Tyran Empire

The Tyran Empire was among the most powerful nation-states in the region for almost a thousand years, sprawling across much of the Vernarca Nebula at its height in 209 BC. The nation collapsed in 41 AC when the Falacian Dominion, the Verdan Federation, and the Talarian Union lent their aid to a series of rebellions centered around Voyorr and Enolia, leading to the independence of Voyorras, the Enolian Coalition, Marakat, and the Federate of Varaltin-Zartha. The severely weakened Empire, reeling from this loss of territory as well as Shahso's catastrophic coup attempt, was finally destroyed by the devastating environmental aftereffects of the Athos Supernova.
== History ==
=== Beneath the Dragon's Wings ===
The Tarasze are not native to Tyran space or anywhere near the Vernarca Nebula. They are the descendants of a great exile from a distant, unknown nation, escaping from centuries of brutal oppression. Their ragtag fleet was pulled through an unstable spacetime rift during the hectic escape from their masters the Devore, taking them across the galaxy to the vicinity of the Anhooie System. Critical systems damaged, much of the fleet was forced down on the desolate planet of Tarash. A select few ships, able to do so, flew leisurely through deep space, settling in small numbers away from the bloodthirsty leader of the expedition. They ended up scatttered across the region in places including the Perin System, Earen in the Lekna System, and a small enclave in the Aren System. 
Those who remained on Tarash were stranded there for centuries, building a substantial society. They soon reinvented space travel, beginning to establish colonies on Pirek, the moons of Amarius and even as far as the outer ice world Naranyx. The Tyran Empire itself was finally founded after a system-wide war between a confederation of states around the moons of Amarius and the homeworld's newly unified government at Tarash. The newly centralized empire begun to put its efforts toward taming the harsh environment of their adopted homeworld, gradually beginning to transform it into a humid world of forests.
=== Distant Dreams Becoming Real ===
Although expansion had begun to stall by the time Tarash's terraforming was underway, that changed with the reinvention of the warp drive. The fleet of stolen ships were heavily damaged by transit through the rift, but scientists were finally able to reverse-engineer the designs from the burned-out systems and other observations. This allowed the Empire to begin to expand beyond Anhooie, after the new design was carefully tested for larger and larger craft. 
The closest star to Tarash was the red supergiant Athos, swaddled like all the nearby stars in the cloudy womb of the enormous Vernarca Nebula. Despite Athos' enormous mass, it possessed a small system of planets, one of which held a habitable moon in orbit. Cela's native species the Saladi would be the Tarasze's first contact with an alien species since their escape from the Devore over a thousand years earlier. The Saladi were peaceful and comparatively primitive, and the Tarasze set themselves up as benevolent overlords, promising themselves that they were definitely not repeating the actions of the Devore. 
=== Vaulting Ambition ===
The Tyran Empire expanded further past Athos, which became a cornerstone of the Empire's population. So many would immigrate to the cool, windy shores of Cela that the Saladi population would soon be a minority on their own homeworld. Most of the other closest stars to Tarash were unbelievably massive, dangerous objects, and so were kept at a distance by most operations until the Empire begun to assemble megastructures in their vicinities. 
The immediate exception to this rule, beyond the tiny newborn protostars that shredded any ship that entered their dusty shrouds, was Rigela. Rigela, a large but not overly intimidating or extraordinary star, had an enormous disk of material ripe for exploitation. The new Salkoran Fleet Yards assembled here became the center of Tyran military operations, where it would remain until the Empire's fall. The resources available in the system were to become a next generation of battleships, to defend the Tyran Empire against all who would stand against it.
This new fleet would soon be put to the test with the conquest of Voyorr. At the time, the system was held by the Terakela, a species of nomads who protected the outer planet Mikal with a fury massively out of proportion with its actual strategic use. The great fleet approached the dim brown dwarf and its planets under maximum stealth. Much of the crew was placed in cryostasis and most ship structure was cooled to background temperature until the ships were in position. But the seemingly dead ships flicked back on like a light switch, becoming battle ready in as little as five minutes less than 400,000 kilometers from Mikal and the massed Terakela fleets. 
The enormous bulk of each individual Tyran ship proved to be an advantage, as they could simply brute force their way through the ancient Terakela swarm tactics. Most of the enemy ships were effortlessly wiped out, and the system was taken. From there, the Terakela nomads were systematically forced from the region. While the Tyran Empire's sadistic tactics were almost easy to turn a blind eye to before, now it was obvious to anyone who paid even the slightest attention to the rising power's activities. 
After expelling the Terakela from their new territory, they quickly settled great numbers of Tarasze on the vacated worlds. The still-cooling Inielus system became influential in the region, as did the veritable garden worlds of the Deferna System. Most of the upper-crust Tarasze who emigrated to the area politely turned a blind eye to what was being done to the natives. On the other end of the expanding Empire, the binary Varaltin-Zartha System was settled, bringing the Tyran Empire into a long-lasting, deeply contentious relationship with the up-and-coming Falacian Dominion, a relationship which would soon have a hand in bringing the entire nation down. 
