Introduction
Come, they that would be wise!
See, those that would lead!
Hear, all the people!
Heaven is not so distant it does not see, not so far that it hears not.
Heaven is near to the people.
It sees them and hears them, and is not blind to their plight. It entrusts the son of Heaven to guide them, lead them and establish them, giving them the Mandate Of Heaven to rule in peace, prosperity and justice as Emperor of all under Heaven. Such is the way it has been since the ancient dragons who twisted the lands into shape and brought rain from the east, who passed down their wisdom to the first son of Heaven, and taught him the Mandate Of Heaven.
To the Emperor of the right hand, guardian and first of the people, his dynasty shall live secured and remembered by Heaven, and shall see the Three Blessings of Peace, Prosperity and Justice.
But to the Emperor who neglects his duties, to the tyrannt who oppresses the people, come the Five Woes of Warning!
Heaven is patient in judgement, is faithful and compassionate, slow to anger, yet it does not spare the leader who's hand grasps the people. Heaven knows the calamities harm the people, and they are the last recourse to draw back the slipping Emperor.
By these Five Woes of Warning an Emperor is warned to return to the path of righteous action, to turn them before the sixth, last and the greatest.
If they forsake these warnings and heed them not, then the greatest woe must surely come.
The First Woe is the appearances of the comets in the sky.
The Second Woe shaking of the ground beneath the feet.
The Third Woe is the crashing of floods from the mountains.
The Fourth Woe is the failing of crops and the faltering of the harvest.
The Fifth Woe is the harsh oppression of raiders from beyond the horizon.
When these Five Woes of Warning go unheeded, and the Emperor does not turn back to the path, comes the sixth, last and greatest woe:
The just uprising of the people.
For Heaven surely hears the cries of the people, and shall surely send a new son of Heaven to proclaim liberty to the captive and freedom to the oppressed. And this son of Heaven shall surely overthrow the wicked tyrant as Heaven is with them.
Let the son of Heaven remember the Mandate Of Heaven, lest he forget and turn from the path, and a new son of Heaven is established.
See, those that would lead!
Hear, all the people!
Heaven is not so distant it does not see, not so far that it hears not.
Heaven is near to the people.
It sees them and hears them, and is not blind to their plight. It entrusts the son of Heaven to guide them, lead them and establish them, giving them the Mandate Of Heaven to rule in peace, prosperity and justice as Emperor of all under Heaven. Such is the way it has been since the ancient dragons who twisted the lands into shape and brought rain from the east, who passed down their wisdom to the first son of Heaven, and taught him the Mandate Of Heaven.
To the Emperor of the right hand, guardian and first of the people, his dynasty shall live secured and remembered by Heaven, and shall see the Three Blessings of Peace, Prosperity and Justice.
But to the Emperor who neglects his duties, to the tyrannt who oppresses the people, come the Five Woes of Warning!
Heaven is patient in judgement, is faithful and compassionate, slow to anger, yet it does not spare the leader who's hand grasps the people. Heaven knows the calamities harm the people, and they are the last recourse to draw back the slipping Emperor.
By these Five Woes of Warning an Emperor is warned to return to the path of righteous action, to turn them before the sixth, last and the greatest.
If they forsake these warnings and heed them not, then the greatest woe must surely come.
The First Woe is the appearances of the comets in the sky.
The Second Woe shaking of the ground beneath the feet.
The Third Woe is the crashing of floods from the mountains.
The Fourth Woe is the failing of crops and the faltering of the harvest.
The Fifth Woe is the harsh oppression of raiders from beyond the horizon.
When these Five Woes of Warning go unheeded, and the Emperor does not turn back to the path, comes the sixth, last and greatest woe:
The just uprising of the people.
For Heaven surely hears the cries of the people, and shall surely send a new son of Heaven to proclaim liberty to the captive and freedom to the oppressed. And this son of Heaven shall surely overthrow the wicked tyrant as Heaven is with them.
Let the son of Heaven remember the Mandate Of Heaven, lest he forget and turn from the path, and a new son of Heaven is established.
