Once the Imperium is a vassal, the UNE can do whatever they want. Annexation would be the next logic step, despite the cultural differences. The Imperium is already at odds with a lot of neighbours, surely they wouldn't mind it to disappear in the place of a more "friendly" UNE.
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Small announcement:
With the summer coming I hoped I might have more time to write the AARs I started. How wrong I was, in fact I have even less time than before. Said this, I want to assure my readers, the AARs are still ongoing. However I find myself having very little time, unfortunately as it is right now. I hope I can manage to release at least a chapter or two. But real life right now demands my whole attention. I want to keep the quality of my chapters high and that takes a lot of time. Anyway, enough of bad news, have instead all of you a nice summer : ).
With the summer coming I hoped I might have more time to write the AARs I started. How wrong I was, in fact I have even less time than before. Said this, I want to assure my readers, the AARs are still ongoing. However I find myself having very little time, unfortunately as it is right now. I hope I can manage to release at least a chapter or two. But real life right now demands my whole attention. I want to keep the quality of my chapters high and that takes a lot of time. Anyway, enough of bad news, have instead all of you a nice summer : ).
Mini update:
I've managed to get some free time and in this time I've updated the main mod. One of the biggest issues I've had with Stellaris with the massive pop growth. I also dislike the solution to the problem. As the new colonies take longer to grow. Not sure anymore what is happening in the newer versions, as I'm just playing with old system. Which indeed is flawed. My solution was to make pop grow 3x times slower, as well robot assembly and migration has been cut from a value of 10 to 2.5, meaning migration is four times slower as max value. Combined with easier pop casualties from planetary combat and bombardment, now planets can really remain depopulated for a long period of time. Wars are indeed scary now and can wreak havoc upon empires that won't be able to simply replenish their population via migration treaties. (Also planned: plagues, population collapse and targeted biological warfare for even more death.)
The update I've made, will make claims cost so much more, around 3x times more. In a certain way, wars are more forgiving now, as empires won't simply be able to claim half of other empires and inflict fatal blows. Now losers, will have a chance for a comeback, still, this won't make wars any less of a slog. Wars, will still be long, tedious and require the industrial base to sustain them. Blobs will now form much slower and we will have a more diverse, stellar cluster (I'm not playing in a galaxy but a local stellar cluster, connected by hyperlanes, thus the elliptic "galaxy".) It somehow makes, successful determinted exterminators very dangerous, because they can grow so much easier, still they can be entirely conquered if they are unlucky.
Combined with a slower expansion and claiming of systems, the game should be much slower. The pace I've wanted to reach for a long time. This scenario already started, so much of the systems are already claimed, maybe after a crisis, the new rush for systems will commence again and we will see a very slow expansion.
Since I've made pops slow to grow, they are indeed more precious. Barbaric despoilers should have a massive advantage and incentive in stealing pops, wars against determinted exterminators will be incredibly devastating. Also the slave market could play a much more important role, especially in a 5x planets density scenario. A more positive aspect, of slower pop growth, is that FEs and the marauders won't be hopelessly overmatched quite quikcly as I've managed to observe in my test side plays. After all, late game for me starts in year 3000. With 5x habitable planets, the AI manages to quikcly catch up, even with 5x tech cost, because of the pop growth. Also I've even managed to publish the mod on the workshop, finally. Still much work to do, but it'll do for now.
Can't wait to post the next chapter, I'm so happy about these new updates. The changes will be seen after 2260s, as I stopped the game there. For now I just wanted to update everyone, on the state of this AAR.
(remember, I play on the 3.6.1 version)
I've managed to get some free time and in this time I've updated the main mod. One of the biggest issues I've had with Stellaris with the massive pop growth. I also dislike the solution to the problem. As the new colonies take longer to grow. Not sure anymore what is happening in the newer versions, as I'm just playing with old system. Which indeed is flawed. My solution was to make pop grow 3x times slower, as well robot assembly and migration has been cut from a value of 10 to 2.5, meaning migration is four times slower as max value. Combined with easier pop casualties from planetary combat and bombardment, now planets can really remain depopulated for a long period of time. Wars are indeed scary now and can wreak havoc upon empires that won't be able to simply replenish their population via migration treaties. (Also planned: plagues, population collapse and targeted biological warfare for even more death.)
The update I've made, will make claims cost so much more, around 3x times more. In a certain way, wars are more forgiving now, as empires won't simply be able to claim half of other empires and inflict fatal blows. Now losers, will have a chance for a comeback, still, this won't make wars any less of a slog. Wars, will still be long, tedious and require the industrial base to sustain them. Blobs will now form much slower and we will have a more diverse, stellar cluster (I'm not playing in a galaxy but a local stellar cluster, connected by hyperlanes, thus the elliptic "galaxy".) It somehow makes, successful determinted exterminators very dangerous, because they can grow so much easier, still they can be entirely conquered if they are unlucky.
Combined with a slower expansion and claiming of systems, the game should be much slower. The pace I've wanted to reach for a long time. This scenario already started, so much of the systems are already claimed, maybe after a crisis, the new rush for systems will commence again and we will see a very slow expansion.
Since I've made pops slow to grow, they are indeed more precious. Barbaric despoilers should have a massive advantage and incentive in stealing pops, wars against determinted exterminators will be incredibly devastating. Also the slave market could play a much more important role, especially in a 5x planets density scenario. A more positive aspect, of slower pop growth, is that FEs and the marauders won't be hopelessly overmatched quite quikcly as I've managed to observe in my test side plays. After all, late game for me starts in year 3000. With 5x habitable planets, the AI manages to quikcly catch up, even with 5x tech cost, because of the pop growth. Also I've even managed to publish the mod on the workshop, finally. Still much work to do, but it'll do for now.
Can't wait to post the next chapter, I'm so happy about these new updates. The changes will be seen after 2260s, as I stopped the game there. For now I just wanted to update everyone, on the state of this AAR.
(remember, I play on the 3.6.1 version)
- 1
Chapter V
Chapter V
The First Cartel War, 2252-2261
On February,16th Nova Terra announced a targeted intervention against the Cartel. It was a fancy way to say war. The main objective was total Yarrowreacher expulsion from imperial colonies. Secondary objectives included revealing the identities of those involved in helping the Cartel and securing key systems near the border. ClassisI, II and III immediately departed to capture the Niffra system, followed by Classis IV just a jump away.
The Velutarian Sacred Republic, saw the intervention as a direct threat to their own long term goals and on April, 13th, they officially broke the research agreement, stating that the Imperium was acting in an unfriendly way towards the Republic.
In May a newt ype of metal was discovered, a very strange one, a living metal. A type of material capable of self repair and regrowth, as well as being able to assume specific shapes when "programmed" to do so. It was a revolutionary discovery, however Marcus decided to leave it for the future generations, the Imperium was not ready and the funds required to make this technology available for industrial and military purpouses were enormous.
In July the Azanti Regime claimed imperial systems. The alliance with Earth had severe consequences and Marcus often wondered if it was the right choice to make. So far it looked nothing more than a slow poison that will kill the Imperium. He kept asking himself, would really Earth honour the pact should war start? It was an issue that kept him awake for many nights. Fortunately he made many political allies on Earth,at least the UNE would not be hostile for the foreseeable future.
In December the primitive world in the Prothon system has been destroyed by the asteroid. The Cartel did nothing to prevent it. UNE took notice of this and ambitious politicians took great advantage of the situation. They broadcasted the destroyed world all over Earth and colonies. Talked about hundreds of milions of dead and how the cataclysm and distaster was so bad, the majority of planet's atmosphere was wiped out. Documentaries spoke about 100% levels of extinction. Later talk shows involved discussions between various influencial figures, some even daring to suggest to militarly intervene to stop the Cartel. They accused the Yarrowreacher of genocide through negligence and indifference. The public on Earth became extremly polarised towards interventionism. While in the colonies, the citizens were less happy, many died trying to invade Velutarian worlds, with Earth sending first the colonists into the meat grinder then the elite units from Earth would mop up the rest. In one way or another, Earth became a sheltered world from the dangers of space. While the colonies had to pay for Earth's mistakes. Many still had deep scars of this war. Little did it matter, as the most populous planet and the capital, slowly but steadily the pro war voices were winning.
The imperial navy was ordered to destroy the asteroid, however delays and bad logistics prevented such actions. Perhaps it was for the best, these aliens were sparred from a future as slaves to either the Cartel or the Imperium, a fate many species of aliens were not so lucky to avoid.
The abnormally huge asteroid hit the world with such intensity the most inhabited areas that their demise was almost immediate. The rest of survivors shortly died too. The atmosphere was lacking and life could not continue anymore.
In early May 2253, a new ten years plan was announced, it would bring the nation towards greater prosperity. It would start with increasing the output on mining stations and over time more minerals would allow a greater industrial and military output. The reliance on other states to keep the Imperial economy afloat was a major weakness, Marcus admited in his biography, later in life. The Imperium had to stand on it's own feet no matter what.
In late May, the Imperium managed to capture three systems and two jumps away from Abdera, the system of origin of the Yarrowreacher, two main fleets and a small squadron were spotted in the Jumla system. The system was fortified, but the high command was confident imperial navies would easily breakthrough regardless. They decided to not halt the advancementand and wait for Classis IV to catch with the rest but to push forward.
As the Imperial fleets were dangerously close to their capital system, the Yarrowreacher, started to worry and began mass distribution of a newexperimental drug on Nova Terra. The most unfortunate members of society took it in alarming numbers, and despite harsh state policies the drug problem only increased and become worse. To exacerbate the whole situation, the Clergy, clearly outraged by this widespread use of non cerimonial drugs, demanded the creation of execution squads. This paramilitary organisation under direct control of the Clergy was tasked to raid any drug distribution centers and had any right toexecute anyone they deemed eligible for immediate judgement. This in turn degenerated in mass executions of drug addicts by even other non combatants, as they felt rightfully so justified. The problems were becoming worse and worse, the excuse of being addicted to Yarrowreacher drugs could be used by anyone to off those who they didn't like and if proof indicated the contrary, common occurences were kidnappings and forcefully injecting the drug into the targetand then off it. It was more of a dirty war between powerful criminals rather than the more conventional powers. Soon after, even the slaves gained widespread access to this drug and if the problem was already bad, it become so much worse. The Imperium was forced to kill an untold numbers of unfit for duty slaves. The effects of the drugs were extreme and recovery was almost impossible. Even common folks in the slums started to be killed by the execution squads and criminals gangs funded their own small armies and an unspoken war started all over Nova Terra. The Cartel was infamous for being able to wage these types of asymmetric wars with devastating results.
On September, 20th the Yldar Sacrosanct Concordat declared war on the Velutarian Sacred Republic. This was the first step to restore their lost glory, by conquering Velutarian worlds they could seize neccessary resources and capital to kickstart their stagnant economy once again and be able in a near future to surpass the UEK and reassert their dominance. The Azanti were dragged in this war too.
In mid October the Imperium engaged the Cartel's fleets and after a brief exchange, the Yarrowreacher decided to disengage and flee to a more defensible system.
On November, 6th the Velutarians decided to break their non aggression pact with Nova Terra. Under pressure from the Azanti Regime, the Republic, declared that the DENTP was a dangerous precedent and they would not allow such unrestricted unions to form. In reality, many Velutarians were against breaking the accord, however at this point, the Velutarian Sacred Republic, was all but in name a vassal of the Azanti Regime. The Azanti were still unable make the Velutarians recognise the official state of vassal but they were slowly working towards that goal. The war, became an opportunity in disguise for the aggressive aliens. The Velutarians being in the center of the conflict would inevitably suffer the greatest casualties. This would allow more control, until they could literally force Velutarian politicians and officials, under the guise of heavy debt to accept subjugation, lest they would face invasion and no one would lift a finger or another apendage to help them.
The next year, in late January, the Velutarian embassy was recalled. Under Azanti pressure, the Velutarians were forced to ruin their cordial relations with the Imperium.
In February, ocean ecology management technology was researched, the next goal was eco simulation, using sophisticated simulations more predictable crop yields could be obtained.
The Imperium was still in dire need of energy and Spalatum, could finally be cleaned of some of its toxic kelp, this in turn would allow to build the infrastructure neccessary to almost double its current output.
On March, 11th 2254 Earth declared war on terror. Marcus was astounded by such terms. What wanted the UNE to achieve and why use such words? The Cartel surely was a criminal state, if it even could be called a state, to begin with. It was a criminal syndicate of unseen proportions. How an entire species could succumb under such rule was unclear to him and he started to look into it with the help of few scribes. They studied in detail the history of these aliens A lot of records made very little sense. It was as the history itself was rewritten over and over again, to a point, that few clues remained past a certain point of their history. From what he understood, is that powerful families of hidden dynasties took over the homeworld. A sort of nepotistic mafia, a particular sect of the Yarrowreacher peoples, viewed itself as the choosen ones, destined to rule over the other members of their species. They viewed the majority of their species as inferior people, to be ruled and exploited. Marcus deducted that through subversion and hidden wars consisting of cultural subversion and economic manipualtion, the nepotistic mafia families managed to slowly infiltrated every government and kill every real opposition. In turn they created controlled opposition that fooled the majority and slowly through means of control managed to track down the dissident part of the population and neutralise most individuals. Marcus, kept looking through their history and noted something rather worrying. This new mafia, with the help of social experts created various cultural movements that changed the Yarrowreacher classical style of life. The nepotistic mafia with the help of corrupt sociologists studied methods to best manipulate and control the minds of the younger generations of Yarrowreacher. This artificial style of life was imposed somewhere around 200 years ago. With time itbecame a norm that resulted in a weak subdued population, powerlessto do anything against the new global establishment.