=== The Devil in the Dark ===
The Falacian Dominion was, at the time, a powerful, warlike nation just as adept at conquest as the Tyran Empire that it now bordered. With the settlement of Varaltin-Zartha, the first Falacian-Tyran conflict began, resultling in massive fleet battles throughout the interstellar space along their new border. While the conflict caused great destruction in the area, the war ended in a stalemate and they both signed a truce after completely failing to accomplish anything towards their goals. Varaltin-Zartha remained an imperial possession, and Haras remained Falacian. 
After this conflict, the Empire entered a state of cold war with the Dominion, with both sides conducting occasional raids across the border just small enough to avoid outright war. One such event was the brutal raid on the outer Falacian outpost of Ihan, which killed the entire population of the outpost before word could be sent to the better-equipped neighboring colony of Rayato. 
The Dominion responded in kind with a highly effective raid on the comet belt stations of the Varaltin-Zartha System, but quick thinking by peace-oriented diplomats on both sides prevented further escalation. This allowed the Empire to focus on the conquest of Kethan-Enol, a power in the outskirts of the nebula based around the planet Canamar. Kethan-Enol was initially a match for the Tyran Empire, almost immediately forcing the Imperial Fleet back onto the defensive and almost reaching Anhooie, but rapidly ramped up starship construction at Rigela supplemented the existing craft and enabled a steady push towards the Enolian System. The battle of Yakto resulted in a humiliating defeat, but the surviving fleet would keep fighting. Kethan-Enol only surrendered to the Imperial forces after the deployment of a devastating nuclear strike on the moon of Durona which killed its entire population. Canamar and all other Enolian holdings were placed under military occupation for the next several decades. 
=== Through the Valley of Shadows ===
Back when Cela was lured into the orbit of the Tyran Empire, some measure of the Saladi population objected to this relationship. At the time the totalitarian tendencies of the Empire were not quite as apparent, so they were mostly ignored until it was far too late. After news of the war being waged against Kethan-Enol and the brutal treatment of their populace was spread across the nation, the Saladi separation movement began to wage guerilla warfare against the primarily Tarasze-populated major cities on their planet and its moons. This strategy worked quite well, winning a number of small victories against their oppressors, but with the conquest of Canamar and the end of the war, the military could be brought to bear against this little rebellion close to home. A secession movement could not be tolerated that close to the homeworld, and especially not one with control of such a powerful star. 
As the rebellion intensified, many of the Tarasze immigrant population either left by choice, were forced out, or defected. After several years of this rebellion, control of Cela's surface and sphere of influence was completely wrested from the Empire, and loyalists were quickly expelled. Unfortunately, this left the Imperial fleet with no chance of friendly fire, and the short-lived independence of the Saladi came to an end in a monumental hail of nuclear hellfire. The species was almost driven to extinction, with the few remaining Saladi across the stars quickly hunted down. The few survivors of this brutal genocide escaped the borders of Imperial territory, settled on the then-unclaimed world of Dyra, and kept quiet. 
=== To Clip the Wings of Freedom ===
While the Enolian System was kept under the iron boot of the Imperial military, its population never had the chance to think the Empire was anything other than a force of unbridled brutality. While most of the Enolians simply kept their heads down to avoid the harsh reprisals of the occupation, many of them begun to orchestrate a multi-year plan to oust the Tarasze from their systems. The neighboring Varbudian Union helped arrange an escape route for those who wanted to leave, which became known as the Starry Railroad in a bizarre nomenclatural throwback to pre-spaceflight Varbudos, as well as ship in supplies for the resistance movement. 
This effort would help preserve some of the species, but it would not be enough. The resistance movement’s covert operations were crushed at every turn, but they still survived. The Senate was gradually becoming less amenable to these military expenditures, and preparations were being made to withdraw from Canamar, but in a cruel twist of fate in 43 BC, General Shahso planted a neutronic bomb in the Imperial Palace, wiping out most of the peace-favoring politicians in a cruel coup-de-tat and decapitiating much of the government. He installed himself as the first God-Emperor of the Tyran Empire, with the mere Kings of ages past simply figureheads in his eyes, and began to cultivate a cult of personality. 
As Shahso’s first act, he ordered the complete eradication of the Enolians, seeing the entire race as “enemies of the state”, and therefore unworthy of life. He accomplished this with a convoluted plot to steal the last remaining sample of the Losekran Morphogenic Virus found on Nalaren by the explorations of the expanding Terallan Republic. The Morphogenic Virus was originally created eons ago by the builders of the ancient ruins found on Nalaren in an effort to preserve themselves by twisting the DNA of visitors to the planet and slowly morphing them into their species, with memories of their civilization and its hedonistic fall. In practice, though, those infected rarely lived more than three months after the conversion, driven insane by the voices of a dead civilization perpetually echoing in their heads. 