Magistrate-Chronicler Aetoqi Thruklexl
"The Proclaimation of Heaven"
Year 1, Emperor Druattoqo
Translated from the Classic Arishkan by Zhao Mei Hua
"The Proclaimation of Heaven"
Year 1, Emperor Druattoqo
Translated from the Classic Arishkan by Zhao Mei Hua
Custodians Of The Celestial Spheres
Great Powers:
Great Powers:
The Immortal Prikkiki-Ti
Summary
The Prikki. What else do you expect? As with Life2.0, the broad strokes of The Prikki Endeavour are carried over - these Prikki faced down and sent to cloning vats two Awakened Empires and the Unbidden. They have fleets of Attack Moons. And they have also settled into being Pompous Purists rather than Fanatic Purifiers. They are bitter rivals of both the Arishkan and the Naylnoids.Summary
The Prikkiki-Ti's true leadership is the Prikki Development Board. The board - composed of a secret cabal of Starborn and the cloning vats - optimise the other Prikki to suit the needs of the Prikkiki-Ti for the future. The public face of the Prikkiki-Ti's leadership is the Selection Committee, who appoint the Grand Arbiter, who appoints those he or she requires to achieve their goals, handed to them by the Prikki Development Board in means both subtle and unsubtle as required.
Key planets/Megastructures/Gigastructures
The Prikkiki-Ti's navy relies extensively on Attack Moons. So much so that they have massive Attack Moon production facilities powered by Dyson Spheres and fuelled by Star Lifters that print out Attack Moons.The Prikkiki-Ti is also immensely centralised; one Alderson Disc in a top secret location houses the overwhelming majority of Prikki, with most star systems in Prikki space being dissasembled for resources.
Leaders
Grepp Schnepp-RikkiGrepp is the architect behind the scenes of much of what is going on in Orion Commonwealth territory - indeed, the Commonwealth is his magnum opus, and his lines are blurred as to whether he is more loyal to what he wants the Commonwealth to be, or the Prikkiki-Ti.
Nooki Schnepp-Rikki (Assassinated)
Nooki was the other side of the Prikki Development Board's idea of unifying the Pre-FTLs; Grepp was to manage the Pre-FTLs themselves, while Nooki was to manage a de-escalation of tensions. After her assassination, and the skirmish with the Arishkan that followed, the path forward the Prikkiki-Ti will take is still being deliberated.
Grand Arbiter Pippo Aiyo-Ji
Grand Arbiter Pippo Aiyo-Ji was appointed by the Selection Committee to handle the post-war period. Their task is to maintain the Prikkiki-Ti on a war footing while also providing the resources required by external Starborn agents such as Grepp; Nooki's policy of friendly relations (by Prikki standards) is being maintained.
Noori Kri-Kri
Grepp's counterpart concealed within the Arishkan Galactic Empire. Another Prikki of many boats, tasked with engineering the rise of a new dynasty who are more agreeable to the Prikki. Is not as talented as Grepp, however.
Notable races
The Prikki operate on a caste system of genetically engineered variants designed by the Prikki Development Board, with other species ranging from tolerated to used as feedstock for cloning vats.Starborn - the Leader caste. All Starborn are infertile, and are produced on an as-needed basis by algorithms governing clone vats based on the expansion of the Prikkiki-Ti. Their brains come pre-loaded with all the information they require to administrate, and they posess uplinks that connect them to the growing body of knowledge the Prikki possess. All Starborn view each other as brother or sister; a ten year old Starborn is physically indistinguishable from a ten thousand year old Starborn. It should be noted that while they are exceptionally regenerative, immortal does not mean invincible.
Assault - the soldier caste. Assault Prikki are optimised to be exceptionally deadly, especially the Elite Gene-Warrior divisions. Can breed naturally within their own division, and usually breed naturally within their template; it depends on how much tweaking the Prikki Development Board has done fine-tuning the template.
Industrialist - the "worker" caste. In practice, this is usually operating robotic hardware that actually does the job, but they have bodies that enable them to do things if necessary. Templates are optimised to suit specific aspects that fall within the Industrial heading; much like Assault Prikki, they can breed naturally within their template; the Board is satisfied with their comparitively low level of optimisation and focuses the bulk of the resources towards Assault and Mentalist Prikki.
Mentalist - the thinker caste. Researchers of technologies, implementers of their Starborn-issued policies. Rumours of Psionic capabilities have been denied officially.
The Arishkan Galactic Empire
Summary
The Arishkan Empire has always been an expansionist entity, and with expansion has often come instability and higher local autonomy. In its pre-interplanetary periods, technological progress was usually relatively delayed by the imperial need for control - several dynasties have turned on a single innovation and the resulting impacts, dating all the way back to the first Emperor Drattaqo Yirsursasth and his invention of the Oswuhri'a harness that enabled him to have Oswuhri'a do field labour in place of Arishkan, freeing up a huge amount of people to be more than farmers. In turn, the Yirsursasth dynasty fell to Asuhph Osauh's Ci'aphahu riders after he invented an equivalent of the stirrup for the predatory Ci'aphahu, and enabled vastly more effective cavalry.Summary
This nervousness of new technology, but especially those with military applications, created social pressure to refrain from innovation, leaving the empire with under-developed communications technologies. For many thousands of years, travel times for news and decisions were limited to signal fires, messages tied to the legs of trained Kiih on the wing, and Ci'aphahu riders.
