History of the Tessian Hegemony
The history of the Tessian Hegemony is a long and intricate tale spanning over a century from even before its foundation in the year 1998 to its dissolution in the year 2122. This article gives a complete overview of the Hegemony’s history; for other purposes, see the main article listed above.
The history of the Hegemony began in around 1995 when Tessia von Gretolia, a member of the Aerlon species of the planet Tertan (one of over 40 in the triple star system known as the Polytinaris System), discovered intriguing archaeological ruins constructed by the legendary Palaeroni species over two billion years ago. Most importantly, she uncovered evidence to support a massive galactic empire ruled over by this species. From then on, Tessia rallied the forces of the People’s Fairness Party to stage a revolution against the Polytinaris Commonwealth in early 1998, leading to her becoming the great Benevolent Premier of the Tessian Hegemony, the most powerful individual in the state. Over the next three years, she along with her close confidants, the Great Quartet, took it upon themselves to radically alter the political environment of the Polytinaris System into one that strongly supported aerlon supremacy and disenfranchised the other species native to the system. At the same time, the economy was rapidly nationalized into a near totally state-controlled communist society.
After she had usurped power of Polytinaris, Tessia Gretolia set the sights of her new empire outwards to other solar systems located within the Polytinaris Spur. After the successful development of an interstellar-capable drive in the year 2001, the Hegemony began radiating outwards and explored dozens of new star systems over the next several decades, some of which were inhabited and had their own native lifeforms - these systems were brutally conquered in various ways, ranging from the fairly quick invasion of the Kenario Imperio to the long, grueling war with the High Mandate of Morswordia that lasted several years and took millions of lives. When the Hegemony reached its territorial apex in the mid-21st century, it controlled a total of 47 solar systems spanning an area of over fifty light years.
The era of unrivaled Tessian dominance and control over the Polytinaris Spur during the second half of the 21st century is known as the Tatanias Tessiana, and it saw the nation develop its own distinctly individual culture and society that heavily valued minority inclusivity amongst the trillions of aerlons of the Hegemony. Ironically, this was promoted at the same time as bigotry and xenophobia against the other species of the Hegemony - the non-aerlons - thrived and grew into a massive affair spanning entire star systems. Non-aerlons were forced into radically different living and working environments by the Tessian government and were discriminated solely on the basis of their species. Slavery became common amongst most lower-class non-aerlons, who spent the majority of their lives inside massive state-run factories with very little food, water, and rest.
The Tatanias Tessiana period of stability and prosperity came to an abrupt end in the year 2113, when the nation came into contact with another state known as the Kingdom of Ironia-Ursonberg, located in the Taebol System. As it had done with several other alien civilizations before, the Tessian Hegemony launched a military invasion of Ironia-Ursonberg with its entire might; alas, the Kingdom was able to counter and keep the invaders at bay through the usage of several exotic Palaeroni alien artifacts. Further harried by the beginnings of a wave of uprisings spearheaded by Morgan Mindyrette and her rebellion, in 2114 Tessia and the Hegemony resorted to a peace deal with neither side making any territorial gains.
The failure of the first Ironia-Ursonberg War started a cascade of events that would ultimately lead to the collapse of the Hegemony. The Second Ironia-Ursonberg War began in 2116 and lasted until late 2119: despite its name, Ironia-Ursonberg was never actually directly involved in it. The Second War saw numerous catastrophes, such as the destruction of the Hantis System, signifying the impending end for the once seemingly insurmountable Hegemony. By 2118, the non-aerlons were beginning to go further and started to secede, restoring their independence or even forming completely new nations such as the Second Imperial Sovereignty of Galtratoria. The final nail in the coffin was the death of Tessia von Gretolia in 2119 that was the catalyst for the Third Ironia-Ursonberg War: in this last stand, the Hegemony brutally crumbled and fell apart at the seams, being ultimately defeated in 2122 by the Morganite Rebellion, Ironia-Ursonberg, and several alien nations that they had subjugated in the previous century. The Tessian Hegemony was succeeded by the democratic Stellar Commonwealth.
Background and inception (before 1995)
Prior to the revolution of 1998, the vast and complex Polytinaris system and its four inhabiting races, the spacefaring rork, aerlon, and gesmian species, along with the lesser-developed iphilians, were part of the Commonwealth, a free, democratic federation which held moderately centrist political views.
The Commonwealth was founded on January 8, 1329, when the two nations that existed within Polytinaris - the Kalagors United States and the Tinaria-Genenia Union - agreed to form a union between each other, in light of their positive relationships with each another and a common desire of unity within the system. The Commonwealth had many forms of legislation within its constitution, known as the Ragauno Accords (named after the fourth planet of the red dwarf star Genenia and the planet it had been ratified on) that protected the rights of all five member species and ensured equal and just treatment under the federal government. The Commonwealth would develop into a very culturally diverse society that fostered an atmosphere of inclusiveness and creative freedom, with works of art, music, and television films all becoming quite popular during the first half of its existence.
Initially, the Commonwealth was a decentralized society which devolved a significant amount of power to its member worlds, which often had numerous separate governments existing on the same planet: for example, the planet Tertan had sixteen different nations during this time. However, after a failed rebellion known as the Ixmerian revolution in the year 1747, it would undergo a significant degree of reform and transition into a more proper state with the creation of government positions such as a chancellor and granting a lower degree of autonomy to its member worlds and strengthening the power of its legislature, the Commonwealth Council, instead. These changes would have mixed reactions within its three systems, particularly among the aerlons of the Polytinaris system's secondary star Tinaria, who would complain that the new system gave them unequal representation within the government, which became increasingly more divided along political lines - the aerlons developed increasingly more left-leaning political views as time progressed, while Kalagors and Genenia would retain their centrist political agendas that they had held before.
Rise of the People's Fairness Party
One of the more radical left-wing parties within the Commonwealth was the People's Fairness Party created on October 12, 1774, as a successor to the previous party that ruled over the state of Ozhnovoye. The PFP's intended goals were to deliver equal representation and rights for the aerlon people, which it did (to an extent) - supporting bills within the Council that protected the rights of minority groups and peoples. Despite this, the PFP was a hardline communist party that supported state-controlled economies and also called for increased authority from the federal government. Lastly, it strongly supported aerlon nationalism and individuality.
The PFP began winning seats within the Council during the first half of the 19th century, and by 1920 it had become a household name and one of the most popular political parties among the aerlons and even within the entire Polytinaris System, despite attracting feeble support from members of the system's other four species. It would also be embroiled in numerous controversies over the years regarding allegations of hate speech and intimidation from its members, along with allegedly supporting terrorist groups which held extremist and xenophobic beliefs. The PFP denied all of these claims, though this would not prevent the Council from attempting to pass legislation in 1943 and again in 1977 to ban the People's Fairness Party: both votes however resulted in significant riots and protests throughout Tinaria and scattered incidents elsewhere and would ultimately not pass in the legislature.
Discovery of the First Hegemony and Palaeroni ruins
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In mid-1995 a young aerlon woman, politican, and archaeologist named Tessia von Gretolia was investigating an area of ruined structures thought from the pre-Commonwealth era located on the moon Fera, a habitable Earth-like moon located within the Tinaria System. It had long been rumored by conspiracy theorists and pseudoscientists to be constructed by an ancient extinct species. Upon her investigation, radiocarbon dating estimates showed the ruins to be much older than had been thought, analyzing their age to be many billions of years old. Initially skeptical, she further explored the ruins and found various unusual and unknown technologies within it, and bizarre alien building materials. She and her team discovered that the ruins had indeed been built by an alien species, known as the Palaeroni. This caused a shock within the entire scientific community of Polytinaris, with hundreds of scientists of all professions flocking to the ruins, along with other structures later found on Tinaria's other habitable planets Tertan & Svorda, along with the moon Kebo (located in Kalagors) and the planets Etezan and Odelia (both located within the Genenia System)
Records recovered from all of these places showed that the Palaeroni, a race of aliens whose physiology was strangely reminiscent of aerlons, had controlled the entire galaxy and ruled it under a massive empire called the First Hegemony until their unexpected extinction around two billion years ago when a supernova within a star system named as Acahaye rendered their homeworld, referred to as Zlanas, uninhabitable. This triggered a multi-part cataclysm named the Ipolyka that ultimately caused the extinction of their entire species. While many scientists and historians (particularly rorks) were skeptical of the discovery, the true confirmation came on November 7, 1995, when at a large scientific seminar on the ring-shaped space station Station-47, Tessia declared that the home planet of the Palaeroni was the planet Tertan itself, and that the aerlons were descendants of the Palaeroni. Her political party, the PFP, was very impressed. Many members of the party would rally behind her beliefs and ideologies, which initially started out fairly moderate but over the months following would gradually become more radical and far-wing: often deeming aerlons as superior to the other four races within Polytinaris, and hinting of a governmental revolution and regime change being imminent.
Still, not everyone within the party subscribed to her ideological beliefs. A staunch opponent of hers was Jalian Halenia, also a member of the PFP. Though Jalian generally supported the party's current direction he was a strong opponent of civil rights, particularly after his discovery of Tessia's romantic relationship with his younger sister Yelenia Halenia in May of 1996. Despite both of them having been partners for almost two years prior to that moment, Jalian nevertheless immediately denounced it and would demand both of them be removed from the party in a statement he broadcasted from the moon Gaganzin (which orbited the gas giant Bronze) on June 2, 1996.
Prelude (1995-1998)
First Jalianite schism and Torwellia incident
While most of Tessia's supporters blatantly ignored the Gaganzin broadcast, Jalian's followers would be more open in their opposition - often resorting to personal attacks on pro-Tessian politicians and property. Tensions between the two sides would finally reach a breaking point on September 16, 1996, when Tessia & Yelenia were both denied entry into a PFP summit held on the moon Torwellia, which orbited around the gas giant planet Darhe located within the Tinaria System. Though Tessia would remain silent about the issue, Yelenia immediately denounced her own brother Jalian after finding out from another party member that he had intentionally planned to deny both of them entry, and had also planned other, more violent acts against the two. Out of ensuring her own safety, on September 17 Yelenia decided to resign from her position as the leader of the People's Fairness Party and hand down the position to Tessia, who accepted the post in earnest.
Five-Year Revitalization Plan
After being granted leadership of the party, Tessia decided to put her first series of coordinated plans, collectively known as the Five-Year[1] Revitalization Plan into action on that day. The plan had various different sections, but all of them ultimately led to the Commonwealth's downfall at their end. With most of the PFP (save for the Jalianites) being in support of these plans, along with a significant portion of the aerlon population, including four close confidants of Tessia's who were all members of the Commonwealth's armed forces, the Unified Joint Armed Forces (UJAF): Hanelia Siaena, Thyosius Tigran, Quevestin Garmania, and Teagonia Evelon Gretolia. Hanelia was a rather young yet eccentric individual who also became the youngest general in the UJAF's history; Thyosius was an older and more experienced captain who had commanded his own ship, the Zerreum, for almost four decades; Quevestin was quite skilled in technology and had been chosen for their[2] specific expertise; and finally, Teagonia was Tessia's older sister and a fond supporter of her ideological beliefs. These four individuals would later make up the elite Great Quartet, which would become one of the highest echelons of Tessian government and would serve as commanders of its four military branches.
Development of the Dezirius-class battlecruiser
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All four members of the nascent Quartet would put their best efforts into a covert military project conducted by the PFP itself, located around the planetoid Iana, a small icy body orbiting in an elliptical orbit beyond the ice giant Naros in the Tinaria System. The project was put into action on October 9, 1996, with the creation of the Iana Scientific Development Center, under the false cover of a civilian mining project. It was backed by the large Valsserian Engineering Society, an aerlon-operated shipbuilding company that had experience in building ships for the UJAF in past years.
The ultimate fruit of the ISDC project and construction at Iana would be a new, fearsome class of warship known as the Dezirius, named after the Fillorgiar word for "desire" (expressing the desires of the People's Fairness Party and Tessia Gretolia) It was by far the largest and most heavily armed vessel that had ever been constructed within Polytinaris up to that point; at a length of 1,500 meters and possessing 650 heavy cannon batteries, in addition to a cannon capable of razing the entire surface of a terrestrial planet, when it was completed and launched in excellent time (owing to advanced construction equipment derived from reverse-engineered Palaeroni technology) on February 12, 1997 the Dezirius was truly an imposing ship, as quoted by Tessia in a speech she made to the members of both the PFP and the VES on that day to much applause. Disguised to the government as a large asteroid mining and transport ship, the Dezirius would not be the only one of its kind built: by August of 1997 the engineers and technicians at Iana had built three more vessels, named the Acahaye, Minoveya, and Bahelmia, all of which were just as large and powerful as the first.
With the construction of the four battle cruisers completed, the next stage of the Revitalization Plan was to form an organization capable of controlling them. This would be done on March 24, 1997, with the creation of the Benevolent Star Navy, which at the time was disguised as a civilian mining company in order to avoid creating suspicion from the government of the Commonwealth. Station-47, the largest outpost located within the Tinarian star system, was designated as the headquarters of the new force. The four members of the Great Quartet would be designated as the organization's Benevolent Admirals, the highest such rank one could obtain within it.
Over the next few months, the Star Navy would acquire a total of 77 vessels, in addition to the four constructed Dezirii, through a variety of different means ranging from bribery of local officials to forceful takeovers and mutinies. One of the more notable incidents was that of the Otovis, a Maezelia-class heavy cruiser commanded by Iutenica Iuvonia which destroyed two other Commonwealth-aligned ships and made a run towards Station-47 in December of that year.