This made Marcus question his own theory ever further, he had limited time to look at the history of these aliens and learn from their mistakes while still having to manage an interstellar empire. Few could manage time like how he did and in future he would be called one of the Great Emperors, that ruled Nova Terra. With time he came to understand how things went horribly wrong for the Yarrowreacher. He saw how their spoken language started to change, at first slowly but then dramatically fast, with words being used in arbitrary ways. Then in the most powerful states, when the Cartel global domination was not yet reached, different laws were applied to different classes of citizens. Those who supported the so called "futuristic and properous" ideas of nepotistic mafia, were allowed to get away with everything and were encouraged to employ any avalaible means against those that opposed the change. Then it came the time when the "futurists" and the "classicists" started to clash in the major cities. Marcus decided to call these factions based on their apparent ideology. At that time, their homeworld risked real nuclear disaster. In the end the "classicists" and those few states that still stood against the "futurists" were destroyed by manufactured civil wars and the dissidents were finally defeated. In the aftermath the most isolationist Yarrowreacher cultures were completely destroyed and wiped out.
Another thing that Marcus noted was the great migrations various Yarrowreacher cultures were forced to. By means of destabilising their own homelands and creating famines and secretly using chemical and biological weapons against their own species. Then blaming the real target states and create endless violence. The nepostic mafia managed to portrait itself as the saviours and the voice of reason, gaining power quickly in times of crisis.
After the civil wars destroyed any opposition, the families slowly started to centralise everything, track everything, imprison any left wrong thinker and so on. The xenophobic movements were dealt with extreme violence and egalitaniarism was imposed, any separatism had to be crushed with utmost efficiency, while maintaining the illusion of a free and united world. A new age of megacorporation hellscape started.
The new global government endured almost two hundred years beforestarting to make projects for space exploration and soon even worlds among the stars would feel the presence of the sea peoples.
It was a sad tale of how an entire population could fall to a cult of mad leaders infatuated with endless power and greed. Even the Yarrowreacher commoners started to become as their leaders, greedy, very greedy, blind to their own vices they were willing to make out enemies of anyone, just to achieve their goal of hoarding wealth and power, no matter the cost.
Truly a peculiar and cautionary tale and very detrimental to the Imperium. Many agreed that the aliens had to be neutralised by any means neccessary before their subversive tactics could spread to imperial worlds. The opposition could learn from the best of the best on how to overthrow stable societies and create neo – feudal corporate hellscapes. The Imperium was a fragile patchwork of colonies. If Nova Terra, was kept under the iron rule, enforcing it in the colonies, was not easy. Marcus, ordered scribes to compile his studies in a small book. This book was then made mandatory in schools and extensive propaganda campaigns were launched to demonise and warn the population about the devious sea peoples. Persuasive yet extremely dangerous, nothing good would came from dealing with them, the essay suggested. The campaign had mixedr esults as underground trade was already well established and the involved parties laughed at the pathetic attempt of the state to fight back against their lucrative ventures. It was far too little, far too late, it already took deep roots and the consequences would change for ever for the fate of the Imperium, from what it could have been, from what the founder God-Emperor intended, to something completely different, worse and often times, soulless and devoid of the intended original divinity. Nothing but an apparatus devoted to march to endless wars and fight against what it claimed to be soulless while itself being such a system. Truly wars of the mad. Marcus woke up, distressed one night, remembering vaguely a weird prophetic dream and those words, he wrote them in his private diary, discovered only many centuries later.
What the UNE wanted to achieve however was completely different from what they announced to the wider public. The deep state had made extensive plans to cripple and destroy the Imperium from within. They wanted to avoid direct confrontation, drafting the population could prove massively unpopular. The last war against the Velutarians, was proof of it. The UNE had to rely mainly on volunteers. The golden opportunity came when a few prominent members, which names are lost, following the purges of [REDACTED] during the [REDACTED], proposed a plan to subjugate the sea people, use their massive economic powerhouse to fuel Earth's industries, learn their tecniques of infiltration and use their already available connections in the Imperium to their advantage. Lately, the UNE had great difficulties to infiltrare Nova Terra while the crafty aliens had entire criminal operations running at maximum efficiency. The plan remained in the limbo for a few years until the Prothon Incident. The war with the Imperium was deemed insuffient to lead to a UNE's intervention even in the name of DENTP. Worse, the Imperium specifically did not ask Earth to partecipate in this war, because it did not want them to gain any influence over the Yarrowreacher. While on one hand it greatly disappointed the [REDACTED] officials on another hand it confirmed that the Imperium took very seriously the Cartel and was willing to go extra lenghts to impede other states to gain influence over them. It would guarantee open doors inside Nova Terra and then countless state secrets could easily get out. The Yarrowreacher were interested for the moment in criminal activities and they had a good espionage network. Eager buyers could easily get access to those secrets. The Yarrowreacher did not attempt yet to uncover them because it was simply not profitable to do so, yet.
On May, 2nd the two Yarrowreacher fleets that has been defeated earlier has been spotted in their home system, Abdera. Marcus became incredibly busy with interal affairs and scandals involving several high ranking officials, veterans and even a few admirals. While he was busy trying to make a sense out of all that mess, the fleets were left alone. The admirals were more interested in trying to salvage their reputation than to command. A reckless admiral was left in charge of the whole imperial fleet. Three fleets had damage estimated between 22% to 13% to hull integrity and severe shortages in manpower assured that the fleets operated in suboptimal conditions. Instead of waiting just a few more months for repairs and reinforcements, full assault was ordered. Needless to say this worsened the situation onboard. The condition of the ships deteriorated even further while the morale among the crew dropped like a rock in the middle of a lake. Even worse the three fleets were situated in the Situla system, predicted to arrive in the Jumla system, in which laid a captured and fully functional starbase, ready to repair the fleets. The orders were clear, advance and not waste any time. With all the criticism this strategy got over the years, it was a decent one. Its greatest flaw was that it was thought with only the enemy fleets in mind. This strategy of lighting strike ignored the existence of heavily fortified systems which the aliens hurriedly built and improved since the beggining of the war inside their capital system. Something the imperial forces were largely unaware of, as the war became secondary in importance and the intel became almost nonexistent. Another issue was the inability of the imperial fleets to quickly project their power, taking too much to move and reorganise, lacking flexibility. On September 19th, the fleets reached Jumla system and started to quickly move towards Abdera.
On November, 1st the Barcalan Interstellar Autocracy approached Nova Terra with an interesting proposal, a commercial ageement. The most to gain from it would be the Imperium. On its own, this agreement would be able to cover one third of the deficit, while the aliens would gain roughly three times less profit from it. The UEK, a few decades before, has been clear about financing foreing powers outside their axis of interest, it required a clear approval from the leader of the Hegemony. The Barcalan Interstellar Autocracy, decided to bypass this law by disguising it as a trade agreement. The Yarrowreacher were unpopular amongst the Barcalan Interstellar Autocracy and a war to damage them, was more than enough reason to help their enemies.
Just two weeks later, on Novermber, 16th a guerilla attack was launched by the Cartel in the Jumla system, Melted Shoal fleet formation was sent to delay the Imperium, in spite of facing odds 4 to 1, not only they succeded with their task but even inflicted double the casualties and quickly retreated. The surprise attack caught completely unprepared the four fleets that were ready to jump to Abdera. It caused massive disorganisation, the combat readiness of the imperial fleets dropped by a large margin yet again and a month of delay was needed to reorganise the forces. One way or another, this war was proving more and more difficult to manage and the price being paid was becoming higher and higher.
The next year, the scandals were briefly paused when news about a mysterious alien artifact came out. Rumours were unclear, but they suggested a powerful object that could make anyone extremely wealthy and powerful. The Imperium could not allow something like that to fall in the wrong hands and a dedicated team of zealots was formed to hunt down both the scavengers and the artifact itself. A new sort of small scale war was starting across the desolate words and small industrial colonies. Adventurers from other worlds would also travel great distances to try their luck. Unfortunately, by creating this dedicated order of zealots, instead of intimidating the opposition it only attracted more people and the order had to fight them too. This order of zealots over time would grow to become something monstrous inside the Imperium, able to influence its decisions and even the God-Emperor himself, calling forwars of [REDACTED]. They started as a small expedition team of the Church and soon after the order became a small branch of the execution squads already present on Nova Terra and over time would completely absorb them to become just The Order.
By the end of January, additional industrial districts were ordered on both Favonius and Hyperborea. The Imperium in need of alloys and consumer goods and despite the war and the turbulent situation at home, expansion projects never stopped.
In April, the imperial fleets finally managed to engage the space station in the Abdera system. Two Yarrowreacher fleets defended fiercely the station. The space station was reinforced by six defence platforms that greatly contributed to the destruction of imperial ships. On April, 28th the retreat was ordered. Classis I and II suffered 25% casualties and Classis III and IV around 10%. After almost a month of fighting, it culminated with a final high intensity counter assault by the Yarrowreacher battered ships. The Imperium was forced to immediately recall its entire force back. Further stubborness would have guaranteed far worse losses. Fortunately the Imperium had a decent stockpile of alloys and this would allow them to quickly replenish the losses. The real hit that the sea people managed to inflict to Nova Terra, was repelling the invader and humilating it. So far, the Imperium was considered a rather capable opponent, especially after the war with the League. After such a defeat, showing weakness could easily invite back old enemies.
The two defending Yarrowreacher fleets, were barelyo perational with one at 59% and another at 40% hull integrity reports suggested. Their desperate counterattack worked perfectly and the demoralised imperial fleets had to retreat. It was an important victory for the aliens. They had time to prepare to fight back against the UNE and retake systems lost to the Imperium.
This defeat, was an opportunity in disguise for Marcus. He used the defeat to his own advantage. He blamed all parties involved in the scandals and accused them of factional infighting. He even went so far to implicitly suggest that they might be traitors collaborating with the aliens to ensure the defeat of humanity and heavy purges might come soon, quite uncharacteristic of him. Extraordinary circumstances required extraordinary measures, in his life he later claimed. His speeches were ruthless and concise. In a final great theatrical act, he implied that everyone involved inthese conflicts shall forgive the other party and reach a final and definitve status quo. They should all focus on the war and not givein to primal, raw emotions. The threat of a purge of never seen proportions, put fear in both the veterans and the Church, they stood to lose more than to gain and Marcus was well respected by both sides. They knew he could be not swayed by one party or another and the painful compromise was reached.
In July, improved corvette hulls technology was researched. After the battle of Abdera system, new methods were triedand tested. The next focus became, zero-g refineries. Coincidetally after the defeat, a League fleet was spotted in the Arrakis system, it was badly damaged, estimates put it at 61% hull integrity. It was unclear to the Imperium, what the League was doing, some suggsted that they were hunting space amoebas. War with the Imperium would force them to fight the UNE too and they were not foolish. The League was at odds with the UNE, despite both nations being more alligned politically than the Imperium, the xenophobia in the UNE was showing. They were more comfortable to deal for the time being with fellow humans. For the moment, the Imperium looked with weary eyes at the League.
The next year, on April, 17th the League agreed to a defensive alliance with the Caphevan Interstellar Republic. Both nations had similar ideologies and interests. The League was interested exterting influence the region, while the Republic was interested to preserve its indipendence and if possible to expand too. At the same time the Imperium began great construction efforts. It would start to build alloy foundries, civilian industriesand generator districts on various colonies.
In July, contact was made with the Avarrian League and the Prince-Electorate of the Aztani. Two former vassal nations of the old empire.
On February, 24th the League made another defensive alliance with Holy Caphevan Empire this time. The old empire still sought to regain control over the lost systems and colonies. While agreeing to recognise the indipendence of the Caphevan Interstellar Republic, the empire refused to see as legitimate states the rest of the indipendent ones.
By April, 2257 the Cartel recaptured Jumla system. The war became a good opportunity for a various families to unite and topple their enemies. Their owned megacorporations merged to create a united front, The Path to Victory Committee. A militaristic party that wanted to actively conquer systems from the aliens instead of just trading peacefully with them.
While the damaged fleets of the Imperium werer eturning, a fifth fleet was under construction. Nova Terra, could theoretically support five full fleets without incurring in major logistic issues. League interceptors were spotted more and more in imperial territory and became a common occurence. To make thing worse, the League was aggressively colonising every avalaible colony inside their borders. Chancellor Cognati, in one of his most famous speeches a few years ago stated that demographics are destiny and their kin had to expand on as many worlds as possible. The League wanted to ou tcompete its rivals and neighbours. Nine colonies against the six of the Imperium, while having little to none impact at the moment, over time it would mean trillions of tons of resources, billions of workers and a lot of manpower for armies and navies. The League's nasty habit of war of attrition would destroy Nova Terra in future, Marcus stated after receiving news of their ninth colonised world.
The aliens wanted to play the long game, something the Imperium could not afford, yet an invasion was not possible in the foreseeable future. The League was quick to make alliances in response to the DENTP. While the later, was a rather unstable agreement, the situation in the Khell'Zen League was different, the alliances were made to last. An extraordinary purchase of consumer goods at premium prices from private industries across the Imperium and even from the UNE was made. A new colony ship was ordered to be built. The Imperium would colonise worlds no matter what, even if the costly war against the Cartel was still ongoing.
In September, the fleets were ready to depart again and orders were issued, the Imperium was on the offensive once again. The next year in the same month the Cartel landed a hit to the heart of the Imperium, Nova Terra. The Cartel was very busy to expand their business on the capital, so busy in fact, different kinds of experimental drugs were introduced. The aftermath was a disaster, very addictive and very lethal, the drugs were distribuited in massive quantities in the capital for free. So many deaths happened that the hospitals could no longer take patients anymore and mass graves were dug to bury the ever increasing number of casualties. Even the Church's private army was struggling to deal with such situation and targeted attacks on their headquarters by various criminal groups directly financied by the Cartel made things even more complicated. The war against the Cartel was unlike any other war the Imperium fought so far...
By the end of November, 2258 the zealots managed to find with almost certainy the location of the artifact after taking the coordinates from the dead cold hands of few scavengers, unluck yenough to be ambsuhed. They found a secret passage, rumoured to contain the artifact.
In the second half of 2259, the fusion power reactor was approved and every ship could be equipped with this new powerful technology, allowing travel in space unlike anything before. The next focus would become the blue laser, while already widely used for various blind inducing weapons, creating a giant version that could be equipped on cannons to be directed by corvettes against enemy armor plates to easily melt them, was another challenge.
Three months later, food shortages became a massive problem and enormous subsidies were given to farmers to expand their food production.
