Imperium: Reboot (OOC/Sign Ups) Always Open

[Remnants of Exilvania]

Aight, second and I think last app done. Do tell me if anything doesn't work here and I'll try my best to remedy it.

Name: Etheltryth Líszt
Nickname: The Disgraced Guard
Age: 72
Birth Date: 19.851 IC
Gender: Female
Planet of Origin: Terragrigia
Race/Species: Human (augmented)
Height: 7' / 2,13 m
Weight: 205 lb / 93 kg
Physical Description or Image:

Social Class: Not noble. An orphan of unknown origin that was recruited into the Imperial Guard and attained officer rank within it before being transferred to the Imperial Army.
Titles: Captain of the Imperial Army, Commander of the Imperial Winderzlaf Garrison, Hero of Korall IV, Disgrace of the Imperial Guard
Occupation: Imperial Army Captain, Winderzlaf Supreme Military Commander
Hobbies/Pastimes: Explore, endanger herself, pester the local garrison with ever new, brutal training, generally try to eliminate any perceived weakness...aside from that kinda apathetic.
Talents/Skills: Talented and well educated tactician and strategist, great explorer/adventurer, very good in armed and unarmed combat. Due to augments way stronger than she looks.
Religious Beliefs: God is dead.
Personality: Aloof and seemingly completely apathetic to most things that happen around her and cynical or cruel when she isn't, Líszt does not get along well with the people around her. The few times she actually does she can best be described as an uncaring, at times sadistic creep.
Biography: Etheltryth Líszt was, like most recruits of the Imperial Guard, an orphan, found on the steps to an orphanage in Terragrigia. It would not take long for the Imperial Guard to recruit her from the orphanage and in time she would undergo their harsh training regiment, being shaped and molded into a weapon of the Empire, blindly loyal and almost unthinking.

It was this spark of thinking, this ingenuity and logic that she preserved through her training that made her trainers and supervisors take note of her. It was promising and as such she was enrolled for an officer career early on, quickly proving that her superiors had judged her correctly as she passed tests and exams with flying colours, leaving the academy and properly joining the Imperial Guard as a Lieutenant at the young age of 19 years, serving as a Platoon Vice Commander at the start.

As a member of the Imperial Guard, she was obviously posted to the hottest combat zones the Empire had available...these being primarily rebellions and and pirates, no grand foreign power being around due to the Empire's unrivalled place as the sole ruler of the Milky Way. Still, in spite of these poor odds, Líszt performed admirably during her service, establishing herself as an extremely devoted, extremely skilled warrior and officer in the Imperial Guard and was murmured to be pretty much chosen to be the secret protege of influential members of the Guard. As such she also received plentiful attention and care, including the augmentation of her body, helping her physical strength and endurance as well as better preserving her youth.

But things couldn't sail smoothly forever. In the 35th year of Líszt's life, 19.886 IC, the by now Chief Colonel and commander of an Imperial Guard Division was sent to quell an uprising in one of the Dominai Majora. The reports are hazy yet her troops say that during the fighting, which took almost a year, the Chief Colonel got increasingly paranoid and hectic, culminating in what would essentially end her career. It's not clear how or what exactly happened, but Chief Colonel Líszt ended up summarily executing the head of the noble houses which had suffered the rebellion in the first place, claiming conspiracy, a plot to assassinate the Emperor himself!

Needless to say that this act caused backlash. Despite Líszt being able to provide evidence of such a plot indeed existing, albeit being in its infancy, and a members of Imperial Intelligence and Praetorians confirming her version of events...she had acted out of turn. As a mere Chief Colonel it was not within her authority to make herself judge, jury and executioner like the Praetorians were. She had killed the head of one of the major noble houses and other noble houses took a dislike to it and demanded for her to be put on trial.

The trial, held upon Terra Nova, ended up siding with the enraged nobility for they were correct. What Líszt had done was not within her authority as a Chief Colonel of the Imperial Guard. She did not have to execute the head of a noble house. She could have done quite literally anything, including an arrest as security footage showed the noble quite compliant.

Despite the trial's sentence though, Líszt was still a small hero and still had powerful backers who, while seeing that she was not tenable anymore at the moment, very much intended to keep her in the back of their hand for possible future use. And so her sentence was relatively mild, instead of the execution the nobility demanded, she was merely demoted from Chief Colonel to Captain and kicked out of the Imperial Guard, being transferred to the Imperial Army instead and posted on a small, poor world at the very fringe of the Empire. Out of the way, out of sight and out of mind.

Needless to say that Líszt's world view was shattered. She had done what was in her opinion right and good...and she was punished like that? Her talent thrown away to rot, nay, freeze on this frigid backwater?

She abandoned her Terranist faith, her belief and loyalty in and to the Emperor and the Empire and quickly drowned in self-loathing and apathy over on Winderzlaf. In fact, she got downright suicidal and cruel, putting the people under her command through their paces in rather harsh and brutal ways as well as organizing the most dangerous expeditions she could mount to get a thrill out of it as well as maybe, possibly, hopefully die along the way. Actually killing herself was still something she wasn't ready to do...but getting killed? She could get on board with that.

It was this absolute apathy and lack of care which allowed the Winderzlaf Exploitation Corporation to fester on the planet and then later the PREDI. If Líszt had still been the fanatically loyal Imperial Guard member she used to be...perhaps she would have ended it before it even began growing, with a decisive, surgical strike. But as it was she just watched with a detached curiosity, wondering what her place in the events that were going to unfold would be.

If Great House or a leader of a Faction like a SAS, Colony, Et Cetera
Name of Territory: Imperial Garrison of Winderzlaf
Government: Imperial Planetary Garrison
Capital World: Winderzlaf
Population: 30 million
Economy: Based entirely around the PREDI, which is owns practically every facet of life on the planet but is primarly based on the PREDI's ore mines.
Culture: A very close knit and personal culture, based around the mining profession most people on the planet follow. There's also a very, very low regard for the Empire, its reach not being felt as much here on the nigh lawless fringe...especcially with PREDI rule firmly established. The Imperial Law enforcement on the Planet is usurped by PREDI security which argues that for their employees, corporate guidelines apply first, and after that the Imperial Law. A step they dare not do elsewhere but here, where they have practically every citizen employed, they do.
Social Structure: The PREDI's social structure largely applies to Winderzlaf, due to the world being so completely in the grasp of the PREDI. There are of course other professions than just in the mining business but even the most common miner is highly regarded here, the business being the thing that gave Winderzlaf its relative prosperity in the first place. Most other professions rank below those of the miners, being regarded primarily as being there to serve the mining industry and its workers. Then there is of course the Imperial Military Administration and Military contingent. They exist somewhat outside of the general social hierarchy of Winderzlaf, being still respected and accomodated rather than insulted, kicked and beaten but it is generally quite clear that it isn't regarded all that highly.
Territorial Size:
1x Cheti/Omega Class Planet.
Military and Security Forces:
1x Imperial Army Company...though having gone through a Tanya Degurechaff style training regiment xD

[Imperialisium]

Name: Serrat Honora
Nickname: Capta Regem
Age: 198
Birth Date: Date unknown, year 25,511
Gender: Male
Planet of Origin: Krakatoan
Race/Species: Human (speculated)
Height: 6'7"
Weight: 300lbs

Physical Description or Image: (Image)

