Fiction:Colonia Romanum

Colonia Romanum is a large deep-space station based in the galactic southeast of the inhabited and ruled by classical Romans; in particular Legio IX Hispana (the Ninth Spanish Legion). Formerly a large Draconid station owned by a cryopreservation firm, the Roman captives were freed from their forced cryogenic slumber and seized control of the station in 2825. The Romans' efficiency in appraising their situation and forming a provisional continuation of Roman Imperial government was surprising, as they rapidly made themselves one of the central hubs of trade in the outer rim of the Milky Way.

Historical Origins, Before 58 BC-AD 122
The history of the Colonia Romanum starts with the apparent end of the Ninth Spanish Legion's. A well-decorated formation, the legion served under Caesar in the Republican era, and came to what would be its final post in Britain with Emperor Claudius' invasion of Britain in AD 43; participating in repressing Boudicca's revolt in Southern England later in AD 60. In the ensuing decades the Ninth Legion would be posted further north to York and then, by AD 108, to Carlisle. It would be around here, in AD 122, that the legion would disappear.

Disappearance, AD 122
Before the surprise reemergence of the Legion, the most-accepted theory regarding its disappearance was that it was annihilated by Caledonian warriors sometime that year. However, the legion's disappearance instead had everything to do with the Draconid Imperium's. During a rare Arda Program anthropological expedition on a night during the late summer of AD 122, near the Roman border with Caledonia, an engine failure on their small hovercraft would leave the Draconid anthropological team stranded. With their home outpost 60 kilometres north of their current position, and well within Caledonian territory, it was deemed to hazardous to return home on foot. Instead, the Draconid team try to quietly construct a camp, and wait for assistance.

Being so close to the Roman border however, and even through the night, clear evidence of a camp catches the eye of an experienced Roman cavalry scout, who investigates. Spotting the small Arda Program camp, the scout attempts to escape but is shot and stunned, before being detained by the anthropological team. Hearing the ruckus, a Caledonian shepherd who was nearby as well investigated later that same night, though managed to escape to safety when spotted, and return home to his village in a panic with stories of terrible monsters lurking in the nearby wood.

Within a couple days, news of these monsters had spread to the other nearby barbarian towns, prompting the local chieftains to raise a small army of 2000 warriors to deal with the threat. Just as that is happening, the Ninth, having not heard from their scout and recieving reports that the northern barbarians are arming themselves, believe war is imminent and mobilise themselves and leave camp. Meanwhile, the Arda Program outpost, having recieved their team's distress call, attempted to requisition as much as possible as it became increasingly clear that this would be no simple search-and-rescue mission.

Another couple days pass, and the Caledonian army begins to comb through the forest, and within a few hours encounter the Draconid camp-- which by this point the anthropological team had fortified with some hasty-erected earthworks. The 2000-or-so strong barbarian army encircled and attacked the camp several times throughout the afternoon and evening, but was repulsed each time by fusion-rifle armed Draconis, taking severe casualties. As this happens, the Ninth march northwards, originally for the villages, but changed course as they heard signs of the battle up ahead.

As the Romans approached, the barbarians-- whose morale was already strained by their mysterious enemies-- scattered, and ran back to defend their villages. The Ninth then maintained a holding stance around the Draconid camp and did not attack for two days.

On the third, however, they were instead attacked. Having successfully rallied enough resources, the Arda Program quietly deployed a battalion of heavily-armed soldiers, armed with stun and non-lethal weaponry, to stage an overwhelming ambush on the Ninth's encampment during the night. Within hours, the operation was successful with no fatalities on either side, and similar operations were launched in nearby villages to ensure no direct witnesses. The next few days involved the removal of any and all evidence-- even the most inconsequential-- and debriefing. The Ninth Spanish Legion was put in stasis, and instead of overloading the Arda Program's own cyropod space, containment was quietly contracted off to a cryopreservation firm who ran a deep space facility in the outer rim of the.

