Antares Federation

The **Antares Commonwealth**, officially the **Federation Commonwealth of Antares**, is a centralized federation of the interstellar nations, and successor state to the **Antares Confederacy**.

### Liberation Earth Campaign

The declaration of war against the Greater Terran Empire occurred simultaneously with a sweeping decisive strike through the Siuhuri-Aldebaran wormhole. It was almost identical to the Reyes Operation attempted 40 years earlier but the scale of the forces involved defied any comparison. Forged by the trials of the Unbidden War, fueled by the massed industries of their shining worlds, Commonwealth Forces had grown exponentially larger. During fleet actions in Aldebaran, Capella, Sigma Draconis, Sirius and dozens of other Star Systems, the military forces of the Terran Empire were systematically torn apart. In their wake came vast armadas of troop transports and the Commonwealth Army embarked on the liberation campaigns for which they had always been intended.

In the war against the Greater Terran Empire every soldier, on both sides, became a casualty. Some escaped physical wounds, but none were above the emotional torment of the conflict. The Terran state was no longer a nation in any meaningful sense, but an inhuman mechanism running with deadly precision towards its own destruction. Unable to achieve victory, it instead dedicated itself towards merely increasing the suffering and violence, punishing Antares for every step forward it took. Through their superstitious belief in technology, the leaders of the Terran Empire had abandoned any feeling for the life and dignity of man. The individual held no importance, no consideration given to their uniqueness and distinctiveness, used up instead as a raw material. Men, women and children were thrown in the face of Commonwealth guns, expended as any soldier might expend ammunition.

The Battle of Earth was decided before it began, but the inhuman insanity of the Terran Empire prevented any surrender or withdrawal. Whatever glory that might have been won was replaced by a tremendous feeling of agony that gripped every Commonwealth soldier with cruel force. The birthplace of mankind had been defiled, transformed into an unsurpassed violation and degeneration of the human essence. Earth was a graveyard, a place where untold billions of lives had been senselessly snuffed out, where an immeasurable wealth of human knowledge, human happiness, human plans, hopes, talents and fertile possibilities of the future were destroyed forever. This, and nothing more, was the prize that the Antares Commonwealth had won.

## United Nations of Earth

Six million souls departed Earth’s orbit on  March 1st, 2159. The Earheart Flotilla was the largest ever constructed, carrying not only scientists, engineers and specialists, but their families. They were to be the  second wave of colonists and Antares eagerly awaited them. It took 545 years for the  descendants of those Pioneers to finally set foot upon the world that was to be their  home, and they did so not as explorers, settlers, or even lost sons and daughters  returning to the fold, but as liberators. How or why the Earhart Flotilla had emerged so far off course, stranded in a distant alien wilderness, was never  discovered. It took centuries of struggle for the colonists to overcome the challenges  of their new home. New nations emerged, scattered across a variety of worlds, each with their own triumphs and tragedies. Yet when they finally came together again, bound in common purpose under the banners of a new Confederacy, the mystery of how they had arrived became of  far less importance than to where they might go. What would become known as the Antares Miasma resembled a type of dumping ground, a place where objects from across the galaxy had been taken, either at random or for some unknown purpose. Yet as the Confederacy spread across the stars, and entered into a galactic community of nations, this strange region in the galaxy was transformed into something else. Through its willingness to accept all those who fled persecution and war, Antares became a sanctuary. In its determination to never bow to the ambitions of warlords  or the might of tyrants, it became a symbol. But it was a symbol that seemed to clash with  the practical realities of the universe itself. The Confederacy faltered, and at times  failed. Potential partners became rivals and trusted allies became pawns. Yet the  lesson of the Pioneers was never forgotten. No matter how much had been lost  and how great a struggle remained, a better life could be achieved. Not  for the one, or the few, but for all.

The nation that liberated the Earth was not the  same one that had set out to find it. And to the Commonwealth of Antares, the birthplace of humanity had become as alien a world as those first settled by the Earhart Flotilla. It  was no longer their home, but it could be again. It took generations for the wounds inflicted  first by the Screk and later the Greater Terran Empire to be healed. The old battlefields were  cleared and the tragedies of the old regimes brought to account. It was as great an endeavor as ever undertaken by Antares, and one not accomplished without setbacks and  loss, but it was accomplished. On March 1st, 654al , the reconstruction effort formally ended. The United Nations of Earth was proclaimed and a new sister republic to the Antares Commonwealth was born. The era that followed is known by a thousand different names on a thousand different worlds, but on each, the story’s the same.  Wherever tyranny found victory, great ships would appear bearing the flags of a thousand different nations. And by the skill of their diplomats or the strength of their guns, the air would become too pure for the slave,  so that all those who breathed it grew free. The promise of Antares alone was enough  to cast exploited worlds into open revolt and no plea for aid went unanswered. With their own populations turning against them, the last despots united, desperate to prevent  the new age in which they would play no part. The wars against the Ro'thugann Hegemony and  the Ti-Zru nearly matched the scale if not the savageness of the Terran Liberation  campaign. For the only time in history, the Antares System itself became a battlefield, until the might of Earth, ‘the Old Colossus’, arrived at the critical moment to secure  the victory of the New. Piece by piece the last holdouts were overcome until there remained no kings, no autarchs, no emperors.

Against the combined power of Earth, Antares  and the galaxy of nations that joined them, even the impenetrable shields of the ancient Screk were overcome. For the first time in centuries, the  enveloped worlds of the [[Thimodian Republic]] were reunited with the outside galaxy, and nations made whole again. Vrul-Ho too was reformed, and it was only the first of many. Worlds were sculpted into being not by engineers, but by artists. The power of the galaxy itself was harnessed bringing peace and plenty to all those who dwelt within. There was seemingly nothing that could not be accomplished. Today, when a civilization meets a certain threshold of technological development, the representatives of a great Commonwealth will reveal themselves. An invitation will be issued, an offer to become a part of a community of nations; a vast multitude of species that came together to achieve wonders that would be impossible alone. Prospective members will learn of this Commonwealth’s history; the rise and fall of the Ancient Screk, the conquest of a planet named Earth, and a group of pioneers who suffered and died for the chance at a new home and better life. They will witness the tragedy of Vrul-Ho, the war against the Great Khan, and the liberation of a thousand nations and then untold millions more. They will see ships  depart for distant galaxies, first dozens and then hundreds, gradually linking them together with a  web of industry, culture, commerce and discovery. They will be given the opportunity to find a place for themselves in a welcoming and just universe not as pawns or servants, but equal partners. To push the limits of scientific knowledge, art and philosophy. A chance to look outwards, not  only at the universe, but one another... and to join a chorus of voices in declaring that:

> " **Here we  will remain most excellently...
> But not here alone** *.*"
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