Social Class: Born destitute, as most are on Krakatoan. Now the wealthiest and most powerful man in the Krakatoan domain.
Titles: Imperial Senator, Executioner
Occupation: Representative to the Imperial Senate for the Krakatoan Domain, Commander in Chief of the Krakatoan military.
Hobbies/Pastimes: Ritualistic combat and Go
Talents/Skills: Hand held weapons skills that are unparalleled within the Krakatoan domain, Expert strategist, proficient cook, compelling orator, well versed in firearm combat.
Religious Beliefs: Path of the Blade. Belief that power can only be obtained at the end of a blade. Killing to usurp of overcome those in power, is the only way to rightly earn that power. More devout members of the faith believe that this killing results in a more literal transfer of power from person to person. And that he who has slain the most, is undoubtedly the strongest and most powerful among them. Serrat is as devout of a follower of this faith as they come.
Personality: Brash, Charasmatic, and fanatic. Is a man that relishes in the opportunity to fell a foe or begin a grand speech on the wonders and truths of the Path of the Blade. Someone who loves to speak, yet stays silent whenever he wields a weapon.
Biography: Like most Krakatoans Serrat was born into a rather poor family, and given almost no luxury. Having to fight for almost everything, even dinner each evening. A harsh existence that makes them strong, or makes them dead. Krakatoan was brought under Imperial control voluntarily. The Executioner at the time was not a devout follower of the Path. He believed in other forms of power, political forms. And believed that with this new form of power Krakatoan would flourish like never before. That was until Serrat turned just 13 years of age. When the swarm attacked. A race of semi-sentient insectoid creatures ravaged the planet, killing all of Serrat's family, as well as tens of millions of his people. The Krakatoans fought bravely, to the point where they had formed a sturdy front line of defense against the onslaught of Swarm that advanced upon them. But, the Executioner chose to never advance this line. Instead choosing to wait for aid from the Imperial Army. This aid took far too long, as being a planet on the edge of the galaxy, even with the best FTL travel to this domain is anything but speedy. People were dying and Serrat was sick of seeing it occur. He used his small stature to sneak his way into the Executioner's office. As the Executioner toiled away at Imperial paperwork, like a bureaucrat rather than a proud Krakatoan warrior, Serrat took a blade to his neck and ended the Executioner's rule. By rights of the Path of the Blade, Serrat was named the new Executioner. With this new power, Serrat took lead of the Krakatoan military and led them on a slaughter filled campaign to drive the Swarm back. Even managing to kill one of the ravenous bugs himself. He is heralded as a hero, having fought back the Swarm to the point of retreat before the Imperial Army could even arrive. He welcomed the Imperial aid to help them wipe the Swarm out of the domain. But, he kept them at a distance. Refusing to engage in the Imperial bureaucracy until the war was won. And even when it was, he still engages with the Imperium in only the most necessary of ways. He has since fashioned armor from the bodies of the Swarm, the chitin of which was strong enough to withstand a surprising level of weapon fire. Since donning this armor, Serrat rarely removes it. He wears it so often that in the nearly two hundred years since he put it on, the people of the universe have begun to forget what he even looks like. But his helmet, in unmistakable.


Name of Territory: Example- The Krakatoan Domain
Government: Autocracy
Capital World: Krakatoan, A delta class planet
Population: Approx ~ one trillion
Economy: Military based economy, with open trade access for the IISG and the GCC
Culture: power and status is earned only through combat. All people must defeat the person in power to obtain his title or status. One exception being natural death, in which the position is open to all claimants, being decided by battle whose claim is most valid.
Social Structure: Battle reverence. People gain social status based on the number of people they have slain, or battles they have won.
Territorial Size: 33 planets in total spanning 10 star systems. The vast majority of which are Zeta class planets. There is one dwarf planet, that could be classified as a Gaia if it were a full world. two Delta class worlds, one Yota class, three Cheti class, and on omega.
Military and Security Forces: The military is all of the Krakatoan population. A society based on fighting, or dying, means that if you are able to pick up a weapon, you must to defend your home. If you cannot, you die. In terms of mobilized forces, roughly 500 million people of high status are called upon for expansion or warfare activities. Personal security forces are antithetical to the Path of the Blade and thus while not expressly barred, are look at as an undeniable sign of weakness and invites attacks from challengers.

A trillion people for this is a bit high. Would be far lower into the double digit billions at most.

[The Empire of Tau]

Of all the characters in this RP, it seems that they are the most similar in ideology.

Polan would expect and demand that your character implement sweeping social, political, and economic reforms (abolishment of the wage-system, full-workplace democracy, the fundamental right to food, water, housing, and healthcare, plus another long list of demands), once the Imperium starts to buckle and lost its control over your sector.

[Imperialisium]

Name: "My name is Quintara Negata-Stasa. You may have heard of me, if you are a scholar."
Nickname: "As far as I'm aware, I have none."
Age: "By my ship's chronometer, I am 234 years, two months and six days old as of this profile."
Birth Date: "I was born in the year 19,689 by the Imperial Calendar. The day and month are... Well, meaningless between planets."
Gender: "I am female."
Planet of Origin: "I was born on the world of Artemisia. A beautiful planet, yet a symbol of rot and decay nonetheless."
Race/Species: "I am human."
Height: "I am 5' 7", by the Old Measures."
Weight: "113 lbs, again, by the Old Measures."
Physical Description or Image: "I am old and withered, gaunt, spindly and thin. My face is smooth, but is aged like sun-battered leather, wrinkled and hard. I require a powered exoskeleton to be as spry as I used to be, even with the age-slowing augmentation and access to an advanced Canopus Medicae Capsule and a Helican Class Organ Printer to replace my organs as they suffer failure from age. My hair is a close-cut mass of grey, serviceable and practical for someone that finds themselves treading the dust of dead planets. No doubt some would say I am wasting away. But my eyes are as young as my mind, vividly green as they have ever been."
Social Class: "I am, or suppose was, a noble. Not that my family seemed to care."
Titles: "If I have been given any that I do not know of, then I disdain them as meaningless."
Occupation: "I was, for much of my life, a polymath. A scholar of multiple fields, a lost art in this age. Currently, I suppose one would say I am an explorer and an archaeologist. Someone less eloquent would say a treasure hunter."
Hobbies/Pastimes: "My work does not allow me time for such. Exploration, planetary survey, translation of text and reconstruction of corrupted data does not leave time for such... Frivolous things. Not when everything is at stake."
Talents/Skills: "I am, as I have said, a polymath. Primarily specialised in the less hard fields of science, admittedly; if one bothers to look, one can find my papers on history, linguistics, sociology, theology, with a few relating to the harder sciences when it comes to astronomical archaeology and the like. I have spent decades on archaeological explorations and surveys and in the reconstruction and translation of lost languages and data-sets. I can wield a sword half-competently, and I am as good as any hacker when it comes to a war of information."
Religious Beliefs: "I do not have a religious belief. It is a panacea of the mind to the collective, or that is what my research indicates. A brief and dirty repair, to prevent the collective from decaying in the realisation there is no one to save them but themselves."
Personality: "Some have called me rude. Uncouth. Others think I am too clever for my own good, or too driven by my research and a study for knowledge. I cannot say any of that is a lie, for I am too humble to deny my own flaws. I am quiet and reserved, shy, some have called me, bookish and far more comfortable with data and information than the unpredictability of interacting with people. Not qualities one would imagine the most radical of revolutionaries to possess. What I do have is the conviction of someone who has realised a terrible truth, and the cold, ruthless will to do what I believe is right to ensure that truth does not come to pass."
Biography: "To understand its philosophy, one must first understand its creator. I was born the unexpected fifth child of House Negata-Stasa, hence the name Quintara. the first part meaning fifth in an ancient language. To be the fifth child of a noble house is to have no responsibilities; the eldest will inherit the family dominion, the second will go into the Peerage, the third, the Imperial Military, the fourth, into the clergy or business. But the fifth? To be the fifth and youngest is to be... Aimless. To be informed that you have a responsibility to do the family proud, but nonetheless for it to be made clear they expect you to figure that out for yourself. To be pushed harder than any of the others in your education, since anything but perfection is considered a disappointment by your parents, simply because you are the fifth, and there is no place for you they know."

