New Roman Republic

## Description:

“In Pace Decus, In Bello Praesidium,’ these are the words we live by in our nation, spravac, I wouldn’t expect you to understand the first half, but I’m sure you as well are a pillar of strength in times of war, so together we will be both, our alliance will quail the hearts of this galaxy, and all will live fairly beneath our rule.”

* Emperor Gabriel Santiago-Cortez at the Blackheart Conference

The New Roman Empire, previously the New Roman Republic, is a powerful interplanetary tribute empire that spans across the galactic northern half of the Milky Way, primarily in the Praeverse, Titanoverse, and half of the Magnaverse. The New Roman Empire is primarily well known for the uniqueness of its society and its military might, centering around the Humae Hybrids, a hybrid species between the menae and humans, the chief founding species of the empire. The New Roman Empire has gone through several periods of governance and social organization, though for the bulk of its history it existed as the New Roman Republic, or NRR, which even now it is still typically referred to as out of convenience. The NRR is well known for its great influence in the galaxy, which until recently was projected through its various alliances with other empires, most infamously the Spravac Empire.

The NRR was founded in its nascent state as the Union of Allied Species in 2096 CE after the First Human Exodus of Earth, which was caused by a vicious racially based civil war against the refugee menae species, who had lost their homeworld of Menae to the ayar Arch Warlord Corvus the Shadow.

After several centuries as the UNAS, the nation had collapsed in a popular civil war that led to the emergence of the NRR in 2114 CE. For over 3 millennia the NRR continued to spread throughout the Praeverse, Titanoverse, and Magnaverse, waging scores of bitter wars of assimilation and even extinction. This harsh imperialist policy was eventually challenged, leading to a rift in the Santiago Dynasty, which eventually led to another civil war in 5109 CE, which became known as the NRR Schism. The Schism led to the expulsion of most of the royal family, led by Dante Santiago, who wished to continue the old ways of the NRR and menae, including a policy of hybrid superiority. Following the expulsion of Dante to the Andromeda Galaxy, the NRR healed and continued to conquer, though extinction was no longer an option.

In 7017 CE, the NRR came in contact with the spravac, who would soon become their greatest enemy thus far. The Spravo-NRR War lasted for 30 years and nearly destroyed the republic in the bloodshed. However, it eventually ended in a truce after the NRR invaded Sprava, the spravac homeworld. The truce resulted in an alliance between the two empires, who would go on to assist each other in several wars, including the destructive Union War of 1 AUA. The exiled Santiagos, seeking to reclaim the empire, invaded the entire Milky Way Galaxy, having amassed an uncountable army of billions, embroiling the galaxy in 500 years of protracted warfare.

Though the Union would be defeated and sent back to Andromeda, the NRR would pursue them, hunting down enclaves of Union warlords in both the Milky Way and Andromeda. For 200 hundred years after the end of the war, the spravac and NRR relations would strain and eventually break after the beginning of the Spravac Galactic Crisis, causing the NRR to fully collapse after civil war once again ignited. The NRR was split into three separate empires, the loyalist New Roman Empire, the neutral New Roman Confederation, and the secessionist Solari Empire.

## History:

“By the blood of the people of Roma, we shall always prevail. Death and glory are our constant, Fraternity and Loyalty our creed. We are the New Roman Republic, and light of the galaxy.”

* New Roman Maxim

### First Exodus and Reclamation:

“At last we continue our great crusade, the ayar’s mangled corpses will litter the streets of Menae once again! To War!”

* General Balthas Torros of the Menae Empire

The NRR’s history begins on Earth with the pivotal Earth Exodus of 2059 CE. In the year 2059 CE, Earth came in contact with the menae, a nomadic alien race that was on the run from the ayar that had conquered their homeworld of Menae. It was discovered that the menae were capable of breeding with humanity, which caused a new issue in the form of eugenics and racial purity between humanity and the newly formed humae. The humae regarded themselves as superior, but were regarded as abominations by certain nations, causing a gargantuan global civil war between nearly all nations on the planet. The civil war ended in 2067 CE with what is known in hindsight as the First Exodus, which forced the menae, humae, and allied human groups to leave the planet in the menae’s fleet, who resolved to retake their homeworld from the ayar.

The menae fleet, which numbered at nearly 30,000 ships of varying sizes, made a straight assault toward Menae in 2068 CE, which was beginning to become overrun by Corvus the Shadow. The initial invasion attempt failed, causing hundreds of ships to be destroyed in hours, forcing the menae back to their surrounding satellite worlds. The menae landed their fleet on the planet of Voros, which was yet to be conquered by the ayar. Gathering more forces, the menae, humae, and human fleets arrived at Menae once again several weeks later, this time breaking through Corvus’ fleet and invading the planet’s surface en masse, destroying millions of Corvus’ synthes. The war for the planet lasted for five years, with the menae and humae taking on more combat roles while the humans were in support, piloting vehicles and serving in the rear for supply and medical services. This dichotomy would eventually become the social groundwork of the New Roman social hierarchy. After the death of Corvus and the defeat of his synthetics, the menae and humae, without consultation for the human citizens, created the Union of Allied Species (UNAS), a socialist and communist state that sought to ensure equality for the three races. However, the veneer of equality was a facade, and in fact the humans of the UNAS were essentially cheap laborers living in segregated townships and ghettos whereas the hybrids and menae continued to live above them.

The UNAS was ruled by a ruling oligarchy of primarily hybrid politicians, which led to an increased focus of hybrid supremacy, which encouraged menae and humans to interbreed to ensure the creation of more hybrids, which was a way that human families could achieve wealth and social status within the society of the UNAS. To distract the populace from these obvious racial laws, the UNAS declared the Reclamation, a great crusade of war that sought to spread the UNAS throughout the Praeverse and reclaim the lost worlds of the Old Menae Empire.

This Reclamation was declared in 2080 CE, and began with the conquest of the independent menae colony of Gloras, which had declared independence from the empire after Menae was first lost to the ayar warlords. The menae of Gloras had also strayed from the old imperial ways, forming a self-sustaining commune that was highly functional and peaceful. Intent on ensuring that the oppressed of the UNAS did not discover the prosperity of this community, the I Legion of Elessor, one of the chief combat units of the UNAS, destroyed the commune and assimilated the survivors, quarantining their ideas on Gloras to reeducate them into forgetting their ways and accepting the hybrid supremacy of the UNAS. The Elessor was led by General Gabriel Santiago-Cortez, a skilled humae commander who was a member of the hybrid dynastic Santiago Family, which had distinguished itself during the War for Menae in 2068 CE. Gabriel was idealistic, and upon witnessing the destruction of Gloras, learned of their equal society and remembered the horrors done to them by his troops, which included the forceful impregnation of menae women with hybrid soldiers to spawn more hybrid children.

Keeping his disillusionment a secret, General Santiago continued to command the Elessor during the Reclamation, serving on several bloody campaigns against menae enclaves, ayar warlords, and the insectoid race known as the Kenesz. After the incorporation of the kenesz in 2105 CE, the kenesz were regarded as lesser beings to be used as cannon fodder. The hivemind queens of the species, the Toresc-Va, were replaced by hybrid governors on their homeworld of Szeza, recruiting millions of kenesz troops to be used in the Reclamation.

### Seeds of Rebellion:

“The UNAS is rotten like an ayar heart, and like an ayar we need to rip it out in one swift motion.”

* Gabriel Santiago-Cortez

Only one other member of the family knew of Santiago’s disillusionment, that being his uncle Francisco, who was a high ranking member of the UNAS consulate. Francisco actively campaigned for a less harsh stance during the reclamation, as well as increased equality for the species already part of the UNAS’ hegemony. This stance was held in deep secrecy, and the two generals made great strides in the courts and on the battlefield. While far away from consulate control, General Santiago reformed the ethos of the Elessor Legion, forbidding them from pillaging or rape, and commanded that they regard conquered species and menae rebels as their own brethren, however he was still harsh in counter-insurgency operations, particularly on the Friza, which became known as the Death World due to the vicious battles that were fought there.

Within the consulate, Francisco’s secretive meetings drew the attention of Madam Haelga Galan, a hybrid governess who essentially ruled the consulate along with her family, the House of Galan. In 2113 CE, Francisco’s treachery was discovered, however Galan kept her knowledge of it a secret to lead him into a trap.

In 2114 CE, Gabriel was recalled from command of the Elessor to be brought back to Menae, where he watched from afar in his personal quarters as Galan tortured and executed Francisco, crushing his skull beneath her foot before his eyes. In a fit of fury, Gabriel secretly left his chambers and recovered Francisco’s body and presented it to the streets of the capital city of Novoa. The sight of the beloved Francisco, who had grown popular amongst the masses for his compassion and activism, roused hatred and anger in the hearts of people of Novoa, even hybrid and menae aristocrats who feared for their own safety. Gabriel rallied hordes of rioters and protestors, who swept into the consulate building and massacred Galan and consul members loyal to her. The Santiago Family, though not all agreed with Gabriel, honored their kinship to him and sided with him, pledging their legions to his revolutionary cause.

Additionally, the kenesz, who respected Gabriel for his fair treatment of them, sided with him as well, along with the entirety of the Elessor Legion. Menae and humae citizens on Gloras, never forgetting what was done to them by UNAS, also sided with Santiago, gathering massive militia armies to prepare for invasion of the UNAS loyal worlds.

### The Reformation:

“For the Revolution my brothers! For a better tomorrow and a better empire!”

* Gabriel Santiago-Cortez to the Elessor Legion

Though Gabriel was supported by vast numbers, the Consulate’s forces led by the remnant members of the Galan and their compatriots, were heavily armed and extremely wealthy. Additionally, internal conflict within the Santiagos themselves, primarily between Gabriel and his younger brother, Dante, caused frequent miscommunication. The worst of these was during the fateful Battle of Novoa, where their lack of coordination led to their defeat and the capital falling into consulate hands.

Forced to regroup, Gabriel and his forces relocated to the fringe planet of New Flavia., which was in the outer colonies of the Praeverse. Building up their forces, Gabriel and his soldiers made another great push into Consulate space in 2123 CE, this time their militia forces were armed like a proper army, even employing mercenaries from the planet of Antrox, the homeworld of the merdarren, who feared the consulate’s superior military forces.

The Core Sieges lasted for over a decade, ending in the capture of Menae in 2137 CE after Gabriel successfully dueled and killed the last of the Galan family line, Governor Hax Galan, in single combat. Though Menae was conquered, remnants of consulate forces remained, including on the recently captured planet of Horlas, with its native species, the kolatl, being enslaved to be used as cannon fodder. For another five years, Gabriel’s soldiers continued to hunt down the remaining consulate enclaves. However, many surrendered and willingly rejoined the empire with the help of Dante, who secretly empathized with their cause and only supported Gabriel out of loyalty to blood.

The final enclaves rejoined in 2142 CE, ending the combat phase of the Reformation, known colloquially as the Red War. Next was the cultural reformation, which Gabriel enacted by instituting a new appreciation for classical culture from Earth, which he admired. This culture specifically was the Roman Republic. Choosing to call this new government the New Roman Republic, the society of the NRR changed drastically in some areas. Though Dante ensured that some of the old ways of UNAS stayed in place, many great strides were made.

A senate was formed to replace the consulate, a democratic institution with one hundred senators representing each planet in the NRR. Gabriel, in an effort to maintain control over his fragile new government, crowned himself Emperor with the assistance of a newly formed Roman Catholic Church, known as the Nova Catholicus, with its first Pope, Horatius I, assisting in the coronation of Gabriel.

Though the senate was legitimate, Gabriel held ultimate power, and was responsible for approving new senators, at times even blocking them from even entering an election campaign if he believed them to be unfit to govern. Planets became reorganized into the semi-autonomous Republican Provinces, ruled by planetary governors who were in charge of raising their own military forces for the defense of the Republic. The Elessor, Gabriel’s loyal legion of soldiers, were reformed into the Praetorian Guard to serve as his personal army and bodyguards.

Recognizing the ability of the common people, the Roman Army was established to act alongside the Legions, who would become more specialized rather than acting as the only chief fighting force. The Legions would become more melee focused, and their armor came to represent a merge between menae armor and redesigned Roman legionary panoply.

### New Conquests:

“Like a newborn child, our empire needs food. Planets, metals, and blood are our food.”

* Dante Santiago-Cortez

Recognizing his distinct ideological differences but also his importance to the victory of the Reformation, Emperor Gabriel placed Dante in control of the military, naming him Supreme Legate, hoping that this recognition would keep him in check. Dante used this new position to expand the NRR’s territory drastically through conquest, though he was forbidden from extermination except in dire circumstances.

In 2460 CE, after the Reformation had successfully rebuilt the NRR’s damaged infrastructure, Dante set out for the merdarren homeworld. Though the species assisted in the Reformation, they were vehemently pro-independence. Dante, in order to justify the war, hired merdarren mercenaries and instructed them to attack several fringe planets of the NRR and massacre their populations to spur the people into supporting the war. This treachery would never be discovered, allowing Dante to seamlessly make war against their former allies.

Four legions were sent to Antrox and its sister world, Molarax to pacify the merdarren. However, the merdarren fought valiantly, killing millions of NRR legionaries over three years, forcing Dante to take drastic measures in his conquest. Dante instituted the creation of new ships of his own design to destroy Molarax. These ships, known as the Archangel Armada, used ancient menae technology fused in secret with ayar death machines to destroy the planet, bombarding it from orbit for three weeks, wiping out nearly the entirety of the population. Gabriel objected to the use of the Archangels, but was forced to allow it due to making Dante essentially an independent military leader with his new rank as Supreme Legate.

After the destruction of Molarax, the merdarren surrendered, submitting to Dante and the NRR forces. However, in order to keep Gabriel from watching him too closely, Dante gave the merdarren full rights as NRR citizens, placating them and Gabriel.

Following the annexation of Antrox, the entirety of the Praeverse was now fully under the control of the NRR, allowing them to move forward into the adjacent verse, the Titanoverse, which had become infested with piracy, ayar, and the local Jilaro Empire, once a client species of the Old Menae Empire.

The NRR forces, which included expeditionary forces from the Roman Army, first resolved to wipe the taint of the ayar from the Titanoverse. The first war was against the ayar hive empire known as the Helraks Dominate, led by Helraks the Barbarian. The expeditionary forces clashed with Helraks on the ruined world of Volatak in 2545 CE, fighting horrific cloned warriors that represented a mutation of menae and machine. These creatures, referred to as Inferi by the NRR forces, turned the war on Volatak into a vicious stalemate of trench warfare and harsh urban combat. Entire armies of soldiers were wiped out and assimilated into Helraks’ hordes, dragging the Volatak Campaign out for ten years, eventually ending in NRR defeat as they were forced to withdraw in 2556 CE. In an effort to gain a foothold in the siege, Gabriel personally led a naval blockade of the Helraks Dominate, ensuring the Helraks and his ayar forces were unable to break through and invade his own territory.

While the Helraks Blockade raged on, Dante led punitive campaigns against independent forces in the Volor Expanse, what became known as the Volor Expedition, a series of clashes and conflicts that wiped out hundreds of pirate fleets and warlords that ruled over the fringe planets of the Titanoverse. The Volor Expedition finally ended in 2568 CE, resulting in a solid foothold in the Titanoverse to allow the NRR to base forces there for their continued war against Helraks.

In their renewed offensive into Helraks’ territory, the NRR once again suffered horrific losses, though they did successfully conquer and destroy Volatak, though several more worlds belonging to Helraks were prepared to defend themselves. Realizing that they were desperate for men, Gabriel instituted the creation of the first Penal Legions, including the I Penal Legion, also known as the Legion of the Damned. Hordes of poorly equipped murderers, thieves, deserters, and rapists were hurled against Helraks on the planet of Olmahk, digging into hastily dug trenches and waging a brutal war of attrition against the ayar menace, eventually succeeding in 2578 CE after ten years of horrid stalemate.

While Gabriel continued his offensive against the Helraks and his underlings, Dante led another expedition against the Garvung Clique in 2579 CE, a group of qaze warlords who had fled from the Dominion thousands of years ago. The Garvung Clique ruled the worlds of Nema, Indire, and Ulkass, which Dante invaded using the same XIV, XV, and XVI legions he used in the Volor Expedition, who had become personally loyal to him during the campaign.

The legions, now known officially the I Red Condors, were brutal towards the Garvung warriors, often torturing them and executing them even when surrendering. The legion, unlike Gabriel’s forces, used shock warfare and won a decisive victory against the Garvung Clique, wiping them out in just two years of battle, adding more planets to the NRR provinces.

After the defeat of the Garvung, Dante joined his forces with Gabriel to assist in the battle against Helraks. The fast warfare of the Red Conders was just what the NRR needed to reinvigorate their campaign, which combined with the savage desperation of the Legion of the Damned and the efficiency of the Roman Army, allowed the NRR to beat back Helraks’ forces on the planets of Horasok, Prindia, and Alaxa.

The final battle of the Helraks War was the Siege of Helraks Hive itself, a massive hollowed out rock that was guarded by thousands of ayar ships and Helraks himself. The siege lasted from 2589 CE to 2613 CE, during which the NRR tirelessly fought using shock tactics, trenches, and a combination of both, eventually forcing Helraks to retreat and abandon his planet. Disturbed by Helraks’ survival, Gabriel and Dante officially stated that Helraks was defeated in battle in order to ensure that the people of the Republic did not believe that the war was in vain. After all, nearly 70 million soldiers died throughout the 68 year long campaign.

### Blood of the Jilaro:

“Heathens and villains, these jilaro. We seek only to purify their filthy worlds through fire and iron, they will not stand against us.”

* Marshall Vikus Corin of the Templar Order

In the wake of the Helraks War, the NRR began mobilizing troops to continue their expansion into the Titanoverse, namely the planets under the rule of the Jilaro Empire, a decently sized and powerful empire helmed by the jilaro species, a race of theocratic amphibians who placed an emphasis on prowess in combat. In response to such a passionately religious people, Gabriel, with consultation from Nova Catholicus Pope Lazarus II, initiated the creation of two knightly religious orders, the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitallar, mirroring the same orders from the human Middle Ages. The two orders, armed with state of art blades and firearms, descended upon the Jilaro Empire, beginning the Jilaro Crusade in 2674 CE. The Crusade launched against the realms of the jilaro originally beared fruit for the Orders, however the protracted conflict with the entrenched jilaro eventually caused far too many brothers to be killed, forcing regular army units to be committed to the war, namely the 6th Storm Infantry, an all human and menae army that proved to be effective against the jilaro warriors. The jilaro, though they numbered in the billions, were unprepared for the sheer discipline and skill of the Storm Infantry, who, due to their proximity to the Catholic Orders, developed their own religious fervor in the crusade, regarding the jilaro as demons that were only deserving of death and suffering.

As a form of purification, the Orders, particularly the Templars, developed an occult ritual in which they drank the blood of their slain foes, which spurred them forward in zealous fervor. This ritual horrified the jilaro, who began to fight with less passion as their merciless foe systematically exterminated entire towns and cities. By 2712 CE, the jilaro had resorted to unholy alliances, requesting aid from local ayar warlords still prowling the Titanoverse for assistance. These warlords, driven by their hatred of the menae, did so gladly, gifting cloning technology to the jilaro to allow them to grow more soldiers, all the while assimilating swaths of the 6th Army. Dante, displeased with the lack of progress in quelling the jilaro, personally intervened with his Red Condors, which had begun using plasma weapons, which he believed were far deadlier than the ballistics used by the other forces. The Condors were swift and brutal in their assaults, conquering the jilaro homeworld of Jiliara and slaying the Jilaro Emperor, causing the jilaro resistance to collapse. Soon entire planets were surrendering to Dante and the Orders, who obliged their surrenders by giving them swift and for the most part painless deaths.

Jiliara was renamed as Golgotha, an allusion to the hill on which Jesus Christ was crucified, and was named the holy headquarters of the Orders, from which they levied forces from freshly converted jilaro citizens who were permitted to live. The Orders continued to scour the remnants of the Jilaro Empire, hunting down fleets and destroying them without even giving them a chance to surrender. After the final remnant of the jilaro was defeated in 2732 CE. Following the full assimilation of the jilaro, the Nova Catholicus consecrated the land as holy territory and the semi autonomous realm, referred to as the See of Titania.

### Lost and the Damned:

“They just came from nowhere, those animals! They ripped us apart like animals! Our guns only angered them, and with their fury they shattered our bones like twigs! We need to leave this place, let them rot in their own savagery!”

* Crazed Legion of the Damned soldier after the First Siege of Keltran

Though the NRR more than anything desired expansion and colonization, Emperor Gabriel was thorough with the buildup of infrastructure. These buildups always followed intense episodes of expansionism, and would last for centuries to allow for entire civilizations to be constructed, along with military buildup and population surplus, which Gabriel believed would make the planets safer in the event that they were attacked.

Because of this policy, the next great leap of expansionism did not occur until 3274 CE. This next expansion sought to conquer the remainder of the Titanoverse, which was more than four times the size of other verses adjacent to it. Understanding that the Titanoverse was infested with ayar corruption and ruin, Gabriel commissioned the Legion of the Damned and the II Penal Legion, the Cursed Swords, to begin expanding through the dark sector of the verse, which was coined the Stygian Expanse. During the expedition, the two penal legions discovered several independent colonies of qaze, humans, and the insann, a native species from the planet of Keltran. The Cursed Swords easily conquered the qaze and human settlements, violently destroying them and assimilating them into the NRR by 3275 CE, which became known as the Penal War.

While the Cursed Swords reaved the planets of the qaze and humans, the Legion of the Damned began their invasion of Keltran. The insann were fierce and hulking warriors, much akin to beasts rather than sentient beings, as they were still very much primitive in their society and technology. The insann’s massive tusks and immensely strong arms shredded apart the first forces sent to pacify them, leaving only one survivor in the first invasion.

The hellish world of Keltran soon became known as the Planet of the Damned, as every time the reconstituted Legion of the Damned returned to the planet, they were continuously beaten back with fury and blood. The insann were also beginning to adapt, stealing the weapons and armor of the fallen penal soldiers and learning how to use them, often in guerilla style ambushes and raids that devastated the armies of the legion. In 3278 CE, the Cursed Swords were brought in to assist in the war, now known as the Siege of Keltran.

Though the increased numbers allowed the legions to make headway, their camps and settlements were still frequently raided by the insann warriors, who continued to adapt and learn even more about their enemy, even learning parts of the language to decipher stolen orders and documents kept at the camps. Entire columns of troops would go missing during the siege, disappearing into the rocky mountains of the shadowy world where the insann dwelled, often emerging from hidden caves and tunnels to ambush their prey.

After learning of the suffering on the world, Emperor Gabriel deployed armies of kenesz warriors to tunnel into the planet to search for insann lairs, leading to vicious melees that at times even the kenesz were unable to match. The war continued to rage on the vicious world well into 3280 CE, by this point the insann were beginning to organize into proper societies out of necessity for their survival, and their armies became more organized, proving to the NRR that they were more than just savage beasts. This change in warfare devastated the penal legions, who continued to lose hundreds of thousands of men in the battle.

Eventually, Dante ordered the withdrawal of the Damned and the Cursed Swords, instead electing to bombard the planet from orbit, using several dreadnoughts to flatten entire mountain ranges and the insann inside, including their civilian populations.

After bombing the planet for three months, the Damned were redeployed and found little resistance, as much of the insann population had been destroyed by the bombardments, scarring the world into a charred wasteland littered with ash and blood. Satisfied with the damage done, Dante claimed the world as NRR territory and commanded that it be quarantined, never allowing anyone to set foot on the planet, for fear that some insann remained and would continue their war anew.

### The Bloodless Epoch:

“Our Republic is the pinnacle of civilization, but even pinnacles have cracks in their stone.”

* Dante Santiago-Cortez on the racial makeup of the NRR

A period of peace followed after the full conquering of the Titanoverse, from 3280 CE to 3890 CE, which became known as the Bloodless Epoch, which was characterized by relative stability within the NRR as they continued to fortify and buildup the worlds conquered in the great expansions. The militaries of the merdarren, jilaro, and kenesz developed as did their citizenship. A policy implemented by the patriarch of the Santiago House, Philip, dictated that new species not of humae or menae blood had a required period of second-class citizenship before they demonstrated their usefulness to the Republic. By this point, all of those species had done so, and were rewarded with the right to vote in elections and serve as the commanders of their own armies, as before they were under the command of hybrid generals and governors. However, the shadow of hybrid superiority still reigned, a remnant of the UNAS allowed to fester by the supremacist Dante and the rest of the Santiago family save for Gabriel. By this point, though it was not outright stated in law, no non hybrid citizen was capable of running for public office, as they lacked the proper resources to campaign nor the popularity, as many of the voting class were still intrinsically racist toward non-hybrids, which at times even included self hatred and an inferiority complex instilled in them by their education.

Ironically, many members of the Santiago Family, and in fact many of the politically dominant dynasties, were themselves impure, often born of inbreeding and mutation. A staunch believer in Humae Supremacy, Dante himself was a mutant by nature, as his skin was much paler, almost with a purple sheen, and he possessed four arms rather than the standard two. He purported publicly that this mutation was a gift, as he was genetically much closer to the physically superior menae, however in secret he despised his mutation and at times even contemplated cutting off his second pair of arms to appear more like the standard humae male advertised in propaganda.

The racial propaganda of the NRR denounced interspecies relationships, even human and menae intercourse, instead claiming that only by breeding with hybrids would the NRR achieve true racial purity. As such, a host of mutations and impurities arose from this new move. Hybrids that bred with each other often became stunted or gigantic, often displaying more menae traits as the genetic line progressed. Hybrids that bred with menae would become even larger and often mentally deficient, which the military utilized by using them as berserkers and heavy infantry. Those that bred with humans would shrink and their faces warped, often with multiple eyes. Merdarren hybrids would become hunched, and their skin darkened with sparse patches of fur.

Despite these enforced breeding programs, this only truly existed for the upper class, which granted was quite vast, but within the lower classes and peasantry, citizens often married and bred within their own species out of convenience and even in defiance of the racial laws. Within the upper class, most hybrids bred with each other, which compounded when new genetics were introduced into the mix, creating a vast amount of varied appearances and ability amongst the breeds.

When Dante and his father noticed this trend, they developed a eugenics plan that sought to eliminate this, using medical technology to monitor developing fetuses to eliminate mutations as they developed. However, soon the interbreeding became so pronounced that sterility was developing in some familial lines, leading to dynasties ending in degenerated genetics and shame. The genetic line could potentially be reset by simply breeding with a menae, but the eugenics of Dante and the upper class forbade such an act.

