Empires Of Orion

Empires of Orion
At the height of the empires of Orion's Arm, it is 6435 AD, or roughly forty-four hundred years in our future. Breathtaking advances in science have led to agelessness, abundant energy, travel faster than the speed of light and settlement of planets throughout the Milky Way. But technology also produced an event which forever changed the face of human society. Due to the extensive deathtoll of the great Plague and the steps humanity had to take to prevent its complete extinction, human cultures developed in isolation across the expanse of space for multiple millenia. Over that time, they formed habits, behaviors and sensibilities far more familiar to the dark age of humanity than to its golden age. The age of empires of Orion's Arm is a place of strange juxtaposition of the incredible future and the irrecoverable past. As an aristocracy of beautiful immortals struggles to maintain the interstellar empires they spent three millenia to create, a rising class of mortals have begun to challenge their dominance.

Background

Society

A lot of the technology in Orion's Arm would be considered extremely advanced and the science physically impossible as compared to how we live and understand our lives today. But, given the aristocratic control of society by a class of immortals which tolerates only the 'dilettante' practice of science in favor of maintaining the status quo, technology is used in ways that would seem archaic or anachronistic to us. People simply aren't innovating at nearly the same pace as we have seen in our society since the industrial revolution because most of the scientific knowledge of humanity has been lost and the drive to progress has been stifled by those who govern.

The Plague

Both obstacles to scientific and technology progress arise from an event called the Plague. A bit of a misnomer, the Plague decimated humanity over 3000 years before from the story's beginning. 99% of the human species was wiped out when all automated systems simultaneously turned against them... with those areas most densely populated and technologically rich hit the hardest. Since urban centers and well-populated planets were precisely the places where science, research, innovation, politics and law were practiced, the slice of humanity left in the wake of the devastation was not at all representative of the whole. Only those people who were literally on the fringe of society as events unfolded were spared from the machines. At the far edges of civilization, the infrastructure to allow for advanced telecommunications was not yet in place when the Plague hit. So, you might say that all those people who now control society were originally those people on the edge of society... colonists, surveyors, explorers, criminals, wanderers and anyone else willing to live a rugged life far from the comforts of established society.

Along with the human capital that was lost, much of the scientific stock was also rendered inaccessible. Although it was not erased during the Plague, it was lost for all practical purposes because of the survivor's reactions to what had occurred. In order to ensure that this would never happen again, the survivors confiscated all telecommunications and automated technology that they could find. Since the vast majority of accumulated scientific knowledge was stored in the quantum cloud at this time, it would take thousands of years for even a team of experts to try to reconstruct a coherent picture of what was once known from the dismantled equipment without the help of automated programs... which no one dare ever suggest doing.

The Plague was a traumatic event for all who survived it. Just a suddenly as it started, the Plague stopped. Though no one was quite sure why, it was not the first time that humanity was almost wiped out by its creations. Even after people were able to re-establish contact with each other, restart commerce and restore normalcy, they kept with them a deep-seeded fear of artificial intelligence and mistrust of technological advancements in general. Artificial intelligence is a boogie man and even the slightest pretense of pursuing it will place you in front of a Mercurian Tribunal. But, the survivors realized that only by dismantling the technology upon which it relies could they really prevent it from finishing off humanity.

Order of Mercury

As a result, their society lacks a number of things which we take for granted. They do not have any form of telecommunications. Messages must be delivered by hand, computer programs run in a sandbox and information is shared by physical transcription. They have scanners, sensors and transmitters which far exceed our current ability to observe things, but the equipment is operated by hand and the data is interpreted directly by the observer. Officially, the responsibility of enforcing such practices falls upon the Mercurian Inquisitors, also known as 'Seals'. But, the limitations of the technology are now embedded in the hardware itself and most practices have been designed to make it difficult to change.