At the same time, the zealots stumbled upon some weird machinery that induced obedience into the population that gazed upon the sky. Needless to say, the Imperium became particularly interested in such technology, a good way to pacify the population and perhaps in a future, prepare it for wars, wars of such scale and intensity every aspect of life had to be dedicated to it. While Marcus disapproved it, his pragmatic side left him aware that such wars were an inevitability sooner or later, the Imperium was surrounded by enemies on every side. While the Imperium managed to get its hands on a particular piece of technology, the Rubricator was nowhere to be seen, regardless, this expedition was considered a great success. In the late 2300s, this technology would play a crucial role with conflicts ever expading and growing well into early 2400s, leaving little time to the Imperium to mourn its dead.
In December, there was no choice but to buy food from UNE's private industries, while the quantity bought was modest, the price for it was ridiculous, they knew the Imperium was in financial deficit and regardless kept their price high, taking full advantage of it. Without much choice, the purchase was made. Fortunately just three months later, in March, 2260 eco simualtion was researched, using sophisticated simulations, crops could be obtained in the most optimal conditions.
The next focus of research became food processing, inventing advanced methods to process the food in the most efficient ways with mininal waste will allow to use biomass that in past would have been easily thrown away.
On April, 21st the Cartel captured the Sanopel system, while the Imperium launched their offensive against the outpost in the Prothon system. Instead of retreating and regrouping inside their system, the Cartel decided to further push in the Erimadon system. It was a commonly used tacting by them, raid deep inside enemy systems and cause confusion. Fortunately, the admirals were quick to catch on this and issued orders accordingly.
On September, 28th the Cartel proposed astatus quo to the Imperium. They agreed to close every branch insidethe Imperium and leave. What their peace proposal did not mention properly and was written with very small characters, was the fact that they would keep the Sanopel system while the Imperium would gain control of the Prothon system. The Sanopel system had a colonisable world which the Imperium was unwilling to lose, it was a bad proposal and Marcus, immediately dismissed it. Regardless, this war was draining the resources of the Imperium like never before and peace had to be reached soon.
On November, 23th the Imperium made contact with a new alien species, the Great Belmacosa Imperium. A despotic hegemony, deeply xenophobic and materialistic, they did not leave a good impression on the Imperium that quickly dimissed them as vermin. They were situated on the other side of Azanti Regime systems.
To make matters even worse, at the same time, another critical shortage happened, this time was consumer goods. To keep going the streak of bad news, massive forest fires erupted in Hyperborea.
Finally in mid January, 2261 the Cartel has been completely forced out of imperial systems. To commemorate this event, massive constrution projects were laid down on various colonies. In late February, the peace proposal was sent to the Cartel, this time on Imperium's terms. After two weeks of careful revision, the Yarrowreacher had no choice but to accept it. They would cede the Prothon system and withdraw completely from Nova Terran colonies. The war with the UNE was another pressing matter and it was better to fight another day rather than lose it all today. The First Cartel War, has concluded on April, 10th 2261.
- 1
The chapter is finally out. Took me way longer than expected and that's just one chapter and I had planned to post two... yeah, about that...
I tried to keep it on the shorter side but more or less 5 thousand words are not exactly on the shorter side. Well, at least I managed to post it and I'm happy enough with that. At least is not chapter III, that one was something else.
P.s. edit: I meant actually chapter III, had to split it in 3 parts
I tried to keep it on the shorter side but more or less 5 thousand words are not exactly on the shorter side. Well, at least I managed to post it and I'm happy enough with that. At least is not chapter III, that one was something else.
P.s. edit: I meant actually chapter III, had to split it in 3 parts
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Well, that was certainly something. I liked the foreshadowing, even if I don't like the kind of state that it is suggesting that the Imperium will become...
Of course the UNE declared war on a concept. It follows the great American tradition of doing so!
Will Earth's colonies attempt to do something about being used as cannon fodder?
Of course the UNE declared war on a concept. It follows the great American tradition of doing so!
Will Earth's colonies attempt to do something about being used as cannon fodder?
Maybe a strongly worded letter, xd. Earth is just too powerful, if they pretend to that are not an expansionist power, they are.
Mini update: As usual I could not keep my hands to myself like every other normal person that writes AARs here and I made the decision to open the files of my mod again and add stuff. It all started from a small accident. I decided to originally not buff the marauders and FEs, and well, with how powerful empires can get with my mod, even with x5 tech cost, I felt the need to buff them. It happened a few weeks ago, the mod that was supposed to buff them kinda altered the fragile balance between grand admiral difficulty and scaling the bonuses for the AI. In a weird twist of a situation the AI got itself even more buffs than grand admiral. Needless to say I couldn't keep up. After I commited some minor genocides, things got spicy, very spicy, very quickly and I found myself in wars where I was hopelessly outnumbered. I fought for decades to no end. However I noticed two things, the AI having overwhelming presence was reluctant to just send their military to easily destroy me and I managed for better or worse do a guerilla style warfare for quite the decades before finally being put up to rest, only to have more devastating wars start just a few years later. As much as I like last stand and desperate fights, it did not happen the way I envisioned them to be. I will still be in future outnumbered but this time, the enemy AI won't hesitate anymore to tear [REDACTED]. Even much weaker AIs will still bite hard.
I did not understand how the AI was advancing so fast despite my best efforts in min maxing etc, in the limits of roleplay wise but still. Another thing was the AI reluctance to commit to wars. I play with 3.6.1 version so maybe in the updated version, the AI is more aggressive.
Another thing that kinda bothered me up, was how easily dictatorships, authoritarian slaver empires and similar states could befriend democracies akin to democratic crusaders or fanatic xenophiles and fanatic egalitarian states. In my case the whole UNE vs Imperium situation, it just felt wrong that they were so friendly. The Imperium in the lore but also gamewise should be viewed as an evil and oppressive regime, yet they would've even agreed to form a federation of me. Maybe for alien empire the UNE could've closed an eye or two to such attrocities but a fellow human empire, neighbouring them? Also the penalty between ethics in my opinion is just too weak. Making empires very easy to become friends between them creating a stale and boring setup not to speak how easily vassalisation is imposed and works.
Things I did not like and since I decided to scrap the old screenshots and saves and restart again from where I finished chapter V, for two simple reasons.
- The first being, readjusted AI bonuses.
- The second being, to keep things more realistic (I know a sci fi fantasy space game is not exactly realistic but I wanted more distrust between various civilisations in this space sector I play). If I already restart from there, why not change a bit more things?
For example, democracies should get along easier with each other and tend to dislike and despise monarchies and dictatorships and slightly be bothered oligarchies. The first step I took was towards the AI itself, I won't go into technical details since most people do not really care about them. In few words, I made the AI much more aggressive and willing to attack systems, take planets, lands armies, etc. I took reference from few existing AI mods and then adjusted the various values to make it work with my mod instead of vanilla, so an improved AI designed specifically for my mod. (I sometimes wonder if I did the right thing, I hope I did not create monster I will have to fight later. Who are we even kidding? The more ruthless the AI, the better.)
A good example is even with it being inferior in power the AI will fight until the last stand instead to choose to escape in hopeless wars and make things annoying. It will engage enemy fleets and will try to defend homeland systems with higher priority. In practice I made the AI more brave, since my mod allows for so many more fleets, there is no need for this much caution. Of course, add the random buffs during the engagement and the outcome is rather unpredictable and unluckly rolls for the superior force can easily make it suffer many more casualties and even be forced to retreat.
In a few words, the first step was to make the AI much more aggressive and proactive with its fleets and let me tell you, it works quite well.
The second thing I did was to make ethics hate each over. Spiritualists will absolutely despise machines, loathe synths and cyborgs and dislike (a lot) the materialists. At the same time they will have more positive opinions of fellow spiritualits, but not as much, because after all they are still heathens and pagans and need proper conversion to the true faith...
Same thing for the materialists, they hate the spiritualists but not as much. Some ethics hate more the opposite ethic while being hated a bit less by the counterpart. For example, the pacifists, absolutely despise militarists while the later do not even think about pacifists. They don't even hate them, seeing them as pitiful and weak and not even deserving that.
Another thing I did, was relantionship between various government types. They will also dislike each other, with oligarchies being the generally less hated government type by everyone else and democracies being despised by dictatorships as a threat to their regime and monarchies looking with distaste at the commoner rabble "self" governing itself. Each government type will have positive opinion of each other and some will like each other more than other types of governemnt.
The last thing, I buffed opinion negatives, for example for being at war, was at war and egalitarians and xenohpiles disliking slavery a lot more and some other minor changes. I noticed that vivisection had a massive penalty and the decay was kinda slow. I fixed that, the massive opinion penalty will remain but in a decade or so, sometimes even slower, will be gone. For example the UNE kept declaring war to the Velutarians and never vassalised them or became allies because of this massive opion hit that, despite the change of government did not go away. I decided to fix that. It's funny because a dude that was vivisectioned 20 years ago is carrying more negative effect than a pop being purged. Massive immediate hit that in a few decades will go away, that's my solution to this.
Enough now of this "mini update" that slowly became a wall of text. Rest assured I will show everything in the AARs screenshots, how the opinions will work etc. I will even ask other empires for active sensor link so I can simulate military observes and talk about other wars during periods of peace in the Imperium. The AI became very efficient at capturing systems and planets, which left me pleasantly surprised and very worried at the same time. After all, despite having less bonuses now, they are much more deadlier (I did some economy tinkering but not as efficient, for example as Starnet AI mod). And over time they will get more and more bonuses. A hyper aggressive AI with such powerful economies are now a real threat to me and I really need to plan well my wars. All I can say things will become very wild.
Mini update over and see you all in the next chapter.
I did not understand how the AI was advancing so fast despite my best efforts in min maxing etc, in the limits of roleplay wise but still. Another thing was the AI reluctance to commit to wars. I play with 3.6.1 version so maybe in the updated version, the AI is more aggressive.
Another thing that kinda bothered me up, was how easily dictatorships, authoritarian slaver empires and similar states could befriend democracies akin to democratic crusaders or fanatic xenophiles and fanatic egalitarian states. In my case the whole UNE vs Imperium situation, it just felt wrong that they were so friendly. The Imperium in the lore but also gamewise should be viewed as an evil and oppressive regime, yet they would've even agreed to form a federation of me. Maybe for alien empire the UNE could've closed an eye or two to such attrocities but a fellow human empire, neighbouring them? Also the penalty between ethics in my opinion is just too weak. Making empires very easy to become friends between them creating a stale and boring setup not to speak how easily vassalisation is imposed and works.
Things I did not like and since I decided to scrap the old screenshots and saves and restart again from where I finished chapter V, for two simple reasons.
- The first being, readjusted AI bonuses.
- The second being, to keep things more realistic (I know a sci fi fantasy space game is not exactly realistic but I wanted more distrust between various civilisations in this space sector I play). If I already restart from there, why not change a bit more things?
For example, democracies should get along easier with each other and tend to dislike and despise monarchies and dictatorships and slightly be bothered oligarchies. The first step I took was towards the AI itself, I won't go into technical details since most people do not really care about them. In few words, I made the AI much more aggressive and willing to attack systems, take planets, lands armies, etc. I took reference from few existing AI mods and then adjusted the various values to make it work with my mod instead of vanilla, so an improved AI designed specifically for my mod. (I sometimes wonder if I did the right thing, I hope I did not create monster I will have to fight later. Who are we even kidding? The more ruthless the AI, the better.)
A good example is even with it being inferior in power the AI will fight until the last stand instead to choose to escape in hopeless wars and make things annoying. It will engage enemy fleets and will try to defend homeland systems with higher priority. In practice I made the AI more brave, since my mod allows for so many more fleets, there is no need for this much caution. Of course, add the random buffs during the engagement and the outcome is rather unpredictable and unluckly rolls for the superior force can easily make it suffer many more casualties and even be forced to retreat.
In a few words, the first step was to make the AI much more aggressive and proactive with its fleets and let me tell you, it works quite well.
The second thing I did was to make ethics hate each over. Spiritualists will absolutely despise machines, loathe synths and cyborgs and dislike (a lot) the materialists. At the same time they will have more positive opinions of fellow spiritualits, but not as much, because after all they are still heathens and pagans and need proper conversion to the true faith...
Same thing for the materialists, they hate the spiritualists but not as much. Some ethics hate more the opposite ethic while being hated a bit less by the counterpart. For example, the pacifists, absolutely despise militarists while the later do not even think about pacifists. They don't even hate them, seeing them as pitiful and weak and not even deserving that.
Another thing I did, was relantionship between various government types. They will also dislike each other, with oligarchies being the generally less hated government type by everyone else and democracies being despised by dictatorships as a threat to their regime and monarchies looking with distaste at the commoner rabble "self" governing itself. Each government type will have positive opinion of each other and some will like each other more than other types of governemnt.
The last thing, I buffed opinion negatives, for example for being at war, was at war and egalitarians and xenohpiles disliking slavery a lot more and some other minor changes. I noticed that vivisection had a massive penalty and the decay was kinda slow. I fixed that, the massive opinion penalty will remain but in a decade or so, sometimes even slower, will be gone. For example the UNE kept declaring war to the Velutarians and never vassalised them or became allies because of this massive opion hit that, despite the change of government did not go away. I decided to fix that. It's funny because a dude that was vivisectioned 20 years ago is carrying more negative effect than a pop being purged. Massive immediate hit that in a few decades will go away, that's my solution to this.
Enough now of this "mini update" that slowly became a wall of text. Rest assured I will show everything in the AARs screenshots, how the opinions will work etc. I will even ask other empires for active sensor link so I can simulate military observes and talk about other wars during periods of peace in the Imperium. The AI became very efficient at capturing systems and planets, which left me pleasantly surprised and very worried at the same time. After all, despite having less bonuses now, they are much more deadlier (I did some economy tinkering but not as efficient, for example as Starnet AI mod). And over time they will get more and more bonuses. A hyper aggressive AI with such powerful economies are now a real threat to me and I really need to plan well my wars. All I can say things will become very wild.
Mini update over and see you all in the next chapter.
That's an interesting analysis.
Also, other people who write AARs are perfectly willing to cheat, mod, and play around with the game. It's fine.
Also, other people who write AARs are perfectly willing to cheat, mod, and play around with the game. It's fine.