While the racial purification efforts intensified, so did the urban poverty that came with the rapid expansion of the outer colonies. In order to stimulate growth, governors were given unlimited economic resources to build up their domains, which led to increased corruption as the NRR expanded. Though elections were still held, democracy was becoming an illusion as family members paid off rivals to allow their children to serve, creating Senatorial Dynasties that persisted for millenia forward. In the outer colonies of the Titanoverse, this was especially prevalent. The rich upper class, which at times would only consist of a few million individuals, presided over the wealth of the entire planet while the lower classes were essentially urban peasants that were paid minimum wages and designated housing. This state of living was occasionally met with public unrest, and public protests and even riots were common in the outer colonies, which were not as heavily surveyed as the core worlds, as Gabriel was far to preoccupied with developing and protecting the Republic to attend to every political conflict that occurred, especially in the outer worlds.

### Helraks Armageddon:

“You thought me defeated, foolish hybrids. I am the vengeance of the ayar made manifest. Your spineless menae will tremble before the might of my legions! The dead anger of the ayar people now has new life pumped into it, and I am the instrument of that fury. You cannot kill me, you cannot kill any of us! We are beyond life, beyond death, I am your death made flesh and metal! Cry your tears of sorrow now, they will not garner any mercy from me as I burn your worlds to cinders!”

* Helraks the Barbarian during the Siege of Hyperia

In the closing years of the Bloodless Epoch, horror struck the NRR’s heart in the form of ayar corruption. Mysterious corruptor seeds dropped from the skies and landed deep in the underworlds of the great cities of the core worlds, spreading like wildfire as the nanobots consumed living and mechanical tissue alike. Entire ayar revolts occurred in the lower streets and chasms, engulfing entire sectors in flames as the corruption spread. These revolts were sparse and disorganized at first, however as each one was put down more occurred and caused further damage.

In the core world of Hyperia, a secretive cult emerged in the underworld. Seeded in their minds by the warlord Helraks the Barbarian himself, who had returned from his exile, he tainted the minds of millions of followers, who silently spread the taint through the city of Colchis. The central plaza soon became the home of a great foundry beneath its stone roads, building millions of weapons and synthetic horrors to launch the great uprising.

In 3895 CE, the cult rose from the alleys and sewers, tens of millions of warped followers and ayar synthes slaughtered tens of millions more in their wake. The Planetary Defense Force of the planet, led by Governor Hector Prince, fought valiantly against the invasion from within, though it eventually succumbed. Docked ships at the spaceports were overrun and changed into engines of war, ramming into the hulls of the Hyperia Defense Fleet, creating a massive ayar fleet prepared to spread through the NRR.

The roving ayar fleet moved to the planet of Silia. The defense fleet successfully shot down scores of the ayar ships. However, the falling wreckage landed on the planet, allowing the synthes to emerge and sow death and destruction in their wake. The XX Bulwark of Silia, one of its elite legions, protected the capital city from the synthetic horde, blocking off the gates and preparing for a protracted siege while the space above them continued to burn. As more ayar ships fell, more synthes appeared from the wreckage.

In 3896 CE, the planet of Zolavar was besieged as well, this time by its own PDF, corrupted and mutilated by ayar taint as they pillaged and massacred the cities. Gabriel, horrified by the turn of events, mobilized his Praetorian Guard and first set out to liberate Silia. The Praetorians slaughtered the synthes by the millions, slowly pushing the ayar from the world in a three year massacre.

The Bulwark of Silia, still prepared for battle, volunteered to accompany the Emperor in his relief campaign on Zolavar, where Helraks himself was fighting. The two legions, along with the 14th and 18th Army Groups, lifted the blockade of Zolavar, driving the synthes from the planet by 3899 CE. However, Helraks continued to live, using his fleet to launch surprise bombardments on several other worlds, appearing out of nowhere, destroying ships and bombarding the cities from above with corruptor seeds and plasma before quickly leaving before reinforcements could arrive.

This cycle of death continued for two more years, with Gabriel tirelessly tracking and hunting the ayar warlord throughout the entire Republic. In 3901 CE, the Republic forces successfully trapped Helraks on Gloras, trapping his cruiser and boarding it. The Emperor dueled with the ayar monstrosity for several hours before finally destroying the ancient warlord, cutting off his head and smashing it to scrap with the head of his warhammer, finally ending the terror of Helraks once and for all, though even the Emperor feared that he still had not slain the dreaded warlord.

### The Great Purge:

“The old ways are the disease, and I am the cure!”

* Emperor Gabriel

The destruction wrought by Helraks, Gabriel believed, could have been avoided if not for the incompetence and corruption of his Republic’s government. Though aware of its dangers, Gabriel did not have the time or resources to deal with it, especially since he knew that many of these petty lords would not come quietly or peacefully. With the threat of Helraks defeated, Gabriel turned his hammer towards the aristocracy of the NRR, especially in the outer colonies. To assist in his purge, Gabriel created the Oculi Imperatoris in its nascent form in 3920 CE, an elite service of assassins, spies, and operatives who were commanded to embed themselves within the courts of known corrupt local governments and cleanse them. The Oculi Imperatoris were designed to evaluate their charges, judging them from afar based on a certain criteria of morals and practices. These parameters included; mismanagement of funds, infringement on the democratic process, bribery, military mismanagement or abuse, public abuse, racism or hybrid supremacy, and general dishonorable conduct.

The Oculi Imperatoris’ combat arm, the Black Battalion, began constructing outposts in the outer reaches of cities and colonies, designed to move in if the need arose. The spy ring, known as the Inquisitorial Division, began embedding their operatives in the courts of the suspected politicians.

The Inquisitorial Division began operations on Imperia, one of the greatest hotbeds of corruption in the core provinces. The planet was ruled by the hybrid governor Barus Klatoos, who had essentially turned the Imperia PDF into his own private mercenary army, known as the “Volsekts” in the native language of Imperia. The Volsekts were noted by Inquisitors for their abuse of the agricultural lower class in the outskirts of the great cities, extorting local peasants in exchange for protection from the criminal gangs and raiders that roamed the Praeverse. The Inquisition, under orders from Gabriel, assassinated Klatoos in his sleep. Understanding that the Volsekts were loyal to Klatoos, the Black Battalions came out of the shadows and destroyed the Volsekt forces over the course of just a week, taking them completely by surprise. In the place of Klatoos, the Emperor placed the menae politician Hervard Gorin, who was Klatoos’ campaign advisor.

In 3922 CE, the Inquisition then moved to Gloras, which still was under strict racial laws since its very founding by the supremacist House of Orgal during the Reclamation a millennia earlier, who were known for their genealogical line being tainted with gigantism and dark blue skin. This included Orgal’s personal guard, known as the Hulks of the Deep, who guarded the Orgal palace of Palatine Rampart. The Inquisition successfully infiltrated the palace and placed nerve gas in the air conditioning units of the palace, suffocating the entire House of Orgal. The Hulks of the Deep were then systematically wiped out by Black Battalion snipers stationed in the forests outside the estate.

Only one other knew of the creation of the Oculi Imperatoris; Dante, who was greatly disturbed by its function and sought to disrupt it. He alerted the Oculi’s next target, the planet of Sarakar, which was commanded by the general and aristocrat Karsten de Rica Imrall. Imrall lured the inquisitors into a trap, trapping them in a dungeon and lighting the cell ablaze with plasma throwers. Sarakar’s police force then attacked the Black Battalion outposts located in the civilian commercial district of Serappal, killing several operatives in the firefight and capturing the others. Unwisely, Imrall chose to ransom the captured operatives to the Emperor, bargaining that they would be returned safely and he would cease his rebellion peacefully. The Emperor, unwilling to negotiate, instead blockaded the planet, disrupting trade that was imperative to the planet’s mercantile economy. Many of the merchants and shopkeepers went on strike and protested the Sarakar capital city of Invera, demanding that Imrall release the captives and step down as governor. Imrall fired into the protest with his troops, causing the protestors to flee.

Infuriated by this dishonorable act, Gabriel sent Hawkspear Jets, specialized stealth bombers used by the Oculi Imperatoris, and bombed the governor’s palace and destroyed him. This bombing, known as the Invera Blitz, successfully destroyed the palace and killed Imrall, though the captive operatives were killed as well, though they understood the risk and accepted their fates patriotically.

After learning of the Invera Blitz, several other corrupt politicians and generals formed the League of Seesar in 3923 CE, a corruption of Caesar from Roman history, and prepared to war with the Emperor. Though frustrated by this uprising, Gabriel also appreciated it, as it clearly laid out targets for his Inquisitors without them actually having to search for them.

The League of Seesar combined their navies and hired out mercenaries from the Titanoverse from the merchant world of Karsk, which was renowned for its light infantry, to assist them in their rebellion. The NRR deployed several naval flotillas to assault the main fleet of the League, which was located in the battlespace of the planet Varnere, where one of the petty rebellious lords was located. The NRR flotilla immediately broke through the navy, essentially destroying whatever viable naval forces the League had at their disposal. Dante, though he supported their cause of maintaining their dominance, believed them to be foolish in their rebellion, and assisted Gabriel in the subsequent Battle of Varnere.

Much of the civilian population was staunchly against the League’s cause, and actively assisted the Emperor and his brother in their siege of the lord of Varnere, Governor Valdimar Hax’s, financial and political holdings. The mercenaries and PDF under his control fought feebly, unwilling to fight their own countrymen, making the battle a primarily bloodless affair.

After pacifying Governor Hax, who was executed for treason, the Emperor and his forces moved toward the League run planet of Saint Augre in 3924 CE, which was originally ruled by the benevolent and loyal governess Tetra Zeng, however Zeng was overthrown and imprisoned after the founding of the Seesarian League in what was known as the Augre Putsch.

Seeking to reform Augre, an agrarian breadbasket, into a corporate merchant state, the planet was ruled by the powerful Denarius Guild, who funded much of the NRR’s naval yards. As such, the Guild’s forces were well armed, trained, and loyal only to money. The Denarius Militia fought against Gabriel’s forces, eventually capitulating after 2 years of battle in 3926 CE. With the defeat of the Guild, the Emperor sent Dante to deal with the final League member, the Junta of Korell. Led by the fierce rogue legate Lapidus von Marks, the Junta of Korell was guarded by the rogue LI Legion who became known as the Korellian Traitors.

Instead of besieging the planet, Dante instead struck a bargain with von Marks, offering to allow him and his legion to live in exchange for surrender and exclusive loyalty to himself. Dante then used Korellian weapons to kill several thousand civilians and PDF who were prepared to fight them to make it appear that a siege took place. The legion was then renamed as the I Thunder Legion and pledged their loyalty to Dante and his cabal of followers, which included the troops from the Red Condors. To further strike down the name of the Korellian Traitors, the formal standard and number of the legion was dishonorably retired to symbolize a new age in the legion’s troubled history.

With the defeat of the League of Seesar, all lords and generals who had thoughts of betrayal or self-service capitulated and begged for forgiveness. Gabriel had each of them evaluated by the Inquisitors, then selected fifty of the most heinous or unforgivably immoral to be executed, sending a message throughout the whole of the Republic that corruption and foul deeds would be rewarded with steel and blood.

What became known as the War of the League of Seesar, for a time, stabilized the crumbling morals of the Republic.

### The Magnaverse Expedition:

“It is into the great sea of stars that we march, the great Milky Way will quail before our might! The glory of the New Roman Republic will spread across the stars like a noble wave.”

* Dante Santiago-Cortez

In 4174 CE, Emperor Gabriel was met with an increasing population crisis. The great arcologies and metros of the Republic were beginning to become overcrowded, forcing citizens to live in crowded tenements or overflowing into the underdeveloped fringe colonies of the Titanoverse, still plagued by ayar raids and piracy. In an effort to acquire more land, Gabriel declared the next expansion of the Republic into the distant Magnaverse, which was located in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. Aware of the great strides they would have to make through Dark Space, Gabriel commissioned a fleet unparalleled in size, designed essentially to be a mobile, self-sustaining empire, to establish colonies and map out the area to allow for more material and troops to be sent to support once a foothold was established.

This fleet, known as the Magnaverse Expeditionary Fleet, numbered at nearly 40,000 vessels, helmed by an Archangel Class Dreadnought, the NRSC Trident of Neptune, which would serve as the flagship and fleet capital until a foothold was established. The fleet was equipped with limited terraforming technology in the event that a habitable world could not be found in time, and was also crewed and inhabited by tens of millions of colonists. The carrier ships were garrisoned by over five million Republic Troopers, mostly skirmishing and assault units to allow for quicker warfare to establish the beachhead. Food stores contained several million volumetric tons of simple rations and water, along with hunting and colony prefabrications to allow for quick colonization.

The MEF arrived in the Magnaverse after a grueling three year journey, during which the colonists of the ships developed their own distinct identities. Upon arrival in the Magnaverse in 4177 CE, the fleet dispersed to search for habitable worlds. The first successful discovery was the uninhabited temperate planet of Horizon, poetically named as such to symbolize the new dawn of NRR glory. The colonies established, however, faced great hardship on the planet. The deadly wildlife frequently attacked the fledgling settlements, stealing food and damaging crops, which in some cases led to starvation. The MEF military, now known as the Horizon Fusiliers, guarded the settlements bravely, though even then some of the deadlier beasts managed to wipe out patrolling platoons of troops.

In 4178 CE, the Horizon settlement of Nova Gloria was raided by an unknown alien species, who would later become known as the jinae, a physically imposing simian species that had developed a loosely connected interplanetary confederation known as the Confederation of S’kar. The Fusiliers moved on the offensive, taking ten thousand ships to besiege the nearby jinae planet of Ind’Lasa. The fleet easily broke through the lightly defended defense flotilla, which was a measly one hundred celestial sloops armed only with rudimentary plasma culverins. The Fusiliers then landed on the planet, raiding and pillaging jinae towns to plunder food rations and weapons, which would be used to arm militias back on Horizon and the newly conquered world of Austrium.

The jinae sent a reinforcing fleet of 500 brigantines and war barges to relieve the planet, however the entire fleet was destroyed by the MEF admiral, Grand Admiral Adrian Rok, who left not even a scrap of the fleet behind. While raiding the jinae cities, the Fusiliers discovered that many colonists that they had assumed were missing had become enslaved by the jinae, serving hard labor in the weapon factories of the jinae military.

As revenge and believing themselves above Republic Law due to their distance from the empire, the Fusiliers captured jinae citizens and surrendered soldiers, transporting them back to Horizon and Austrium to be enslaved as revenge and punishment. The labor on those planets inspired the colonists to enslave the entire species, as they proved to be effective in lifting prefabs and building materials for urban expansion. By 4181 CE, the entirety of Ind’Lasa had been enslaved by the MEF, who sent colonists, which included wealthy hybrid landowners, to preside over the newly conquered planet, which was renamed to Germanium.

The fusiliers, using jinae POWs as conscripted battle slaves, then invaded the next jinae world, the large garden world of Roat’ek. The jinae battle slaves were sent in the first waves, their very sight horrifying the jinae, who became emboldened to die in battle rather than become slaves themselves. Entire war parties of jinae fought to the death in the arid canyons of Roat’ek, ensuring that hundreds of thousands of NRR troopers suffered in every engagement. In further desperation, the jinae instituted berserkers, who would fill their helmets with human, menae, and hybrid blood, the scent and feeling of the blood pouring down their skulls spurring them into a violent rage and bloodlust, tearing apart thousands of Fusiliers each until they finally died from their wounds.

The Fusiliers continued to enslave jinae citizens with every town and city they raided, gathering millions of slaves. Realizing the horror that was befalling them, the jinae soldiers began to lose heart, and many believed that if they surrendered, they would at least have a chance to be paired with their enslaved families if they groveled enough. In 4184 CE, Roat’ek had fallen, being renamed to Rhotek, which would stand as a beacon of power in the Magnaverse until the 7040s CE.

With but one planet to go, the Fusiliers and their horde of conscripted jinae began their siege of S’kar. The war against the jinae had effectively wiped out most of the standing military of the confederation, allowing the NRR to slave and pillage almost unchecked, though occasionally they would spar with local militias and tribal war bands intent on stopping them. After the capital city of Beltr’An was captured in 4185 CE, the jinae capitulated, begging the NRR to be merciful in their treatment.

The planet, renamed to Sanctum, was placed under the rule of the hybrid mutant Bellian Vaul, a general in the Horizon Fusiliers. Vaul instituted the same racial practices that the UNAS and early NRR had practiced, oppressing the jinae that were not enslaved into essentially being slaves in every aspect other than name. Essentially serving as primitive serfs, Sanctum became a personal fief of Vaul, who ceremonially was referred to as Baron Vaul.

After establishing this foothold, the NRR spread to the planets of Tarus, Aeltarius, Hadrium, and several others, using the jinae as miners and laborers to begin buildup on the newly conquered frontier worlds. With this foothold, the MEF sent transmissions back to Menae and the rest of the NRR, who began intrarepublican trade and began sending more advanced troops, legions, and more colonists to continue the buildup of their new province.

### Wrath of the Emperor:

“The UNAS made us slaves. The ayar made us slaves. Many have tried to put us down, but that does not excuse us becoming the slavers ourselves.”

* Emperor Gabriel to Calis and Vaul

In 4203 CE, the Emperor journeyed to the Magnaverse to inspect the province’s progress in developing their newly conquered lands. While surveying Horizon, the Emperor was disturbed by the usage of the jinae as unpaid labor. When questioned about the issue, the governor of Horizon, Josef Calis, stated that it was simple revenge for their own enslavement. When the Emperor demanded that Calis release the slaves, Calis refused, stating that they were vital to the economic prosperity of the Magnaverse Province, pointing out that the entire province employed jinae as slave labor and as conscripted soldiers.

The Emperor left the chamber frustrated, resolving to ensure that the province would not profit off the backs of the jinae. The Emperor commanded that control of the MEF be transferred to himself and Admiral Rok, who personally was also against the institution of slavery. Without the fleets to protect their slaving barges, the province’s slaving class were under threat of attack by pirates and rival slaving empires, most notably the xamon, who had sent envoys to the province to trade with them.

The xamon slavers, specifically the Vondrak Slaving Empire, began raiding slave shipments throughout the province, causing the value of slaves to increase exponentially as the supply dwindled. By 4205 CE, the price of a jinae male went from 10,000 Denarii to 30,000, causing many wealthy slave owners to go into bankruptcy as they attempted to expand their holdings.

When Governor Calis and the other governors came to the Emperor for assistance in defeating the Vondraks, the Emperor refused, stating that if they wished to have his help in defeating the Vondrak raiders, they would agree to pay their jinae workers proper wages and treat them with respect. Calis and Baron Vaul refused the deal, keeping Horizon and Sanctum firmly under the blanket of slavery. The two men attempted to raise their own militaries to fight the Vondraks, however Oculi Imperatoris operators seized control of the factories and mines, preventing them from manufacturing ships. Baron Vaul, desperate to protect his industry, sent his personal guard to attempt to seize the factories, starting firefights throughout Sanctum, though the Oculi Imperatoris consistently held back Vaul’s troops, killing hundreds of them in the battles.

As punishment for his insubordination, the Emperor deployed the I Praetorian and II Praetorian Guard, who had accompanied him to the Magnaverse, to besiege Vaul’s palace and free slaves throughout the planet. The jinae slaves were then armed with weapons and encouraged to dispense revenge on their captors, causing slaveowners all throughout the planet to die by the hands of their former property.

In 4206 CE, Vaul’s palace fell, with Vaul himself being taken prisoner by his jinae butlers, who revolted after Vaul commanded them to take up arms to defend his estate.

With Vaul’s temporary imprisonment, Calis surrendered his chattel and commanded those below him to do the same, agreeing to the Emperor’s terms in what became known as the Liberation Pact of 4206. With the end of slavery in the province, the Emperor agreed to deal with the Vondrak threat, sending cruisers to hunt down and destroy the Vondrak ships and slave markets. Most of the markets fell within days, but one, which had been established on Rhotek, remained standing. This bazaar, the Iravoch Slave Market, was heavily guarded by over a million Vondrak soldiers, known as the Blackwatch, who fortified their market into a fortress.

When the 1st Praetorian lay siege to Iravoch, the Blackwatch protected themselves by using captured jinae and even captured NRR citizens as living shields, ensuring that if the NRR hoped to destroy the bazaar, they could not do so without shedding the blood of their own innocents. The Emperor himself landed on the outskirts of the market, despondent over the reality that many of his own people on the planet had been enslaved without his knowledge. His legionaries attempted several times to assault the walls of the market, trying very carefully to avoid unnecessary casualties. The Vondraks took the issue even further, whipping their slaves in the view of the NRR soldiers, giving each one twelve lashes for every Vondrak soldier who was killed in the battle thus far.

However, the Vondraks were beginning to run out of food rations, causing them to resort to desperate measures, which included cannibalizing slaves who had been injured or were too weak to work. The Emperor, frustrated by the lack of progress in the siege, sent in Inquisitors to assassinate the Vondrak leadership and smuggled weapons to the slaves within the market.

While the legions assaulted from the outside, slaves from within also revolted, killing thousands of the Vondrak Blackwatch in the ensuing chaos. However, the Vondraks were brutal in their treatment, realizing that their market would be lost, they set fire to the holding pens in the market, burning tens of thousands of slaves to prevent the NRR from freeing them. After the legions and rebels broke through the central command post, the Vondraks fled in their shuttles and frigates, setting fire to the entire market with their gauss cannons, destroying the entire market as they fled.

The NRR fleet attempted to stop them from escaping, however the heavy armor of the NRR cruisers was easily punctured by the supersonic gauss projectiles fired by the Vondrak ships, who destroyed several of the NRR ships, creating a hole in the blockade allowed them to flee back to their home territory outside of the Magnaverse.

Though satisfied by the destruction of the bazaar, the Emperor believed that far too many innocents had suffered at the hands of the xamon slavers, blaming himself for their deaths and believed that his caution caused them to die, especially those that had been eaten by the Vondraks out of desperation, which included children. To memorialize their sacrifices, a monument was constructed in the central plaza of the market, depicting a jinae and hybrid surrounded by shattered chains and split shackles at the base.

### Dissent in the Core:

“My brother's foolish idealism blinds him, keeps our empire from truly dominating this putrid galaxy. If we are to become the pinnacle of civilization, we need to get our hands dirty.”

* Dante Santiago-Cortez to the Novis Imperialis

The destruction of the Magnaverse Slave Ring sent shockwaves into the center of the NRR aristocracy. Much of the rich, and still very much supremacist nobility of the core systems, were struck with fear by the ruthlessness of the Emperor and his willingness to sniff out dissent in his republic. This led to many of the upper class, including Dante, to begin to question the Emperor’s own moral fiber. Many accused him in secret and away from the eyes of the Oculi that he cared more for the lives of primitive aliens and lower class peasants than his own kind, referring to him as the Traitor Humae. Dante himself, along with their father Philip, believed that under their rule the NRR would reach new levels of grandeur and power, unshackled by the constraints of morality and democracy. In secret, Dante founded the Novis Imperialis in 4833 CE, a secret society which included himself, Philip, Baron Vaul and Calis, and several other nobles who had lost their influence during the Great Purge.

The NI was essentially a terrorist organization, which gathered followers, exclusively hybrids, and commanded them to campaign for leadership roles and stealthily hinder the lives of those below them in any way they can. To avoid suspicion, many of these acolytes achieved positions of power on the local level, commanding prefectures and planetary provinces, often by bribing rival candidates or intimidating them with their own personal armies, which were provided by Dante.

In 4854 CE, one of Dante’s acolytes, the Baroness Camilla Haversah, successfully rose up the hierarchy of her home planet of Immermakt, becoming governess of the planet. In a bout of arrogance and carelessness, Haversah ordered the gentrification of seven districts in the capital city, replacing valuable living spaces for humans and merdarren that had immigrated to the planet with mansions and shopping forums for the rich hybrid upper class to enjoy.

Though the Great Purge had secured rights and prevented outright discrimination, it did not successfully eliminate the hybrid elitism that persisted throughout the core worlds, which had become so entrenched it was almost impossible to remove without brute force. The gentrification of Immermakt infuriated the lower class, many of whom became homeless and were forced to build makeshift huts and villages in the city streets, which were coined Camilla Condos by the inhabitants. Haversah, who was disgusted by the appearance of the towns and the sight of homeless living in the dark corners of her new forum, commanded the city’s police force in 4857 CE to begin evicting the Camilla Condos, ordering them to kill those that resisted. The inhabitants, who themselves were armed with homemade weapons, fought back, killing several of the police officers and causing a firefight to break out, killing over two hundred people, including bystanders.

After news of this reached the Emperor, the Emperor deployed the XII Legion, the Hawks of Triton, to occupy the city and remove Haversah from power. To prevent his cabal from being discovered, Dante severed all communications with Haversah, abandoning her to her fate at the hands of the Hawks, who executed her on the orders of the Emperor. The commercial forum was then demolished, forcing out the wealthy hybrids that had moved there and replacing it with new tenements for the inhabitants of the Camilla Condos.

What the Emperor believed to be a simple dispute was actually the beginning of a much more nefarious conflict, one that would shake the New Roman Republic to its very core.

### Revolt of the Kolatl:

“For too long the menae tyrants have held us underneath their boots! No longer! We, the kolatl, will free our blessed planet in glorious revolution! To arms!”

* Kolatl Propaganda Hologram

After the events of Immermakt, many of the alien species in the NRR became increasingly worried what would befall them if the seemingly broken and random democratic process on their planets did not end in their favor. One such species was the kolatl, the amphibious quadrupeds of Horlas, which for centuries had been ruled by the benevolent Lord Governor Utrecht Ixios. The kolatl had spent centuries underneath UNAS and the early NRR hegemony as historically oppressed. They were unable to hold positions of power within their government, and the only viable career path set out for them was to serve as infantry in the Roman Army.

Many of the kolatl that were not in the military lived in a state of abject poverty, creating a culture of sacrifice and selflessness. As such, many kolatl communities were referred to as Broodlands, where kotatl lived as massive extended families that shared communal resources and worked as a group to survive, neglecting the urge to buy personal possessions to contribute to the Brood Family. These Broodlands, which closely represented the communes of Gloras and the early UNAS policies, perturbed the Novis Imperialis, particularly Dante, who was disgusted by the beastial appearance of the kolatl.

