Fiction:Valian Empire

"We do not follow. We do not fear. We do not fail."

- Valian Imperium

The Valian Empire, also called the Valian Imperium and known as the Domain by its inhabitants, is a powerful civilization of the Rohse Galaxy. It is governed by the Volanti.

The Origin
The Valian people are native to a world that now lives on only in legend, whose history and records are severely limited and guarded: the Mother Moon of Nol Aris, Valian for old home. The only knowledge that remains of it (at least in public circles), is that it was a harsh but verdant homeworld, and that it spawned the Valian species and its ancient glyphs and culture. What is strongly documented is the world’s abrupt destruction, which resulted in the scattering of Valians across the inner core. The planet’s star, an ancient, crippled titan, began to collapse under its own weight. As it started to go out in white-hot flare storms and explosions, the Mother Moon perished. Its crust was torn and fractured and its continents were sunk, and the whole of its sphere was soon engulfed by the disaster. A single reminder of their homeworld survived with the Valians that fled outward in primitive ships, in a last-second attempt to save the future of their race: a brilliant red-tipped Valian Rose, which would soon become a symbol of their society’s rebirth.

The Valian seed ships that escaped the flash dispersed in all directions, outfitted with archaic and never-before-used technology. They were cut off from each other, without any hope of contact or of knowing where they’d land. The number and the fate of many would never be uncovered. The only thing we can be sure of is that some among them survived, finding a planet where they’d settle and a place for a new start. This is how the era of the Splintered Reigns began.

The Pillar of Veroe
Rubian then forced the nobles to her court at Velasco, where they could be watched with a careful eye from the developing capital. Not long after this the Empire’s remaining gentry, outspoken enough to wake her anger from their outposts on the empire’s outskirts, were dethroned, relieved of the treasures and titles they had gained during the curtailed reign of her son, and carried in chains to Veruna Sy’on. Unlike their paling, disbelieving counterparts, they were promptly called to the Imperial courts and denounced traitors in trial after trial chaired by Rubian herself. Then they were executed, swiftly, and silently. The Empress is notable for her use of terror in incapacitating the cabal of nobles that had made the Pillar of Veroe, at least according to her, so bumbling and inefficient- and replacing their quasi-democratic system with a new regime of her own. It was centralized; it was harsh; it was controlling. And it was to cement order in Veroe for the next five centuries.

At last, with her grasp on power solid as could be and every city in the empire under strict curfew, Rubian began to recreate the nation under freshly-made rules: her own. The massive Veroese Imperial Navy was deployed en masse from the capital and seized control of every vulnerable trade route, moon and settlement from Veruna Sc’yon to the borders of the Dark Regions, reaching as far as the planets of Arcel and Kanto in the east. She commenced some of the most ambitious expansion plans ever seen; unveiled titanic construction projects that would leave Veruna covered in marble courts and monuments; and ordered the blazing of wide and guarded routes spanning thousands of light-years between every world in her empire, connecting every planet to the seat of her power and dispatching hundreds of scouts to find new worlds amidst the darkness. She styled herself Empress of the Stars, and meant it. But her reign would not last for much longer, nor Veroe’s over the brilliant regions of the core- a lesson both were to learn soon, the hard way.

Wars of the Core
By the time of Veruna’s golden age and the summit of Empress Rubian’s power, the thriving world of Tharys, set barely parsecs away, had become a major power. Neither civilization, however, had discovered the other. Space travel was still to be perfected, and it still was, if not outright life-threatening, inexact and dangerous: stars, unless stumbled upon, could not be discovered nor reached at all. But this didn’t stop either culture from seeking wealth and expansion, even if it kept them separate. And the shock of their first meeting would not be a soft one.

