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The Chosen One
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Katran Luftschreck
Royal Ammatar Engineering Corps
#1 - 2014-02-05 21:38:48 UTC  |  Edited by: Katran Luftschreck
The auditorium was dark and silent. The ambient lighting had been dimmed to a deep twilight, rows upon rows of seated bodies unnaturally silent, disciplined, listening, all of them intently waiting for the speaker to begin. Upon the dais a single light shone over the thin podium, behind it a simple 2D screen the encompassed most of the wall. The light brightened and the screen came on, though no images appeared yet.

A man rose up to the podium. His face was stern, his age unknowable, and his pale eyes narrow & deep within his hairless skull. His blue & silver uniform was simple, utilitarian, and identical to those worn by each & every one of the students before him. There was no applause, no fanfare. The screen behind him burst into a map of the entirety of New Eden as he began his oration without any preamble.

“Today I will be continuing with my synopsis of the history of this cluster. Yesterday I discussed the history of our great nation. Today I will discuss the histories of our enemies, who they are, who they were, and how they came to be where they are today.”

“As you know, the core of the New Eden cluster is currently ruled and divided amongst four rival nations. Before going into detail on any of them, I shall first explain their origins, which shall answer many questions about said nations in advance. For this task I shall explain some details about their predecessors, the four empires that came before them, although technically only one of them was an actual empire. Therefore I use this word for convenience, and it should not be taken literally unless stated as such.”

“To understand who they were we must first begin understand the relationships between all four of these empires, as this defined them as much as they defined themselves. At the time these were the Gallente Confederation, the Amarr Empire, the Caldari State and the Minmatar Republic. I have chosen to list them presently in the order in which they fell. The first of these four extinct empires to fall was the Federation, but to understand how it fell we must, as always, look to the Minmatar Republic.”

“The Republic was the nation that rose from the slave revolts of the Minmatar Tribes within the Amarr Empire. To be brief, the revolt was a success, the Minmatar became free, and then proceeded to carve off a vast section of the Amarr Empire in which to call their own. In order to achieve this military victory, however, they enlisted the aid of the Gallente Federation. For a long time the two empires remained close allies, which put the Amarr Empire in a state of jeopardy… or at least until the Caldari State comes into the picture. The Caldari State was also born from a revolt against their masters, only this time the masters were the Gallente Federation. This one bit of parallel evolution would later play a significant role in what came to be.”

The speaker pointed backhandedly at the screen behind him without looking and continued. “Because the Caldari were enemies of the Gallente, this made them targets of the Federation’s allies as well. As you can see from the map, this meant that they were surrounded. They needed allies, and quickly, and it was only natural that the Amarr Empire – being in a similar situation themselves – would become that ally.”

“This military standoff continued until it became the accepted status quo, but it could not last forever. One man, a Minmatar leader named Maleatu Shakor, saw all the pieces on the board and utilized their positions to secure for his self an unstoppable advantage. Namely, the rapid expansion of loyalist forces within the borders of his rivals, and he began with the one he perceived as the weakest of the three – the Federation.”

“During a staged political incident he sent a small fleet to test the strength of the Federation’s defenses, but did not cause a battle large enough that it could not be covered up, politically speaking. The incident was swept under the rug by the politicians while the military examined the data. While it was clear that the Republic could not directly defeat the Federation directly, there were indirect methods that proved far more effective… as history plainly shows.”

“The Federation freely allowed the Minmatar to emigrate into their empire, yet allowed them to retain all of their own original culture. Naturally this meant that most retained their original loyalties as well. This became a critical factor when, in YC 114 Shakor’s Republic signed a secret pact with the CEP of the Caldari State and in YC 117 the two launched a joint surprise invasion of the Federation.”

“Though initially taken by surprise, the political savvy of the Federation was wise enough to set aside their differences with the Amarr Empire long enough to create a mutual defense agreement. The two combined powers would have likely been more than a match to repel the invaders if not for the proverbial ‘ticking time bomb’ within the Federation borders. So once again the Minmatar people rose in revolution, only this time they did so within the Federation.”

“The sheer level of violence inflicted upon the Gallente by their neighbors, both outside their borders and within, was simply too much bear and their morale quickly crumbled. A culture not accustomed to the hardships of the true brutality of a war of extermination was in no position to send soldiers into space when facing constant riots, terror bombings, and random sniper attacks within their own streets. Eventually they surrendered, leaving only the Amarr Empire remaining.”

The screen’s image changed and flowed, showing an ever growing purple blob expanding & covering up all that was once green. Now there were only two blobs, and the yellow one at the bottom no longer looked very large at all. The Speaker continued:

http://youtu.be/t0q2F8NsYQ0
Katran Luftschreck
Royal Ammatar Engineering Corps
#2 - 2014-02-05 21:40:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Katran Luftschreck
“The Amarr Empire held out for longer than anticipated, but this had more to do with the Republic’s process of ‘assimilation,’ or rather extermination, of the Gallente people. The elimination of so many trillions of people left many worlds empty, or nearly so, and it was not until many years later that the Minmatar had breed a new generation of warriors in which to fill the space. If we look at the following overlay you will notice that the Caldari State hardly expanded at all during this time. This is because we are looking at territorial overlay. If we look at the economic overlay… shown here… we can see that they did in fact expand, albeit in an entirely different manner. However, this method of expansion would eventually cost them dearly in the end, which we will be getting to shortly.”

