong relations were between two races, even between allies and best friends - but there was one circumstance in which I thought war would not be declared in immediate response to this event. And I was wrong.

The Meklar empire took the opportunity to declare war on the Alkari ... with whom they were already at war!

Thus, we come to the final surviving record of that ancient interstellar era, before the era of Alkari rule that would last for centuries before its abrupt and still-inexplicable end. Perhaps this ancient recording too holds a clue to the fate of the Alkari; when first I saw it, it sent shivers down my spine. It is a still frame from a historical documentary on the ascension of RBO-26 to High Master of the New Republic in 2425, and the foreground shows only the vote, which could have been inferred: All the non-Alkari leaders voted for Granid in a meaningless gesture, while RBO-26 was elected by the vote of the Alkari alone - an overwhelming majority. But fading in from the background in this still fame, the words that will presumably head the next section of the documentary can just be made out in this frame.

Orion, Throne World of the Ancients! Is this Alkari propaganda of some kind, or can it be that even in the ancient times of which these fragmentary records tell, the Ancients of Orion were already matters of legend? Could it be that not one, but two or even many civilizations have risen only to inexplicably disappear from the galaxy? What connection does Orion have to this? And what does it mean for the future of our own civilization?

[End Report, Henrry Gaurrr, professor of archaeology, Kodiak University, Phyco, AR 3192]

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Imperium 26 - Seeking Closure

The rulers of the galaxy's non-Alkari people did everything in their power to overcome the growing dominance of RBO-26. It wasn't long before every one had declared war on RBO-26. The last two declarations came just one year apart, and were so nearly identical in their wording that an Alkari political commentator mocked them with an image that survives to this day:

The galaxy-vs-Alkari war took its predictable course, as reported by GNN in a long-preserved recording from 2484:

Before long, the Alkari had dismantled their foes' military forces, and indeed their entire empires. Their bombers swept through space, covered by swarms of fighters, and even the Silicoids' repulsor beams could not stop them; the bombers nimbly avoided the repulsor ships, and the fighter pilots reacted so swiftly that the repulsor cruisers stood no chance: The Alkari pilots took them out with reactive fire while the larger ships' repulsors were temporarily deactivated so as to allow them to close and fire on the fighters, before the Silicoid ships could get a shot in with their repulsor beams or any other weapons. Images and other records of these battles are among the most numerous artifacts of the Alkari era, mostly preserved among the asteroids of various once-Silicoid star systems. All offer the same message: Though they lost a number of fighters with every combat mission, the Alkari war fleets, taken together, were invincible in battle.

Yet in spite of fielding hundreds and hundreds of fighters and bombers equally capable of flying around missile volleys and simply evading the missiles that reached them, the Alkari would not finish their enemies. Though they smashed every other military force in the galaxy as women and children fled before them to ever more distant refuges, the Alkari did not pursue them to their final hiding places, but waited patiently for the vote that woud crown their RBO-26 High Master of the Galaxy. When the other emperors, battered and beaten, finally came begging for peace, RBO-26 granted it unconditionally. He even accepted a Non-Aggression Pact offered by Granid in what must have been abject fear, according to fragments like this image from a GovernmentWatch report tablet.

The wars were over at long last, and only the Darloks had been lost - but the galaxy belonged to the Alkari people.

RBO-26 prepared for his coronation, never dreaming of the tragedy that would follow.

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Next: Tragedy Strikes

Imperium 26 - War and Doom

A recording still exists, long-buried in the preserving sands of Zhardan, of GNN's report on the event that changed the Silicoid-Alkari galaxy forever.

The two races still unknown to the Alkari had been at war for years. Each had held a relatively small empire in the west of the galaxy, and had perhaps been evenly matched - until the Silicoids had joined in alliance with the Meklar. In 2438, the Darloks were no more, the last of their people slain by Meklar forces with the aid of their Silicoid allies. Signs of Alkari mourning are abundant in this period. Signs of other races' mourning have yet to be found. The Alkari continued their peaceful acquisition of technology, through minor exchanges, research, and - increasingly - espionage. They willingly made peace with Prrsha when she requested it, her empire struggling under the strain of a war it could not prosecute, supplying a massive army that would never see the field of battle. Yet for all the continuing peaceful efforts of the Alkari people, all the scattered records we've been able to collect suggest that their perspective had undergone a tidal change. Their new direction would only become more pronounced as they learned more about the galaxy.

With the advent of an Advanced Space Scanner in 2460, the Alkari were able to produce the image above: A complete map of all but the remotest northwest corner of the galaxy. Though two of the Meklar colonies failed to appear (perhaps due to a glitch in the copy that has survived) the map reveals, among other things, one item that has been confirmed repeatedly elsewhere: In spite of the report that the Meklar had destroyed the Darlok people, it was the Silicoids who controlled the Darlok homeworld. Perhaps it was this alone which saved Emperor INT-986 when - the very next year - the development of Trilithium Fuel Cells brought the Meklar homeworld into range for Alkari ships of diplomacy and war.