Revival and Seizure of the Station, AD June-September 2820
Almost three millenia after their abduction, the Romans remained in stasis on the station, the Arda Program and its descendant organisations keeping up payments to keep them on-ice. The station, known rather plainly as "Stasis Nexus A-8", was a refurbished Draconid Imperium military station, which was already old when it was bought by the cryopreservation firm and refitted for use as a deep-space stasis installation. As the station aged and the centuries dragged on, maintenance slackened off as the cryogenics firm fell on rough financial times.

In early 2825, disaster struck-- a critical power failure shut down every major and minor system aboard, causing chaos among the skeleton crew and throwing open every stasis pod on the station. By this point in time, the Roman cargo-- the legionaries themselves as well as all of their equipment and artefacts-- had all been moved to one large cargo bay for safekeeping and efficient storage. The now-awake Romans, dazed and confused in the middle of a dark steel room, took several days to catch some of their bearings, and equip themselves with their weapons and armour; still in pristine condition thanks to the high quality of Draconis stasis systems.

Meanwhile, the crew of the Stasis Nexus were scrambling to restore power to little success. Aside from reactivating emergency lighting on a handful of decks, almost all other systems failed to be repaired as the ancient power core proved to be burned out entirely, and the emergency backups also almost-defunct. Despite the potential threat posed by sharing a station with a now fully-armed Roman legion, little thought was able to be given to matters of security as the guards spent much of their time attempting to evacuate the terminally-ill (who made up many clients of such stasis services) from their deactivated stasis pods and put them on life-support. Most of the crew simply hoped that the bulkheads of the Roman's cargo bay prison would be enough to contain them until help arrived.

It wasn't. By noon of the third day, several men from the Legion had managed to find multiple ways out through the ventilation systems of the ship, which soon flooded with hundreds of Roman soldiers who took to reconnaisance, the cargo bay being hastily set-up as a base of operations. The first engagements between Romans and the security detail occured in the ensuing days, the 150-or-so guards being able to scare the Roman scouts back to the ventiliation with warning shots. These initial skirmishes did little to deter the Romans, however, as more and more scouts were patiently sent in the couple of weeks after the containment breach through the ventilation system, quickly creating a kind of "map" of the battlefield that was rapidly developing and drafting attack plans.

In desperation, crew from the station were sent off on shuttlecraft to attempt to return to Imperium space and warn them of what has happened. As fighting intensified, and the Romans began to adapt their tactics and make more creative use of the ventilation systems to ambush and strike down security teams with their iron weapons, the crew of the station themselves were forced to abandon repairs and retreat to the Operations deck of the ship, living off of the rations inside. A couple more weeks passed, wherein about a third of the security detail was killed, wounded, or captured, and the crew failed to break out in time before their rations ran out. With help not forthcoming, the crew of the station decided to surrender themselves to the Romans, who then seized the station.

Now in control of the station and its former crew, the Roman commanding staff moved their base of operations to the Ops Deck. One of the first acts of the command staff was to disarm the Draconid prisoners, but then also to treat them well, giving them what they needed to repair the station, and in return gaining access to their technical knowledge as well as access to the Imperium's Exonet. The Romans, with help from the crew, were able to piece together an idea of their new existence from research, coming to the uncomfortable realisation that they were the last Romans alive.

The Legion command staff-- who by this point were joined by the Draconid former commanding officers as part of their provisional council-- came to the conclusion that they were the last representatives of the Imperial Roman government, and would thus be its continuity of government. A constitution was hastily-drafted, and with it plans to secure and repair the rest of the station, initial diplomatic maneuvers, and the formalisation of the provisional government. Finally, it was then resolved that the station would be named the Colonia Romanum-- the Roman Colony.

Government
The government of Colonia Romanum claims itself to be the successor and continuation of the long-defunct Roman Imperial government, and the provisional government of the Roman Empire. Composed mainly of the upper military staff of the Ninth Spanish Legion, but also joined by members of the original Draconis crew, it is run as an oligarchical council by a series of Ministers. Each minister is assigned a different distinct role in running some function of government or maintenance of the station and each is given a vote for council-wide motions. Directing the council is a Prime Minister, who is voted in by the council amongst their own. The actual number of ministers on-staff varies, but there is always between 15-50.