Prologue
The war against the Plontians had been a bloody one. Though the Feraustan Empire had almost completely kept to themselves through their entire history, they had maintained one of the finest militaries in the galaxy, and despite being outnumbered ten to one they had been more than a match for the Plontian Republic.
The events leading to the war were surprisingly trivial considering the scale it would eventually assume. The underlying tensions due to cultural differences, like so many wars before, would serve as the deciding factor, and it was the history of the Feraustans that contributed to its culture. The Empire had been founded in war, but had not seen it for centuries. The Pravium Republic, a hedonic society riddled with crime and led by a corrupt, avaricious government more reminiscent of an aristocracy than a republic, composed of a ruling class of corrupt politicians, and plagued by idiotic and uninformed voters, stood for a remarkably long time. The same hedonism that warped the morality of the society sustained the government. Strangest of all was the intense anti-intellectual sentiment that had developed a little under a century before the end of the government. Less intelligent people were in general more procreative than others. The average intelligence of the populace dropped. This problem was aggravated by the weak democratic government. The majority ruled whether the majority was fit to rule or not. And because stupid people do not want to have to feel stupid, politicians used their power to gain the favor of the masses by discriminating against the intelligent. The usage of certain large, scholarly words was actually banned. The Pravian word meaning “elitist” became an insult rather than a compliment, as it had originally been. “Academic,” a person would growl in contempt, spitting at the victim’s feet. This societal self-vitiation had been going on for a few centuries. Eventually, though, a revolution had come along, and after a drawn out civil war a new empire was established, named for the leader of the rebellion. The Republic would experience a complete reversal in both government and society.
The philosophy of the new empire was that the more power the government had, the more good it could do. The zeitgeist of the age, which would come to be known as the Feraustan age, was characterized by, for some nations, a return to a sort of enlightened imperialist rule, in some cases constitutional; in others, absolutist. The new regime completely reinvented the nation. Citizens found unworthy of reproduction due to intellectual ineptitude faced mandatory sterilization or exile. The majority of the government consisted of appointed officials, with democracy only at the lowest levels. However, over time, the government changed. Though the rulers were authoritarians, they did not seek power for the sake of power, and improvement of the nation was their goal. After the first few generations, the population dropped dramatically due to the mass sterilizations and many citizens leaving the country due to their disapproval of the government. The administration had been happy to see them go. Once things began improving, the rulers began to trust the people with more power, and democracy became more prominent. Also, because of the opinion that people on a local scale knew best how to solve their own problems, political power was allowed to trickle down more and more, first to provincial executives, then system governors, then the individual governments of continents, and to even smaller subdivisions. Criminal justice, however, remained very strict. The judicial system decided that society had no need for criminals, and, once found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, they were dealt with severely.
The Plontian Republic was much older than the Feraustan Empire, or even the Pravium Republic. It could be traced as far back as the democratic unification of humanity’s origin: Earth. Over the centuries it had changed much, occasionally for the better, but more often for the worse. As humans branched out all over the galaxy, they broke away and formed their own governments. This had been how the Pravium Republic had formed. Sufficiently large political parties had no more reason to try to improve a government. If they could raise enough money, they could break away, terraform a new planet, and live contentedly there. This left only the dominant party and smaller parties in the Plontian Republic. The smaller parties would occasionally grow larger, but then they would usually just leave. Eventually, the Plontians adopted the same vices as the Pravians.
The Feraustans were exceedingly solitary. They were self-sufficient. They had inherited the fifty planets the Pravians had possessed, and the population eventually evened out at twenty five billion, with a legal maximum of three quarters of a billion residents to a planet, and even this uncommon. They had no reason to interact with other nations. The general location of the Empire was far from the galaxy core and on the other side of the Milky Way from Earth. If interaction were to occur, the governors thought, it would only lead to some obscure party objecting to whatever foreign affairs the Feraustans practiced, and this, in turn, would only lead to disagreement and potentially bloodshed. And so, it was in solitude that Feraustan technology flourished.