In 4860 CE, governor Ixios was succeeded by the NI emplaced Ducal Governor Fel Hyperion, who sought to disempower the kolatl as best he could. The process began with the seizure of Broodlands, which Hyperion rationalized was necessary to construct new infrastructure for the non-kolatl citizens that lived on the planet. Additionally, he began mining the planet for its stores of gold and platinum, both of which were important for the minting of NRR Denarii credits. To work these mines, Hyperion sent soldiers from the PDF to abduct the youngest males from the Broodlands to work in the mines, only bringing home one single Denarius at the end of each day. The Broodland communities, angered by this form of wage slavery, began secretly raiding the PDF camps that guarded the mines, stealing their weapons and modifying them to be usable by the four legged species. They fixed machine guns and shotguns to their backs, acting like turreted backpacks that were linked to their minds via cybernetic wires and implants.

These kolatl partisans, once they had armed a significant number of militia, raided the mines and hybrid run settlements, indiscriminately killing PDF and civilians alike. The kolatl rebels spurred others to join them, creating a vast guerilla network that resided within the deep lakes and rivers of Horlas, making them nearly untraceable. By 4864 CE, nearly the entire kolatl species was up in arms, raiding PDF convoys and even attacking undefended merchant caravans and forums.

Though the Emperor understood their grievances and condemned Hyperion for his actions, Gabriel also condemned the kolatl for their killing of civilians. In response, the Emperor deployed the VIII Valens Victory Legion, who were ordered to minimize casualties on both sides, avoiding the killing of kolatl civilians and preferably the imprisonment of guerilla fighters. The Victory Legion was also instructed to keep the PDF in check, who had grown vengeful against the kolatl for their rebellion. The kolatl insurgency dragged on for another decade, finally ending in 4874 CE after the Battle of the Yimeria Marshland, which resulted in the deaths of the final three hundred thousand kolatl partisans.

With the end of the Insurgency, the Horlas went back into the antebellum, with the kolatl returning to the ancestral Broodlands, though they enjoyed more prosperity after Governor Hyperion was required to pay them higher wages for working in the mines.

### The New Roman Schism:

“As our republic burns, our people die, and everything we’ve tried so hard to build crumbles, I find myself pained by only one thing; Betrayal.”

* Gabriel on Dante’s betrayal

The NRR faced relative stability for the next centuries, enjoying prosperity and increased infrastructure throughout the provinces. The species of the NRR also became more equal, at least amongst each other, as hybrids still typically dominated the social and political scene. However, the Novis Imperialis still operated in the background, ensuring that the political status quo endured, slowly building up loyal military forces in the Core Republic and in the Magnaverse through the machinations of Baron Vaul and Calis, who had retained their positions of power through Dante’s influence.

By 5109 CE, Dante and his cabal had secret political and military control of over half of the NRR, with their base on the planet of Torgal in the Praeverse. In the early morning, Dante declared what he called the Imperial Crusade, commanding his generals to begin wiping out units within their own armies loyal to the Emperor. On Menae, Dante drew his blade and attempted to assassinate the Emperor. However, his Praetorian Guards noticed and stopped Dante, alering the Emperor to his treachery. Heartbroken but unfortunately not very surprised, the Emperor commanded his guards to imprison Dante in the dungeon of the palace. On the way to the dungeon, Dante broke free using his abnormal strength and killed the guards with his bare hands, taking their weapons and exiting the palace to continue leading his coup. The generals loyal to Dante began besieging the capital city, mercilessly massacring aliens and mutant hybrids by the tens of thousands, viciously warring with their former comrades in the city.

The Siege of Menae sparked rebellions all throughout the entire empire. In the Magnaverse, Baron Vaul and Calis began abducting jinae citizens and forcing them back into slavery. However, the entire army of the Magnaverse, the fusiliers, were loyal to the Emperor and fought valiantly, battling against Vaul and Calis’ legions on Horizon and Sanctum.

On Szeza, the kenesz began suffering horrific losses after Dante ordered nerve gas to be launched into their hives, suffocating millions of kenesz drones and workers. The hivemind of the kenesz triggered, causing drones spread throughout the entire Roman Army to begin fighting against Dante’s forces, taking them by surprise and wiping out millions over the course of three years.

In 5115 CE, the Siege of Menae was successfully lifted, however the forces protecting it had suffered catastrophic losses, keeping them from leaving immediately to assist the other loyalist forces in the Praeverse. The menae of Gloras began mobilizing their soldiers to strike against Dante, however they were besieged by the forces of Legate Bosporos Hellenos, who commanded his legion, the XXXI Severed Skulls, to exterminate the entire planet. The Severed Skulls were vicious towards Gloras, mirroring the mistreatment they suffered during the Reclamation millenia before. Dante continued to seek out combat with Gabriel, resolving to destroy his brother in battle and execute him before his followers, hoping the sight would destroy the resolve of his loyalists and bring the Republic into his fold.

During the Battle of Hyperia in 5120 CE, Gabriel continuously bested Dante tactically, though he avoided fighting him in single combat for his safety, aware that Dante was much stronger than he was. To ensure that Dante’s forces never rested, the Roman Army armed local militias and rebels in areas conquered by Dante’s forces, who waged guerilla campaigns and raided patrols and FOBs, killing hundreds of thousands of Dante’s soldiers.

While the Gloras militias bled Dante’s men slowly, Gabriel left the Praeverse to retake the worlds fallen in the Titanoverse, which possessed countless weapon foundries imperative to the war effort. Gabriel’s liberation fleet consisted of thousands of heavily armored dreadnoughts and battleships, along with fifteen legions drawn from Hyperia, Silia, and Zolavar, all deeply loyal to his cause. Additionally, seventeen army groups from the Roman Army were activated, known as Battlefront Visigoth for the campaign. The Emperor’s forces spread through the Titanoverse like wildfire, cutting down tens of millions of Dante’s troops from 5121 CE to 5134 CE, turning each planet into a hellish wasteland of mud, razor wire, and trenches.

In 5135 CE, after the last of the rebellious planets in the verse was reclaimed, Dante arrived with the Red Condors, the Thunder Legion, and the newly constructed I Stormfire Legion, which represented the first time the armor began to divulge between the two belligerents. Fielding all black armor and using only deadly plasma weapons, the Stormfire Legion were fanatically vicious in their campaign, often adorning their armor with the skulls of slain aliens and even their own hybrid brethren which they regarded to be mutant or impure, though their leader was far from pure ironically.

It was during the 2nd Battle of Ulkass that Gabriel and Dante would clash once again. After Dante’s fleet crushed the blockade, the Stormfire and Red Condors began spreading through the planet, retaking entire continents of land. Dante also deployed the first ever Imperial Army, a newly formed volunteer force of black armor troops, who relied on speed rather than the slow advance of the Legions. The Imperial Army and Roman Army clashed viciously, at times even running out of ammo and resorting to using their knives and rifles as blunt melee weapons, savagely beating each other into submission with each engagement. Gabriel used his connections with the merdarren, who sent war beasts and war parties to assist the falling lines of the loyalist forces. The war beasts, including ogre-like monsters, for once terrified the rebel forces, whose lines collapsed by 5138 CE, forcing them off the scorched land of Ulkass, whose entire civilian population had been killed or forced offworld.

Dante’s rebel forces soon began to feel the stretch of their spread out forces. Baron Vaul was finally slain in 5140 CE by the Horizon Fusiliers and the II Jinae Auxiliary Legion, who executed him with an almost sadistic pleasure. With the Magnaverse free of Dante’s taint, legions and army groups began traveling to the Titanoverse and the Praeverse, relieving entire planets and forcing Dante onto the edges of the NRR’s celestial borders.

The final battle of the Schism, the Battle of the Via Appia, was an entirely naval engagement in 5147 CE, during which the Emperor mortally wounded Dante on his flagship, the Archangel Supremacy, during which he put out his left eye. Gabriel took Dante and his father Philip prisoner, trying them as traitors against the Republic. Though through the war Gabriel swore to kill Dante and his father, he could not bring himself to do it, and mercy for his own blood bid that they be exiled instead. As punishment, Dante and the whole of his followers were given unarmed merchant carriers and approximately 100,000 weapons to arm themselves wherever they landed. The fleet was to go north into dark space, where they could form their own nation and live in peace on their own terms. Dante was given the choice to bring as many followers as he was able, choosing to bring with him over 50 million hybrids, many of which were wealthy middle and upper class citizens from planets loyal to him. The surviving members of his personal legions, the Red Condors, Thunder Legion, and the Stormfire Legion, though stripped of their armor and weapons, also accompanied him.

As Gabriel watched from afar, a gut feeling within him told him that he should’ve killed Dante, but his heart assured him that justice was properly served.

### Reconstruction:

“The great bird on our standard, in times of war and nobility, represents the great aquila. In this reconstruction, it represents the phoenix.”

* Emperor Gabriel

The defeat of the secessionists, though a truly jubilant victory in the eyes of many of the NRR’s citizenry, brought about with it a period of civil, political, and economic instability. The destruction of many critical industrial and economic centers devastated the NRR’s economy, making trade between the planets highly unprofitable. By 5155 CE, the value of the Denarius had fallen 500%, causing mass inflation as the Emperor attempted to mint more money to account for the loss. As many of Dante’s followers were rich governors and wealthy social elite, many of the major political figures of the Republic had been either killed or were exiled with Dante, causing massive power vacuums of several worlds. The cause of Dante’s insurrection, primarily his hybrid supremacy and hatred of other species, led to a stereotype that all hybrids were racist, leading to civil unrest as the other species of the Republic began targeting hybrids, blaming them for the deaths of their families, not taking into account that many hybrids also lost their families and not all supported Dante’s ideals.

Gloras was especially hit hard, as nearly half of its population was massacred by the secessionists. The planet eventually broke out into a minor civil war in 5157 CE after disagreements arose over who would take power until the next election. Eventually, a ceasefire was agreed and the menae governor Targil Vost was installed.

The kolatl, who suffered untold horrors at the hands of Dante, called for independence from the Emperor, who granted it to them in 5158 CE out of fear they would rebel if he did not allow it, unwilling to fight another war so soon.

The Magnaverse was placed under a military government to stabilize the region after hate crimes against the other NRR citizens by disgruntled jinae veterans began to rise. Protests were also common, with Sanctum desiring independence, as many of them still identified with their governor, the late Baron Vaul. In 5161 CE, the radical group known as the Sons of Vaul was founded, claiming to carry on his legacy by fighting against the perceived tyranny of the Emperor. The SoV frequently launched terrorist bombings and shootings against Horizon Fusiliers and the newly founded X Legion Hellfighters. After the Fusiliers failed to quell the terrorist threat by 5165 CE, the Emperor reorganized the Hellfighters into a new military organization, the I Legionary Defense Force, or LDF, who would be responisble for maintaining order in Sanctum’s system.

The LDF, now able to spread out, was more effective at combating the SoV, successfully raiding this base and capturing their leader, Patrice Vamor. Their success led to Gabriel dividing several legions across sectors, creating the II, III, IV, and IV LDF units in the Praeverse and Titanoverse. The III LDF, while stationed on Indire in the Titanoverse, successfully waged a peacekeeping operation against secessionist forces who had remained behind after Dante’s defeat, who attempted to kidnap the governess and ransom her in exchange for their independence. The III LDF’s 17th Lancer Regiment, in conjunction with Inquisitors, boldly assaulted the palace and rescued the governess while the 17th killed all of the terrorists, ending the Indire Conflict in 5170 CE after a three week standoff.

Conflict did not only arise from within, and many rival factions who had encountered the NRR through word of mouth from Vondrak slavers and foreign merchants. A gildairian mercenary warlord, Quiquere Tanjier, gathered forces from his homeworld of Quilari and traveled to the Magnaverse planet of Aeltarius in 5175 CE, which was lightly defended after losing much of its fleet and army during the Schism.

Tanjier’s forces went to the planet and offered to protect it, selling their services at exorbitant prices in exchange for their services in protecting them from pirates and the SoV, who had escaped from Sanctum and taken refuge on Aeltarius.

The gildairians were effective at fighting against the SoV, however they proved to be brutal in their methods, and were not above letting civilians die in order to draw them out. At times, the gildairian soldiers would also aggressively interrogate suspected members, even executing them if they deemed necessary. The mercenaries would also extort shopkeepers and landowners, demanding extra money or else they would not protect them from attack, if even that bargain did not work, they would forcibly take control of the establishment, looting it of wealth and supplies and condemning the victim as a terrorist spy before executing them.

After a year of this exploitation, the Aeltarius government called for aid from the LDF, who landed on the planet and forced the gildairian mercenaries off the planet after six months of combat, liberating the planet from their hold.

Vondraks also returned to the Magnaverse, seeking to profit from the conflict by arming SoV partisans in exchange that they take prisoners to be then given to them as slaves. The Sons of Vaul obliged, kidnapping thousands of victims using xamon manufactured gauss rifles and assault rifles. The Vondraks, seeking maximum profit, also armed the defenders, giving the PDF of Aeltarius weapons of a different make to prevent them from identifying their weapons from killed SoV fighters. As both sides killed each other with the same xamon made weapons, the Vondraks profited immensely.

However, the Sons of Vaul were eventually wiped out in 5187 CE, which prompted the Vondraks to leave the Magnaverse in search of other prey, though they successfully captured over 200,000 NRR citizens who would never return to their homes.

On Menae, the Emperor struggled to focus on every problem that the fractured Republic was facing, so he resolved to seek help. He created the Council of Five, a collection of five generals, politicians, and other government officials, who served as his advisors and controlled certain duties within the Republic Government. The High General would serve as his chief military advisor while the Civic Master served as his official on social and civil disputes. The Health General of the Republic was in charge of health infrastructure, which included healthcare, hospitals, and the combatting of plague. The Coinmaster served as an economic advisor and official, who monitored the Republic Denarius’ value, the minting of new coins, and management of funds. The final was the Minister of Perception, who was in charge of managing the Oculi Imperatoris as well as the NRR’s new propaganda office.

Though the Emperor disliked the use of propaganda, believing it to be disingenuous, he could not deny its effect on civilian morale and happiness. The increasing use of the Oculi Imperatoris as a civil surveillance unit ensured that radical dissenters could not remain for long, as Dante’s betrayal had made Gabriel increasingly wary of traitors. All government officials were subject to censure and questioning, leading to many democratically elected officials being deposed at the slightest suspicion.

In order to account for all the soldiers lost in the Schism, the High General proposed a peacetime conscription solution in 5213 CE. The Emperor modified the proposal, instead declaring that from birth, all peoples born within the NRR would be civilians, unable to vote or serve in government, whereas servitude in the military services for at least 30 years would grant them the right of citizens, who could vote, serve in public office, and attain more social status through gifts of land on either new planets or existing space on their home planet. This, combined with the new propaganda in support of the military, made the NRR into an extremely militaristic state that prided itself on honorable and selfless service to the Emperor and the Republic. The armies of the NRR swelled with willing men and women, all prepared to spread the influence of the Republic and defend it with their lives, which prompted the next NRR expansion.

### The Dosh War:

“We now find ourselves embroiled in the politics of lesser beings. We will bring order to this galaxy, whether they want us to or not.”

* General Alden Grimm on the Dosh Succession War

After NRR explorers discovered that the Magnaverse was much bigger than previously thought, the newly constructed 103rd Army, made of freshly trained citizens, was sent to explore the farther reaches of the Magnaverse in 6607 CE. They soon came in contact with another alien species, the dosh, native to the planet Dosh’an, a similarly militaristic species of mammals who were currently undergoing a violent regime change known as the Dosh Succession War. Seeing an opportunity to gain influence, the general of the 103rd, General Alden Grimm, offered to assist the dosh republicans, who were attempting to reform the dosh monarchy into a democracy after the death of the last heir of the ruling House of Cant’a. The 103rd deployed troops to assist the republican forces in establishing a new base of operations after they were evicted from their homeworld. The 103rd guided the dosh to an unnamed planet, which they renamed to Dosh’al. Using prefabrication modules to rapidly build up a base of operations, the 103rd began training the dosh rebels with their weapons and armor. The dosh, who were similar in size to merdarren, were given modified merdarren panoply and weapons, which they came to be proficient at.

In 6623 CE, the base, known as Fort Liberas, was attacked by an imperial dosh patrol fleet. A deadly firefight between the fleet and the base’s transatmospheric artillery cannons ensued, destroying several of the ships in the fleet, forcing the dosh imperial forces to retreat.

After the discovery of the hidden base, the dosh prepared for an all out invasion of the planet, seeking to add it to their empire and bring the republicans and their civilians back into their fold. The 103rd dug massive networks of trenches around Fort Liberas and the dosh settlements, preparing to defend their new allies with their lives. On the first day of the invasion, the transatmospheric guns shot down hundreds of landing craft, killing over 250,000 dosh soldiers before they had even landed. After making landfall, the NRR mowed down tens of thousands more before any shots could even be fired, demonstrating their superior firepower and immovable stubbornness. Even after dosh troops managed to close in and enter the trenches, they met with butcherswork compared to a medieval bloodbath, as the 103rd fixed their bayonets and gutted the dosh as they entered. As many of the troops in the 103rd were hybrids and menae, they easily overpowered the comparatively much smaller dosh troops.

In desperation, the dosh began firing their own artillery into the trenches while their men were still inside, filling the trenches with mangled flesh. Though the NRR in the trenches were killed, far too many dosh soldiers had been lost, forcing them to be much more conscious as they advanced forward.

The republican forces were much more mobile than the static NRR doctrine, weaving from cover to cover and constantly maintaining a rapid offensive, making surgical strikes on key centers of gravity within the imperial army.

By 6627 CE, the war on Dosh’al had slowed to a bloody stalemate. By this point the 103rd was beginning to feel the pressure of the mounting casualties. However, imperial dosh jamming devices kept them from making a distress signal, instead they had to rely on the chance that a Republic communications officer would notice the black spot on the holomap where they should be and call for reinforcements, if they even believed that any of them were left.

Realizing that their current strategy was costing too many lives, the 103rd came to rely on their lighter human soldiers, who served as quick vanguard units. These human soldiers worked well with the dosh republicans, who successfully renewed the offensive on the front, breaking through the imperial lines and destroying their jamming towers, allowing the 103rd to call for aid. The aid came in the form of the IX Aeltarius Legion, the Serpents of Freedom, to break the dosh on the planet, forcing back the navy and trapping the imperial soldiers on the planet in 6628 CE.

General Grimm, in a stunning show of mercy and honor, did not execute the millions of dosh prisoners, instead he transported them to Rhotek to be held prisoner until the war was concluded when they would then be returned back to their homeworld. After the Battle of Dosh’al ended, the NRR then began sending soldiers to the nearby Dosh Empire world of Dosh’im, which was heavily guarded by millions of dosh soldiers and a loyal and armed civilian population. While the NRR armies besieged Dosh’im, the republican soldiers began their siege of Dosh’an, the capital planet, with assistance from the Serpents of Freedom.

Dosh’im fell in 6648 CE after the NRR forces successfully conquered the capital city of Aarn’vas, killing the duke of the planet, Duke Hor’a Kas’dosh. However, the 103rd and freshly deployed 75th army had suffered catastrophic losses during the battle, with the 103rd having lost nearly two thirds of its manpower in the bloody stalemate of trench warfare. As such, the two armies were unable to assist the Serpents and the republican soldiers in their efforts on Dosh’an, causing the siege to end in failure in 6650 CE. With the defeat of the republicans, the two political belligerents drafted a ceasefire treaty, agreeing to temporarily cease hostile operations for a period of at least ten years, known as the Tens Years’ Peace Treaty. With the temporary end of hostilities, the NRR withdrew their forces back to Sanctum and Rhotek to rearm, however they assured the Republic of Dosh’an that they were ready for war when the Ten Years’ Peace ended.

### The Lost Cause:

“In all the agony I have felt in my life, it all pales in the light of the hatred that burns within me. I will not rest until the Milky Way is ours, sister.”

* Dante vowing to return

While the NRR reconstructed from 5147 CE to the 6500s CE, a very different reconstruction was occurring in Dark Space. As the beaten and humiliated secessionists journeyed through the void of space, Dante had already begun drafting plans of revenge against his brother. In 5377 CE, the fleet had reached the edges of the Scutum-Centaurus Arm, near the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy. This region of space was inhabited almost entirely by fringe colonies and ruined worlds; remnants of the ancient Zunni Empire.

At the center of this region, the Thetaverse, was a great Zunni complex that the natives of the verse referred to as the Vault of Eternity. The Vault was a tremendously large structure, almost the size of a medium sized planet. Dante remembered the Zunni from his years of schooling on ancient menae history, who famously warred with the Zunni in the old ages. Intent on unlocking the Vault’s secrets, Dante personally led an expedition on the station. His Red Condors spread throughout the massive bridges and catwalks of the station, discovering grand foundries that suddenly awoke, pumping out prototype weapons and drones that flickered to life. The drones immediately attacked the Condors, who were forced to defend themselves from the half complete, but still deadly machines.

Dante discovered the source of the sudden power surge, an ayar warlord named Korlax the Vandal, who was trying to take control of the facility to build an army to take over the Milky Way. Dante’s forces fired on the warlord and his synthetics, who sprung from the shadows of the Vault and massacred Dante’s guard. Though he was pushed back, Dante became blinded with rage, ordering that unarmed civilians still on the ships be sent to the vault to serve as shields against Korlax’s forces while he regrouped.

The civilian horde, fanatical and willing to die, threw themselves at the ayar forces. However, being physically stronger than many of the drones, were able to kill a few with their bare hands and take their weapons, becoming an armed militia that slowly held the ayar horde back.

In the factory district, the Condors continued to hold back the tide of Zunni drones, though they noticed that when ayar synthes showed up, the drones would prioritize them instead. To tire out Korlax’s forces, the Condors led the drones into the warlord’s forces then withdrew, watching from afar as the two ancient enemies ripped each other to scrap metal. After days of battle, Korlax emerged from the wreckage, his armor covered in repurposed Zunni machinery and dead humae flesh. The massive warlord then ran straight for Dante, brandishing his bastard sword, cleaving off Dante’s lower right arm and blinding the hybrid mutant in a fit of pain and uncontainable rage. Dante picked up his own severed arm and slammed it into Korlax’s chest, knocking off his chest plate and exposing his mechanical heart. Before Korlax even had a chance to defend himself, the hulking Dante ripped the heart clean out of the chest, crushing it in his palm like a ripe grape.

As Korlax’s lifeless body fell to the metal floor, Dante picked up the fallen ayar’s sword and claimed it as his own, naming it Purifier. The death of Korlax caused the rest of his synthes to deactivate, allowing Dante’s forces to move through the Vault unchallenged. The civilians still alive from the battle began gathering the ayar weapons and armor, arming themselves to prepare going deeper into the Vault. In the core of the Vault, which took three days to reach, Dante discovered the secret of the Vault; a massive rift portal engine, including instructions on how to install it.

After retrofitting the engine to his flagship, Supremacy II, a rift portal opened to the Andromeda Galaxy. The rest of the fleet entered first and as Dante his flagship entered, the battered hybrid looked to his sister, Sophia, and embraced her.

### The Extinction of the Dalith:

“Wrongfully Slain, Rightfully Avenged.”

* Inscription on the Memorial of the Dalith

In 6660 CE, the Ten Years’ Peace was retired, and almost immediately the Republic and Empire of Dosh had already begun skirmishing with each other with their respective navies. Making good on their alliance, the NRR began funneling supplies and soldiers to Dosh’al to begin mobilization of an invasion army for Dosh’an. In 6662 CE, the two armies began their invasion of Dosh’an. To their surprise, they encountered a new enemy in the form of gorgon mercenaries that had been hired by the Dosh Empire. The gorgons proved to be deadly adversaries, who had joined the conflict out of a desire to hunt rather than for wealth. By 6665 CE, every gorgon soldier deployed on Dosh’an was wearing a belt of NRR skulls, and their pauldrons adorned with rib cages and limbs, their capes sewn from the furred hide of merdarren and jinae.

The NRR were taken aback by this macabre display and soon began to hate the gorgons, relishing in killing them whenever chance they got, though oftentimes the serpentine warriors would kill thousands of them in each battle. The republican soldiers suffered greatly in the battle, as the gorgons easily overpowered them physically, forcing the dosh rebels back off the planet leaving only the NRR soldiers to maintain the siege. The NRR chose to dig in, constructing a massive network of trenches known as the Grimm Line, after their general, which kept the gorgons and imperials at bay until 6677 CE.

In the middle of 6677 CE, the NRR came in contact with another new alien race, the dalith, who had spent centuries under the rule of a vicious ayar warlord named Ornam the Genius. After the dalith had kicked Ornam off their planet, they used ayar technology to create powerful ships that used to explore the Magnaverse, which was nearby their homeland in the Gammaverse.

Before the dalith could establish connections with the NRR, they were attacked by them, who mistook the sight of ayar ship designs as an act of war by their hated and ancient enemy. The NRR’s attack was swift and merciless, as NRR commanders are taught to be decisive and brutal when dealing with ayar warlords.

After destroying the fleet, the NRR traced its origins to Dalit herself. Believing them to be evil pawns of the ayar, the NRR invaded Dalith with a force of over five million legionaries and army troopers. The immensely powerful NRR invasion fleet bombarded the surface with heavy railguns and bombards, utterly wiping out entire cities in minutes.

Though the dalith had generally discarded any remnants of their old ayar overlords, they still maintained some of the weapons that the ayar equipped their synthetic thralls with in cases of emergency. However, this contingency only gave the NRR more reason to believe that they were ayar collaborators, and thus they became even more brutal with their killing. The dalith fought valiantly, using their weapons to slow the NRR advance on several fronts, being one of the few independent species to put up any semblance of defense against the NRR’s near unstoppable war machine. At times, dalith even booby-trapped their cities with bombs and reverse-engineered corruptor seeds, assimilating hundreds of thousands of NRR soldiers with the press of a button, turning entire armies against each other that proceeded to rip each other apart. These tactics eventually forced the invasion army to retreat, with only 600,000 of the original forces left.

However, the NRR had men to spare, and a second invasion army, doubled in size, attacked in 6680 CE. Now onto the tricks of the dalith, the NRR countered every dalith tactic. When they attempted to lure them into traps within their cities, they were simply bombed into oblivion, oftentimes before they could even evacuate civilians. Newly designed “Ayar Slayer” armor was fielded, which had a specialized electric field that short-circuited and destroyed any corruptor weapons that the dalith fired at the NRR troops. These NRR troops, nicknamed Lightning Warriors, obliterated whatever was left of the dalith military forces by 6685 CE. In an act of desperation, the Dalith Republic voted to conscript civilians to use in a last ditch effort, rationalizing that if they were going to die, then they would die fighting, and threw millions upon millions of poorly armed civilians at the NRR.

