Chapter 1: Wings unfurled
(2200 - 2202-04-05)
The Invention of the Warp Drive in the 2190’s had created a rapid shift in society of Rix. Once confined to the savannas, forests, mountains and oceans of their home planet the Shi’Vini were now faced with an entire Galaxy before them. Too many it seemed that the it was the destiny of the Shi’Vini to own those stars and breathe the air from foreign worlds. Indeed the Government under the strong-armed rule of Grand Marshall Laktras made a conscious effort to cultivate these ideals seeing them as a way to unify the Shi’Vini race in loyalty to the Government while also fulfilling his grand desires of expansion and conflict that would etch his name into the annals of history for many millenia.
Leading up to the dawn of the 23rd Century a large expansion project was made to regear the nation to fully exploit the final frontiers of space. A large spaceport was built, hovering high above the atmosphere of Rix, it could be seen everyday by the populace below, reminding them of the achievement of the Shi’Vini and filling them with a sense of pride. The Industry on Rix was also modernised to adapt to a space age, although the cost of this would result in large regions of the Rix being covered in slums filled with the unemployed and entire industrial cities abandoned, now useless in the modern age.
The rigors of adapting to a new era had left its mark of Rix, rendering roughly a quarter of the planet unusable for the current period.
By the turn of the 23rd century the first five spaceships of the Shi’Vini interstellar Dominion had been finished, these ships were the first designed to operate from space completely autonomously and had taken considerable input from the scientific community to design and construct. Among their numbers were three warships dubbed “corvettes” after an old naval ship class which served to protect the populace from any threats wherever they may have came from. Additionally a craft was made to facilitate construction of any orbit space structures that may be required without access to the resources and manpower of Rix itself. The final ship was made at the behest of the scientific community as a vessel from which they could go out in order to explore the Galaxy with which they hoped to understand more about the workings of the world.
The Dawn of the 23rd Century
The local system of Rixaru. Despite knowing about the size of the system for many years and the orbital bodies that made up the system little effort had been made to survey them in detail an oversight that was top on the list for many within the scientific community.
Rixaru’s location within the local region of space. The roughly six or so systems within the local space where high priorities to be cleared of any potential threat so their planets could be assessed for habitability.
The Shi’Vini were situated close to the Galactic core. The impassable nature of the centre was a relief for the Military government who felt comfortable knowing their southern flank was effectively secured.
With the turn of the 23rd Century it was decided that the time for build-up and adaption was over. It was finally time for the Shi’Vini to spread their wings and grasp their destiny among the stars. While the scientific community set about surveying Rixaru itself and developing further improvements for the fleet, notably better sublight engines and defences to protect the ships (the first prototypes of the modern day shielding known as deflectors.) While all this was underway the Navy undertook the task of surveying the local systems. Arriving at the system of Patraggor they were immediately attacked by some form of “alien” lifeform, which they tentatively referred to as “Alpha Aliens.” Today we know that they were some form of ancient mining drones left behind by an old precursor species. At the time however this news caused outbreaks of fear and resentment on Rix, the fact that the navy had been forced to retreat after its first mission and that aliens existed right on the border was alarming to many. The Military administration moved quickly moved to repress the spread of discontent, and ordered the navy to continue its exploration. During this process a myriad of new alien creatures would be discovered. A few like the Tiyanki were peaceful, but the vast majority were aggressive creatures that had no hesitation about attacking the Shi’Vini vessels, these ranged from the large space amoeba, to the Void Clouds - primordial creatures that seemed to have no real intelligence.
The Tiyanki resembled ocean going creatures native to Rix and where harmless
The scientific mission on Rixaru had for the most part been uneventful, while these operations had uncovered many usable resources on the planets and other bodies in the system which were quickly exploited by the government they all paled before the discovery on Klaht. The Survey had been a routine mission for the commanding officer at the time, a scientist named Qutrok, but his scans of the planet showed it to be anything but routine. Hovering high in the atmosphere appeared the remains of what could only be identified as an orbit space station. The ancient station appeared to have suffered extensive damage from a battle many years ago (Scientists put it at either the millions or hundreds of thousands)
Immediately plans were drawn up to try and reactivate the station as a potential military base or to salvage it for valuable equipment and technology, a feasibility project estimated that the expertise to complete the operation was not yet available and so the plans were quietly shelved.