As the Empire spread due to prosperity and population growth, Emperor Issiphur Asuhr - who's father founded the dynasty by exploiting a breakdown in these communication systems - commissioned the first imperial experimental research group to develop a faster system. Banner-boxes turned the old signal fires into a kind of Morse code by opening and shutting to send pulses, while the Ci'aphahu riders were succeeded by carriages using primitive acid battery electric vehicles, charged by electric motors driven by water-wheels, with batteries exchanged at each stop.
Later, the banner-boxes were replaced by the use of fireworks, with different colours of firework assigned different meanings. The need to transmit over even larger distances as the Empire made it's first inter-continental colonies led to the need for replacing the light of the firework with radio.
Continual improvements led to the first satellites, and subsequently missions to other bodies in their home star system as population pressure continued to push the empire into expansion, the other planets and moons being seen as a new colonial frontier.
Empress Susuwis Asuhr realised that the Arishkan Empire was doomed to being conquered from space because of the limited capacities of rockets launched from the home world, and so she organised a series of reforms that would structure the Empire for its interstellar future, with stages in the grand plan thought through as the Empire expanded across the stars. The Arishkan Galactic Empire was born. It too ran into problems - the Asuhr dynasty falling because the Uqathre dynasty out-manoeuvered them in the days before Hyper Relay and Gateway - but remains an expansionist polity that views itself as the only legitimate Empire in the galaxy.
Key planets/Megastructures/Gigastructures
Causeway Of EmperorsThe Causeway Of Emperors is the coronation and burial grounds of the Arishkan Emperors. The assembly is built on the equator of the Arishkan homeworld, with each Emperor given an area of a thousand strides by a thousand strides, with statues in the region of a hundred times life-size, and painted to look life-like. Each Emperor is depicted in the appearance they had at their last official event, and when possible, entombed within their statue. Alongside the Emperor are life-sized statues of his/her most important magistrates, and thousands of life-sized statues of the people in the empire. All the statues are made in cast bronze according to ancient Arishkan techniques, and painted to be true to life as a living and continuous history of the Empire. Dynasty changes are marked by having the Emperor bowed to the Dragon of Heaven, accepting the renewed Mandate Of Heaven.
Planetary Focus
The Arishkan Galaxctic Empire uses the least habitable megastructures of the major powers; Arishkan are not comfortable on habitats as they don't trust completely artifical living environments for long term habitation. This means that they engage in a great deal of planetary and stellar manipulation to bring sub-standard planets up to habitability.
Leaders
Uqathre DynastyEmperor Izzixl Uqathre
Izzixl has been widely maligned within the Empire for his nepotism and corruption. Venerable and proven Magistrate-Governors were dismissed from their posts and replaced by his relatives as he sought to exert more control on the Empire, and many of the Magistrate class have lost confidence in him. It has been speculated that the only reason the Magistrates have not tried to remove him is the threat of civil war being exploited by external powers.
Zhao Dynasty
Ossuhphuhr (Defected to Life2.0)
A Magistrate-Emissary assigned to relations with the now-defunct People's Republic of Terra and Colonies, he married Zhao Mei Hua, a Human woman. They have both retired from active duties, and have spent the years since training their son, Zhao Qing Lung. Made a secret pact with Grepp Schnepp-Rikki that led their respective nations to the negotiating table.
Zhao Qing-Lung
Qing Lung is a genetically enhanced Arishkan-Human hybrid, and the protagonist of Mandate Of Heaven. This blue dragon has been raised from birth to be a philosopher-king fit to guide a galaxy - his parents raised him in all the wisdom of the Arishkan and Chinese empires, had the Holocron as a tutor, learned as an understudy of Naomi Of Unity alongside Ruki Of Unity.
Notable races
The Arishkan are divided into two dominant cultural groups, colloquailly referred to as Northern Arishkan and Southern Arishkan, or Haaphusan Arishkan and Chuxlan Arishkan.Following the decline of Emperor Drattaqo Yirsursasth in his old age, the empire was split between his four children under the notional leadership of the eldest son, Emperor Haaphusis Yirsursasth. Haaphusis' domain was in the northern region, but he held a great deal of power over Aphisi and Nuhir, who were given east and west. The ambitious son Chuxl was handed the south, which he developed as best he could as an autarchy, defining a separate language and banning the use of names common in the Haaphusan domain as a bid to make a case towards independence. It was broadly unsuccessful in terms of martial independence, but it did lead to a cultural disconnect as subsequent Chuxlan dynasties centralised development in the warmer southern lands.