When the precursor to the Order of Mercury was organized after the plague, they established a sub-division to catalog and document all the technology that they confiscated. For thousands of years, Mercurian Archivalists, also known as 'Scribes', have carefully transcribed the schematics of technology that is warehoused in their vaults on Earth and their brighter minds have been figuring out ways to adapt some of the previously automated processes for manual control. But large scale manufacture was entirely automated before the Plague. As a result, people engaged in scientific fields are more mechanics and operators than they are researchers or engineers. They service the existing technology using jury-rigged components and tinker's tools, not modern industrial equipment... so little is produced in large scale quantity.

The Carina Renaissance

Over the last 500 years, the flow of technology and the size of manufacture has increased though as more and more people throughout society receive scientific training. As the population has grown and new habitable planets have been discovered, the constitution of society has begun to change. The monopoly that immortals hold on governance has begun to collapse as they find themselves more and more reliant upon a well-educated class of bureaucrats and professionals to administer their planetary nations. Starting with the rise of the great financial houses in the Octan republics, mortals increasingly shape the political landscape. From financial syndicates to transportation consortiums and manufacturing guilds, much of the economic activity of the galaxy is directed by a new class of wealthy businessmen, while the escalation of disputes between immortals over territory facilitated by this newly created economic wealth has required greater participation in all aspects of government by mortals.

Geo-politics

Empires of Orion takes place at the height of imperial ambitions among the planet-nations of Orion's Arm. The rise of influence by the mortal class, a rapid increase in trade & manufacture, competition for colonies in the new worlds in the Saggitarian Arm and key technological innovations in transport and weaponry fundamentally destabilized the political alignments that had strongly dominated the galaxy for thousands of years and initiated a rapid expansion of state power. Once isolated and parochial, planets with unique cultures have now been consolidated into larger planetary nations locked in competition with each other. The mobilization of the galaxy's vast populations for trade and war have begun to develop whole new conceptions of identity. Wealth and knowledge among mortals has begun to loosen the rigid distinctions between classes while the spread of information, technology and social norms have begun to fray the tight religious organization of society surrounding the cult of immortality.

Even the composition of the Council of Governors, the body responsible for overseeing the Order of Mercury, has changed to accommodate the new political reality. A seat on the council has been added for a representative from the Union as well as the Merchant League, and the body has authorized an expansion of enrollment and programs at the University of Montreal to satisfy the increased demand for learning. But, the Council of Governors has not been immune from the conflicts of the immortals and their planetary empire-building of late. Deadlocked by conflicting factions, it no longer functions as it once did. It has failed to convene in over thirty years as one party or another continues to object to proposed dates. As a result, a majority of the operating decisions of the Order of Mercury have fallen by default upon the members of the Counsel of Elders who run the divisions of the Order.

The Orion Revolution

But, nowhere in the galaxy has the pressure of intergalactic competition and changing social structures been felt more acutely than on the planet of Bayonne. Capital of the Orion Empire, Bayonne was one of the first planets resettled after the Plague. Like many of the planets in Orion's Arm which were resettled, Bayonne was colonized by immortals which disagreed with the political, social and religious practices of their peers. Along with his descendants, Jean Duvillard departed for Bayonne in order to start a separate political community with a more paternal social structure. Assuming the title of Baron, Duvillard took on the role of both head of church and state on Bayonne and governed with the advice of a parlement of mortals that was set up when they arrived. Over time, both its population and influence grew among the old worlds. Together which his advisory parlement, Duvillard was able to defeat many rivals and build up an interplanetary kingdom. To control his adversaries, he formed a great palace above Bayonne and required all his subject immortals to attend. For this reason, the Bayonne court became a center of culture, wealth and influence in Orion's Arm to rival even the capital city of the Most Serene Republic of Flori.

But, somewhere along the way, the influence of the parlement of mortals diminished and it was replaced by the advice of the many immortals and supplicants in attendance at court. While decadent parties and loose morals ruled in his orbital palace, exploitation and injustice governed the planets of his kingdom below. Although certain segments of the population rose with the wealth and power of the kingdom, the quality of life deteriorated for most of the population. Orion's military and bureaucracies were vast, requiring larger and larger portions of the kingdom's wealth to keep them functioning. By the time Duvillard secured the colonial possessions in the new worlds and insodoing established the Empire of Orion, its social landscape no longer looked as it once did when Duvillard settled Bayonne.