"Fortunately, I did not mind what they taught. It was both interesting and a way to avoid the punishments for failure. I did not get along with my siblings; I was the quiet one, the one always reading, only learning to fight when I had to. I sought knowledge for its own sake, to know more. It was only natural then, that I went into Imperial Academia. My family did not approve of the choice, but it was not so disgraceful they could force me to change my mind. With my part of the family fortune backing me, I could afford to pursue... Riskier avenues of research, but going straight into independent research would have been arrogant of me. I spent a decade as a research assistant, another decade as an archivist in the Imperial Archives. To research is as much about access as skill. As one's connections as one's intellect. Two decades of mindless drudgery, but from it I developed a wide degree of contacts and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the layout of the labyrinth of information that is the Imperial Archives. Several thousand years of information is hard to organise, after all."

"I published my first paper at 40. The 'History of the Language of the Empire in the 17000s by the Imperial Calendar'. A dull and hardly noticed affair, but it was necessary to get my metaphorical foot in the door. More papers followed, mostly on the history of language and culture. One cannot understand the past unless one understands those who live there. This was all working up to a magnum opus, a history of Imperial Culture from the very foundation of the Empire to the present day. These smaller papers were but chapters within the larger work. Research took two decades, even with all that I knew from my previous two decades, and another decade and a half on archaeological expeditions for where the Imperial Archives and those private collections I had access to proved... Woefully incomplete. Forty-five years working towards a text I would never publish, because as I was writing it, I came to a single, horrible conclusion based on the information I had gathered."

"I did not want to admit it at the time, and so I spent another decade doing nothing but verifying my conclusion with other sources. I taught myself economics, sociology, political science, to tackle the same conclusion from a different angle. It was necessary, however. The data I found collaborated the conclusion that I had reached; the Imperium had entered a general social, political and cultural decline ever since the year 7812 Imperial Calendar. Any attempt at reform would have to be be undertaken by someone within the system and thus their values would also be subject to the decline, rendering it like trying to hold back a storm with will alone. One person alone cannot stop thousands of years of inertial decline simply through will."

"Imperial decline was not, exactly, a subject of debate within the scholarly community. There was a broad consensus on the subject, but there was also a widespread belief it could be salvaged. My work would be censored and ridiculed, not because it was not true, but because it was politically unpalatable for them to hear the truth spoken. The conclusion I came to was what I wrote then, and what I still hold to now, decades later. The title of my unpublished magnum opus, written in Lingua Ancien; Imperium Delenda Est."

"The Imperium must be destroyed. Reform is impossible. No man, no technology no matter how great, can save it from thousands of years of inertial degeneration of politics, society and culture. The system has weakened those within it who might have once saved it so that any reform that might be attempted is simply delaying the inevitable. The logic that followed was quite simple. I do not hate the Imperium; it is inevitable it will be destroyed, and so it will be destroyed in the best way possible to shape the future. Quickly, violently, and bloody. An ancient philosopher once spoke in circular dialectics. The Imperium is the present, the thesis; what destroys it, whatever that may be, will be its antithesis. The result from the crucible caused by their collision, the synthesis, will be stronger than both. The Imperium was born out of the Data Plagues. The Shadow should have been another, but the Emperor Valorian corrupted it, prevented the destruction from causing synthesis. The cycle cannot be delayed. It is inevitable. And so, there was one simple conclusion. I would have to destroy the Imperium. Create the antithesis for the resulting synthesis, rather than letting the inertia carry society and the Galaxy to destruction."

"I am not charismatic. I am shy, bookish, not some revolutionary militant firebrand. I could not bind together some armada to sweep across the Imperium, some front of popular revolution. Such would not be a true antithesis regardless. But I am a historian, and I remember the antithesis that birthed the Imperium. The Data Plagues. Creation of one was beyond me, but I was an archaeologist; finding one, intact or not, would succeed just as well. As would whatever arcane Solarian weaponry left across the Galaxy I could find. Likewise, the Shadow would serve the same purpose. The means, what compromised the antithesis, was irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was the result. The Imperium would be destroyed, and what stood in the aftermath, the synthesis, would save the Galaxy through its birth."

"Finding such things has, obviously, not been easy. I have spent a century and a half with nothing but AIs to accompany me to stave off the desire for company as I followed ancient star charts and records, deciphering ancient texts and translating ancient languages in the search of leads. Procyon Primaris, the location of the first known Data Blight. The Original Twenty, Aurora, Melpomenia, Sagittarian, Solaria, Polaris and others. Old Earth, Terra Magna itself. The 'Red Planet'. The origins of the Shadow in the Megallanic Cloud and the ruined civilisations within. Quite obviously, I have yet to find anything. The Imperium continues to rot away. But I believe I am getting close, and soon enough, there will be an antithesis. Whether I live to see the synthesis is irrelevant."

Quintara would have been to none of these except the Megallanic Cloud, Procyon Primaris and/or Polaris and Sagittarian (modern Sagittar Prime). Accepted, but the prior sentence is canon for the purpose of this biography.

[Imperialisium]

Name: Jove X | Jove Tarkane
Age: Current model: 196 | True age: unknown
Birth Date: Current model: 19,727 IC
Gender: Male
Planet of Origin: Officially: Har Garizim | Models produced: Gehenna | Original birthplace: Unknown
Race/Species: Human (Ancient cybernetically and augmented human clone)
Height: 6’3”
Weight: 86 kg
Physical Description or Image: Like this but less grimdark, usually wearing highly ornate robes, a mixture between a Papal and Dalai Lama outfit, usually coloured Saffron with white, or vice versa.
Social Class: Officially a noble, from a family famous for pious bishops, from Har Garizim. In reality this is a family from the Order, and is fabricated. As a construct, both in mind and body, of the Order, Jove lacks any real social class or background.
Titles: Dalain-Patriarch of the Mahayana Catheric Church
Saffron Pope
Arahant-Bishop of Jericho
Chakravartin of the Jovian Cycle
Grand Preceptor of the Imperium
Occupation: See titles
Hobbies/Pastimes: Reading and writing, delving into history, mythology, theology, the occult. War and strategy games.
Talents/Skills: Perhaps if all had gone to plan there would be naught that Jove could not do, but alas his ability to retrieve the memories necessary for skills he once practiced is gone. Despite this he could be considered a polymath, albeit one who is unable to truly excel at every chosen field. Of all his skills, however, he has done his best to keep up his scientific, medical, and mechanical knowledge, if only to ensure that if the Order fails, he will know how to keep himself alive.
Religious Beliefs: Jove has practiced many religions across his lifetimes, though none have truly touched his soul. Despite being the highest authority of the Mahayana Catheric Church, and a figure of worship by the Order, he is himself Agnostic.
Personality: To the Mahayana Catheric world he is the warm and charming Jove X, identical to his nine predecessors in every way. In reality Jove is unsure what to make of himself, or what 'himself' even is. With so many memories locked away, he is unsure as to which identity he has adopted bears an inkling of his true self, or if he was ever given the chance to have a real identity. Now worshipped as a god by his cult, and the Pope by an uncountable mass across the galaxy, he is slowly becoming more self-obsessed with his own importance. He is the New Man after all.
Biography:

The Uropa Project

It is unclear when the Uropa Project was initiated, who by, or ultimately for what purpose. Successive data blights, and the difficulties of keeping and restoring information over such vast tracts of time, have all but wiped this truth. High-ranking Vespera insist that it is a most ancient project, pursued from the earliest time of humanity by wise shamans, who would later coalesce into the Most Ancient Brotherhood of the Vespertine Mysteries, or the Vespertine Order for short.

Whatever the truth, from Jove’s deductions it appears the project was to create ‘the New Man’, one who would be perfect in every way, have experienced all that humanity could offer, and would have the immortal wisdom to guide humanity through the darkness into a new era. It is likely there was never a singular Uropa Project, as the Order seems to have tried multiple methods to create such a being, yet all ended in failure.