When the NRR noticed this, they began questioning the integrity of their cause. The ayar they had fought before had never exhibited any feeling outside of blinding hatred or inexorable arrogance, so when they witnessed the desperation and crushing fear that the dalith exhibited, morale amongst the troops began to suffer.

This war was not without its onlookers, and Ornam the Genius sought to reclaim his lost world, seeing that they were extremely weakened. He was spurred to action when he learned that it was the NRR who had done it, blinded by his seething hatred for the menae that had founded the empire millennia ago. Calling upon Balor for assistance, Ornam and a cabal of 45 other warlords arrived over the infernal world in 6686 CE. The ayar fleet took the NRR completely by surprise, destroying or assimilating all of the ships within an hour. The mechanical eldritch hordes of the ayar then descended upon the world like a swarm of locusts over a dried field, reaping NRR and dalith alike. Ornam reinstituted the Dalithite Reapers from captured dalith, using them against both.

The dalith, horrified by the return of the ayar and nearly obliterated by the NRR, surrendered themselves to their fate. The citizenry of the world had become so devoid of hope that mass suicide began to take hold. Entire families began killing themselves in order to avoid death at the hands of either side. Cities, once their populations had killed themselves, detonated bombs to ensure their corpses wouldn’t become soldiers for the ayar.

The NRR, realizing this, focused their efforts entirely on combating the ayar, fearlessly protecting any cities that remained, cities that they originally intended to level. The Lighting Warriors proved effective at killing the ayar soldiers, their very presence destroying swarms of synths that got too close to the electric fields that emanated off their gleaming armor.

Despite their efforts, the damage had been done, and few dalith remained. The last of them were killed in 6689 CE at the decisive Battle of T’argoni, the last city. Though the NRR fought bravely, they were overwhelmed by Ornam himself, who savagely destroyed both the NRR army and the last of the dalith civilians, killing and assimilating them.

Saddened by the deaths of an entire species that they were partially to blame for, the NRR penitently continued their fight against Ornam and his remaining warlords, eventually killing him when the commanding general, War Marshall Baldrick Gladio dueled and killed the arch warlord during the Battle of K’athonia Ridge in 6690 CE. With Ornam finally slain, much of his horde mindlessly began fighting amongst each other or simply deactivated. The remaining warlords feebly put up a fight for another year before finally retreating in 6691 CE.

With the ayar defeated, the NRR withdrew from the dead world. The planet has remained untouched since the war’s end, with only the destroyed cities remaining collecting moss and overtaken by the planet’s few remaining species of wildlife. Even refugees and pirates dare not land on the world, fearful of what may still wander within the ruins, be it ayar or worse.

In remembrance for the annihilated dalith, the NRR constructed a towering pillar on the ruins of T’argoni with Ornam’s head adorning the peak as a memorial to the destructive 14 year long war with the inscription “Wrongfully Slain, Rightfully Avenged” carved at the base.

While the NRR were waging their doomed war on Dalit, in 6681 CE the republicans renewed their offensive against the imperials, invading with a fresh army armed by the NRR. The republicans broke the stalemate and launched a powerful offensive against the capital city, capturing it in 6682 CE after a brutal siege. With the empire dissolved, the Dosh Republic at last encompassed all of the dosh owned planets. The gorgon mercenaries, satisfied with their hunting venture, departed before the NRR could hunt them down, disappearing without a trace.

### A New War:

“Before the Milky Way, we will own this void.”

* Dante upon arriving in Andromeda

Upon arriving in the mysterious Andromeda Galaxy, Dante and his fleet found themselves in a mysterious void. Using their long range scanners, the fleet stumbled across a collection of small, uninhabited worlds. After their scanners also dated the soil, they had discovered that they had been traveling through the portal for 300 years, which had only felt like a few hours for them. While settling the planet, the hybrids turned to Dante for guidance, who declared that they would first conquer Andromeda and then return to the Milky Way for revenge against his brother.

In 5678 CE, one year after their arrival, this goal had begun to dissolve as the various leaders underneath Dante began to rebel, believing themselves to be superior leaders, proclaiming that if they were in charge of the Schism that they would not have failed. Dante, though domineering and capable of keeping some of the lords under his thrall, was unable to keep all of them from rebelling. Most notably was General Horus Severns, who took with him three million followers to colonize the planet Posithan in the newly named Tartarus Sector.

Unwilling to deal with General Severns at the moment, Dante instead turned his attention to a mysterious foundry that was guarded by an unknown force. This foundry would become known as the Nexus, and was actually one of hundreds spread throughout Andromeda. The Nexus was guarded by the undiscovered Syrus Empire, who were embroiled in a vicious war of supremacy against the Meskrit Empire. Dante watched from afar as Meskrit forces attempted to assault the Nexus, who successfully took the station in a three day siege. Seeking to capitalize on the situation, Dante used his Red Condors to assault the station while the Meskrit were still recovering their dead, easily destroying the remnants of the mezula fleet and slaughtering the physically inferior Meskrit soldiers.

After conquering the Nexus, Dante discovered it was capable of maximizing production of weapons and armor, seemingly using small fractions of unrefined materials to create vast sums of refined metals, almost like a form of inorganic cloning. Inputting NRR weapon designs melded with ayar and Zunni technology, the Nexus began producing millions of weapons within hours, which Dante used to arm his populace.

On the newly conquered world of Hades, where Dante based his armies, he also began constructing what he termed “brood farms” where the hybrid women would essentially act as livestock, continuously birthing children who then be indoctrinated from birth to be entirely loyal to Dante and his new empire. Girls that were born would be conditioned to desire more children, and upon reaching sexual maturity would also being put to work on the Brood Farm.

By 5695 CE, Hades’ population went from just a few hundred million people to almost 1 billion. However, Dante grew impatient. To further increase productivity, Dante’s scientists reverse engineered the technology claimed from Korlax’s warship, more specifically cloning technology. Using what he believed to be the most pure specimens of the hybrid race, Dante used their DNA as templates to clone adult humae in just days, creating millions more soldiers that would then be armed by the weapons and armor produced at the Nexus.

Many of Dante’s senior staff and nobility were disturbed by this tactic, believing these hybrid clones to be impure bastardizations of the humae genome, and several of them deserted Dante, choosing to found their own kingdoms that would be more pure and moral. Infuriated by their lack of vision, Dante used this newly constructed army to assault the closest kingdom, the Empire of Zingh, founded by Eddarg Zingh, a baron previously loyal to Dante.

Dante’s forces, though numerous, were inexperienced in comparison to the Dark Knights Legion, the army of Zingh, who were all seasoned veterans from the civil war. When Dante’s soldiers, known as the Drake Legion, besieged the planet of Zingh in 5704 CE, they lost millions in the beginning assaults, unable to contend with the experience of the Dark Knights. However, Dante still possessed air superiority, and used his flagship to bombard the planet’s cities from above, seemingly unbothered by the shedding of hybrid blood which he claimed to cherish so deeply.

In 5709 CE, Dante successfully conquered Zingh, making an example of the rebellious baron by ripping him limb from limb with his bare hands, including a new synthetic arm which he had fashioned using Korlax’s old limbs. The death of Zingh brought many potentially rebellious generals back under his control, though Dante still comparatively owned very little of the Tartarus Sector, a state of affairs he intended to rectify very shortly.

### The Grey War:

“Your rivers will choke with the flesh of your dead, your air poisoned with plague, your corpses waste after being consumed by our soldiers, your women and children violated ravenously by the lust of our conquest, your bones ground to meal beneath our taloned feet, your lineages extinguished by the onslaught of our war, and all your worlds will burn into ash and glass as the Spravac Empire tramples upon your standards!”

* The Spravac Empire’s promise to the NRR

The NRR experienced a period of continued prosperity following the end of the Dosh Succession War in 6690 CE. As they drew closer towards the center of the Milky Way, the NRR began interacting at a limited capacity with the rest of the factions in the Orion Spur, which was regarded as the political and social center of the galaxy. NRR trade ships began spreading throughout the Orion Spur, trading weapons and armor in exchange for gold, textiles, and foodstuffs, most notably with the Sol Confederacy, the original home system of humanity. By 7000 CE, the NRR had become one of the richest empires in the known galaxy, though very little was known about them, which Gabriel deliberately ensured to keep other factions from warring with them, as he did not want to risk another major conflict until he was aware of what was out there.

This fear would be realized in 7017 CE when a diplomatic ship was accosted by an unknown species. The ship was completely surrounded by several of the jetblack craft, all pointing their guns at it. Pompously believing that by establishing contact they would spare this new species suffering, the diplomatic ship attempted to establish communications with the ships. They were met by static and a boarding party thirty minutes later. The unknown boarders fielded advanced technology far beyond the reckoning of the NRR soldiers guarding the ship, as well as the untold suffering they inflicted upon them. This species, after gathering information from the ship’s data drive, sent out messages to all planets in the NRR, declaring themselves to be the Spravac Empire and the harbingers of their destruction. Boisterously proclaiming that “your rivers will choke with the flesh of your dead, your air poisoned with plague, your corpses waste after being consumed by our soldiers, your women and children violated ravenously by the lust of our conquest, your bones ground to meal beneath our taloned feet, your lineages extinguished by the onslaught of our war, and all your worlds will burn into ash and glass as the Spravac Empire tramples upon your standards!”

The NRR, bewildered by this sudden vulgar assault, began mobilizing fleets to protect their planets, confident that the spravac would break upon their shield. To their shock and surprise, the spravac ships that arrived in their territory were almost impossible to hit. Though smaller and less armored than the NRR hulks, the spravac ships, even the massive battleships, cut through space like knives, their massive numbers overwhelming the vanguard fleet within weeks. The spravac Shadow Ark Corsairs, the naval troopers of the Empire, seemed to relish in the bloodbath of ship boarding, willinging approaching NRR cruisers and battleships and spreading through the corridors like a horde of black armored locusts, inflicting untold suffering against the NRR soldiers, who were unprepared for such a numerous and sadistic foe. NRR soldiers would return from the fronts traumatized by battle, something that had not occurred since the early expansions into the Titanoverse thousands of years before.

The spravac first made landfall on the NRR world of Sindar, a massive arid world that was peacefully occupied in 6840 CE. The world was guarded by a massive PDF force known as the Sindar Warhawks, and was supported by three legions, the VII Sindar Sentinels, the X Stormswords, and the XXII Firedrakes. The defense fleet numbered at almost 300 strong, confident that the spravac would not break through. The spravac assault was spearheaded by a gargantuan supercarrier, the Wind of Resurrected Carnage, firing several bolts of antimatter from its Ultrabow, which devastated the fleet before the battle had even formally begun. Before the fleet could react, the rest of the spravac armada fired their ultrabows as well. Those that did not immediately vaporize ships skirted past and landed on the surface, which was mostly urban, killing millions of civilians in an instant.

With the fleet destroyed, the NRR soldiers on the ground fortified their fortresses and trench networks, prepared to starve the spravac out in a war of attrition. When the spravac landed, they seemed to enjoy mindlessly assaulting the fortifications, losing thousands with every assault but never tiring. Spravac wounded tore their own wounds open with glee, enjoying the pain that war brought, treating it like a sport rather than a battle. For two years the spravac mindlessly assaulted the trenches, though they appeared to never run out of men.

The spravac had brought females with them, which they used to breed new soldiers on the battlefield, as spravac were fully grown mature adults by the age of just two years of age, meaning that the longer the war lasted, the more of them would be born, wearing recycled armor and using weapons from fallen spravac. The spravac also fielded countless auxiliary forces, notably malthale, who were physically stronger than even menae soldiers, which the spravac used to break through the trenches and butcher the NRR troops.

By 7024 CE, Sindar had fallen to the spravac onslaught, marking the first time in NRR history that a planet had fallen completely to an enemy empire, as the spravac not only wiped out the entire military force on the planet, but exterminated the civilian populace as well, using their corpses as rations in future conflicts.

From Sindar, now renamed Sindell, the spravac used it as a base for assaulting the rest of the Magnaverse, including the Dosh Republic, which joined in the war in 7022 CE after spravac troops began raiding their merchant fleets. The spravac launched the Shadow Hand Campaign, named after the Blood Alchemist Várgá Vétz, which spread through the entire lower half of the Magnaverse Province, massacring hundreds of millions of civilians and soldiers with every battle. By 7035 CE, almost a quarter of the Magnaverse was conquered, with more still under siege by the avian warriors.

The Emperor instituted new conscription plans to combat the spravac, resorting to deploying not only the reserves, but veterans who had already retired. PDFs from other planets, originally only meant to protect their own territory, were mustered to act as supplementary forces, deploying on the besieged planets of Jevell and Horcas, both besieged by spravac hordes.

In 7041 CE, the spravac Didact Étvác Vólóm was tasked with conquering Rhotek, which for the entire duration of the war thus far was responsible for producing valuable ships, war materials, and men. Vólóm assaulted the planet with a storm of antimatter and steel, destroying the defense fleet of 700 in just two hours before assaulting the planet on every continent, deploying over 1 billion spravac and auxiliary troops. The spravac had deployed so quickly that many of the NRR troops had not properly dug in, causing many of their typically advanced trenches to simply be hastily dug mud and steel, allowing the spravac to assault through with little resistance.

Unlike the other planets, which fell after years of conflict, Rhotek fell in just six months, with the capital city being the last to fall after the spravac forces all converged and surrounded it, with Vólóm himself executing General Nathaniel Garrix in front of his jeering men. Desperate to hold the spravac at bay, the Emperor organized a new offensive strategy, one so risky that if were to fail could potentially cause the entire Republic to fall.

Mustering over 800 million men, including knights from the Orders Templar and Hospitallar, the Emperor’s grand strategy involved a series of feint invasions. Over the course of the war Gabriel had noticed the spravac’s inherent love for bloodshed and sought to exploit it, sending massive armies to essentially act as suicide units, giving their lives to distract large armies of spravac so the main attacking force could assault the spravac homeworld of Sprava.

The Orders volunteered to attack the spravac owned planet of Tzárgcor in the Omegaverse, while the 4th and 5th Army Fronts organized forces to invade the ice planet of Ien in the Traverse. While those two forces split the attention of the spravac war machine, the Emperor would spearhead an invasion of Sprava itself.

In 7041 CE, the 4th and 5th invaded Ien, immediately beset by crushing blizzards and lightly armored skirmishing spravac troops, along with palister auxiliaries, who used guerilla tactics and hit and run attacks to devastate the NRR troops. They besieged the settlement of Oragca in 7042 CE, facing against a highly motivated force of malthale, palisters, and spravac rangers commanded by Didact Sczur Tzár, who tactfully pushed General Titus Vulcan after several months, turning the very populace of Oragca against them, creating a nearly endless supply of fighters, a deadly precedence for the NRR forces besieging the other spravac planets.

While the NRR corpses froze on Ien, the Orders, supplemented by an additional three legions, began their assault against Tzargcor, which was guarded by the fearsome Dread Legion of Anzgmár, led by the Venom King Cairé Anzgmár himself, who heard through Incubi spies that the NRR were preparing to invade Tzárgcor, though he was not aware that it was a diversion. The other legions assisting in the invasion, the IX Fire Titans, the II Warpikes of Tiberius, and the XIV Fury of Liberty, were armed with flamethrowers, heavy machine guns, and flamethrower tanks, as previous battle reports noted the spravac vulnerability to fire.

In space, the invasion was assisted by Admiral Rok, who distinguished himself against the spravac by being one of the only fleet commanders to not only survive naval engagements, but win quite a few of them as well.

Admiral Rok began the assault against the Venom Fleet with over four hundred ships, committing to the invasion with overwhelming firepower and using the spravac’s aggression against them, baiting their individual ships into boarding only for them to get surrounded on both sides and destroyed by volleys of broadside and portside fire. The spravac fleet launched volley after volley of ultrabow fire, destroying several of Rok’s heavy carriers, which were destroyed so quickly that only half of their fighters were able to scramble and escape before the ships were obliterated. Without carriers to refuel, many of the pilots resorted to suicide bombing spravac ships before running out of fuel, taking more of the lighter ships and gunships with them.

After almost a day of prolonged naval combat, the spravac fleet broke on the orders of the Caire Anzgmár, who was eager to meet the NRR troops on the ground. Rok, aware of this, wished good luck to the NRR soldiers as they landed, assuring them that their deaths would not be in vain as they gave their lives gloriously for the Emperor and the Republic.

The Order Knights chanted godly hymns as their dropships raced past plasma and antimatter fire, believing that God was swatting them away as they made their descent. The Fire Titans made landfall first in the evening, the dark smog of Tzárgcor’s rumbling industry blackened the moon out of view, turning the blackened landscape into a shadowy hellscape as men fell by the hundreds in the immediate assault. The entrenched spravac they were fighting weren’t even official imperial troops, but volunteer militia and irregulars from the city who were eager to meet them, giving what they called “a warm spravac welcome.”

The NRR troops lost thousands assaulting the gibbering spravac rabble, making short work of them once they reached their hastily dug trenches.́ The Order landed second, announcing that Tzárgcor would be the first planet to fall in their great crusade, cutting down tens of thousands of the spravac militia and reaching their first settlement, the industrial village of Tzárá, burning it to the ground and all of its inhabitants, even the spravac hatchlings, though even they attempted to kill Order members, which greatly disturbed even the most devout of them.

Regarding the spravac as demons, the Order and legionaries viciously fought for every mile of ground they assaulted, resolving that if they were all doomed to die, they would do so with a pile of dead spravac beneath each of them. It wasn’t until three weeks in when the NRR troops finally encountered official Imperial Soldiers, who fought with such savagery that the NRR were unable to advance. The Dread Legion’s specialized rifles shot bolts of energized crystals that exploded on impact, horrifically maiming hundreds of NRR troops with just a single volley. Those that were wounded were simply euthanized to avoid further suffering, as being wounded by a spravac weapon of any kind meant that death would embrace them only after hours of incurable suffering and torture, which the spravac watched from afar with glee.

The spravac, even when being invaded, regarded the invasion as a game, purposely ceding ground only to lead NRR troops into ambushes, battling with such a euphoria that even in death they grinned at the NRR soldiers. The Dread Legion soldiers, clad in their armor of black and green, mindlessly assaulted the NRR troops to the point that some legionaries collapsed from exhaustion, only for the spravac to relent to allow the NRR to advance.

This morbid game continued until 7043 CE, when the spravac, now content with their game, resolved to crush the NRR troops. Led by the Venom King himself, the Dread Legion, along with the entirety of the Tzárgcor defense forces, launched an all out offensive against the NRR trenches, engulfing and surrounding them at several key locations. The Order Master of the Templars, unwilling to die in mud, led his forces in a tactical retreat into the Canyon of Rabatv, entrenching themselves in the rock and fortifying it like a citadel built into the canyon itself. With only his order members left and scant survivors from the Legions, the NRR troops boldly stood their ground, killing so many spravac troops that entire choke points became clogged with dead, forcing the spravac to crawl over growing mountains of flesh and warped armor to meet their prey.

What was apparently a show of fairness, the spravac did not use their rifles, instead only using their various curved blades to engage the knights, who themselves only had their swords and shields left to defend against the spravac onslaught. For five weeks the Orders held the spravac off, until the spravac had grown tired of the game and had begun encircling the canyon, descending from behind and cornering the Order soldiers until only Order Master Gavin Alridge was left. Impressed by his unwillingness to die, the Venom King himself drew his blade and rushed at the Order Master, impaling himself on the Templar Master’s pike, though his poisoned blade was also plunged into the hybrid warrior’s gut, overtaking him with agony and eventually slaying the Order Master.

Though their King was dead, the spravac were unbothered, instead the image of the impaled general and the slain Alridge inspired them into a fit of fervor, rushing off back to their cities to prepare their fleet for invasion, though little did they know they would instead be recalled to defend a much more valuable planet. In honor of the battle, the spravac erected a statue depicting the corpses of both Alridge and the Venom King, with a spear where spravac would impale themselves upon every few years to honor the battle.

In 7043 CE, the Emperor began his invasion of the spravac homeworld, fielding thus far the largest fleet that the NRR had ever deployed. The naval battle above the planet was famously deadly, with the initial battle fielding a combined force of nearly 2,000 ships, with the Spravac Defense Fleet making up over half of that number. The NRR fleet was the heaviest in terms of sheer weight that they had ever fielded, made almost entirely of heavy assault cruisers and carriers. The battle lasted a straight four days, during that time the falling debris from the destroyed ships became so thick that they blotted out the sun.

During the battle, swarms of NRR landing craft supported by massive war barges boldly flew through the fire, attempting to land their troops before the spravac had enough time to fortify their outer defenses. Ultrabow defense cannons and transatmospheric ballistas shot down hundreds of craft at a time, so much to the point that 60,000 men were killed within the first attempted landing alone. These dangerous landings eventually succeeded on the second day of the battle, however the forces that landed were promptly overrun by hordes of Rangers and marines. It was only on the fourth day when a beachhead was successfully maintained, though even then they faced attritious fire from the spravac defenders.

Following the establishment of the beachhead within the Zgilló Domain, the NRR’s rough fortifications were harried ceaselessly by the forces of House Sczril, the vicious rulers of Zgilló and the greater Region of Vróslárá, helmed by Archon Tvûl Sczril. The Sczril forces mounted a valiant defense against the NRR forces, eventually breaking after the decisive Battle of Vugcs and the eventual fall of the Terror Keep, the noble estate of House Sczril.

With the fall of the Sczril, legions of Blackwatch and Rangers slowed the NRR advance while other houses mobilized their levies, forming prodigious swarms of marines and irregulars prepared to soak the entire planet in NRR blood.

The two massive forces clashed during the Hellreach Campaign, with the namesake coming from the expansive Kingdom of Rótzerád, nicknamed after the Hellreach Mountains that hug its borders. The NRR General charged with taking the Hellreach, Alden Grimm, clashed with Spine Prince Sgcár Ûsczim, the lord of Rótzerád and Vótzai of the Sprava Coven. The Hellreach Campaign, over the course of the 1 year battle, killed nearly 6 million soldiers on both sides, with an additional 20 million civilians and irregular fighters killed.

Despite the losses taken, the spravac refused to show the NRR any quarter, and relentlessly threw their men at the NRR. So many soldiers were killed on both sides that rivers ran dry from the amount of dead clogging them. Entire fields would have their grounds covered completely by fallen men and destroyed vehicles, and mountains were even eroded away by the amount of artillery fired into them.

For another 4 years the NRR and spravac unabatedly clashed, with nearly 1 billion spravac irregulars dying as they bitterly fought for every city and inch of land the NRR besieged.

The height of this carnage was at the fateful Siege of Cairé Árvós, the very capital of the Spravac Empire. Nearly every nearby general of the Spravac Empire was mobilized to defend the dark city. It’s population of nearly 40 million was levied to fight alongside the massive horde of Incubi and Rangers that garrisoned the imperial capital. Over 60,000 tanks, including 700 Basilisks were present, and the walls of the city, which were almost 400 feet tall, were mounted with miniature Ultrabows. The NRR knew that if they took the capital, they had a chance to end the war, a war which at this point was their most devastating yet. The city was so massive that it could clearly be seen from orbit, stretching out to the point that it was as large as a small country, at nearly 16,000 square miles.

Nearly 70 million NRR troopers were fielded to take the city. Accounts stated that the incredible scale of the city horrified the NRR soldiers, who attested that the twisting walls of spines and lights were akin to death itself, with the spravac the grim reapers stationed to guard its hellish walls.

The NRR continuously assaulted the wall for three weeks, losing tens of thousands just scaling the towering structures. The top of the walls were wide enough to hold small frigates, and massive firefights killing thousands were held to claim just a sector of the fortifications.

The greatest of these, the Shardmouth, was the main gated entrance into the city, and was mounted with two Ultrabow batteries that obliterated entire corps of NRR soldiers. The Battle for the Shardmouth was eventually won by the NRR after they flanked the walls of the gate, destroying the two cannons, allowing the NRR tanks to punch holes through the main shadowy gates.

The whole of Cairé Árvós is actually multiple massive cities closely connected by heavily guarded highways called the Stygian Web. Along the web were hundreds of other cities so large that they held millions of armed civilians, making each step the NRR took one they would pay for with gallons of their blood. The NRR vanguard was especially battered, facing countless suicidal charges from spravac militia, some of which were even more heavily armed their professional marine brethren.

House Vólé, the noble house in charge of maintaining the Web, mobilized hordes of their Incubi guards to launch hit and run attacks on the NRR supply lines, causing starvation and disease to run rampant during the nearly two year campaign.

The central hub of Cairé Árvós, the Black Citadel, was the final battle of the Siege. Though the entirety of the dark city was not even close to taking, the NRR had grown desperate, and the Emperor himself led the Battle for the Citadel. Emperor Gabriel and his elite troops clashed hideously with the Incubi and Blackwatch, who had all withdrawn from the other fronts on the planet to defend the very black heart of their Empire. Walls of dead blocked doorways, the expansive floors of the palace became replaced with dead bodies, and even then the Primes refused to escape, choosing to meet the Emperor in glorious combat.

When Gabriel entered the main throne room, he was amazed to find the three Primes waiting for him, each clad in armor and posturing shamelessly. They drew their weapons, challenging him to single combat. Gabriel, impressed by their audacity, accepted and fought the first Prime, Tzill Seró in a vicious duel that lasted nearly two hours, eventually succeeding and crushing Tzill’s skull beneath his boot.

The next Prime, Sgcál Vól, underhandedly poisoned his blade with a deadly hallucinogen. After cutting his thigh, Gabriel was bombarded by thousands of horrid visions that nearly cost him the battle, however, Vól did not finish him, instead taunting and gloating over him, filling Gabriel with so much rage that he fought past the hallucinations and tore Vól’s head cleanly from his shoulders.

It was at this point that Prime Nósczán Zgává, the last of the Primes, got an idea. He sheathed his blade and presented Gabriel with a preposition. Either continue a pointless war that had already cost him thirty years and billions of soldiers, or end the war in a truce and join in a military alliance, as the spravac were thoroughly impressed with the NRR’s skills in battle.

Nearly dead and exhausted by the war, Gabriel accepted, ending the war in a bloodied truce.

### Tyrant of Tartarus:

“You dare betray your rightful king, worm! I will make you wish you never left the Milky Way!”

