Navlad Empire

The Capitol of the Empire has moved a few times from system to system. The original capitol (after they split from the Seps for good),has been enshrined as a sort of memorial/national park and it’s not much populated except by caretakers, priests (central priest hub?) and tourists Colonies of Navlad not only brought people to new worlds, but as many frozen eggs as possible from those staying behind. To spread the gene pool even more. Smaller space needed to transport embryos than people. This tapered off as the family lineage obsession got stronger

Religion
Worship of ancestors, bless possible/actual progeny. Worship bloodlines. Everything comes down to blood.

Economic System
Mixed economy

Currency
Credits

Legislative Body
Formerly-Emperor Currently-

Subsidiary Organizations
Imperial Court Military in the Empire Controlled Territories

Politics
Politics in the Empire. Yay. So much of the politics in the Empire are based on things have been, how they’ve always been. Somewhere along the way, between the wars on the First Colony and the Second Exodus (please, need to look up the actual name for it. It’s in the Epilogue), a pseudo-nobility/caste system sprang up. This played in heavily with all ranks, and then how the politics came to be. Maybe there’s a legend that the first man who actually pounded the Empire into shape was a sai? Anyways, it all goes back to bloodlines. Sai are traced through the mother’s line, and women are put into marriages or concubine with men who hopefully carry more of THEIR mother’s sai possibility. So things are matrilineal, but the women are the breeding stock, sent around to spread or condense bloodline probability of breeding a sai. Those who aren’t nobility, but are of upper middle class, will often try to marry sai daughters into nobility. And since sai are so rare, percentage of population wise, then the daughters are usually accepted and all female relatives examined for sai possibility, of into branch lines of the family. Sai is impossible to separate from politics. The closer to the throne you get, speaking in terms of rank AND blood, the stronger a sai is likely to be. To get a really, really strong sai out of say, a bastard born mix of servant girl and noble master, is very rare. Sai happen, but they will be limited range and power. Which is why Jossa can feel whole solar systems and Syrus is limited to a room or gymnasium. (Strong feeling that is, a whole city still buzzes in his brain and makes him cranky). So. Blood dictates rank and birth and all that. Historically, when the system ‘worked’, there was the Emperor on the throne. He is usually the first natural born son born from the previous Emperor and whichever concubine gives birth. At which point she becomes a wife and has precedence over all the other women in the stable. The Emperor doesn’t stop sleeping with them, because heir and a spare and all that. And at that level of government, even when things were working, nobody was sure when a baby would carry to term, or if someone would try to knock them off. If a boy were to be born with sai from the Emperor’s seed, then he would hop to the start of the line by default. Any daughters born of the Emperor are married off into the noble families hopefully less related to the Emperor directly. This is used to strengthen ties of loyalty in the outer rings of nobility (astrographically that is) and keep inbreeding from happening while making it possible that future matches might have a chance of more sai. In terms of how ruler ship is laid out for governing, it’s sort of like the English/European system of lords, ladies. Etc. There’s the Emperor. Whooo. Big man in a chair. There are the military sectors, which are also fairly closely aligned with the political divisions (but the military might cover several political sectors). Dukes in close to the Throne world might have smaller physical area, but more people. Like spokes in a fuzzy wheel, the sectors move out. There are still Dukes near the Net, and there used to be out past it, before everyone pulled in and decisions had to be made about who would stay out and who would stay in. Some Dukes outside, if they couldn’t get themselves inside the Net (never mind their commoners), declared a split and became their own little ‘countries’ outside the Net. These of course, are pretty much getting swallowed up by the Fleet. So after dukes, there is the next rank. Not system lords. A Duke might have X number of people under his rule (because people, not physical area, is the key). Then there is X divided by 3. That becomes Y. Y is divided by 3 again to create class Z. And so on. At some point, it becomes less a matter of population. The last rank before it devolves into a system by system ranking is Lord. Below that are what might be counts. A Lord would have permanent residence in one system, and that system would have a Count in case the lord moves, but more likely, if it’s been the family home for years, there’s a Steward to take care of things while the Lord is gone. Then it comes down to a Count for a particular solar system. Then the governors of this or that planet, or that cluster of asteroids. Kovavek planets and Ajiri planets therefore have their governors that oversee a planet, but where there’s physical area beyond a single factory town or underground cave complex for mining, then it gets into Steward of this or that territory. From a territory level, things are broken down more on a town level. In a territory there might be one or two large towns, or a trading city. A steward would have one trading city, or four or five coastal fishing towns, a couple farming settlements, and whoever is off in the jungle picking mushrooms. Towns have their mayors, and then the people off in the boonies don’t care who is in charge. The story mainly concerns the nobility though. So the way things worked before is not so much how things work now that the Empire is crumbling. Since so many people got Imperial daughters in their bloodline at one point or another, a lot of tangential claims to the throne are out there. The Emperor’s spare sons go into one civil service or another as needed. The Dukes are usually the sons or grandsons of the Emperor. And then their lines go off and do other noble work. That’s why it’s not encouraged to have more than three kids as a general rule. Splits out inheritance and duties too far. The third son of the Emperor usually ends up as the SecDef, Military leader. The Second son, not sure what he does. The risk is there for him to usurp the Emperor, and since all of the Emperor’s children are supposed to be natural born (yay, all the concubines! Boo, bad swimmers), there’s not the issues of ‘in vitrio baby’ to muddle things. Even having the second child implanted artificially doesn’t work so well, because third son would just take the place of possible usurper. So. When the old Emperor went nuts and started tearing the Empire apart looking for Joss and Delfi, it created divisions in the nobility. He activated the military, which was supposed to (at the time), be a sort of border guard out in the furthest reaches of the Empire, a low grade police force on clearly upstart systems and bring the occasional splinter system back in line. Military wasn’t thought of highly, but they sent their sons to it anyways and didn’t mind so much if