Second Jalianite schism and Feorxia-Unorbia riots
Despite the breakthroughs in the development of the Dezirius, tensions between the Jalianites and the Tessians remained high throughout the rest of 1996 and into 1997. Supporters of Jalian's ideological beliefs would frequently attempt to sabotage the construction of the four battle cruisers: not all of these attempts were successful and would result in seven deaths on the job during this time period. A second breaking point would be reached on January 4-5 of 1998, when mass riots broke out on the inhabited ice moons Feorxia and Unorbia that Commonwealth police forces struggled to contain. Most of these rioters were aligned with the Jalianites and had started the conflict after one of them attacked a pro-Tessian politician named Rayne Bingiza, who was visiting her family on Feorxia that day. It ultimately attracted significant attention from the press and the government of the Commonwealth itself for its location outside of the Tinaria system. On January 7, gesmian politician Hythar Jomnolaze, a well-known and staunch opponent of the PFP and Tessia von Gretolia, demanded that she be brought to justice for planning these "heinous acts of petty bickering."
A bill was passed within the Council proposing that Tessia be imprisoned and tried for "promoting instability and violence" on January 8, in a narrow vote of 7-5 in favor. However, with significant mutiny amongst many police and military units within the Tinaria system as a result of her influence, along with fears of possible retaliation from the rumored military forces she had assembled, she would not be captured and eventually the bill was dropped two weeks later on January 21.
Murder of Yelenia Halenia and final expulsion of the Jalianites
The final blow to the deeply divided and destabilized People's Fairness Party came on February 10 of that year, when a local attendant found Tessia's fiancé Yelenia dead inside of a hotel room located on the planet Saneya, where she and Tessia had planned to be married two days later - though the latter did not arrive until early the next morning. Once news got out to the members of the party, immediate accusation of Jalian began from Hanelia Siaena & Quevestin Garmania, in addition to Tessia herself and her younger sister Leialennia Varuna Gretolia, another notable member of the organization. On February 11 Jalian would be expelled from the party in an emergency summit held on Station-47, on grounds of suspected murder, in addition for being held accountable for what had occurred on Torwellia and Feorxia-Unorbia in prior months. In his own retaliation, Jalian formed his own political party known as the Tinaria Freedom Front on February 15. The newly created TFF grew quite rapidly, having a membership of well over 50,000 by the end of that month; despite this it was still dwarfed by the PFP, which had over 400,000 members at that time.
Great Tessian Revolution (1998)
Conquest of Tinaria
In the weeks following the formation of the TFF and the murder of Yelenia, the Star Navy and PFP would begin a program of mass recruitment, for the coming conflict ahead. By March 1 the Star Navy had almost 250,000 personnel, and had also expanded its fleet to 124 ships, including the four constructed Dezirius-class battle cruisers. Assembled at Station-47 (in orbit around the gas giant Bronze) the fleet would split into four sections from March 3, the same day as Tessia made a proclamation of independence from the Polytinaris Commonwealth and declared the Tinaria System its own sovereign nation.
The UJAF had prepared its forces in orbit around the moon Jahalle, a roughly Mars-sized carbon moon orbiting around the ringed gas giant planet Darhe. A fleet of 78 ships commanded by Ianidris Fionafarrah were initally able to keep the battalion of Hanelia Saiena and the Minoveya at bay, until late on March 6 when the Dezirius and Bahelmia both arrived; severely overpowered and outnumbered by the three battlecruisers (to the point where many of the ships under his command resorted to throwing rocks and other small objects from the rings of the planet itself), Ianidris declared his surrender on March 8, at which point his remaining 39 ships offered their full cooperation to the rebellion.
By the end of March 10, the entirety of the outer Tinarian system had been secured by the revolutionaries after a pivotal victory around the ice giant planet Tess, which culminated with the destruction of Norbidia Station, a large mining station located on one of its moons. Over 50,000 personnel perished during Norbidia's destruction - many of them unarmed civilians, which attracted significant attention from the UJAF and the Commonwealth itself, with politician Ronin Ulannis denouncing them as "savage beasts".
Destruction of Calgoier
On March 13, the Benevolent Star Navy's forces reached the dwarf planet of Calgoier, a small planetoid which orbited in a Lagrangian trojan orbit of the gas giant Ruby and which was home to one of the UJAF's largest strongholds, possessing an impressive 89 warships including three Potanabes-class war cruisers, the largest vessels possessed by the Commonwealth. Despite the Potanabes's great size and heavy weaponry compared to other vessels within their fleet - at a length of 1,100 meters and possessing several hundred heavy cannon batteries - their armaments were inferior to those of the Dezirius and its sister ships. The commander of the UJAF fleets at Calgoier - a female gesmian named Urchaida Ieya - held valiant despite the clear inferiority of her vessels' technology and weaponry. Meanwhile, Tessia and the rest of the Great Quartet saw Calgoier as a place to test the world razer cannon fitted to the Dezirius-class battlecruisers.
Ultimately through a carefully coordinated plan known as Operation Eltarak, on March 15 Calgoier was totally destroyed when Teagonia fired the weapon of her own ship, the Acahaye, at the dwarf planet. Although the device had been designed only to destroy its surface, the small size of Calgoier meant that its mantle gave little insulation to the core, which itself was rocked by the blast. Millions of inhabitants were killed in the planetoid's destruction, which was televised and broadcasted all over the Polytinaris System. Despite Ieya surviving the destruction (she fled inwards to the inhabited moon Fera) a vast majority of her fleet either surrendered or was obliterated by debris created by the explosion. All in all, 13.4 million were killed by the destruction of Calgoier, a number denounced as "criminal" by Tessia's enemies.
Battle of Palemarma and final defeat of the TFF
After learning of Ieya's survival on March 16, the combined fleet of the Star Navy, now numbering almost 200 ships spearheaded by the four battlecruisers, powered inward through on past the terrestrial planet Tertan and reached the gas giant Palemarma early on March 18. Much to their surprise, the UJAF and the TFF both appeared to be working together at this point, possessing a combined fleet of 187 vessels including eleven war cruisers. To Tessia's surprise, Jalian Halenia had assumed command over the entire fleet, and was now in command of a modified Potanabes-class ship named the Dyspeldia. Initially, the battle seemed to be in the UJAF-TFF's favor until on March 19 when Thyosius Tigran fired the world razer cannon of the Bahelmia, destroying two war cruisers in one shot and damaging several others including Jalian's flagship. The second in command of the combined fleet, Solyth nil Valentine, declared his surrender that day: in spite of this, Jalian rammed the Dyspeldia into Solyth's critically damaged flagship, the Alfetan, which destroyed both vessels. After that point, what remained of the defensive force collapsed: some captains offered up their support to the Tessians, some attempted to flee, and others simply activated the self-destruct mechanisms on their ships, killing themselves. Early on March 20, Tessia declared that the Tinaria System was now completely annexed by the rebel forces and ordered the fleet onwards to the next star system of Polytinaris, the red dwarf Genenia.
Conquest of Genenia
After over a week of travelling - Genenia was well over 10,000 astronomical units away from Tinaria - the fleet arrived at its outer reaches on March 29. The star itself possessed a vast and complex system of 18 planets: eight terrestrial planets and ten gas giants. Populated by the crab-like gesmian species, they met little defensive resistance: a result of severe impediment to the UJAF's morale as well as the somewhat remote location of the Genenia System.
Merolo Deal and annexation of Genenia
The Genenia System lay in an interesting political position during the later years of the Commonwealth. While officially declaring its stance neutral on most Kalagors-Tinaria debacles, Genenia's political position was in reality slightly in favor of the latter. Despite this, it oftentimes was the victim of these disputes, having been on the brink of famine since the late 1950s due to problems over operating the goverment-operated farms within the system. A strong distaste for the Commonwealth and a desire for freedom emerged amongst the gesmian public, with most proponents also calling for unification with Tinaria. However, unlike the motives of the PFP and the Benevolent Star Navy, the actions of the movement were majorly peaceful in nature. The most prominent leader of the Genenian solidarity movement, Rirsmo Merolo, arranged a meeting with Tessia & the Great Quartet on March 30, offering up the entire Genenia system and his cooperation with the rebellion in exchange for equal rights and freedom from the Commonwealth. While just treatment of the gesmians went against the PFP's ideals of species supremacism, the leaders of the fleet accepted Merolo's proposal in earnest. Alas though, gesmians were still segregated from aerlons after the formation of the Hegemony and were eventually enslaved and exploited for the state's benefit; the terms of the Merolo Deal being largely forgotten in later years.
Conquest of Kalagors
After the integration of Genenia, the fleet pressed onwards towards the final star system of Polytinaris, the Kalagors System. Even before the Star Navy's fleet arrived at Kalagors's outer reaches on April 7, mass panic and chaos had become rampant within the final remaining bastion of the Commonwealth. Dozens of news outlets and radio stations forecasted impending defeat, and the government began evacuating citizens off of significant UJAF bases in order to minimize further casualties. Meanwhile, the four generals of the Great Quartet, under a battle strategy known as the Ovectrion Plan, divided to conquer on April 8 the four last remaining strongholds of the Commonwealth - the binary ice giants of Urson & Blair, the moon of Kalei, the supermassive terrestrial planet Hyparspynar, and the ocean world Oveno.
Thyosius Tigran's Battle of the Binary Giants
On April 9, Tigran[3]'s fleet arrived at Urson & Blair with a force of 48 ships under his grasp. The UJAF could only muster up a defensive force of 30, but their ships were under the command of a well-known rork commander named Aarohi Vallanchite, who was controversial for using extremely brutal fighting tactics such as suicide ramming. He had heard of the rebellion's triumphs in Tinaria and Genenia and had adopted a doctrine of full-on mass attack, which proved effective at significantly damaging the Bahelmia but ultimately resulted in his own fleet sustaining heavy losses. After a short but intense battle on April 9-10, Aarohi ended it in a fit of maniacal rage when he crashed his own ship into the moon Torgenia.
Quevestin Garmania's liberation of Kalei
Quevestin Garmania's fleet reached the habitable moon Kalei early on April 10. Kalei was a fairly cool yet still Earth-like inhabited moon ruled by a conservative governor named Lelouch Hypercane, a longtime enemy of Tessia and the PFP due to his outspoken anti-LGBTQ policies. After he assumed governorship of the moon in 1994, Hypercane and his cohorts implemented several policies banning gender-affirming care and outlawed same-sex marriages, in addition to conducting heavy censorship of any materials deemed to be supporting of these topics - prompting significant outcry from Kalei's inhabitants. Garmania decided to use an unconventional method of attack: they utilized their technological experience and hacked into multiple Kalei television broadcast satellites, abruptly replacing a speech from Hypercane on April 11 with several clips of Tessia & Yelenia kissing each other. Lelouch was none the more totally infuriated at commander Garmania’s actions and threatened to use military force against their dispatched battalion of roughly 40 ships. However, his plans were hampered when on April 11-13 several Kaleian civil rights agencies and notable activists staged multiple protests - many of them violent in nature - against Hypercane’s government called the Rainbow Spring. This forced the governor to direct all of his resources to quelling the population, which allowed Garmania and their fleet to easily usurp control of Moreus’s numerous larger moons and even mount some few yet greatly successful attacks on Kalei itself. Hypercane was found dead in his office on April 14 and was presumed to have been shot by a protestor of the Rainbow Spring. After that point, Kalei’s acting governor declared his surrender to the Tessian rebellion, at which point the moon was annexed.
Hanelia Siaena's burning of Hyparspynar
The day after Quevestin Garmania and their fleet arrived at Kalei on April 10, on April 11 Hanelia Siaena and the Minoveya arrived in orbit of the massive terrestrial planet Hyparspynar. A huge planet rivaling the size of actual ice giants like Neptune or Uranus, Hyparspynar’s most unique trait is its extremely fast rotation: the entire planet completes one spin around its axis in just 22 minutes. This leads to an exceptionally pronounced degree of polar flattening that makes the planet itself roughly twice as “wide” as it is “tall” (its equatorial diameter compared to its pole-to-pole diameter). Hyparspynar was the home planet of an enigmatic yet friendly species known as the Iphilians. The iphilian people themselves did not interact much with the prior Polytinaris Commonwealth as they did not possess any means of spaceflight technology. The three more advanced members of the Commonwealth had mostly left the species to develop on their own whims, although assistance was occasionally offered in times of dire crisis. Hanelia always took a disliking to the iphilians and their unique shape-shifting abilities, often referring to them as “misshapen blobs” in press conferences.
The leader of the Hyparspynar global council, a wise individual named Pit Gnilraw, offered his people’s support and goodwill to the rebellion when Hanelia first contacted him on April 12. For unexplained reasons after that, Hanelia activated the world razer cannon of the Minoveya and fired it at the Hyparspynarian surface. The planet's very thick, hydrogen-rich atmosphere and its very fast rotation combined with the great heat of the weapon to, in effect, set nearly the entirety of Hyparspynar on fire. This burning event, known as the Incineratas in iphilian society, led to the deaths of billions of Hyparspynarians and rendered the planet totally uninhabitable. This act was highly televised throughout both planets controlled by the Tessian rebels and the few remaining Commonwealth bastions. Although it was still a successful victory for the revolution, the other three captains of the Quartet and Tessia Gretolia were not especially pleased with Hanelia's soulless actions. Pit Gnilraw had miraculously survived the disastrous event and declared his surrender early on April 13.
Teagonia ev Gretolia's accession of Oveno
On April 13, the fleet of 45 ships commanded by Teagonia Gretolia arrived at the ringed ocean world of Oveno, a planet covered in massive megastructures known as xyzlexes. The planet was ruled by an aerlon governor named Avianah Hollane, who was a strong yet silent supporter of Tessia's ideals. In an unexpectedly peaceful declaration on April 14, Hollane offered the entire military resources of Oveno - numbering about 90 total ships including seven Potanabes-class war cruisers - out of both her own agreement with the revolution's goal of collapsing of the Commonwealth and also out of a tense of fear for a possible repeat of the Incineratas on Hyparspynar.