- 1
Small announcement:
Yes, I'm still alive, however I did a bit of *uck ups and I accidentally deleted the screenshots for the next chapters, since I was upgrading my hardware. I knew I should not have formatted the old hard disk so fast, dammit. Well, from now on I shall store all my screenshots on a dedicated hard disk (lesson learned). And well, now I have to replay again, hahaha. I even liked how the scenario ended up. Well, it is what it is, I will be back. At least my hardware is better so I can play stellaris faster... yeah...
Thank you all for your patience.
P.s. edit:
The save works, with some hiccups but I made it work, that's all that matters, of course. The screenshots can come later, I can replay again, no issue here. As long as the savegame is alive the AAR stays alive. I will add some more updates to the mod and jump back in. Hopefully I can get a similar scenario to what I had previously, it might be a bit different, other than that AIs should behave how they behaved previously. I again apologise for my randomness. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, ; ).
Yes, I'm still alive, however I did a bit of *uck ups and I accidentally deleted the screenshots for the next chapters, since I was upgrading my hardware. I knew I should not have formatted the old hard disk so fast, dammit. Well, from now on I shall store all my screenshots on a dedicated hard disk (lesson learned). And well, now I have to replay again, hahaha. I even liked how the scenario ended up. Well, it is what it is, I will be back. At least my hardware is better so I can play stellaris faster... yeah...
Thank you all for your patience.
P.s. edit:
The save works, with some hiccups but I made it work, that's all that matters, of course. The screenshots can come later, I can replay again, no issue here. As long as the savegame is alive the AAR stays alive. I will add some more updates to the mod and jump back in. Hopefully I can get a similar scenario to what I had previously, it might be a bit different, other than that AIs should behave how they behaved previously. I again apologise for my randomness. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, ; ).
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Chapter VI
Chapter VI
A brief period of peace, 2262-2265
Following the aftermath of the war with the Cartel, minor powers started to approach the Imperium. Some wanted to gain favours, some wanted to get in the good graces of the God-Emperor. One such request, was made in February 2262 by the Barcalan Autorities. The Barcalan Interstellar Autocracy proposed a research agreement to the Imperium, it was a bad deal, the Imperium would share insights of several decades of research to the aliens in exhange for their good word inside the Hegemonic Powers. Marcus wasn't a fool, he personally dealt with the issue, in order to avoid a diplomatic incident, he respectfully declined, saying the Imperium had not yet the resources to allow the deployment of technicians, engineers, sociologists and other branches. At the same time he strongly discouraged the arrival of delegates from the Barcalan Interstellar Autocracy, saying he feared the Imperium's cybersecurity was compromised by the enemies of both the Imperium and the Hegemonic powers and sending the raw data or even the encrypted one was just too much of a hazard. The aliens understandably disappointed had to agree with the God-Emperor, the deal had to be called off. However they thanked the God-Emperor for his transparency on these issues and few days later, the Barcalans reported back on Nova Terra that their systems had been compromised too to a certain degree. Marcus decided that just telling the truth was the best approach. The Cartel had easily cracked imperial security ages ago and when forced to concede in the last war, they sold these information to many enemies of the Imperium. One such enemy was Khell'Zen League, they would slowly prepare their forces to face once again the Imperium and this time, destroy its institution for good.
In late February, the Caphevan Principalty approached the Imperium with an amazing deal. A theocratic monarchy of evangelazing zealots. Authoritarian and deeply spiritual, they quickly found common ground with the Imperium of Nova Terra. An envoy was sent to share insights into Caphevan technology, it was centuries ahead. The Imperium could not offer anything in exhange and when Marcus asked why, the envoy said, that it was a gesture of good will towards fellow spiritualists that can see the realities beyond. The envoy personally fled to Nova Terra and gave the God-Emperor a sort of key, that would allow the information to flow towards a high-tech grey box. No bigger than a common dinner table, but surprisingly light despite what the volume suggested. Completely grey smooth with a rectangular fissure to insert the key. This sort of box would automatically connect to any Nova Terran facility and network and share its secrets.Of course, as long as the deal was maintained, should the deal be called of, the box would simply stop working and self destruct from inside, leaving behind a useless piece of junk. The Caphevan envoy and ambassador to Nova Terra requested to personally meet the God-Emperor and asked to keep the visit somewhat secretive, while other powers might learn of this through less than legit means, they could not share this information without exposing themselves. It was a way to keep the public largely unaware of this meeting. The envoy arrived early morning on Nova Terra on February, 20th 2262. The meeting was held in a small room inside one the private estates of the God-Emperor. In a small corner of paradise on Nova Terra, where the nature was still untainted by the relentless drive for profit before the existence of the Imperium and the consequent unification war that was an unprecedented and widespread use of [REDACTED]. The ambassador was escorted by other less important dignitaries and what was interesting that they were all not even escorted by security units, showing their trust in the Imperium.
---
"Good morning, said the Caphevan ambassador, it is an honour to meet in person your excellency, God-Emperor Marcus. I'm Sa'Gruul Y'ull ambassador of the Caphevan Principalty."
Marcus could not help but laugh, then he said. "Agrippa was the God-Emperor, I'm merely following his footsteps and try to keep the Imperium afloat." Then Marcus asked. "What pleasure I'm owned that a rewoned figure like you came all this way to personally talk with me and... he paused for a moment.. in a rather secretive manner?"
Our state has fallen, our once proud people stagnated. We are on borrowed time before our aggressive neighbours will devour us.
We are well aware of what Agrippa tried to do. Unfortunately the toll on his mortal prevented him to do so, the details about your Unification War were hard to uncover, we have a general understanding and what was accomplished is nothing short of a miracle. As fellow spiritualists we see in you the next successors.
Marcus was taken aback for a moment by such words. Not only that but the alien perfectly gesticulated in a human manner. It was a weird sight to behold, it showed that the alien took a great deal to learn human customs. "I did expect something unusual out of our meeting but this? Who would've thought?" Marcus for a moment looked immersed in his thoughts and asked. "Successors to what? To the ascension Agrippa spoke with great passion? Even he, himself did not succed, what makes you think such a thing is even possible? The material stays inside the material realms and the immaterial inside their own realms."
"It is possible, we almost achieved it, then those in power gave up on our enlightment, preferring to indulge in vices and degeneracy, the Holy Caphevan Empire is what followed after, complacency and stagnation and then the ultimate collapse as you have witnessed as well." Sa'Gruul Y'ull spoke in a calm manner. "Our species gave up on ascension, we are doomed, but some of us still think that other species, other fellow spiritualists should be guided towards that path."
"And your council thought we would be a good candidate? What about the Democratic Jubaran Suns?" Marcus asked in an almost amused manner.
"Doomed as well, they are on borrowed time. Only the Imperium can truly survive and ascend." The ambassador replied. "We have a prophecy, it will be many centuries in the future, we don't know when and our prophet died many eons ago, however in the visions, your war banner was seen and depicted, left as a mistery to the future generations." Sa'Gruul Y'ull said, in a slight melanchonic manner or what appeared to be. "Later prophecies foretold about the fall of our people and the inevitable descend into decadence from which one there would be no recovery... There is no denying the prophecies anymore, it already happened exactly that. Our final request, of a dying empire, a dying principalty and aswell as someone who is dying too, is to preserve some of our people, maybe as a protectorate under the Imperium..."
"I cannot guarantee what will do my successors." Marcus said in a stern manner. "However I will leave behind me written wills that will hopefully allow the creation of such a state, should the Imperium itself survive..." Marcus, took a drink of his beverage that was laid on the table and then continued to speak. "I'm old myself, my heir is not exactly someone who is a diplomat and even if I was immortal, peace can be kept only for so long, the Imperium is surrounded by enemies on every side, only a miracle can preserve us. Earth itself alone is more powerful than the entirety of the Imperium and they have dozens of colonies, then there's the League and the Azanti, our future is as uncertain as yours, ambassador."
---
On February, 30th the Velutarian Sacred Republic aknowledged defeat and the treaty with the Hegemonic Powers was signed. The Yldar Sacrosanct Concordat saw a great expansion in systems and colonies, while the UEK was forced to concede systems and even some settled worlds to the Azanti Regime. The war was a disaster for the Velutarians and a net gain for their ally. The Yldar managed to both strenghten their empire and at the same time weaken their ally and opponenent inside the hegemony, the UEK. The later, was still more powerful however over time, Yldar predictions indicated that once the empty worlds would be settled and properly colonised, the Yldar Sacrosanct Concordat would easily outmatch the combined power of its allies in production, population and military power and finally reassert their control over the Hegemonic Powers.
On March, 4th the UNE recalled their embassy. After elections, the new politicians were not so eager to stay friendly with the Imperium. A new wave of advocacy spread all across UNE worlds, the New Destiny of Humankind, it wasn't an outright call to war with the Imperium however the content of the manifest was clear, uniting all the Humanity under one autorithy and that authority was UNE. It even showed images of an extended UNE reigning over smaller protectorates in the place of the Imperium and over a process of fifty years they all would be integrated in a greater UNE.
While the UNE embassy was leaving Nova Terra, another one was taking its place and that was from the Caphevan Empire, another successor state of the old empire, their goal was simple, reunite all former lost holding in a new reformed state. For that they played the long game, slowly trying to build good relations with influencial powers that did not have immediate interest in the region.
At the same time other minor diplomatic actions went underway and then the UNE made another big decision and it was to officially cut ties with the old power, the Holy Caphevan Empire. The new cabinet considered that diplomatic ties with the decadent capital was only a liability to a democratic power such as the UNE. Then in July the limited research agreement between the Imperium and the UNE was voided. While becoming more hostile to the Imperium, the ruling powers on Earth called for a more xenophilic approach with other alien species, the so called strength through diversity doctrine. The doctrine called for a united alliance of all sentient creatures in the space sector and create a lasting peace so everyone could prosper, their first goal was by creating a galactic community, then a united sector under UNE command, or else...
While the Imperium would become more and more isolationist and eventually [REDACTED], the UNE saw itself as the voice of reason across a tumoltuous sea of stars. Only one outcome would eventually decide who was right and who was wrong, regardless of real ethics and moral dilemmas, a situation where only might is right, only in the cold space and across the many colonies where hundreds of millions would fight for what they believed or what their current elected governments or God-Emperor told them to believe and die, die and die...
In September the League decided to end their non aggression pact with the Hegemonic Powers, it surely was a sign of conflicts to come. In October, the trade deal with the UNE was severed aswell, over time, the Imperium made sure to make it impossible for UNE enterprises to thrive inside the empire while, extremely cheap costs of production made short work of the local competion on UNE colonies. Breaking this unequal treaty was regarded by many as a new breath of fresh air for the UNE's economy, predicted to grow so much faster without the leeching interference of the Imperium. While in November, zero-g refineries were researched, this new machinery would allow to extract more at cheaper costs and less wasted time on transportation. The next focus of the research became fusion missiles, the God-Emperor ordered to further the research of weapons and not neglect them in favour of relentless industrialisation.
On January, 1st the first Galactic Community in the known star sector of the galaxy was created. An ambitious name for such a community that was hoped one day will span to cover the entire galaxy and not just the traversable small part of it, a small cluster of one thousand stars.
Following the new year, Marcus decided to set up a spy network on Earth and find a way to solve the ever growing energy crisis. Earth's refusal to trade with the Imperium crippled a good portion of its economy, built specifically to leech on. Few advised against such practices saying they were not suistainable, however at the time it was much cheaper and the profits were high and against better judgement mistakes were made, now that the good relations with the UNE were over, the consequences were quickly catching up to the Imperium.
A possible solution, was proposed to Marcus, by a renown slave merchant, to move a seizable portion of the population of aliens from Nova Serica to Spalatum, the generator world, in such a manner, slaves that otherwise would engage in criminal activies would be put to work in the mines and server rooms of the of the colony. Marcus agreed and signed the order immediatetly, another thing he did was to end the deal with the crime lords on Nova Serica, now the Imperium would deal with the crime directly. The next thing he did was to gather enough proof to accuse, condemn and demote the High Governor Manius Flaminius of the core worlds. He was found guilty of corruption and cospiracy against the state with foreign powers. He and his entire lineage was purged from the ranks of power. It was one of the few instances in which Marcus directly and brutally dealt with rivals instead of just forcing them to cooperate and pardoning them. It meant that they crossed a certain line they shouldn't, few God-Emperors would be as lenient as Marcus.
A month later, in May 2263, in a display of power the Imperium laid claim to another system belonging to the League, citing rightful ownership as compensation for the losses incurred in their foolish war against the Imperium. This time, such comment did not go unnoticed in the League. This angered politicians that called for outright war for insulting in such egregious way the Khell'Zen League. Fortunately more level headed figures won and managed to calm the situation, for now war would be avoided, but for how long? It was a question with many answers and certainly the one saying forever was not between them, both in the Imperium and the League there was this certainity that a war would come, being declared by either one or another side.
The next month was ordered the construnction of several new starbases both for defensive and logistical uses. New infrastructure was ordered aswell on the core colonies when a weird report came in, stating that Nova Terra was having an influx of immigration from the colonies, when it should have beeen otherwise, the subjects were becoming restless in the neglected colonies.
News came in late January that the Barcalans embraced xenophile tendencies, the UNE was quickly influencing the Hegemonic Powers towards their desired outcome. Some in the Imperium even went so far to claim that the UNE managed to infiltrate them to a certain degree or even used direct bribery and took advantage of their rampant corruption. It was unclear what the real reason was behind such changes except that the UNE was in one way or another involved.
In February, the Velutarians closed their borders to the Imperium, citing that Humans were no longer welcome, the Imperium issued a ban on any Velutarian citizen aswell and relations between the two powers began to sour yet again.
In March, 2264 the Conclave of Thrus-Klejaamen proposed a similar research trade to that of the Caphevan Principalty, in exchange the Conclave asked that a trade agreement would be made later, the Imperium agreed. A holy tribual of evangelizing zealots, it saw an opportunity in the Imperium that to them appearead extremely technologically backward. This time the presence of the God-Emperor was not required and designated diplomats discussed the matter with the delegation. The Imperial Bureaucracy then sealed the deal. News of God-Emperor's deteriorating health were already spreading and Marcus himself did not deny that he would soon leave this world. The next heir, Primus I would slowly take matters in his hands while the old God-Emperor was slowly succumbing to various ailments and old age.
