Ecumene Faction Starlog

**Note:** The following information is only for those interested in writing lore for or of the Ukrazol Ecumene, or miscellaneous viewers who wish to see a run-down of the faction as a whole. It does not deal with lore events, individual members, or otherwise, but provides a comprehensive look at the faction.

**Note 2:** The information here is subject to revision.

## Who are they?

The Ukrazol Ecumene, or more formally known as the Enlightened Ecumene of Civilizations is a despotic meritocratic parafascist intergalactic state and one of the major power players in our neck of the universe, though like most of the others they are not able to directly challenge the Scrin on their home turf and instead rely on more portable FTL to keep away from the Universe's predominant goliath. They are locked in lengthy conflicts with many other powers in the stars such as the Zeelich Communes, the Star Imperium, the Cosmic Regency and their allies to name a few and has been for an enormous span of time. The Ecumene, as a society that is millions of years old has a rather different conception of timescales than humans, and as such consider the long vigil they've had over the Earth to be a fairly minimal time investment. Spanning across multiple galaxies and spreading outwards from their home of the Whirlpool Galaxy, even for a fascistic state their stomach for loss of life is remarkable. The contradiction this has with their elitist approach to warfare is intentional.

Officially they label themselves as a meritocracy, where one's position, rank, and status are determined by objective artificial intelligence driven assessments of performance from data collected continually. Measuring everything from ideological convictions, demonstrated aptitudes, social circles, educational background, commentary made by other citizens, and preferences. In practice this system is mostly meant to legitimise an all pervasive hierarchy and to make people compete with one another in an attempt to advance themselves, seeing their peers as not comrades but competition and loyalty to their superiors as the only way out. As such, cruelty is strongly selected for, as is an enthusiasm for imperialism and colonisation and the grinding into the dust of rivals and inferiors, all reinforced by the officially sanctioned state cult of Ullalloo, the great wind god of civilisation and order who brings logic and rationality to where there was only chaos and anarchy before.

The only loyalty people need is to the state, and nothing need exist beyond that. They should instead stand on their own strength, prove their individual supremacy and worth as singular, atomic persons and exercise the liberty to demonstrate that supremacy to impose order so that their supremacy may reach ever greater heights with the helping tentacle of the Ecumene. In a sense, it is an individualistic totalitarian society, one where there is "freedom" for the strong to crush the weak and to jealously amass and guard their own power in collusion with others who have clawed their way upwards lest anyone else threaten it. If this hasn't made it clear already, the Ecumene is the morally darkest faction in Echoes and as a rule, later fanfactions should not try to outcompete it in terms of malevolence. It is the bloodiest, cruelest regime imaginable that would be able to self-sustain, and everything it touches is poisoned by its all-consuming malice, greed, and arrogance.

It is important however, to note that the people of the Ecumene are not inherently evil anymore than humans are. The Ykazri Primacy rebellion movement alone is proof of this. The Ecumene are villains, but they are not monsters because a monster has no choice about its nature; it's born too big, too strong, with needs and urges that are harmful to other living things and it is ultimately a tragic figure. The Ecumene's leadership however, through the conditions that they exist in and what they perceive to be as their interests, choose the path of the Iron Fist and the grinding wheel of colonial and imperial oppression because it benefits them. But under different circumstances, any of the Ecumene's citizens could be as kindly as any saint and despite all the Ecumene's efforts at social control, there are always those who refuse to submit without outright mind control that they have long mastered ways to protect against.

The one exception to this are the Societal Organizers; the Ecumene's rough semi-equivalent of the SS; who have been neurologically rewired to become true monsters. All capacity for doubting or disobeying the Ecumenical ideal is stripped away, and at the most fundamental level they are completely rebuilt into the hammer of the state. The Organizers are already selected from those who value loyalty to the Ecumene above all other things, or were outright grown or built or bred specifically to be organizers. An Organizer will never disobey orders that fit within the immutable doctrines of the Ecumene, and will always seek to reproduce and spread this ideal and has no fear of death or pain in the pursuit of this. They are simply put, abominations whose creation is a sign that something very, very wrong has gone on because they are life that exists entirely to enslave, destroy, punish, and oppress and can no longer choose to be anything else.