* Dante to Gage Helles

By 6100 CE, Dante continued building up his forces and organizing them into an entirely new military doctrine, which Dante did so to move away from the old ways of the NRR, the newly founded Union of Humae States served as now Chancellor Dante’s rallying banner. Seeking to only foster the strongest men in his new empire, Dante believed that by conquering the rebellious hybrid states that had formed through the crucible of warfare, his army would be amply prepared for conquering not only Andromeda, but the Milky Way.

In 6113 CE, Dante launched an invasion of the rival Empire of Vassa, led by the self proclaimed Emperor of the Humae Gage Helles, who had amassed a great legion of warriors calling themselves the Final Guardians. The Guardians fought valiantly in the defense of their holdings, which included Vassa and the planet Artoria. The Chancellor’s warriors, namely from the 1st Storm Division and the 2nd Storm Division, fought with a ferocity unmatched, massacring the Guardians by the millions and kidnapping their women to be bred and their male children to be indoctrinated and raised as future soldiers.

Though in 6115 CE the Chancellor successfully conquered Vassa, he was impressed with the fighting spirit of the Guardians of Helles, offering him life in exchange for loyalty to his cause. Seeking to keep his limbs and his power, Helles agreed, becoming one of the Chancellor’s chief generals in the future battles of the Union Unification War, which spread throughout the Tartarus Sector and beyond like a raging fire, engulfing several planets in war and pillage as the Union engorged.

By 6145 CE, the entirety of the Tartarus Sector was under the cruel boot of Chancellor Dante and his entourage. Seeking to expand further, the Tyrant of Tartarus moved to the adjacent Tripoli Sector, which was ruled by a sect of the Meskrit Empire, which was currently embroiled in their unending war with the Syrus Empire, and thus too distracted to deal with matters on the fringe of their empire.

Regarding the mezula and auxiliary species as mongrel animals, Dante sent forces led by General Helles to invade the Meskrit planets, with the goal being extinction. The Union forces were ravenous in their hatred of the alien species, wiping out entire cities and towns without a second thought, mercilessly gunning down millions of helpless civilians and wounded soldiers. The hybrid forces conquered nearly half of the Tripoli Sector by 6163 CE, only letting certain species live to be used as slave labor until they died from exhaustion, where their corpses were then ground into paste to be used as war rations.

After suddenly losing the planets in the sector, the Mezulas responded by sending a punitive fleet to retake the planets, launching liberation campaigns on the planets of Kelta and Variag to save what was left of their populations.

However, the mezulas were unprepared for the savagery of the Union troops, who used loot mezula weapons against the liberators, who were only greeted by death and ruin, as the Union counter offensive was so fierce that they chased them out of the Tripoli Sector and into Rhodes Sector when they were finally halted.

With the Tripoli and Tartarus Sectors firmly under the rule of the Union, Dante began mobilizing for a full on invasion of Meskrit territory, little did he know that the invasion would lead to an invasion of the Milky Way that came much sooner than he intended.

### The New Punic War:

“The Republic we love is dead! The Emperor and his lust for power and control killed it! We fight not to burn down our beloved Republic, but reclaim it!”

* Yarrick Ventro

With the spravac now their allies reluctantly, the NRR were suddenly bombarded by the rest of the galactic community, which shook their society to its core. Many of the NRR’s citizens, including hundreds of thousands of families who lost men in the war with the spravac, were infuriated by the Emperor’s choice to ally with them. The alliance with the spravac set a precedent of wars to come, as the spravac established themselves as willful and reckless aggressors, which would force the NRR into frequent petty and costly wars with other species.  The spark of unrest began when the NRR permitted spravac troops to station on planets in the Magnaverse, causing frequent protests against the spravac marine bases. What originally became an issue of spravac presence soon compounded into discontent with the militaristic society that the NRR had turned into, namely the issue of citizenship and voting rights.

In 7048 CE, the protests ignited into rebellion after a protest on the planet of Sanctum escalated to violence after one of the protestors threw a rock at a spravac marine, sending the easily excitable species into a frenzy, firing their rifles into the crowd and killing over 100 protestors. Though the Emperor reprimanded the spravac and demanded that they leave the planet, he quickly sent soldiers to secure the city, which completely erupted into revolt.

Chanting curses against the spravac and the Emperor, the rebels raided the local PDF stations and took weapons and armor, barricading themselves inside the city. The spravac volunteered to quell the rebellion since they started it, which the Emperor denied, believing that their presence would only further embolden the rebels and even cause other planets to rebel.

News of the rebellion spread quickly, and the rebels broadcasted their values to other planets in the fringe, causing other planets to rebel, including entire army corps with veterans of the Spravac War that believed they had suffered for nothing. The NRR, unable to counter every rebellion due to the loss of life and material that the spravac had caused, reluctantly asked the spravac to put down some of the rebellions, which the spravac did so gladly.

The spravac successfully crushed several of the rebellions on Aeltarius, Germanica, and Austrium, however new ones sprung up in the Titanoverse and even the Praeverse, as the spravac involvement and the Republic’s unwillingness to meet their demands infuriated the rebels.

In 7049 CE, the rebel forces on Austrium, after regrouping, suddenly burst through the spravac lines and successfully commandeered several cruisers docked at the spaceport, holding the crews hostage and demanding them to evacuate the planet. Other rebel cells then followed suit, all communicating with each other and eventually rallying at the planet of Korran, which was far away from the rest of the NRR in the distant corner of the Titanoverse. Renamed the planet as Nova Cartagena, the rebels named themselves the New Carthaginian Empire after the historical foes against the original Roman Republic.

Seeking to stamp out this new threat before it gained any strength, the NRR began scouring the Titanoverse for signs of the Carthaginians, though they did not know where the planet was located and had no idea where to start. Additionally, the entrance of the NRR into the infamous Orion Spur Wars and their subsequent war with the qaze hampered their efforts.

In order to supplement their forces, the Carthaginians began sending envoys out into the galaxy under the guise of NRR merchants, who began hiring out armies of mercenaries, including xamon, zuroks, spravac, gildairians, dosh, humans, and the very same gorgons used by the dosh centuries before. In order to pay for all these armies, the Carthaginians raided NRR merchant vessels, plundering them of gold and their materials, which included weapons and armor.

With their army now prepared, the Carthaginians began launching raids and naval ambushes against NRR patrols, capturing their vessels to not only be used, but scrapped to create new designs. With the help of hired xamon craftsmen and spravac as labor, the Carthaginians began creating their own ship designs, which placed an emphasis on firepower and speed, an element of spravac ship design that the workers put in.

By 7050 CE, the Carthaginian army swelled in size, now capable of properly challenging an NRR army or Legion. The 1st Army Front, which was made of Carthaginian soldiers and mercenaries, invaded the NRR world of Olympia, which was lightly defended by a primarily merdarren army. The Cartheginian conquered the planet in just a matter of 2 months, primarily by bribing entire armies into surrendering and joining the causes, using their hatred of the spravac and the suffering they caused as a motivator to abandon the NRR, convincing them that the Republic they knew and loved was dead. The population of Olympia turned against the governor of the planet as well, which the Carthaginians exploited and used to gather more followers.

With centralized leadership, the general in charge of this campaign, Yarrick Ventro, rose up as the new leader of this empire, coining himself Hannibal to further challenge the NRR on a historic level. The Cathaginians then moved against the planet of Gargantua, launching brutal raids that crippled the planet’s infrastructure. The governor of Gargantua, Count Vistulus Tyrol, began lessening wages of his workers in order to match production on the planet to fight against the Carthaginians. This angered the populace of Gargantua, who began revolting, defiantly flying the colors of the Carthaginians, who claimed to fight for the rights of the lower class and against the crushing industry of the NRR. By 7051 CE, the Carthaginians had cut a swath through the NRR, owning several worlds without even needing to truly invade them, instead turning the peasantry and poor against the planets’ leaders.

However, the Emperor was now aware of the Carthaginians’ locations, and began mustering troops to invade the planets that once belonged to the Republic.

However, in 7052 CE, a new series of military calamities arose that temporarily distracted the NRR from dealing with the Carthaginian nuisance.

### Templars and Tayrigos:

“In the name of the church, we will cleanse these heretics from this hallowed ground. Reclaim what was taken from us so long ago! Deus Vult!”

* War Marshall Kendrick Voss of the Hospitaller Order

With the end of the Spravac War, the Republic was wracked with economic ruin and destruction. The loss of life inflicted by the spravac was thus far the worst loss the NRR had ever suffered since the Reformation millenia ago. The spravac, however, graciously assisted with rebuilding NRR worlds, donating steel and other raw materials to be used in reconstructing the NRR fleet, as well as providing manpower in the form of cheap spravac laborers. In order to raise the value of their currency and acquire valuable tradable goods, NRR envoys were sent into the Orion Spur to establish trading rights with other alien factions, most notably the Ures Empire, the Xamon Confederacy, Tayrigo Empire, Sol Confederacy, and the Holy Zyyntorean Empire.

Relations with the zyyntoreans started out dismally. The presence of the zyyntoreans introduced the concept of Zyyntorism to the people of the NRR, who were almost entirely faithful to the worship of the Nova Catholicus and the Old Menae Gods. Zyyntorean missionaries were frequently harassed, especially by members of the Knights Templar and Hospitallar, who distrusted the missionaries and believed them to be servants of Satan, as their alien religion took root quickly within the hearts of many NRR citizens in the Magnaverse. The Senate recognized the religion as a cult, which denied the right to build churches and hold organized worship, something that was imperative to Zyyntorist religious practice. Fearing that the Zyyntorists would rise up, the Orders resolved to invade Crystaria in 7050 CE, declaring that by calling a crusade, the zyyntoreans would cease sending missionaries to the Magnaverse and thus keep religious hegemony in the NRR under control of the Nova Catholicus.

The Orders took the zyyntoreans completely by surprise, successfully breaking through their blockade and destroying several towns and villages, burning the cathedrals and killing thousands of citizens and militia, yet to encounter zyyntorean legionnaires until three weeks into the invasion.

The zyyntorean legionnaires likewise surprised the knights considerably, as they were not only capable of matching them in combat, but outmatching them as well. The zyyntorean warriors’ swordsmanship was impeccable, and they quickly pushed the Orders off the planet after a series of bloody battles.

The reintroduction of the Sol Confederacy caused great economic prosperity for both factions but also a period of social and religious unrest. Though the wounds of the civil war had healed, many still distrusted the menae for what they inadvertently caused, and many groups were disturbed by the status of humanity within the Republic.

Though not mistreated, humans were unable to attain certain statuses within the Republic’s racially based caste system, and were effectively regarded as an auxiliary race alongside the other species within the NRR. This caused a rift with Sol and the NRR, a rift that was further exacerbated by a newly discovered religious quarrel. As much of the planet still believed in Roman Catholicism, many religious groups were uncomfortable with the presence of the Nova Catholicus, the new catholic church that existed within the NRR. Led by their own Pope and possessing its own military forces in the form of the Knights Templar and Hospitallar, a dispute began over who was the true Pope of the Catholic Church.

Conflict began in 7052 CE after a religious extremist group within the NRR made up from Templars launched a terrorist attack on St. Peter’s Basilica, the governing cathedral of the Catholic Church. In response, the church’s own military, the now formidable Swiss Guard, landed on the Nova Catholicus capital of Magna Cathedra, which was guarded by a humae and human centric guard force, demanding that the Nova Catholic Pope Baptiste X excommunicate the Templar extremists and be given to the Swiss Guard for execution.

After Baptiste X denied the request, a firefight broke out between the Swiss Guard and the Magna Cathedra Sentinels, with the Swiss Guard being forced to retreat after losing half of their manpower. In response, the Nova Catholicus declared a crusade on the Roman Catholic Church, and by extension the Sol Confederacy. The Templar and Hospitaller fleets arrived in Earth’s atmosphere and bombarded several religious sights, including the city of Cologne, nearly destroying the cathedral there.

In the confusion, the knight orders landed their troops, attacking and burning churches and killing the worshippers inside, causing extreme loss of life and damage to the faith. In response, the zyyntorean military bases on Earth mobilized, having already dealt with the orders before in the previous religious conflict, engaging and pushing back the orders’ warriors within four weeks.

This conflict drew the attention of both the NRR and the Holy Zyyntorean Empire, who met in a delegation to negotiate an end to the fighting. To the zyyntoreans’ surprise, the NRR were not aware of this crusade, and threatened to depose Pope Baptiste if he continued the crusade. Reluctantly, Baptiste withdrew his forces from the planet, averting further war with Sol and the zyyntoreans.

The conflict not only heavily damaged relations with the Sol Confederacy and the zyyntoreans, but also built further distrust between the Nova Catholicus and the NRR government, as this was the second time in less than a year that the church had unlawfully declared war on another foreign power without the consent of the greater NRR. It was later discovered a year later that the invasions were orchestrated by the corrupt Cardinal Francisco Valencius, who was next in line as Pope of the Nova Catholicus after Baptiste X. believing that having these illegal religious wars would excommunicate Baptiste and thus allow him to become Pope of the Nova Catholicus. This plot was discovered by newly recruited spravac Oculi Imperatoris, who had been spying on the cardinal since the beginning of the Invasion of Crystaria. After the Emperor was made known of this treachery, Gabriel ordered that the Oculi Imperatoris capture Valencius and have him crucified in a public forum, striking fear into the hearts of those that dare undermine the Republic and its institutions.

In 7052 CE, while several NRR army groups prepared to invade the New Carthaginian Empire, another journeyed into the Orion Spur in search of new resource rich planets to assist in rebuilding the shattered NRR economy. One such planet was the world of Korovan, which was rich in platinum, gold, and most importantly balmite. The presence of balmite also caught the eye of the Tayrigo Empire, which was undergoing a period of expansion outside of the Deltaverse during the Orion Spur Wars. When the NRR arrived, their expeditionary forces, which included a unit of the 1st Spravac Foreign Legion, which was made up of NRR armed spravac volunteers, came into contact with the tayrigos, who were mining the planet for balmite.

Spurred to excitement by the sight of their old foes, the spravac fired upon the tayrigo soldiers, even though the tayrigos and NRR were technically allies by association during the Orion Spur Wars. The NRR forces fortified their landing zone and held off counter attacks from the tayrigos, using overwhelming firepower to hold the tayrigos back on the planet. After the tayrigos retreated from the immediate zone of operations, the NRR used the spravac volunteers to pursue them, raiding their mining facilities and plundering the ore and resources for the Republic. However, the tayrigo fleet arrived, firing upon the NRR fleet and destroying several of the ships. The two fleets exchanged fire for three hours until the tayrigos contacted the NRR, suing for peace and proposing that the two powers share the planet and trade desired resources with each other. With the NRR trading whatever balmite yields they discovered in exchange for gold and platinum, which soon extended to the tayrigos trading their gold for weapons and other metals from other NRR worlds, beginning an extremely prosperous trading alliance. Despite the tayrigo economy benefiting from the trade deal, it was also remarkably unpopular with the tayrigo citizenry, who believed that they rightfully owned the planet and that the war with the NRR should have continued.

### Orion Spur War:

“This isn’t our war, but we will finish it.”

* Emperor Gabriel

While the NRR battled rebellions and the Orders invaded Crystaria, NRR envoys established connections with the Qaze Dominion in 7049 CE, recognizing the qaze as their ancient allies and occasional enemies from the Old Menae Empire. The NRR soon discovered to their horror that the Grand Prison, the massive complex that the qaze used to house the galaxy’s worst criminals, held seven ayar warlords captive for study. The NRR believed that studying ayar was far too risky and almost heretical, and demanded that the qaze destroy them or suffer extreme consequences. The qaze, unwilling to meet the demands, denied the NRR, assuring them that attacking the station was foolish, downright impossible, and irresponsible, confident that their zyyntorean guards would assist them in protecting the station.

However, after the political disaster caused by the Orders of the Nova Catholicus’ invasion of Crystaria in 7050 CE, the NRR contacted the zyyntoreans on the station and warned them of the attack, begging them to leave to avoid further political fallout from shedding zyyntorean blood.

While the zyyntoreans departed, they left behind weapons for the qaze to use, advising them of the coming attack and telling them how many ships the NRR were bringing to bear on the station. This action temporarily strained zyyntorean and qaze relations for several years. The NRR brought with them a fleet of 100 ships, including carriers holding hundreds of lightning quick fighters and gunships to harass the Prison’s defenses. The NRR were also assisted by a fleet of spravac battleships, who arrived to free their captured Didacts, nobility, and Incubi who had been kidnapped by qaze Seekers. The alkar, who wished to free their chieftain, also arrived with 50 ships, causing the allied fleet to number at 240 strong. On the flipside, 50 ships immediately guarded the Grand Prison, however the prison itself was guarded by hundreds of anti-air and anti-ship cannons, as well as a complement of fighters to guard the station.

Some zyyntoreans, notably Vonin, volunteered to stay and guard the station since they were not official zyyntorean military, who had with them a ragtag fleet of 70 gunships and light commercial frigates retrofitted with gauss and arc cannons.

The NRR allowed the alkar to begin the assault, who disregarded losses to board the prison docks to search for their chieftain. After the alkar destroyed the outer defenses of the Prison, the spravac sent hordes of corsairs and Black Marauders to spread through the station to free their own prisoners. The NRR remained in space, wiping out the last of the qaze ships before boarding themselves to search for the ayar warlords, who had escaped after an NRR torpedo salvo destroyed the imprisonment systems in the lower levels where the ayar were kept.

The ayar immediately began to gather strength, producing nanobots that infected the very prison itself, reanimating corpses of all fighters as they raced towards the bridge of the prison to contact Balor the Godlike, their master. The ayar wiped out thousands of soldiers on all sides, with their leader Torgas the Cannibal leading them forward. Admiral Avanael Hendrix, the commander of the NRR forces, fired thousands of heavy ballistic rounds into the station in an attempt to destroy Torgas and the ayar, but only caused many of his own troops and allies to be sucked into the vacuum of space, allowing the ayar to escape, who leapt from the breaches and latched onto fighters and ships in the NRR fleet, infecting them with corruption until Torgas himself latched onto an alkar destroyer. Commandeering the destroyer, Torgas rammed the ship into the side of Hendrix’s command carrier, invading the bridge and assimilating the admiral.

Now in control of the carrier, the allied fleets began destroying each other as the 7 ayar warlords slowly took over the fleets, only retreating after Balor the Godlike himself arrived with his flagship, the Doomslayer, to escort them to safety. With the ayar escaped by the alkar and spravac achieving their goals, the allied fleet retreated with what was left of their navies, leaving the qaze that survived behind to rebuild and repopulate their prison almost from scratch.

### Insurrection Aplenty:

“Like Hannibal so many years ago, you too will die.”

* Emperor Gabriel

While the NRR continued their naval standoff with the qaze, the Emperor personally gathered several battlefleets of over 250 ships and seven million army troopers to invade the fledgling Carthaginian Empire. In late 7053 CE, the punitive fleet arrived in the orbit of Gargantua, bombarding key military targets but specifically avoiding civilian populations, as the Emperor knew well that many of the citizens living under Carthaginian rule were still loyal to the Republic. The Carthaginian fleet, which was reinforced by xamon mercenaries, attempted to board the NRR vessels, though every boarding party was violently destroyed with every attempt. In desperation, many of the damaged Carthaginian vessels suicide charged the NRR, ramming their hulls into the ships and destroying many of them, though the NRR had ships to spare.

With the fleet destroyed, Gabriel personally led the invasion on the desert planet, slaying many Carthaginian militia who rushed out to buy the proper Cartheginian army time to prepare. The militia, supported by spravac mercenaries, successfully held the NRR troops back for three days, allowing the Carthaginian army, which included makeshift power armor troops. These heavy infantry proved much more effective, as many of them were former mutinous NRR soldiers. The two armies fought brutally in trench warfare for several months until the Carthaginians were finally starved out and forced to retreat.

With the army broken, the NRR advanced, calling down artillery fire on the nearby city of Punia, which had fortified itself. After suffering under NRR bombardment for three days, the city capitulated, allowing the NRR to establish a base of operations to carry out the rest of the Siege of Gargantua.

By 7054 CE, the planet fell, allowing the NRR to begin their siege of Olympia, which was guarded by a massive Carthaginian army. The Emperor was approached by ambassadors from the Selethian Imperium, the gorgons, who had heard about units of their mercenaries being recruited by the Carthaginians. Seeing an opportunity to gain favor with the NRR, the gorgons sent nine divisions of infantry and a flotilla of light ships to assist in the siege of Olympia, primarily to capture and repatriate the gorgon mercenaries under the employ of the Carthaginians.

When the gorgons and NRR made landfall on Olympia, the gorgon imperial troops hunted down the leader of the gorgon mercenaries, and persuaded them to leave the Carthaginians, informing them of the grievous sin they would be committing by shedding the blood of their fellow countrymen. Agreeing to the demands, the gorgon mercenaries fired upon the Carthaginians with the help of gorgon hunters, waging a deadly guerilla campaign against the Carthaginians from behind enemy lines, weakening them for the NRR assault.

After just four months Olympia fell, leaving only Nova Cartagena in the hands of the Carthaginians. In a fit of desperation, the Carthaginians ordered that large units of their armies abandon the planet and spread into NRR and galactic space, instructed to wage a war of terror and piracy to bend the NRR to their demands. With the planet now undefended, when the NRR arrived, Hannibal and his forces formally surrendered, giving the planet to the NRR without bloodshed. However, the Emperor, insulted by the perceived ungrateful behavior of the Carthaginians and their rebellion, personally executed Hannibal, his generals, and 500 random men from Nova Cartagena in the streets of Menae as a show of punishment and force.

However, this was not the end of the Carthaginians, who continued to raid NRR fleets well into the 7050s and 60s CE, though their attacks became less and less frequent and less deadly as their numbers dwindled.

In 7056 CE, one such cell infiltrated the primarily human world of Tyria, which was under the rule of the domineering Count Gorvan Ferrus, whose own personal dislike for humans manifested subtly in the industrial districts of the planet. A Carthaginian rebel cell, calling themselves Hannibal’s Liberators, established themselves as a mercenary band hired by Ferrus to protect the cities from other terrorist cells and from spravac vandals that had begun spawning in the underworld of the planet’s vast metropolises. While there, the Liberators began spreading seeds of rebellion into the hearts of the discontented human citizens, who still believed that they were treated as second class citizens in the entire NRR. This was especially prevalent in the military, as the human soldiers were relegated to serving in support roles and in vehicles as pilots and mechanics.

The Carthaginians began shipping weapons to the humans, encouraging them to rise up with their assistance, including humans in the military, who were instructed to commandeer their vehicles and wreak havoc on the PDF bases. In the middle of the year of 7056 CE, the uprising began, and hundreds of thousands of humans began storming police barricades and the PDF bases, overwhelming them and taking what weapons they could use to prepare for NRR retaliation.

Fresh from his war with the Carthaginians and still engaged in war with the qaze, the Emperor commissioned Black Battalions of the Oculi Imperatoris, now 100% spravac, to quell the human rebellion on Tyria. As Incubi by training, the Oculi Imperatoris were ruthlessly efficient, stealthily assassinating Carthaginian and human leadership, causing the rebellion to become increasingly disorganized, to the point that some independent units were even firing upon each other. The Oculi also exploited the local population, who were staunchly against the rebellion, even including human citizens, and provided them with the locations of rebel cells to be destroyed by these ravenous militias. By 7057 CE, Tyria’s human rebellion had collapsed into essentially petty criminal gangs struggling to survive as they were hunted down by the Oculi Imperatoris, who were instructed by the NRR to leave none alive. The treatment of the human rebels had far reaching consequences however, and many of the human centric factions in the galaxy expressed their disappointment and condemnation of the NRR’s tactics in quelling the rebellion, particularly the Sol Confederacy, who even after thousands of years distrusted the hybrids and the menae for the war they caused in the 2080s.

For a brief period from 7056 CE to 7060 CE the two factions appeared to be in a state of brinkmanship, with the Sol Confederacy instituting trade sanctions against the NRR, which was honored by several other humancentric factions. The sanctions appeared to be more of a symbolic gesture of distaste more than an effective embargo, as the NRR simply traded elsewhere and did not suffer economically as Sol had hoped.

### Union Expulsion:

“Curious beings, these creatures are. Expelling them will be much easier than killing them all. We have real enemies to fight.”

Admiral Y’vre of the Syrus Empire

After conquering Tartarus and Tripoli, the Chancellor made further plans of conquest against the Meskrit and Syrus Empires. After spending several years fighting both factions on different occasions, the Chancellor identified the syrus as the greater threat, and thus desired to defeat them first. Using the Nexus’ data banks to locate syrus planets, the Union organized three massive fleets of over 3000 ships all together to assault the syrus territory at several key points, namely the planets of Gatrkin, Borosona, and Slara in 6245 CE, all of which were major syrus industrial and population centers. The cybernetic syrus warriors fought tirelessly and bitterly on Gatrkin, outmatching the elite troops of the Union technologically and at times physically depending on the augmentations. By 6250 CE, Gatrkin was firmly in the metal grip of the syrus.

While the Union bloodied themselves against the syrus, Meskrit flotillas began willfully trespassing Union space, engaging in brief but decisive naval battles that made the Union extremely vulnerable. The Union, understanding from reconnaissance that the two factions were at war, tactifully retreated to Slara, leading both enemy fleets into each other and causing a gargantuan three sided naval battle to break out. While the Meskrit and syrus destroyed each other, the Union fortified Slara in preparation for invasion, arming the entire populace with weapons to die for the Chancellor and his cause.

The syrus successfully pushed the Meskrit back and turned their attention to the Union, invading the planet and utilizing their most advanced and deadly weapons against them. Seeing no need to waste lives needlessly, the syrus fleet often bombarded Union cities from above before moving in to clean up what was left, causing catastrophic losses for the Union while barely losing any men in the invasion.

The Union, though battered, refused to surrender, ordered by the Chancellor to fight to the death to defend their planet and destroy the alien invaders. By 6253 CE, Slara had also fallen to the syrus. To ensure that the syrus were not able to invade Tartarus, the Chancellor strategically ceded information to the syrus informing them that their last planet was Borosona, fooling the syrus into believing that would wipe out the Union on Borosona and thus cease their invasion.

In 6254 CE, the Battle of Borosona began, with the syrus mercilessly bombarding the planet to soften up the Union. The Union soldiers, uninformed of their purpose essentially as suicide units to fool the syrus into believing they had won the war, fought valiently, killing millions of syrus troops. The governor of the planet, Evan Tribunes, was also four armed like the Chancellor, meant to serve as a body double to fool the syrus into believing they had killed the Chancellor.