The Tarasze, not having DNA at all, were immune to the virus. The Enolians were not. After the sample arrived in Tyran space, the Empire’s scientists were ordered to manufacture as much of it as possible and prepare it for atmospheric seeding over Canamar and other Enolian worlds. The resistance movement successfully stopped the first shipment from reaching the colonies on Inielus, but soon they were overwhelmed, and the entire species quickly died in insanity, their bodies twisted into those of a species long dead. The few survivors rescued by the Starry Railroad would never be able to return to their homes, for fear that they would meet the same fate. 
After the seeming extinction of the Enolians, their planets were repopulated by the Tarasze, relieving the strain of rising populations in the Imperial core. But Shahso never learned, and he proceeded to treat the populace of the outer colonies as second class citizens simply due to their distance from the oh-so-holy Homeworld. Plainly, he forgot that Tarash was not their homeworld. This begun to foment further rebellions among the outer worlds, this time from the Tarasze themselves, and the Empire’s fate was all but sealed. 
=== The Sound of Thunder ===
See main article: Tyran War
Shahso's reign was good for precisely no one. His insane policies, including treating those who lived beyond the central systems as lesser simply by virtue of their location, hurt most of the population of the empire. The poplation's reaction to this hurt Shahso, and their rebellions hurt the entire nation. 
At first, such movements were quiet and minimally violent. For example, the Enolian Freedom Coalition got its start simply by distributing information on the culture of the vanished Kethan-Enol and the atrocities committed on them, beginning to win the populace to their point of view. The secession movement at Kaidras in the Varaltin-Zartha System started with operatives messing with the navigation computers of starships entering the system. But all of these movements would snowball into armed civil conflict.
What would be known as the Tyran War would begin between 6-4 BC, depending on where historians draw the line between precursor conflicts and the actual war on any given day. While the various secession movements would likely have foundered quite quickly on their own, the simultaneous nature of many of the insurgencies helped all of their causes by splitting the attention of Shahso's new war fleet. 
The Empire's predicament would take another turn for the worse when God-Emperor Shahso, displaying yet again his terrible grasp of strategy, ordered the Ninth Fleet to initiate a bombardment at Vistari. This decision made every disparate secession movement realize one key fact: That they would be utterly destroyed regardless, so they might as well fight as hard as they could. 
The Vistarin populace sent distress calls in every direction. Canamar and surrounding worlds were fighting on their own front, and Pekua had not yet burst into rebellion, so the nearest help was from the nascent Verdan Federation. Less than a year old and still trying to cool down centuries of conflict between its new member states, any sane observer would not expect them to be very effective in a brawl with a 400-year-old genocidal empire. But they sent their newly combined fleet posthaste to Vistari, catching the lumbering Tyran warships completely by surprise and shredding a large portion of the fleet before a reasonable defense could be mounted. The Tyran War#Battle of Vistari was a Federation victory, and its story would inspire the populations of the Voyorr and Varaltin-Zartha Systems into armed revolution.
The Falacian Dominion would also be pulled into the newly created Yazera Pact against the Tyran Empire when an pincer attack on Kaidras illegally entered Falacian space and fired on ships in transit to Rayato. While they did not initially directly support the rebels out of fear that they would inspire their own conquered planets, they did send their fleets into battle against the Imperial Fleet along the border, preventing them from giving all of their attention to the growing rebellions. This action is credited for ensuring the independence of the Federate of Varaltin-Zartha.
Midway through the war, in 7 AC, the Dominion underwent drastic governmental reforms granting their subject species much greater rights and self-determination, almost completely removing the threat of internal rebellion. This made it politically acceptable to the Janisa to send the Falacian war fleets directly to support the Tyran rebellions. Around this time, the military government of the Talarian Union was overthrown by civilian revolution and power was restored to the Senistra Council, which commandeered the old regime's assets to assist. Talarian starships fought in battles at Canamar, Inielus, Bakino, and others.
The self-proclaimed God-Emperor's grip on his empire was slipping. Shahso's advisors knew his plans were failing utterly, and Shahso himself was beginning to act erratically. He pulled entire fleets from the front lines for seemingly no reason, replacing them with older ships and giving nonsensical orders, killing those who questioned him on the spot (he wasn't this insane before) Then, in 9 AC, he abruptly committed suicide, jumping from his balcony in the Imperial Palace in Lor'Vela and falling nearly a kilometer to his death. 
As the Empire was controlled near-absolutely at this point by him or those he gave orders to, his sudden death threw the Imperial government into disarray. The senate had long since been dissolved, and in any case the Tyran Empire had no systems in place to deal with succession as they had never had a singular ruler before. 