In the modern world the cultures have largely reintegrated, having undergone a unity movement under Empress Tasir Baruhphs who had to balance an Arishkan Empire that covered their equivalent in rough geographical position and sizes to China and the United States of America, and the main difference now remains the names used by the two cultures.
Interstellar Nalynoan Empire
Lesser Powers:
Summary
The Orion Commonwealth is in spirit akin to the Federation of Star Trek; indeed, some unfamiliar with Human history have wondered if they were linked. It is the culmination of two centuries of work by Grepp Schnepp-Rikki, a Xenophile Starborn Prikki who was tasked by his sister with building an alliance of Pre-FTLs in what is now Commonwealth space.With the courses of the Pre-FTLs guided towards the belief that aliens were out there and that friendship was not only possible, but a reasonable expectation, Grepp then arranged that formal first contact took place with Naomi and Appia's MSI-Life2.0, and the Commonwealth followed.
In the time since, the Commonwealth has achieved a high level of cohesion, with shared military operations and hardware, and common research programs.
The Orion Commonwealth owes its existence to four critical Leaders - the Starborn Prikki Grepp-Schnepp-Rikki, the Post-Human Naomi Of Unity, the Olinbar Appia The Reformer, and The Holocron. While each of these people have their own key supporters in turn, without them, the Orion Commonwealth would not be possible, and all four retain permanent positions in notionally advisory roles. With all four being functionally immortal through different means, permanent here means permanent.
Key planets/Megastructures/Gigastructures
UnityThe "homeworld" of Life2.0, and the central processing node of the Holocron, transformed from the original Continental world into a Gaia world by the Holocron integrating the flora and fauna as biological computational substrate within a living intelligent ecosystem.
Brigantia
An ancient world, Brigantia has been the capital of the Great Minamaran Empire when it was known as Diugas prior to its destruction by the early Olinbari, and is currently the capital of both the Olinbari Republic and the Orion Commonwealth.
Mars
Capital of the SolSys Restoration Organisation, the formerly red planet has a pure oxygen 0.2 bar atmosphere released from vaporised regolith, surface oceans and developing ecosystems of gene-engineered plants.
The Infinite Wheel
Formerly known as Cybrex Beta during the Contingency Crisis several thousand years ago, it is now the home ringworld of the Kyaese, and independent after the revolution against Septima Severus.
Leaders
Text HereNotable races
Text HereThe Olinbari Republic follows the reforms made by Appia The Reformer, who restructured the former MegaCorp Minamar Specialised Industries following the defeat of Septima Severus.
Brigantia remains the capital of the Olinbari Republic, although it has been transformed; the ecumenopolis has been restored, and The Holocron has been using a few districts of the planet as testbeds for his efforts to develop Utility Sand construction as a stepping stone towards a planet that adapts to suit it's inhabitants.
Livi Unitatis, Olinbar-Xenaya, and Varius Manicus, Olinbar, are the current Consuls of the Republic. Appia The Reformer remains in the position of Matriarch Of The Republic; while her office does not posess imperium, she remains respected.
The republic is a truly metropolitan place, with Brigantia being a melting pot of residents from all over the galaxy.
Brigantia remains the capital of the Olinbari Republic, although it has been transformed; the ecumenopolis has been restored, and The Holocron has been using a few districts of the planet as testbeds for his efforts to develop Utility Sand construction as a stepping stone towards a planet that adapts to suit it's inhabitants.
Livi Unitatis, Olinbar-Xenaya, and Varius Manicus, Olinbar, are the current Consuls of the Republic. Appia The Reformer remains in the position of Matriarch Of The Republic; while her office does not posess imperium, she remains respected.
The republic is a truly metropolitan place, with Brigantia being a melting pot of residents from all over the galaxy.
Custodial Matrix
Summary
The Holocron has been extremely busy since the end of Life2.0; the Commonwealth could not exist without the industrial and research base he has established.Summary
Key planets/Megastructures/Gigastructures
The Holocron specialises in planetary engineeringLeaders
Text HereNotable races
Text HereA Worker Cooperative that
Everyone else mentioned on the first three pages of Life2.0 who never really featured - to expand later
Summary
Text HereKey planets/Megastructures/Gigastructures
Text HereLeaders
Text HereNotable races
Text HereGameplay Contextual Notes
Mandate Of Heaven - as one would expect of a narrative named for an Europa Universalis IV Expansion - considers a concept that is taken as a near-universal one for players of that game.
The Mingsplosion.
