The Regency

Technological Advancement Tier 3: Interstellar Age

The Regents of Concordance, also referred to as the Regency, is a theocratic hegemony made up of multiple alien species that maintained control over a large portion of the Orion Arm in the Milky Way galaxy. The Regency is a political, military, and religious affiliation, originally a mutual alliance between the Shu-Yar, Shemzaru and Muutox following a brutal conflict between the three warring races. Its expansion is primarily motivated by its desire to increase the influence of their religion, be it through force or diplomacy.

## The Regency Religion: The Promise

The Regency is founded on and united by a single religion, based upon the worship of the ancient race of beings known as the Primogenitors. According to the Regency religion, the Primogenitors, being nearly omniscient and all-powerful beings, discovered a method to transcend the physical world and achieve divinity. They departing this known universe and entered deep space in order to enter the final stages of their transcendent metamorphosis. According to the Regency belief, the Primogenitors left behind many relics and scriptures which detailed how they would return to the universe when their metamorphosis was complete, that they would take their stead as supreme authority over all creation, and that they would reward those who labored diligently towards preserving the universe in their absence and properly preserved their legacy. The Regents of Concordance, or at least their leadership caste -- the Shu-Yar -- believe themselves to be the chosen inheritors of the Primogenitors' divine technology. Likewise, they consider themselves the ultimate authority over the known and unknown universe -- and all those who inhabit it, perceiving themselves as the de facto regents who will preserve and maintain the galaxy until such a time the Primogenitors return to claim their throne.

The foundation of the Regency is built upon the desire to reclaim lost Primogenitor technology and use these gifts of divinity they left behind in the physical world. Their ultimate purpose, however, is to locate and reawaken the Primogenitors. In doing so, they believe that all faithful adherents to the Regency Religion will be allowed to transcend the limitations of the physical world and walk among the Primogenitors as divine and truly equal beings. All client races of the Regency follow the Shu-Yar prophets in the hopes of also ascending into godhood.

## Background and History

Aeons ago the Shu-Yar Refugees who left their homeworld aboard a salvaged Primogenitor Cruiser entered a Shemzaru-occupied system, which led to first contact between the Shu-Yar and the Shemzaru. The Shu-Yar, who came to Shemzaru in order to claim and study the rich abundance of Primogenitor artifacts left behind, soon found themselves sharing different ideologies of how such relics should be treated, which quickly developed into conflict between the Shu-Yar and the Shemzaru.

The Shemzaru believed that Primogenitor relics were sacred and should not be touched, while the Shu-Yar believed that they should be studied and use them to make practical objects of their own design in order to better serve the Primogenitors' scriptures. The highly militarized and brutal Shemzaru attacked the Shu-Yar almost as soon as their differences became apparent, and a war between the two species raged for fifty-six years.

At the start of the war, the Shemzaru had a numerical advantage in terms of ships and soldiers, and their strength and military tactics overwhelmed their enemy by a considerable factor. The knowledge gleaned from years of travel and the capabilities of their Primogenitor Cruiser, however, gave the Shu-Yar the advantage in ship-to-ship combat, the most common type of combat witnessed during the war.

Halfway into the war, a third contestant entered the fray: The Muutox. A crustacean species with many insectoid qualities, not to dissimilar to Earth's crab and wasp.
The Muutox, having observed the conflict from a distance up until now, chose this time to strike a devastating blow against their ancestral enemies of the Shemzaru by means of conducting numerous small-scale operations, targeting vital supply routes, destroying strategic equipment outposts, and assassinating high officials within the Shemzaru command structure, crippling the Shemzaru, who could not effectively retaliate being locked in warfare with the Shu-Yar.

With victory seemingly close at hand, the Shu-Yar pressed onwards to destroy the final remnants of the Shemzaru until the ever-ambitious Muutox decided to attack the Shu-Yar as well. Being extremely ill-equipped and inexperienced in the art of war, the Shu-Yar stood a real risk of losing their most prized belonging: the Primogenitor Cruiser, which would no doubt make a fine addition to the, otherwise rather rudimentary, Muutox naval fleet.

With numbers on both Shemzaru and Shu-Yar sides of the conflict equally sapped of resources and diminished of manpower, the two species came to fear a very real threat: annihilation. The Shemzaru who feared it through the Shu-Yar's use of the Primogenitor Cruiser -- as they acknowledged both the Shu-Yar and the Muutox would wield its power in order to destroy them, and the Shu-Yar who came to admit that further prolonged conflict with both the Muutox and Shemzaru would culminate in a disastrous defeat. Not to mention that if the Shemzaru and Muutox were this dangerous, there might be other sentient life far more threatening, making their chances of survival in the galaxy slim for a species with such a low population and even lower reproduction rate. The long and brutal war caused the Shemzaru to violate their very beliefs; study and incorporate Primogenitor technology into their own in order to avoid defeat — their incorporation of Primogenitor technology eventually caused a stalemate in the war against the Shu-Yar, and even temporary alliance in order to defeat the increasingly aggressiveness of the Muutox.
Yet, at the culmination of the way, the Shu-Yar's Primogenitor Cruiser proved far too deadly a craft, and forced both the Shemzaru and the Muutox into an unconditional surrender.

Befitting of their warrior culture, the Shemzaru have great respect for a worthy adversary, whereas the Muutox were forcefully coerced into utter submission. After their surrender, the Shu-Yar sought to broker a permanent alliance between the three races, arguing that with the creativity and adaptability of the Muutox, the strength and combat prowess of the Shemzaru, and the spacefaring aptitude -- alongside the Primogenitor Cruiser -- of the Shu-Yar, that this union of species would be nigh unstoppable; it would secure everlasting safety and certainty for all member races.