Upon the news of his death reaching the battle lines, many Tyran ships took it as an opportunity to outright leave the battle, setting course for deep space and vanishing rom history. The rebels viewed it as a sign of their success, declaring victory on their new capitals. By the time the senate reorganized itself to take Shahso's place, the war was functionally over, and they just had to rubber stamp the armistice.
=== And the Children Shall Lead ===
Any good politicians, being seen as threats, were either executed, jailed, or exiled during Shahso's reign. This meant that the reorganized senate was populated entirely by random upper-caste people who had enough money to functionally buy their way into government. These people would not have gotten close to the halls of the Imperial Palace before Shahso, but now they were the only option. 
After the secession of Marakat, Voyorras, the Enolian Coalition, and the Federate of Varaltin-Zartha, the Empire was not large. The Tyran War had damaged the megastructures at Gagibah, Vernarca, and the other supermassive stars in the Tyran Core, transforming them back from energetic hubs of industry to massive, extremely dangerous roadblocks.
As the final straw, Athos's supernova was confirmed to be imminent by the best scientists of known space. The former rebel states were all drowning in rebuilding efforts after the war, and were in no position and had no desire to help their old oppressor. The Verdan Federation, showing its common habit of putting morality over what would make any political sense, offered the aid of its vast transport ships to help evacuate Tarash and the Anhooie System. Thankfully, the Athos System itself was only populated by already mobile habitation structures as Cela had been a burnt cinder for centuries. But due to the new senate's inexperience and twisted sense of pride, they refused the Federation's help for almost a decade before, in 29 AC, they relented and allowed the transports to cross the border. Project Egress had begun. 
This did not leave enough time. While the Athos System habitats were able to simply flick on their engines and leave, some deploying impressive but easily manufactured sails to quite literally surf the shockwave, the Anhooie System was not so lucky. Project Egress' fleet of transports combined with hastily refitted Tyran warships managed to evacuate just ten percent of the planetary population of Tarash, Mina, and Naranyx, flicking back and forth between the Anhooie System and neighboring planets.
The supernova's effects took a year and a half to cross interstellar space. The sheer intensity of gamma radiation emanating from the blast instantly killed the populations of the halves of the planets facing it, and the scouring of the planetary surface quickly wiped away the remainder as their structures cracked and burned. The physical shockwave of gas lumbered along in its wake, turning what little remained into scattered chunks of rock.
The Empire was gone. The ruling council at Rigela declared itself the new senate of the Tarasze people, and began to organize the Tyran Free State. Reeling from the loss of their homeworld, the refugees and the few other people within the borders of the old Tyran Empire went along with their plan simply to preserve any sense that a future could be seen. 
== Successor States ==
The one-two punch of the Tyran War and the Athos Supernova made the collapse of the empire inevitable. The rebellions that blossomed into the Tyran War would ultimately succeed, supported by three other fairly powerful nations. This carved the Imperial territories down to less than half of its original size and gave birth to Voyorras, the Enolian Coalition, Marakat, and the Federate of Varaltin-Zartha. Debatably, the Enolian Coalition could be considered a successor state to the destroyed Kethan-Enol, but most do not as the original Enolians are all dead or living very far away. 
After the Athos Supernova, the new senate organized in the Rigela System proclaimed the Tyran Free State, which inherited the remaining territory of the old empire and helped support the refugees of the supernova. 
== Astrography ==
At its height, the Empire encompassed a great number of star systems, extending from the Tyran Neutral Zone facing the Verdan Federation across roughly 30 light-years of space towards unknown space beyond. An expansionist power, the Empire followed the precept of unlimited expansion, holding that conquest was the best course for the survival and prosperity of the Tarasze people.
Of course, the empire often claimed regions of space that were far beyond its actual power-projection capabilities, although these claims were seldom recognized by contemporary governments. The Olorat and Quantum Systems were examples of these bogus claims. 
=== Neighboring Powers ===
At the height of the Tyran Empire's territorial claims at the end of the reign of Shahso, it held guarded borders with the Verdan Federation at the Tyran Neutral Zone, as well as the Falacian Dominion. While not directly bordering the country at any point, the Talarian Union was considered to be a potential threat to Tyran dominance.
=== Capital ===
Tarash, originally a desolate world when the damaged fleet set down on its surface, was gradually terraformed by the expanding Tyran Empire into a lush, forested world covered in dark green plants. Tarash's capital city and the seat of government of the entire Empire was the city of Lor'Vela, in the southern tropical region of the planet. Other cities included Sa'Nula and Kosi. Tarash, along with much of the rest of the Anhooie System, was destroyed completely by the dangerously close Athos Supernova. 
The chaos left in the wake of God-Emperor Shahso made it impossible to effectively run the nation at all, let alone organize a planetary evacuation. The planetary status of Tarash's remains are dubious at best. An attempt was made to reorganize the Tyran Senate in the Rigela System, which was less affected, but this effort was to be in vain as the remaining territory of the Empire simply left.
=== Major Worlds ===
 	 	 	