After Borosona fell in 6255 CE, the syrus ships left, choosing to continue their unending war with the Meskrit Empire, leaving the Union in peace in the Tartarus sector. Aware that they were surrounded by enemies on all sides, the Chancellor chose instead to gather his forces to return to the Milky Way, resolving that the Milky Way would easily be conquered, allowing them to form a base of power to then return to Andromeda and conquer it as well. Left in charge of Tartarus was Dante’s father, who would maintain and build up forces to defend against syrus and mezula incursions and expand wherever possible.

As the Union fleet went into the Rift Portal, Dante confidently prepared for war.

### The Union War Begins:

“You should’ve killed me.”

* Chancellor Dante to Gabriel via transmission

By the 7060s CE, the Orion Spur Wars had come to a close after over a decade of combat. Though the NRR did not suffer greatly in the conflict, the rest of the Orion Spur had lost tens of millions of people and thousands of ships. In fact, the only faction able to recover reliably was the spravac, who had replaced their population deficit within two years. In order to capitalize on the infrastructural damage of the other factions, namely the Xamon Empire, Karis Republic, Ures Federation, and Tayrigo Empire, the NRR began offering material and manpower aid in exchange for exclusive trade rights and military access, allowing them to exact more military control over the Orion Spur. The spravac assisted in the endeavor, acting as a threatening attack dog that the NRR used to intimidate planets and factions into acquiescing to their demands.

In 7070 CE, NRR scout ships, along with spravac patrols in the Scutum-Centaurus Arm began disappearing. Reports indicated that the enemy vessels were similar to NRR designs, leading the two factions to believe them to be Carthaginian raiders carrying on their lost insurgency. This was further reinforced by the reality that these enemy ships were using antiquated NRR chain codes, further confusing the two empires.

However, in 7073 CE, sudden armadas of black ships teaming with humae warriors descended on the NRR fringe world of Corbas, overwhelming the defense fleet and using bombardments to destroy PDF and LDF staging areas. The legions of Corbas, the II and IV Gloryhammers of Corbas fought valiantly against these invading forces, however they soon fell to the invaders in just a matter of months. After the Fall of Corbas, the entirety of the NRR was bombarded by hacked transmissions, which depicted the Chancellor of the Union of Humae States, Dante Santiago-Cortez, taunting them and proudly declaring that he would conquer and raze the entirety of the Milky Way, spreading the glory of the humae hybrids across the galaxy and burning the alien civilizations to the ground.

Gabriel, realizing that his past had come back to haunt him, blamed himself for the Fall of Corbas and the return of his arch enemies. In an effort to avoid panic and even condemnation for inadvertently releasing this horror on the galaxy, Gabriel chose only to ask the spravac for assistance and withdrew all NRR military forces from the Orion Spur and the rest of the galaxy to fortify his planets, resolving to fight to the death against this new and terrible foe. This war, which would become known as the Galactic Union War, ushered in a new era of galactic history, ending the Common Era and beginning the After Union Arrival era (AUA).

In 1 AUA, the NRR mobilized troops, alongside seven swarms of spravac marines to retake Corbas. While the NRR began their counter-siege of Corbas, Union forces moved to Helvetica, Typhon, and Dessir, besieging the planets with what seemed countless numbers of ships and soldiers. On Helvetica, the NRR were able to draw the Union into a stalemate, using their expertly designed trenches and fortifications to hold off Union assaults, costing them millions of troops over the course of the five year siege. The legions on Helvetica were also reinforced by the III Holy Guardians, who employed cohorts of auxiliary spravac troops armed with redesigned NRR gear and weapons. The spravac auxiliary forces proved to match the Union soldiers in brutality, even surpassing them, which held the Union back for much of the siege.

Typhon was a different story, and fell to Union forces from the 5th Storm Division and 88th Mechanized Extermination Corps, which conquered Typhon in 3 AUA, destroying all of the legions guarding it. It was on Typhon that the NRR realized the foe they were up against. Oculi Imperatoris who stayed behind to monitor the Union learned that their goal was outright extermination and assimilation. All non-hybrids on Typhon were rounded up and exterminated, their remains chopped to pieces to be used as rations for the Union troops. Hybrid women and girls were kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery in the Chancellor’s breeding camps, which were on his flagship Supremacy II and Corbas, which was still under siege as of 3 AUA. Hybrid men who resisted were experimented on, their DNA harvested by the technology of Korlax to be used as templates for cloning. Those that did not resist out of desperation were conscripted into the Union to be used as cannon fodder.

These cannon fodder troops were used en masse on Dessir, where they died by the millions to soften up the NRR defenses until the more heavily armed and experienced veterans of the Union forces broke through, taking swathes of the planet. The III Dessirian Freedom Fighters Legion put up a stiff resistance against the Union invaders, using heavy tanks and artillery to devastate Union positions before using cavalry units and fast attack troops, most humans, to wipe away what was left, managing to push the Union off the planet in 5 AUA. However, the Union forces that retreated simply moved to reinforce the siege of Helvetica, attacking from behind NRR lines and surrounding the Holy Guardians, wiping them out to the last in just five months, though the spravac left behind continued to fight to the bitter end, even going as far as to strap antimatter bombs with the strength of a tactical nuke to their chests and suicide bombing the Union soldiers as they closed in around them, a tactic that many spravac in the NRR forces would soon come to emulate.

The Fall of Helvetica in 5 AUA placed the entirety of the NRR on emergency lockdown. Entire blocks of the Republic cities were conscripted to fight the Union, who prepared to retake the fallen worlds. However, this liberation army, the 75th Army, was ambushed while in transit to Helvetica by Union raider flotillas, composed mostly of light assault frigates and destroyers. The Union utterly obliterated the fleet, destroying every ship and sending all three million of the 75th Army into the vacuum of space. The destruction of the 75th cleared the way for Union fleets to invade more NRR worlds, which they capitalized on by invading Tekronis of the Titanoverse in 7 AUA, which was protected by the II Fire Serpents and the III Tekronis Sentinels. The two legions, along with the heavily armed PDF of Tekronis, used transatmospheric defense missiles to shoot down hundreds of Union ships, holding the fleet back to buy time for the units on the ground to mobilize. Additionally, units of Imperial Spravac Soldiers arrived and attacked the Union flanks, devastating the fleet and forcing them to retreat, sparing Tekronis for now.

By 10 AUA, Corbas was retaken by the NRR and the spravac forces, who not only massacred millions of Union troops, but captured many more. Under the prying interrogation of spravac torturers, the NRR and spravac learned that the Union was preparing to launch another invasion of Corbas as well as the planet Saint Augre. The spravac were sent to protect Saint Augre while NRR troops fortified Corbas.

However, by 11 AUA, the two forces met nothing, instead Korell was invaded by Union troops, who had discovered their plans were compromised and took the NRR off guard by invading Korell, which provided vast sums of war materiel and alloy for ships.

The devastating Siege of Korell was marked by vicious urban warfare and trench networks overtaking entire city blocks. The spravac were able to rapidly muster troops to defend Korell, matching Union brutality with the barbarism of Imperial Rangers, whose shock tactics kept the Union at bay for three years once the 15th Army Front arrived to assist the spravac. However, the Union, using cloning facilities from Typhon, were funneling out Union troops at an absurd rate. The increased reliance on clones caused many to be mentally and physically degenerated, causing them to behave more like raiders and savages than as troops. However, their superior strength and savage dedication overpowered the NRR and spravac troops, allowing the Union to conquer Korell. To breed more troops, these beastial Union men were turned onto the female population of Korell, and for several months raped and impregnated much of the female population, birthing more mutant hybrids who would be used for the same purpose.

The Chancellor, pleased with his progress, called upon his father to send more troops from Andromeda through the portal, which was under repairs to allow for the Union troops to arrive quicker than before. While the Union bided their time waiting for more reinforcements, they continued to clone armies and utilize captured NRR factories to build more weapons, utilizing surviving populations as slave labor.

In 17 AUA, the I Praetorian Guard, led by Emperor Gabriel himself, launched another liberation campaign on Korell while spravac troops assisted by the Templar Order invaded Typhon.

The spravac made great progress in the first weeks of the Invasion of Typhon, killing millions of Union troops and conquering great swaths of land. The Templar Knights chanted battle hymns as they slashed Union mutants and troopers to ribbons, conquering nearly half of the planet by 19 AUA before finally being halted into a stalemate along what became known as the Blood Mountain Line.

On Korell, the Emperor fanatically led frontal charges against the Union troops, utilizing the unmatched experience of his Praetorian Guards to defeat the Union troops. Under orders to regard them as animals rather than sentient beings, the 2nd Siege of Korell resembled more a medieval bloodbath than an advanced clash of armies as the hybrid warriors ripped each other limb from limb. The Chancellor, who was expecting his brother to invade Korell, relished in the slaughter, butchering Republic Legionaries with his bare hands, even picking up armored cars and tossing them into crowds of men, crushing them to meal beneath the tons of steel and titanium.

The Praetorian Guards struggled to hold the Union at bay until 21 AUA at the fateful Battle of Heligo. The NRR, though numerically superior, were forced to retreat after the Emperor was wounded in battle by the Chancellor, though a Praetorian Guard sacrificed his life for the Emperor before Dante could make the killing blow. Ordered by the Emperor to fall back, the I Praetorian abandoned Korell bloodied and hateful, promising themselves and the Republic that the NRR would not fall to the barbarians of Dante.

The Battle of Typhon also turned against the spravac and Templars, who were pushed back after reinforcements from Andromeda arrived, overwhelming even the spravac in numbers and firepower.

With Typhon still under Union control, Dante commanded Union forces to retake Corbas in 22 AUA, invading using their most elite troops from the former Red Condors, who devastated the NRR defenses with withering bombardment from orbit before deploying their stormtroopers in the millions. The NRR defenses held firm for two years of torturous trench warfare, at times creating the illusion that the soil of no-man’s-land was made of mangled Union flesh rather than mud. However, the Union were relentless, and the exhausted NRR troops eventually capitulated, giving Corbas in 25 AUA.

With a solid string of planets now under his control, Dante began mobilizing his forces from conquest of the greater Titanoverse.

### The Titanic Sieges:

“These barbarians will fail like all the rest! Dying beneath the thunder of our guns.”

* Admiral Rok during the Siege of Karsk

In 30 AUA, Dante personally spearheaded the invasion of the rest of the Titanoverse, starting with the fringe worlds in the galactic north. The 60th Storm Army besieged the worlds of Karsk and Saint Augre, which was still protected by spravac forces. However, the Emperor, along with Admiral Rok, ordered instead the spravac dedicate their forces to slowing down Union invasion forces. Led by the daring Blood Alchemist Cairé Von, the spravac armada of nearly three hundred ships dispersed into flotillas of thirty, using Incubus stealth craft to monitor Union fleet movements as they invaded Karsk and Saint Augre. The spravac then traced movements back to the Union core worlds and to branching patrols.

The spravac utilized their superior firepower and speed to ambush Union fleets, appearing out of warpspace, firing off volleys of Ultrabows, plasma, and antimatter before quickly escaping, sowing mass confusion and devastation with minimal casualties. The spravac attacks prevented the Union reinforcing their troops of Saint Augre and Karsk, allowing the PDF on the worlds to hold them in a stalemate and buy time for NRR reinforcements to arrive.

By 36 AUA, the XXXII Basilisks of Volatus arrived to relieve Karsk’s starving population, heroically fighting off hordes of Union troops and pushing them off the world. All the while, Blood Alchemist Von continued his ambushes, surrounding the retreating Union fleet and destroying it outright, killing the surviving soldiers and destroying over fifty-five ships in just forty minutes.

The victory at Karsk emboldened the New Roman Republic, which was beginning to suffer on the homefront in terms of morale. The 71st Army was deployed to reinforce Karsk while the Basilisks reinforced Saint Augre, preventing the Union from fully owning the planet, pushing the Union off the planet in 40 AUA.

Seeking to move past these worlds which effectively blocked entryway into the Titanoverse, Dante mustered troops to push through the NRR blockade that patrolled the space between the two worlds, known as the Zeus Salient. In 41 AUA, a Union armada led by Dante himself numbering at over 1,000 strong threw itself at the blockade, beginning the Great Battle of the Zeus Salient. The tremendous engagement was the largest naval engagement that the NRR had participated in thus far, even larger than the Invasion of Sprava. The NRR carriers deployed millions of fighters that strafed the Union destroyers as they charged forward, crippling engines and allowing light NRR sloops to race in and destroy them with salvos of ballistic missiles and heavy cannons. The munition belts of the repeating culverins of the NRR roared with the clanging of metal and fire as the NRR held the Union back with overwhelming firepower. At times, so much wreckage was created that it blocked the line of sight for the engaging fleets, forcing the Zeus Salient to constantly move as sections became choked with scrap and death.

After four days of continuous battle, the Union armada broke through, splitting apart to spread to other worlds of the Titanoverse to raze and butcher.

What became known as the Inner Colonies Campaign wracked the NRR economically and in terms of manpower. From 41 AUA to 86 AUA the NRR held the Union off on every world they invaded, relying on spravac reinforcements to match the Union in numbers and brutality.

The spravac successfully pushed the Union off the planet of Angirus, using heavy artillery and their vicious malthale auxiliaries to match the Union in sheer strength. After retaking Angirus, spravac troops then moved in to supplement faltering NRR forces in the rest of the Inner Colonies. The loss of life was crushing, by the end of 86 AUA over three billion NRR soldiers alone had been killed, with the civilian death toll rising to almost four billion. The spravac, though they wholeheartedly believed the war to be a joyful experience, had already lost two billion troops. The Union losses were also catastrophic, resulting in nearly 5 billion combined deaths since the war began, the use of inexperienced cloned troops not only inflated Union ranks, but also Union graves.

After the Union successfully established a foothold in the Inner Colonies, Dante began mobilizing for a two front invasion, gathering troops to invade both the Magnaverse and the Praeverse, preparing over 1 billion troops to invade the two celestial regions.

### Armageddon on Two Fronts:

“The hybrid dogs are much more fun to kill than the Romans! I will enjoy drinking their blood!”

* Didact Tzár Gcairé

The Union began their Siege of the Praeverse in 90 AUA, besieging Hyperia, Gloras, Zolavar, and Silia. The NRR forces valiantly held the Union back on Gloras and Silia, though Hyperia and Zalovar quickly fell to the Union in 98 AUA. After capturing Hyperia, Dante diverted forces to Horlas, seeking to wipe out the kolatl for their rebellious ways and impure existence. The spravac were sent by the NRR to protect Horlas once the Union fleet arrived, which wiped out hundreds of millions of unarmed kolatl citizens in the first weeks of battle.

The spravac arrived with sar cex and salu warriors, who held the Union back while spravac ships armed the kolatl with deadly spravac designed flechette launchers and armor, who successfully held the Union back for several years. The Emperor deployed the II and III Nova Romani Legions, to retake Hyperia, digging in on the beachhead and waging a horrific war of attrition that slowly bled the Union.

In 103 AUA, the Union sent another army to take Gloras, deploying ten million troops to take the planet, which was still fortified from the previous unsuccessful siege. By 105 AUA, the kolatl and spravac auxiliaries were unable to hold the Union back on Horlas, who were consistently pushing through the defenses put up by the spravac forces. In order to save their species, the kolatl abandoned the planet with the spravac, who took them to Jalaxist, the homeworld of the amphibious sar cex, to foster a new population to later retake their homeworld.

While the Union soldiers massacred the populations of Zolavar and Horlas in the Praeverse, a second invading army crept into the Magnaverse, invading Sanctum, Austrium, Horizon, Aeltarius, and the Dosh Republic in 108 AUA. However, the Magnaverse planets of the NRR were also closely guarded by the Spravac Empire, with the regional capital world of Sindell holding some of the deadliest soldiers in the entire Empire. The spravac forces spread like a virulent plague on the besieged worlds, overwhelming Union positions and grinding their invasion to a halt in 122 AUA.

The spravac constantly held the Union invasion attempts for years, using their superior navy to take entire Union fleets off guard and destroying entire armies, forcing the Union to temporarily retreat from the verse in 127 AUA. The Union, though resolving to invade the Magnaverse again, diverted their surviving forces to protect their newly conquered worlds and continue their push into the NRR’s core planets.

By 145 AUA, Zolavar had completely fallen to the Union onslaught, who began exterminating the entire population of the planet. NRR troops, though succeeding in pushing the Union off Gloras, were unable to liberate Zolavar after sending a liberation army of 50 million to the planet, leaving it firmly in Union hands.

By 156 AUA, the war had stalled to a stalemate on several fronts, with Hyperia, Zolavar and Horlas now serving as the primary Union beachheads in the Praeverse, creating what became known as the Hyperian Pocket. In order to break the stalemate, the Union began sending more troops in a second invasion of the Magnaverse, invading Austrium, the Athenium System, and Virium, but also the spravac world of Sindell, which the Union resolved to conquer to ensure the spravac could not muster their advanced troops to protect the rest of the Maganaverse.

The Battle of Sindell featured some of the most savage fighting in the entire war, the Union troops were bombarded by the elite Sindell Blade Horde and the terrifying Bane Legions of Sindell, genetically and cybernetically modified spravac warriors who used some of the most sadistic weapons in the Empire’s arsenal. In 164 AUA, the Union retreated from Sindell, instead spreading out what remained of their forces to invade the Magnaverse fringe system of Italicos, invading Neolatia, Brundia, and Tuscanus.

The Italicos Campaign was swift and brutal, with the Union successfully defeating the NRR garrisons by 169 AUA. The NRR attempted to send reinforcements to retake the planets, but were forced to divert the soldiers to assist in the sieges in the Praeverse. In order to keep spravac from reinforcing the worlds as well, Union fleets blockaded the planets of nearby imperial worlds of Isaranus and Jiin, which were under the care of the Razorland of the Black Incision. Though these sieges were not meant to succeed, they successfully diverted imperial attention away from helping the Italicos System, allowing Union troops to mobilize to invade their next target, the bastion world of Suebian, which housed hundreds of key weapons foundries and fuel refineries.

The Siege of Suebian was far longer, and the XI Suebian Sentinels Legion and 15th Trench Army held the Union invaders from 170 AUA to 185 AUA. Desperate to keep these key factories from falling to the Union hands, the Legate of the XI Legion, Tacitus Azteca, ordered that all foundries be stripped of metals and completed weapons to be shipped to other worlds, then destroyed the foundries, ensuring that the Union could not use them. Despite these weapon shipments being sent to other worlds, the planets of the Magnaverse had become so depleted by the war that many had to use imported weapons sent to them by the spravac, who also sent auxiliary troops and armor to be used by the beleaguered NRR troops. Supported by Incubi vanguards, these newly armed NRR troops were deployed to relieve the now conquered Athenium System, retaking the burning world of Aeltarius and creating a solid beachhead on Ascendia and Celta.

In what would prove to be their downfall, the Chancellor and his best generals ordered expeditionary fleets to go into the other verses of the Galaxy to begin conquering alien civilizations, which he arrogantly believed would be poorly trained and weak in the face of his elite soldiers.

### The Galactic War:

“The foul tree of dishonor will be cut down by our axes of justice. Their foul ships will fall from the sky like leaves upon the breeze. Our blades will pierce their foul hearts and bleed them dry of their heresy. In this dark hour, the light of Valeez will guide us to victory, for the Empire and Valeez!”

* Harbinger Zelem

As the NRR and spravac sent massive troop movements into the heart of the war to battle the Union, the rest of the galaxy watched with curiosity and a sense of mysterious dread. Never before had such large forces been seen moving into the dark corners of the galaxy, and NRR bases on other planets were emptied without explanation, which left the galaxy confused and unnerved.

The galaxy would soon learn the reason for these movements after patrolling Uresian fleets suddenly disappeared in 195 AUA, leading to the Ures Federation and the Karis Republic sending troops to their outer worlds to defend them against this unknown threat. In 198 AUA, a Union armada of over 3,000 ships was spotted moving toward the zyyntorean Diocese of the Alphaverse. When inquired upon by the zyyntoreans, the NRR ordered them to fire on sight and prepare for war, which the zyyntoreans obliged by sending several battlefleets to engage the Union armada, beginning zyyntorean involvement in the Union War.

The zyyntorean fleet battled savagely with the Union armada, however, they were forced to retreat after the Imperator-Class Supercarrier Hymn of Honor was destroyed. The Union followed the zyyntoreans to the Alphaverse, invading the holy world of Cybez Gai Molum in 203 AUA. A bloody tug of war between the two sides ensued on the world. The Union forces easily broke through the Cybez defense fleet, landing troops in three major holy sites, razing them and slaughtering hundreds of thousands of zyyntorean civilians. However, the zyyntorean populations were all heavily armed and extremely zealous, and entire Civil Battalions marched forward to hold the Union back while the legionnaires mobilized. Once the zyyntorean forces were mustered, the Union were held in a bloody stalemate, only able to delay their inevitable defeat for eight years. In 209 AUA, which is largely considered the turning point of the battle, legions of zyyntorean knights from Hamous Gai Zeerax were sent to reinforce the zyyntoreans, destroying the Union blockade and massacring the last of the Union forces after another two years of battle.

The battle was infamous as the most costly zyyntorean battle of the war, who lost over 1 billion legionnaires and 930 million Civil Battalion warriors over the course of the battle. Cybez became a symbol for zyyntorean perseverance during and after the war.

After their defeat at Cybez, the Chancellor ordered that zyyntorean worlds be avoided for the time being, and instead chose to send forces to invade the Xamon Empire, starting with the wealthy planet of Holu in 213 AUA. The xamon stubbornly held back the Union invaders, however they were forced to call upon the zyyntoreans for assistance in the siege, and finally pushed the Union off the planet in 220 AUA.

While the Union attempted to invade the Alphaverse, another part of the main armada broke off to invade the Deltaverse, which was guarded by the tayrigos, karis, and Ures Federation. The Uresian forces used Black Titans to launch raids against the Union fleets, destroying several carriers and dreadnoughts with Balmite bombs. The Ures forces also sent fleets to delay the Union invaders while their armies began mobilizing, keeping the Union from invading any of their core worlds until 225 AUA when the Union broke through and invaded the verdant world of Adam.

Union forces also invaded U’Zule and Kreyo, the core planets of the Tayrigo Empire, though the sheer strength and willpower of the tayrigos forced them off the planets in 230 AUA. Xamon and zurok soldiers stationed on Shagra also supported the tayrigos, sending stormtrooper regiments and Einvatz-Grassēn to support them, even giving them weapons and using their vast industry to manufacture improved ships for the tayrigos to use in battle. Xamon troops even captured Union soldiers, who were then sent to the Vondraks to be enslaved, which infuriated the Chancellor, who saw the enslavement of his pureblooded hybrids as a personal offense.

In order to punish the Vondraks, the Chancellor sent legions of troops to invade the Vondrak stronghold on Meneldez in 232 AUA, which was guarded by vast armies of gorgarian and xamon troops. The Battle of Meneldez was exceedingly bloody, with the Union troops fighting with an almost animalistic ferocity as they slaughtered millions of gorgarian and xamon civilians as revenge for their insolence. In 237 AUA the Union occupied Meneldez and began systematically wiping out the gorgarian population, though the gorgarian partisans fought valiantly to resist their oppressors.

While the Union bloodied themselves in the Deltaverse, another fresh fleet was sent into the Gammaverse, which was deep in spravac territory. The spravac, ever the political opportunists leaked false information stating that the troublesome planet of Belot was one of their worlds, allowing the Union to invade the planet in 248 AUA. However, the forces that came to Belot’s aid were not spravac, but soldiers of the Drow Empire, who sent their forces to not only deal with the Union, but also to put down the rebellious drags of the planet, who had been resisting their colonization efforts for centuries, once for all, at times even abandoning traitorous drag cities to Union forces to ensure the destruction of the rebels, as the Union were extremely overzealous and thorough with their killing of the enemy. When the Union were pushed off the world in 253 AUA, the drow went on the offensive, sending troops into the Magnaverse, with the consent of the NRR, to assist in their efforts to retake Italicos. Drow troops invaded Tuscanus in 254 AUA, using their elite Drow Knights to push the Union back, allowing NRR soldiers to drive forward and evict the Union from the world in 257 AUA.

Unwilling to allow aliens to gain any sort of advantage against his men, the Chancellor ordered more fleets be sent into the galaxy, which distracted him from the NRR in the Praeverse, who managed to retake Hyperia from them in 260 AUA.

While the Union continued to suffer in the Gammaverse, another armada was sent to the Traverse, a massive domain of the Selethian Empire, also known as the gorgons, who had already declared war on the Union but had thus far not shed any of their blood. This changed with the Traverse Campaign, which began 239 AUA. The Union began their invasion with their invasion of Basson in 239 and Vaxez Gai Zakera in 240, the latter of which was a zyyntorean holy world. When Vaxez was invaded, the planet was embroiled in a massive storm of weather and combat, the zyyntoreans took refuge within the installations, which lowered the intensity of the storms but also weaponized them to be used against the Union, concentrating storms and creating lightning bolts to disable aircraft and disrupt comms. The Union armies tried to take these stations at multiple points during the two year campaign. Of the eight hundred weather control stations in the world, two hundred fell to the Union before the zyyntoreans retook them.

The gorgon and bas troops on Basson fought valiantly, but were unable to hold the Union back, losing the world in 242 AUA. The loss of Basson allowed the Union to invade the rest of the gorgon territories, invading Cetac and Azalal that same year, though these battles were far less successful, as it took until 245 AUA for the Union to finally take Cetac. The bdarth and gorgon soldiers on Azalal proved to be even more stubborn, pushing the Union off the world in 244 AUA. The Union also invaded the lanixx planet of Malxzicmoor in 242 AUA by the 5th Union Army. The general of the army, Legatus Crassus Varius, was so confident that the lanixx colony would be defeated that he simply sent his army in small waves, unaware of the ferocity of the lanixx troops, who had since been implementing mechs and heavy gauss weapons to fight foes bigger than themselves. Their weapons proved effective, and over the next four years the lanixx slowly and efficiently wiped out the entire Union Army, buying time for the gorgons to retake much of the celestial territory that the Union had taken in the past year. The defeat at Malxzicmoor emboldened the armies of the gorgons, who sent hordes of men from Azalal to retake Cetac in 246 AUA and Basson in 250 AUA, effectively wiping out the Union army in the Traverse.