Siege of Kebo
After regrouping in orbit of Oveno on April 14, the combined fleet of the Benevolent Star Navy and Avianah Hollane’s Ovenan fleet, which numbered to almost 300 ships including almost two dozen war cruisers and the four Dezirius-classes. The massive flotilla arrived in orbit of the gas giant planet Niran on April 15, which was host to the final remaining stronghold of the Polytinaris Commonwealth, the moon Kebo. The defensive force assembled by the UJAF was nowhere near as battle capable as the Star Navy's fleet: although it consisted of 91 vessels, around half of them were several decades old and had been hastily reactivated out of a mothballed state. Every vessel was understaffed and a large portion of them were operating with just a skeleton crew. Lastly, several of them had been damaged by prior battles, further impeding their capabilities. The current chancellor of the Commonwealth, a rork named Alexandros Nodecam, had heard of the devastating losses of his fleets in the Tinaria System and the disaster at Hyparspynar and had assumed acting control over the entire UJAF (Nodecam had prior military experience during the late 1960s).
At 10:17 KST[4] on April 16, Tessia von Gretolia sent the first of multiple transmissions from the Dezirius, demanding that Nodecam surrender and threatening of a mass bombardment of Kebo from orbit. Two more similar threats were made at 13:59 KST and 15:05 KST; on all occasions, Nodecam declined. At the same time, a bitter standoff emerged in orbit of Niran: neither of the two sides were yet firing at the other, both out of a lack of proper orders and out of a fear of extreme escalation. Alexandros Nodecam knew that Tessia and her cohorts had the capability to destroy Kebo at any moment, but none of his aides or even the high generals of the UJAF were certain.
Finally, at 19:32 KST[5], the silence broke. One of the smaller vessels in the UJAF defense fleet, an Allazia-class frigate named the Rhegazia, began frantically attacking one of the Dezirius-class battlecruisers, the Acahaye. Pure insanity broke loose after that: while the Benevolent Star Navy had split into two sections - one focusing on taking out the UJAF and the other bombarding Kebo with endless barrages of laser fire - the UJAF could not afford to do so, being directed by Nodecam to focus exclusively on taking out and disabling the Dezirii. By early morning on April 17, the situation was growing dire: the UJAF had lost three-quarters of their ships and sustained nearly 50,000 fatalities, while tens of millions had perished in the bombardment of Kebo. This pivotal, last-stand battle would go down in history as the Siege of Kebo and was regarded as the last event that led to the creation of the Tessian Hegemony. The last recorded transmission from Alexandros Nodecam was at 07:44 KST on April 17, 1998; he is presumed to have died within a few hours of final contact. At 09:18 KST on April 17, the Polytinaris Commonwealth's acting leader declared unconditional surrender.
Tessia's victory speech
Good day to all Aerlons who call our great Polytinaris System home. I am Tessia von Gretolia, and today I hereby declare the beginning of a pivotal new era in the history of our star system.
For far too long, the aerlons have languished under the pitiful, backwards policies of interspecies cooperation promoted by the degenerated Commonwealth, which has stifled us of our dignity. But that ends now. Today, the aerlons take their charge. Today, the aerlons will rule on their own feet, with feelings of triumph, self-pride, and patriotism on levels that they could have only dreamt of when being forced to answer to those utterly disgusting eggheads & gessies. Today is the day of the Tessian Hegemony!
Under this new banner, we will strive to bring a thriving and fulfilling lifestyle to each and every one of our kind, whether they be clergy or commoners. We will dismantle the system of capitalism practiced by the Commonwealth, as the economy cannot be trusted in anyone's hands except those of the government. We will restore our system's industrial capacity to scales far greater than they even ever were before. Opponents will soon tremble at the sheer sight of our massive warships with immense destructive capability, able to render a whole planet inhospitable in mere minutes. And if the Hegemony is ever to fall in a fight, may it not go down without much suffering and casualty for the enemy.
Our actions conducted without fail in the past weeks shall be remembered even a thousand years from this very moment. Some day, your own grandchildren will read fantastical tales of our great battles and victories so bravely fought. And one day may our banner shine across the entire Polytinaris Spur in its righteous benevolence!
Long live the Hegemony! All hail to Tessia!
—Tessia von Gretolia, April 17, 1998
Escape of the C.C.S. Ironia and Ursonberg
See here: Kingdom of Ironia-Ursonberg#History
Fostering Age (1998-2001)
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Soon after the decisive Siege of Kebo, Tessia von Gretolia declared herself the Benevolent Premier of the Tessian Hegemony, the highest such government office one could hold within the nation. The capital of this newly forged nation was designated as the gigantic megacity of Ovzeria City, the largest such settlement located within the entire Polytinaris System, on the aerlon home planet of Tertan.
Socialization and crackdown on non-Aerlon rights
On April 21, 1998, Tessia passed the first of multiple acts of legislation that drastically transformed the political and societal atmosphere of the Polytinaris System into a brutal far-left dictatorship. This first act was the Workers of the People Decree, which assigned almost all able-bodied aerlons a job and nationalized the vast majority of privately-run businesses within the former Commonwealth. There were two particular exceptions: the Valsserian Engineering Society, before then a mostly private organization, was consolidated with multiple other shipbuilding and technology companies located throughout the nascent Hegemony and became its premier military construction agency. Also left mostly untouched was the arts & entertainment sector, although it was still heavily regulated and policed by the Tessian government. Furthermore, the WotP-D also directed trillions towards the construction of factories on planets located throughout all three subsystems of Polytinaris, hoping to stimulate the then-slow economy of the nation. Thanks to the WotP-D (along with two later acts, the One Production Act and the Equal Economic Opportunities Act) a significant economic upturn began within the Tessian Hegemony that began in September of 1998 and lasted well into the mid-2000s - later known as the Post-Revolution Miracle by historians.
Although the economic and societal situation for the aerlons of the Tessian Hegemony was nothing short of prosperous, the same could not be said for the non-aerlons: the Rorks and Gesmians - as well as the hapless few Iphilians that had survived the Incineratas. While the protection of aerlon civil rights became mandated in the Better Together Accords (ratified on October 26, 1998, a series of new laws and liberties granted to the aerlons, among them legalization of same-sex marriage and gender-affirming care, criminalization of discrimination on basis of skin color, and support of abortion and planned parenthood), as time went on the civil rights and freedoms of other species were greatly restricted. By mid-1999, a system reminiscent of South Africa's apartheid or segregation in the U.S. had emerged: non-aerlons could not use the same public facilities, go to the same schools or events, or live in the same neighborhoods, regions, or even on the same planets (in later years) as aerlons could. Discrimination against non-aerlons in most civil sectors was legalized in the People's Fairness Act passed on June 7, 1999, and was legalized in the medical field with the Equivalent Care Act ratified on December 19, 1999.
Creation of the Opulenciliom
The People's Fairness Act also created a new legislative body within the Tessian government, the Opulenciliom, which was created to "settle disputes and ensure equality between the Hegemony's members". In reality though, none of this was true, as non-aerlons were barred from participating in the Opulenciliom, whose goal initially was to enforce the segregationist policies promoted by the Tessian Hegemony. Later, its role transitioned to a more generic parliament-like legislature, although its actual legal power was extremely limited - the Great Quartet and Tessia herself were still the dominant political figures within the nation and could veto any move made by or immediately fire any member of the Opulenciliom at their own whims.
Gesmian revolt of January 2000
While the rorks and iphilians eventually submitted to the extreme species disenfranchisement by the Tessian Hegemony by January of 2000, the gesmians, having been promised equal rights and fair treatment by the Merolo Deal made during the rebellion, were unhappy with their current status. Rirsmo Merolo himself was most displeased, and on January 6, 2000, he and thousands of other gesmians staged an uprising against the Hegemony's government on the gesmian home planet of Etezan. Although Merolo initially stayed true to his ideals during the earlier Genenian solidarity movement, by January 8 these demonstrations turned into violent riots and spread to other inhabited planets within the Genenia System. News of the gesmian rebellion made its way to Tessia von Gretolia on January 9, 2000, at which point she then traveled to Etezan aboard a then newly constructed member of the Dezirius class, the Emperion. When Tessia arrived there on January 17, the situation was growing quite dire on Etezan itself, along with on nearby planets Ragauno & Leif: Tessian military police ordered full lockdowns of virtually every major city on the planet and the gesmians had acquired a significant amount of weaponry.
When Tessia demanded to speak with Rirsmo, surprisingly, he had nothing to offer. Merolo had not officially sanctioned the rapid escalation of the riots and was merely a bystander. Regardless, the Emperion fired a warning shot which skimmed the upper Etezanian atmosphere (at an altitude of about 75 km) in the midday of January 18, significantly damaging the planet's ozone layer - after that point, most of the gesmian riots on said planet ceased. Although the leadership of the Star Navy and the Benevolent Premier thought that the gesmians had been scared and promptly ceased their wrongdoing, in reality it was due to said species' very fragile outer skin that was vulnerable to the high amount of stellar radiation produced by Genenia. With the collapse of the leadership on the home world, the rebellions quickly lost organization and were more efficiently dealt with; by January 21 they had all but ceased. In the aftermath of the failed rebellion, Tessia passed the Indefinite Servitude Act on February 4, which reduced the civil rights of gesmians to even poorer states and legalized slave labor for the species, with gesmians being rounded up and put to work inside massive state-owned factory complexes. The Indefinite Servitude Act was meant as a penalty for the species and was the beginning of the Tessian Hegemony's state-practiced slavery.
Discovery of the Ghorghosca Star Drive
On May 3, 2000, a high-ranking aerlon in the Valsserian Engineering Society, Candissia Valsseria, made an extraordinary discovery in a site of Palaeroni buildings on the planet Teagan in the Kalagors System: plans for a faster-than-light spaceship engine known as the Ghorghosca Star Drive. When news of this remarkable drive reached the Great Quartet and Tessia, efforts began almost immediately to replicate the Ghorghosca Drive and produce a working, efficient, and viable FTL drive. Candissia and the VES were handed the contract of reproducing the drive, consolidating it under one effort known as the Ghorghosca Project. The project bore fruit by March 7, 2001, when Candissia Valsseria unveiled an experimental Ghorghosca Star Drive test ship, the Phoenionax, and sent it almost instantaneously from low orbit around Tertan to the Kalagors System. Both the Benevolent Star Navy and the Premier were very impressed and satisfied with the VES's successful re-engineering of the Ghorghosca Drive and promptly initiated the task of fitting it into every large Tessian space vessel. This process would be completed quickly and swiftly, as the VES-built Ghorghosca Drives were constructed in modular sections that fit well within many larger warships such as the Dezirius-class battlecruiser. By mid-August of 2001, every ship within the Star Navy had its own Ghorghosca Drive, setting the precedent for an era of interstellar expansion and imperialism to come.
Early interstellar age (2001-2021)
Colonization of the Lanaia and Zamael Systems
The first two solar systems outside of Polytinaris itself targeted for Tessian colonization were the stars of Lanaia and Zamael, located approximately 3.3 and 4.8 light-years from the Polytinaris System respectively. The Great Quartet and Tessia Gretolia decided on these particular systems specifically due to their close proximity as well as both of them having already been known to have planetary systems - a large super-Jupiter gas giant named Zayin had already been identified around the Lanaia System during the 1940s, a close binary star consisting of an F9V-type yellow-white star and a smaller M4V-type red dwarf - while a system of six inner rocky terrestrial planets was known around Zamael, a tiny M9V red dwarf barely on the fringe of stardom at all.
On September 23, 2001, a fleet of 14 starships spearheaded by the battlecruiser Gigidantia and commanded by experienced captain Isa Paka departed from Polytinaris and performed a seamless Ghorghosca Drive warp to the outer reaches of Lanaia, at that time the furthest ever such jump and the first ever instance of interstellar travel within the Hegemony. Upon reaching the system, scans detected the presence of a second inner rocky ocean world located within the Lanaia System's habitable zone, later named Laniakea. The most remarkable discovery made after the warp to Lanaia was that of an immensely large ring system surrounding Zayin, one of a diameter of approximately 155 million kilometers, the largest known to the Polytinarians by a large margin. Several large icy moons were also found to orbit within the massive rings by commander Paka's observations.
Isa Paka's exploration fleet returned to Polytinaris on October 1, after which they were greatly heralded as heroes within the Hegemony. Tessia von Gretolia gave her the honorary title of conquestalia, meaning "conqueror" in the aerlon language of Fillorgiar. After Paka's exploration of the system, several more fleets were sent to the Lanaia System to make way for a permanent colony, which by summer of 2002 was running smoothly, with inhabited settlements established on and around Laniakea and on the multiple moons of Zayin. Alas, there were some struggles though: as Lanaia Major (the system's primary component) was significantly hotter and brighter than Kalagors or Tinaria, being over two times as luminous as either star, it produced a greater amount of hazardous ultraviolet radiation, dangerous to lifeforms. Most species of flora imported from Polytinaris did not grow very well in Lanaia's strong white light, however blue-colored succulent plants - native to the moon Fera in the Tinaria System - thrived in the system's environment. Furthermore, improved sun protections and radiation shielding was invented and fitted to all ships within the Benevolent Star Navy. A great deal was learned about bioengineering and selective breeding of plant species, a tool that would prove invaluable during other Tessian conquests later in the 21st century.
Meanwhile, the second star system, the Zamael System, was first reached on October 8, 2001, when a fleet of 17 ships led by the Dezirius-class Grausuel and under the captainship of Vinia Lon Vinerna warped from Polytinaris to the outer Zamael System. Upon getting there, Lon Vinerna's fleet found three new outer ice giant planets which had previously been unknown to the Tessian Hegemony, giving Zamael a total of nine planets. Particular importance was given to the system's third and fourth planets, Usah and Leilei - both of which had a habitable environment and could support large aerlon populations. The Zamael System's exploration by Vinia Lon Vinerna and their fleet was otherwise uneventful compared to that of the Lanaia System, consisting of long-range planetary examinations & robotic exploration of the surfaces of the six inner rocky planets. The expedition fleet returned to the Polytinaris System on October 18, 2001.