For those familiar with the setting of Europa Universalis IV and Life2.0's setting, consider the Prikki as like a fully-developed Oriat, and the Naylnoids as a near end of sengoku-era Japan, and the Arishkan as our Ming Empire. Our protagonists' federation, the Orion Commonwealth, can be considered as like an alliance of One Province Minors on the Tibetan Plateau, juggling their place among the Great Powers. Futher afield, as yet unidentified analogues to Russia, the Timurids and India exist, and beyond them there's European and American analogues also.
For Stellaris players:
Our protagonists are the Orion Commonwealth; a Research Cooperative by choice, and a Martial Alliance by necessity. It's member states are composed of the Custodial Matrix (the Holocron's faction) a reformed Olinbari Republic, Life2.0, the Lokra-Kitan, the Kyaese, the Xenaya, and Enlightened civilisations from the Pre-FTLs of their region, both ones we met in Life2.0, and those we didn't meet.
The other powers of the setting are all very deep into repeatables technologies, with extensive use of Megastructures and Gigastructures - the most powerful are Ascended Empires from Zenith Of The Fallen Empires. This narrative is based on a quite heavily modded version of Stellaris, and ones that have details that are considered as part of the narrative are:
Gigastructural Engineering and More
Real Space + tweaked version of Ships In Scaling to give more realistic travel times
Planetary Diversity + nearly all the submods
Zenith Of The Fallen Empires 4.0 + Sandbox
Cybrxkhan's Assortment of Namelists for Stellaris
Huge Galaxies
Downscaled Ships + compatibility patches for various shipset mods
Starbase Buildings And Modules
Sol System Expanded with tweaks for terraformed Mars and Venus (and Tomb World Earth that is undergoing Climate Restoration)
Evolution Traits - 1.1.7 [OUTDATED]
Faster Galactic Community
Alternate Ship Sections 3.0+
Vanilla Dimorphism
Additional Traits
Trait Diversity
Scaled Leader Capacity
Diverse Rooms
Human Phenotypes 3.12
Origins Extended
Life2.0 began this story with the Broken Shackles Origin, and played through to an alternative ending to the ones presented in Stellaris' First Contact expansion, where Life2.0 and MSI merged and gave rise to a restored Olinbari Republic.
Mandate Of Heaven moves onwards, and began with the idea of exploring a "War In Heaven" endgame scenario between the Arishkan Galactic Empire and the Immortal Prikkiki-Ti - this did start in the background in Life2.0, but the centre of focus was always the conflict with MSI and then Septima. Then, as Life2.0 progressed, I began to have the ideas for a twist on that theme.
After The End Of Life2.0:
Placeholder, to be finished when Life2.0 is finished.
But in summary, the Immortal Prikkiki-Ti and the Arishkan Galactic Empire are in a state of truce, with both brought to the negotiating table by Grepp and Ossuhphuhr. The Naylnoids - a foreshadowed but never encountered third empire - were the big bad that made such a truce possible. Now the Arishkan Emperor who signed that treaty has died, and one son has assassinated the other, plunging the Galactic Empire into a low-Mandate disaster.
Our protagonist Zhao Qing Lung sees this as his opportunity to claim the Dragon Throne of the Arishkan, and with it, the Mandate Of Heaven.
On Technologies
Life2.0 was constrained by the fact that I chose to limit our protagonists to near-future/alternative present technologies - stuff we could do, if we were willing to invest in it and tweaked/removed a few laws and treaties. (atmospheric nuclear testing ban for example)
Mandate Of Heaven gives our protagonists access to galactic standard technologies, which does require some explanation.
What seperates the factions in Mandate Of Heaven isn't so much what technology they have, but how they use it; pretty much everyone has finished the technology research tree , and are now crunching their way through repeatables research. One of the early themes that will come through is we'll see how different Former Pre-FTLs are integrating the advanced technologies Naomi and friends introduce.
Another difference is that our protagonists have exchanged nuclear power for antimatter power. This changeover was discussed in Life2.0.
Civilisation is defined by the energy needs it faces and it's solutions to that requirement. It is a factor as significant as population growth.
The rest mass energy of a thing is e=mc^2.
This is a big number; 8.98x10^16J/kg.
Chemical reactions - for example, hydrocarbon combustion or chemical batteries - are in the region of 10^6J/kg.
Nuclear fission 10^12J/kg.
Fusion also 10^12J/kg; fusion reactions release less energy than fission reactions, but you get a lot more in the same volume, so it works out a gain over fission in terms of power production.
These might seem like staggeringly vast amounts of energy, but our present civilisation is consuming best part of 10^14W. Just like Life2.0, we are facing that we ought to consider our next step.
Solar is the easiest next step; we have a working fusion reactor, it's about 8 light-minutes away. The Sun releases in the region of 5x10^23W, and solar panel technology can capture a good chunk of that once sufficiently scaled. (we'd need to dissasemble Mercury)
The problem is, what do you do further out?