Unwilling to leave the Traverse, more men were committed to renew their offensive, this time the Union sent armies to invade lesser nations, invading the oamain in 250 AUA and the renuik in 251 AUA. The Union army of one million men landed on the planet of the oamain in 250 AUA to exterminate the them. The entirety of the oamain’s army, called the Guardian Legion, was numerically superior to the Union, having four million troops in comparison to the Union 3rd Corps of 1 million. Despite their size, the entirety of the oamain army was killed in a single battle, forcing the oamain to rely on local militias to fight the Union, but the morale damage caused by the defeat caused barely any to volunteer to battle the union forces. Known as the Battle of Avretär, the Guardian Legion was commanded by Grand General Dertrell Diavarkus VI, who was very confident that his army was prepared for the battle against the Union. The Union 3rd Corps was most notably only infantry, while the Guardian Legion had a host of 3,000 tanks and 800 shuttles to combat the Union.

The battle began with the first wave of the Legion, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Regiments of Foot to engage the 3rd Corps. The Union was both confused and beguiled by the regiments, who proudly marched towards them in line formation, playing marching music and waving their banners. Before any of the regiments could even get in range to fire their guns they were all gunned down by Union snipers and machine guns, who killed all 8,000 of them in a total of just twenty minutes. The Union then launched an offensive, running under fire of all 2,000 regiments. They received heavy losses, but once they engaged the physically inferior oamain in melee, the Guardian Legion was doomed. Even the tanks and aircraft of the legion proved ineffective, as they were promptly destroyed by the heavy weapons of the Union.

With their army completely wiped out, the oamain could simply wait for help to come, losing billions to the savage hatred of the Union troops.

Their goal was almost fulfilled, as the original population of 6 billion was brought down to almost 1 billion by the brutality of the Union troops, it wasn’t until the 255 AUA Meteor Shower came and decimated the Union Forces that they were forced to retreat. They attempted a second invasion to finish the job, as the entirety of the oamain army had already been killed in the first battle, but a zyyntorean rescue fleet arrived and forced the Union to withdraw their army after losing their flagship.

The Union invasion of Renkuik was even more devastating, the Union invaded and bombarded the planet with nuclear warheads, wiping out the renuik army in just minutes, allowing Union troops outfitted with hazmat suits to begin exterminating the renuik. They almost succeeded in this endeavor, however another liberation army of zyyntoreans and lanixx invaded in 253 AUA and destroyed the Union army, allowing the renuik a moment of respite, though many who were unaffected by the radiation enlisted in zyyntorean volunteer legions to fight the Union.

### The Fall of Rome:

“I will not allow this to be the end of our Republic. We will return, and the Union will regret crawling from the dark void from whence they came!”

* Emperor Gabriel after the Fall of Nova Roma

With their initial attempts to invade the rest of the galaxy thus far a failure, the Union refocused their efforts on crushing the NRR themselves, reinvigorating their offensives, retaking Hyperia and putting down several other NRR worlds. In 267 AUA, the Union mobilized their troops for their largest military operation in the war thus far. Numbering at over 50 million strong, the Union began their invasion of Nova Roma herself, with Dante himself at the helm from his ship, which devastated the Republic defense fleet. To soften up the Republic’s defenses, Dante’s fleet bombarded all continents on the planets with heavy plasma cannons and ballistic missiles, which destroyed many of the planet’s anti-ship weapons. The Emperor gathered the entirety of Nova Roma’s defense force, including both Praetorian Legions as well as supporting units from other worlds. However, many of these supporting armies would never reach their destination after being intercepted by Union fleets or having their planet’s blockaded before they could leave.

In a bid of desperation to save the capital of the Republic, the Emperor called upon his allies to help, which came in the form of zyyntoreans, tayrigos, and gorgons, who sent tens of millions of troops to defend Nova Roma. To prevent the spravac from assisting, the Union began another invasion of the Magnaverse to divert the spravac’s attention, besieging the worlds of Balafium, Nobilitus, Malacandrium, and Srattus.

With the anti-air defenses destroyed, the Union landed without trouble, immediately slaughtering tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers in the opening hours of the battle. For the first two years of the battle the NRR feebly held the Union back, who took more than a quarter of the planet in what seemed like an unstoppable blitz. The blitz was finally halted by the combined efforts of the II Praetorian Guard and the zyyntoreans, who landed on the NRR half of the planet with over 30 million legionnaires and marines. Alongside tayrigos who landed shortly after, the two alien forces held the Union back while the NRR fortified their positions, building massive ramparts lined with artillery and machine guns that were prepared to massacre millions of Union troopers.

To inflate his ranks, the Chancellor cloned millions more soldiers, who successfully broke through the zyyntorean and tayrigo defenses in 270 AUA. As intended, the NRR defenses cost the Union dearly, who lost so many troops that Dante’s cloning facilities were strained from overuse, producing increasingly deformed clones to be used on Nova Roma. The gorgons, eager to assist the NRR, launched an offensive against the Union lines. The offensive, known as the Kelczar Offensive, was a colossal disaster for the gorgon forces, who were forced to pull back after losing nearly half of their force in just a year of combat. However, the Union forces also suffered greatly, and were unable to make any major offensive moves. Which allowed the NRR to reorganize and for the zyyntoreans to ready their troops.

In 273 AUA, the Union and NRR both simultaneously launched offensive actions across the entire battlefront, both of them making gains and causing the main battleline to zig-zag across the planet as both sides clashed against each other.

In the Magnaverse, the spravac and NRR fought tirelessly on the worlds invaded by the Union, successfully holding them off on Srattus while Balafium and Nobilitus fell in 271 AUA. The losses of Balafium and Nobilitus, the morale all the way in Nova Roma suffered, and many troops of the Republic began to despair, only emboldened by the presence of the Emperor, who lived on the frontlines with his men to encourage them to fight harder. In 274 AUA, Dante and the Emperor dueled in the bloody Battle of Appius, during which the Emperor slashed out one of Dante’s eyes, forcing him to retreat and winning the battle, which allowed the NRR to advance and retake much of their lost territory on the planet. Annoyed with the slow progress of the battle, Dante brought forward his own Archangel ships, which he had constructed in Andromeda for this very purpose. Using the apocalyptic power of the Archangel carrier Purified Sword, the Chancellor destroyed entire armies of NRR troops, though the Emperor was luckily not in any of them. With the armies destroyed, the Union renewed their advance, smashing through whatever resistance the zyyntoreans, tayrigos, and gorgons put up alongside the diminished NRR forces.

In 276 AUA, the last pocket of NRR resistance on Nova Roma was destroyed, finally causing the great planet to fall to the Union, forcing the Emperor and whatever remained of his armies to retreat under the cover of the zyyntoreans and a fresh spravac fleet. The Fall of Nova Roma utterly crushed the fighting spirit of NRR planets throughout the Praeverse, many of whom believed the Emperor was dead and surrendered to the Union, placing much of the Praeverse under Union control by 280 AUA. The Emperor and the government went into exile on the planet of Sanctum, which was still firmly in NRR territory and safely guarded by the spravac, who sent forth entire armadas to harass and slow the Union, preventing them from advancing. Spravac and tayrigo forces also successfully recaptured Balafium in 283 AUA, dragging the war into a complete stalemate.

Unable to make any major offensive actions, the NRR instead fortified what worlds they had left, advising their allies to do the same, as the Emperor knew that Dante would not rest until he or the galaxy burned.

### The Grey Tide Churns:

“Break their bones and crush their skulls! Bleed them dry and devour their souls! I don’t want to see any of you return with clean armor, bathe in their blood and fill the air with their screams of torment! They may claim to not feel fear, but they haven’t been to Sprava yet, so make them fear, men, and revel in their terror as the last flickers of light leave their tearful eyes! For Blood, for Death, for the Empire! HAIL THE THUNDERCHARGE!”

* Primarch of Blades Sgcár Tzártzá during the Battle of Sprava

While analyzing his options, the Chancellor decided that aside from the NRR, his greatest foe was the Spravac Empire, who were able to match his troops in numbers and violence, though he still believed that a central strike at their heart would cause them to fall with ease. Though the location of Sprava was unknown to him, he was aware of many planets belonging to the spravac in the Gammaverse, which he resolved to invade. In 286 AUA, a gargantuan fleet numbering at over 20,000 strong plunged into the heart of the Gammaverse, invading the spravac worlds of Daleras, Malthus, and Mornus. The planet of Malthus was homeworld of the malthale, who were forced to bunker down after their relatively weak navy was swept aside by the Union fleet. The malthale even resorted to using homemade plasma muskets and swords to fight against the Union forces, though their superior size and strength made melee combat a mostly easy endeavor. The spravac sent hordes of marines and Rangers to defend the world, however they were forced to also defend their holdings on Daleras as well, which was guarded by the Vortzian Scars and the marine forces, who were so numerous that at times still living Union men suffocated under the bodies of spravac. In 289 AUA, the moon of Malthus, Mornus, fell to the Union, who began to systematically wipe out the civilian population on the planet. With their base on Mornus established, the Union were able to deploy more troops to invade Malthus, occupying the planet in 291 AUA, though the malthale and morners refused to surrender, and even enlisted their own children to launch partisan attacks against Union occupants.

The Battle of Daleras was less successful, and the Union were forced to withdraw in 293 AUA after their general, General Hedvar Calth, was beheaded by Incubus assassins. The spravac also strategically left information for the Union to discover that pointed them to the world of Balor, which they boasted was one of their strongest worlds.

In reality, Balor was the capital of Balor the Godlike, an ayar warlord who helmed a massive ayar empire. By invading Balor, the Union made themselves enemies with quite possibly the most powerful individual in the known galaxy, who easily defeated their invasion fleet and assimilated the Union army present into his own horde, including their general, Jorsunn Voss. After the destruction at Balor, the Union were forced to defend Malthus and Mornus, which the spravac counter invaded with fresh troops from Sprava, though their presence also alerted the Union to the location of Sprava, which Dante was intent on capturing.

To prepare his forces, Dante ceded Malthus and Mornus back to the spravac to ensure that he had the maximum number of troops available to invade Sprava. In 297 AUA, the Union set out towards Sprava, gathering other forces to participate in the battle for the grey hellscape. While on the way, they were constantly harried by xamon troopers from Bresk, who were alerted by spravac Incubi who had embedded themselves within the Union’s ranks. The xamon fleets used their heavy gauss cannons to shred Union ships to ribbons before retreating back into the void of space. The Chancellor, who intended to be present for the siege of Sprava, sent out splinters of his armada to hunt down and destroy the xamon, eventually tracking them to the small rock of Barden in the Lambdaverse, which was a haven of the Xamon Empire. The Union fleet blockaded Barden and invaded with three million troops, which broke through the xamon lines and took their capital of Garten in 300 AUA. Though Barden was conquered, xamon troops from Leutsch and recruited thanix mercenaries arrived to relieve Barden, fighting savagely with the Union soldiers until finally pushing them off the planet in 302 AUA.

Additionally, ayar warlords loyal to Balor descended from Borosorn and assimilated the retreating Union flotilla before it could link up with the rest of Dante’s armada, overwhelming the fleet and assimilating hundreds of ships and hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

Refusing to be discouraged, the Union continued onward to Sprava, eventually arriving in the Betaverse in 304 AUA. As they journeyed towards the spravac homeworld, what seemed like the whole of the Spravac Empire hammered their armada incessantly, using deadly hit and run tactics and Incubi raids from Iut to destroy entire flotillas of the armada, cutting down their original numbers at the start of the campaign from 20,000 to 15,000 by 307 AUA. Later that same year, the Union finally arrived at Sprava, which the spravac anticipated by disengaging their fleet to allow the Union to land, a move that the NRR approved of since they knew the spravac would bleed the Union so terribly that they would be forced to cease their offensive capabilities.

While the Union made their preparations to invade Sprava, soldiers from the System’s Republic in the Deltaverse and the Xamon Empire invaded Meneldez to free the gorgarians from Union control in 298 AUA, who were suffering terribly under the rule of the hybrid despots. Supported by volunteer units of NRR civilians who were permitted by the Emperor to fight on Meneldez, the allied army stormed the planet to find rubble and death, as much of the gorgarian population had been slaughtered by the Union forces, though the gorgarians put up a stiff resistance in the name of the Xamon Empire. The xamon and System’s Republic troops fought fiercely for every kilometer of land on the planet, taking back much of the planet by 302 AUA, though they lost millions in the process. When the Union began nearing closer to Sprava, many of the troops on Meneldez were recalled to assist in the invasion, allowing the xamon to fully retake the planet after another year of combat.

The Union began their invasion of Sprava by landing hundreds of millions of troops in the Western Killing Wastes, meeting scant resistance from lightly armed skirmishing units of marines and whelps, who served only to slow the Union down. As the Union advanced forward, resistance mounted sharply in the form of Imperial Marines and Rangers, who had spent the last ten days digging advanced rows of trenches lined with machine guns and spikes.

The spravac artillery rained purple hellfire onto the Union troops, vaporizing entire companies as the hybrid warriors charged forward under heavy fire. In a stunning maneuver, the Imperial Rangers unsheathed their blades and charged from the trenches, the red armored warriors meeting the Union in the field, all the while the artillery and machine guns thundered over them, killing tens of thousands of Union reserves. The spravac also deployed Tvigcárí Warriors from the nearby citadel, who cut the Union soldiers to ribbons.

While the melee held the Union back, more hordes of marines and whelps were mustered from across the whole of the Sprava, who loaded onto massive barges and dropships to deploy behind the Union lines and surround them. Union scouts spotted the massive movements of spravac, with numbers so large that they caused their scanning equipment to short circuit from the sheer amount of computing power that it took to display the spravac numbers. Realizing that the spravac intended to encircle them, the Chancellor, who was personally leading the invasion, ordered a mass offensive to break through the spravac lines and take the nearby city of Cairé Vétz, which was populated by over forty million spravac irregular and soldiers eagerly waiting for them.

The Union broke through the lines after weeks of assaulting them, finally reaching the city and assaulting it. Union clone troops stayed behind to slow the spravac behind them in a battle that became known as the Battle of the Hellfire Line, where for once the Union were forced into a desperate defense against the sadistic birds. Inside Cairé Vétz, the Union faced constant ambushes from the population of the city, who were all heavily armed and motivated to defend their turf. Shiv Gangs of spravac warriors poured from the underworld of the city like ants, overwhelming entire battalions of Union troops. Eager to move forward, Dante ordered his fleet to fire down into the city and the Hellfire Line, killing millions of spravac and allowing the 122nd Storm Army to claim the city and move forward.

As the Chancellor and his forward armies pressed onward, they found themselves in a maze of jagged obsidian rocks and roving bands of spravac raiders who assaulted them at every opportunity, rarely succeeding but wasting precious ammunition and fuel. The Chancellor soon came across the massive hive of Tzártzivárgá, which was built into the sides of the obsidian canyon that the Union had ventured into. The spravac soldiers guarding the city, the feudal armies of House Sisczt, rushed out to meet them, their white and red armor shining bright in the overcast sun of Sprava as they boisterously ran into the Union guns, losing thousands but never slowing their advance. When the spravac reached the Union positions, the discipline of the Union was broken as they fled into the mountainous crags of the canyon, with some even unlucky enough to find themselves in the alleyways of Tzártzivárgá.

In 308 AUA, the Union were forced out of the great canyon after what became known as the Battle for the Trench of Glass, with the soldiers of House Sisczt eagerly pursuing them. Now surrounded on all sides by spravac forces from House Sisczt, Válír, Sgcár, and Zgevescz, who entrenched themselves to prevent any soul from leaving the planet.

Realizing that the invasion was a failure, Dante was forced to hold the spravac off while dropships from his fleet struggled under anti-air fire to land and evacuate himself and whatever troops could fit. As this was happening, the Sprava Defense Armada reappeared and began assaulting the Union fleet, placing further pressure on the Union forces on the ground. In an effort to escape, Dante ordered the entirety of the dropships present in the fleet to land and evacuate as many troops as possible. The thousands of dropships raced to the surface under heavy fire as the Union fleet held back the spravac behind them, landing after losing nearly 500 craft to anti-air fire alone. As the Chancellor and his best troops began to lift off, more dropships filled with men were shot down as spravac fighters began to fire at them, with one barely missing Dante’s ship by just a few feet. The massive horde of dropships then retreated back to the carriers of the fleet, leaving the rest of the Union army to fend for themselves as the spravac swarms devoured them.

After the Union fleet departed, nearly 145 million men had been killed by the spravac in just two years, leaving the Union battered and for once short on manpower. The Union fleet had also been devastated, now only numbered at just 8,000 ships. The spravac on the other hand found the invasion entertaining, and even expressed their disappointment in only losing 65 million men and 1,800 ships in the battle, most of which were raiders and spravac irregulars from the cities attacked by the Union.

The failure of the Union at the Siege of Sprava marked a turning point in the war, starting a period of cold war known as the Union Cold War, which began shortly after the Chancellor and his forces arrived back in Union held space.

### The 100 Year Peace:

“Even when the guns go cool, we are always at war, remember that.”

* Gabriel to Chancellor Frederick Holtzmann of the Ures Federation

Following the devastation of the Siege of Sprava, the Union for once found themselves unable to recuperate their losses. The men that returned, usually fanatical and unable to feel fear, for once found themselves having nightmares about the horrors they witnessed on Sprava and the other worlds they invaded, terrified and insulted by the stiff resistance that the aliens of the Milky Way put up against their invasions.

The Chancellor refused to tolerate this weakness, and personally executed several high ranking generals, including all of the ones that served with him on Sprava, for their weakness and lack of fortitude. The Chancellor’s increasingly erratic behavior caused many other disillusioned Union generals to desert, many of them turning themselves into zyyntorean armies under the hopes they would be treated more fairly than by the Union or the NRR.

In an effort to control this rapid decline in his general staff, the Chancellor issued Order #334, which proclaimed that any Union general who returned from future campaigns in defeat would be executed for weakness, which he believed would motivate his generals and the soldiers beneath them to fight harder. In order to recuperate his losses, the Chancellor began fortifying the worlds he had captured, which he continued to cleanse of impurity and rebellion, which was the most resilient on Nova Roma, which continued a long lasting insurgency against the Union occupation. This period became known as the 100 Year Peace, as neither the Union nor the NRR were willing to make any offensive actions against each other.

While the Union festered on their captured worlds, the NRR on Sanctum began more military buildup, placing all planets under martial law to ensure maximum production. In 325 AUA, the NRR found themselves unable to manufacture as many ships as was needed for their planned counter attack, leading the NRR to contact the Xamon Empire, who were proficient in shipbuilding, to build more NRR ships with xamon quality control to be used by the NRR Navy. For the first time in their history, the NRR allowed a foreign power to view detailed blueprints of their ship designs, which the xamon not only built perfectly, but improved upon, giving them increased shielding and replaced some of their ballistic batteries with gauss, which were far more effective at penetrating the armor of the Union fleet, which was made of antiquated NRR ship designs from thousands of years ago or damaged captured Republic ships. Under the supervision of Admiral Rok and the Emperor, the NRR soldiers began conducting joint exercises with alien armies, notably the zyyntoreans and Ures, who dedicated tens of millions of soldiers to train with the NRR.

During this period, the Emperor found a friend in the Harbinger of the Holy Zyyntorean Viacota Gai Zelem, who personally oversaw the training exercises alongside the Emperor, even sparring with him to exchange fighting techniques. As a show of good luck and faith, the Emperor gifted Zelem with a ornate set of Legion armor, unofficially making him a legate in the NRR, allowing him to take command of NRR legions, which was necessary for the coming offensive that the Emperor and Zelem were planning. As a blessing, Zelem knighted the Emperor as a member of the Order of Seraphic Valor, a knight order of the Holy Zyyntorean Empire, allowing him to call upon the knights of the Order to fight for him.

In 330 AUA, the first batch of xamon made ships were constructed and shipped to Horizon to begin mobilization and training. Additionally, Vondrak arms dealers arrived and made vast profits selling hundreds of thousands of gauss rifles and even PZ-18 gas mortars to the NRR troops, mostly the human troops who were better suited for the size of the xamon weapons.

In the Union, the Chancellor further strained his cloning facilities and brood farms, breeding countless men to be used in his planned offensives. The Nexus in the Andromeda Galaxy also continued to churn out more materiel, however, the factory was destroyed in 345 AUA after a syrus fleet discovered it and forced Philip to destroy it to prevent the syrus from reclaiming it. Now forced to rely on the fleet and weapons in the Milky Way, the Union began using what little factories were still standing on their ruined worlds, building hundreds of thousands of weapons and vehicles seemingly overnight, though they did use up considerably more resources, as the Chancellor and the Union had become increasingly reliant on the Nexus for production, causing their weapons to of poorer quality to speed up productivity.

In 395 AUA, the NRR founded the Milky Way Defense Pact, which called upon all factions in the Milky Way willing to fight to donate large units of troops to be used in the coming military operation, which was codenamed Operation: Rubicon. The forces that joined the MWDP included the Holy Zyyntorean Empire, Spravac Empire, Great Selethian Imperium, Zerlai Empire, Ures Federation, Tayrigo Empire, Karis Republic, Xamon Empire, Dosh Republic, Cayde Empire, TAKA, Orbam Republic, Lanixx Federation, Qaze Dominion, and the Drow Empire. Over the next decades, billions of soldiers, vehicles, and ships were transported to Sanctum, Horizon, and the spravac planet of Rotec to prepare for the offensive. This massive coalition was organized into four separate battlefronts; Battlefront Hadrium was made up of NRR, zyyntorean, Uresian, tayrigo, and lanixx troops. Battlefront Lusitania was made of spravac, gorgons, zerlai, xamon, and TAKA troops. Battlefront Helvetica was composed of spravac, cayde, karis, and dosh. Finally, Battlefront Gothic was made up from spravac, NRR, xamon, and gorgons.

With the armies prepared, the MMDP made their final preparations for what the Emperor proclaimed their “Last Stand.”

### Crossing the Rubicon:

“In these dark days, we gather the last of our strength to push into the barbarian horde. We may all have been enemies at one point or another, and I don’t doubt that some of us will be at war with each other again once this is all over. But I appeal to you all, except maybe the spravac, that we no longer can stand to allow the Union to survive. We have gathered enough men from all corners of this great galaxy to invade another, and I know that we will prevail. This is our last stand, gentlemen, and I don’t intend to die during it, but I am prepared to. Are you?”

* Emperor Gabriel with the rest of the MWDP before Operation: Rubicon

In 400 AUA, which marked 400 years since the war began, the NRR began Operation Rubicon, using Battlefronts Lusitania and Helvetica, which were composed primarily of spravac troops, to begin their main offensive thrust into the Union held territory, assaulting the battered worlds of Nobilitus and Balafium, which had fallen to the Union during their Magnaverse Offensive. Taking the unprepared Union forces completely off guard, the spravac stormed through the planets in months, liberating the planets after just three months. The grateful NRR citizens that were still left volunteered in droves, however they chose to serve in volunteer spravac units, who they regarded as their liberators, a move which would have unforeseen consequences later on. While the spravac liberated Nobilitus and Balafium, gorgon and zerlai troops used their advanced navy to launch a major thrust into the Titanoverse, clearing the way for the forces of Battlefront Hadrium and Gothic to move in to invade the Titanoverse.

The first Ures and xamon troops landed on the planet of Tremania, which was heavily fortified by the mutant General Franz Mortemor, who commanded the 100th Storm Army. The Uresians used Green Titans decisively to weaken the 100th’s defenses, which cleared the way for xamon stormtroopers to break through and establish beachheads, a battle known as Operation Osprey. Union clones inflated the ranks on Tremania, which slowed the xamon advance, which was renewed in 405 AUA after NRR troops arrived to match the size and brutality of the Union troops. The arrival of fresh NRR troops, along with supporting companies of lanixx warriors, broke the 100th army and freed Tremania, marking it the first planet recaptured during Operation Rubicon.

In 408 AUA, NRR and zyyntorean soldiers from Hadrium made landfall on Lunea, storming through the Union defenses and liberating the planet after three years of combat. While the zyyntoreans battled on Lunea, Battlefront Gothic instituted a naval campaign on the worlds of Freia, Durma, and Optrex, eliminating their defensive fleets to prepare them for land invasion. Cayde, lanixx, and NRR soldiers invaded Freia in 410 AUA while Durma was liberated by spravac and TAKA troops. Among the spravac forces was the Kolatl Legion, who were now heavily armed and well trained by the spravac to prepare them for retaking their homeworld of Horlas.

In 415 AUA, Freia was freed by the allied forces, however the forces on Durma and Oprex, which was invaded in 414 AUA suffered heavy losses and a slowed advance. To support the forces on Oprex, zyyntoreans and knights of the Order Templar reinforced the primarily xamon forces on Optrex, renewing the offensive and eventually destroying the Union army in 416 AUA. The allied soldiers on Durma were forced to withdraw in 416 AUA as well, though the planet was invaded again by Uresian and NRR troops a year later, giving the Union no time to repair their defenses, ending the battle in allied victory after just six months of battle.

In an effort to slow the allied advance, the Union sent thousands of ships swelling with millions of heavily armed elite troops to retake the worlds lost in the invasion, however the naval forces of Battlefront Gothic intercepted them, wiping out nearly 60% of the fleet, sending the rest into disarray. Under the orders of Dante, any generals that returned to him empty-handed would be executed, causing the admirals and generals left behind to go rogue, raiding both Union and allied fleets for the remainder of the war, though these rogue armies would inevitably by consumed by the war and wiped out by the end.

In 425 AUA, zyyntorean and Uresian troops invaded the fortified world of Tiberius. The zyyntoreans, who were already stretched thin on the other worlds of Hamera and Garvung, which were invaded in 423 AUA, could only send small amounts of troops, meaning that the primary initial fighting force was Ures. Though the Uresians fought fiercely, they required more men, which came in the form of spravac and NRR troops, who provided immense numbers and firepower to support the Uresian forces.

In 426 AUA, Union reinforcements also arrived, causing a tremendous naval battle above the planet to ensue. Helmed by the massive archangel-class supercarrier Xenobane, the Union fleet devastated the zyyntorean and Uresian fleets, forcing the spravac to be the primary naval force over the planet. The surface of the world was not only battered by artillery, but by intense hurricanes and storms, turning the trenches and killing fields into mud-choked puddles, so much so that wounded men often drowned in the craters formed by the artillery. The brutal trench warfare of Tiberius persisted well into 428 AUA after the NRR forces arrived to reinforce the battered allied soldiers, destroying Xenobane and finally taking Tiberius after three years.

In 430 AUA, the zyyntoreans and Orders Templar launched their invasion of the Holy See, which was embroiled in a resistance movement against the Union forces. Supporting the zyyntoreans and knights were volunteer battalions of Catholic militia, mostly from Earth and Ures, who were called upon by the Nova Catholicus Pope and the Catholic Church of Earth to liberate the planet.