Polytinarians began flocking to the Zamael System in droves starting in mid-March of 2002, when the Hegemony opened intersystem migration between the two stars. Settlement of the two planets Usah and Leilei was fairly straightforward as the two already had hospitable conditions on their surfaces. Zamael itself was also a fairly quiet red dwarf star that did not experience large eruptions as did similar stars such as Genenia. The deep red light emitted by the star and abundance in long-wavelength infrared radiation meant that solar electricity was inefficient and proved an unviable power source: colonists within the Zamael System would seek alternatives, such as harnessing geothermal energy from underground or constructing large fusion reactors for orbital stations.
Creation of the Interstellar Domain System
A particular population interested in the colonization of the Lanaia and Zamael Systems were political enemies, economic capitalists, and other opponents of the Tessian Hegemony. Far away from Polytinaris, they could publicly express their beliefs with less scrutiny and more independence from the Tessian government. If they could manage the cost and get through the rigorous discriminatory measures set in place, non-aerlons would also emigrate to Lanaia and Zamael in earnest. Furthermore, communication and exchange between these systems and Polytinaris was rather limited for much of 2002, and policing and patrol by the Benevolent Star Navy was only rudimentary. The two stars were the open frontier of the Tessian Hegemony at that time, with crime and space piracy being rampant. However, neither Tessia, the Great Quartet, nor the Opulenciliom expressed any desire in improving the quality of life for inhabitants of Lanaia and Zamael until an incident on May 30, 2002, when Teagonia Gretolia was involved in an ambush attack by a well-known pirate vessel known as the Bronze Opal shortly after having paid a visit to the Zamael System.
The Bronze Opal incident finally brought attention to the issues of enforcing law within the extrapolytinarian[6] territory of the Hegemony to the national scale. In its wake, Tessia von Gretolia ratified the Interstellar Domain Act, which created a more concrete system of government for solar systems ouside of Polytinaris known as the Interstellar Domain System. Under the Domain System, each planetary system was to be assigned a governor-general who would act as that system's provincial leader and deal with political and societal issues within that system. The governor-general was also granted their own division of the Benevolent Star Navy to act as a defensive force for that system. However, the governor-general still had to answer to the government of the Hegemony itself and could be deposed of at any point in time if they were deemed a threat to the Tessian Hegemony's integrity or were otherwise unfit for the job. The Tessian Hegemony under the Domain System had elements of both unitary states and federations and was sometimes considered a "federal unitary nation" by historians. The two conquestalias of the Lanaia and Zamael Systems, Isa Paka and Vinia Lon Vinerna, were both appointed as their respective system's governor-general. Following this practice, it became customary for the primary explorer of a star system to be designated its governor-general under the Domain System, but this was not always the case.
Conquest of the Dremar System
With the settlement of the Lanaia and Zamael Systems proving a great success, the Hegemony turned its focus on another solar system, the Dremar System, a solitary orange dwarf of spectral class K0.5V. Dremar was some distance further from Polytinaris than Lanaia or Zamael, being a little over 6.5 light years away: as such, any exploration fleet would have had to peform two Ghorghosca Drive jumps as the early drives had a range of only 5 light years. Public interest in the Dremar System was not especially high at first, as no planets had been previously known before its exploration unlike the other two systems. However, Dremar had the advantages of being fairly close to Polytinaris and its stellar similarity to Tinaria in particular, which could allow for the presence of planets or moons within its habitable zone with liquid water and potentially even life.
On December 5, 2002, an exploratory fleet of 15 starships including the battlecruiser Tempessis, led by captain Haethum Xitox, warped to the Dremar System to judge its suitability for colonization. Haethum Xitox's division confirmed the existence of a planetary system around Dremar, discovering seven new planets in a close configuration reminiscent of the Kalagors System, but on a smaller scale. The fourth planet of this system, a ringed terrestrial planet with very Earth-like conditions, as well as two large habitable moons orbiting around the system's largest gas giant, greatly increased the desirability of a Dremar colonization effort and attracted interest from multiple high-ranking Star Navy individuals and the Great Quartet/Tessia Gretolia.
Haethum Xitox's fleet returned to Polytinaris roughly a week after first arriving in Dremar and he was greeted with much fanfare upon arrival. Noted by some of his scientists was an unusual abundance of electromagnetic signals emanating from all three of the system's habitable bodies, as well as from multiple other locations in the system - said by some to be signs of a spacefaring alien nation.
First contact with the Kenario Imperio
Theories and hypotheses around the potential of existing intelligent life outside of Polytinaris were confirmed after a second scientific task force sent to the Dremar System on January 17, 2003 was greeted with open arms by the leaders of a nation known as the Kenario Imperio, which knew of their star system as the Kenarito System and had assigned their own names to all of the worlds within it. The Imperio was ruled by not one, but two separate alien species - the quadrupedal crab-like Kenarions, native to the moon Kenarios, and the reptilian Sanquans, native to the terrestrial planet Sanque.
Upon learning about the Kenario Imperio's existence, Tessia von Gretolia almost immediately traveled to the Dremar/Kenarito System and arranged a meeting with its lead governing body, the House of the People. The Kenario Imperio was a constitutional federal republic within a similar realm to the late Polytinaris Commonwealth, but much more stable and long-lived - historical records obtained by the Hegemony found that the Imperio was founded in the 5th century CE. Its government was an unusual system that functioned on direct democracy: there was no one single leader, but rather the House of the People acted as the nation's leaders, deciding on all social and economic issues by means of internal votes.
For most of February 2003, the Tessian Hegemony spent its resources on analyzing the military strength and level of technology possessed by the Imperio. They found that although it did have a military, it was not especially powerful and was vastly inferior, in both technology and weaponry, to that possessed by the Star Navy. One of the four members of the Quartet, Hanelia Siaena, saw a great potential in the usage of kenarion slave labor, as their endurance and strength were exceptional compared to rorks or gesmians. While the Kenario Imperio welcomed most Tessian ships (which disguised their intentions as for scientific study) into its territory, little progress was made towards establishing positive relations between both nations.
Primos Award and beginning of the Tessian-Kenarion War
The next major move in the political relationship between the Tessian Hegemony and the Kenario Imperio was made by the Kenarions on March 10, 2003, inviting the Great Quartet and Tessia to a friendly banquet on the moon of Primos, the second-largest moon of the gas giant known to them as Pyatabes. Only two members of the Quartet actually agreed to attend: those being Thyosius Tigran and Quevestin Garmania, who both arrived at the moon Primos on March 26. This political meeting, referred to as the Primos Award, saw them appearing to be agreeing with the Kenario Imperio's desires of a positive relationship and a tentative alliance between the two powers. Alas though, this was only staged - in reality, Tigran and Garmania were attempting to lure the government of the Imperio into a false sense of security and distract them from what was about to come. On that same day, the other two Quartet members - Hanelia and Teagonia - commanded an immense fleet of 183 Benevolent Star Navy warships, the largest such assembled since the Great Tessian Revolution, and stationed themselves at the edge of the Dremar System within its large outer comet cloud. Once the negotiations and fraternities of the Primos Award had begun on March 27, the fleet moved inwards and attacked a large space station located around the ringed gas giant Ranbov at the edge of the star system. These actions were not immediately noticed by the Imperio's military (they were focused on securing the Primos Award) and were a great success for the Tessian Hegemony yet a tragic defeat for the Kenario Imperio: 9,000 kenarions and sanquans perished in the attack on the Smopp station.
The Kenario Imperio finally learned of the sudden and impending Tessian invasion on March 29, shortly after the ending of the Primos Award. At that point, they dispatched their entire space navy to a defensive position around the Titan-like moon Swio and the gas giant Darifreddy. The Battle of Swio would be a valiant defensive effort by the Kenario Imperio's fleet, which actually numbered larger than the Tessian fleet at 205 ships compared to 181. Nevertheless, the Star Navy's fleet, which included nine Dezirius-class battlecruisers, easily overpowered the Kenarion defenses after a long and intense battle that concluded on April 2. After their defeat, the remaining Kenarion ships retreated to orbit around their home moon of Kenarios. The unprecedented speed of the invading fleet caught many residents of the Imperio by surprise, who subsequently began evacuating to other regions of the star system. A few even stayed back and mounted significant fighting resistance against the Hegemony's planetary troops, but most was dealt with within a few days.
Sundering of Kenarios
Finally on April 9, the forces of the Tessian Hegemony reached orbit around the Kenario Imperio's capital moon of Kenarios. The House of the People had heard of the war and requested that the enemy forces call off their attack, which proved futile and was not heeded. On April 10, after intense debate, the members of the House agreed to an unconditional surrender, which was released on April 11. At first, the Hegemony accepted the surrender, however they quickly retracted their decision after a battalion of 104 sanquan-controlled vessels severely damaged the primary Tessian invasion fleet on April 19, which also resulted in the loss of two Dezirius-class battlecruisers, the Sudidin and the Jaspeszia, which both exploded - with a combined loss of over 3,000 lives - after sustaining critical damage to their propulsion systems. The destruction of the Sudidin and the Jaspeszia marked the first losses of a Dezirius in battle.
In retaliation for disobeying the condition of surrender, Tigran fired the weapon of his own battlecruiser at the surface of Kenarios on April 21, resulting in a monumental cataclysm on a similar level to the Incineratas instigated five years earlier by his colleague Hanelia. Hundreds of millions of kenarions died in the initial laser blast, and over six billion more perished once its shockwave spread across the entire moon - a disaster which was retrospectively known as the Sundering of Kenarios. The government of the Kenario Imperio was especially caught aback by this unexpected attack: almost the entirety of the House of the People was wiped out. The remaining leaders could not again announce a surrender as anarchy spread across Kenarios in the days that followed Thyosius Tigran's blasting of the moon. Once the war had ended, on May 1 Tessia von Gretolia granted the system's primary conquestalia, Haethum Xitox, the role of the Dremar System's governor-general.
Integration of the Kenarions and Sanquans into the Hegemony
Integration of the Kenario Imperio's two native races into the Tessian Hegemony proved a somewhat tedious task. While both races were not inherently violent and easily submitted to orders given to them by aerlon masters, most of the time they could not understand what was being said to them. Translator devices did work; however, they were expensive to manufacture - resources could not allow for the production of tens of billions of translators to be appropriated for the kenarions & sanquans. Furthermore, most aerlons did not know the native tongues, let alone expressed any interest in learning the languages of the aliens as they were seen as "backwards" and "degenerate" by society.
A solution was thought up by Teagonia eg Gretolia and another well-known politician named Morganelle Mindyrette suggesting that a mass education program be conducted with the inhabitants of the system. This plan was put into effect on July 9, 2003, as the Alien Cultures Corrective Education Operation (ACCEO). Over a period lasting roughly eighteen months from mid-2003 until the beginning of 2005, billions of kenarion and sanquan children native to what was once the Imperio were sent to massive state-operated boarding schools and taught various subjects by aerlon teachers, ranging from Polytinaris System history to the national language of Fillorgiar. Most of the material taught in these classes were warped and edited in ways that promoted the Hegemony, Tessia von Gretolia, and the Palaeroni, and was intended to prepare the alien children for a life of slavery. Additionally, pupils who misbehaved were frequently given physical and psychological corporal punishment. Parents who refused to send their kids to the schools set up by the ACCEO faced criminal charges of imprisonment, deportation to a work camp, or execution. While the ACCEO was quite brutal and soulless in its manners of education, it did greatly increase reported non-aerlon labor efficiency and compliance rates nearly 60% by July of 2005.
Colonization of the Cerana and Ekeka Systems
The ongoing process of expansionism then being undertaken by the Hegemony would find its next interstellar acquisitions in the stars of Cerana and Ekeka, two solitary main sequence stars both located about 7 light years from Polytinaris. Cerana was a yellow dwarf of spectral type G5V, being of very similar mass and temperature to the Sun or Kalagors, while Ekeka was a dim red dwarf of type M6V. While planetary systems were not previously known around either of the two stars, both were judged to have some of the highest likelihood for habitability as given by their stellar characteristics.
The first Star Navy expedition into the Cerana System traveled there on August 13, 2003, led by Bhulson von Nivares and his fleet of 18 starships spearheaded by the battlecruiser Koppeln. Upon arriving there, Bhulson's fleet discovered eight new, previously unknown planets around the star - four terrestrial planets and four gas giants each. Of particular interest were three inhabitable moons discovered to orbit the system's third planet, a super-Neptune named Bagyo. These three life-supporting moons all possessed similar characteristics to each other: all being warm, tropical worlds with large volcanoes and frequent tropical cyclone activity. Aside from Bagyo and its three moons, the Cerana System also featured an extremely massive ice giant (Jessalyn), which was heavier than the planet Jupiter but had similar qualities to Neptune, alongside a more typical ringed gas giant, Creonorus. Bhulson Nivares's fleet returned to Polytinaris on August 20, 2003 after conducting various forms of scientific analysis and planetary research within the Cerana System.
Once more proper settlement efforts began during October-November 2003, the Cerana System's three major habitable moons would grow into sprawling population centers with millions of residents. Thanks to their significantly lower gravities compared to planets/moons within the Polytinaris System (a byproduct of all of them being rather small), Bagyo's moons Nozul, Sayasiv, and Oanadnim would become popular retirement destinations for older citizens of the Hegemony. As such, the Cerana System always had one of the highest median age values of any solar system within the Tessian Hegemony. The three moons still attracted a healthy younger population, too, with their balmy climates and numerous tropical islands being well-suited for recreational development purposes. The industry and military of the nation also benefited from the Cerana colonization in the form of large-scale mining colonies set up within the ring systems of Jessalyn & Creonorus, along with on numerous moons of the three outer giant planets. Bhulson himself would foster such development as the system's governor-general, further streamlining the settlement process.
