Fiction:Girdo Empire


 * This is an alternate reality version of my original Empire. This page will mostly summarise of the parts that are the same as those of the original Empire, with only the specificially alternate reality parts being described in detail.

The Empire of the Girdo Galaxy, known in short as the Girdo Empire and to themselves simply as the Empire, is an enigmatic multi-species civilisation from the Girdo Galaxy. The main Imperial species hides itself from most other empires, refusing to reveal any details about its biology or culture, but members of other species have occasionally been seen, such as during diplomatic negotiations that require the physical presence of the negotiators.

Terminology
As mentioned, the Empire is often known as either the "Empire of the Girdo Galaxy" or the "Girdo Empire". These are translations from the Apalose (primary Impeiral language) terms, "Spue-oer or Ger'do Sperwd" and "Ger'do Spue-oer" respectively. The use of the latter term has led to many empires refering to the native species of the Empire as "Girdo" or "Girdos", and (due to the Empire's secrecy) some to even think that the Empire is composed entire of the "Girdo" species. This is innacurate, but the use of "Girdo" to refer to a citizen of the Girdo Empire has recently become more reasonable in order to distunguish them from the otherwise identical (species-wise) Tokzhalan Empire. "Girdo" can also be used to refer to something related to the Girdo Empire, such as "Girdo starships".

Pre-Intergalactic Era

 * There is very little difference between the Girdo Empire's history and that of the "original" Empire. However, the Girdo Empire never went through the Post-Grox Crisis, having assimilated all other empires as soon as they appeared.



The Empire originated on Imperial Capitol, the homeworld of the main Imperial species. They have relvealed little of their history to others, only that it involved a 5500-year war with a rival nation known as "the Kingdom". After this, they launched their first spaceship, the Premier, to explore their home galaxy. At this point, the Empire began a new dating system, starting at 1 AE (Anno "Empire").

The entire galaxy was, at this point, in chaos. An old alliance, the "Grand Galactic Fleet", had fought the Grox surrounding the Girdo Galaxy's core thousands of years earlier. When they lost the war, the Grox chased them to the ends of the galaxy and killed them all. This left the galaxy with no major civilisations - except for the Grox, who were recovering from the war - so when new empires emerged, they fought for galactic dominance.



When the Empire appeared on the interstellar scene, they used their abilities of manipulation to bring the galaxy under their control. They sent some empires to wars against each other until they were both destroyed, they assimilated others into their own Empire by the power of economy and diplomacy, and they simply destroyed most rival empires using their swarms of Droner-class starfighters.

After decades of this, in 30 AE, they had complete dominance over most of the galaxy. Then, they fortified their worlds and took on the Grox. 50 years later, in 80 AE, they had managed to defeat their cyborg enemies. Using captured Grox technology, Imperial scientists worked on further improving the Empire's own technological base, until 100 AE when the first Intergalactic Drive was developed and the Empire decided to explore the rest of the unverse.

Part of the reason the Empire wanted to control all other civilisations in their galaxy, and why they wanted to reach other galaxies, was their obsession with "truly alien" life. They had discovered that all life in their home galaxy was spread by some sort of panspermia, and they wanted to give other life a chance to develop unhindered by what Imperial biologists refered to as "Spodian" life (named after the mythological Spode). When they were finally able to access other galaxies, they hoped that they would be able to find some "truly alien" organisms.

First Intergalactic Contacts
The Empire began building large motherships (the Imperium-class), with added Intergalactic Drives, that would act as Imperial command bases during their exploration of other galaxies. First of all, they arrived in the Plazith Rim Galaxy and sent cloaked Frigate-class ships as scouts to locate the most advanced local civilisation. Determining that this was the Delpha Coalition of Planets, the mothership Imperium moved towards the DCP's homeworld of Mirenton to try and learn more about them. However, they wandered into the range of Mirenton's sensors and had to decloak and send a pre-recorded transmission to the military forces there, to avoid being considered as hostile.