“By YC 142 the Republic had increased their numbers enough to begin their finally, deadly assault against their rival. The exact date of the Empire’s fall places it in YC149, however that is simply a reference to the last member of their Royal Family being executed. The systematic extermination of the Amarrian people began long before that. It should be noted that the Republic had learned a great deal of useful knowledge in this process since their conquest of the Federation. The extermination of the Gallente was violent, bloody and painfully inefficient. Blades, infantry weapons, and simply burnings were how most of these people met their end. The extermination of the Amarrians was far more refined, and the official date of the last Amarrian family being feed into the disintegration chambers was in YC154. By way of comparison, the last known Gallente resistor to die in combat was not until YC168.”

The speaker stopped for moment and finally turned to the screen behind him. The overlays were removed, and while the map remained the same, the purple suddenly shifted back into a sea of red with a small blue wedge located at the top. He pointed to this wedge and said “Which brings us to the Caldari State” as he slowly turned back to face the audience.

“The last empire to perish was the same one that once gave birth to our own. For that reason alone I suppose that I would be inclined to embellish their final battles and make them seem more glorious than they really were. But even though we were born there, we owe them no loyalty, and to the dead one owes only the truth. Simply put, it was not after the Amarr Empire fell that the Republic decided that they had no more use for the Caldari State. As you can easily see from the map, the Caldari stood no chance at this point. The last Caldari citizen was disintegrated by the year YC173.”

The sea of red simply patched itself over the last blue patch and then remained unchanging as the date counter in the corner advanced. The Speaker drank water from a clear crystal glass, giving himself just this moment of pause, and continued when the red blanket suddenly split into five pieces.

“Although not much happened within the Republic during this long period of rest that came afterward, we continued to grow, expand and refine ourselves closer to perfection. Like the Republic, we also began to see the problems, solutions, and advantages to selective genetics. We, too, began to reshape ourselves into a purer form. However, unlike the Republic, we had a singular vision while they had seven distinctly different ones. This shall be critical in the battles to come, my brothers, and now we are almost to the present.”

“Without viable external enemies to fight the Tribes of the Republic began to continue their path to their own individual ideals of purity & perfection. While the disintegration chambers were no longer openly used, neither were they entirely shut down. For example, one of the original seven Tribes, known as the Nefantar, was exterminated alongside the Amarrians during that same time period. This left six tribes remaining.” The Speaker nodded and added, “Yes there are only five sections on the map; this is because the sixth was essentially nomadic and had no actual claimed territory within the core.”

“Over the decades, each tribe became ever more insular and isolated from their brethren. This was the natural & inevitable psychological path that was created centuries before. It was in YC366 that the six remaining tribes turned on each other. The nomadic Thukker Tribe followed their tradition and simply left, thinking that this would bring them safety. Instead, it led them directly to us.” The speaker smiled for the first since the lecture began. “This leaves us with only five Tribes remaining.”

“Of these, the Starkmanir were the weakest of the five – you can consult your notes as to the historical reasons for this later. Naturally this made them the next to become extinct. The remaining four Tribes – the Brutor, Sebiestor, Vherokior and Krusual – remain engaged in a potentially endless cycle of mass exterminations of rivals followed by mass breeding to replace those losses with their own ‘bloodlines.’” The speaker allowed himself a second smile and added, “Naturally, we understand this concept fully.”

It was at this point that the Speaker finally began to show any semblance of emotion during his speech, growing only a few octaves louder, but infinitely noticeable amongst his peers. He clenched his hand and spoke more:

“It is during these intervening decades and centuries that we have built our technology in secret, away from prying eyes. We let the empires of old think us beaten while we grew further into the space beyond the wormholes. We mastered the technology of ancient, extinct races such as the Sleepers and, when these foolish pretend empires were not looking, we made another ancient race extinct.”

http://youtu.be/t0q2F8NsYQ0
Katran Luftschreck
Royal Ammatar Engineering Corps
#3 - 2014-02-05 21:40:53 UTC  |  Edited by: Katran Luftschreck
The map of New Eden had shrunk into a tiny window, a new map, chaotic, filled with systems that had numbers instead of names, linked by lines both short and incredibly long, the lines also attached to numbers. In the far north, the dark gray swath grew to encompass, envelope and consume a single name: Jove.

“With the combined technologies of all we have conquered we have finally perfected ourselves to a degree that even the most fanatic of Republicans can only dream of. While they smashed down the technological accomplishments of their rivals we dug through the dust and debris of ours, looking for every advantage we could use – and use them we have.”

“Soon, my brothers, soon we shall be ready to move deep into New Eden one final time, and on that day of reckoning there shall only be one nation remaining! The nation! Our nation!”

The stoic audience suddenly arose from their chairs in unison, all of them cheering in unison, their hundreds upon hundreds of completely identical faces, each and every one a perfect mirror image of the man behind the podium. And in their perfect unison they all cried…

“Sansha’s Nation!”

http://youtu.be/t0q2F8NsYQ0