In contrast to Cerana, the settlement of the Ekeka System was decidedly more uneventful. The Ekeka discovery fleet of 11 Star Navy ships arrived at the outer reaches of the red dwarf system on February 10, 2004, led by Szaaul Korinthus and his battlecruiser, the Swarshan. The Swarshan's fleet confirmed the existence of a humble system around Ekeka consisting of seven planets - four terrestrial planets, two gas giants, and one outer ice giant. Of particular note was the system's fourth planet Barbalum, a Saturn-sized gas giant with a very colorful complexion also shared by its ring system (nicknamed "candy world" by the media). Two large Super-Earths named Savannah and Aebrus were also found, orbiting within the habitable zone of their star. Neither planet was, however, truly Earth-like: Savannah was covered in vast deserts and many volcanoes, while Aebrus was an ocean world with a huge ice cap on its night-facing side. Both planets were also tidally locked, creating wide temperature disparities between their day & night sides, and also contributing to a pair of tidal cyclones on Aebrus.
Once Korinthus returned to Polytinaris, he was assigned the duty of Ekeka's governor-general. The subsequent urbanization and settlement of the Ekeka System was routine and archetypical of the Tessian Hegemony's colonization of uninhabited solar systems: domed and open-air colonies were set up on terrestrial worlds, space stations and orbital habitations were erected around the gas giants, and mining outposts began life on their many moons and within planetary ring systems. Like Cerana, it also ran quite efficiently to where the system's colonies were fully functioning and operational by the beginning of 2006.
Colonization of the Prunau System (2004)
The Prunau System, a small system with three gaseous planets located 5.9 ly from Polytinaris, was another Tessian gain during the years 2004-05. Prunau was noteworthy as being the first - and only - brown dwarf star system settled by the Hegemony. This made it unique amongst the other systems in the empire, but unlike many prior or subsequent colonizations, Prunau was developed almost exclusively by the military and the government of the Tessian Hegemony.
Tessia von Gretolia and the Great Quartet chose the Prunau System as one to acquire for several reasons. Firstly, Prunau itself was extremely faint and dim, far below visible limits and emitting much of its light in infrared, making it quite anonymous amongst the other stars near Polytinaris despite it being one of the five closest systems to Tertan itself. Second, Prunau was found to have a wide disk of dust, gas, and rock surrounding it well beyond its known orbiting planets. This disk was found to be rich in metals and other materials essential for warship construction. Lastly, although the planets around Prunau had no or very few moons around them, the dust disk still hosted many small dwarfs and asteroids on which to test large planet-destroying weapons such as the world razer cannons fitted on the Dezirius-class battle cruisers.
The first settlement efforts of the Prunau System began in July of 2004, with early stage unmanned probes and small-scale automated harvesters eventually and quickly giving way to more robust industrialization efforts. Very few civilians were allowed to settle within the Prunau System, with the vast majority of its small population being government officials or soldiers within the Benevolent Star Navy. A large portion of the labor in Prunau's military development was done by non-aerlon slaves, particularly the kenarions and sanquans, and many died as a result of working accidents or out of neglect from their overlords (starvation, sleep deprivation, dehydration, etc.)
Inception of Proving Ground 2763 and the Gretolian Order
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In particular, the Tessian military settlement of the Prunau System would see the creation of a brand-new agency named the Gretolian Order. Commonly referred to as the Order, the agency was intended, as quoted by Tessia herself, as the special weapons development agency and secret military surveillance/policing force that had jurisdiction over the entire Hegemony. The Gretolian Order was founded on August 7, 2004, shortly after the colonization of the Prunau System entered its stage of more permanent, large-scale settlement and stations. The Order's headquarters was the large complex of Imperia Station, a huge diamond-shaped space station located around the Prunau System's outermost planet, the gas giant Notescra. The Order also was initially granted control over a large weapons testing ground known as Proving Ground 2763, located in Prunau's outer dust disk. It contained several dozen minor planets and millions of asteroids that would all be used as experiment subjects in the development of numerous Gretolian Order superweapons, such as the star breakers and the Starfall Stations, that would be utilized in later wars fought by the Tessian Hegemony.
Teagonia eg Gretolia, an experienced strategist and well-revered military commander by that point, would be the leading official of the Gretolian Order, from which its name was derived from her (and by extension, Tessia's as well) surname. However, the other members of the Great Quartet - namely Hanelia Siaena - also had a large role in the agency.
Conquest of the Tainelle System
During 2004, rumors circulating around the Benevolent Star Navy and the Opulenciliom, as well as within the general population, said that the M1V-type red dwarf star Tainelle (located approximately 9.2 light years from the Polytinaris System) was to be the next star system colonized and settled by the Tessian Hegemony. Even in the times of the old Polytinaris Commonwealth, three gas giants had been known around the star, which was about half as massive as the Sun. The second and largest of these giant planets orbited within the star's habitable zone and could therefore be supporting of habitable moons. Furthermore, Tainelle itself was also determined by spectral analysis to have a high stellar metallicity, which could allow for more planets previously unknown. These predictions proved true on September 13, 2004, when a vanguard expedition fleet of 20 vessels led by the Dezirius-class battlecruiser Hafn Moouran and its commander, Ahaghanitkas Loremay, warped to the outskirts of Tainelle System.
Thanks to improved Ghorghosca Star Drive technology, Loremay's fleet only had to perform one drive jump to the outer fringes of the Tainelle System, which at that time was the furthest Ghorghosca warp to date. Once they arrived there, a large and intricate solar system consisting of 11 planets was discovered, among them a fast-rotating oblate gas dwarf, a Hot Jupiter, and multiple habitable Earth-like bodies. Public interest in the settlement of Tainelle, which was already high given the previous rumors and allegations of its establishment as a Tessian colony, only skyrocketed as Ahaghanitkas Loremay and his exploration division embarked on an eight-day long mission of exploration and surveillance of the system to determine the potential value of settlement.
Skirmish at Asaeon/Tainelle V and contact with the Princedom of Halola
Analysis of the Tainelle System ran into a major roadblock on its third day (September 15), when one of the ships in Loremay's fleet, the Pommelia-class cruiser Fleija, was attacked by alien ships and significantly damaged whilst conducting a survey of the system's fifth planet, the habitable Super-Earth Tainelle V. After its captain sent out a distress call to Loremay, the remainder of the vanguard fleet and the Hafn Moouran stationed themselves in orbit around Tainelle V and took a supportive position to the impaired cruiser. For safety concerns, the vanguard fleet decided to cut their exploration of the Tainelle System short and returned home to Polytinaris on only September 16.
The Tessian population was shocked by the unexpected alien attack. Tessia von Gretolia herself denounced the Tainelle V attackers as "immature savages" and decided to return to the Tainelle System with a much larger fleet of 76 vessels on September 21. Once arriving at Tainelle V, the alien ships decided to reveal themselves as belonging to the military of the Princedom of Halola, an advanced spacefaring civilization that laid claim to the entirety of the Tainelle System - which was known to them as the Anastea System - and was inhabited by a species of avian-type sentients named the Halolans, who were originally native to Tainelle V itself, known to them as the planet Asaeon. The leader of the Princedom, the Great Prince Ruanus Regoxius, sincerely apologized for the unexpected attack on the Pommelia, further explaining that the Princedom was just recovering from a major economic depression and was struggling with significant criminal problems within its borders at the time. Once the Halolans knew of the Tessian Hegemony's origin as being from another star system, Prince Regoxius pleaded with the Benevolent Premier to lend political and military support to his nation in order to combat the lawlessness and crime it had faced for several years. The Great Quartet and Tessia had mixed opinions on supporting a clearly less advanced and economically inferior society, but after several weeks of negotiations Tessia agreed to lend support to the Halolans on November 2 with the signing of the Mardukov-Rendettiok Pact.
The Princedom was a constitutional monarchy that functioned on a parliamentary system which gave the ruling monarch a significant degree of power equivalent to a prime minister or legislative house speaker. The nation also practiced a mixed economy that both permitted privately-run corporations (with a fair degree of regulation) and also consisted of larger state-run enterprises. But during the past few decades, the Halolan economy was in a significant slump, prompting the government to undergo waves of nationalization that had turned the Princedom into more of a social democracy. Furthermore, the Princedom also had a unique religious belief system known as Tempestalism, which associated spirituality to tropical cyclones and treated them with great respect and great care. This religious attribution to hurricanes & cyclones also had a negative side to it: halolans generally were less prepared and tended to suffer more destructive consequences from the storms themselves.
Creation of the Tempestia Dispersion Devices
For the remainder of 2004 and the early part of 2005, the Tessian Hegemony and the Princedom of Halola exercised cordial relations with one another, but it was skewed against the Halolans' favor. Although the Hegemony upheld its promises of giving aid to the Princedom, in reality it was merely a ruse to cover their true motives and goals. The positive-leaning relationship between the two civilizations allowed the Benevolent Star Navy and the Gretolian Order to more efficiently analyze the technology, government, and political system of the Princedom and determine how much of a threat its military forces were. The military of the Halolans was stronger, more advanced, and more organized than that of the Kenario Imperio, being roughly equivalent to that of the late Commonwealth's UJAF forces during the Great Tessian Revolution. However, they did possess one weapon of particular note: the Cyclonie Cannons. These were large spiral-shaped weapons mounted on many Halolan space stations and on a few of their capital ship classes that were designed for usage as confusion devices: the Cyclonie Cannons emitted large amounts of gravitational radiation that produced an effect similar to wind gusts, knocking ships out of formation and messing with their sensor systems.
Ruanus Regoxius and the Princedom's military was happy to lend some plans of the Cyclonie Cannons to the Hegemony under the guise of creating an advanced planetary defense system intended for use against asteroids, as well as for scientific study and analysis. Once obtaining the Cyclonie Cannon schematics on December 7, 2004, the Gretolian Order started work on its first weapons development project: the creation of the Tempestia Dispersion Devices. The Tempestia Devices were of similar design and general operational premise as the Cyclonie Cannons, but were more advanced, more powerful, and could be targeted towards a specific area instead of just simply spewing gravitational energy in all directions as the Cyclonie Cannons did. The first Tempestia Dispersion Device, initially fitted to a lightly modified Dezirius-class battlecruiser, was ready on February 20, 2005, being first used against a cluster of asteroids located within Proving Ground 2763 - it was a rousing success and completely dissolved the asteroid group, sending many of the smaller boulders into collisions with larger ones.
Cyclonic Carnage Operation and the Halolan Tropicalypse
The strategic and tactical analysis of the Princedom of Halola entered its next stage on March 19, 2005, when the Gretolian Order revealed a second new creation - the Otavia-class reflective mirror satellite. These tiny spacecrafts were intended to be carried aboard a medium-sized Benevolent Star Navy vessel such as a frigate or a cruiser and deployed in orbit over a planet or moon in very large numbers, of tens of thousands. The Otavias were designed to collect starlight and concentrate its beam onto the oceans of a habitable terrestrial planet or moon, increasing the temperatures of said seas to extremely high levels. Over the following months, dozens of powerful and destructive tropical cyclones would form on said oceans, causing great economic and societal disruption. The inventor of the Otavia-class satellites, the well-known military meteorologist Franklin atl Idalia, created the crafts to be used as psychological weapons against the Halolans and turn their own religion, Tempestalism, right onto them.
Franklin Idalia's plan was put into action and approved by the Great Quartet on April 5, 2005, as the Cyclonic Carnage Operation. The operation had two phases: during the first phase undertaken between April and June 2005, the Tessian Hegemony manufactured over 100,000 Otavia-class reflective satellites and placed them discreetly in orbit around the three major inhabited planets of the Tainelle System: the moon Calaklum and the two terrestrial planets Asaeon and Naioe. The Princedom itself did not know of the Otavias' existence - they were extremely tiny and had advanced stealth technology to shield them from sensors on Halolan ships and stations. The second phase of the Cyclonic Carnage Operation, the Halolan Tropicalypse, lasted for the remainder of 2005; as the Otavia-class satellites and their reflective mirrors warmed the oceans of the three bodies they were deployed over, tropical activity on them began to inexplicably and rapidly increase to dangerous levels, shocking the inhabitants of the planets and causing great upset and panic amongst many more devout Tempestalists and the general public alike. Extremely powerful storms as big as entire continents ravaged their seas and wreaked cataclysmic, total destruction of anything and everything in their paths. Their intensity was also incredible and claimed by many to be "unfathomable" or "plain impossible" - over a dozen storms had winds of over 500, 600, or even 700 miles per hour (theoretically known as a hypercane on Earth) and the very largest and strongest, Infinite Tempestana[7] Harbinger, had winds of 805 mph and a minimum barometric pressure of just 291 mbar when it reached its apex on the surface of Asaeon on October 18.
The Great Betrayal and invasion of the Tainelle System
Hundreds of millions of fatalities and unfathomably large amounts of damage harming the still-fragile economy of the nation were wrought upon the major Halolan population centers on Calaklum, Asaeon, and Naioe. The Princedom sent several pledges for help to the government of the Hegemony - beginning in August and running all the way through November - but they were all refused and declined. With the Princedom's government caught up in dealing with relief efforts from the Halolan Tropicalypse, on November 1 Tessia and the Benevolent Star Navy organized an immense fleet of 281 vessels (among them 27 Dezirius-class battlecruisers) within the Prunau System, the largest such fleet ever assembled by the Hegemony at that time, and immediately warped to the outer edges of Tainelle to prepare for an invasion - the Great Betrayal. Ruanus Regoxius did not learn of the impending attack until after the Battle of Larth on November 5, when a detached subgroup of 80 Tessian warships easily crushed a Halolan battalion of 67, and contributed to heavy civilian casualties after Larth itself was bombarded from orbit.