Mirenton's defence forces were wary, as they had to be on high alert due to the civil war that the DCP was in at the time. The DCP's Admiral Kilnok recommended that the Imperium should move to the nearby neutral planet of Lucara, and from there communications could resume. After first contact with the Capricornians (see below), The two civilisations quickly became on better terms with each other, and the Empire gave the DCP 1008 Droners from the seven of its Imperium-class ships that were in the Plazith Rim for use in the DCP Civil War. When the Warlord Fleets began their assault on the Delpha Sector, the seven motherships quickly and quietly fled DCP space to other, more peaceful regions of the galaxy. There they quickly built new Droner Swarms, and returned once the separatist forces had been defeated.

News of the Girdo Empire spread quickly from Lucara, and a few other civilisations made contact with the Imperium. The Capricorn Sector Alliance was the first of these to invite the Empire's ships into their home galaxy of Cyrannus, so the Empire sent the ships Galaxy and Peacemaker to CSA space to make further communications with them away from the DCP and their war.

After the main hostilities of the DCP Civil War ended, the Empire joined the Seven Starr Alliance in order to be able to gain more information and to exert greater influence on the intergalactic community. The Empire soon sent its ships Diplomat and Explorer to the Quadrant Galaxies to make contact with Rambo Nation, whom they learnt about through the SSA's databases.

More civilisations began to contact the Empire, including the Zazane and the Gablinus-Avis. However, these did not excite Imperial scientists. Studies of Mirentonian life gave them the conclusion that most life that they had discovered so far were "Pseudospodian" lifeforms, incredibly similar to the organisms of their home galaxy and, the scientists hypothesized, possibly the result of similar events many billions of years ago.

However, the Grimbolsaurians also provided them with important news. The discovery of spacefaring lifeforms in the Lagross Rift of the Plazith Rim Galaxy seemed to mean that "truly alien" life had been definitely discovered at last. In adddition, the DCP claimed that they had in the past also discovered silicon-based life, lifeforms that only live for microseconds on the surface of a neutron star, space cells, and most mysteriously "lifeforms that only exist as a form". Although Imperial scientists wondered if the DCP's definition of "life" was the same as their own, it showed that the Imperial search for "truly alien" life was far from hopeless.

War against the Xhodocto


However, this sense of hope was quickly destroyed by a new threat. The Ayrai-Shikua, an enormous demonic army, were preparing to destroy all life in the universe. Imperial scientists read about their last attempt to do so in the SSA's databases, so the Empire's tacticians knew that they would soon have to go to war. All across the Girdo Galaxy, wartime military production began. 10 million Droners were produced each day, and the Imperium-class motherships carried them from the Girdo Galaxy to Detelri, an uninhabited system just outside the main disc of the Tuuros Galaxy. Meanwhile, various allied fleets - ones whose ships all had intergalactic travel - gathered in the nearby Corisa Galaxy. The "March of the Apocalypse" was about to turn into a total war.

Before long, the Xhodocto caused the structure of the multiverse to weaken and for the Inferno Realm (or "Hell") to flood into many regions of the universe. The Empire and their allies regrouped outside of Tuuros, and soon continued with the war in Tuuros/Hell. However, the Empire had a problem in that the Girdo Galaxy had apparently disappeared, and soon all of the Droners still fighting in Tuuros were destroyed by the Xhodocto within a week. The entire Imperial fleet was now composed of six Imperium-class ships, 36 Frigates, and 1296 Droners - the other three Imperiums and millions of Droners were stranded in Girdo when it disappeared. Fortunately, the Empire managed to fit their motherships and Trade Frigates with functional (if imperfect) "superlasers", so they were still fully capable of fighting against the Xhodocto. Eventually, one Imperium-class ship, the Starfighter, left the battlefield for the Plazith Rim in order to maintain an Imperial presence in the universe away from the front lines of the war.