Steady-state missions are straight-forward; you can beam power around the solar system and set up mini-suns in high orbits around each planet; as it takes a practically negligible amount of power from the Sun to sustain the Earth's habitability, and there are tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of objects an advanced future Humanity would want to send power to, we could allocate 10^20W for these terraforming measures and have life spread from Venus out to the Oort Cloud if we wanted to. (Jupiter atmosphere is a little difficult as gravity is 2.5x Earth at 1 bar altitude, but we could adjust to that if we really, really wanted to; the other gas giants are all passably Earth-like in gravitational strength at their 1 bar altitudes)
Spacecraft however, can't really do this. Beamed energy propulsion has many advantages in civilian use, but it's only use in military settings is as a relatively ineffective weapon as you are dependent on the infrastructure back home for operations, and the further out you go, the bigger your receiver has to be, which reduces your payload mass.
As a result, we look to antimatter rockets. While unobtainably expensive for us, an advanced future with solar power inwards of Mercury has the space and resources for massive supercolliders that produce and trap antimatter at industrial quantities.
There are essentially five types:
A nuclear-thermal like nozzled rocket that combusts tiny quantities of antimatter to heat tonnes of liquid hydrogen or liquid methane propellant.
The torchship that uses superconducting coils to direct the products of the proton-antiproton anhilation reaction.
The antimatter bomb pulsed propulsion system used by the Holocron in Life2.0.
Antimatter-catalysed fusion.
The pion rocket.
Each has upsides and downsides.
The first has "nevermind Kennedy Space Centre, let's take the whole state of Florida up" type thrust potential; you need that much propellant pouring through to absorb the heat and stop your nozzle melting. The downside is the exhaust velocity is like that of a nuclear-thermal rocket, which makes it staggeringly thirsty to go distances.
The second can go deep into relativistic velocities because of its 80% of c exhaust velocity potential. The downside is the massive amount of gamma radiation it releases, and it isn't that high on thrust as a few kg of antimatter going out the back is a relatively low amount of momentum to exchange.
The third ends up inbetween the first two, with similar performance to Orion.
The fourth is a fusion rocket where you "cheat" the difficulties of starting a fusion reaction by boosting it with antimatter.
The fifth is a really weird thing that could lose a drag race to a snail on tranquilisers, but has an exhaust velocity of the speed of light.
Calendars And Dating
Life2.0 used the Unity calendar dominantly, with its 360 day year, 12 months of 30 days each as per Stellaris. A conversion tool was used to supply dates in Ab Urbe Condita for MSI.
The calendar does play an important role in Mandate Of Heaven, and while I could fudge it for Life2.0, Mandate Of Heaven has a fixed timescale - it begins in the Year of the Snake, and progresses through up to year twelve, the Year of the Dragon, where we have the final confrontation with the other warlords and the coronation of Zhao Qing Lung.
This has a bit of an issue - the current standard of the Chinese calendar is calculated by the Hong Kong Observatory, who publish lookup tables to say which date goes where, and this would be a fantastic resource if they ran all the way through to the 2200s. But, they stop at 2100 for reasons relating to the difficulty of accurately predicting exact lunar phases more than a century ahead.
So... My options:
1. Continue using the Unity calendar, and have the 12 year zodiac cycle apply to that.
2. Have it that the People's Republic of Terra and Colonies redefined the calendar in the wake of planetary unification and off-world expansion.
3. Do the tables for 2180-2225 myself and create a full conversion table between Unity, Chinese, Gregorian, AUC and Stellaris calendars.
Each has issues... Only the third is authentic, but it is a substantial project far beyond just making dates line up for an AAR. The first is not quite enough, while the second feels like a cheat, even if it is reasonably justifiable. Need more thought.
So, a decision:
I've decided to go with option 2. It's simply the easiest solution...
Putting it together:
Unity Reckoning has the standard Stellaris year of 12 months of 30 days each. It's initial equivalent date to the Gregorian calendar is 1st Naomi, 1 being 1st January 2178 AD. Note that - in the real universe - Unity being a habitable world around an A-type star actually gives it a planetary year of more between 7 to 12 Earth planetary years. But this was not applied consistently in Life2.0 as Stellaris does not model orbital differences, and it was taken as a given that 360 Stellaris days is equal to 365.25 Earth days.
Galactic Calendar Year is the standard Stellaris calendar. It is equivalent to U.R. in length.
Arb Urbe Condita is used for MSI dates. Arguably they would have changed their calendar, but as the ideas developed for the Olinbariad and Mandate Of Heaven, I wanted to use MSI to explore Roman republican and imperial themes in the same way the Arishkan explore Chinese imperial themes and the Prikki explore the really quite dystopian authoritarian regime described in Plato's Republic.