they only had two kids. Oddly, the military was woman heavy at the time? Daughters sent instead? So the military married them to officers and started breeding babies. They saw the Fleet coming, and were able to map the Barbicans better then, so they thought they knew how much time they had to get ready before they arrived. At that point, that’s when they’d just decided that a failsafe network of Barbs, empty of all but military installations and few civilians would be a good idea. They were going to station the military out past the bounds to keep the Fleet from coming. That plan has since dissolved, both with the civil wars and the realization that the Fleet just MOWS anything in its path right over. Cutting off Barbican access is about all they can think of. Nobody thinks the Fleet has the ability to use cryo or do the long distance flight that it would take to bypass the Barbicans. So that was the state of the Empire. Aware of a threat, getting ready, when the Emperor starts ripping apart solar systems. He goes after any Feel. And possible prophet. Checking for new ones. Destroying market cities as his troops tear through them. The Economy slowly tanks as he moves out from the core to the Border worlds, then spreads at random through the rest of the Empire as he tracks the girls. And then, when the girls go to ground, he completely loses it. Send the Customs and Military and Marines on a witch hunt. Someone assassinated him before his child was old enough to take the throne? Someone talked his son into assassinating him? Military did it for the protection of the Empire? One way or another, he died. His successor tried to put things back together, but either for lack of experience or what, failed. People tried to gain influence. Since so many of the really high nobility was related to the Emperor, they all started jockeying for position. The concubines always retire to the Emperor’s shrine on his death, and if there are kids…dunno what happens to the kids left over from a dead Emperor. Long and short, lack of possible legit heirs and all these old uncles and cousins wanting the throne destabilized things. The military is tasked with protection of the Empire as a whole, but who decides who is a threat to the Empire and who doesn’t. Even while the wrangling of the throne was going on, someone remembered that the Fleet was coming, so they got the Net up. But they lost other planets like Jossa and Del’s in the process. Frustrated with lack of action and care from the Core, many Border systems that were only loosely part of the Empire (further and further out, less concentrated population meant more worlds in each political sector. And more military sectors as travel time became less a matter of ‘turn around out of one gate, pop into the next one a day or so later’ and more a matter of ‘come out of a gate, maybe turn right around, maybe travel all week to the other side of the system to get to it) Delete all that. Having Barbs on opposite sides of the system works when you’ve got multiple entry and exit points. In a system that only has ONE Barb, you can come out, get out of range, flip around, make sure there’s not someone coming through (rare in low pop areas) and go right back in. Faster turn around. Larger military sectors. More systems to cover with theoretically faster travel time. Anyways, those Border planets out there changed their keys, pulled key bits off the barbs, etc, and declared themselves independent. Sometimes the Military went to bring them back to the fold, but as the Fleet got closer and closer, this happened less and less often. In the past hundred years or so, the Military stopped that sort of thing altogether, the Border lords pretty much left to themselves, and the Fringe lords (outside the Net), completely abandoned. Some hold fealty to the Empire, some don’t. Some ran inside the Net and started consolidating power there. The military watches the Net, waiting for the first poke by the Fleet. And inside the Net, the Empire fractured. Aside from the straight line of Barbs between the Core and the Gatekeepers, not much else has been in consistent control of the Throne for almost two hundred years, maybe more in some areas. This or that dukedome wanted the throne, so they claimed it, and started locking Barbicans against competitors. This or that little system wanted to be done with it all, so they tried to secede. Barring destroying their Barb, (which eventually choked off trade), there wasn’t much they could do about Hacks breaking back in. Keys were updated empire wide so the Military could get through, usually by the military itself, just so it could travel to trouble spots. Occasionally, someone might try to bring the military to heel by cutting off funding and supplies, so the military turned to their home systems or bases and took them over. Well, they took control of whatever was nearest the system where the shipyards, housing, etc were. The military is also looking to squash science it deems dangerous, like cryo that has fewer side effects, faster ships, Barbs mounted on ships, etc. –delete this As time has gone one, many possible Emperors have been put forward. The easiest thing to fudge is the natural born records. Getting rid of the in vitro records at temples/birthing centers is fairly easy. Suppressing the tag in the nanites that priests introduce when they do the in vitro is somewhat harder. But a number of families have tried and even succeeded. Everyone is after the marker from the last living Emperor or his father, because that’s the last time anyone knew for certain that the Emperor had the right to the throne. And since so many children were sent out to noble families for marriage, now there’s a concerted effort to find those bloodlines and breed them closer and closer. More political alliances are now made to breed for Imperial concentration of blood than consideration of territory or even sai. They’re looking for a contender to the throne, not power as such, although if they get that, great. There are businesses though, and commercial concerns and even those in charge of the solar collectors that are tired of all this fuss. Trade coalitions have formed and thrown their weight behind this or that canidate. Manufacturers are denying access to this or that thing because the person is after the throne, or is a part of a different faction after the throne. Governance still happens in the Empire, but it’s devolved into a local level thing. Some Dukedomes, some Baronies, Lords, etc. But one week some Duke will come in and say ‘pay taxes to the Imperial throne’, then the next week he’s dead and someone else wants the taxes. People are fleeing, but they are warned if they leave the Net, they’re taking their life in their hands. Tracking the Fleet is something everyone does, but they don’t know where the first prod will come because again, lack of mapping. So some are fleeing for the Seps Coalition and the Gatekeepers, and the systems leading in are clogged with refugees. The local Lords aren’t happy about all these extra people, the Gatekeepers don’t want them, and it the Barb has been taken off line physically. Some are getting interstellar ships, loading them up, and high tailing it for empty planets/unused planets, or out of the Empire altogether.

Navlad Empire

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