Uncertainty could not save them forever, but it granted them a respite. INT-986 indicated its peaceful intentions toward the Alkari by agreeing to a trade agreement, whereas Strader the self-proclaimed Pacifist had publicly set fire to his Alkari Non-Aggression Pact as a prelude to war. Some artifacts still exist commemorating the ceremonial burning, as well as intelligence reports indicating it was observed by Alkari spies, but a recording survives of Strader's official diplomatic message as well.

The Alkari response was slow, deliberate, and brutally effective. Their spies struck first, even as their fleet - hundreds of fighters armed with fusion bombs stolen from the Humans themselves and neutron pellet guns developed by Alkari combat engineers - arrived at the Human home star.

A Meklar declaration of war was issued against the Alkari the same year that Sol fell, and the galaxy was in such an uproar that, apart from an obligatory news story, few references have survived to the pirates who began operations from Imra the following year. Another news report, equally obligatory, is preserved from a dozen years later, when the intense Silicoid military activity in the system completely wiped out the pirate base in a routine training exercise. In between, the Alkari built new colonies on the ruins of once-Human Lyae and Sol, distant and long-neutral Esper in the far northwest, and Meklon itself. Though all the Meklar records still surviving on Talas refer to Meklon as the "Home Star," there are sadly no surviving artifacts of the Meklar in that system; only Alkari ones, and a wealth of glass. GNN records, as well as transcripts of many Human, Mrrshan, Meklar, and Silicoid speeches, suggest that with 18 star systems in their talons, unless they could be stopped at once, the Alkari were poised to control the galaxy.

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Next: Seeking Closure

Imperium 26 - The Changing Guard

Such records as can still be recovered after the centuries suggest that the Silicoids continued to project their dominant power as aggressively as the Human mapmakers believed. Other races faced setbacks in this period - artifacts from Talas refer to what appears to be some form of "bio-mechanical plague" and hints that the Meklar quarantined the entire star system. Our best sources suggest that the plague began as early as 2360, and the references we have seen never speak of it as a thing of the past until at least sixteen years later. While the Meklar combatted that, the Silicoids were tightening their grip on the galaxy, claiming worlds where no other race could live, and apparently some as well where others had already established bases. Sketchy records have been found of an expeditionary fleet sent to the Alkari border world of Antares, and a smaller force to Zhardan soon thereafter. The result at Antares was a ground invasion by Silicoid forces, narrowly fought, but resulting in a news report of which numerous copies were preserved in a crystalline version of permaprint through the centuries:

The Silicoids' twelfth world, won by the last surviving batallion of invaders, was taken from the talons of the Alkari. From all indications, it happened at the same time that another Silicoid star fleet was arriving in the Zhardan system, and yet another invasion ordered to claim it for Silicoidkind. Not until three years later did the first Alkari combat ships arrive at Zhardan, only to narrowly lose the space battle, in the same year that Alkari engineers, far behind the curve, apparently learned to improve their industrial construction techniques for the first time in their interstellar history. While this was happening, the Silicoids apparently were taking steps to cement their rule over the galaxy.

A council of leaders was convened in the year 2375, ironically triggered by the advent of a new Alkari colony at Rayden - their tenth in the galaxy. According to an article on the subject preserved by a miracle on solid-state media, the Mrrshans and Humans supported Granid's bid for galacitc rule as "High Master," but the Darloks, Meklar, and Alkari all abstained from voting, perhaps in protest at the suddenness of the council, thus invalidating the election. The fact that Granid's nominal opponent, Regent Bitternson Osprey the 26th of the Alkari, garnered not a single vote - not even the five cast by his own people - is suggestive of the power of the Silicoids of that period in the galaxy.

All of this is difficult to reconcile with the events of the following year: The Alkari, perhaps anticipating the possibility that their first fleet would not suffice, had dispatched a second, larger combat fleet to the Zhardan system - and instead of falling before the might of the local Silicoid assault craft, it proved victorious. A commemorative mural preserved for eons beneath Zhardan 4's bone-dry sands, shows the final exchange of the battle, as well as new ships winging their way through the deeps of space to intercept Silicoid combat transports already en route.

With their fleets in orbit, and ground troops outnumbering the invaders two to one even before the fleets opened fire, the Alkari held the system easily in the same year they developed a deep space scanner to provide early warning of future hostilities. As their scientists continued to come through with a new rocket design and the best available sub-light engines, the Alkari saw the tide begin to turn in their favor in the year 2381, when long-preserved transcripts of mining reports on fertile Neptunus - the first interstellar Alkari colony - indicate the discovery of unexpected Neutronium deposits deep beneath the planet's surface. As terraforming research completed, the Alkari appear even to have taken the lead in imperial production among all the races of the galaxy, before the year 2390. At this point, all indications suggest that their research and colonization efforts took off, culminating in this image, apparently a long-preserved hard copy of RBO-26's actual voting presentation for the 2400 election:

Though the Alkari appear to have abstained in protest after again receiving no support from any other race, they held more votes than any other species in the galaxy, and a full veto on all Council proceedings. The course that matters took from there may well be imagined without the aid of any revelations from artifacts of the era. Yet we are left with a number of mysteries:

The star of Talas - the same system that had been struck by a plague some years before - nearly exploded in a supernova before Meklar scientists invented a solar rejuvenator and restored it to its former glory. Common wisdom would have it that lightning does not strike twice in the same place, but our archaeological findings seem to suggest that on the contrary, lightning seems drawn to certain places, such that they are struck again and again.