Tharys’s rulers were, like Veroe’s, Valian, a spawn of the ancient colony ships that left the decaying Volaris. Culturally speaking, they could not have been more different. Rubian’s empire, in keeping with the strictest Valian traditions (and a taste of her own personal traits), was a xenophobic and warlike culture. The Kingdom of Tharys, named after a solitary planet that had expanded to include about as half as many planets as Veroe had to the west, was not a creature of war but of scrolls and orum, a disciplined but veritable cultural collector with many more alien races in its ranks than Valians. Favorably surrounded by timid alien peoples, it had at once crushed some into tribute-givers and traded with the rest. It was by now surrounded with client states, and with around forty worlds and moons under its banners and coffers fit to burst, was a power to be reckoned with. Tharysian kings, careful not to extend their arms beyond their reach, lived in splendor, along with the rest of their race, the ruling class of Tharys’ holdings. Altogether, the kingdom looked like a prize fruit ripe for the picking.

And a prize is what Rubian saw, when Veroese scouts, purely by accident, collided with a Tharysian fleet and relayed their discovery back to Veruna. It revealed that Tharys was not the only neighboring culture, nor was Veroe the lone descendant of Volaris’s ancients: in fact, it was only one of many. The discovery of these bright regions was an undeniable hook for Rubian, the end of her century-old search for new conquests. And after a taste of the spoils of war from defeated minor neighbors, her attention turned to Tharys.

Government
"Beg for no mercy, ask for no favours. You may see their lords and merchants haggle and reconsider, maybe even opt for change. The nobles may be lenient, the traders, greedy- they can both display emotion. The Crown is nothing if not final."

- Outsider on the Valian Crown

Usually, affluence alone paves the road to power for most Volanti. Merchant worlds, sometimes growing into economic juggernauts that tower over their rivals, are some of the most important leaders in the galaxy and have enough pull to spar with the likes of Veruna and Tharys: their families and individual leaders, regardless of their birth or station, can occupy as prestigious a position as any duke or countess.

Divisions
The Empire is divided radially into eight general regions, which are little more than map markings, as well as split politically into five Resyions, a term which literally means petals in Valian but is usually translated as prefecture, or province. For the most part, prefectures themselves have no actual power. Each is dominated by a different noble family or even groups of families, but there are so many independent players and interests that real power resides in whichever individual planet dominates the area, whether through wealth or noble ownership or its political savvy. The nobles in each prefecture have, as they would in a feudal government, a weak hold on power, controlling only their own world and those others with whom they are allied or have subjected to their control: noble titles only go so far in the galaxy.

Regional Powers
Because of the immense expanse of colonized worlds in the Empire and its somewhat loose government structure, its localities are often radically different from one another; everything from the daily lifestyle in each to its local power structure can vary. The absolute power of the Emperor, for instance, is highly concentrated in the inner regions of the galaxy, and his influence fades gradually as one goes farther from the core. Likewise, the regional hegemony of the nobility’s home planets, including Veruna, Arcel, Velasco, Bellye, Tharys, Serina and the rest, gives way to rival interests a few parsecs from their turf. Some of them, like Kanto, have learned to perch precariously between the interests different groups.

The Triad
Just outside of the nobles’ hive, otherwise known as the very center of the empire, lies a very different (and informal) socio-political region. It is dominated not by court intrigue, titles or blue-bloods, but by the simple pursuit of wealth- and three of the planets most successful at it, ever. This is the domain of the Triad, three celebrated planets sitting at the corners of the triangle formed by four of the Galaxy’s largest hyperroutes: the Kanto Trade Spine, the Valmar Corridor, the Tharyisian Trade Route and the Royal Road. Valmar, its given leader, is the only world in the galaxy to stand atop not two, but three of its largest trade routes: one of them, named after it. There is fierce competition between itself and its two rivals, Rian and Antos, but that hasn’t stopped them from pooling their influence into one of the most powerful groups in the galaxy. All three are ruled by merchant families, whose galaxy-wide undertakings (along with the advantage of their geographic location), has steeped their home worlds in obscene amounts of treasure.

