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Ron Burgundy
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: A glass case of emotion
Posts: 632
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Race History Mk2
Okies ive finally done a different version to the orginal, had a look around for the first thread but i couldnt find it and im fking tired so im starting a new one, sorry mods!
This one is for the terrans again, but it centers more upon the anchient historyt of the race. The other race stories will include first contact etc, its just easier and more entertaininfg to do it that way from the alient point of view. RIght enjoy and crtiticise. Btw its long
As a fledgling race, the Terran people expanded rapidly. The need to colonise new worlds was dire, the natural resources present on the ancient homeworld of Earth were all but spent, and the over-populated world seethed with pollution, poverty and strife.
With the advent of “hard light drives” in 2323, the Human race expanded into the stars, searching for new worlds to claim as their own. These new ship engines by a feat of engineering and scientific ingenuiity allowed the vessel to accelerate far beyond the speed of light, while powerful phase shields maintained integrity of the hull.
By the year 2360, over 100 new worlds had been colonised, and the number was ever expanding. A golden age of prosperity loomed for the human race, and it promised lasting peace among the stars.
Powerful warships were produced in vast shipyards that orbited planets, and the military might of the human race increased dramatically. New research yielded powerful hulls and superior weaponry.
As their empire expanded, the Terrans continued to search for new life, a sign that they were not alone in the universe. They could find none. Most people maintained that they were the only sentient space faring race in the entire galaxy, and in fact, drew a large amount of pride from this belief.
Human scientists surpassed themselves with the discovery of warp travel, allowing jumps between planets within the Milky Way to be made in only a few hours, regardless of the position of the two planets within that galaxy. It also made it possible to finally explore other galaxies, vast distances away.
Still it seemed that the human race had found peace by expanding into the stars. What the people of the empire did not realise was that the very thing that had propelled them into this new time of expansion and technological, social and racial magnificence would bring it crashing down; Big Business.
Since the early years of the empire in 2354, it had become clear to most people that the Earth Government had only nominal control over the destiny of the human race. Planet wide companies such as DiaseC the space engine manufacturing giants, and Contax the sub-light communications experts to name but a few had amassed their own giant fleets and zealously guarded the space around their “territory”. By the time of the cluster expansion, the Earth Government was rife with corruption and was barely in control of their own meagre and technologically redundant fleets. The term “hostile takeover” took on a whole new meaning in 2520, when the largest of the companies, WarTEX , a producer of municipal and spacecraft mounted arms actively invaded one of its nearby smaller rivals who’s stockholders had refused to sell out. The fleet of the smaller company was entirely wiped out, but its resources and factories left intact. WarTEX staff moved in the next week to claim the purged planet. The Earth Government slammed the actions of the conglomerate giant, ordering that they return control of the overtaken company to the rightful owners (who had of course been killed) or else sanctions would be placed upon the sale of their equipment. The EG was in no place to enforce this threat however, and with but a few bribes the matter was dropped from debate.
This horrible event set a precedent. Other companies began to prey on their smaller rivals, and knowing that they would be destroyed if they did not accede to their agressors demands, vast mergers between companies occurred within the space of a few years. Soon all that was left of the once thriving businesses that littered the empire were WarTEX, Contax, AgriSol (originally: an agricultural giant), Terraflex (a Terraforming company), Travelan (originally: a sub light engines and warp engine manufacturers) and Pharmax (originally: a medicine and medical apparatus producer)
Each of these businesses was now almost self sufficient, and could produce all their basic commodities to meet their own needs. Whenever they Big Six had to trade with each other, they made sure the other company paid for the product they received.
The EG was now totally obsolete. The vast numbers of humans in the former empire despised being under the heel of big business, who referred to them as “human resources”. Although it became clear that war was inevitable, no one wanted to make the first move. WarTEX was still the most powerful of all the Big Six, with AgriSol a fair distance behind them as the second strongest company. It was clear that as soon as one side made a move, the other companies would prey upon it while its attentions were elsewhere. A fragile détente existed while the Big Six struggled for supremacy as alliances were broken and formed, covert operations and sabotage attempted and rebellions of workers incited.
When war did come, it came from a most unexpected source. Unbeknown to the Big Six, the loyalists of the old EG had been amassing a gigantic fleet in the remote Cassius galaxy for some time, ironically using the technology and bribery of the large companies (along with taxes) to pay for it. The fleet, although not as big or well armed as those owned by the larger of the Big Six, was of immense proportions, and led by the greatest strategist of the age, Admiral Jonathan Passian.
The armada went from hiding straight into the headquarters of Travelan at solar system Thiaxes, where the innovative tactics of Passian smashed aside the sturdy defences, claming the planets and their valuable resources as its own. Passian moved quickly to take control of all the surrounding Travelan space, and set up his base of operations in the stricken ex-capitol planet of Thiaxes IV
The news of the existence of this armada and the fall of Travelan quickly reached the CEOs of the Big Six. They formed a hasty alliance in order to combat this new threat, and sent their combined forces to wipe out the EG fleet. WarTEX sent only a comparitvely small portion of their power to join this fleet, having plans of its own at a later date. Of course, the companies, recognising the opportunity to get one up on their opponents, sent stealthy fleets to attack the main HQs of their nearest rivals. However, each company, underestimating the guile of their peers, ended up attacking each other at the same time. This was what Admiral Passian had been counting on. When the combined fleets of the Big Six reached the overrun planet that had once served as Travelans HQ, they found it mostly deserted with only a small rearguard of EG ships retreating into the warp. The retreating ships were swiftly destroyed.
