The Ithelian Crusade

[klingonadmiral]

Greetings Paradoxians,

here will be an AAR, detailing the history of a crusader state. In SPACE!
This is my first AAR here on the forums, but I have already done a few far more image-based over at the paradox subreddits. But I wanted to do something a bit more wordy, so here I am.

Firstly, mods used:

Complete Colors
Downscaled Ships
Emblems: Fauna (active, but not used)
The Blorg (active, but not used)

Secondly, game setup:

Size: medium (600 Stars)
AI Empires: 17
Advanced Starts: 4
AI Agressiveness: Normal
Difficulty: Normal
FTL: Hyperlanes only
Ironman: Off

Thirdly and finally, the table of contents:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACT 1

God's Chosen People​

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ACT 1 - GENESIS​

And All-There-Is watched down upon creation. He saw the stars, the planets and all of life. Content with what he saw, All-There-Is departed the mortal plane, ending the Age of God.

The Song of Creation, First of the Holy Scriptures​

- - - - -​

“And so it is clear that we, and we alone, have been blessed by All-There-Is to restore order to a world fallen into chaos and disarray. For each day passing, the heathens encroach on our shores, to spread their falsehoods and undermine the authority of our state. To ensure the will of All-There-Is, the Empire is obliged to go on the offence, to end any attack on God and Emperor alike until the end of time.”

~ High Inquisitor Jervas'Dal, Address to the Imperial Diet of 2051

Originally, the Jothpok Empire was a small, isolationist monarchy located on an island chain near the southern polar regions of the homeworld Vuthi'Azod, a tropical greenhouse covered in dense jungles. While the empire was able to remain cut off from the rest of their world for most of the Ithelian modern age, their isolation was forcibly broken in the year 2023 of their dating system by an international coalition.

The sudden opening of their society rapidly changed the society of the empire: technology flourished, the infrastructure was rapidly improved and arts and architecture experience a renaissance. But most important, the people off Jothpok began to re-embrace the teachings of the prophets. In a mere three decades, the empire was transformed from a small backwater to a bustling society. A society that hated having progress being forced upon them. By the early 2050s, a massive reactionary shift took place in Jothpok society after the death of emperor Dolun'Zahr. The new monarch was young and weak, and quickly a council of leading government officials took control over the state.

In 2067, the Jothpok Empire declared war on one of their neighbours, it's name long purged from their history books. It was the start of a grand crusade, as the Jothpok desired to achieve their “god-given” hegemony over their world, to enforce the will of their deity upon it. For more than four centuries the wars ravaged Vuthi'Azod, before the Jothpok Empire emerged as the only state still standing, all other polities having fallen to their assault or having willingly joined them in their quest for global dominance.

The next half-century was one of rebuilding and stabilisation. The era of conflict had dropped the population of Vuthi'Azod by nearly a third, more than 2 billion Ithelians succumbing to the various miseries and misfortunes of war. Around 2150, the Ithelians had finally rebuilt their home. While Jothpok was technically still an empire, the de facto rulers were a council of appointed officials that had ruled the empire for the last century, the emperor himself having become more of a ceremonial position.

And with their world subjugated, they looked to the stars. Seeing nothing but a galaxy having strayed from the divine path.

 

[Valhallas Call]

A nice start, I'll be following!

 

[klingonadmiral]

God's Chosen People

By the turn of the century, the Council of Theological Authority, the de facto ruling body of the Ithelian species, had forced rapid changes on global society. In 2186, the Jothpok Empire was founded the Sacred Ithelian Domain, granting token self governance to vast swathes of the territories it conquered.

While the Domain officially granted all citizens equal and unalienable rights, the Ithelians were in practice divided in three major groups: The Jothpok stood at the top of the social hierarchy, followed by their Federates, the peoples that had assisted the empire in it's conquest. However, the vast majority of the population was considered Doubters, being those peoples that found themselves conquered.

While such a rigid and discriminatory internal hierarchy would put considerable strain on most species, the Ithelians are, for lack of a better word, subservient. They flock to the power of authority and only in the direst of situations speak out against the people they consider above them. Considering that religions often view the divine as the highest power of all, this also explains why they so willingly embraced a very aggressive religiosity.

However as arts and culture began to stagnate under the Domain, the leadership wished to show the in their view god-given superiority by rebuilding the bombed out cities of the planet. As showcased by the plethora of spires, skybridges and silver-plated exteriors found in buildings of the post-war period, it is safe to say that they preferred form over function. A trait that continues to their spaceships, metallic skybeasts coated in a reflective hull, designed to inspire awe in the people living on the planet they orbit.

But while the Ithelians build rather extravagant vessels, their weapons technology is rather simplistic in comparison to other empires of about their strength, consisting of relatively primitive mass drivers.