The Great Prince of Halola met the invasion at the First Battle of Cora on November 9, when his forces actually managed victory over the invading Star Navy, forcing them to retreat back to orbit around Larth. The Great Quartet and Tessia Gretolia had underestimated the sheer fleet size of the Princedom (their fleet at the First Battle of Cora numbered 333, while there were only 195 Tessian vessels), even with their significantly greater firepower and with the Tempestia Devices. But under the leadership of Benevolent Admiral Quevestin Garmania, the Hegemony was victorious in its counteroffensive on November 17-20, the Second Battle of Cora. Commander Garmania started the attack on November 17 by firing long-range Dezirius world razer cannon shots at Cora's two largest moons, Bismarck and Tirpitz, which both were completely destroyed. An estimated 176,000 halolans perished in the obliterations of Bismarck and Tirpitz, and almost 200 of the Princedom's warships were significantly damaged, including Ruanus Regoxius's flagship, the Zelphegor. With the fleet weakened and morale-scarred by the initial attack, Garmania and their Benevolent Star Navy fleet could effectively take down the remaining vessels with less resistance; even still despite having a smaller fleet than the Princedom's navy, with a battalion of 157 vessels including 16 battle cruisers. The Tempestia Dispersion Devices were used extensively during the Second Battle of Cora. A tactic popularized during the battle was the "Quevestin Maneuver", which involved flying a Tempestia-equipped vessel into the center of an asteroid field and then activating the device in close proximity to an opponent.
Meanwhile, in the inner system, a smaller, separate fleet led by Ahaghanitkas Loremay mounted a long battle of attrition around the moon Calaklum for over a month from December 1 until January 4: the 91 Tessian warships (which included 6 battlecruisers) erected an impenetrable blockade around the moon by placing four groups of one battlecruiser and roughly 20 other ships in carefully aligned orbits of the moon, whilst the remaining two battlecruisers and supports assumed positions in the moon's Lagrange points around its parent planet, the Jupiter-sized gas giant Tempest. Over the duration of the blockade, the citizens of Calaklum, who had already sustained great losses and were severely in need after the dozens of storms within the Halolan Tropicalypse, were cut off from friendly supply vessels and also could not communicate with outside forces either, as Loremay had deployed a constellation of transmission-jamming satellites around the moon. The governor of Calaklum, an experienced and wise male halolan named Aezragh Feouni, was defiant at first, even attempting to crack the blockade with a heroic but ultimately futile breakthrough attempt on December 16, but eventually gave up on January 4 and surrendered to the Tessian Benevolent Star Navy.
The two fleets converged upon the nerve center of the Princedom, their capital planet and originl home world of Asaeon, for one final fight on January 11. Ruanus Regoxius and what remained of his nation's space navy - a mere 78 warships, almost all of which were damaged in some form - limped to defensive positions around their home planet. For the first time, the Halolans extensively utilized their own Cyclonie Cannons, but they were greatly inferior to the Tessian Tempestia Dispersion Devices and were quite weak against the large, heavily armed Dezirii. The only notable usage of a Cyclonie Cannon was the one aboard the civilian Edvard-Heather Station, a roughly kilometer-sized ring station that on January 12 managed to overload the sub-light engines on the Dezirius-class Fusouer by repurposing their cannon into a mass-energy laser and firing it directly at the battlecruiser. The Princedom of Halola greatly congratulated the captain of Edvard-Heather initially, although celebration soon turned the opposite as another battlecruiser, the Geassium, destroyed the station half a day later with the loss of a hefty 220,000 lives. Knowing that he and his navy were fighting a no-win situation, Regoxius announced submission to the Benevolent Premier herself, in person, on January 16. In one final act of desperation, the former Great Prince de-orbited the Zelphegor and crashed it into the surface of the Halolan capital city of Fionnica, creating an impact crater roughly 30 km wide and causing over 8 million fatalities - all of which were his own people. Chief Tessian propagandist Leialennia Gretolia mocked the Zelphegor de-orbiting as "dishonorable", and many other commanders mocked the incident as showing halolans as cowards.
Integration of the Halolans into the Hegemony
Thanks to experiences learned from the integration of the kenarions & sanquans, the addition of the halolan species into the Hegemony proved a smoother, more efficient process. Their inherent capabilities of flight proved useful in manufacturing jobs and other menial tasks where high places needed to be reached. Aerlon settlement of the Tainelle System went a little slower than that of the Dremar System, however: widespread crime and economic insecurity were the two largest impediments to colonization. Thanks to his actions in exploring the system and in the Tessian-Halolan war, Ahghanitkas Loremay was given the role of the system's governor-general - he would frequently use force to show up to the bandits and enacted a policy of "zero tolerance" for interplanetary piracy. Loremay was quite strict on the halolans because of this, calling them "unruly" and "misbehaved". Particularly noteworthy were his harsh sentences to criminals and other lawbreakers: life sentence or deportation to a work camp was the most common form of punishment for any sort of crime. Despite the brutality, it worked: by late 2006, criminal activity within the Tainelle System was barely a fifth of its former level under the Princedom of Halola.
Tessia von Gretolia and the Great Quartet, in working with Loremay, also seeked to eradicate the former Princedom's religion of Tempestalism as its rituals were determined to be interfering with the lives of the halolans who practiced it. Starting after the passage of the Belief in the Doubt Act on April 23, 2006, millions of Tempestalists were collected and sent to special re-education schools under the false guise that they were shelters from the now-commonplace hurricanes and cyclones on their home planets. At these schools, halolans were brutally suppressed of their beliefs by any means necessary and were instructed to treat the weather as something scientific and not something that is associated with spiritual practice. Tempestalist shrines to particularly damaging systems were also vandalized and destroyed by individuals of the Benevolent Army and local police forces. The suppression of the religion undertaken by the Belief in the Doubt act meant that by the start of 2007, Tempestalism was almost completely extinct. In its place, a policy of state atheism was legally promoted and enforced. Some teachers also converted their subjects into pagan-like beliefs revolving around the Palaeroni’s empire and the Hegemony as the true and chosen successor to it.
Effects of the Four Great Disasters
See here: Four Great Disasters
Colonization of the Utanium System
As a result of the Four Great Disasters and the subsequent recovery efforts from them, the Hegemony undertook relatively few colonizations during the late 2000s. The only new star system acquired during this period was the triple Utanium System located about 9.9 ly from Polytinaris. Utanium consisted of three small red dwarf stars - Hertis (an M2V dwarf with about one-third of the Sun's mass), Hectis (an M4V one-quarter the size of the Sun) and the tiny Hantis (an ultracool M7V red dwarf). All three stars had been known prior to exhibit unusual and then-unexplained variability, which attracted the significant interest of the Hegemony's scientific community towards the end of 2007 and into 2008 as potentially pointing to the existence of planetary systems around all three stars.
Exploration of the Utanium System commenced on March 9, 2008, when a relatively large fleet of 33 vessels co-led by three commanders - Kanavaia Saldis, Sanomde Saldis, and Loneos Saldis - all warped to its outer edges and embarked on a triple pronged exploration of the star system. The Saldis Siblings were some of the largest proponents pushing for Utanium exploration and were chosen to spearhead the system's vanguard fleet by Tessia herself on account of this in addition to for their experience in the Tessian-Halolan War two years prior. When Kanavaia, Sanomde, and Loneos all arrived, theories of rich planetary systems lying within Utanium were confirmed - combined together, all component stars had a total of 28 planets as detected by the Saldis Siblings: ten each around Hertis and Hantis, but only eight around Hectis. The Hertian and Hectian planetary systems all had a large amount of ringed gas giants which provided plentiful mining opportunity. Most importantly, however, all three red dwarfs had bodies which could support life and liquid water on their surfaces. The Saldis Siblings spent almost two weeks exploring the bountiful star system and returned to Polytinaris on March 20 to great celebration and publicity. In the granting of Interstellar Domain status on Utanium, the Benevolent Premier strayed slightly from tradition and made the Saldis Siblings - the triple conquestalias - co-governing governor-generals of the Utanium System.
Proper settlement of the three component Utanium systems began during May of 2008 and progressed throughout the rest of 2008 and into much of 2009. Since they were not redirecting any resources to other systems, the Hegemony was able to put more focus and time into fully industrializing and building colonies on and around the many Utanian planets and moons. Huge mining complexes were erected in the rings of the many giant planets in the system, and open-air colonies thrived on the most hospitable planets and moons within the system. People of all ages flocked to settle in a wave known as the Grand Utanian Migration, creating a diaspora of aerlons from all over the Tessian Hegemony's several star systems. Over the years, Utanium would grow into one of the largest and most prosperous colonies inside of the entire Tessian Hegemony thanks to its high degree of habitability and rich resources. Since all three component dwarfs of Utanium were quite old, they experienced relatively little of the instability that is typical of other red dwarfs. Furthermore, since life already existed within each of the systems, little time was needed to import and bioengineer plants and animals from the Polytinaris System.
By the late 2010s, Utanium had a population in the billions. At its peak at the end of the 21st century, the system had a total of 76 billion inhabitants: they were distributed rather equally amongst all three stars but with a slight favoring towards Hertis. A distinctive and unquestionably endemic culture that fostered self-reliance, diversity, and inclusivity developed amongst its citizens that was regarded as "like none other" by historians of the period. Alas though, the glory days of Utanium would reach their end in the Ironia-Ursonberg Wars of 2114-22, where during 2119 the entire Hantis System was sterilized by a Tessian superweapon, tragically ending the lives of over 20 billion - the deadliest such mass casualty event in the entire history of the Polytinaris Spur up to and after that point.
Interstellar Worker's Rights Movement and suppression
After the invasion of the Princedom of Halola, the Tessian Hegemony began to more extensively utilize non-aerlon slave labor on a stage it had not done before. Each species would customarily also be associated with a specific job or trade: for instance, the kenarions usually handled heavy lifting tasks or those that required great endurance or manual effort. They also worked extremely long hours with virtually no rest and were permitted very short breaks for food or to use the restroom. Additionally, individuals who misbehaved were given brutal physical punishment by their masters. Some stricter slave handlers simply executed their subjects when they stepped out of line, and others would make them go days or weeks without basic necessities. The conditions within the Hegemony's work camps, as well as within the state-owned factory complexes constructed all throughout its component star systems, were atrocious, appalling, and horrid for their residents and workers.
The Four Great Disasters of 2006 and 2007 added further strain to the already horrible living conditions experienced by non-aerlon laborers. Those within the Genenia System, especially the gesmians, were exposed to hazardous, even lethal electromagnetic radiation that greatly increased the risk of cancers and disease within the species. Meanwhile, the immense amounts of cyclonic activity on the planet Tertan destroyed many working camps and killed off a large majority of the slave population, who endured terrible conditions and received very little, if any, government aid. The calamities of the Great Disasters led to a significant increase in the raise of slave escapes, who were helped by free non-aerlons and managed to flee to safe havens in other star systems, particularly the newly-colonized Utanium System, which was rather lenient on its disciplinary procedures to escapees around that time. The problem of slave mutiny grew worse throughout the first half of 2008, and it was beginning to adversely impact the efficiency of the Tessian Hegemony’s industry. However, this changed significantly on July 11, 2008, when the Kegeos-Krasyana Act was passed into law by the Benevolent Premier. Under the new law, it became legal for escaped slaves to either be returned to their owners at no expense or be sent to penal camps and subjected to conditions far worse than they had previously received. Additionally, the law made the crime of assisting a non-aerlon slave to freedom without emancipation punishable by execution or deportation.
In retaliation to the passage of the Kegeos-Krasyana law, a few days later on July 15 several major non-aerlon rights leaders and groups banded together to form a combined organization known as the Interstellar Worker’s Rights Movement, led primarily by the rork Ficcia Floris, who was in fact an escaped slave who had emigrated and hidden underground within the Zamael System. Branded and advertised to the Tessian government as a worker’s union (which, surprisingly, was perfectly legal despite it consisting almost entirely of non-aerlons) the IWRM was the primary stager of a series of various voluntary protests, sit-ins, walkouts, and worker strikes amongst non-aerlons. Even some more sympathetic aerlons joined the organization, including a man named Dorianos Heranis, who became a hero amongst the movement and a great menace to the government when he was killed by police on September 6, 2008 for expressing his support for the organization. While the IWRM’s ideals and motives were peaceful in intent, the Tessian government still deemed them hostile and turned its leaders into grotesque targets of negative propaganda and violence. Civilians were also encouraged and allowed to attack the members of the perceived rebellion themselves, receiving great reward and support from government agencies and the Benevolent Army. Despite harsh opposition, Ficcia Floris and her colleagues did not cease their efforts of civil disobedience in their fight for working rights, and in some reports even increased activity across the Hegemony in earnest throughout the middle of 2009.
After continuing for almost two years, the Interstellar Worker’s Rights Movement finally met its end on May 28, 2010 in the infamous Leilei Sacking incident, the culmination and final fruition of a large-scale manhunt conducted by the Gretolian Order and one of its most influential members, Exilium von Florazelvia, a feared enforcer of law and a close ally of its leader Teagonia Gretolia. The Leilei incident emerged after it became known to the Order that the Interstellar Worker's Rights Movement had planned a series of large-scale protests against the regime and had even uncovered evidence of hints to a potential rebellion against the Hegemony. Once it was clear what had become of the plans, on May 26 Exilium von Florazelvia led a fleet of 61 starships including a Dezirius-class battlecruiser, the Stellar Sovereign, which had been specially upgraded with more heavy weaponry, into the Zamael System and stationed them in orbit around Leilei. The local governor-general of the planet, Vinia Lon Vinerna, was then subsequently revealed to be complacent with the IWRM and was in fact even supporting them economically & politically. Lon Vinerna denied all accusations and assembled a fleet of 44 ships of their own, which included their own flagship, the Grauseul. An intense battle took place in orbit of Leilei between Exilium Florazelvia and Vinia Lon Vinerna's two starship groups throughout May 27 and into most of May 28, but clearly ended in the favor of Exilium with the Stellar Sovereign's greater firepower.