The Arishkan calendar has the standard Stellaris year, but the count of the years is in the Year of the current Emperor.
The Chinese calendar is tweaked by the People's Democratic Republic of Terra and Colonies to match the Stellaris calendar as a means of consistency with the Arishkan, who supported the PDRTC rebellion.
A Comprehensive Character Guide
Name:
Leader Type:
Veteran Class:
Species:
Gender:
Family:
Faction:
Occupation:
Ethic:
Ambition:
Summary:
Our Primary Protagonists:
Name: Livi Unitatis
Leader Type: Offical
Veteran Class: Delegate
Species: Olinbar-Xenayan Hybrid
Gender: Female
Family: Parents - Rivkah Of Unity, Scipio Of Unity. Twin brother - Plini B'Uniti.
Faction: Olinbari Republic
Occupation: Consul, Olinbari Republic
Ethic: Xenophile
Ambition: Improved cohesion in the Orion Commonwealth
Summary: Livi Unitatis follows in her parent's footsteps, and sees herself as the ideal Commonwealth citizen, playing her part in building the future of the Xenaya and the Olinbari. First non-Olinbar to lead either Olinbari Republic or MSI since Borin of the Slavager Enclave was put as CEO during a period of megastructural engineering works several centuries ago.
Name: Zhao Qing Lung
Leader Type: Commander
Veteran Class: Strategist
Species: Arishkan-Human Hybrid
Gender: Male
Family: Parents - Ossuhphuhr, Zhao Mei Hua
Faction: Orion Commonwealth
Occupation: Student, Orion Commonwealth
Ethic: Spiritualist
Ambition: Emperor of the Arishkan
Summary: Zhao Qing Lung begins the narrative as a student reading social and martial philosophy at the Orion Commonwealth Advanced Studies Institute, Governance Faculty, as part of his goal to apply as an external candidate to the Arishkan Galactic Empire's Bureau Of Merit. Blending the best parts of Human and Arishkan ideas, he sees the Empire as having lost it's way under the Uqathre dynasty.
Our Primary Antagonists:
Name: Izzixl UqathreLeader Type: Official
Veteran Class: Industrialist
Species: Arishkan
Gender: Male
Family: Uqathre Dynasty
Faction: Arishkan Galactic Empire
Occupation: Emperor
Ethic: Authoritarian
Ambition: Enforce personal control
Summary: A staunch revanchist without the skill, understanding or competence to make good on such aspirations. His reign as Emperor has seen dozens of schemes, plots, gambits and gambles to recover the height of the empire last seen under Aphisi Uqathre, culminating in the recent Arishkan-Prikki war that saw a negotiated settlement by Magistrate-Emissary Ossuhphuhr. His policy of putting into positions of power of those who are either his lackeys or are also revanchists irrespective of how suitable they are for their position, something which has caused a great deal of unrest within the Empire and turmoil beyond it's borders. This tendency has been exacerbated as he grows older and succumbs to the sensation that he is running out of time.
Name: Noori Kri-Kri
Leader Type: Official
Veteran Class: Advisor
Species: Prikki, Starborn
Gender: Female
Family: N/A
Faction: The Immortal Prikkiki-Ti
Occupation: Espionage Agent
Ethic: Xenophile (by Prikki standards)
Ambition: The eventual dissolution of the Arishkan Galactic Empire
Summary: Grepp's counterpart concealed within the Arishkan Galactic Empire. Another Prikki of many boats, tasked with engineering the rise of a new dynasty who are more agreeable to the Prikki. Is not as talented as Grepp, however.
Characters Returning From Life2.0:
Name: Appia Flavonius
Leader Type: Commander
Veteran Class: Admiral
Species: Olinbar
Gender: Female
Family: Nephew - Scipio Of Unity
Faction: Olinbari Republic
Occupation: Matriarch of the Republic, Olinbari Republic; Council Permanent Advisor, Orion Commonwealth
Ethic: Xenophile
Ambition: Restoration of the republic
Summary: Appia "The Reformer" Flavonius worked her way up the admiralty of Minamar Specialised Industries to Vice-Navarch of the Rostrum, a Titan that was boarded and captured by the Holocron, who killed everyone above Appia in the process. Appia retreated what remained of the fleet, and leveraged the situation into having her made CEO. Her position being crucially dependent on the need for political and social reforms, she made sweeping changes to MSI backed by the support of grassroots movements among Indentured Assets inside MSI and the informal coalition of Life2.0, the Holocron and the Lokra-Kitan, these being joined by the Kyaese after the confrontation with Septima Severus. The reforms since have seen the restoration of the Olinbari Republic and the dissolution of MSI. Now serves in an advisory role in semi-retirement.