While they were still picking over the remains of Travelan HQ, word reached each admiral in each fleet of the treachery of the other companies. While the ships were disengaging from each other warily, shooting from each of the companies fleets sparked off a gigantic battle which broke out between the five previously allied fleets, with almost every ship being destroyed within an hour. The returning EG armada annihilated the survivors before they could escape into the warp. Prassian methodically began to pick off the Big Six, starting with the weakest first. Eventually all that was left was WarTEX and AgriSol.
AgriSol HQ came under siege from the EG armada and although WarTEX promised help, none ever arrived. AgriSol fell and Prassians fleet swelled as it took usuable ships from the wreckage of the fight.
Prassian’s goal was finally within sight. After two decades of campaigning against Big Business, he was about to come to the climatic battle of human history, and decide the fate of his race forever. His preliminary information and past experience indicated that WarTEX would have a fleet of size roughly equal to his own, so he would have to rely on his superior tactics to win the day. At the old age of 132 (with the appearance of a 50 year old after his second total regeneration therapy 10 years previously) perhaps he was becoming complacent. Perhaps it was that his burning desire to bring the final multi-planetary conglomerate tyrant to its knees had gotten the better of his good judgement. Or perhaps he was simply outsmarted.
When the vast EG fleet warp-jumped just outside the solar system, they prepared for battle. Formations were gathered, orders were issued and ships were blessed using the many religious rights of the multi-racial crews. An air of expectancy and eager impatience was prevalent throughout the fleet, as the final battle of the Great Trade War was about to be fought, and the men and women of the Earth Government fleet could not wait for it to be over. The thought of peace after constant war for so long was as an oasis to one dying of thirst in the desert.
Every ship in the huge fleet fired its sublight engines and as one the host moved forward to battle. Solar radiation glistened off the laser-scorched hulls, as the fleet approached Poltolian VII, the base of operations for WarTEX, with its continental sized production facilities and vast sprawling cites.
The fleet glided past the outer planets at obscene speeds, looking for all the world like a giant, armoured reptile, with sunlight from the large bright star shimmering off its countless scales as it stalked through the darkness of space toward its prey.
A horrific surprise waited in store for Admiral Prassian and his men past the gas giant of Poltolian VI. As the first ships pulled past the huge planet, they caught a glimpse of a fleet so unimaginably vast that the very stars were blotted out by the mass of metal and engine emissions. The first fighters and bombers to encounter the WarTEX fleet were absolutely obliterated, their garbled radio messages cut brutally short by huge explosions as the anti-fighter platforms opened fire from countless war-cruisers. Prassian was quick to pull order the retreat.
The WarTEX solar system had been famous for its massive asteroid belt which entirely circled it, known as the Devils Ribbon. It had been recorded that some of the boulders in this beautiful natural phenomenon were the size of small moons. Rich in natural resources, the asteroids had been an invaluable and inexhaustible resource for the WarTEX factories.
Naturally this belt would have been visible on the long range sensors of the EG scans; had it been there. The WarTEX CEO had produced a vast number of miners to tow as much of the huge belt away from the system as possible. These ships had then been disabled by nanobots and the raw resources used to create unsophisticated war ships in enormous quantities. The huge fleet had then been deployed in a belt formation around the system in order to fool the enemy as to the real numbers present.
The ships under Prassians command began to take heavy losses, massive hulks were ripped apart by powerful ion cannons, missiles impacted along capital ships and small advanced fighters were doggedly brought down by hordes of robotically controlled weaker WarTEX small-drones.
Prassian, knowing the situation was dire, thought quickly. As yet his flagship, The Resilient as it was aptly named, was untouched by the fighting. Volleys or anti-matter topedoes from its thirty multi-launch tubes had already wreaked havoc on the enemy fleet, but had hardly made a dent in the vast numbers facing him. Calling all his remaining Warhulk class ships (a class large enough to contain its own portable hypergate, and the technology required to build it being long lost now) he ordered them to set the hypergates onboard to self-destruct. The huge energy required to open and maintain a gate for warp travel was stored inside each of these gates, and the resulting explosion would be large enough to wipe out the entire system.
By the time enough power had been channelled to the gates to cause the breakdown of their substructure and open the warp gate to a random destination, only Prassian’s hulk remained. It was more than enough. The open gates allowed huge amount of warp space to enter reality, and as the matter and anti-matter combined, they destroyed each other in the space of an eye-blink. Three nearby systems were completely wiped out by the ripple effect caused by the huge rift in real space. Eventually the hole sealed itself as it imploded under gravitational pull from warp-space.
No one near enough to see the “explosion” survived, and so it is impossible to get an accurate depiction of what exactly happened when the gate self destructed. However, its repercussions are visible even to this day, as the space surrounding the former Poltolian system cannot be traversed using anything other than sublight engines. Men fear to go to this place, as swirling remnants of sub-real space can engulf ships. Time is said to be non-existant in this area of space, only reaffirming itself when the subject leaves its area of effect, their ship crumbling to nothingness as though aeons had passed in the blink of an eye. It has also been said that the anomaly is growing, even though there is no scientific evidence for this. Of course all these claims are dismissed as wild hearsy and scare stories by most folk of sound mind.
The most important legacy of the hypergate was how it shaped human history. In the power vacuum left behind, there were many struggles for supremacy, and humanity lives in a dark age. New races have been encountered, and war is constant. These days are the times of Planetarion, and its every planet for itself.
So, choose the terran race and lead your people from the dark ages into a new era of prosperity and power on the back of war and peace, good friends and deadly foes, deceit and loyalty, and perhaps, most importantly of all, the iron fist of your control.
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Just one major problem for me - if nobody was close enough to see that 'explosion' then how do we know the details of how it happened etc? 
Linear Mode