Another thing happened in late March aswell, a crime boss was arrested on Nova Serica, putting an end to a massive criminal enterprise on the planet. The Cartel was obviosuly involved and it was quite a blow to their operations. To end the month, three days later, the trade agreement between the Conclave and the Imperium was agreed upon. In April the Imperium was forced to buy more food from private industries to keep the army with a full belly but the overall cost of the food was kept relatively low and secret taxes were imposed on other, less important goods. A new decree was issued by the God-Emperor that made the taxes temporary and upon expiration the new tax shall be repelled, save for emergencies threathening the existence of the Imperium itself. The next step, in early July, was a plan to build several hydrophonic bays on starbases to alleviate the food problem.
While in late July, a grand delegation came on Nova Terra with an interesting proposal, join the Hegemonic Powers. After much deliberation, the God-Emperor politely declined the invitation saying it would disrupt the balance of power in the region and the Imperium was already on good terms with the Hegemonic Powers, having as much as an association status, why change the status quo if everything was kept under a stable control? The UEK, the main proponent, didn't take it well, the Yldar were impartial, the Barcalans for some reason started to view the Imperium with ever increasing suspicion. The Grand Delegation did not go unnoticed somewhere else, especially in the UNE...
In August the League declared rivalry on the Conclave, their dealings with the Imperium made the League quite angry that sought to punish and vassalise them, fortunately the Conclave was quite far away with many other smaller states in between and reaching them would take considerable diplomatic effort that the League was not so willing to commit to. A week later, the Caphevan Republic outraged by the permission granted to the Imperium by other successor states to access Caphevan technology, sent an angry threat to the Imperium, inviting Nova Terra to renounce to these treaties lest they would suffer the consequences of learning forbidden knowledge in due time. It was an empty insult in the eyes of many and of course the research treaties remained active. At the same time in late August the Galactic Community was deciding if a common market between the interstellar nations should be formed. The Imperium decided to abstain, the God-Emperor believed that the Imperium needed to thrive indipendently without relying on alien resources and goods. The Imperium was surrounded on every side by hostile nations and trade could be easily cut out, sanctions and embargoes easily made mighty nations crumble and he wanted the Imperium to avoid such fate. Once a war would start it would be followed by another and another, every enemy of the Imperium would strike. While various ambassadors were arguing if a common market should be established or not, Nova Terran diplomats were busy engracing a far away empire, the Great Belmacosa Imperium. In late September the embassy was finally established on their capital world.
A month later, on October, 24th the Cartel finally surrendered to the UNE, despite their stiff resistance and heavy losses on the side of the UNE, the persitency and the methodical Bite and Hold tactic of every captured system, precluded any possibility of victory for the Cartel that had no choice but to surrender in order to avoid devastation on their most developed worlds. The current ruler remained as a puppet, UNE delegates were already replacing key figures and secretly purging opposition. Soon after corrupt figures on the UNE took quickly advantage of the sitution to seize Cartel activies in the colonies and make them their own, making these individual wealthy beyond belief, practically overnight, later these figures would become central pivot to Earth's aggressive colonialism and expansion inside their former allied systems and colonies.
The UNE managed to achieve their first objective, unfortunately they would soon be bogged down in another war that would see on their most important ally and vassal completely destroyed and their people for the most part genocided. Such actions would prompt the UNE to directly invade the hostile systems that belonged the Holy Caphevan Empire and put an end to the dangerous successor state.
In late January, the UNE broke their defensive pact with the Imperium, the alliance was officially over, the DENTP was over. Never put to test, it was never meant to last and both sides knew it, while for the UNE it was an attempt to influence and control the Imperium, for the later it was an important treaty that would buy time the Imperium to prepare. For the UNE the Imperium was nothing but an annoyance, a ragtag of rogue colonies commanded by a madman calling himself the God-Emperor and brainwashing the citizens of those colonies with religious and supersticious nonsense. Earth was vastly more populated and developed than any imperial world. Earth alone was a grave threat to the Imperium as a whole, let alone adding the other colonies and the many resources from the vastness of controlled systems.
The UNE under the president Carl Felton, was a powerful enemy that Nova Terra had now to contend with. He was elected with the promise of expanding greatly UNE's economic output, solve the unemployment problem that the war with the Cartel caused, compensate the veterans and the families of those who died. He slowly took advantage of the situation by antagonising the Imperium, the UNE was ready for another war in his eyes. Little did he know that the war the UNE would have to fight would be against another enemy, far more vicious than the current age Imperium, far more deadly and ever driven by more fanatical beliefs, for now...
A month later, on February, 1st something happened that the Imperium was not prepared nor had any immediate countermeasure. The UEK extended their invitation to join the Hegemonic Powers to the UNE that immediately agreed. Then in the span of few days, the UNE became defacto ruler of the Hegomic Powers. The recent loss of systems by the UEK to the Azanti Regime and the ever increasing resurgence of Yldarian power made the UEK consider giving up their role as leader of the hegemony and invite the UNE. The later was already cultivating closer relantionships with the the Hegemonic Powers and in a surprising display of power and above all, great diplomatic victory, the UNE became more powerful than ever, now the Imperium was truly viewed as a puny ant by many in the UNE, a small rogue state that would be soon put out of its misery. The mastermind behind such achievement was none else than Carl Felton. An extremely influencial political figure in the UNE he would shape the union for decades to come, with his books and political victories, the UNE would slowly become more and more supremacist and start to quickly swallow smaller states, after the disaster at [REDACTED] and they failure to destroy [REDACTED], their attitute turned more and more belligerant.
The Imperium still had the association status with the Hegemonic Powers that was not void. While UNE diplomats were almost frothing at their mouths, it is reported Marcus once said, trying to convince the other Hegemonic Powers to intervene against the Imperium, the other powers were not so convinced. The Imperium always kept its neutrality, never has been the aggressor except in extraordinary circumstances and was essentially a good trading partner. Only many decades, through less than legal attempts the UNE will succed to nullify the association of the Imperium with the Hegemonic Powers and force the other members to break their ties with the it. The Imperium was not even officially informed that such important treaty has been void but that's an issue for another time and another generation to deal with.
In June, 2265 the primitive world in the Gatria system was invaded by imperial forces. The Imperium required more resources and colonising new untamed worlds would prove too much of a challenge for the time being. Instead orders were issued to subdue the last remaining primitive world and use its resources to further develop other, more important colonies.
In the same month, the Cartel is kicked from the Hegemonic Powers. The UNE was responsible for this. Technically, the Cartel was an indipendent nation that has been forced by UNE to change the way its government conducted diplomatic and economic relations. The Cartel being in the Hegemonic Powers made no sense, yet the UNE had overlord status over them. "And I tought our Imperial Bureaucracy was complete nonsense, yet look at them...", it is documented Marcus commeneted on the whole affair, then he refused to further look into the question. He did not care, the Cartel was under the UNE's leash and conflict with the Cartel would mean conflitct with the UNE and the later being member of the Hegemonic Powers, meant conflict with the whole hegemony, any other inquiry into the whole situation was nothing but a waste of resources and time.
A few days later, the Imperium agrees to a non aggression pact with the Othari Star Kingdom, pacifist but xenophobic, they were the perfect candidates for further relations in that region of the space sector.
On July, 26th the God-Emperor Marcus I died. He was proclaimed as God-Emperor Marcus the Wise. Under his reign the Imperium experienced a period of expansion, peace and stability. His death marked the end of an era. The Imperium would soon experience a period of warfare similar to the Unification Wars on Nova Terra, fought by Agrippa Domitious, regarded as the only one and first and last God-Emperor of the Imperium by a sect of fanatic religious worshippers. They claimed the original immortal spirit of nature, the manifestation of the souls of all Humanity would reappear once again and guide everyone towards the path of spiritual enlightment and ascension. Marcus was secretly one of such devouts. He was sure, the spirit would return once again in the darkest hours of the Imperium, destroy the soulless machines, creation of [REDACTED], once former [REDACTED], they [REDACTED] the Imperium, their [REDACTED] would assure the ultimate and final ascension.
While Marcus asked for a private cerimony, his successor Primus I decided against such wish. To quietly bury someone like him would invite many unwelcome consequences of various kinds that the new God-Emperor simply did not wish to deal with. A grand cerimony was organised and after a few weeks of mourning, Marcus was burried in the same titanic temple Agrippa lied. Some rumours claimed that the body of the original God-Emperor was not there anymore and that it was empty and the original chamber has been lost in the endless maze. One cospiracy lunatic in the UNE, had even claimed that the whole place became a spacial and temporal anomaly that was slowly collapsing upon itself. While in the Imperium, this was regarded as irreputable proof of the divine nature of the God-Emperor, the Imperium and the great destiny that awaited every imperial subject. Other nations did not believe such claims as, unholy aliens or UNE scientists were not allowed, they were regarded as demonic entities, disguised as Humans to try and taint hallowed spaces. Corrupt and destroy, while the spiritual presence within the walls of the temple itself would ward off such negative interference, the area around could be compromised. While the Clergy argued that the temple was so immense and divine in nature, the rotten spiritual lack of soul of the UNE could not even dream to do it any harm, however they agreed that UNE presence on Nova Terra would instil dangerous thoughts inside the mind of imperial subjects. Such adversion towards alien and UNE's scientists and knowledge of the unknowledgeable was viewed as the root the of the evil that manifested on Nova Terra before it even was known by such name. While the UNE regulated heavily certain technologies, almost all of it was striclty banned in the Imperium. It was seen as highly dangerous and a hazard for the weak minds stuck in the corporeal realm. Imperial theologians talked about ways to speak without being able to speak and way to see without being able to see, they warned that even the current technology the Imperium possessed was already a grave threat, only under strict guidance the past could be avoided, for a time being, hopefully reaching acension before the inevitable corruption of the mind would destroy any reasoning and divinity inside the souls. Strange words that meant to the majority of listeners nothing but nonsense of mad, fanatical men...
After his predecesor has been burried and properly honored, Primus claimed two Azanti systems, one including a colony. Such a move greatly enraged the aliens that planed to retaliate soon. Their reaction was aggressive beyond expectation, their envoys threatening consequences never ever seen on Nova Terra and that the Imperium shall pay for their arrogance and insolence, followed by a series of unjust terms, concede systemes to the Azanti or war. Primus was not Marcus, while the former God-Emperor was a great diplomat, able to placate even the most hot tempered characters, Primus loathed the aliens. He viewed them mostly as vermin. He had the mentality of us or them, the Imperium could never thrive until any menace to it would be pacified and the Imperium was surrounded by hostile forces on every side. War was coming, in order to be prepared for it he ordered to contact the Great Belmacosa Imperium and discuss with them a plan of invasion of the Azanti Regime. Despite his disgust and hatred for the aliens, Primus was not a fool, he perfectly understood the neccessity in allies, albeit temporary allies but nontheless allies. While vast in systems, the Imperium's defences were weak on the Azanti borders, it did not possess proper fortifications neither on its colonies or starbases. Resources were always a concern for the Imperium and the scarsely populated colonies did not contribute much. The over reliance on alien labour force was also a problem in his eyes. He decided to strike first, what resulted afterwards were decades of endless war on multiple fronts, against multiple powers.
In mid September, food processing technology is researched, next focus became the doctrine of fleet support technology. A new ground breaking innovation in interstellar logistics would allow for a additional deployment of ships in space, despite limitations in manpower, resources and the infrastructure itself.
In October another Irassian artifact is discovered along with some their secrets, some containing documents discussing new groundbreaking military doctrines. The Imperium lacked the means to develop the weaponry that would work properly with these doctrines, however the admirals tried to imitate them to a limited degree of success, well, until autocannons were developed, then the true potential of imperial ships would be shown.
At the same time intelligence reports suggested that the Azanti had already fourteen settled colonies and a superior economy, they were already preparing for military actions as suspicious movements around Nova Terran systems has been reported, war was coming and was coming quickly...
- 1
It's finally out, finally... Over five thousands words just for three years... my god... that's a new low for me... What is next? Ten thousands words for a week?
Jokes aside, I'm super happy I managed to finally post the chapter, it took an entire week just to edit and correct it properly. The next chapters are gonna be very focused on warfare. Fow now I have no idea how should I represent the battles, a lot of battles happened. I want to avoid creating custom maps, they eat too much of my time and I would rather honestly write stuff rather than lose weeks trying to make compelling maps, maybe with stellaris is easier, I will have to see.
I must say, after I buffed to the AI to be more proactive and aggressive, fighting on two or more fronts is quite dangerous now, the AI won't hesitate to destroy my fleets and push in a very aggressive manner. Sometimes is better to concede, the later outcome can be worse the longer the war keeps going, something that was not such a threat pre-buffing the AI in my custom mod. I fear what the FEs and the Great Khan might become not to speak of the three crisises, ahahah. Regular AIs are already monsters and it will be not a walk in the park to conquer them, especially the massive federations, those already rack over one thousand lost ships in regular wars in early game... Quite the playthrough I got myself, not without lack of challenges that is for sure.
Jokes aside, I'm super happy I managed to finally post the chapter, it took an entire week just to edit and correct it properly. The next chapters are gonna be very focused on warfare. Fow now I have no idea how should I represent the battles, a lot of battles happened. I want to avoid creating custom maps, they eat too much of my time and I would rather honestly write stuff rather than lose weeks trying to make compelling maps, maybe with stellaris is easier, I will have to see.
I must say, after I buffed to the AI to be more proactive and aggressive, fighting on two or more fronts is quite dangerous now, the AI won't hesitate to destroy my fleets and push in a very aggressive manner. Sometimes is better to concede, the later outcome can be worse the longer the war keeps going, something that was not such a threat pre-buffing the AI in my custom mod. I fear what the FEs and the Great Khan might become not to speak of the three crisises, ahahah. Regular AIs are already monsters and it will be not a walk in the park to conquer them, especially the massive federations, those already rack over one thousand lost ships in regular wars in early game... Quite the playthrough I got myself, not without lack of challenges that is for sure.
RIP Marcus.
Relations with the UNE look bad, and their takeover of the Hegemonic Powers doesn't bode well. Why did the other powers allow that?