Though they did not interact with the rest of humanity, the Feraustans remained quite informed about current events in the galaxy. They knew well what had become of the Plontian Republic, and they despised the Plontian “swine” for it. The Plontians’ opinion of the Feraustans was likewise. Unlike the Feraustans, however, the Plontians did not have a stable population. In fact, overcrowding was a common problem, and new planets were constantly being terraformed and colonized to accommodate the ever growing population. Eventually, they expanded to the borders of the Feraustan Empire. Though the star systems colonized were light years away from the Feraustans, this was considered uncomfortably close by the Feraustans, and a small fleet of warships was sent to end the young colony. Not a single Plontian life was taken, but it was made clear that encroachment would not be tolerated.
It should be mentioned here that colonized star systems and planets were considered the domain of a sovereign nation, but the space in general near the star systems was not considered a given nation’s territory. If a star system was uncolonized, it was considered unowned, and to be the “territory” of no one, no matter where it was located relative to other colonized star systems, and no matter who had colonized them. A nation would generally colonize star systems near each other for travel and defense purposes, but that did not give that nation sovereignty over the space between star systems, or over star systems lacking their presence. So, though the Feraustans intended no hostility in their actions, the Plontians interpreted this as an act of aggression since the star systems in question had not been colonized by the Feraustans and were, therefore, not technically Feraustan territory. Nevertheless, the Feraustans viewed the vacancy in these systems as essential to their policy of isolationism. They simply wished the Plontians would go start a colony elsewhere.
Without regard for true Feraustan motivations, the Plontians began actively attacking the borders of Feraustan territory. This provoked a more serious military response. What had initially been nothing more than a border dispute grew into a full scale war. The Plontians, being very active on the diplomatic scene, attempted to bring other nations into the war, but most were reluctant, though they did succeed in gaining some sympathy, and some of their allies lent discreet support.
To counter this, the Feraustans appealed to the few allies they had, including primarily the Augustonian Empire. These allies had been made primarily through the very occasional shared technology. The motivation behind this magnanimity toward the Augustonians was their government. Sharing many of the ideals of the Feraustans, they had modeled their government in a similar manner. The Augustonians demonstrated more democratic tendencies and lacked the mandatory sterilization of all those “unworthy” of reproduction, but there were some colonies that were given permission to impose a eugenics program and a planetary maximum population with the consent of the governed. This government will be discussed slightly more in-depth momentarily. For now, the digression must end. And so, the Feraustan government had not been apprehensive about aiding them with small gifts of technology, and the Augustonians in turn aided the Feraustans in the war.
Thirteen years after the initial border dispute between the Feraustans and Plontians the war ended. The war had been between two nations of almost super power status in the galaxy and the war had been of grand proportion, but the duration had not been unanticipated. On Earth, the largest wars had been fought for the control of continents. This war was fought for the control of not just continents, not just a planet, not just a star system, but multiple star systems, and eventually, when it escalated further, an entire Republic was crushed.
A quicker end may have been brought about with the use of weapons of mass destruction. Black holes, for example, were not trouble to create. Most interstellar ships used a controlled series of microscopic black holes in their engines in orbit around one another to produce the spatial distortion necessary for traveling such distances. The risk was comparable to the nuclear submarines of old. Perhaps an accident occurred here or there, but for the most part they were safe, and long distance space travel impossible without them. So easy it would have been to bombard a planet with such microscopic black holes that would eventually consume it and all on it. However, modern nations did not resort to such barbarity. Civilian lives were generally considered as sacred as ever, though there were a few instances of murder on both sides of the war. Occasionally, a rogue Feraustan Colonel would decide that because Plontian citizens were the ones voting for and paying taxes to their government, which waged the war, the citizens were as guilty as anyone. On the other side, Plontian commanders would sometimes commit atrocities with even less justification than the Feraustans. To end the digression, however, there were other reasons for not using such powerful weapons.