Whether the Order had anything to do with the great leap forward in cloning technology in the early days of the Imperium is as disputed amongst themselves as to whether they existed during those days. Needless to say much of the technology that was used to create the Jovian Model does originate from that era. The Jovian Model was the first to be stable upon successive cloning, and did not reject the organic and mechanical augmentations, nor did it seem to suffer from the Hawser Syndrome at any level.

Thus the body of Jove was born, but such a temple was not made for any regular mind. Through methods now lost, using cruel technology and the sacrifice of many victims, countless minds were cultivated and disposed of. It is unclear why #777616 was chosen, the only surviving data being that said mind was selected, but it is the mind that has survived all this time.

For a time Jove would take on an identity, and his physical appearance would be altered from that of its original form. This was part of his ‘birthing’ process, to experience humanity in a myriad of forms. Many of these would be humble lives, a peasant tilling the soil of a feudal world, a soldier bearing the brunt of the Imperium’s wars, a factory worker breaking bone to meet quotas. Sometimes the Order would facilitate a position of nobility for him, through bribery and forgery, and so thrust him into Imperial politics. A new face, a new name, but the same mind, over and over.

The method of continuation was itself composed of two parts. The primary was via an early form of Kasper Mnemonic Imagery, known as the Smriti to the Order through which Jove would have a clear continuation of genetic memory. The second was through the Shruthi Implant, a biomechanical device intended to be both a back-up system, and one which could hold ‘foreign’ memories. Thus in theory even if one is lost, the other can be used to rewrite the other.

And yet as the Imperium has declined in knowledge, so has the Order. Their mission seemingly complete and unstoppable, the Order receded from advancing their cause technologically, and now to this day is only just able to keep the cycle continuing, though they understand little of what they are doing, or how Jove’s body and mind work.

For Jove himself, the unnatural stretching of his life has had many side-effects. His augmentations have not been immune to data blights and plagues, and so his access to memories via the Shruthi Implant is inconsistent, with many moments locked, unavailable, or perhaps completely lost. His access to the genetic Smriti is equally as compromised, for reasons he is not entirely sure of. He has often found himself unconsciously accessing his genetic Smriti and seemingly accessing memories that are not his, and is thus becoming increasingly unable to differentiate what has truly happened in his past, and what is corrupted, false, or dreamt up.

A New Destiny

Aware of his limitations and decline, and that of the Order and Imperium both, Jove decided to end his ‘birthing’ process. The Order, once a secretive scientific organisation dedicated to the future of mankind, had over the ages devolved into a cult worshipping Jove. He directed the Vespera to their new purpose, infiltrating the Mahayana Catheric Church. It took time, but Jove was able to be patient, and soon the Order had gained control over the Church’s institutions.

Jove had selected the Church due to its belief in the literal reincarnation of its leaders, through cloning. Unlike Jove this had never created an unbroken chain, as successive Saffron Popes had fallen prey to internal or courtly intrigues, and were subsequently either excommunicated, or declared to have achieved Nirvana, never to reincarnate again. This suited Jove, for he could wear his ‘true face’ and ‘true name’, while retaining a high position of power within the Imperium from which to guide it.

For outsiders the Jovian Cycle has been remarkably peaceful, with the upper echelons of the Church continually backing him and his reincarnations. This is of course the machinations of the Order, which is now greatly intertwined with the Church. There does exist some tension, those who push for reform, or seek the end of this current cycle, but they have not yet breached the Order’s tight grip on Church politics.

Seven to Midnight

At first Jove was hopeful that his move into the limelight would work, that he would fulfill his purpose and be a guide for humanity and the Imperium. He greatly underestimated the task before him, and his own abilities. Despite his best efforts he has been unable to subsume or destroy the other major religions, nor has he been able to exert much influence on the Imperial Court due to the rise of Terranism.

Now he is a prisoner, of his position, and of his mind. The ancient and archaic technology used to create him, to continue him, is finally failing. Where once he had clarity of vision, backed by lifetimes of knowledge, now he is filled with doubt. He doubts his purpose, his mission, his morality, and most of all his identity.

The clock ticks on the Imperium, and the New Man finds himself lost, speechless, and unable to act. He drifts further inward, as his mind fractures and reality becomes increasingly blurred.

---

(Image)
The Saffron State

Name of Territory: State of the Church | Papal States | the Saffron State
Government: Theocratic absolute elective monarchy
Capital World: Jericho
Population: I couldn't give a number, but likely trillions?
Economy: Likely a standard economy, although citizens on shrine worlds are likely heavily subsidised by the government, which relies upon tithes from across the galaxy to fund its extravagance.
Culture: There is a juxtaposition between the faithful, descendants of those who moved to the Saffron State for the faith, and the regular citizenry, for who the state is simply another place in the Imperium to live. Neither espouses a culture particularly different to that found in the Imperium, given that both are readily found anywhere in the galaxy.
Social Structure:
Territorial Size: Significant worlds:
Jericho - Gamma-class Ecumenopolis, which houses the Holy House of God the Father, and the Amida Palace, official residence of the Saffron Pope
Nirvana - Alpha-class Gaia world, the private abode of the Saffron Pope and Cardinals
Nova Roma - Beta-class continental world, the Holy Tomb World of God the Redeemer
Sri Lumbini - Beta-class continental world, the Holy Tomb World of God the Awakened
Gehenna - Zeta-class dead dwarf planet, officially an unused planet, but home to the Order's main base of operations
Har Garizim - Beta-class continental world, was of little importance until it was chosen as Jove's 'birthplace', now a significant world full of shrines to him.
Naraka - Yota-class volcanic world, used as a lightly-supervised open prison

As for the actual size of the entire domain, I don’t want to give an arbitrary number, so suffice to say it’s probably fairly large, as large as makes sense for an Ecumenical Order to have.
Military and Security Forces: The Supreme Military Commander of the Saffron State is known as the Gonfalonier of the Church

• Svitz Guard - An ancient force, and the personal bodyguard of the Saffron Pope. They number a thousand. Although usually ceremonial, with archaic uniforms to match, they are skilled soldiers.
• Noble Guard - Formed during the merger, they were initially scions of the Mahayana faith. They keep this history by wearing crimson robes with their uniform. They number a thousand.
• Palatine Guard - Formed during the merger, they were initially scions of the Catheric faith. They number a thousand.
• Papal Army - In times of peace more a police force than an army. Relatively small, to be bolstered by conscription and mercenaries in a time of conflict.
• Papal Fleet - Like the army a relatively small fleet primarily designed for peacekeeping, and for protecting Pilgrim Fleets.
• Pilgrim Fleets - While the Papacy's armed navy is relatively small, it does possess a vast amount of ships used for transporting people and relics (and physical tithes) across the galaxy. If needed these could be converted into a makeshift armed fleet.

Misc:

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The Mahayana Catheric Church

Not part of the app but stuff developed about the Church, its structure, lore, key players, etc. will go here

Accepted

[Imperialisium]

Name of Territory: The Deynai Order

Government: The Deynai Order is a unique institution of Bahai'Shido. It is best described as a quasi-monastic, quasi-military organization dedicated to providing education, health care, and protection to the Imperium's poorest and most defenseless populations. While Bahai'Shido has no clergy, the Deynai Order are regarded as living exemplars of the Eight Tenets, and abide by a strict code of conduct - the 'Ahad - that dates back twelve thousand years. Formally, the Order is quite loosely organized; one key principle of the 'Ahad is that every Deynai Magister is ultimately answerable only to his or her own conscience, and cannot be disciplined for violating instructions. Thus, most Magisters are a type of knight-errant: the legendary "Wandering Deynai," moving between planets stricken by war or plague or poverty, and offering healing and education and protection to those who need it most. Deynai who distinguish themselves by acts of great bravery, kindness, or wisdom are acknowledged by their peers as Elders; these Elders, in turn, are eligible to be elected to the Aegis Council. Members of the Council sit for life, and are elected by a vote of all Deynai. The Council can call for collective action by the Order as a whole, but its authority relies on suasion and respect, not on formal discipline or control. Nevertheless, its influence within Bahai'Shido is second only to that of the Galactic Council of Justice itself - the highest authority of the faith.

