A History of the Fallen Empire

[kclace]

This is a history of the Fallen Empire, recorded by a scholar known as Plutarch. (Influences are Warhammer 40 K and BSG)

Chapter 1: The Sparkling Worlds

It is no secret that the first men to colonize worlds beyond the Sol System did not boldly travel forth from ancient Terra, nor did they step out onto strange soil making small steps or giant leaps for mankind.

Nay, the first men did not truly travel through the far reaches of interstellar space, for the first colonists were not born, but were grown. The first colony ships carried forth not men, but frozen embryos, along with AI Persona Cores and mechanoid workforces needed to grow and raise the first crops of new humans. So it was on our former homeworld. How strange it must have been for our ancestors, not knowing mother or father, but only the benevolence of a great and powerful AI.

After the first crop was grown, natural families came into being, and with the help of the mechanoids, we grew into a great and beautiful sparkling glitterworld. By the start of the 4th millenimum, we numbered in the billions and had colonized the other planets in our stellar system.

Chapter 2: The Great Unraveling.

It was a golden age of unparalleled prosperity beyond imagination. But it was also an age of unparalleled vice and debauchery. Men no longer understood the meaning and dignity of work, and cared little for raising natural families. The Maker saw this and was displeased.

Over a few short yearrs, a great many disasters and plagues befell our ancesters, many natural, others self inflicted. The record of these events is murky, and filled with unverified legend, so I will venture no further in recounting how it happened. However, how it ended is well known. The glitterworlds fell into ruin. Chaos reigned.

Chapter 3: The Rise of the Stellarch

From the ashes arose a great and powerful warrior. Known only as the Stellarch, this man re-united our ruined homeworld under the promise to restore order and prosperity. His creed was simple. Man would re-organize itself according to its most ancient and sacred traditions. Noble titles were established, and Bishops were appointed to oversee a newly revived Church. Unlike before, man would no longer rely on mechanoids to accomplish their work. This would fall to the peasent and slave classes. Under the Stellarch's wise rule, man would never return to the debauchery of the glitterworlds again.


Chapter 4: Prelude to War

Before his natural death at the age of 80, the other fallen glitterworlds within our stellar system were conquered by the Stellarch's powerful knights. Peace and prosperity had returned. A new Empire was born. The line of the Stellarch continued, passing on from one first born son to the next for a hundred years.


In the reign of Glacius the IV, ancient glitterworld technology was recovered that would have allowed human consciousness to be transferred into a machine, therby achieving a form of immortality.

13 of the Stellarch's high lords wanted to preserve this technology for the nobility. It was the right of the nobles to rule forever, they argued. However, the Church was adamently against this, arguing that human life had to be respected from natural conception until natural death.

Glacius sided with the Church and ordered the technology destroyed. In response, the 13 lords used the technology themselves to download their consciousness into machines. In doing so they became known as the Shadow Lords. Glacius immediately ordered that the shadow lords be arrested. This was the start of the Shadow Wars.

Chapter 5: The Shadow Wars

The Shadow Lords retained the loyalty of vast armies, and with their newfound power, they offered imortality to all who would aid them against the Stellarch.

Further, the Shadow Lords were able to take control of long dormant mechanoid hives,  adding to their power.

Against these traitors stood the might of the Stellarchh and his legions of knights.

The war was devastating, but in the end the traitors were put to flight and the Stellarch prevailed, though Glacius himself was mortally wounded in the siege of New Kasmir. However, it was never fully verified that the Shadow Lords were truly destroyed. Able to copy and transfer themselves to any available software, the threat of the Shadow Lord's remained, even after their armies were destroyed.

Chapter 6: Simmering Peace

The Stellarch's reign continued in relative peace for the next 400 years. During this time, a vast fleet was constructed, and thhe Stellarch conducted diplomacy with men from beyond our own system. A treaty of peace was concluded with the Star Empire, and trade with distant mega corporations flourished.

All the while, loyal and good knights continued to route out hidden mechanoid hives and virus infected software, ever watchful for the return of the Shadow Lords.


Chapter 7: Revenge of the Shadow Lords

The reign of Achius the V marked the 500th year since the Stellarch established our empire. It was meant to be a joyous ocassion. But alas it was the day the Shadow Lords had their revenge. The arch enemy hacked into a moon on the outer edge of our system that was in the process of being terraformed by an allied mega corporation. The shadow lords took control of the entire mechanoid workforce and quickly re-configured them for war, then launched a devastating cyber attack against the Imperial Fleet. After that, the Shadow Lords launched a massive ground invasion of  our worlds, accompanied by massive asteroid strikes which devastated the planetary biospheres. We were unprepared. The war was over before it had begun.

Chapter 8: Our Flight

Knowing that the war was lost, Achius the V summoned his lords for counsel. He ordered them to safely evacuate their holdings ,take what ships they had available and then flee the system. Each Lord would go out in a different direction. Some would head inward toward the core. Others would head out toward the uncharted rim. And from this point onward, each would be a minor Stellarch in their own right. There would be no Empire anymore, only the broken fragments. Achius V himself informed his lords that he and his royal retine would fight to the death to ensure that their people could safely flee from the confliict.

But before that meeting ended, he made all his Lords to swear an oath to never abandon their sacred traditions and to return to the homeworld at the start of the new millenium and reclaim it from the Shadow Lords. Every Lord swore as such. And so began the great exodus.

Chapter 9: Our New Home

The fleet I fled with arrived in the rim some time ago. Our new Stellarch declared this new world his by right. However, not all the of the natives agreed with him.

Nevertheless I am hopeful we can make these natives our willing slaves or subjects in time. But, we continue to fear that the Shadow Lords may have followed us here. There are some AI Personas amoing the natives. Some seem friendly, others are hostile. This has led to grave concerns among our fleet. What if the Shadow Lords are already here, hiding in plain sight? Regardless, the new world seems safee enough to settle for the time being. Perhas we will have enough respite to rebuild our forces and retake our homeworld at the start of the new millenium. But I digress, this isn't my story. It is the story of us all.

For the Empire!

[Manikaanth]

Really love the writing and lore work you wrote out. I was actually thinking of using similar themes for a playthrough I plan to try and get to writing for, using a group of peoples who (Relatively) early on broke away from the chafing state of nanny-ing that the grand intelligence enforced.

[kclace]

Thanks man, glad you liked it! Here's to hoping the games' creators feel inspired. Let's see a "shadow lords expansion" now lol.

Good luck with your new game.