Fiction:Valian Empire

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

- Valian Imperium

The Valian Empire, also known as the Third Valian Empire or the Valian Imperium and referred to as the Rose by its citizens, is a galactic government that rules over most of the Rohse Galaxy. Controlling most of its star clusters and its major systems, it has evolved over a course of over 120,000 years and gone through numerous eras since it was founded in 1 AF by Verono of Rigura, the first to unify his people. Modern imperial history begins little over 50,000 years ago, a near-universal resetting point for most of Rohse. Enjoying eras of peace and growth interspersed with fierce millenia-long wars, shuddering insurrections and successful military victories, it has become one of the most populous governments in the galaxy as well as its strongest military power.

The Empire is the official state of the Volanti people, heirs of the lost Mother Moon of Nol Aris and one of the most widespread species in the galaxy. Its capital, Volaris, lies in the Central Cluster east of galactic core, as do most of its major worlds, notably Veruna. It has long been ruled with near-absolute power by the Arabasti Dynasty.

Astrography
The Empire is divided into nine Vasiya, a term which literally means petals in Volanti but is usually translated as prefecture, or province. The nine petals' combined form, which includes all of the civilized galaxy, resembles a rose in full bloom, signifying that without all its smaller parts the empire cannot flourish. The galactic provinces, spanning anything from tens to thousands of millions of stars (and only handfuls of habitable systems at most), have no political power themselves. They tend to be highly specialized regions, with most of their populated or exploited planets sharing common characteristics.

Each province is home to at least one noble clan, but there are so many independent players that real power resides in the individual planets that dominate the area. The nobles in each prefecture have, as they would in a feudal government, a weak hold on power, controlling only their homeworlds and systems formally under their control: noble titles only go so far in Rohse. Aside from the nine provinces, a small handful of sectors and semi-autonomous regions exist in the galaxy.

Central Cluster
The Central Cluster, typically simply called the Centre, denotes not the centre of the galaxy, but the heart of the Valian Empire. It was originally quite a small region, encompassing only Volaris, Tharys and the other founding planets of the empire and its predecessors. Over time it expanded to encapsule the Venu Cluster and include every star from Volaris to the edge of the Alesian Gulf, an almost starless chasm of space between the galactic core and its eastern arm. Virtually every world in the Cluster is a force to be dealt with, including such famed names as the noble strongholds of 'Bellye and Vesyos, financial giant Kanto, and the economic kingpin worlds of Antos, Valmar and Rian- not to mention, of course, the capital itself. Every major hyperroute in the galaxy originates within the Centre, making it the most important of the Empire's regions.

Castell Worlds
The Castell Worlds are a collection of fortress worlds that protect the heart of the empire from the rest of Rohse. They date back to the invasion of Harrel of Teirm and the civil war that preluded it, known as the Stygian Schism, which convinced the cluster's rattled inhabitants that new defenses were needed. They were initially planned as a full circle surrounding the galactic core, and built at staggering expense over thousands of years. They were never finished, however, as the crown decided to rely on the Maze's nigh on-impassable stretches- often rigged with hidden pulse mine fields- to protect their western flank.

The Castell worlds serve a dual purpose: the first, to resist any actual armed incursions headed into the core. The second is to prevent such attacks altogether, for even though they are outfitted with the strongest planetary defenses and would be a daunting objective, it is through sheer fear and reputation that most conflict is averted.

The Venu Maze
The denizens of the empire know the physical center of the galaxy, and the bright, dense ball of planets that surrounds it, as the Venu Maze. The region is extremely hard to navigate, and very few dare venture into its laberynthine trails. Many of the Volanti nobility's most prestigious homeworlds lie on the edges of the Maze, with many more of their private enclaves hidden in the deep core. The Galactic core itself is too unstable a region to travel to, but that hasn't stopped the Volanti from settling quite close to it. The unquestioned chief of the Maze's political posse is Veruna, who has rivaled the capital in power and prestige for thousands of years.

Balantha Sector
The Balantha Sector is first and foremost an agricultural region. A vast expanse of mostly deserted planets, it is one of the most sparsely populated provinces- and one of the most precious. It is the most fertile breadbasket of civilized Rohse, the hand that feeds the Empire. Paradoxically, its also quite unlike the other potentates of the galaxy: it is far removed from the core, and quite backwards when it comes to technology, society or culture. The sector, more often called the Star Fields, is governed in practice by a cabal of agriworld owners, who, possessing a virtual monopoly over food production in the galaxy, use their slave-operated, planet-wide plantations to further their own interests.

Veroku Province
The Empire’s industrial operations are widespread, with important manufacturing centers at Ortai, Arvanne, Val Reyna and Valmar. The vast majority of its industrial capacity, however, is located in the southern portion of the galaxy, with mining, pulse-harvesting and manufacturing operations running all across the great hyperroute nicknamed the Stem, which forms the backbone of the Veroku Province. Valian corporations hold de facto control here, mingling with those core-born nobles interested in pooling their interests.

Petal Rim Colonies
The Petal Rim Region (formally called the Ai'mar province, and virtually never referred to as such), is one of the Empire's, and by extension the galaxy's, most important regions, containing critical economic, political and military Valian hubs. It stretches from the shipping mogul world of Torrend at the southern end of the Lenu Tail, to the southern outpost of Jamico just north of the Kanto Trade Spine.