Capital World: Formally, like Bahai'Shido as a whole, the Deynai Order is headquartered on the Gaia world of Mar Elyas, in the Galactic Core. This is where the Aegis Council sits. But in fact, the Order's headquarters is the remote and secretive tomb world of Laghaz: a pre-imperial Solarian colony destroyed in some unknown calamity and lost to history. On Laghaz, with its crushing gravity and barely breathable atmosphere, Deynai aspirants undergo years of ritualized physical and mental conditioning; they are broken down beyond ordinary human limits, and reborn as Magisters. And in the ruins of Laghaz, the Deynai Order discovered its most jealously guarded secret: the Kabuto Gift, a personal shield/suspension generator of extraordinary power designed to be implanted into the user's body and controlled directly by thought. The Gift, combined with the Deynai's physical and autohypnotic conditioning, is what makes them such legendary warriors. And since it is beyond the capacity of modern Imperial technology to replicate, each Gift is unique: there are only twenty thousand of them in existence, and for a new Deynai to be consecrated, a Gift must be extracted from a fallen Magister.

Population: Because the Kabuto Gift is necessary in order to become a full-fledged Magister, there are only about twenty thousand true Deynai at any moment in the galaxy. When a Deynai dies, the Order will go to great lengths to recover the body and extract the Gift, in order to allow the fallen Magister's place to be filled by an aspirant. The Order is supported, however, by millions of clerks, cooks, accountants, and other deacons scattered across the Deynai refugii on every major Imperial world. As for the Magisters themselves: traditionally, all were orphans, taken in by the Order in their hundreds of thousands from all over the Imperium. Only one in every three hundred survives two decades of Aspirancy physically and mentally intact. The young age of aspirants is essential: only a child's body and psyche are malleable enough to survive the process. Today, most Deynai remain orphans raised by the Order, but some are the younger children of noble houses: offered at birth in hopes of winning the honor of having a Magister in the family, by parents willing to risk their child's all-but-certain death in exchange for a slim chance of prestige.

Economy: The Deynai Order has a nearly blank check on the immense resources of the Bahai'Shido faith. The treasure vaults of the Galactic Council of Justice bulge with donations and tithes from thousands of worlds, and with taxes from the handful of planets controlled directly by the Council itself. From this plenitude, the Deynai's requirements are fairly minor: each Magister receives a modest stipend, but nothing more. Deynai generally travel like any other Imperial citizen, booking passage on passenger ships or tramp freighters as they wander between war-torn and famine-stricken planets. They typically charge for their services in proportion to others' ability to pay: a penniless refugee will not be charged for first aid provided by a Magister, while a planetary governor seeking a prestigious tutor for his son can expect to spend a considerable amount. Bahai'Shido teaches that extremes of both wealth and poverty are blasphemous; accordingly, most Deynai live an itinerant but roughly middle-class lifestyle, and their decisions about when and how to require payment are aimed at making the rich poorer, and the poor richer.

Culture: The Deynai Order represents the highest aspirations of the Bahai'Shido faith. Magisters are taught to be deeply humane, broad-minded, and tolerant. The Three Onenesses - of God, religion, and humanity - require them to see all people and all faith traditions as equal, regardless of gender or class or subspecies. There is a deep strain of intellectual curiosity in Deynai traditions, based on the precept that each individual has a duty to seek truth independently; Deynai are particularly prized as linguists, since something about their autohypnotic conditioning gives them an extraordinary ability to learn and retain large numbers of languages. They spend much of their lives as teachers, healers, and diplomats, and are accordingly prized as tutors, negotiators, and physicians among the Imperial elite. They are, for the most part, mystics of a very practical kind: to a Deynai, God dwells in the inward fulfillment of good acts honorably performed. Meditation and prayer are guides to action and sources of strength, not ends in themselves. And as warriors, the Deynai exemplify the Eight Tenets: they neither seek out nor flee from combat, they fight only when it is consistent with conscience, they never break their word to those whom they have sworn to protect, and they kill with neither cruelty nor hesitation. Finally, their conditioning sets them apart, in certain subtle but profound ways, from ordinary humans: Deynai are capable of consciously choosing to "turn off" fear, pain, and hesitation. They experience the world, life, and their own psyches in a fundamentally different way, and their care for others is always tinged by an inescapable alienation.

Social Structure: Deynai are itinerant. They wander, essentially, in search of people in trouble. They may stay on a planet for a few months or a few years - running a medical clinic or school, tutoring a noble's child, brokering a truce in ethnic violence or labor unrest, protecting the poor from bandits or rapacious corporations. But when the immediate situation is resolved, they move on again: the 'Ahad is emphatic that a Magister cannot bind himself permanently to any home. Likewise, there are no Deynai children; while the Order permits love affairs, it forbids procreation, since a wandering Magister cannot adequately care for a child. When they receive the Kabuto Gift, Magisters are medically sterilized. Nor does any Deynai have contact with his or her parents: whether adopted as orphans or voluntarily given up in infancy, they never know the names that they were born with. Their only family is the Order. But the millions of employees of the Order - the deacons - live much more normal lives: they maintain the refugii and waystations across Imperial space that support Deynai operations, they try to keep up with the work that Magisters leave undone when they move on, and they have children and families. Deacons are respected members of their local Bahai'Shido communities, but they do not suffer the final loneliness of Deynai existence.

Territorial Size: The Deynai control the ancient, secretive tomb world of Laghaz, and no outsiders are permitted to trespass save by permission of the Order or the Emperor himself. The exceedingly high gravity and inadequate atmosphere of Laghaz are crucial to the conditioning of Deynai aspirants, and the Solarian ruins that cover the planet's surface hide many of the Order's ancient secrets. The Order also has a public, magnificent headquarters on the Bahai'Shido holy world of Mar Elyas. And the Order maintains refugii on almost every Imperial world, including the wild areas of the frontier. These are small compounds that offer lodging to Magisters who pass through, provide charitable services to the surrounding communities, and offer a line of communication to the Order for people seeking Deynai assistance. The modest refugius, usually in a working-class neighborhood or unstable region, is the only visible sign of the Deynai most Imperial citizens will ever encounter; famously, there is scarcely one Magister for every inhabited Imperial planet - "And Yet They Are Enough."

Military and Security Forces: The Deynai are a warrior order, and though they spend far more of their time teaching and healing than fighting, nevertheless it is their military exploits that have made them legendary. The Deynai emerged during the Shadow, and represented one of humanity's only successful military responses to the horror that poured out of the Magellanic Cloud. Every Deynai Aspirant endures brutal physical conditioning that leaves only one in three hundred alive, by which a child's body is molded by crushing gravity and toxic air and ritualized abuse into a living weapon; their strength and speed are matched only by Imperial Praetorians, and their grace and precision is unequalled by any. To these physical assets is added the autohypnotic conditioning that permits Deynai, through millennia-old rituals, to dissociate from fear, pain, or hesitation, and to focus with inhuman precision upon tiny details; it is said to be impossible to lie to a Deynai, because by choosing not to hear anything else, they can detect the slightest fluctuation of your heartbeat.