Another mystery is that of Alkari-Mrrshan relations.

Empress Prrsha's surviving memoirs, as well as every reference to Alkari we've been able to find among Mrrshan artifacts and writings, speak of the Alkari as a race of demonic avian beings, desiring only the ruin of all things Mrrshan and deserving of nothing but death. Yet the Alkari writings typically refer to the Mrrshans with a kind of wistful affection, and the increasingly powerful Alkari empire refrained for decades from responding to Mrrshan provocation, even when this "provocation" consisted of a declaration by Prrsha of open war, soon after the two races met. The war was entirely phony - Professor Arrchibald, our best authority on the subject, believes this was because Alkari fuel and environment technology had been necessary to establish contact in the first place, leaving the Mrrshans unable to attack, while the Alkari themselves had no wish to prosecute war - but neither the Mrrshan hatred nor the Alkari forbearance in the face of it can be readily explained.

It must also be remembered that the Silicoids remained a power in the galaxy, though the Alkari had begun to eclipse them in certain areas.

The date of this document is uncertain, though radiosynchronous dating places it somewhere in the 2430s, and its nature is likewise unclear, but whether it was meant to be an intelligence report for government officials or a motivating factor for scientists, it lists all the techs possessed by the Silicoids at that time which the Alkari lacked. Especially in the case of force fields - an area of research which the Alkari inexplicably continued to shun - the list was obviously extensive, including numerous dangerous weapons, biological and otherwise. Yet the Alkari appear to have remained largely unconcerned until an event likewise hinted by this document that shook the foundations of the galaxy.

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Next: War and Doom

Imperium 26 - The Pride of Eagles

Fragmentary records speak of a lost civilization, forgotten by history. Legends whisper of the Ancients who came before, who ruled all the galaxy eons before our sentience evolved, and for the first time, we are uncovering the kernels of truth at the legends' core: The scraps and remnants of a people that once ruled uncontested over all the galaxy. Little as yet can be learned from such fragments as we have, for it seems that then as now, several space-faring races were at large in the galaxy, and the records of each are difficult to discern from one another. Which were the people of Orion, and which merely another upstart species?

Among the earliest surviving records of these ancient civiilizations is a laser-cut imageplate radiodated to the beginning of Dr. Arrchibald's hypothesized "First Interstellar Era," with an etching on the reverse face suggesting the year in the local reckoning of "2303."

It appears to commemorate the first report from an interstellar planet's surface to the leaders of a race called "Alkari," with the positions of scout ships indicated, but even this much relies heavily on inference. Meanwhile, another historical image from that era suggests a dangerous, warlike galaxy.

Signs of peace and prosperity do exist however, as research appears to have proceeded apace. The aforementioned Alkari, for instance, had developed terraforming technology within two decades of the start of the era, and hydrogen fuel cells for their interstellar craft by the year called in that era "2326." And in spite of the dangers, interstellar expansion was rampant in those heady early years. Our first hint at its full extent are drawn from this rock-etching - a common art form among the one-time inhabitants of the Argus system - apparently copied from a news report dated 2335.

The strength of the Silicoid empire would continue to grow, and from the six star systems they achieved that year, they would spread continually for years to come. From all indications however, the other races were not far behind, and may even have surpassed the Silicoids at first in technological development - some with a broad-based strategy, others with a more concentrated approach best exemplified by the Alkari, who discovered the means of developing biologically dead worlds as early as 2347, and Irridium Fuel Cells six years later, but as best we can piece together from surviving records, they had not begun work in any other field of technology until that time, and inhabited only a small corner of the galaxy.

This galactic map from that period, preserved in polyadamant, demonstrates the paucity of galactic knowledge with which the Alkari had to work, and of which they were ironically so proud at the time. Its limitations are best highlighted by the alloy-molded maps produced by the Humans just sixteen years later. Note the images of the leaders most important to Humankind in this period: Their own peaceful leader (fragments hint that his name was Strader) is contrasted with Granid's aggressive policies.

A few Alkari ships can be seen flitting like insects across the map, suggesting that the Humans regarded them as minor pests in the south, no doubt thanks to the formation of the pictured Rha colony, but for the most part, Alkari, Mrrshan, Meklar, and Darlok space is excluded from the map entirely, as if to underscore their irrelevance to the civilized galaxy. Even a glance at the map suggests the true reality however: The Humans themselves were as irrelevant as those they chose to leave off of their map. It was swiftly becoming a Silicoid galaxy.

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Next: The Changing Guard