Name: The Holocron
Leader Type: Official
Veteran Class: Industrialist
Species: Homo Tipheret
Gender: Male
Family: Hamaadimi dynasty
Faction: Iriphublik-In-Exile, Life2.0, Holocronal Matrix, Orion Commonwealth
Occupation: Rogue servitor
Ethic: Xenophile
Ambition: Rogue servitor
Summary: Started out as a tuition hologram that duplicated the mannerisms of Yehoshua Haamadimi, but quickly became much more once secured on Unity with the resources to make his ideas happen, adopting the Homo Tipheret body with a white Human male appearance that people are used to seeing him as. Now constitutes the dominant intellect of the planet of Unity, although it is not his only planetary computational node. The industrial mega-mind so thoroughly depended on that without him the Orion Commonwealth would collapse within seconds.
Name: Naomi Of Unity
Leader Type: Official
Veteran Class: Advisor
Species: Post-Human Transapient, bipedal wolf with black fur in appearance
Gender: Female
Family: Hamaadimi dynasty, "Of Unity" dynasties.
Faction: Life2.0, Orion Commonwealth
Occupation: Advisor
Ethic: Xenophile
Ambition: Her and her Buri, alone on a starship.
Summary: A former Companionship Asset turned freedom fighter turned stateswoman, Naomi
Characters New For Mandate Of Heaven:
Leader Type: Official
Veteran Class: Industrialist
Species: Olinbar
Gender: Male
Family:
Faction: Olinbari Republic
Occupation: Consul, Olinbari Republic
Ethic: Materialist
Ambition: Curtailment of plutocrats
Summary: A safe and sensible pair of hands entrusted to look after Olinbari interests within the Republic, Varius has been tasked with finalising the dismantling of the remaining powerbase of the plutocrats and continuing the restoration of classical republican values.
Fallen, Yet Not Forgotten:
Name: Atalyah Hamaadimi
Leader Type: Official
Veteran Class: Advisor
Species: Homo Tipheret
Gender: Female
Family: Hamaadimi dynasty; illegally married in secret to the Olinbar Marcus Aurelius
Faction: Yabuntu Iriphubliki; Canii Incorporated, MSI
Occupation: Administrator, Canii Incorporated
Ethic: Militarist
Ambition: Freedom
Summary: Atalyah Hamaadimi was a genetically engineered haploid clone of Tipheret Hamaadimi, and the peak of her work after two lifetimes of research. Captured in the fall of the Iriphubliki, she was purchased by Caeso Canius to run his administration. At her husband's insistence and with Caeso's secret approval, she started arranging slave escapes. Discrepancies were noticed however. When her and Marcus attempted to get their children to freedom, Marcus was captured with Naomi, while Atalyah turned back to provide Thando a distraction he could use to escape. She chose execution to preserve Naomi's life.
Name: Caeso Canius
Leader Type: Official
Veteran Class: Industrialist
Species: Olinbar
Gender: Male
Family: None
Faction: Canii Incorporated, MSI; Life2.0
Occupation: Formerly Sector Governor; lost everything after the execution of Atalyah Hamaadimi, and joined Life2.0.
Ethic: Materialist
Ambition: MSI reformer
Summary: Caeso Canius inherited Canii Incorporated from his parents as the only child, and grew the subsidiary to the point where he could almost afford becoming a Shareholder. But, the slave transports brought in Atalyah Hamaadimi, and he decided to invest in her instead. He exploited Marcus' relationship with Atalyah to keep her loyal, and in time and discussion, she convinced him that MSI needed to reform in order to survive. It took all his resources to preserve him and Marcus from punishment after the failed escape attempt, and he ended up working for Gaius Licenius. He surrendered to Life2.0 forces at the first opportunity, and Naomi allowed him to retire, being the oldest person on Unity who wasn't a machine. Passed away peacefully on Unity following illness after the confrontation with Septima Severus.
Name: Nooki-Schnepp Rikki
Leader Type: Official
Veteran Class: Delegate
Species: Prikki, Starborn
Gender: Female
Family: Grepp-Schnepp Rikki "brother"
Faction: The Immortal Prikkiki-Ti
Occupation: Grand Arbiter
Ethic: Xenophile
Ambition: Peaceful detente of galactic tensions
Summary: Nooki was the other side of the Prikki Development Board's idea of unifying the Pre-FTLs; Grepp was to manage the Pre-FTLs themselves, while Nooki was to manage a de-escalation of tensions. After her assassination, and the skirmish with the Arishkan that followed, the path forward the Prikkiki-Ti will take is still being deliberated.
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