For the most part the next couple of years of history would be little more than a series of exploratory missions by the two science vessels of the Shi’Vini research institute as part of their ongoing mission to explore the Galaxy (although the mineral and economic wealth they discovered was useful to the government) Several anomalous sites were discovered and for the most part earmarked to be scanned at later dates. The scans had also revealed the systems around the Shi’Vini capital had great potential for habitable life. One such system was the Ajam system. The star of Ajam was a Class G and like many systems had a large number of orbital bodies. Upon initial entry into the system the primary concern of the scientific team was to survey the local body of Ajam IV, this huge continental world seemed to be a perfect world for the Shi’Vini to expand to and would serve to create a buffer between Rix and any potential threats that could come from the East.
The surface of Ajam was littered with active volcanoes and kelp forests, issues that would require great effort from scientists to overcome.
In the end however the most interesting part of Ajam did not come from Ajam IV. Indeed, on the planet of Ajam I, itself a relatively large, arctic planet. At first glance there seemed to be little of interest on the planet but upon further exploration the planet seemed to have signs of life on its surface, of particular interest was one species in particular, inspection by probes had revealed the invention of fire and what appeared to be a series of rudimentary languages between various conclaves of the species. Seeking to avoid the outcries that had resulted from the discovery of the mining drones a great council was convened of all the top ranking officials in the Shi’Vini Interstellar Dominion to decide how to proceed.
Many people were in support of immediate annexation of the territory and the enslavement of the populace. Indeed having a slave species adapted to arctic environments would have allowed the Shi’Vini to rapidly expand their influence in the local space region. Again prudence won out, the time it would have taken to organise both an army as well as a colony ship to annex the territory could be better spent elsewhere and the integration of the prehistoric brutes would take time to and risk upsetting the demographic balance of the Dominion, for know it was decided to simply pay attention to their progress and return to the issue at a later date. One other event did emerge from the conference. A shrewd scientist, Qutrok had been the main field operative behind the survey operations in local space. He had noted that with the abundance of space-faring creatures and the emergence of an alien proto-civilisation it was not unfeasible that somewhere in the Galaxy would lie alien races who could either be on the same technology level as the Shi’Vini or worse - far more advanced. Many dismissed his theories. While they agreed his hypothesis was likely true they counted on the ability of the Wimar Drift - an expansive nebula to shield them from prying eyes. Someone quickly pointed out an overlooked detail. During the early space age prior to the discovery of the Warp Drive the Military administration had sent 4 sublight probes out into the void to examine and catalogue the stars they based through. It was quickly pointed out that if any alien species found them it wouldn't be hard for them to either use data on board or reconstruct the flight path to locate Rix with potentially disastrous consequences. As such a decree was issued, to find and destroy the probes before anyone else could find them, as a alarm spread through the upper echelons of the Military and a desperate attempt to find any files that related to the probes commenced. Fortunately the necessary information was acquired and the scientists managed to calculate the locations of the probes. Quickly they passed the information on to the fleet, who set out into the unknown, with no idea what would potentially await them out in the void.
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I think I’m probably going to enslave the proto-civ at some point in time but for now I want to focus on colonising more immediate worlds though for reasons I won't disclose just yet.
Most of the anomalies I found have had like 30/40% failure rates at the start which has slowed down that kind of stuff a bit, though on the plus side I’ve explored a lot more system in the region. The Orbital station is pretty cool and has appeared for me roughly ~3 or 4 times in local space which is both a blessing and a curse. (I won’t say too much more in case I spoil anything)
I haven't had the sublight probe event before but it was pretty cool, though I think it might be slightly broken (more on that later though)