Finally, every Deynai receives the Kabuto Gift: a unique piece of archeotechnology found only on Laghaz, which operates as a combined shield and suspension generator of extraordinary power. It is implanted into every Magister at the back of the skull, and controlled directly by thought. Only aspirants with enough Solarian genetic material can interface successfully with the Gift; countless others, even after surviving decades of brutal conditioning, go mad and die during the implantation. But the benefits are great. So powerful is the Kabuto shield that it has been known to withstand brief exposure to orbital bombardment. The suspensor effect allows Deynai to take gravity lightly: they can run up walls, leap dozens of meters, and skim just above the ground at incredible speed for short distances. Because their shields allow them to shrug off even vast amounts of small-arms fire, Deynai typically use only the sword: each Magister wields a unique katana whose blade is actually made from a diamond matrix with a monomolecular edge that can cut through almost any known material. As light is refracted through the matrix, the blade often seems to glow softly; amid the Shadow, the Deynai were known as the "Blades of Moonlight." The Deynai way of the sword is a closely-kept secret of the Order in which every aspirant is exhaustively trained: it displays balletic grace, and is designed to be possible only for a fighter endowed with Deynai autohypnosis and the Kabuto Gift. In concert, a Magister's physical conditioning, autohypnotic techniques, Kabuto Gift, and skill with the sword make any Deynai a dangerous opponent indeed, and Imperial history is filled with tales - sometimes exaggerated, sometimes not - of a single Magister holding off whole battalions of crack troops.

Accepted

[Imperialisium]

Am sorta still learning the lore here whilst making this, so if I made any mistakes lmk, so I can fix them of course.

Name: General Bratislav Hermaszewski
Nickname: The General of the North | Brother Hermaszewski
Age: 107
Birth Date: February 8th, 25,602 CE
Gender: Male
Planet of Origin: Hyperborea Alfa
Race/Species: Augmented Human (Hyperborean)
Height: 6'8ft.
Weight: 195lbs
Physical Description or Image:

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Social Class: Low Born
Titles: Imperial Army General, Grand Volkhv of Hyperborea
Occupation: As a General of the Imperial Armies stationed in the Hyperborean Belt, Hermaszewski had been formally tasked with leading both the local Garrison forces of the sub-sector, and mustering additional Army Groups to the Imperium for use in theatres off-system throughout the interstellar empire. However now as a De Facto head of a new age religious movement to honor the Old Gods of Staryy Terra, Hermaszewski had since personally sought to lead and transform his people of Hyperborea back to their core Slavic roots, seeking to divorce them entirely from the insidious 'debauchery' performed by the Nova Terrans who had ruled upon them for countless millennia. Seeing nothing sort of absolute separatism from the Imperium in order to preserve the revived culture and religion of his people.
Hobbies/Pastimes: He's an astute studier of history and theology, and is often found performing research on both recently rediscovered history of Paganism and even military tactics in order to recover bits and pieces of history once thought lost forever to his people. His old archaeologist career still carrying on into his current life and role in doing so.
Talents/Skills: As a General, he is a very skilled leader and ground commander, with a charismatic and diligent dogma to boot. Able to rally his men to both finish off and recover from a fight, in a ground war he is a force to be reckoned with, and absolutely relentless in his conduct of fighting wars.
Religious Beliefs: Revived Staryy Terran Slavic Paganism (Awakened Northerner)
Personality: He is a determined man of both duty and faith, having once been jaded after years of service under the Imperium, he now sees himself as a more enlightened and 'alive' man after declaring to have found his roots back to Paganism of old introduced to his life after claiming to have rediscovered an extensive series of lost data files from archives thought shut down eons ago. Whether these claims of his are truly founded or not, he seeks nothing more than to be a humbled man of his new faith that he wants to share amongst those he considers to be his people, and will do anything necessary to allow them to express their faith and freedoms without any interruption of outside forces wishing to retain control of them or influence them any further.
Biography: As a young boy, Bratislav had dreamed of seeking a higher calling and purpose in his life and for his family, having been raised in the slums and bullied daily by the gangs who inhabit it, little Bratislav was given nothing but hard living for much of his growing years on Nova-Perma. But by the time he was of age and after having been kicked out from his impoverish hut of a home, Bratislav saw no other choice but to enlist in the Imperial Army, at first as a means to get away from his horrid conditions back at home, but later seeing it as a means to discover more that the galaxy had to offer to his still fresh mind. While on tour, he had discovered documents and files in a series of ruins while on patrol, talking of Slavic Culture and Paganism of Old. Being astonished by these findings, he hid them away and eventually brought them to the University of Orenburgia back on his home planet while on leave to share his findings with the history and archaeologist professors there.

Eventually after serving his first tour of duty in the Imperial Army, Bratislav then spent an amount of time going archeological hunting to gather and learn even more lost history, eventually leading up to a sheer reverence of it, almost religious in nature as he learned to be inspired by the concept of faith in a world that seemingly had none. Eventually he would regain a focus on military career once again, rising through the ranks after several decades of service, until eventually becoming a General regulated to safeguarding and recruiting from his own home sector. But his thoughts of a higher, more holier purposes never left him, as for years he still influenced many of his men and the populace under him to his new wave of Neo-Pagan thinking, which immediately clashed with the thinking of Imperial Authorities and Officials in the sector once he had been discovered.

Leaving him with little to no choice on the matter, he successfully led a coup on Nova-Perma and its surrounding worlds with his armies of loyalists, and declared it to be part of Hyperborea, beginning a new dawn and awakening of the 'North,' in the Imperial Sector.

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Name of Territory: Hyperborean Cosmic Front
Government: De Facto, Theocratic Despotic Separatist Movement. De Jure, Star Feudalism
Capital World: Hyperborea Alfa
Population: 23 Billion
Economy: Originally based mostly around exports, now everything has to be locally manufactured and created in a hastily adjusted autarky system since the Coup.
Culture: Rampant revival of Slavic Neo-Paganisn, with Neo-Primitivist elements having been revived as well since its dormancy since the ancient collapse of Staryy Terra. The people here have an almost fervor relevance towards old Slavic cultures and traditions of old from ancient Earth, emulating them to the best of their ability and knowledge, despite much of the history of the traditions and old culture being lost to time forever.
Social Structure: The religious heads known as the Volkhv hold the highest standing in this society, being the recognized head theocratic leaders and chiefs of it. Follow up by military leaders and lesser clergymen who follow suit and enforce the will and faith of the Hyperborean society on the rest of the populace, who are the merchants and commoners who are expected to the follow the will of their leaders, less they face consequences and disapproval.
Territorial Size: At the center of Hyperborea, lies Hyperborea Alfa itself, a single Gaia world where the majority of the population lives, also serving as the central capital. Followup by some dozen or so barren (for human life) worlds with sparse populations and a rather small selection of stations dotted around in the Hyperborean sub-sector (In the thousands in terms of population). Followup by two other sister continental worlds which also inhabit the sub-sector (Beta and Gamma), where the rest of the population resides. However given General Hermaszewski's cult-like influence, it is likely more neighboring worlds and systems may fall under his domain in the coming future.
Military and Security Forces:
The Hyperborean Cosmic Front practices 2-year draft conscriptions expected to be performed by the majority of its people for at least one point or another in their lives. Leading to a reliance on raising reservist divisions in times of active war, however the standing army it possesses is nothing to snuff at, being one of the more primer fighting forces in its corner of the galaxy. With General Hermaszewski having many of his men who he led initially as a Imperial Army General defected over to him during the outbreak of his separatist movement, along with several naval ships with their captains and rear admirals also defecting over as well.

The Awakened Legions: 1.5 Million Personnel. Split into 3 Armies of 500K Each

Planetary Defense Forces: 10 Million Active Personnel, ~450 Million Reservists. Spread Across all 15 worlds and their various stations.

Sub-Sector Navy: Underdeveloped compared to more contemporary navies, but still possessing some key capital ships: 5 Larger Frigates and Cruisers, 11 Destroyers, 16 System Defense Ships and armed Barges.