Discovered during the Great Valian Age of Exploration during the Old Empire Era little over fifty thousand years ago, the Petalworlds, then the very edge of Volanti civilization, became a boomworld sector nearly overnight. The Riguran Dynasty made the colonization and exploitation of worlds in the area a priority, and while this became a fountain of wealth for empire it eventually led to their demise in the Great War of Atrisia. For millenia before that, however, the orum and other treasures that flowed coreward from the Petal Rim were an enormous boost to the Valian people, and a major instigator of further exploration by Volanti navigators, who tried (and failed) to find another piece of the galaxy as valuable as this.

Two major galactic trade routes form the current backbone of the Petal colonies, blazed now for thousands of years: the Valmar Trade Corridor, which runs along the length of the Petal, and the Vesyan Hyperroute, which ends at Vondace, near the Petal's middle. The Talicut Circuit, linking them with a loop around the region's major planets, is its main artery, while myriads of relatively smaller- yet still large- hyperlanes connect the many other planets in the Petal, among them the Ballarat Trail and the Anbel Run.

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.

"These...Starmen, they’re different. They’re compulsive molecular meddlers… they like to turn everything into themselves."

- Explorer Mayna Yulesu

Volanti believe in a unitary model of life: all that is derived from Nol Aris, is better. Their wish to assimilate the galaxy not only in spirit but also in body was granted with the discovery that a single other original species had survived the destruction of their homeworld: an invasive flower known as the Valian Rose. Volanti theology forbade them from so much as touching their own bodies with a scalpel or a genetic extractor, but here was the chance to cultivate their genes from something other than themselves. All Nol Arisian species, whether plant or animal and including the Volanti, shared a single basic series of genes: the Valian Rose’s was easily isolated, and with it the ability to morph other forms of life into a Volanti-like version. It’s base series, known now as the Codex Strand, was by coincidence perfect for the job. It is easy to farm and a vicious invader in its hosts, and with it the Volanti have given birth to a whole new set of species and creatures that populate their Empire's worlds.

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.

Economy
The Valian economy is an intergalactic titan. Everything from Hyrii sugarcane seeds to alien slaves saturate its markets, the boistering lifeblood of an expanding major power that can never seem to have enough- of anything. Historically speaking, it was the Volanti royalty and nobility that reigned over any treasures found by their subjects, lavishly spending them in their own ancestral homeworlds. With the founding of Twin Crowns circa 30,000 BF, the lowly common merchants got their first chance at wealth and glory, funding expeditions to the dark regions of the galaxy. This window closed once again during the year of the Founding, and the Riguran Dynasty of emperors took control of the empire's finances- soon to be bolstered unimaginably as they colonized the Petal Rim. The Great Atrisian War drained much of the economy, and the following millenia were spent rebuilding, to great success. The Stygian Schism, though devastating for the planets of the Empire's interior, fueled yet another wave of expansion and colonization, freeing Valian merchants from restrictions by the crown.

Today the Valian economy stretches from Rohse to its satellites galaxies of Lenu and Ranabad. Common-born traders are the heroes of the imperial economic machine, bringing goods everywhere from the satellites to the Maze. Dozens of major intergalactic corporations and conglomerates dominate the economic landscape, just as their headquarters crown the skylines of prestigious worlds in the Centre Cluster. The planets of the Petal Rim produce super-freighters' worth of raw materials, processed products and just about everything else; down throughout the Stem, a string of massive foundry worlds and planetwide factories give life to the Empire's industry. Worlds at strategic positions, prominent among them Valmar and the Triad, oversee major shipping lanes and have interests as powerful- or almost as powerful- as the imperial crown itself's. Vantaal has chokehold on any goods heading coreward; Kanto and Coruvan, on those going south. In the northern side of the galaxy, Torrend and Cerserenth are the local kingpins. These and other worlds, sitting at the intersections of the largest trade routes in the galaxy, are the wealthiest in Rohse, constantly pumping trillions of Kerdits into the economy in the form of spice, starships, foodstuffs, medicines, raw materials, precious metals, minerals, technology and slaves being traded from world to world and galaxy to galaxy. Hefty tariffs on extra-galactic goods and taxation throughout the major trade routes ensure that the nobles and royals get their share of the treasure, keeping the Empire's treasury dipped in liquid and solid assets.

Trade Routes and Hyperways

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

Additional Stats

 * Full Military Forces; Grand Army of the Federation, 35 trillion capital ships.
 * Active Military; 35 trillion capital ships.
 * Galactic Trade State; Complete galactic world and shipping monopoly, strong intergalactic trade.
 * Ruling Body; The High Court of the Core (a.k.a. Congress of the Federation); a bicameral, democratic congress of 5,000 delegates in each chamber, each representing a sector of the Federation's 526,000 systems within the Main Realm at Xanthrus.
 * Gross National Product; 822.670 quintillion Federation Coronas ((╫)822,670,000,000,000,000) per year.
 * Official Currency; Federation Corona ( (╫) )
 * Trade Exchange Rate; (╫)1 equals §2,950.
 * Colonial Extent; 10,926,000-Xanthrus Spiral Galaxy. 37,000-Milky Way Galaxy. 550,000-Phradox Galaxy 3,700,100-Xanthra Major Galaxy. 3,050,000-Xanthra Minor Galaxy. 12,000-Aurora Galaxy. 15,000-Graxea Galaxy. 35,000-Nimbus Galaxy. 10,000-Ottzello Galaxy. 250,000-Galaxon Galaxy.
 * Total Number of Colony Systems: 17,730,600 systems