## What they want

The Ukrazol Ecumene, as an Ultrafascistic society, ultimately craves constant expansion, growth, and trying to outrace the weight of its own contradictions by shoving more fuel into its eternal fire. It views Earth's factions as little more than labrats that it can play around with to its heart's content to wring every bit of intriguing information and useful technological concept out of before the time comes to, as with all inferior societies; dash them against the stones until only the parts they want are left. The personnel of the fleet furthermore see this excursion as a great opportunity to advance their own careers, with competing ambitions jockeying for a way to ensure that they will be the most richly rewarded by their superiors once they have their triumph. That this will bring about catastrophic suffering to the Earth save for those like the Syndicate who are already being scouted for collaborators and compradors who will get a chance to reign in hell is of no real consequence to those who've walked the Ecumenical political scene long enough to have the real meat of their ideology ingrained into them. And perhaps with the creative bounty of Earth; they can at last claim the Ukrazols' rightful supremacy over the Scrin and thus over all other life. And with the offerings of some factions like the Combine or the Federation; even the universe itself need not be the limits of a truly Ecumenical Ecumene.

## Why (they tell you that) you should support them

* The Ecumene is bountiful; Essential and basic commodities are easily provided for all. Good (state censored) educations, food, shelter, water, clothing, entertainment, and labor are all easily available. Nobody goes without at least enough to survive. This is less due to welfare and more due to these things being so easily made. They are not handed out for free, but enough is available to even low class citizens at low enough prices that nobody is sleeping on the streets. At least so they say.
* The Ecumene is stable: Crime is terminally low in Ecumenical society and most criminals are very swiftly caught and dealt with. The system is securely placed and the threat of Chaos erupting is low. Similarly, the Ecumene brings this stability to places it conquers, restoring and refortifying order and quickly sweeping out the lawless. There is little risk of great political instability among the Ecumene and the Ecumene is an exceedingly safe place to live in. At least, if you believe what the Ecumene tells you.
* The Ecumene is unified: The vast majority of the Ecumene identify with the Society of the Great Wind who rule society and stand in solidarity with the nation to advance its goals. This has produced a cult of the nation that has stood the test of time and has brought the Ecumene together under the double lightning bolt flag. So long as one is worthy, they are together in the Ecumene against the foes of the Ecumene. At least, that's what the broadcasts proclaim.

Of course, the Ecumene is built atop a massive pile of lies at every stratum of society and only those at the top really have a clear idea of what's truly going on as big lies are brazenly, blatantly repeated and shouted from roof tops and anyone who contradicts the message is, if not disappeared; gaslit to hell and back to discredit and ridicule them. After all, the Ecumene is why you have the life you live, why would it lie?