Accepted

[Imperialisium]

Name: Joachim Varyon
Nickname: 'The Jolly Admiral'
Age: 87
Birth Date: 25622 IC
Gender: Male
Planet of Origin: Gideon, Cambria Sector
Race/Species: Human (augmented)
Height: 6’1”
Weight: 190 lbs.
Physical Description or Image: Though he is approaching ninety, age-slowing augmentation has given Joachim the body of a man in his early fifties. Standing at about average height, his slim, lean frame, usually attired in the neat blue trim of a Navy admiral, is not exactly imposing or arresting. Once-brown hair has given way to silver done up in a typically military high-and-tight fashion, the only part of Joachim's body that belies his real age. Naturally olive skin has become even more tan over the years, giving his sharp-angled face a slightly wrinkled and grandfatherly tint. Brown eyes gaze out from over a prominent, aquiline nose.
Social Class: Prior to Joachim's ascendance, the Varyons could be described as a middle-class military family, with few advantages except those afforded by Jean-Baptiste's relatively high rank; Joachim's grandfather, however, was a mere smuggler. After his elevation to Guvernadur, the Varyons have suddenly become one of the more powerful families in the Imperium. For all the glories the Senate has showered on Joachim, though, it refuses to ennoble him - some believe this would lend the man dangerous legitimacy with the aristocratic and propertied classes.
Titles: Viceroy of Cambria, Guvernadur of the South Sagittarius, Grand Admiral
Occupation: As Guvernadur of the South Sagittarius, Joachim is the foremost civil and military leader in the region, though the vastness of the territory demands that most power be delegated to subordinates. He exercises more immediate and significant power as Viceroy of the Cambria Sector, a far smaller area of space. Finally, and most critically, he is a Grand Admiral of the Imperial Navy, the highest rank attainable in the service.
Hobbies/Pastimes: Joachim retains a livelong love of running; the only physical activity that he excelled at in his youth. His favorite prank while deployed is to jog around the dormitory decks of his flagship battlecruiser Kitsune and check up on the sailors. His only constant companion is Sulla, an old sheepdog from Gideon rumored to be nearly as old as he is.
Talents/Skills: Joachim is of course first and foremost a Grand Admiral of the Imperial Navy; he considers this post more important and personally fulfilling than any of the other several hats that he wears. Over many decades of practice, he has developed into a formidable naval strategist and tactician, with a particular (and famous) talent for rapid adaptability and an encyclopedic knowledge of the cruiser and other light ships. He is a good leader of men in general, projecting the necessary air of confidence and authority. Though not physically imposing or a great warrior, Joachim is highly proficient in the naval jiu-jitsu taught at the academies after fifty years in the service.
Religious Beliefs: A practicing Zensunni by way of family tradition, Joachim has held his religion closely for decades but dislikes having to make public displays of his faith, believing it to sometimes interfere in the execution of his many duties. His younger brother Dondos, once called Ulysse, is more closely involved in the faith.
Personality: Joachim is either taciturn or gregarious in public, deploying the personality of the strict admiral around his men and that of a conquering hero for the politicians. In private, he can be quite different; often affectionate but with a quiet, composed air - the occasional incidence of withering, mortifying rage notwithstanding. Joachim has the rare talent of being mercilessly self-aggrandizing without really seeming to be trying to sell himself, a trait almost as responsible for his success as his military talent. He does not appear to have many close friends and lives a frugal lifestyle that leaves little room for socializing except when politically necessary, preferring instead to throw himself into his duties and the advancement of his family.
Biography:

Rear Admiral Jean-Baptiste Varyon and his wife Lillian had three sons: Joachim was the second. The Varyons were raised on the industrialized arid world of Gideon, a major shipbuilding hub and naval training center for the Sagittarius arm of the galaxy. From infancy, the three boys were raised under the austere and spartan regime enforced by Jean-Baptiste and the naval culture that permeated the planet. Their father's affections were largely contingent on their performance in academics and athletics; since Joachim was the worst of the three at both, he received comparatively little.

When the Admiral - it was never "father" - made it clear that Joachim was the runt of the litter, the boy began to lash out and cause trouble. At various points he ran off into the vast deserts and canyon wilderness of Gideon, spending days or even weeks at a time away from civilization, time that hardened his young body and mind. On each occasion he was either found by military police or sent himself back home with a guilty conscious, always to receive a beating from the Admiral.

When Joachim was sixteen, the elder brother, Mathieu, had just graduated Gideon's Naval Academy and been commissioned as a newly minted second lieutenant.

That same year, the House of Poniatowski, a powerful cadet branch of the imperial family, made their play for the weakened imperial throne, plunging their power base in the southern Sagittarius arm into total war. Both the Admiral and his eldest son were deployed with the imperial fleets arrayed against the rebels, but Mathieu was killed in one of the first engagements, all of which went badly for the imperials. The Poniatowskis were themselves accomplished naval officers, and took with them some of the cream of the Navy. They would prove to be a grave threat to the Imperial family for years to come.

The death of his brother hit Joachim particularly hard. He decided to dedicate himself to Mathieu's memory, redoubling his efforts in the classroom and in athletics. By the close of secondary school, Joachim had just squeaked out the necessary grades to enter the Naval Academy, infamously sneaking in at second-to-last on his district's list of new cadets.

At the Gideon Naval Academy, he transformed. Though an average student at best, he possessed an infernal knack for improvisation in the simulation room and a real capacity and desire to lead his fellow cadets, who generally liked him. Faculty were not enamored of him, but he always did just well enough to avoid suspension, and the officers were impressed with his hands-on knowledge.

However, the war was not interested in waiting for the next class of cadets. In the interim three years, the Poniatowskis had smashed two separate imperial fleets and had overwhelmed the Viceroyalty of Antioquia. Now they were coming for the Cambria Sector, gunning for a route to the Galactic center itself.

Joachim and other cadets the Academy found adequate were fast-tracked, put through intensive seven-week combat training, commissioned as fresh Ensigns, and deployed to the front on aging and unreliable reserve ships.

During the Cambria Campaigns, the imperials managed to meet, halt and then turn back the rebel offensive, thanks to superior numbers and admirals who were finally up to the task (Joachim's father among them). The cruiser Caracal, on which Joachim was stationed, saw constant combat during the three years of furious void warfare required to drive the rebels out of the sector. Numerous actions and a high casualty rate ensured that he and the other former cadets who proved themselves were promoted at a previously unthinkable rate. By the end of the campaign, he had made Lt. Commander. When the Caracal was almost destroyed at the Battle of Lavenham and its captain killed, he made Commander. He was twenty-five.

Jean-Baptiste directed the counterthrust into the Tavland Sector, resulting in the Battle of Hollis VII. In a prolonged and costly battle, the Imperials triumphed over the rebels at the loss of the flagship carrier Everlong and Admiral Varyon. Having lost his brother and now his father to the rebels, Joachim developed an intense hatred of the Poniatowskis and their aristocratic machinations, and a disdain for the nobility as a general rule.

The Poniatowksi Uprising dragged on for six more years. Imperial fleets entered rebel territory and gradually wore down the enemy over myriad bloody campaigns and sieges. It was during this time that Joachim blossomed into a promising young commander, losing many early engagements but later winning acclaim and rank for his timely intervention in the Battle of Eydhan IV and for his decisive victory at Korshaufen, which buried the Poniatowski dream of winning the throne for good. By the close of the war he was an Admiral, one of the youngest in the Navy.

Having won (and ruthlessly cultivated) a reputation as man who could get things done, he was tapped repeatedly by the Senate to deal with various trouble spots around the galaxy, deployed where and when the Navy needed him. He did not win every battle, but built the Joachim Varyon legend through a maddening propensity to improvise and squeeze his fleets out of early trouble. As a disciplinarian, he walked the fine line between cruelty and strictness, demanding obedience but lavishly rewarding success. In this way he won the respect of the Navy and the love of the Senate, who saw him as strictly a soldier and apolitical to a fault.

This was a mirage that Joachim had constructed around himself to escape accusations of plotting; the truth was far less idealistic. He had married Josephine Mirkovic, daughter of a Senator and a powerful Duke. There was little love in the arrangement but it worked well for both parties: Joachim received direct access to the halls of power, and the Mirkovic clan gained a friend in the military. The marriage did produce twins; Roland and Renee, who together with his younger brother Ulysse represented the three people who he seemed capable of loving.