 	Tarash 	Mina 	Cela
 	 	 	
Location 	Anhooie System 	Anhooie System/Amarius	Athos System
 	 	 	
 	 	 	
Population 	4.3 trillion (41 AC)	~2.1 trillion (41 AC) 	1.7 trillion (40 AC)
 	 	 	
 	 	 	
Status 	Destroyed (41 AC) 	Destroyed (41 AC) 	Destroyed (40 AC)
 	 	 	
 	 	 	
Unique Attributes:	 	 	
 	 	 	
 	Pekua 	Canamar 	Vistari
 	 	 	
Location 	Voyorr System 	Enolia System 	Deferna System
 	 	 	
 	 	 	
Population 	7.9 trillion 	0.9 trillion 	1.7 trillion
 	 	 	
 	 	 	
Status 	Inhabited, Capital of Voyorras	Inhabited, Capital of Enolian Coalition	Inhabited, Capital of Marakat
 	 	 	
 	 	 	
Unique Attributes:	 	 	
== Government ==
The Tyran Empire, for most of its history, was ruled by the Tyran Senate. In times of war, they elected a Dictator, who would have control over the military in the name of quick decisions for the survival of the empire. The Emperor of the Tyran Empire had absolutely no power and functioned almost as a religious figure, with their health and the strength of their line supposedly being related to the health of the Empire itself. This idea fell apart when the Emperor died without heirs in 274 BC, at which point the position was discarded by the senate. 
The Senate was functionally both the legislative and executive branch of the Tyran government, and each senator represented a territory in the Empire. Senators took power either through inherited station, riches, selection by the senate, or even a vote by the upper class. The aristocracy held a great power over the Senate, and many of the nobility's richest and most powerful noblemen held direct power over the empire through a government office.
God-Emperor Shahso's reign threw all of these established facts out the window. He dissolved the senate and had much of its membership exiled, killed, or jailed. He did not reinstate the previously-powerless and ceremonial title of Emperor, but instead took the title of "God-Emperor", the implication being that he was both the head of state of the empire and the literal god of the Tarasze. His reign, from 43 BC to 9 AC, was the only time that the Empire was ruled wholly by a single person. 
=== Agencies and Institutions ===
*Tyran Senate
*Defense Committee
*Tyran Guard
*Tyran Ministry of Science
*Order of the Glass Box
*Compliance Division
=== Foreign Relations ===
=== Subject Species ===
All of these species were at one point or another under the control of the Tyran Empire. Not necessarily at the same time.
*Enolians
*Saladi
*Terakela
== Society ==
== Military ==
Category:Minmus' Articles
Category:Great Powers
Category:Civilizations
Category:History