Despite a number of financial crises, Duvillard was able to hold together all the competing interests at his court without provoking significant popular agitation. But, when the state finally appeared on the verge of bankruptcy and he was forced to reconvene the defunct parlement of mortals, a revolt broke out in the city of Nâmes that quickly spread across all of Bayonne. Before most at the palace could react, the entire kingdom was in the midst of rebellion, with nothing short of a complete social revolution as its goal. To that end, the long-standing class structure was an impediment and it was violently, irreversibly, dismantled. Starting with Duvillard, the revolutionaries executed all the immortals they could find, along with countless mortals who were seen as having benefited from the previous regime. The declared liberty and equal rights for all, and established the Commonwealth.

As news of these events spread, fearing that they too might suffer from the social aspirations of their exploited populations, a number of the immortal kings of the Divine Aristocracy formed an alliance and declared war on the Commonwealth. No sooner had the citizens of Orion earned their freedom from their immortal rulers than they were forced to defend it against others. But, despite the internal chaos, mass executions and jockeying for political power, the Commonwealth proved remarkably organized and directed against its external adversaries. The revolutionaries-turned-soldiers fielded an army which far surpassed any of the Divine Planets in size and scope and they managed to secure a number of early victories under their adept commander Maximillian Balthesar Villendrôme. These initial victories quelled any hope that the revolution would not last and convinced many of the remaining immortals and loyalists in Orion to go into exile. But, the internal and external conflict was far from settled.

Galaxy at War

When the story begins, it is the thirty-first year of the revolution and the galaxy is at war. The other great interplanetary empires of the old worlds are embroiled in total war with the Commonwealth and the entire Milky Way galaxy is the battleground. In a struggle to survive, the Commonwealth of Orion still finds itself surrounded by enemies throughout Orion's Arm, allied in their opposition to the Commonwealth's demand for social equality. Though isolated by all the other planetary nations, the Commonwealth has nevertheless managed not only to hold off but also to defeat a number of the planets of the Divine Aristocracy. Each victory bringing with it liberty to their subjugated populations as well as a greater threat to the other planet-nations that remain belligerent.

However, the Commonwealth is locked in a stalemate with its principle enemy, the Republic of Juneau. Although the Republic is the one interplanetary empire which is most sympathetic with the ideals of the Commonwealth, it is also the one most opposed to its desire for galactic upheaval and aspirations toward imperial domination. The people of the Republic are a proud and confident lot, willing to defend their small planetary nation to the last man. But, luckily, they have not yet been called to defend their homes, for the Republic controls the space lanes to the new worlds. With colonies that span throughout the Sagittarian Arm of the galaxy, the Republic has been able to rely upon its large interstellar navy and vast trade-networks to maintain and protect its people.

With the unrivaled power of the June Navy, the Republic has been in the best position to check the Commonwealth. But, stretched thin across a large galaxy with limited manpower and few resources to draw on from its home planet, the Republic has been forced by years of conflict to negotiate an armistice with the Commonwealth. While this has freed up a lot of resources for the Commonwealth to focus on the threat posed by the newly formed Third Alliance of Divine Planets, it has allowed the Republic to consolidate its finances and relieve its population from the taxes of war. But, while June ships vigilantly patrol the armistice line, countless freighters from the independent planets of the new world are now able to ship war materials to the Commonwealth. So, no one is sure just how long the armistice will last.

With the whole fate of the galaxy at stake, the atmosphere is tense and there is great disagreement among all planet-nations over who to support in the struggle, or whether to get involved at all. It is from this setting that a number of heroes will emerge. Strangers to each other and unaware that their actions have any consequence beyond their own lives, soon the fate of the entire galaxy will rest in their hands. As old troubles give rise to new possibilities, this is their story. Our story. Welcome to Empires of Orion.