Agri-World Barons
In the north, the possession of innumerable blossoming agri-worlds has given rise to a governing hierarchy of agrarian oligarchs, a landed gentry of sorts, who along with the core’s industrialists, political panderers and prominent nobles, either go themselves or send representatives (depending on their wealth) to occupy seats in the Great Chambers and lobby for their interests. And although the crown and the major houses in theory hold allegiance of all the empire and its moons, it is in fact the smaller houses of the gentry-and even individuals- who hold power in these regions of the universe, with planets so far apart from the capital farther from each other.

Culture
"We shall cull this weakness from the stars..."

- The Volanti

The destruction of Nol Aris and the death of all its species is an event that has always resonated in Valian history and culture, to the point of shaping the contemporary empire. Restoring its ancient ways and fauna is central to much of Volanti lore, spawning thousand-year quests to recover remains of the Old Home and, if possible, give new life to them in the present. DNA sequences, and specifically a set of alleles that Valians believe they shared with much of the life from Nol Aris, called the Strand, are the main way they achieve this, by modifying animals and plants that they find in the universe with the data they find in archeological discoveries, creating an entirely new set of organisms similar to those they knew in ancient times. The only species (beyond the Volanti) to have survived the Death intact were seeds of blood-tipped rose; and since Volanti philosophy prohibits meddling with the bodies of their own kind, it is from this plant that they gained the way to the Old Home's rebirth. The Valian Rose has since become a symbol of all of Valian civilization, featuring prominently in the Empire's flag and in the shields of many of its houses. And new species, borne out of original species and the old genes of its code, are used to fill Volanti worlds with a uniform flora and fauna. In changing many of the galaxy's races to more resemble their own superior, Valians believe they are doing it a service and making its living beings inherently better.

Technology
Technology throughout all of the Rohse cluster is based on pulsar-based energies. Everything from personal hovercraft engines to planetary energy grids and ship navigation systems run on it,

The Empire’s industrial are widespread, with important manufacturing centers at Ortai, Arvanne, Val Reyna, and Valmar and mining and harvesting operations running all across the Stem. Valian corporations hold de facto control over these regions of the galaxy, intermingling with those nobles that might support their interests.

Planet:Volaris

‘’’Volaris’’’ is the celebrated homeworld of the Volanti species, and thus the capital of their far-reaching Valian Imperium. Unlike most contemporary capitals, Volaris is a verdant and unexploited world, with a leisurely and carefree atmosphere.

Veruna
One of the oldest-settled worlds in the Empire, Veruna’s cities, like those on Volaris, are graced with grand tombs and temples of the Old Empire era. As the Stygian Schism raged through the Rohse Cluster in the early days of the empire, Veruna alone was spared from the carnage, defended by the tricks and treasures of the nobles of its court. It was not, however, to be spared of all consequences: in retaliation, once the Troubled Worlds had fallen and Volaris stood victorious, the capital turned an irate eye upon its rival and set out to break its back. It condemned its elite of sedition, whereupon every prince and countess of Verunian descent found themselves brought to the Motherworld, tried quickly for their crimes and executed for the public. The Volarisians’ wipe-out, never actually forgiven, soured the ties between the two, and Verunian noble houses have been ripe with seething intrigue ever since

Today the planet stands as one of the few potential rivals to Volaris’s splendor, with its ruling houses much recovered. It is one of the most beautiful worlds in the Empire, and has produced a long line of Valian poets and well-known politicians.

The Triad
Antos, Rian and Valmar

Arvanne
Massive factory world, great ship manufacturer in the Petal Rim region

Vantaal
Affluent merchant planet, set at the fork of the Stem industrial hyperway and the Royal Verian Route

Val Reyna
Key industrial titan

Economy
Valmar Corridor (Valmar) Kanto Trade Spine (Kanto) Royal Trail (Verunian Road) Veruna) The Stem (Arcelican Run) (Arcel) Vesyian Trade Route (Vesyos) Tharysian Trade Route (Tharys)

Valmar, the only world to stand atop three of the great hyperroutes of the galaxy,