As his naval progressed, however, his marriage suffered. Joachim felt comfortable on campaign and far less so at home; he made time for the children but had less interest in being a husband. As a result, his children were raised primarily by their Uncle Ulysse. Joachim decided he did war far better than family, and divorced Josephine after twelve years of marriage.

The Emperor and the Senate continued to lavish him with offices and honors. When he made Grand Admiral at fifty-eight, the Senate elected him Viceroy of his home Cambria Sector. Three years later, they made him Guvernadur of the South Sagittarius, an incomprehensibly vast territory encompassing half of an entire galactic arm, one wrought by insurrections that he was expected to crush. It was a shocking appointment, one that made Joachim the primary civil and military official for the entire region, reporting only to Nova Terra. It was the kind of honor usually reserved for third or fourth sons of the imperial family, and made many wonder if the Emperor's gratitude for Joachim's crushing of the upstart Poniatowski family was blinding him to a dangerous man's ambition.

In the twenty-five years hence, Joachim has turned the South Sagittarius into his own personal fiefdom, putting out the fires of rebellion in the region and installing his own loyalists at key civil and military posts. He has proven much more relaxed as a governor than as an admiral, content to let local rulers exercise as much autonomy as possible while maintaining an open-door policy for politicians, nobles, business and religious leaders, and above all, military officers. Although the Senate and Emperor have gifted him de jure power within the territory, Joachim's real power lies in relationships: in the thousands upon thousands of naval officers and captains who cut their teeth and built their careers by serving under him. These men can be counted on to go where Joachim leads them. Trouble is, no one knows where the Grand Admiral will go . . .

Name of Territory: Example- Governorate of the South Sagittarius ("southern" half of the arm) & Viceroyalty of Cambria (within the Governorate)
Government: Imperial Governorate
Capital World: Gideon
Population: Difficult to know, but around ~3 trillion for the whole Governorate
Economy: Impossible to truly quantify, given the size of the territory. The South Sagittarius is one of the oldest colonized regions of human space, with immense industrial capacity and vast infrastructure networks. Besides being a crucial industrial hub for the Imperium, it also lies at the nexus of several critical trade routes, a happy accident that keeps uncountable amounts of money circulating through the Governorate.
Culture: Also futile to try to describe; given the size of the South Sagittarius, it is composed of literally tens of thousands of distinct cultures and societies, with every major imperial religion (and many minor ones) represented, though Zensunni is a plurality. One of the more prominent cultural groups are the Montagnards of the Cambria and Tavland Sectors, an ethnocultural group with roots in the old Francophone culture. In this broad region of the Imperium, it is not uncommon for the numerous and well-connected Montagnards to compose the elites of society.
Social Structure: Similarly, too multitudinous to neatly relate. Each star system has its own social structure developed over several
millennia of settlement and development. Joachim's Governorate contains everything from feudal aristocratic holdings to corporate factory colonies and rabidly republican worlds, though a republican bent is perhaps more noticeable in this part of the Imperium than in others.
Territorial Size: Some 400 star systems containing 1,300 settled planets and moons.
Military and Security Forces: Given that the Governorate is a direct possession of the Imperium and not a self-governing polity, it contains few security forces separate from the actual imperial military command. Its garrison forces, however, are numerous: four Sector Armies and the 12th Guard Legion, numbering some 700,000 men. Naval forces, meanwhile, are not permanently stationed, but by virtue of his rank Joachim commands two whole Armadas and their accompanying Marine detachments.

Accepted

[Segmentia]

Ohh, another House fleet, nice.

sorry, I mixed up both your characters, I meant to say Duke Rosewood and his order of roses.

All good. I am sure the Duke will take the criticisms of the leader of a penal world to heart though

[Union Princes]

which direction is duchy of rosewood located?

[Imperialisium]

sorry, I mixed up both your characters, I meant to say Duke Rosewood and his order of roses.

All good. I am sure the Duke will take the criticisms of the leader of a penal world to heart though

Waiting for someone to try and mess with the Praetorians.

[Wasi State]

I guess it wouldn't hurt to maybe at least have a super vague looking galaxy map pointing where at least players supposedly are, in relationship to each other, in equally vague circles over it?

[Imperialisium]

I guess it wouldn't hurt to maybe at least have a super vague looking galaxy map pointing where at least players supposedly are, in relationship to each other, in equally vague circles over it?

I guess.

[Reverend Norv]

All good. I am sure the Duke will take the criticisms of the leader of a penal world to heart though

Waiting for someone to try and mess with the Praetorians.

I'd imagine that a Praetorian is probably the only warrior in the galaxy who can take on a Deynai in a one-to-one fight.

[Caltharus]

Hey Union Princes I'm trying to form some connections for House Melodon, so could we have their trade fleet supplying your penal colony with food and well prisoners?

[Bentus]

Hey Union Princes I'm trying to form some connections for House Melodon, so could we have their trade fleet supplying your penal colony with food and well prisoners?

On a similar note, would you be interested in having House Melodon be involved in the Kai'mir slave trade?

[Union Princes]

Hey Union Princes I'm trying to form some connections for House Melodon, so could we have their trade fleet supplying your penal colony with food and well prisoners?

I'm fine with that, Betreuen is called the "Imperium's Wastebasket" for a reason.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Waiting for someone to try and mess with the Praetorians.

I'd imagine that a Praetorian is probably the only warrior in the galaxy who can take on a Deynai in a one-to-one fight.

Pfft. Individual fighting skills. Send in the second man, and the third, and the seventh. All men break under enough power.

[Bolslania]

I'd imagine that a Praetorian is probably the only warrior in the galaxy who can take on a Deynai in a one-to-one fight.

Pfft. Individual fighting skills. Send in the second man, and the third, and the seventh. All men break under enough power.

Or just nuke it from orbit

[Wasi State]

Pfft. Individual fighting skills. Send in the second man, and the third, and the seventh. All men break under enough power.

Or just nuke it from orbit

I mean only really feasible if the planet below is that disposable, I'd imagine.

[Union Princes]

The Praetorians are the Emperor's saving grace but even they can't garrison every single planet.

[Caltharus]

Hey Union Princes I'm trying to form some connections for House Melodon, so could we have their trade fleet supplying your penal colony with food and well prisoners?

On a similar note, would you be interested in having House Melodon be involved in the Kai'mir slave trade?

Yes indeed, sounds like something Melodons would love to be involved in. Did you have some particular arrangement in mind?

Hey Union Princes I'm trying to form some connections for House Melodon, so could we have their trade fleet supplying your penal colony with food and well prisoners?

I'm fine with that, Betreuen is called the "Imperium's Wastebasket" for a reason.

Great to hear.

[Reverend Norv]

I'd imagine that a Praetorian is probably the only warrior in the galaxy who can take on a Deynai in a one-to-one fight.

Pfft. Individual fighting skills. Send in the second man, and the third, and the seventh. All men break under enough power.

True enough; and because you'll rarely see more than one Deynai at a time, all the more true for that reason. They're not an army. But if you have to sacrifice a battalion or more to kill one man, they still make for one hell of a speed bump.

[Remnants of Exilvania]

Hey Union Princes I'm trying to form some connections for House Melodon, so could we have their trade fleet supplying your penal colony with food and well prisoners?

I'm fine with that, Betreuen is called the "Imperium's Wastebasket" for a reason.

How does the wastebasket feel about...hm...putting its...itredeemables to work elsewhere?

I swear, the mines always need workers.

Pfft. Individual fighting skills. Send in the second man, and the third, and the seventh. All men break under enough power.

True enough; and because you'll rarely see more than one Deynai at a time, all the more true for that reason. They're not an army. But if you have to sacrifice a battalion or more to kill one man, they still make for one hell of a speed bump.

Feels like the Jedi vs the Droid Army situation.

[Imperialisium]

Map

Showing mentioned worlds in the Galaxy (except for lost worlds).