Did the Imperium join the Galactic Community?
The conversation about ascension with the other spiritualist empire was fascinating. I assume that psionic powers will be researched eventually.
(If you're worried about word count for individual years, you should've seen my abandoned WtWSMS AAR. That got ridiculous.)
Relations with the UNE look bad, and their takeover of the Hegemonic Powers doesn't bode well. Why did the other powers allow that?
Did the Imperium join the Galactic Community?
The conversation about ascension with the other spiritualist empire was fascinating. I assume that psionic powers will be researched eventually.
(If you're worried about word count for individual years, you should've seen my abandoned WtWSMS AAR. That got ridiculous.)
Chapter VII
Chapter VII
Opening Moves, Phase I, the Nova Terran – Azanti War, 2266-2272
On February, 25th the UNE declared rivarly on the Imperium. Followed by the Barcalan Interstellar Autocracy that broke their trade treaty, ironically such treaty was to the detriment of the Imperium. In turn, Nova Terra declared their rivalry to the UNE, hostilities were quickly growing between the two powers. However the conflict would be posponed by other variables.
In early April, the consumer goods situation was quite dire and the Imperium was forced to buy at premium prices from private enterprises, even of alien origin on worlds external to the Imperium. The slight positive net in energy credits became a negative net.
At the same time, the Azanti Regime was quickly making their move. Primus contacted the Great Belmacosa Imperium and proposed them a jointed preemptive invasion of the Azanti Regime. The aliens were in a defensive pact with the Velutarian Sacred Republic. Despite losing systems and colonies to the Yldar, they were still powerful enough to pose a threat to the Imperium. Allowing the Azanti to take full control of the Republic, would pose quite a threat for many nations, not just the Imperium.
After a great speech, denouncing the Azanti, as unholy aliens, soon to be invaders, as they were ammassing fleets on imperial borders, God-Emperor Primus called for a Holy War against the aliens. A mistake the Imperium was slow to realise, the admirals assured the God-Emperor that the Imperium had more than competent navies and would easily slaughter Azanti fleets. Instead of sending the whole five fleets for a surgical strike at the home system of Brightpool and capture the capital and by far the most populous Azanti world, the beating heart of their empire, the admirals devised a pincer move strategy. Four fleets, divided in two groups would attack in two parallel lines, quickly capture the contested systems and then converge on Brightpool and bombard their capital into submission. This whole plan ignored the complicated hyperlane geography and the enviromental hazards these wild untamed systems poised. These systems were vulnerable to Azanti counterattacks aswell and to make things worse, the Great Belmacosa Empire had a similar situation to that of the Imperium if not even worse, the systems they owned made logistical resupply a nightmare and their fleets had to travel many months before even reaching friendly outposts that neighbored Azanti borders. It was a recipe for disaster, yet both the Imperium, paranoid to be invaded yet again by the aliens and the Great Belmacosa Imperium with various crises, thought that perhaps a war would distract the military and navy from trying to coup the state and placate other dangerous opposition by uniting them with one common goal, weakening the Azanti so that they never rise again. The Great Belmacosa Imperium had reason to think that the Azanti were responsible in causing instability and unrest in the empire and were arming rebels in the primitive occupied worlds.
On April, 30th the Imperium declared war on the Azanti Regime, the Great Belmacosa Imperium would assist in the invasion efforts. A century of costant wars would haunt the Imperium as more and more powers would seek to take what they considered was rightfully their own.
The Azanti had claimed seven systems, including the colony of Nova Aegyptus, the God-Emperor feared that the aliens would come in the next twelve months, intelligence reports confirmed his fears and a premature war was declared. Neither the Imperium, the Azanti Regime and their allies were prepared to fight a war so suddenly, yet things escalated way quicker than anyone could realise.
In June, the primitives in the Gatria system have been subjugated. The development of the colony began immediately. Some humans were moved from Nova Terra to administer the planet and the new species was demoted to chattel slavery. On August, 1st the Barcalans recalled their embassy, they didn't like the invasion, seeing it as a barbaric action. The invasion of the planet brought devastation and deals with the crime lords was struck. A lot of devastion on the planet made things even worse for the aliens and despite their supposed primitivism, the Imperium suffered heavy losses in both manpower and equipment. The military cared little for the biology and methods of fighting of these "stone" aliens, regarding them as slow and a well placed mortal shell would easily destroy them, let alone entire barrages of artillery or aerial bombardment. Little did the Imperium realised that these lithoid creatures, used their solar energy to be able to move at superhuman speed. During night they were rather slow and inactive and had to rely on custom made equipment that would provide the neccessary light to help them move faster. During the day, these super strong made of extremely hardened silica wrought havoc on the unsuspecting imperial troops. As time went on countermeasures were employed, however the inital shock stalled the supposedly lighting war to a crawl. Only after commiting untold atrocities and bombarding entire alien settlements and colonies into literal dust, the planet was finally subjugated.
After the conquest, Humanity made up roughly 67% of the total population of the Imperium.
In October, generator districts were ordered on Gatria I, the aliens would be put to work and generate energy for the Imperium.
In January, 2267 five Azanti fleets were spotted near Belmacosa systems, their fleets were quickly advancing in orderly manner. The Belmacosa had three undersupplied fleets to defend those systems, the hyperlanes connecting the stars in the region, were passing through tricky systems with many space hazards, making it difficult to keep them properly supplied.
Their main force would instead traverse Dekron Fabricators' systems and then attack the less defended Azanti positions. Their calculation would reveal severely wrong, the Azanti heavily fortified those systems and costant reinforcement from the Velutarians, made fighting in those systems an endless slog, with neither side gaining any significative advantage for the main duration of the war.
Between the Azanti, Belmacosa and the machines lied an unknown civilisation. The Imperium was far too busy with the recently started war to bother investigate the manner. Rumours were spreading around the existence of extremly ancient empires, called Fallen Empires, possessing technologies so advanced they looked like magic to the lesser species. Until the Imperium made official contact with such civilisation, these were regarded just as baseless rumours.
The Great Belmacosa Imperium had thirteen settled colonies and an economy greater to that of the Imperium. In order to help the Imperium, the Belmacosa agreed to a limited land lease. By creating a commercial pact that would barely benefit the aliens, but greatly help Nova Terran war efforts, the energy issue was resolved for now, in the Imperium.
On Feburary, 8th the Yldar declared their rivalry to the League. The League in turn had still positive relations with the UNE and the UEK, a strong counterbalance to Yldarian expansionist plans. Both the UNE and especially the UEK understood the importance of limiting the growth of the Yldarans. With the passage of time, the UNE would abbandon their convinction and that left only the UEK, that was by that point much weaker and less relevant in the hegemony.
On February, 5th 2268 the Cartel oppenly declared their dislike for the Yldar regime. Denouncing them as imperialist scum with littel regard for the freedom of individual aliens. It all caused by the extreme brutality the Yldar autorities dealt with Cartel associates. After Yarrowreacher citizens have been brutalized, the Cartel responded accordingly. There was little the Cartel could and they issued an embargo on all Yldarian goods and all assests belonging to Yldarian citizens were seized immediately.
On February, 22nd Classis IV arrived in the Bysh system, in the neighboring system of Qenus, belonging to the enemy, Ravenous Fleet was waiting to engage once reinforcements would arrive.
Intelligence reports already suggested that in the span of a few months, the Azanti already built several new fleets and more were likely on the way even before the end of the year.
The Velutarians were similar in power to Nova Terra, them being an older power having lived on their gaia world for thousands of years with technology far more advanced than that of the Imperium, it would take them many thousands more to finally decide to explore the star sector again. Reports suggested that the Velutarians were an ancient species, however an unknown cataclysm left them isolated on their homewolrd for untold time. With time their technology regressed and much of it was lost. Their folklore spoke of an invisble wall across the sky, whatever it was it, it must've been extremely advanced technology, if it was able to trap them for so many eons.
In the Spalatum system, Classis I and a small squadron of ships remained to defend the core systems while the rest of the fleets were on their way to engage Azanti fortifications. At the same time, UNE's scout ships were spotted in the Lessim system, bordering Agrippa's Wall. Reports regarding UNE's strenght were rather disconcerting, they possessed a superior economy and that was obvious, the next report suggested that Earth had four times more fleets than Nova Terra, including the hegemonic fleets.
In July, 2268 blue laser technology was researched and the next objective was the creation of a global energy management. By centralising the control of energy production in one administration on each colony, supply and logistic lines could easily be shortened. In order to deter UNE scout ships from entering Nova Terran systems, four more defensive platforms were built with highly advanced detection systems and they have been warned that any attempt of trespassing would be welcomed with interplanetary torpedoes, capable of intercepting even the smaller ships. Other defensive bases have been beefed up too and outdated weaponry replaced with more modern ones.
In late August, the Azanti decided to launch a raid against the fleets in the Bysh system and soften them up for the next wave. The fight went on inconclusive with several damaged imperial ships and unknown damage done to the enemy. The war was starting with small skirmishes that would eventually become bigger and bigger battles.
In October, Classis IV and VI were ordered to updated their armanent in the newly built starport in the Trunt system. A shipyard near enemy systems would lessen up the stress on the already overstreched supply lines, the same order was extended to Classis II and III.
Sensing Nova Terran hesitation, the Breathless Fleet quickly advanced on the owned system of Ackmall in March, 2269. To make the matter worse, the invading force was comprised of seasoned veterans and furthers advancement would endanger the newly formed colony of Nova Aegyptus.
In April, Primus gave permission for a new reform in the Imperium, Administrative Operations was an important step in fighting off corruption and inefficieny of the Imperial Bureaucracy.
In August, the Cartel felt confident enough to declare again their rivalry to the Imperium. At the same time the Bhiir Cooperative, a state belonging to another federation, openly declared their hostility to the UEK. Should the Hegemonic Powers and the other federation ever come to blows, the following devastion would be difficult to assess, imperial reports suggested. For now the two blocks were separated a couple of empires.
In December, Classis II and III entered the Ackmall system, ready to engage the Breathless Fleet, they had an advantage of forty corvettes against the twenty invading, however battle hardened veterans were nothing to understimate. In reality the two fleets were baited and lost precious time. The Azanti learnt of the modernizing plans of the Imperium and successfully baited the two fleets away.
In Janaury, 2270 Classis IV and VI were ordered to push on Qenus. The Imperium was slowly losing the initiative to the proactive Azanti and the God-Emperor demanded from the admiraly results.
In January, 29th more clues about the Rubricator were discovered.
In late April, Ravenous Fleet was spotted in the Qenus system ready to defend it. At the same time the Belmacosa fleets were already traversing Dekron systems and directed into Azanti systems. Once belonged to the UEK, those systems were already fortified before they echanged owners and after that the Azanti forified them even more.
In June, the system Nimolan has been renamaned to Nova Aegyptus, the newly built starbase was being transformed in a fortified point to deter any other Azanti offensive.
In mid September, Classis IV and VI captured Qenus system but had to immediatly return to liberate the Verrakas Black Hole, Ravenous Fleet avoided combat and instead pushed inside imperial border. At the same time two more fleets were spotted near Qenus, the Azanti were quickly sending reinforcements to secure their core systems. Their capital system, Brightpool was only just a system away from Qenus. The Azanti felt threatened by the unregulated expansion of the Imperium, so much so their capital was under threat in case of war. By conquering the untamed Nova Terran systems, far away from the core worlds, the Azanti Regime would create a buffer zone that would protect them. The preemptive attack of Nova Terra did not throw off too much their plans, after all, the Velutarians fully commited to this war in hope that in future they could regain their lost systems thanks to Azanti military might.
In January, 2271 Classis IV and VI had to chase the enemy fleet inside imperial border more and this time, the Trunt system was under threat. The Azanti were using a tacting of raiding and harassing Nova Terran supply lines which was greatly diminishing the combat readiness of imperial fleets and at the same time their bulk of forces were quickly advancing to capture unprotected systems. Skirmishes with Azanti scout ships, demonstrated the superiority in both firepower and defence over Nova Terran ships. Even engagements had to be avoided if not strictly neccessary.
In April, the two fleets managed to force contact with Ravenous Fleet and after a brief skirmish the raiding fleet, immediately retreated, the Imperium failed to destroy any Azanti ship and in turn lost precious time chasing the enemy inside owned systems.
In September, the two Azanti fleets, Maelstorm and Politician managed to capture Bysh system.
In mid December, fusion missiles technology was discovered, the next focus of research became the starhold technology, the Imperium needed to build bigger and more powerful starbases, while space traffic was still limited in imperial systems, the need of proper interstellar infrastructure and proper fortifications was a matter of life or death for the Imperium. Classis IV and VI, already in Trunt systems were being upgraded while the Azanti, seeing Nova Terran lethargy sent their fleets to capture the Courus system.
Meanwhile League drones were spotted inside imperial systems with ever increasing frequence, God-Emperor Primus allowed the construction of an additional fleet to further increase the defence of Nova Terra from hostile invaders.
At the same time by late April, 2272 Classis II and III had captured the systems of Achernar, Josq Format, Gamma Draconis and Dodonnam and were just one jump away from Brightpool. In a foolish move the admirals decided to push on the system and give the coup de grace to the Azanti Regime. The general consensus was that once their capital system would be conquered and their capital threatened by orbital bombardment, the Azanti would be open to negotiations. Unlike Classis IV and VI, Classis II and III were not properly upgraded and were already suffering of poor combat readiness, regardless the orders were given.
On April, 1st 2272 the UNE declared war to the Caphevan Punishers. Initially mistaken as an April Fools on Earth, the unfortunate date would mark the beggining of a war that would drag the UNE in the depths of the worst battlefields where untold atrocities by both sides would be commited...
The Caphevan Punishers, a blood court of fanatical purifiers entered war with the Tebadoran Democratic Provinces. Soon the war transformed in disaster for the Provinces, their worlds lost and their people murdered on a scale unprecended in their entire history. The UNE could not stand to watch, after a fiery discourse denouncing the Punishers, the Hegemonic Powers agreed in unison to put an end to such atrocities. At the expense of others, the Imperium was safe from UNE's intervention, for the time being...