The Starfighter then created the Empire's first extragalactic colony, on Saturn's moon Titan in the Sol system, since that system was at that time being rapidly colonised by many other species and Commodore Hlraka (acting as highest-in-command whilst the Admiral was absent) wanted to find out what all of the interest in the system was about. The Titan colony was terraformed within a week, and was quickly built up to be just like a typical Impeiral colony, and as well-defended as any of them. Titan then became the Empire's main base until the return of the Girdo Galaxy.

The Empire eventually produced and gave to the URC's Navy 7560 Droners and 35 Frigates (one Frigate for each Wartime Droner Fleet that could be made) to help them in the Intergalactic War.

Finally, when the war finished, the Girdo Galaxy returned. The Empire had produced over two hundred million Droners (4300 Wartime Droner Swarms) and had worked on many technological improvements during their isolation from the rest of the universe. Upon their return, they brought back all of their ships and people from outside Girdo so that they could upgrade their ships and reintegrate their people back into the group mind. They sent one Wartime Droner Swarm to Cyrannus for the URC and another to Titan, both to replace the ships that they had recalled to their home galaxy.

Imperial Civil War
One mistake the Empire made was to send a colonisation fleet out to a nearby cluster of galaxies without informing any other civilisations. When Girdo lost contact with the fleet, they assumed that a powerful empire residing in one of the galaxies had eradicated them. Not wanting to cause a panic so soon after the end of the war against the Xhodocto, they covered up the entire incident.



Two weeks later, this caused them problems, when a new empire, led by the colonisation fleet's Commodore Tokzhalat (now Emperor of his new civilisation), revealed itself to the universe with an attack on the Sol system. Tokzhalat took a militaristic view to the matter of "truly alien" life, believing that exterminating multiple "godspawn" civilisations was the best way for "truly alien" life to be allowed to flourish.

This started an intergalactic conflict known as the "Imperial Civil War", which actually involved many empires in many seperate campaigns. There were very few direct engagements between the Girdo fleets and the Tokzhalan Imperial Space Force until the fifth week of the war, when Tokzhalat launched an invasion of the Girdo Galaxy. In the "Girdo Campaign", millions of Girdo civilians were assimilated into the Tokzhalan Empire's group mind and taken away to the "Tokzhalan Galaxies", and all of the Girdo Empire's worlds outside of the central Imperial Sector were cleansed of all life.

The Girdo Empire's extragalactic colonies in the Sol system were also left alone, and no action was taken against the Empire's Imperium-class ships that were functioning as extragalactic embassies.

The Tokzhalan Empire turned the Girdo Galaxy into a giant nature reserve for the protection of "truly alien" life, and the Girdo Empire were entrusted as its keepers. To make sure that there was no colonisation outside the Imperial Sector, however, planet-sized "Hyperluminal Defence Stations" were built along the edge of the galaxy, ready to fire at any intrusion into the protected regions of Girdo. This was also intended to prevent any more direct confrontations between the Girdo Empire and Tokzhalat's forces.

Territories


The Empire occupies 177 planets in the Imperial Sector of the Girdo Galaxy, most of which were only colonised and terraformed after the rest of the Empire was destroyed by the Tokzhalan Imperial Space Force. The Empire also officially owns the rest of Girdo, since it has been converted into a galaxy-sized nature reserve.

The Empire also controls Saturn and its moons, part of the multi-species Sol system in the Plazith Rim Galaxy.

Armed Forces

 * The main differences between this Empire's Space Force and the original one are the presence of large capital ships and the fact that there is only one type of Droner. There is no difference between the Imperial Armies of the two Empires.

The Imperial Space Force consists of four ship classes. The small ship classes, which (with the exception of the Premier) are the most common Imperial starships, are shown here:

Imperium-class Capital Ship


The Empire also has larger Imperium-class Capital Ships, 3 kilometres long, that function as command bases and warships while they are exploring other galaxies.

They have a large hangar bay which holds four Droner Swarms and four Trade Frigates. The main ship of this class, the Imperium, also holds the Imperial flagship Premier.

They also have cargo holds, that usually contain large quantities of spice, but the Imperium also holds the whole of the old Imperial Army in closely-packed storage, ready to be beamed down if necessary.