Vinia Lon Vinerna finally surrendered to the Gretolian Order and was arrested in the morning hours of May 28. Once they learned of this, the IWRM's leaders (among them Ficcia Floris herself) were furious and ordered to start the protests early, causing significant disruption in the many major cities of Leilei as well as on orbital habitats around it and even on the neighboring planet of Usah, another inhabited terrestrial planet. In retaliation, Exilium von Florazelvia instigated a large-scale conventional bombardment of the planet - the main event of the Sacking itself. Over several hours, cities and other settlements on Leilei were decimated by the constant barrage of laser cannons unleashed by the attacking fleet. Massive firestorms started that lasted for multiple days, bringing even more damages and deaths & also blanketing the planet in a sooty gray haze for several weeks. Several thousands of non-aerlon protesters died in the events of the sacking, with the remaining majority being arrested and imprisoned, deported to work camps, or executed.
After the Leilei Sacking, the Interstellar Worker's Rights Movement rapidly lost traction and collapsed; its major leaders (including Ficcia Floris) had either died or had been jailed by the Gretolian Order, and without them the non-aerlons grew much more submissive out of both a lack of stimulation as well as a fear of a potential repeat of the Leilei Sacking if a large protest movement were to get the notoriety of the Hegemony's government again.
Conquest of the Belza System
As early as mid-2009 the Benevolent Star Navy began setting its sights on resuming large-scale interstellar acquisitions at a similar pace to what they had been doing in the mid-2000s, which had been interrupted by the Four Great Disasters and later the Interstellar Worker's Rights Movement, the latter ongoing at that time. Tessia von Gretolia and the Great Quartet were unusually open to suggestions from the generals within the Star Navy as well as from those part of the Gretolian Order. An idea pitched by Star Navy captain Clenacht Casnalum on December 3, 2009 suggested the star Belza, a G-type yellow subgiant located 8.2 light years from the Polytinaris System. Belza was at first a doubtful target due to the star's advanced stage of evolution and lack of any previously known planets keeping initial chances of habitability rather low. Tessia eventually cleared the idea on August 17, 2010, paving the way for the organization of an expeditionary vanguard fleet consisting of 16 ships and the Dezirius-class battlecruiser Ilympia a few months later on October 24, 2010.
By the time it had returned to the Polytinaris System on November 1, Clenacht’s fleet had discovered nine new planets within the Belza System, including two within its habitable zone. The fourth planet of the system, a ringed super-Earth planet, was a hothouse arid world in a “moist greenhouse” environment - a thick atmosphere saturated with water vapor and starved of carbon dioxide, raising temperatures to the point where most of its lifeforms had retreated to the milder polar regions - its tropics had become much too inhospitable and were filled with salt flat basins of dried-up seas. By contrast, the fifth planet of Belza seemed much more inviting and forgiving than its neighbor but was rather cold and also had an arid climate.
Contact with the Union of Irgarius and discovery of Gael Genesis
Also discovered within the Belza System during Clenacht Casnalum's survey of the system was a new extrapolytinarian[6] nation: the Union of Irgarius, a democracy which knew of its home system as the star Pongsona and was populated by the turtle-like Irgakkedi (singular: irgakked). The leader of the nation, a male irgakked named Jeke Nobek, was glad to notiate initial relations with the explorers and even lend some support from his own interplanetary navy, the Irgarian Stellar Self-Defense Force (ISSDF) in the Tessian exploration of the Belza System and its several planets, in some cases saving days in time incurred by interplanetary navigation.
Nobek also offered to show one of the largest technological advancements his nation's society had created to Clenacht and his fleet: the massive orbital terraforming station known as Gael Genesis, a 45-kilometer-long orbital habitat that housed a highly advanced heat-generating laser system that had been constructed by the Irgarius government in order to terraform the system's fifth planet of Hamandria. The irgakkedi were a very old civilization: they had developed spaceflight technology almost 50,000 years ago and first evolved as a species many millions of years before that. In more recent millennia, their original home world of Irgako was experiencing great climate disruption caused by the increasing luminosity of its star, becoming increasingly more desertic and hostile to sentient life. Therefore, the several nations that controlled the planet (and their colonies that they had claimed throughout the system) decided to unify into one government and devote all of their resources to building the Gael Genesis and terraforming Hamandria in order to make it the new home of the irgakkedi species.
The four Benevolent Admirals of the Great Quartet, and the Benevolent Premier herself, were especially keen on learning more about Gael Genesis and how it worked. Specifically, the Benevolent Star Navy was aware that the Irgarians could potentially weaponize it and repurpose its laser energy to destroy an entire fleet or the entire surface of a planet in a similar fashion to the world razer cannon possessed by the battlecruisers of the Dezirius-class, however after later analysis Tessia stated that "with its primitive technology, the chances of it actually succeeding were slim" as said in a public address on October 29. They were also interested in the potential prospect of acquiring its technology and building more stations to terraform other planets located within the Tessian Hegemony.
Creation and release of the Oxima-BR virus
Since the previous Cyclonic Carnage Operation and resulting Tropicalypse against the Halolans in 2005 proved successful at lowering their morale and making their military easier to fight, Tessia decided she wanted to try again and initially weaken the Irgarians before launching a full-scale invasion. The Irgarian ISSDF was on par with that of Halola’s in terms of strength and technology, but it did have an advantage in its nation having a stronger economy and greater levels of industrialization and material output - although its economy was still dwarfed by that of the Hegemony.
On December 14, 2010, a mastermind within the Gretolian Order named Eslyvia Oxima put forward a brand-new proposal and revealed her latest creation: a genetically engineered virus named Oxima-BR. Oxima-BR was an otherwise fairly typical viral pathogen, but it possessed one unique trait: it was specifically designed to infect members of the irgakkedi species, causing a multitude of extreme symptoms and almost guaranteed death only a few days after initial contraction. Although Tessia von Gretolia was at first against using bio-weapons - stating that they were much too dangerous and very resource-intensive, taking up valuable space in labs that could be used for more "practical" means - her mind was quickly swayed when Esylvia Oxima showed her a demonstration of the virus's capabilities on a group of interned irgakkedi on December 27. Once they had been infected with Oxima-BR, the irgakkedi quickly became morbidly ill within half a day, all showing high fevers and excessive coughing amongst other symptoms. Of the 10 test subjects, only one of them was still alive five days later on January 1.
Impressed with Esylvia's creation, the Benevolent Premier ordered the mass production of the virus and its release amongst the irgakkedi population of the Belza System. Thanks to Oxima-BR itself already being extremely replicative, it was deemed ready to be set free into the Union of Irgarius by only February 22, 2011, and was officially released aboard an unmanned Tessian science satellite on March 5. The first reported case of Oxima-BR was confirmed in the Union on March 7. The virus was designed to spread incredibly quickly, far faster than any natural virus - a trait that allowed it to wreak havoc upon the Union in its earnest. By the middle of April, the Irgarian government had ordered full-scale lockdowns of every major city, settlement, and space station within the Belza System as cases of Oxima-BR surged to the hundreds of millions. The healthy population was particularly dissatisfied with the Union's poor response to the pandemic: by late July anti-government protests and insurrections led by angry citizens spread across the nation, calling for improved protection measures and for the end of the lockdowns which had virtually shut down their entire society.
Gaelian mutiny and early battles of the Tessian-Irgarian War
In the midst of the carnage brought by Oxima-BR, the Tessian Hegemony began their true attack on the Union of Irgarius on July 25, 2011, when Tessia von Gretolia announced a declaration of war on the Union. A week later on July 31, a Benevolent Star Navy fleet of 341 vessels including 33 Dezirius-class battlecruisers (led by Benevolent Admiral Thyosius Tigran) warped to the Belza System's outermost planet, the ringed ice giant Layla, and began an assault on its largest moon, Braxanau. The Battle of Braxanau was an easy victory for Tigran - the moon itself had a very weak defensive fleet consisting of only 40 Irgarian vessels, and all of them were operating with skeleton crews in order to prevent the spread of Oxima-BR. Tigran also racked up further victories for the Benevolent Star Navy around two more of Belza's outer gas giants, at Okem (August 5) and Fellaenas (August 11), sustaining few losses to Irgarius's weakened and unprepared defensive forces. Captains in the Belza attack flotilla noted a clear lack of coordination and little fighting desire amongst the ISSDF - an effect of Oxima-BR.
With the Hegemony's invasion seeming insurmountable to the ISSDF, the high commander of the Irgarian military, Veragn av Voln, presented an ingenious plan to leader Nobek on August 12: arm the Gael Genesis and use it as a giant weapon to destroy a large portion of the Tessian fleet. Nobek approved the plan; the next day, av Voln ordered all personnel on the Hamandria orbital station to begin preparing the station for battle. However, the captain of Gael Genesis, a female irgakked named Quovara Linisa, blatantly refused the direction stating she did not want the orbital complex, a creator of life on the surface of its parent planet, to be used for destructive purposes.
Benevolent Admiral Tigran and the Tessian Hegemony's battle force arrived in orbit of Hamandria late on August 13 to find the station in the midst of a mutiny led by Linisa and a large majority of its crew. In a rare sign of cooperation with non-aerlons Tigran offered salvation to the Gaelian mutineers on August 14, yet Linisa declined. Knowing that the Hegemony would likely benefit from an intact & undamaged station to more easily reverse-engineer its capabilities, instead of destroying it, he instead ordered that the station be boarded and all crew aboard it - mutiny-affiliated or not - be either captured or killed. Over the following two days, approximately 185,000 Star Navy marines subsequently raided and fought for control of Gael Genesis: Linisa instructed her crew to show "no mercy" towards the invading Star Navy.
Surrender of Irgarius
On August 24, the remaining 308 Benevolent Star Navy warships reached Irgako, the fourth planet of the Belza System and the home planet of Irgarius. Veragn av Voln had prepared a defensive fleet of 156 Irgarian vessels in orbit of Irgako to counter the impending Tessian threat. While his force was a great deal stronger and more organized than those of the earlier battles around Belza's outer planets, it still suffered from understaffing to prevent the spread of Oxima-BR.
Much to av Voln’s surprise, early in the morning on August 24, just as Benevolent Admiral Tigran’s fleet was starting to arrive around the planet, the head of the Union’s government Jeke Nobek unexpectedly broadcasted formal surrender to the Tessian Hegemony’s invasion and ordered his forces to withdraw and submit their full cooperation to the Star Navy. Veragn av Voln at first was reluctant to relinquish control over his fleet, but he eventually gave in after Tigran’s flagship fired a warning shot at a section of the ISSDF defense fleet, heavily damaging one of their cruisers and causing several hundred injuries. Most of av Voln’s comrades also submitted to the Hegemony in relatively little time; the few ships and crews who did not, however, were hastily destroyed, killed, & otherwise dealt with. For his achievements of Belza’s initial exploration, Clenacht Casnalum was appointed as the system’s governor-general under the Interstellar Domain System.
Order 222 and the Irgakkedi Genocide
After successfully asserting its sovereignty over the entirety of the Belza System, the Tessian Hegemony set to its usual work of usurping its native inhabitants into their society, a process occasionally referred to as Tessification by historians. However, within only weeks the nation found that the irgakkedi proved inadequate for manual labor due to the lingering effects of the Oxima-BR virus still wreaking its toll upon their population. Clenacht’s government had authorized and attempted several cleanup operations, but all were unsuccessful, consuming resources and manpower needed for other sections of Tessian industry. During October and November 2011, a mass vaccination program using an internally developed antidote was launched in some of the system’s larger settlements & space colonies, but it too proved fruitless as the virus mutated much too quickly and spread far too fast to allow for a reasonably viable vaccine. Furthermore, the native population of irgakkedi was steadily declining, creating a progressively smaller work pool for the Hegemony to utilize for its own purposes.
Desperate for assistance, Clenacht Casnalum eventually realized that it would take all of the Hegemony’s biotechnological resources just to simply keep the non-aerlon irgakkedi alive. Finally on January 16, 2012, he decided to hand the situation over their species over to the Gretolian Order. Now assigned to the task was the infamously vile commander Erick Corbanides - almost immediately after the transfer, Corbanides put into action Order 222, an extremely secret and highly dangerous operation in which the Gretolian Order resorted to simply eradicating the entire Irgakkedi species in a massive genocide that lasted from 2012 until the early months of 2015. Information about Order 222 is poorly documented and was kept classified until well after the Hegemony’s fall. What little is known however, is that Gretolian agents would first conduct mass roundups of irgakkedi, then resort to a variety of methods of mass murder such as collective crushing, asphyxiation, gassing, or even simply sending ships full of irgakkedi into Belza itself or into one of the system’s gas giants. Despite its brutality and apathy, the Irgakkedi genocide of Order 222 proved surprisingly successful: by 2015, their species had in effect been rendered totally extinct.
Colonization of the Xaoeter, Alenn, and Tymia Systems
The next three solar systems targeted for Tessian colonization were the M4.5V-type red dwarf Xaoeter, the G3V yellow dwarf Alenn, and the M8V red dwarf Tymia. All three stars were, unlike several previous acquisitions, previously known to have orbiting planets around them: Xaoeter (located 8.7 light years from Polytinaris) was known to have three giant planets around it; the first and second of which lying within the habitable zone and proving of particular interest for the discovery of habitable moons. Alenn (a little under 11 light years away from Polytinaris) had been confirmed to host a massive super-Jupiter on a distant orbit. And lastly, another large gas giant along with two small rocky worlds were known around Tymia (located 9.1 light years away from Polytinaris).