At the same time, the faction founded by God-Emperor Primus was quickly gaining traction, more and more people were becoming xenophobic. Costant wars with aliens and a nonstop fearmongering propaganda made imperial subjects despise the xeno and deeply distrust anything alien. This newfound spirit of would help the Imperium during its [REDACTED], after the fall of [REDACTED] at the hands of [REDACTED], the [REDACTED] would be forced to invade again, however the great price paid, made the alliance crumble and internal wars would ensue inside the [REDACTED], with [REDACTED] becoming the only one remaining power after the dissolution of [REDACTED] and annexation of [REDACTED].
Another thing Primus did was to change the first contact protocol from proactive to aggressive, in order to boost the popularity of his faction further.
While imperial forces were moving to capture the enemy capital system, the Azanti fleets were quickly pushing deeper and deeper inside Nova Terran borders. The unfortunate space geography made it hard to concentrate forces properly and in order to stop the Azanti from cutting down supply routes, Classis IV and VI were split, each fleet would pursue another enemy fleet. In spite of Azanti technological superiority, the admirals were confident that the familiarity with the systems inside imperial borders would equalise the field.
In June of 2272, Nova Terra launched a spy operation to steal technologies from Earth. At the same time, the Human Ascendancy Front grew up by sixty percent, with more and more people choosing to embrace the hateful rhetoric of the God-Emperor.
In mid October, Classis II and III engaged the defensive forces in Brightpool, the fleets assigned to its defence were damaged critically in a previous engagement with the Belmacosa and were sent for repairs on Brightpool. Initially the engagement looked extremely favourable and the admirals fully commited to it. The aliens, threatened like never before in their entire existence fought back to the last Azanti.
On December, 29th came reports about the overall losses in the war so far and they were rather disconcerting. According to official sources, the Belmacosa have lost over sixty ships, while the enemies a total of nineteen ships, official reports could not disclose the real losses and likely the Belmacosa must've lost around eighty ships, the real loss for the enemies was unknown, but somewhere between twenty and thirty was hypothesised.
Momentum Lost, Phase II, the Nova Terran-Azanti War, 2273-2274
In late February, 2273 Classis II and III were forced to retreat to avoid possibly catastrophic losses. After almost five months of endless fight, the fleets could no longer continue the attack, lack of ammunitions, rations, fuel, virtually almost anything, forced the admirals to call of the assault. Azanti shipyards kept producing more and more ships and their starbase has been upgraded with powerful defensive platforms that tore through imperial ships' armor. Classis II suffered a loss of 25% and Classis III a loss of 15% of ships and structural damages that would compromise the rest of the ships should they engage a second time without proper repairs.
The momentum was lost, from now on the Imperium would never again be on the offensive for the remainder of the war, the golden opportunity was squandered. The four fleets assault on their capital was reduced to just two and from that moment on, the Imperium would be forced to cede more and more systems to the Azanti in order to buy time to fight another enemy. This was the beggining of a disaster. Both the Admiralty and the Imperial Bureaucracy understimated the gravity of the situation. A failed offensive would be soon, replaced by a succesful one, how wrong they were...
Classis VI ambushed Politician Fleet in the system of Courus. While the enemy fleet was chasing to engage it, Classsis VI hid itself near the tundra world orbiting the gas giant. The unsuspecting Azanti fleet, stopped near the same planet to resupply and redeploy to better engage the imperial fleet. Suddenly the unsuspecting Azanti fleet was ambushed in early April and after two weeks of fighting, wiped out, 100% casualties, 19 destroyed corvettes. It was a first major defeat since the beggining of the war for the Azanti Regime.
While the slaughter in the Courus system was happening, another fight broke out in the system of Sanopel. The Imperium won this engagement as well, however a greater price was paid and 5 corvettes were lost against 4 of the Azanti.
The destruction of an entire fleet was a heavy blow to Azanti pride. What was worse, the Imperium launched an extremely bold attack on their capital system. The aliens did not expect the Imperium to be so aggressive and now an entire fleet was wiped out, paranoia started to set in. The Belmacosa, on paper, more powerful than the Imperium proved to be rather slow to react and often time attacked fortified systems with little success and high casualties. The Imperium managed to strike the heart of their empire, now the goal would shift from the Belmacosa to the Imperium.
The Azanti immediately recongnized that Nova Terran familiarity with their own space geography made their technological superiority obsolete. The Imperium became quite good in guerilla warfare, the League's invasion forced the Imperium to adopt new strategies and tactics and now the Azanti Regime was falling in the same trap. In order to avoid such disasters ever again, the Azanti would slowly increase the size of their fleets, sending less fleets but with enough concentrated firepower to obliterate any advantage the Imperium might possess.
In October, the Azanti quickly moved to liberate the Achernar system. At the same time the Belmacosa lost several systems to the Azanti and Velutarians and their fringe colonies were under siege. Intel reports indicated that the Velutarians managed to greatly expand their fleet, in spite of previous treaties made with the Hegemonic Powers that limited the number of ships the Velutarians could have. Under the pretense of war they started to quickly rearm themselves.
On a more peaceful note, on January, 5th 2274 the centre of space sector's trade was choosen to be the system of Akk, the capital system of the League. It was a great political and economic achivement that further emboldened the Leage to pursue aggressive actions against the Imperium, sending more and more spy drones.
Ten days later, the Imperium made contact with another empire made solely of soulless machines, the Cydran Nucleus. Situated between the Great Belmacosa Imperium and Pan-Galactic Coalition, these machines posed a great threat to all organic life. A rogue AI, rumoured to have exterminated those who created it, now sought to destroy all the remaining life in the star sector.
In an alternate life, the Imperium was forced to fight such machines, while another lost empire of Humanity, the Commonwealth of Man was another threat to the Imperium... then the God-Emperor woke up, he thought to himself, the next day following the Cydran Nucleus discovery, what a strange dream, he was just another imperial subject, reading news of great victories against the machines, how they failed to breach imperial fortifications... also how these metallic beasts boarded human starcrafts and were almost invincible to common weaponry... This dream felt real, way too real, has this already happened? Was this perhaps another time, another space? So far the Imperium had never made contact with a civilisation of Humans named the Commonwealth of Man. Then realisation came, the God-Emperor saw it, the system, that system under Cydran control, Deneb... completely devoid of life, unverified data suggested that once Humanity settled that system and was destroyed by these machines. Destroyed, to the last... It was a grim reminder of how lucky was Nova Terra to still exist and even colonise outer worlds. He understood that one day the Imperium would run of pure luck and only by sheer size and population it could hope to ever survive or recover.
The God-Emperor then looked at the diplomatic status of this empire and it looked like the machines have almost succeeded to completely erase yet another civilisation, the Qvefoz Kingdom. A specie of flying aliens, somewhat similar to birds, yet calling them such would be wrong for a variety of reasons. They were assisted by the Dekron Fabricators, while not entirely keen on totaly exterminating every life form, perhaps extermination was preferable to the methods that these machines used.They preferred to "link" living organisms to a neural grid for a variety of reasons, some methods being extraction of bio energy and waste "processing", however the most common use of highly intelligent species was the expansion of processing capabilities, use their highly advanced brains as a cheap and readily available bio computer, instead of manufacturing designeted hardware for such tasks. In order to keep these brains stable, the Dekron Fabricators often times used neural simulations to create fake worlds inside the minds of the trapped populations. According to imperial religious doctrine, few things could compare in blasphemy to this act. The Dekron Fabricators were viewed by the Imperium in even a worse light than literal genocidal machines...
That was one war the Cydran and Dekron were fighting, however there was another war, fought alone by the Cydran Nucleus and abbandoned by their ally of convenience the Dekron Fabricators and tht war was against a powerful block not even the most advanced hunter killer ships and earth shattering walking fortresses could ever hope to stop, that was the Pan-Galactic Coalition. A federation of free nations in the region that banded toghter to stop any threat. They became extremely succesful in doing so and became so powerful and might, even if heavily outmatched in technology and outsmarted by the rogue AI, they could simply throw enough manpower and resources at the problem till the problem disappeared. After a great deal of sacrifice the Coalition would succeed, one power especially, the Caloctora Stellar Industries, that would gain wealth and resources and become extremely powerful.
So far in the war the Great Belmacosa Imperium proved to be rather a lethargic and unreliable ally. The God-Emperor learned that a navy-military crisis in their empire left the war effort quite neglected. Not only the Belmacosa failed to capture high priotity systems but has been forced to cede more and more of their systems back to the enemy. In order to futher bolster public morale, Primus claimed a third Azanti system, unfortunately it had not the desired effect, the fleet heavily beaten and after years of war any lack of clear success in a Holy War against the aliens, left many rather apathetic to the whole situation, only the Clergy was still extremly supportive.
In March, the Othari Star Kingdom embraced more xenophobic tendecies, being surrounded on every side by hostile powers and them being a peaceful species, left them with a distaste for other aliens and desired to be left alone if nothing else. Already being traumatised by horrible wars of previous era, they did not wish to repeat the past, yet it looked like the past was coming to haunt them once again. Their allies under fire, their fleets heavily outmatched, their worlds under imminent siege and another war had started. King J'Dallot I of the Othari Star Kingdom, while briefly discussing with the Imperial ambassador various interstellar political affairs, made an allusion to the war fought between the Imperium and the Cartel, saying that now they face their own sea peoples and their never ending greed.
By April the Azanti managed to recapture most of their systems and launched their own counter attacks inside imperial borders. Two fleets headed towards Nova Aegyptus and two other two fleets headed towards Bysh and then Trunt. In late April, classis II and III, badly damaged were approaching the starbase of Nova Aegyptus, it would take a while for the Azanti fleets to arrive, enviromental hazards in the Ackmall system limited the speed with which the Azanti forces could travel.
In August, a seventh fleet was ordered to be built, the Imperium entered the war awfully unprepared. The Imperium would pay dearly such mistake.
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The UEK is afraid of the Azanti and the Yldarians, the monarchy would prefer to be ruled by the UNE over the old rule. The Barcalans are far too small and irrilevant to have any voice and the Yldar were stagnating for quite some time and were still weaker than the UEK when the decision was made. Over the long term, however the Yldar having by far the most systems and worlds could reclaim what was theirs once again. The question is, will the UNE allow it without bloodshed?
Yes, the Imperium, for now, joined the Galactic Community. It depends what path the Imperium will take, so for now it has be seen, for now trade is far too good to pass on it.
Ofc, unless I get extremely drunk and accidentaly click the synthetic path, xd
Let's hope the Azanti war isn't an unmitigated disaster. It certainly doesn't look good for the Imperium.
Was that dream a different game of Stellaris, or was it just an explanation of why the Commonwealth of Man no longer exists?
Was that dream a different game of Stellaris, or was it just an explanation of why the Commonwealth of Man no longer exists?
This war becomes an unmitigated disaster, I had to replay this scenario a couple of times. Since I've buffed the AI to be so much aggressive, I had less trouble with AI twenty times my forces before yet (and then I accidentally lost all my screenshots of that epic so I had to restart again, hahaha, but at least I updated my mod as result), the Azanti were unrelentless in besieging my worlds and capturing my systems. Needles to say I severely underestimated this new AI when I started that war.
The real problem is fighting two powers at once, severely outgunned on both sides, otherwise I might had a chance. And I wish I could just build more fleets, however I was short on resources too and the alloys were still extremely expensive and no galactic market yet, so it was a slow bleeding. However I couldn't just surrender because of lore reasons. The fight had to keep on going.
Yes and yes.
It was a reference of my first chapters when I played in ironman but the save got inevitably corrupted like clock work.
Looks like in this game the Cydran and CoM spawned one near another and before I was able to make contact the later was already destroyed.
(Serves them right for antagonising me in the first attempt, xd)
- 1
Your mod really seems to make Stellaris wars a different challenge altogether.
It's good to see the Imperium getting it's nose bloodied, but let's hope this kind of long lasting attrition war doesn't further deepen the xenophobic Militarist traits of the Imperium. Especially now that any moderating influences from the UNE have been removed.
It's good to see the Imperium getting it's nose bloodied, but let's hope this kind of long lasting attrition war doesn't further deepen the xenophobic Militarist traits of the Imperium. Especially now that any moderating influences from the UNE have been removed.
It gets worse, so much worse. It will culminate when the inevitable clash between the UNE and will happen with a defeat that will have severe consequences. Then I suspect and I will get a long period of peace, but you never know, that's literally just my speculation. I'm working on the next part now that the dust of the fesitivities has settled. Not sure if make a sort of "snippets from the future" where alien historians and archeologists argue what happened between UNE and the Imperium, like discussing broadly the beliefs in each empire and how the clash of incompatible ideologies led to inevitable conflict that shaped that part of the space sector in a very distinct way. But that's pushing a bit too far, I still have yet to fight the UNE, can't bring myself to unpause the game and fight them unless I have prepared a very solid strategy, both strategic in the grand scheme of the things but also tactical, I need to choose very carefully in which systems I shall engage, what fleets and for how long, since I will be fighting the entire Hegemony and not just the UNE. The AI will be extremely aggressive and will seize my planets the moment they gain system superiority. It's gonna be a hard war to both fight and write about.
I can only hope to drag it as much as possible and inflict as much casualties as possible. Winning, is... well, we shall see, but realistically highly unlikely. Anyway, I have planned an entire story if I happen to lose and the Imperium is partioned into smaller UNE protectorates. And then the wars that the UNE will have to fight... losing will make the UNE so much stronger. In game I would be forced to just change government but the story hints at much dire consequences and they might happen. It is all undecided for now. We shall see, it will be a suprise for you all as well for me.
Or just continue the next chapter, while still complex, is less daunting to write about. I may do both and see what works better. Sooner or later I'll post the next chapter regardless, otherwise how the story would continue?
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Chapter VIII
Chapter VIII
The conflict expands, 2275 - March, 2277, The Fall of Ampal Dir
In February, 2275 Azanti fleets were already inside imperial systems and preparing to push further. The situation with the Great Belmacosa Imperium had stabilized and several new fleets had been built already and on their way to reinforce their assaulting force.
After the disaster in Brightpool, half of the invading force risked to be overrun by advancing Azanti fleets and confusing orders were given, further spliting the remaining forces and a general state of confusion reigned while the aliens were orderly and methodically seizing imperial holdings.