Finally, the Imperium-class ships are very heavily armed. They have four minor missile launchers (which usually fire either proton missiles or regular antimatter missiles) and one major antimatter missile launcher (which launches Planet and Sun Busters). These get their antimatter from an antimatter factory inside the ship, meaning that the Empire does not need to purchase expensive antimatter from other civilisations. There are also twelve two-part energy guns for defence against enemy starfighters (capable of firing high-powered "superlaser" beams and shield-disrupting ion cannons), and twenty-four bomb bays that have various functions including the dropping of bombs and generating abduction beams.

The Empire currently has seven "primary" Imperium-class ships in operation. All of them have their own official peacetime postings at stationary positions in different galaxies. Three of these are within the Plazith Rim Galaxy.


 * Imperium, the Admiral's personal mothership, base of all intergalactic operations and in orbit over Lucara
 * Astronomer, captained by Commodore Bracheps, working with the Gablinus-Avis and in orbit of Lore
 * Starfighter, captained by Commodore Hlraka, orbiting the Imperial colonies of Saturn

Another two are in the Cyrannus Galaxy, to work with the United Republic of Cyrannus.


 * Galaxy, captained by Commodore Shirider, base of operations in Cyrannus and in orbit over Caprica
 * Peacemaker, captained by Commodore Laimu

The final two are in the Quadrant Galaxies, to work with Rambo Nation.


 * Diplomat, captained by Commodore Eta, base of operations in the Quadrants and in orbit over the Rambo Capitol
 * Explorer, captained by Commodore Theta

Two others had postings in the Plazith Rim, but were destroyed in the war against the Xhodocto.


 * Sunlight, captained by Commodore Diamoinu
 * Universal, captained by Commodore Taltaket

The Empire also produced several sets of "secondary" Imperiums. Initially, sixteen of them were built to be part of an extragalactic colonisation fleet, but Commodore Tokzhalat (the fleet's leader) seperated it from the Imperial group mind and formed a new Empire of his own. Next, in preparation for the inevitable engagements against Tokzhalat's forces, the Girdo Empire built 501 new Imperiums (one for each colony world). However, most of the ones in the Girdo Galaxy (so only excluding the ones in the Imperial Sector and the one defending the Titan colony) were destroyed during the Girdo Campaign of the Imperial Civil War.

After the Girdo Empire was defeated and were only allowed colonies in the Imperial Sector and extragalactic worlds in shared systems (i.e. Titan, in the Sol system), they began constructing more Imperiums, just like they had been before. This gave them 178 new "defence" Imperiums, which once they were built were named after the planets that they were built on. This excluded the one for Imperial Capital, with was simply called the Capital, and the one on Titan, which was named Saturn after the gas giant which the moon orbits.

Crew
Crewmembers in the Imperial Space Force are divided into seven ranks: Crewmen, Ensigns, Lieutenants, Captains, Commanders, Commodores, and the Admiral.


 * The Admiral leads the entire Space Force, and is captain of the Premier.
 * Commodores lead an Imperium-class ship and all of its subordinate Frigates and Droners.
 * Commanders are captains of Trade Frigates who lead task forces of Trade Frigates during missions that require more than one such ship. They may also control the Droner forces associated with its homeworld or mothership on the front lines of a battle.
 * Captains command a single Frigate-class ship.
 * Lieutenants are second-in-command to a Captain (or Commander, Commodore or Admiral).
 * Ensigns lead teams of three Crewmen in their duties on board starships.
 * Crewmen perform most of the work on board starships, and also beam down with their ship's Captain for support in missions away from the ship.

The four different ship classes require different numbers of crewmembers to perform all of the tasks needed to be done on board.


 * Imperium-class ships have one Commodore, and are crewed by three Lieutenants, thirty Ensigns and ninety Crewmen (124 in total). However, there may be hundreds of other people living on board the ship who are just as capable of helping out if they are needed.
 * The Premier has one Captain (usually the Admiral), one Lieutenant, two Ensigns and six Crewmen (10 in total).
 * Trade Frigates have one Captain or Commander, one Lieutenant, four Ensigns and twelve Crewmen (18 in total).
 * Droners, being drone ships, require no crew.