Waste was not considered virtuous by any nation, faction, or individual, and it was this universal shred of ethics that discouraged such odious acts. No raw planet other than Earth existed on which a person could set foot and live for more than a few moments. Planets needed to be terraformed. First, a planet with potential had to be found. The right elements had to make up its surface such that, eventually, plants might grow on it. The planet had to have the right mass so that gravity was not a problem. The star would have to be the right type. And then, when a planet was found, it may have to be moved into a farther orbit from the star if it was too hot or radiation too much an issue, or vice versa. Then, the atmosphere, if any atmosphere existed at all, would almost invariably need alteration, with nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide imported from all sorts of sources. More water may need to be introduced, or the composition of the soil modified. And then, the planet would still not be ready for human life. Time dilation without the right counteraction could be a nasty problem with space travel. No one wanted to set out from home and return a few thousand years later. However, in the case of terraforming, it could be helpful. Once the planet was finished its physical adjustments, plants and animals would be introduced. The simplest of bacteria was added at first, then more and more complicated organisms, including planets, fungi, and so forth, simulating rapid evolution. Time dilation would further accelerate the process, but it still required years. Finally, once life’s domination of the planet was completed, it would be ready for human inhabitants. And not only was this process some what lengthy, taking at shortest a few years and at longest a bit over a decade for a single planet, it was also exceedingly expensive.
One can imagine, then, how wasteful the destruction of such a planet would be. This may have been a contributing factor to the first stages of the war as well, because, though the planet being terraformed was not finished when the Feraustans had first struck, large amounts of money had been invested in it, and the Plontians did not take lightly to such a loss.
So it had been without the acceleration provided by such weapons that the Feraustans eventually won the war. The Empire was overwhelmed by their massive new population and numerous new planets. The Feraustans would have been willing to give the responsibilities of government back to the people had they not been worried about having to fight the war over again, but then, refusing to give the Plontians back their sovereignty could have the same outcome in the form of a rebellion. A compromise was the only solution. The Feraustans did allow the return to Plontian democracy, with multiple interventions to ensure Feraustan interests were respected. Also, the corruption that had plagued the system was put to an end.
The Feraustan policy of isolationism could no longer continue after such an event. As a solution to this, and after much thought and deliberation on the issue, a new plan was arrived at. The Feraustans would take different measures to ensure such a war never occurred. A council was convened with all the leaders of major nations in the galaxy present, and before it, the Feraustan Emperor proposed galactic unification. This would be an important moment in human history, the second time almost all people would live under one central government. The same thing had happened on Earth a millennium ago. But would it happen again? Some believed the state of the galaxy not yet prepared. The people were not ready for unification. The document was presented anyway, for those willing to sign. Each nation went through its own legislative process to ratify the treaty. In the end, enough nations approved the proposal for the majority of the entire population to be affected.
Surely, had the Feraustans suggested simply expanding their style of government to the entire galaxy, the proposal would have been killed instantly. They instead set up a confederacy type system, that is, a “loose collection of states,” in which representatives from each nation, chosen in a manner to be decided by each nation, convened and exercised the power granted them over all member states. Even these powers were left up to the member states. If enough states approved the addition of a new power to the United Galactic Confederacy, or the UGC, it would be granted them. And furthermore, with a simple majority, any of the Confederacy’s decrees could be rescinded at any time. The list of powers initially given it was quite limited, but the founders hoped it would grow over time, and because of this limit in power, the plan was popular.
To return to the Augustonian Empire, which will prove of some significance, it was quite literally an empire, just like the Feraustan Empire. The throne did not pass hereditarily automatically, but it could. The ruling emperor or empress would specify his or her heir. The emperor or empress officially had absolute power with the exception of interference in affairs of other branches of the government. These included the senate and the courts. Absolute power was very rarely ever employed, however. The decrees necessary for maintaining the state were passed, but few else. Ultimately, the senate did have the power to declare the emperor or empress an enemy of the state. Such a declaration could be reversed by referendum; if the trillions of citizens decided that the emperor or empress was not in fact their enemy, the senate’s decision would be overturned. Most of the power in this system of government was retained by smaller scale governments. These were overseen by representatives of the throne who had no real power, but ensured that the emperor or empress’s wishes were respected. In addition to these representatives, the imperial branch of government included the cabinet and the military, which was divided into two branches: the navy and the army. Generals of the Army and Admirals of the Navy, being the highest ranks attainable, came with the title imperator, while full generals and fleet admirals, one rank lower, were given the title Praetor, a title also available to senior senators.
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