## Why you should oppose them

* The Ecumene is discriminatory: The Ecumene regards those who can't make it in society as inferiors on a very fundamental level and not only actively modifies out perceived physical defects (hence why none of the Ecumene has conditions similar to downs syndrome), it regards allowing those born to disability to go uncured as a crime. The underclass is based on laziness and lack of fitness. Similarly the Ecumene does not care about concepts of class privilege when determining merit.
* The Ecumene is totalitarian: The Ecumene, more than any other facton, exercises total control over its citizenry. Ideologies deemed moral threats like Communism, leftist political ideals, and social justice are demonized at best or have their existences kept entirely hidden at worst. Challenges to the core tenet of Social Darwinism are too dangerous to allow to have a say. Similarly, the Ecumene does not allow lower grades and ranks to have their say against their superiors without being asked first.
* The Ecumene is miserable: The Totalitarianism also extends into how people behave towards one another, with the constant stress, anxiety, and paranoia of nonstop performance review, data collection, and cut-throat competition for status and resources meaning that genuine friendship is rare and the only real loyalty most people have is to their superiors or the Ecumene itself; "the strong are strongest alone" to quote the philosopher Daskarak. A mindset that lets the Ecumene's own populace perpetuate the system of control by oppressing each other and dragging one another down in the furious rat race up the pyramid while those at the top sacrifice them in huge numbers for their grandiose schemes that they have convinced the populace their sacrifice in the name of is necessary.
* The Ecumene is cruel: The Ecumene's political philosophy starts with the following phrase "The Strong will do as they please, the weak will suffer what they must." To coddle weakness is seen as an atrocity, to brutalise in order to correct perceived "wrongness" is seen as only logical if they are to learn to stop being such barbaric simpletons. And ultimately, if you deserved peace why haven't you defeated them yet?
* The Ecumene is blood-drenched: The Ecumene's purgation of undesirables, history of conquest, fondness for terror tactics, acceptance of cruelty against enemies and as a means of social control, and political repression mean that it has amassed enough skeletons in its closet to fill tomb worlds. Similarly, the Ecumene does not factor in morality in determining merit and actively selects against many hallmarks of it, meaning exceedingly monstrous people have found their way into the system's higher echelons to perpetuate the cycle of misery.
* The Ecumene's standard of merit is bullshit: The Ecumene's standard of merit is based entirely on what is deemed favourable to continuing the Ecumene itself, selecting against empathy, against a sense of fairness, and against people who are likely to have moral qualms about doing whatever is needed or desired to advance the power of the Ecumene across the universe and crush its enemies into the dirt.
* The Ecumene is hateful: Ivragilm is an ultranationalist ideal heavily based in revanchism, the concept of a national destiny, militarism, expansionism, and hate. The Ecumene hates the founding species of their political rivals, it hates the weak, it hates those it sees as barbaric and chaotic, it hates those who do things in ways that don't conform to its strict idea of how things ought to be, it hates internationalism and socialism who would weaken the strong to help the unworthy, it hates liberalist systems that it sees as insufficiently committed to the pursuit of power and the elevation of worthiness.
* The Ecumene is Unilateral: The Ecumene does not treat with other polities as equals or even give their concerns a single thought unless they can gain more out of something that way. Outside of rare circumstances, the Ecumene will not allow the other to bargain for better terms, you either acquiesce to its demands or get punished. If it seems to be negotiating, it is simply doing so because it believes it can get what it wants more easily that way.

## Are they Good Guys?

Absolutely, unequivocably, and utterly doubtlessly not. The Ecumene is the Bloodiest, Cruelest regime capable of long-term rule imaginable, and its themes are built around how the worship of power and "superiority" lead to dark, horrible paths and make monsters out of men and murderers out of the innocent. The Ecumenical system is also unsalvageable, it cannot be meaningfully reformed into something kinder without the cruelty without ceasing to be the Ecumene, and any act of such reform will trip over so many entrenched interests as force a violent destruction and rebirth of the system anyway.

They are ultimately, one of the primary contenders for the most evil faction in the setting, using absolutely nightmarish weapons of war in service to a cruel goal of what is ultimately; the dream of universal domination and the crushing of everything that resists them. They are understandable, in that you can see why they are so cruel and why many would follow such cruelty, but they are not sympathetic. They are not monsters, because they have a choice in what they do, but they are villains. While they aren't strictly speaking Nazis, they are fascistic and their capacity for cruelty easily matches that of the third reich. Overall, the Ecumene is one of the strongest contenders for the overarcing villain of the Paradox expanded universe.

It is also worth mentioninng that they do not merely see cruelty as a means to an end, they see cruelty as the point. The strong punish the weak so that the weak know that they must either become stronger or die. That is the law of the meritocracy, and it is only right to take pride and joy in enforcing the law. For that is your patriotic duty, to triumph over weakness in some small way every day, whether it is by one's own strength and self-improvement or the eradication and subjugation of weakness. For it is in this that civilisation gains the strength it needs to reshape the cosmos to its desires, and that the Ecumene itself never becomes the victim of the natural law.