Droner Organisation
Droners usually operate in "Droner Swarms" that consist of 36 ships. In times of war, a more organised system is available for use. There are four hierarchically-ranked types of unit within the "Wartime Droner Organisation System":
 * 6 Droners make up a Wartime Squadron.
 * 6 Squadrons (36 Droners, a traditional Swarm) make up a Wartime Flotilla.
 * 6 Flotillas (216 Droners, the maximum that can be held by an Imperium) make up a Wartime Fleet.
 * 216 Fleets (46 656 Droners) make up a Wartime Droner Swarm, which is enough to conquer most empires.

However, putting this system into practice requires a state of emergency to be declared and preferably wartime production to be established across the entire Empire in order to produce the large quantities of ships required, as most Droners are in defence fleets over Imperial colonies and are not to be used elsewhere except in extreme circumstances.

Green face.png Allies
The Empire is part of the Seven Starr Alliance. These are the only empires that they consider themselves to be officially allied with.


 * Milky Way Cooperative
 * Bearian Nations Space Command
 * Cephalodian Imperium
 * Delpha Coalition of Planets
 * Galactic Federation
 * Human Republic
 * Cyrandia Alliance
 * Hutter Kingdom
 * Rambo Nation
 * United Republic of Cyrannus
 * Dei'Ar Theocracy
 * Gjigantrox Interstellar Empire
 * Kazaru System Alliance
 * Jovar Empire
 * Teffel Republic
 * United Veatrex Federation

Blue face.png Friends
For the most part, the Empire does not wish to classify the empires that they are on good terms with as official allies, so that they can (at least initially) appear to be neutral to other civilisations. However, they are allies in all but the necessary paperwork on the Empire's end.


 * Core Federation
 * The Empire worked with the Core Federation in the invasions of Tuuros during the March of the Apocalypse.


 * Gablinus-Avis Empire
 * The Girdo Empire had a trade deal with the Gablinus-Avis.


 * Salsetthe Republic
 * The Empire participated against the Salsetthe in one of their Wargames. The Salsetthe Republic also played a major part in the Imperial Civil War.


 * Sporemaster Alliance
 * This federation contacted the Empire the day after the Empire's first contact with the DCP, asking if the Empire would like to form an alliance. The Empire's response was that they would create a "mutually-beneficial relationship" with the Alliance. When the Seven Starr Alliance was revived, the Sporemaster Alliance became offical allies of the organisation.


 * Tokzhalan Empire
 * A militaristic offshoot of the Girdo Empire. They are officially neutral with the SSA due to the Treaty of Dreykzin

Yellow face.png Neutral

 * Zazane
 * The Empire and the Zazane have had few communications, all of which were in the past.

Orange face.png/Red face.png Enemies
It is very rare that the Empire decides to make enemies, but sometimes, it is inevitable.


 * Ayrai-Shikua (effectively †)
 * Being not only the sworn enemy of all other life in the universe, but also having the means to end all life in the universe, Imperial tacticians considered war against the Xhodocto to be a necessary move for survival of themselves, and of other civilisations, especially the "truly alien" ones.

Quotes from other empires
"Naïvely idealistic at times, although they seem to be perfectly happy to go to war when necessary. Still, the Emperor isn't how he used to be during the Girdo Galactic War. Then again, his current foreign policy is probably better for dealing with a lot of the nations in this universe than ours. But we all do what we must, and even the Empire of Girdo has its uses."

- Emperor Tokzhalat of the Tokzhalan Empire

"A glorious and mysterious Empire, the Girdo are considered friends by our standards. Though pledged by the evil Thokzhalan Empire, they eventualley managed to overcome this menace and come out even stronger and better in our opinion. For this we respect them a lot. With a long and complex history, an beautiful culture and an impressive space fleet, we are honored to be friends with the Girdo Empire."

- Empress Ramashe of Rambo Nation