The alliance between the three species was formed in [X/X] with the signing of the Promise of Harmony, the treaty that ended the conflict and brought about peace between the three races.

## Government and Society

The species that make up the hegemony known as the Regency come from different parts of the galaxy and take all kinds of physical forms. The Regency is organized into a caste system with their religious leaders -- the Shu-Yar -- or Regents - at the top of the hierarchical pyramid.

The Regency society is a single hegemonic culture. It is a culture that practices imperial geopolitical dominance through implied means of power as opposed to direct military force.

The three ruling species of the Regency are the Shu-Yar, the Shemzaru, and the Muutox; though the Shu-Yar are generally believed to be a step above the other two. The Regency have numerous echelons of government, the highest echelon being the High Conclave of Deacons, who are responsible for holding legislative, executive, and judiciary powers. Composed of 300 members of Shu-Yar, Shemzaru and Muutox, the High Conclave of Deacons is ruled by the three Supreme Regents, each encompassing the races of the High Conclave. These hierarchs are the highest political and religious authority in the Regency. For each new Age, three new Hierarchs are appointed; in order for them to usher in a new age and assume power, they must receive a blessing from the acting members on the Conclave of Deacons, which causes no small amount of political intrigue.

Verily, the entirety of the Regency's culture -- its military, industrial endeavors, intellectual life, politics in general -- are all directed and geared towards serving the needs of its religion. While the Regency is indeed an extremely efficient and fine-tuned machine capable of magnificent feats, it's single strength -- and greatest weakness -- is the universal reliance upon the state religion; and the Regents who oversee it.

## Commerce and Culture

The Regency uses trade itself as a form of economy, putting an emphasis on bartering goods and services instead of exchange of currency. As the Regency's cohesion is grounded in their beliefs of working for and sharing Primogenitor technology, every member of the Regency is given a form of employment -- a service to fulfill in exchange for goods and necessities. In the Regency's culture, service for salvation is the moral motivation for the entire population. Despite this, there is discrimination within the Regency, due to their hegemonic thinking. The lesser species are treated as second-hand citizens with absolutely no political or representative voice or power.

The Regency is always eager to add new species to their faith (with rare few exceptions), so long as they pledge allegiance to the Shu-Yar as their supreme leaders and the reverence of Primogenitor legacy as their religion. Enlisted races are in all essence enslaved by the Regency, forced to live a completely different way of life and - if unlucky enough - have their entire culture and history erased. The races of the Regency are held together by a common belief -- the slave races are driven by the religion which they have been forced to accept. Most races are only kept for their varying skills to be exploited, rather than to be a part of a flourishing empire.

## Military Power

Like other civilizations, the Regency maintains a permanent armed forces branch used to enforce order, conduct atmospheric and space combat operations, and generally project the Regency's power onto others. The military comprises the Regency Navy, the Regency Army and the Special Warfare Group containing the Special Operations Division (SpecOps). The abilities of the various component races are often exploited by the military to help push forward the ever-growing war machine of the Regency, having been its primarily means to spread its religious doctrine to new species; and keep the member species of the Regency compliant.

## Technology and Research

Regency technology is repeatedly referred to as more imitative rather than innovative. Their technology is based largely on mimicry and reverse-engineering of the leftover Primogenitor artifacts they have discovered.

While quite potent and advanced, the Regency's advances in the field of science and technology are significantly slower than one would otherwise expect of a species-spanning empire. This is, perhaps, the Regency's most serious disadvantage. Their technology is limited by this almost parasitic reliance on reversed-engineered Primogenitor technology. In Regency culture, there are religious laws set that prevent them from fully exploring what the Primogenitors employed to create that technology, arguing the core components of their Primogenitor relics are to remain pure and unsullied, lest the Primogenitors return to perceive the Regency's appropriation of their technology as theft and mockery, rather than religious reverence and awe.

Like other advanced civilizations, Regency ships can enter Shiftstream space and travel faster than light. However, the Regency equivalent of the Zexonyte Drive is far more efficient and reliable, relying instead upon an unknown Primogenitor alloy. Regency vessels do not suffer the "temporal fluidity" of the Shiftstream to such a degree as most other vessels. As a result, Regency battle groups are much more efficient when acting as a coordinated group, and can strike more quickly and decisively.

Architecture within The Regency of Concordance is known for its curved, organic and sophisticated looking style, likely for the aesthetic tastes of the higher-ranked castes. Constructed of distinctive crimson or white-gold metal, these colors are the main focus of Regency design and distributed throughout their starships, and weapons.

## Weapons Technology

Most of the Regency arsenal is plasma-based Directed Energy Weapons, however the Regency are known to utilize chemical crystalline-based weapons.

Plasma weapons are more rugged and far more effective than laser based weapons. They use a power cell to provide power to the internal components- most importantly a high energy current at the muzzle end of the weapon- to complete the cycling, ignition and release operation of the weapon. Plasma weapons use Hydrogen Fluoride as a source of fuel. This fuel is flash boiled and contained within a magnetic field until it turns from a cool liquid to superheated ionized gas.

Regency plasma weapons are effective but crude for their implied level of technology. As such, they are prone to overheating, malfunction and sometimes explosion -- a weakness among the weapon class. Weapon designs compensate for this, although they render weapons inoperable as the excess heat is dissipated. Once the energy of the plasma weapon is depleted, it must be recharged, or discarded.

The Regency are also known to employ ammunition based weapons, the most common of these being crystal based weapons. These weapons appear to use some type of chemical that reacts to environments and forms a hard razor sharp crystal that, when fired, fly across the battlefield and detonate after approximately 5 seconds -- covering the opponents innards with crystalline shrapnel.