Exploration of the Xaoeter System initially progressed most rapidly, for the characteristics of its previously discovered planetary system. The first exploratory fleet of 22 starships made its way to Xaoeter on March 31, 2012, commanded by Benevolent Star Navy captain Cernigii Veiulia and her own Dezirius, the battlecruiser Transetaria. By the time her exploration of the system concluded a week later on April 6, the fleet had found three new planets - two ice giants and a third inner ocean world - along with a large atmospheric moon around the largest gas giant of the system detected to have hospitable conditions. Regardless, this moon (later named Isabelle, after one of the ship captains within Cernigii Veiulia’s vanguard fleet)[8] was quite cold, with much of its surface covered in snow, and frequently experienced powerful blizzards & other forms of extreme weather, possessing a similar climate to the moon Lielo in the Polytinaris System. Additionally, Xaoeter itself was an active star and frequently released hazardous stellar flares; these luckily posed little threat to Isabelle thanks to the very strong magnetic field of its parent planet named Kiko.
As time progressed, Isabelle would develop into a popular destination for skiers, snowshoers, and other winter activity enthusiasts thanks to its climate being well-suited for the conduction of said activities. It also attracted a healthy amount of scientific attention for its abundance in geothermal vents and high tectonic activity driven by tidal forces of the gas giant Isabelle orbited. Besides Kiko and Isabelle, the remainder of the Xaoeter System remained relatively sparsely settled, although large ring systems around several of its planets became hotspots for resource extraction and exploitation. Even the aforementioned inner ocean world, named Zidilio, was too hot & had a too thick atmosphere for sustainable habitation; as such, it was generally left alone in all respects other than the occasional unmanned robotic probe. Cernigii, being passionate about winter sports herself, was conscious in boosting Isabelle’s role as a tourist destination for the purpose of positive propaganda towards the Xaoeter star system.
The Tymia System, with its largest planet thought to orbit within the habitable zone - an abnormality, given the star being less than one-tenth the mass of the Sun - was placed roughly in the middle of the Benevolent Star Navy's priority list. A vanguard fleet of 19 starships led by the battlecruiser Hegemonias and its captain, Teledra Tessarosa, warped to the outer edge of Tymia on July 2, 2012. Shortly after arrival, Teledra confirmed the existence of two new planets, one being a hydrocarbon-rich terrestrial world and the other an ice giant with a modestly sized ring system. As with Xaoeter, habitable moons were also found within the system: in particular, two hospitable, quite Earth-like moons were discovered to orbit around the system's third and largest planet. Due to Tymia's profound dimness and its strong reddish hue, the two moons later named as Jod & Eyov hosted plant life tinged a deep purple in order to most efficiently absorb their star's light. Teledra's fleet returned to Polytinaris on July 10; settlement efforts began during the fall of 2012 and lasted into most of 2013. Development of colonies within the Tymia System was humdrum and relatively uneventful; unlike Xaoeter, Tymia was much more stable and was not as prone to producing dangerous flares thanks to its greater age and resulting inherent stellar stability. Nevertheless, the two moons of Jod and Eyov still attracted healthy inflows of settlers hoping to start a new life within a new star system.
Alenn, being more distant than Xaoeter or Tymia & also not known at that time to host any potentially habitable worlds, would not be first visited until June 27, 2013, when a discovery group of 18 Benevolent Star Navy vessels led by commander Helmura Akemde and the Dezirius-class Akodam arrived at Alenn after departing from the outer limits of the Tinaria System. What they found there was a massive system of an impressive 14 planets, one of the greatest numbers known. Subsequent planetary analysis found a whopping seven life-supporting worlds: among them, a balmy tropical ringed world & multiple large gas giant moons. Of most especial interest however was a system of binary planets (both also with native lifeforms) named Ivan and Joan, who attracted great attention from the scientific community on account of their extremely unusual, previously thought impossible nature. Because of the Alenn System's large number of worlds, it took Helmura Akemde's fleet over two weeks to explore the system in full - alas, she still became somewhat of a celebrity amongst the Tessian population upon her return on July 12.
Thanks to its very high number of habitable planets and vast array of available resources - Alenn had a total of six ringed planets, in addition to a large Oort Cloud-like comet field located at its outermost reaches - Alenn would grow into one of the Tessian Hegemony's largest interstellar colonies over the following decades. By 2040, Alenn already had a population of twenty billion, and it would eventually peak at well over 85 billion during the 2090s - the highest population for a single star system ever annexed into the Hegemony. Because of the Alenn System's vastness, appointed governor-general Helmura would devote a rather long time to the successful settlement of the star system, with initial colonization efforts lasting well into early 2016. Alenn also saw a significant amount of off-planetary colonization as well: large-scale space outposts would in particular be developed around the gas giant Eltoneore and its four habitable moons, as the planet's large ring system provided plentiful resources for ship construction. Over the following decades, the Benevolent Star Navy would turn the four moons into one of their largest centers for crew training with the famous Oconee Island Academy, a complex that would go on to train several famous figures later on in its history.
Colonization of the Calexi System
Large amounts of resources and manpower being poured into settlement of the aforementioned three solar systems (especially the Alenn System) meant that the next Tessian acquisition did not start until early 2015, when the Hegemony set its sights on the binary Calexi System located 12.4 light years from Polytinaris. Calexi was a double system consisting of a later K-type star and an early M-type star: the primary component of the system, a K7V star, was known to have a large system of mainly gas giant planets around it, two of which were known to orbit within the habitable zone. Its companion, a smaller and redder M3V dwarf that orbited it at a distance of over 3,000 astronomical units, did not have a planetary system but however was host to a wide asteroid belt rich in metallic elements.
Exploration of the Calexi System was delegated to Benevolent Star Navy captain Morganelle Mindyrette, at that time a young commander who was quite popular with the Star Navy for her skillful negotiating tactics, but who was also controversial for being the daughter of Raffaeligus Mindyrette, a notorious and outspoken Tessian opponent who promoted a right-wing ideology directly against the Hegemony's leftist government. Nevertheless, the Benevolent Premier and the Quartet (save for Hanelia) approved Morganelle's proposal to lead an exploratory fleet into the Calexi System. The vanguard fleet, led by Morganelle’s flagship (the Ottaviani) & consisting of a total 21 Tessian Hegemony starships, departed the Polytinaris System and arrived at Calexi on August 1, 2015. Not long after warping to Calexi, Morganelle’s fleet discovered a new inner rocky planet and confirmed the existence of extensive moon systems surrounding the primary star’s many gaseous worlds. They also detected two potentially habitable worlds: a tropical ringed moon orbiting around the system’s second planet & a habitable planet in a Lagrangian trojan orbit of its outer habitable giant. Calexi sparked substantial interest for harboring an unusual ringed moon as well as for its several colorful giant planets regarded as particularly picturesque by astronomers and the general public alike.
Discovery and annexation of the Ilexians
Morganelle Mindyrette’s fleet also recorded abnormal electromagnetic activity from the aforementioned ringed habitable moon during a survey on August 4. Intrigued by the possibility of making contact with a new species previously unknown to the Hegemony, Morganelle herself decided to pay a visit to the moon two days later and subsequently discovered the Ilexians, a race of short, amphibious bipeds who were excellent swimmers in the warm, oceanic environment of their home world, which they had named Ilexi. Unlike the other species the Hegemony had discovered up to that point, the Ilexians were a solely planetary species and lacked space travel technology. Their world was also divided into several semi-autonomous provinces that had their own heterogeneous populations and cultures. Morganelle was quick to note the Ilexians’ pacifism and good-natured attitude and even happily accepted a gift (a species of flower-like plant native to Ilexi) from one of their leaders, an Ilexian woman named Bobo Snazzae. Alas, the visit of Ilexi did not last forever and Morganelle departed from the moon on August 9 after spending three days mingling with the Ilexians. She and her fleet left the Calexi System and returned to Polytinaris on August 13; upon arrival, in keeping with customary practice Morganelle was appointed as the new governor-general of the entire star system she had just explored.
Since the Ilexians were at a substantially lower technological level than the Hegemony and possessed no such armed capabilities to mount a significant fight to it, the top commanders of the Benevolent Star Navy and the Great Quartet decided against launching a full-scale military offensive against the Calexi System, agreeing that it would be wasteful of resources that could be used elsewhere where they were needed more. Furthermore, the Ilexians were a peaceful species and many expressed significant alarm & submission towards the Hegemony upon witnessing their far superior capabilities. Therefore, compared to the other civilizations encountered by the Tessian Hegemony, the annexation of Ilexi was quite uneventful. The Ilexians were quietly integrated into the nation’s non-aerlon population while the other worlds in the same star system, which were all unpopulated, were settled and developed in the same manner as an otherwise uninhabited star system.
As Calexi’s governor-general, Morganelle Mindyrette would attract notoriety later in history for her attempts at granting and maintaining the Ilexians’ status free from the influence of the speciesist society of the Hegemony itself. Additionally, she was unusually accepting of Tessian political fugitives and government opponents as well as even other non-aerlons; actions that occasionally aroused suspicion amongst the government and the military, yet Morganelle kept these quiet by means of various bribes, blackmail schemes, and other sketchy tactics to ensure the Ilexians were safe and happy.
Despite the rapid growth of the Tessian Hegemony over the past fifteen years and the substantial upscaling of the Benevolent Star Navy, its main exploratory force (which by the end of 2015 had over 50 million enlisted personnel in all its divisions, including the Gretolian Order) the Great Quartet and Tessia still exerted the same amount of dominance as they had at the nation’s inception. While the nation itself was still functioning smoothly, the delegation of only a few select individuals to running the entire military was becoming increasingly inefficient - over the course of the mid-2010s, there had been several notorious crew mutiny incidents involving captains in the Star Navy ignoring or not receiving poorly communicated orders on behalf of their superior officers. Therefore, on July 6, 2016 Tessia von Gretolia approved and passed the Dalethazar Act, a comprehensive legislation that significantly reformed the command structure of the military.
After the Act, the Star Navy was effectively split into two divisions: most of its on-planet surface or atmospheric combat units were split off into the new Benevolent Army, though the Star Navy still retained several more specialized divisions and its forces of marines carried aboard its starships. The commander of the new Army was Ozorus noi Nallonia, an experienced individual who had previously gained fame for leading the boarding of Gael Genesis Station under Thyosius Tigran. The Star Navy’s chain of command reorganized into more sectionalized operations which also saw the promotion of the first non-Great Quartet individuals to the rank of benevolent admiral: those ones being Leialennia Gretolia, Nexzius von Keppen, and Erick Corbanides.
Conquest of the Ettilium System
The Tessian Hegemony took another brief pause after adding the Calexi star system to its collection of solar systems, focusing again on robust settlement efforts as it had done with Xaoeter, Alenn, and Tymia. The next star system targeted by the Hegemony was the Ettilium System, another trinary star located at a distance of 13.8 light years from Polytinaris. Ettilium had three stellar components: a K-type orange dwarf named Ettilium and its companion red dwarf Hornekia, along with a tiny, distant white dwarf star named Pian circling around the other two on an eccentric orbit. Ettilium itself was already known before then to contain a sizeable planetary system, including a large potentially habitable terrestrial planet named Sivja detected to orbit within the habitable zone of the system. Hornekia meanwhile was only known then to host a close-in hot Jupiter gas giant named Infernolia; however, its exceptionally high stellar metallicity led to speculation that more planets could be likely.
Initial preparations for the exploration of the Ettilium System were rather slow owing to the transition brought about by the Tessian military reforms of 2016, though by April 25, 2017 they were enough to where Tessia approved a fleet of 22 starships led by the Dezirius-class Vayongias and its captain Karilita Javenta to set off from Tinaria for Ettilium to survey the system and analyze its prospects for colonization. When Karilita’s fleet arrived there that same day however, it soon became clear that they would not return home.
Loss of the Vayongias and first contact with the Holy Kingdom of Kelbola
The Vayongias and its fleet arrived at the outskirts of the Ettilium System without incident on April 25, though within hours of their arrival (as they were enroute to survey Ettilium itself) they were greeted by a fleet of over 50 alien vessels which revealed themselves as naval ships of the Holy Kingdom of Kelbola, a theocratic absolute monarchy that claimed to control the entirety of the Ettilium System, inhabited by the furry dog-like Kelbols. Although Karilita had already been briefed on the potential of encountering attackers in a similar manner to the incident that occurred in Tainelle's initial exploration, the Kelbolan ships were substantially more advanced and heavily armed - the flagship of said fleet was over twice as large as even a Dezirius-class battlecruiser and just as heavily armed. Karilita explained herself as coming from the Tessian Hegemony, a nation that seeked only to explore the star system without harm. However, the leader of the Kelbolan fleet, a female Kelbol named Portia Finnigian, dismissed her beliefs and opened fire upon Karilita's ships early in the morning on April 26. Substantially outnumbered and outgunned (the world razer cannon on the Vayongias was non-functional), Karilita Javenta's 22 Benevolent Star Navy ships were tragically lost after a tense battle throughout that day, resulting in 30,000 casualties.
Declaration of war on Kelbola and contact with the Rosita Union
Introduction of the Dezirius-class variants
Annexation of Hornekia
Victory in the Second Tessian-Kelbolan War
Footnotes
- ↑ Five Tertan years
- ↑ Quevestin Garmania identified as a nonbinary individual, using the pronouns they/them.
- ↑ In aerlon society, individuals can choose whether or not to be formally referred by their first name or last name. Common practice is usually to refer to males by their surname and females by their first name, although some exceptions exist.
- ↑ Kebo Standard Time
- ↑ Kebo uses a 20-hour day.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Word used to refer to any star system outside of Polytinaris, similar to "extrasolar"
- ↑ The highest rating used on the Princedom of Halola's tropical cyclone scale.
- ↑ Most of the time, planets located in otherwise uninhabited star systems had no names, and naming of planets/moons was typically left up to the discretion of the conquestalia who explored the system. In systems with already existing inhabitants, in most cases names used by their natives were appropriated by the Hegemony out of convenience, with some exception.