Bassari Comintern

## General Overview

The Bassari Socialist Republics are a small empire located near the core of the Black Eye Galaxy in the Lambda Quadrant. Known for their shrewd and inventive protection over their territory, they have not been seen within the Black Eye Galaxy for centuries, following a self-enacted policy of isolationism known as the *"Bulwark Policy"*.

The Bassari people discovered warp technology in 2215 when a vessel from the nearby Black Eye Consortium crashed on their world, killing the pilots following an ion storm. As a result, the Bassari took many years to uncover the secrets of Consortium technology but at the same time, grew fearful of the Consortium returning to retrieve their property.

The revelation that they were not alone in the universe threw the planet of Bassar into chaos, prompting a long continuous war on the surface of Bassar for almost a hundred years until finally, in 2312, the entire of Bassari civilisation was conquered by the Jovan Republic, a socialist advocacy group led by charismatic speaker Hana Jovan.

After the conquest of much of the planet through the advent of plasma based weaponry, sold to the Jovan Republic by the Kabbalis Consortium in exchange for mining access to the rare *Tempestrium* located on Bassar's moon, Hana Jovan arose to become absolute ruler of the majority of Bassar, introducing a period of rapid industrialisation and forced collectivisation.

As a result of this, all Bassari were forced to submit all their property to the state in a move that Jovan preached as *"fairness for all"* but secretly used the resources gathered from Bassari society to build space capable vessels which could attack the Scuiri vessels and force them out of the system.

In 2333, Hana Jovan launched an effective propaganda campaign designed to heighten the paranoia around alien intervention and interference on the *proletariat*, encouraging a mass recruitment drive for the newly developed *Bassari Star Navy* with ships exclusively developed from Consortium technology. The Star Navy launched an assault on the unsuspecting Scuiri mining vessels which had been in the system since 2311 and forced them out of the system.

Having access to new resources, the Bassari government continued to evolve in the Bassari Socialist Republics under the keen intellect of Hana Jovan.

However when Hana Jovan died in 2341 with no heir or marriage, tensions began to rise between various factions in the Government to seize power. The eventual winner was Teles Alna, an unsuspecting minor member of the governmental socialist party who managed to have most of his opposition either vanish or discredited with various plots.

With the power struggle over and Alna emerging triumphant, he proved to be a very different leader then Jovan had been. Outwardly, he would project himself as a kind and benevolent *Father of the Nation* but inwardly he proved to be cruel and sadistic. Many of his senior staff regularly attended dinners where they would be too frightened to speak, for fear of losing their position or worse, their life.

Alna also lived in luxury, constructing several impressive palaces on the surface of Bassar, while his people lived in squalor and misery with many unable to claim food any form of currency had been banned, forcing the Bassari citizens to rely on state handouts which became increasingly smaller.

Teles Alna only ruled for thirty nine years, but his period was marked on Bassari as *The Endless Winter* due to the constant starvation and secret police that he installed to monitor compliance within the state.

Following Alna's death in 2380, his Vice President Matis Kal came to power on a wave of popular adulation. Kal offered to return free and fair elections to the Bassari Socialist Republics, as well as a redistribution of state wealth, noting the many in the Government lived in luxury while the people starved.

However by 2389, the food ration was only increased slightly and although elections had returned, Kal's secret police would ensure that people voting for anyone else but him would go missing and turn up later completely changed by the experience. However in public, Kal was seen as a vast improvement over Teles Alna.

Kal also instituted the *Bulwark Policy* which isolated Bassar from any other civilisation, fearing that his citizens would be incensed from other free civilisations like the Black Eye Consortium and depose him. He also instituted the strict censorship of both the media and Bassar Information Network, with no external content being allowed to be viewed on Bassar under possible imprisonment or death.

Any external trade would be rejected and any vessel that travelled within the Bassari system would be unreservedly attacked.

In 2419, the entire planet of Bassar was engulfed by the Void. This was the corrected when the Q Continuum restored much of the Black Eye Galaxy in December 2419.

## Known Vessel Classes

* ***Solidarity Class Battleship***
* ***Unity Class Colony Ship***
* ***Yedin Class Battlecruiser***
* ***Leshi Class Frigate***
* ***Novorossiysk Class Battleship***