Fiction:Talven Empire

"Never put all your faith in a single strategy, a single leader, a single planet. Adaptability is survivability."

- High Councilor Balbus Marinus

The Talven Empire (sometimes referred to simply as Talva, after its founding species) is an expanding empire in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Talven Empire is known for its defensive shielding technologies, as well as its growing trade network. Though it is far from the greatest power in the First Gigaquadrant, it has been hitherto successful in bringing order to a small area of the galaxy.

Origins
The Talven people evolved on the planet Aldar, achieving interstellar travel as early as 1883, using sleeper ships moving close to the speed of light. After a failed attempt to use this technology 30 years earlier (resulting in the disappearance of 1.2 million colonists), Talven settlements were founded in nearby systems, bringing vital resources back to their overpopulated homeworld. However, this was the beginning of a period of turmoil as individual organisations and governments competed to exploit or protect these systems. In 1957, Drusus Gallus, an influential philanthropist and politician in multiple countries, managed to persuade, bribe, or force the Talven people into a single government: the Talven Federation. This gave some independence to the Talven colonies, and marked the beggining of a golden age that would last until for four centuries.

The fate of the Talven Federation was decided by its location. The Talva had been unlucky enough to evolve just outside the Galactic Core, and in 2392, the Grox sent a small fleet to annihilate the Federation. With little military experience, the Federation lost most of its fleet, over half its colonies, and Aldar itself within the first two months of war. Experimental hyperspatial technology was used to create a small fleet of refugee transports, which manage to save 16% of the Federation's population while the remaining military vessels slowed the Grox advance.

The Exile
As the refugee fleet made progress away from the core, they entered a very different environment to the one which they were accustomed to. Pirates were increasingly common, forcing the fleet to develop defensive and navigational technology that allowed them to survive and avoid hostile fleets. By the year 2415, the Talven fleet was capable of making hyperspatial jumps in seconds, and had begun to master shielding technology. Brief pauses at resource rich planets allowed the construction of mobile shipyards, and as the fleet begun to strip-mine most planets that they passed on their journey, they began to construct huge carrier-ships that could generate shield-bubbles around smaller transports, while possessing armor that could withstand barrages from most pirate fleets.

In 2527, the Talven fleet stumbled across Scarat, a pirate controlled planet defended by a sizable armada. By sheer force of resilience, the Talven fleet wore down the armada and took the planet. In the following year, Admiral Galerius Aquilius declared an end to the Talva's exile and founded the Talven Empire, renaming Scarat as Ancora, the capital of the Empire.

A New Beginning
With the strength of the Talven fleet, the Talven Empire expanded quickly, first by conquering pirate-controlled planets, before colonizing other nearby planets. The mobile shipyards were placed in orbit of the best mining planets, though they remained capable of hyperspatial travel.

The Talven Empire did not establish contact with friendly interstellar lifeforms, though they did encounter tribal and industrial civilizations. To solve this, the Empire helped these civilizations to advance in technology, growing them into trading partners or assimilating them into itself. As trade grew, Talven merchants grew in power, taking control of the throne and transforming many of the core colonies into city planets and palace worlds. A division grew between the merchants and the military, leading to a compromise over the Empire: The military would rule the majority of the Talven territory, acting as official heads of state through a ruling council, while the Emperor would rule and develop colonies that grew into trading worlds. Ancora was claimed by the Emperor, and the official capital moved to Iubar.

This structure encouraged expansion - as the central worlds used up their own resources and began to rely on trade, the official Talven Empire needed to grow in order to maintain its domination of Talven affairs, as well as to create a buffer zone that would protect the Empire's core. The Talven people gained territory and power, entering a second golden age.

The Pride of Aldar
By the next century, the Talven Empire had grown to include over 1000 systems, a third of which had grown to respectable colonies. In the year 2642, a Talven warship disappeared just outside of the Empire's borders. A fleet was sent to investigate, and made a surprising discovery: an ancient Talven colony ship, the Pride of Aldar, was somehow still operational and heading towards Talven space.

The reason for the warship's disappearance soon became clear - the Pride of Aldar 's computer had malfunctioned, causing it's anti-meteoroid defenses to target all nearby ships. To make matters worse, the ship's armor had been reinforced, with distinctive Grox plating. It appeared that the Grox had found the Pride of Aldar and turned it into a weapon, aiming it into the more populated areas of the Galaxy. Most of the investigating fleet managed to escape the ensuing battle, though barely managing to scratch the ship's armor.

Before the Talven Empire could mobilize its forces, the Pride of Aldar disappeared. The Imperial Council suspected a Cloaking Device, and ordered fleets to be redeployed to systems near the projected path of the the ship. In 2675, the Pride of Aldar entered a Talven-controlled system. Due to the passage of time, defenses had been reduced, and by the time that reinforcements arrived, the ship had left, leaving behind only a few debris fields of waste material. The ship had mined all of the system's planets and asteroid fields - before draining its sun - within hours. This Grox modification explained the the survival of the ship, and made it a greater threat than the Talven Empire had previously imagined.

Probes were hurriedly scattered throughout Talven space to find a clue as to the Pride of Aldar 's course, and in 2689, the entire Talven Fleet had assembled just outside its next destination - Ancora. The battle went well at first, but without the ability to do significant damage to the ship, the fleet was steadily destroyed by attrition.

The Pride of Aldar proceeded to begin mining the system. Half of Ancora's population had been evacuated, but the remaining citizens were killed instantly as the planet was torn apart. Aboard the ship, a small group of naval officers and marines (lead by captain Decima Lucilius) had survived a crippling blow to the Defiance, a corvette. Brought into the 'maw' of the Pride of Aldar, the survivors managed to stay alive by causing their ship's reactor to overload, damaging the deconstruction machinery and buying time. Reaching the colony ship's engines, they managed to sabotage its ability to move.