In order to solve the ongoing crisis in the empire, the monarchy agreed to side with the military and Operation Battle Cry began. By allowing absolute power and reign for the duration of the war to the military, the empire became defacto a dictatorship under the generals and admirals. With an iron fist they started to reoder things at home first and then prepapre for a grand counter attack, unfortunately it would come far too late to save the Imperium.
Emperor Flower of Tule III, was a weak monarch and many saw opportunities, while popular with the common folk, the emperor was despised by other internal factions that sought to bring down the empire at any available opportunity. Many years later, it was discovered that not only the Azanti but even the Pan-Galactic Coalition and the Dekron Fabricators were responsible for destabilizing the empire. This in turn made them unable to properly exploit the claimed systems and even outer world settlers were highly rebellious, making the empire extremely hard to keep togheter.
In March, the League's drone activity increased to dangerous levels, it became clear that something was going on. The Imperium was unable to keep track of the ever increasing number. To make matters worse, League's fleets were spotted moving closer to the Imperium, the League 'assured' the Imperium that it was only for piracy hunting. Intelligence reports hinted that the Imperium had only so much time before another war was declared.
An eight fleet was ordered to be built, by then the Imperium was already over the naval capacity and another fleet would put it somewhere at around 140% naval capacity. The logistical toll in maintating so many fleets was simply too much and external contractors were becoming more and more expensive over time. The navy that the Imperium fielded was simply too big to maintain with the skeleton infrastructure and the low number of specialised workforce to keep it going. Older and more established states had a proper infrastructure spanning decades, centuries even millenia, the UNE was a blatant example. Decades of peace and a massive population boom allowed Earth to quickly expand. The Imperium could not afford such luxuries with a much lower population and a war that happened not even a century ago that left it deeply depopulated. The only good thing, is that the Imperium had accumulated a large amount of liquidity and a strong, for the time being, economy allowed it to overspend. The cost of the alloys remained still extremely expensive, historians theorise that the market was manipulated by foreign speculators, both human and xeno, many powers invested in the downfall of the Imperium and making it unable to produce ships to fight back was too good of an opportunity to pass on. Without the realisation but of a few, the war was quickly turning more and more into a disaster with each passing month.
The Imperium decided, far too late to expand their spying network in the League. Worrying reports were already circulating for many months and some of earliest ones, dated a few years back, all were ignored. Surely the League wouldn't attack again, especially after their spectacular defeat, also the Imperium was on the offensive, it should've shown strenght, make the xeno rethink carefuly their decision. It was a poor line of thinking, the arrogance of the higher ups were blinding them and the God-Emperor could not be everywhere. In reality, it was discovered many decades later, that the League was well aware of the obvious weaknesses of the Imperium and their offensive war was in reality an attempt to strike back at the Azanti on more favourable terms, it did not go as planned. The Imperium almost succeded in delivering a blow that would have crippled them for decades to come.
Poor organisation and lack of coordination prevented it and by early 2275 the Imperium was already facing the prospect of a new war. The request of the League was simple, Ampal Dir or war and the Imperium choose ultimately war, rejecting any negotiation deal and while the League appeared as a reasonable actor, the Imperium was viewed as a backwards barbarian nation that only achieved interstellar technology thanks to their motherland, Earth. Even on Earth, the Imperium was viewed as crude and primitive, an anomaly, clinging to old and outdated traditions, imposed by a mad man and now an entire people had to suffer such cruel fate. In the Imperium traditions were viewed instead as solutions to problems of the past, once those problems were forgotten the solutions were called instead traditions and in their eyes, the UNE had forgotten them and over time would pay the price for their own arrogance. The eternal search for progressivism was a lack of spirituality and understanding of the limited nature of the human being. The Imperium saw how the UNE had this assumption that the further technology and civilisation advanced, so the human nature, it was just the logical consequence in their minds. A pure materialistic view of the reality, one that lacked many fundamental truths and thus was flawed to its very own core, beyond heretical and rotten, according to Imperial Doctrine.
One way or another, the Imperium was either surrounded by enemies, dubious neutrals and incompetent allies, it was a grim prospect to live in the Imperium back then, as war would touch almost every colony, marking for ever the lives of those people, making in turn the Imperium a vengeful force in its later history.
In late March, the Azanti seized a Belmacosa colony and were already bombarding the second colony in the same system assisted by a Velutarian expeditionary force. At the same time, the primitve world, the Belmacosa conquered was under fire too. The war torn planet that was supposed to guarantee a strong foothold against the Azanti, was fighting a desperating last ditch defence. Between Velutarian and Azanti fleets bombing them from above and guerilla rebels on the ground, the colony would soon fall in enemy hands.
In June, the League broke their defensive pact with the Holy Caphevan Empire and two months later on August, 1st 2275, after every negotiation for a peaceful transfer of Ampal Dir to the League was vehemently rejected, even for hefty monetary compensations, the League had no choice but to declare war, the Second Khell'Zen League – Imperial War started again over the same system, over the same dispustes that war was declared decades ago.
The neighbouring powers watched in awe as the Imperium time and time again rejected more than reasonble requests, at least in their eyes. However Ampal Dir represented for the Imperium an important chokepoint, a heavily fortified system that would deny League superiority over the Imperium in a war, losing that system meant exposing important worlds to direct attacks and losing those worlds would cripple the Imperium beyond repair. Even having them damaged if not captured, would result in an enormous loss of resource output. Those worlds were far too important to lose them and in order to protect them, Ampal Dir had top priority over most of the things. Losing that system, meant, to many on Nova Terra, including the God-Emperor, losing the Imperium.
To the League, the system of Ampal Dir had almost the same importance. First of all it had a cultural importance. It was present in many ancient letterary works and sagas, while we will not divulge much into such matters, the spiritual and cultural value was enormous, despite the advancements of the Khell'Zen League culture more in favour of materialistic values. Another less important reason or even more important, depending who was asked on such matters is that Ampal Dir had important resources, yet to be discovered by the Imperium but the League had long uncovered them on the tomb world and around the system. The third and probably the most important reason was that the Khell'Zen were not fools and they perfectly understood the strategic importance of Ampal Dir. The League saw the Imperium as an underdeveloped barbarian state. Hostile to the Imperium but not the Humanity itself, they sought to slowly and methodically seize those systems and planets for themselves and liberate this similar in appeareance but much taller and thinner race of humanoids. In fact their legends spoke of the thin legs, taller than the Khell'Zen but much weaker than them, a species of overworld dwelling humanoids while the Khell'Zen preferred to build their cities and socities underground. Not shy from building them above and not below the surface, they were more naturally inclined to build underground. Their tales and legends spoke of thin legs as opposed to them, naturally inclined to build above the surface and only in extreme cases, resort to build underground. The sun was their strenght, without light they would perish, while too much light was detrimental to the Khell'Zen physiology. The Velutarians were another example of a legendary species, discovered to be real.
Over time, the UNE would become secretly hostile to the League, while the secret pact to partition the Imperium was never officially broken, the UNE started to desire every Nova Terran system and over time, ambitious administrations laid bolder and bolder claims, encouraging hegemonic members to attack the League and the UNE would graciously support them. The Khell'Zen would realise that they were deceived too late and would pay the price for it, as system after system, colony after colony was seized and their economy crushed into the dust, to never pose a real threat to the UNE.
In October the Azanti started to push again deep inside imperial systems. The Imperium sent reinforcements however it left other systems exposed that the xeno fully exploited, for every counterattack another offensive was launched, leaving no time for the Imperium to properly reorganise and establish a defensive line around a few key systems.
In late November provisory fleet Classis XXVI was sent to reinforce Ampal Dir, the League declared war but so far no sign of their fleets has been picked. It greatly worried the admiralty that feared a massive concentrated attack against the fortified system. In December, the newly formed Classis V was also sent to reinforce the system, comprised of only four ships, was resembling more a large squadron rather than a fleet, regardless the ships were sent to reinforce the exposed border.
In January, 2276 Classis IV repelled the enemy Gilder Fleet suffering light casualties. The Azanti suffered only light hull breaches as they refitted their fleets to be able to execute raiding missions deep in enemy space and quickly retreat. They would rotate them in quick succession, quickly depleting enemy resources. A direct confrontation, taught them, meant heavy casualties for both sides and in worst case scenario a succesful ambush meant losing an entire fleet to the Humans. The Azanti were not keen to have such large losses and quickly learned a method to counter the guerilla style warfare of the Imperium by launching their own raids and then quickly retreating.
On March, 2nd 2276 the Barcalan Interstellar Autocracy decided to close their borders to the Imperium. They offered a lenghty list of justifications and between them was the one that Nova Terra was hostile to alien life forms treating them as mere cattle. It went against the xenophile ideology of the Barcalans that saw every sentient life form as a possible citizen of their state.
In mid April, Classis VI has been recalled to Nova Aegyptus, the Azanti were quickly overruning the neighboring systems and the core systems were under threat. Then squabbles among the higher ups made so that the fleet would instead attack directly Achernar. Some thought that the Imperium being once again on the offensive would force the Azanti to divert forces back home and this would give the Imperium a few months to reorganise the remaining forces.
In May the first Khell'Zen contingent was spotted. It was made of three fleets, ready to strike Ampal Dir. Running simulations suggested that the forfication, reinforced by the fleet would be able to resist such assault but not the secondary wave and intelligence reports suggested that the League possessed a navy far stronger than just three fleets. Classis V was still in transit towards Ampal Dir and Nova Terra was defended by Classis I and provisory fleet Classis XIV. So far orders to further reinforce Ampal Dir were not given. The admiralty feared that the Azanti were under heavy build up and a surprise offensive against the Imperium was coming soon. Their raids were concerning and suspicious. Some suggested that they were testing how robust were imperial defences and once obtained enough information, the real assault would begin in all eagerness.
At the same time on Belmacosa border, the joint Azanti-Velutarian expeditionary fully occupied the fringe systems. However, pushing inside core systems would prove much more difficult and the Belmacosa would surely strike back much harder. It did not matter much to the Azanti, one border was secured and now they could fully focus without too many worries on the Imperium, while the Velutarians reinforced by few Azanti fleets would keep busy the Belmacosa in the systems they intended to attack.
The Belmacosa were bogged down in the occupied systems, once belonging to the UEK, they were heavily fortified and further Azanti improvement made them a death trap and a meat grinder for the stubborn Belmacosa forces. According to their planning, capturing those systems would severly reduce the economic output of the Azanti, however they failed to notice or those in command simply did not care that taking those was an extremely hard objective. The space geography made it hard in first place for them to successfully launch proper attacks, in spite of having a relatively modern and powerful navy, coupled by hostile fortified systems, it was nothing but a death trap. Political and court intrigues would severly limit their true power. The Azanti would fully exploit this fatal weakness, inflicting disproportionate casualties to the Belmacosa. They would never recover from such losses and eventually be subjugated by the Dekron Fabricators
In May, 2276 the Belmacosa had four fleets trying to break into Azanti systems, with two more on their way. Half of the total number of their ships were heavily damaged and even more lacked essential supplies. The instability at home crippled the navy beyond repair and it would only get worse with ever more ships being produced and sent to the slaughter. An entire generation of professionals would perish, leaving the empire vulnerable.
In late May, Classis IV stopped in Trunt to resupply and Classis II was being refitted with modern weaponry. In June, while Classis III was pushing on Achernar the Azanti launched their own counterattack against Nova Aegyptus. At the same time, League forces in doubled, from three to six fleets, a force more than capable to take over Ampal Dir. The admiralty did not expect such a massive increase, in fact they did expect the League to atttack in waves and slowly reinforce the attacking fleets. The Khell'Zen expected the Imperium to think in this way and they decided to prepare for a massive assault instead, despite the logistical challenges such an operation presented, Ampal Dir had to fall, once and for all, the Imperium brought to heel.
The two fleets defending Nova Terra were hastily sent to reinforce Ampal Dir before the assault could commence, many already suspected that it was far too late and the League had already the upper hand, the overcautious Imperium made a fatal mistake, leaving an important system poorly guarded and the price for it would be paid soon as League fleets were preparing to flood inside imperial systems after taking Ampal Dir.
Realistically speaking, assembling and coordinating such a large force had proven to be too much even for the economic juggernaut that the League was and a compromise had to be reached, the Khell'Zen admirals agreed to split the fleets in two waves and launch them in quick succession. They thought that a smaller force with better organisation was better than a larger one, simulations even showed friendly collisions between ships and some had fatal results. In September the first wave entered Ampal Dir.
In October, the Azanti fleet made contact with the Starport in Nova Aegyptus. Classis II and IV were ordered to recapture Bysh and pursue the enemy fleets in the Courus and Erimadon system.
In early November the first Khell'Zen wave approached the fortress of Ampal Dir and combat started. Only twenty corvettes were there to defend the station against the first wave and the quickly approaching second wave. The League took advantage of Nova Terran hesitation and now they were attacking a barely defended system. The war started in their favour.
In late November, intel report came saying that the Yarrowreacher were preparing their own invasion, supported by UNE unofficial forces, it was unclear when they would attack but the possibily of another front opening was very real, for the moment, the aliens observed quietly while preparing their guns and battleships.
A few days later, Classis III managed to capture the Achernar system. It was a strategic failure, two fleets were cut out the supply chain and the Nova Aegyptus was under siege by two enemy fleets. In spite of such a dangerous situation, Gallus Mucius, commander of Classis VI, decided to reinforce Classis III and try once again another assault on Brightpool.
The fight in Ampal Dir was extremely vicious and brutal and in late December the defending fleet was forced to retreat after suffering heavy casualties, 30% of ships destroyed and the rest barely operative. After another month of fighting, the fortress of Ampal Dir itself fell. It is estimated that the Khell'Zen lost between 10% and 15% of their ships in total and superficial damage to the rest of their navy. Having sent an overwhelming force of 120 ships, the Khell'Zen had the luxury to rotate damaged ships and repair them in the mid of the battle. While indeed the fortress of Ampal Dir was built to shatter their fleets as recognised by the League, the massive invasion force was able to easily break through. Their plan was an absolute success, what followed later would put to shame many Khell'Zen commanders.