The people of the Ecumene itself however, are people. They are not necessarily evil, even if they have been conditioned to accept it. Killing Ecumenical noncombatants who haven't had any personal part in the Ecumene's many, many atrocities is not to be celebrated. An Ukrazol hatchling might not be as cute to you as a human baby, but it is no less innocent.

## Extraterrestrial Knowledge

The Ecumene, like the Protectorate is generally knowledgeable on most of the world's factions. They have a good grasp on most everyone's military capacity and how they work. While some better hidden details may elude it, it knows enough to have been able to construct a solid plan for the assault stage and to remain hidden until then.

* More exotic examples of technology such as Chronospheres, don't have their workings entirely known to the Ecumene, but the Ecumene usually has what it takes to craft at least sensible theories for how they might work. More well hidden and esoteric examples of superscience like the Iron Curtain are generally less well known while readily plastered everywhere examples like Tesla Coils are very well known.
* The Ecumene is substantially more ignorant with regards to the Cult factions than it is to the Conventional factions. They know that there's something called an Order of the Talon and a Cult of the Black hand and that they, especially the former, are fond of being problems for Ecumenical operations, but their knowledge of their inner workings tends to be somewhat out of date and spotty. They do however, recognise the Talon in particular as a threat to their objectives and plan to destroy them sooner or later.
* The Ecumene is largely ignorant of the finer workings of the Protectorate and vice versa. While the two clash frequently, they remain largely in the dark about each other save that they find one another intensely interesting and threatening.

## Ecumenical Technology

The Ecumene is, like the Protectorate and Talon, generally a very strange faction, but the main aspects of their oddity can be largely broken up into three fields of technology.

* Energy manipulation and generation: The Ecumene brings a lot of strange and esoteric kinds of energies into play. The simplest is probably hard-light, which does exactly what it says on the tin. It is energy allowed to operate as if it were a physical substance. Thus allowing direct energy weapons to push enemies or for weapons and shields to be formed. Then there is Lance energy, which is a corrosive sort of energy that makes enemies easier to damage with subsequent hits by weakening their protection systems. Then there is flayer energy, which somehow interacts with targeted matter by violently pulling it apart particle layer by particle layer.
* Femtoscience: Femtoscience means dealing with particles on the subatomic scale. Compared to Ecumenical and Protectorate Nanotechnology, Ecumenical Femtotechnology while smaller, does not operate in quite as sophisticated a manner. The nanoots of the other two are very literally tiny robots while Ecumenical femtospores are more like subatomic particles that can be programmed. Femtoscience is frequently used to heal and repair, to construct durable substances (such as Ecumenical power armor which is motivated by synthetic musculature beneath armor plating), and to rapidly fabricate materiel within Ecumenical production ships. It can also be used as a weapon by acting as a super catalyst that renders the target extremely vulnerable to chemical reactions, generally resulting in them bursting into flames while rapidly corroding all the same.
* Fundamental constant alteration: This is where Kinetic Acceleration, Electron Disassociation, Cavorite anti-gravity, and Space Warping all come from. Kinetic acceleration describes the process of forcefully imparting kinetic energy through a direct electricity to motion process that kicks matter into moving in a very energy efficient process, simply by being able to turn one kind of energy into another easily. Electron Disassociation is a process where the polarity of particles, specifically electrons is reversed into their anti-matter state, with electrons being specifically targeted to reduce collateral damage and because the chaos of now having positrons is enough to kill nearly every target to ever exist anyway. Cavorite anti-gravity generates a repelling field when an electrical current is run through it proportional to the size of the cavorite chunk used and the amount of electricity put in, or when a positive current is put in it instead creates gravity, making it useful for flight and space travel. Space-warping, as it says on the tin, is the act of bending and warping space, which is key to their method of faster than light travel.

General Setting Details • Faction Bibles (Paradox) • Faction Bibles (Echoes) • Faction Bibles (Quantum) • Faction Bibles (Annihilation) • Faction Bibles (Null) • Faction Bibles (Pandemonium) • Faction Bibles (Insanity) • Faction Bibles (Extremist) • Faction Bibles (Silentium)