After establishing the beachhead on the holy world, the zyyntoreans and volunteer battalions assaulted forward into the disorganized Union lines, who were confused due to a sudden uptick of attacks by partisans who had established contact with zyyntorean special forces, who smuggled them weapons and were organizing their ambushes and guerilla style attacks.

The zyyntorean legionnaires cut through the Union troops with ease, slaughtering thousands of them in the opening days of the invasion, which cleared the way for Order’s knights to reclaim their holy lands and secure the Nova Catholicus Pope, who had stayed on the world to continue rallying the people.

While the Holy See was consumed by the hellfire of war, Battlefront Gothic prepared a joint army of spravac, gorgons, and NRR to begin the fateful Torax Campaign, which sought to liberate the conquered system of Torax, which housed the valuable industrial planet of Argos I. Led by Emperor Gabriel’s son, Jose-Antonio, who was the heir to the NRR.

Argos I was guarded by the Chancellor himself, who predicted that the NRR would attempt to take the crucial world, as it served as one of the chief industrial centers of the Union after the destruction of the Nexus. The invasion of Argos I began with the gorgons capturing its primary moon of Reno, which the gorgons captured after three months. With Reno captured, the spravac and NRR troops mobilized on the surface of the moon and began landing thousands of landing craft under heavy AA fire on the surface of Argos, losing tens of thousands in the initial landings. The spravac led the main vanguards against the Union forces, sending forth millions of marines and Rangers to soak up enemy fire and overwhelm several positions across the entire planet, paving the way in blood and mangled steel for the NRR to press forward towards the main industrial centers on the planet, namely the Citadel of Steel, where the Chancellor was hiding.

The Siege of the Citadel lasted for over two years, claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of troops as they threw themselves at the fortress, which contained a cloning facility that churned out countless cannon fodder for the Union to use against the spravac, at times even deploying them without weapons or even clothing. In previous campaigns, factions like the spravac and gorgons were disallowed by the NRR and zyyntoreans from pillaging and murder, however under special orders by General Jose-Antonio, the spravac and gorgons were permitted to murder the Union civilians to their heart’s content, which Jose-Antonio saw as revenge for the crimes committed by the Union against them.

The brutality of the spravac against their families severely disheartened the Union soldiers defending the Citadel, who for once saw the other side of their own savagery against the NRR when the spravac mockingly sent recordings and videos of them torturing POWs and civilians, which included rape and murder against Union women and children. In 435 AUA, the Citadel and its surrounding cities fell to the spravac and NRR, however the Chancellor was not willing to give up the planet without a fight.

Launching a vicious final offensive, the Chancellor gathered what remained of the Union forces pushed through the entrenched NRR troops, who were forced to retreat under the cover of the spravac, who held back the Union while the NRR regrouped.

After another month of combat, Jose-Antonio led a daring counterattack against the Union forces, clashing with the Chancellor directly. However, the Chancellor was far more experienced, and in cold blood murdered his nephew in a duel. With the death of their general, the NRR panicked until what remained of their forces were taken under control by the spravac commander, Didact Vec Várgá, who along with his elite marines units continued the counter attack. Várgá dueled with Dante as well, eventually beating him after he put out one of his [Dante’s] eyes, forcing the Chancellor and the rest of his army to retreat off the planet fully in 436 AUA, marking Argos as the first planet in the Torax System to fall.

The death of Jose-Antonio struck right at the heart of the Emperor, who in his fury followed in his son’s footsteps and declared that all armies in the alliance were permitted to use terror and cruelty against the civilian populations loyal to the Union, but asked that they ensure that they were not still loyal to the Republic to ensure that his own subjects were not subjected to the pillage and murder that was being brought down on them. The zyyntoreans were the only ones to disobey the order, expressing their concern for the Emperor’s mental state, and stated that they only would stay allies because the Union were a greater threat to justice and honor than the NRR were.

Making good on their promise, the zyyntoreans assisted in the liberation of several more planets between 436 and 450 AUA, successfully liberating the last of the Union planets in the Titanoverse. The casualties were astounding; over the course of the 36 year operation, over 400 million allied troops, mostly NRR and spravac, had been killed thus far, whereas 1.2 billion Union soldiers and civilians had been killed, as number that was sharply climbing as the spravac in particular continued to pillage and slaughter on occupied worlds.

With the Titanoverse firmly back in the hands of the NRR and the allies, the forces made preparations for moving in on the Praeverse and the final target; Nova Roma.

### Burning Skies:

“The dishonor of the swinish Union is about to be washed away, and we are the wave that will wipe the slate clean.”

* Harbinger Zelem during Operation: Alaric

After settling their affairs in the Titanoverse, the allies began mobilizing their forces to prepare for their invasion of the Praeverse, codenamed Operation Alaric. To better centralize the armies, all of the original battle groups were combined into a single entity, known as the Grand Army of the Republic. Alongside the Emperor, joint command was administered to Harbinger Zelem, Didact Várgá of the Spravac Empire, Marshall Ulrek of the Xamon Empire, Inquisitor Gar Tel Vez of the Gorgon Empire, and Admiral Samuel Rodrigues of the Ures Federation.

In 452 AUA, the Grand Army sent its first battle fleets into the war torn Praeverse, immediately crushing hundreds of flotillas of Union patrols, disorganizing and shocking the Union, causing them to hastily scramble towards their holdings to prepare for invasion. The kolatl volunteer army, alongside spravac commanders, immediately rushed towards the now barren Horlas to reclaim the homeworld of the kolatl, while the zyyntoreans and knight orders invaded Hyperia. NRR, Ures, and karis troops invaded Gloras, which had been cleansed of Republican citizens almost in its entirety.

Supporting units of xamon assisted in the Siege of Gloras, deploying gas cannons and heavy gauss tanks to break through the Union’s armored divisions to clear the way for the Uresian and karis soldiers, who used their smaller size to their advantage to take down the Union juggernauts in increasingly creative and brutal ways. On Horlas, the kolatl volunteers were spurred into a fury after witnessing the countless mass graves filled with their people, and resolved to inflict unto the Union the same mercy that was shown to them. Encouraged by their spravac allies, the kolatl were relentless in their crusade against the Union soldiers and civilians, who had been sent to colonize the world. The kolatl pillaged and reaved every Union colony, wiping out even the children as the spravac led them to victory, taking the planet at last in 456 AUA.

The battle on Hyperia had slowed to a crawl by 457 AUA, as the zyyntoreans and Templar knights had been forced to resort to trench warfare in the face of the devastating Union firepower. To break the stalemate, spravac marines from Horlas were deployed, who stormed through the Union trenches and brought movement back to the front, conquering vast swaths of land and forcing the Union into an increasingly feeble defensive. Spravac and gorgon troops were then deployed alongside tayrigos to battle on Torgal, which was invaded by a mostly tayrigo force in 455 AUA. However, as an original Union stronghold since before the Schism, the defenses were too great, and the allies were forced to withdraw from the planet in 458 AUA, though the spravac vowed to return and bathe the soil of the world in Union gore.

To continue placing pressure on the Union, spravac and NRR troops were redirected to besiege Silia, which was still heavily loyal to the NRR and continued a guerilla campaign since its occupation centuries before. Now armed with fresh weapons from the spravac and the Republic, the rebel forces combined their forces and stormed through the Union lines, crushing entire divisions in just weeks, who had already been weakened by the rebellion.

In 460 AUA, Hyperia was finally liberated by the zyyntoreans, who even in their piety and honor were merciless in their execution of Union generals and officers, severely weakening the Union chain of command, forcing the beleaguered Dante to take more personal control over the entire war effort from Nova Roma. In desperation, the Union started using underage civilians as soldiers, who were ill-prepared to fight the battle-hardened veterans of the Grand Army. Only the zyyntoreans showed a sign of pity as they cut them down, and even then it was much less than they typically would be against such combatants.

By 470 AUA, Silia and Gloras were now under the control of the NRR and allies, leaving only Torgal, Nova Roma, and Zolavar as the last true bastions of Union power. The lesser planets of the core, with the assistance of spravac and xamon, were beginning to rebel against the Union, wresting control from the tyrants in 475 AUA. In desperation, Dante invaded Hyperia with his best troops, hoping to take the allies off guard and renew Union initiative in the campaign. Defending Hyperia was Gabriel and the 1st Praetorian Guard, along with Zelem, who took command of the 2nd Praetorian Guard alongside his own legionnaires. As the three great leaders clashed on Hyperia, another army composed of tayrigos, cayde, TAKA, and spravac invaded Torgal with overwatch from a joint gorgon and xamon fleet. Dante’s offensive on Hyperia left Torgal sorely undefended, allowing the allied armies to crush the Union defenses in 478 AUA, placing Torgal under control of the spravac, who took great pleasure in abusing the Union civilians.

In 476 AUA, Gabriel was wounded in the Battle of Tempest Gap by Dante, however the killing blow was interrupted by Zelem, who managed to hold the hybrid chancellor back while his Immortals evacuated Gabriel. In the savage duel, Zelem managed to gain the upper hand, and in a great sword-stroke shattered Dante’s blade and severed his synthetic arm. Choosing not to execute the chancellor, Zelem instead shamed him and kicked him aside, believing that it was the Emperor’s place to kill the mad tyrant.

Humiliated by his defeat at the hands of an alien, Dante furiously continued his failing campaign on Hyperia while his empire crumbled around him, including Zolavar, which was taken by another NRR army with the assistance of Ures in 481 AUA.

Later that same year, Dante was forced to withdraw his forces from Hyperia to fortify Nova Roma at the behest of his sister and lover, who tended to his wounds inflicted by Zelem. While Dante healed and fortified his last world, the allies recuperated and began rebuilding their conquered worlds in case Dante attempted another offensive. In an effort to rebuild, kenesz scouting forces were sent into the galaxy to begin colonizing worlds as a failsafe in case the NRR was bested in the final battle. In 490 AUA, the kenesz entered the Muverse and began colonizing several worlds, including the planet known at the time as P-132/A. However, several other opportunistic lesser factions, seeking to exploit the war by conquering worlds while the galaxy was focused on the Union, also moved into the Muverse. These factions, forming the Coalition of Mu, attacked the kenesz and engaged in a bloody year long conflict, which eventually forced the NRR to send merdarren and eventually official troops to intervene and defeat the coalition.

After using spravac hordes to crush the coalition of Mu, the factions, which included the Steel Imperium, the Imperium of Dethin, the Ninyn Empire, the Holy Telean Empire, Netheron Securities, and the Lashrahm Kingdoms were forced to enter the war as penance for their war against the kenesz, under the promise that the NRR would not wage war with them if they fought bravely in the war against the Union.

In 492 AUA, the final battle on Nova Roma began. Defending the world was 2 billion Union troops, which included veterans from the Red Condors, clones, minors, and even enslaved NRR citizens who were used as meat shields. The allied army numbered at over 1.5 billion men, composed of NRR troops, zyyntoreans, spravac, xamon, gorgons, ninyn, dethrin, telean, hamaras, karis, and Uresians. The initial assault began with a gargantuan naval engagement that lasted nearly three days, utterly annihilating the Union fleet, which included Dante’s flagship, which was destroyed after an Ultrabow volly vaporized the entire front half of the supercarrier.

The coalition troops served as the frontal assault, with the ninyn performing especially well as they broke through the first line of defenses. Spravac troops then followed after, who gleefully threw themselves into the meat grinder and slowed the Union down while the rest of the allies landed their troops. Spearheading the assault with a joint column of armor, the allied forces pressed into the Union lines and devastated the defenses, completely wiping out the Red Condors and many more of the elite troops, forcing Dante to use his child soldiers and clones to slow the allies down as they pressed forward.

By 497 AUA, nearly half of the ruined world was now in the hands of the allies, who were so confident in their victory that they had already begun laying the grounds for reconstruction. While the coalition armies and the spravac continued pressing into Union territory, NRR long range artillery ceaselessly fired into the cities still under Union control, reducing them to rubble and killing hundreds of thousands of troops and Union-loyal citizens. However, many of the cities in Union territory began erupting into firefights as Incubi and xamon smuggled weapons to civilians loyal to the Republic, sowing chaos within the Union ranks as neighborhoods turned into their graves.

In 499 AUA, fresh zyyntorean legionnaires arrived and succeeded in breaking through in the south, creating a plantwide pincer movement that very rapidly began to choke the Union soldiers as they began dying by the thousands every hour. In a last ditch effort, Dante sallied forth in 501 AUA with what remained of his elite troops and charged straight for the Emperor, hoping that if he killed him, he would break the allies’ will to fight and win the war. In a climatic final duel, the two brothers battled each other with a hatred beyond reckoning, hacking and beating away at each other for almost a full day until Gabriel finally gained the advantage, using his great hammer to smash Dante’s skull in, finally doing what he should have done millenia before.

The death of the Chancellor utterly shattered the morale of the Union troops, who began laying down their arms. Those that surrendered to the NRR or spravac were promptly shot, which led to Union troops making the journey to surrender to the zyyntoreans who were more likely to show them mercy. After 500 years of bloodshed, the Union was finally defeated in a glorious victory for not just the NRR, but the galaxy, who rejoiced for weeks on end after the end of the war.

Though the chancellor was dead and the Union scattered into the void, a new grueling challenge now reared its ugly head; rebuilding thousands of years of civilization from the ground up, which in some ways would spell the ultimate demise for the New Roman Republic.

### Rebuilding the Rubble:

“The war is over, now the real struggle begins.”

* Emperor Gabriel

The Union War, which was also known as the Galactic Union War by the rest of the Galactic Community, was by far the most destructive war that the NRR had ever participated in since the Spravac War in 7017 CE. it ushered in a new era of history, as AUA was now the standard dating system for all years following the war. The war had completely devastated the NRR and much of the planets belonging to other races, but by far the NRR was the most affected by the great conflict. Nova Roma and the core worlds had essentially been reduced to rubble, and many citizens who had lived underneath the Union for centuries had been indoctrinated by the tyrants’ propaganda campaign, leaving the NRR divided politically once again in more ways than one.

Many planets in the Magnaverse, which served as the sanctuary of the Republic in Exile, began developing a heavier affinity for the Spravac Empire, who were largely responsible for protecting their worlds from the Union onslaught while the Republic struggled in the Praeverse and Titanoverse. The presence of spravac soldiers during reconstruction only strengthened this bond.

The period following the end of the war was known as the Ruined Era due to the amount of rebuilding that required. Almost all of the major factories in the Republic were rendered useless, and many planets were so horrifically scarred that many cities were unable to be rebuilt. Spravac laborers and contractors hired from the Xamon Empire were required to assist in the rebuilding. In addition, many rowdy populations of Union sympathizers required the presence of peacekeepers, which also came in the form of mercenaries to assist the NRR, whose military had been exhausted by the five century long war.

The efficacy of the mercenary companies shocked the NRR, who before scoffed at the idea of mercenaries as being ineffective and unnecessary. In order to stimulate the economy, the NRR even sanctioned the creation of their own state funded PMC, which was known as Rubicon Group in honor of the operation that saved the Republic.

Training alongside xamon contractors from Reuvein Security Consulting, Rubicon Group became highly effective at dealing with the terrorist cells on Torgal, a conflict known as the Torgal Insurgency. The insurgency became infamous due to the methods of Rubicon Group, who employed xamon style tactics against the rebels, which included targeting civilian populations to break the fighting spirit of the rebels.

Their actions caught the attention of the zyyntoreans, who cautioned that while the NRR rightfully deserved their victory, they should avoid despotism, lest they become like the Union, a warning which Gabriel took into consideration after a lengthy conversation with Zelem, who traveled to Nova Roma with hundreds of thousands of zyyntorean missionaries to assist with reconstruction on the capital.

Despite Zelem’s caution, Gabriel still regarded all Union sympathizers as traitors, who instructed the Oculi Imperatoris to show no mercy towards the rebel cells. Increased surveillance and a general curfew on all worlds was established to foster security, and contractors alongside a newly militarized police force patrolled the streets and countryside of every planet to stamp out dissent.

The Emperor’s actions were later legitimized in 514 AUA after the terrorist group known as the Union Resurgence Army (URA) launched an urban guerilla campaign on Torgal and Nova Roma, committed massacres and bombings in the major cities, including an attempted shooting at the Imperial Palace. Spravac Incubi deployed alongside Rubicon Group to fight against the rebels, waging a bloody war against the insurgents that ended in 518 AUA after the leader of the URA, Venter Kull, was killed by Incubi assassins.

In the Muverse, the kenesz and NRR continued to develop their colonized worlds, founding the Governorate of Mu in 525 AUA, which was jointly guarded by a spravac fleet to increase security on the frontier colonies. By 540 AUA, much of the Praeverse and Titanoverse was rebuilt, however many of the fringe worlds in the Titanoverse that were particularly brutalized by the Union were still essentially in shambles, leading to an increase in lawlessness and crime as militia groups and upstart politicians attempted to declare independence, believing that the Republic they knew was too weak to protect them any longer. Many of these independence movements had roots in Union loyalty and xenophobia, which the Emperor refused to tolerate, sending forward troops supported by Ures and the xamon to put down the rebellions and bring them back into the fold, which became known as the Titanoverse Rebellion, which ended after the stronghold on Garrix fell in 551 AUA.

Though comparatively less violent than the Union War, these conflicts still weakened the NRR, forcing the Emperor to enact even harsher laws, essentially placing the entire Republic under martial law until the empire was fully rebuilt, which was completed fully in 589 AUA, leading to the Emperor to relax many of the restrictions, though surveillance and military police remained, as the Emperor’s paranoia led him to believe that the Union’s taint would remain for much longer.

To rebuild the economy, reform was necessary for growth, leading to the NRR replacing the antiquated Denarius with the official universal credit system, which was worth much more and made trading with other factions much more profitable. This move displeased many, who believed that the NRR was becoming too open, but the Emperor and his cabinet stood by the decision.

Sure enough, the wealth brought in by merchants was a great boon for the NRR’s suffering economy. However, the merchants also brought with them the black market, which came in the form of zurok gangsters and xamon arms dealers from the Vondrak Empire, who typically sold drugs and weapons to criminal groups and even secretive rebel militias that still sought to fight for the Union cause.

However, one of these militias was discovered by the Oculi Imperatoris, who learned of their dealings with the Vondraks and brought this information to the Emperor, who in his anger issued Declaration 21, which announced a trade embargo on the Xamon Empire. Infuriated by the declaration, Vondrak enforcers were ordered by the Emperor of the Xamon to raid NRR warehouses that contained their products, seeking to regain all of their sold goods as revenge for the declaration. After stealing back their goods and the deaths of several hundred workers and NRR police, the Vondraks left, though not before engaging in a brief firefight with the NRR navy.

In retaliation, NRR ships and soldiers from Rubicon Group arrived in xamon space in the Lambdaverse, blockading the world of Aterich, which was a heavily guarded stronghold of the Vondrak Empire. In desperation, the Vondraks contracted the Drag Republic of Irik, which was nearby, to send its own troops in exchange for payment and trading rights on Aterich. Though not as skilled as NRR soldiers, the drag soldiers of Irik managed to take the NRR by surprise and lift the blockade. After the battle, the Vondraks sued for peace, offering to return the goods and pay compensation for the killed NRR citizens, in exchange that Declaration 21 be either abolished or ratified.

The Emperor obliged, altering the parameters of Declaration 21 that xamon traders would be allowed in NRR space so long as they possessed a trading permit from the Republic that certified that their sold goods were in accordance with NRR law. Satisfied with the deal, the Vondrak paid 500 million credits to the NRR and returned the stolen goods with their first fleet of traders, who now possessed trading permits to work in the NRR.

In an effort to further stimulate the economy and political engagement, the Emperor for the first time in centuries declared another era of expansion in 567 AUA, moving towards the Neoverse, which was newly discovered by spravac raiders in 545 AUA. This new verse seemed like the perfect opportunity for the Republic to grow and show the galaxy that even after facing such a destructive war that the NRR would always survive and thrive.

### Void Safari:

“Whatever hides in this new realm, the Republic will crush it to dust.”

* Admiral Balthasar Voraman

As the NRR fleet, with assistance from the spravac Reaver Baron Bûscz Caisczai, journeyed into the Neoverse, the NRR found themselves in the wake of a gargantuan expanse of fresh and unclaimed planets. The NRR made touchdown on the jungle world of Magneta, named so for its strong magnetic field and heavy gravity, measuring at over 11.2 m/s² of force. On the planet, the NRR and spravac troops encountered dangerous fauna as well as scant colonies of raiders from the Trozen Confederacy, who had already claimed the world as their own. The raiders were weak in comparison to the NRR troops, who easily overpowered them and captured their encampments, later discovering that the Trozen had also laid claim to the planet as their one, seeking to build their empire to challenge the zyyntoreans, their ancient enemies.

The NRR, as allies of the zyyntoreans, declared war on the trozen on behalf of the zyyntoreans, who were unaware of the plot. However, the NRR believed the trozen raiders to be official soldiers, and thus were unpleasantly surprised when regular trozen warriors arrived on the planet, beginning the Magneta Campaign. The Battle of Magneta claimed tens of thousands of NRR and spravac soldiers in the opening weeks of the battle, often through intense jungle warfare and irregular jungle attacks that the rigid NRR troops and excitable spravac warriors were unprepared for.

By late 567 AUA, Magneta remained firmly in NRR hands while spravac soldiers scouted ahead to search for other trozen strongholds in the Neoverse. The spravac came in contact with trozen soldiers in the Giotta System, which was a system of six worlds that were all owned by the Troze Confederacy. The spravac, without NRR consultation, invaded the closest world of Teravex, the most heavily fortified of the planets, losing nearly half of their force in the year long siege before being forced to retreat under orders by Admiral Balthasar Voraman, the commander of the NRR forces. In 568 AUA, the NRR and remaining spravac, who were now reinforced by official marine forces, reinvaded Teravex, capturing the planet after six months of battle.

With Teravex and Magneta now both lost, the trozen sued for peace, offering the planet of Herren in exchange that they be allowed to continue colonizing the upper reaches of the Neoverse. The NRR agreed, signing the Treaty of Herren in January, 569 AUA, which created an invisible line across the Neoverse that divided the verse into a Troze and NRR/spravac half.

However, Baron Caisczai was dissatisfied with the deal, believing that the NRR should have continued the war to not only colonize the worlds without worrying about the trozen, but also allow the spravac to conquer more worlds. In a secret call with Prime Tzártziv Vrescz, the Reaver Baron was instructed to double his efforts and ensure that the Neoverse was under mostly spravac control, even instructing him to murder Admiral Voraman to slow the NRR down if the time arose.

The spravac pirates worked around the clock, sending out hundreds of flotillas to map out and colonize as many worlds as possible, landing tens of thousands of warriors along with females to begin stimulating growth. Suspecting a spravac plot, Admiral Voraman met with Caiscai in 572 AUA to discuss colonization matters, as thus far the NRR had only claimed three worlds while the spravac had already colonized seven. Believing the Admiral was going to halt the spravac plans, Caisczai ordered one of his servants to bring drinks, however he had both drinks poisoned with a toxin known to the spravac as Twilight Ichor, a poison typically mixed into spravac drinks, making Caisczai immune to its effects. Sure enough, the admiral collapsed and choked to death, leaving Caisczai to dispose of his body and fabricate a story that the admiral had died from an alien pathogen that he contracted on Magneta.

The death of Voraman severely hampered NRR colonization efforts, leaving Caisczai and his warriors to conquer many other worlds and even begin encroaching on NRR planets, claiming them to be joint operating bases to protect against trozen raids. The facade worked, and the NRR would never discover the spravac’s treachery until much later.

### The Syrus Threat:

“Once again strangers from Andromeda come to bleed on our doorstep. The NRR survived the spravac, we rebuilt ourselves from the rubble the Union wrought, and instead it’ll be these syrus barbarians who will have to survive us and rebuild from their rubble!”

* Emperor Gabriel’s declaration of war on the Syrus Empire

For 200 years the NRR prospered once again, fueled by foreign trade and colonization efforts in the Neoverse, the NRR was once again reaching a new golden age. However, the arrival of the syrus in 729 AUA threatened to destabilize not only the NRR, but the whole of the Milky Way. The syrus attempted to contact both the spravac and the NRR, seeking alliance in their bid to control the Milky Way. After the spravac boisterously refused by beheading all of the syrus diplomats, the NRR followed suit, firing their guns into several syrus patrol fleets that were circling their base of operations in the unexplored Thetaverse. With this declaration of war, the NRR and spravac entered a vicious naval confrontation with the advanced syrus ships, waging several prolonged naval battles that destroyed hundreds of ships. Once again, the spravac and NRR were alone in their fight with yet another Andromeda empire, however this time the rest of the galaxy was quicker to react, wary from their war with the Union.

In 732 AUA, the rest of the major powers of the galaxy declared war on the syrus, holding the syrus onslaught off on several key worlds. Recognizing the true power of the syrus, the Emperor was hesitant to commit fully to the world, only sending legions in to fight on the ground after the zyyntorean world of Cybez Gai Molum was attacked in 734 AUA. The NRR sent troops to assist on the xamon planet of Lesenreik as well as the Ures planet of Honor, both of which were invaded by considerably sized syrus armies. While the NRR battled on those fronts, the spravac faced a massive invasion of over 2 billion syrus troops on their homeworld, as the syrus had analyzed NRR and Union tactics on the planet and hoped to subvert them and win the battle.

After the spravac defeated the syrus on their homeworld, the syrus began falling back. A combined offensive from the Milky Way forces forced them all the way to Andromeda, disappearing through a rift portal. Knowing full well that the syrus would return from Andromeda, the NRR sent their best scientists work alongside the other science teams of the galaxy to great the Great Rift Gate, allowing them to send their forces into Andromeda to hunt down and destroy the syrus once and for all, finally dismantling their empire in 744 AUA.

### The Remnant Wars:

“Here in this new galaxy, we find the old enemy, festering like a maggot in a rotting corpse. We will exterminate the Union vermin once and for all.”

* Emperor Gabriel on the Union Remnant forces

After establishing colonies in Andromeda on occupied syrus worlds, the NRR forces there were infuriated by the sight of Union worlds still surviving in the Tartarus Sector and other surrounding worlds. The NRR resolved to destroy these holdouts, which were still ruled by Emperor Gabriel’s father, now Chancellor Philip of the Union. The NRR immediately declared war on these holdouts in 745 AUA, besieging the planet of Benturri and capturing it after three years of battle. The loss of Benturri sent a ripple effect throughout the Union, causing many to lose confidence in Chancellor Philip, who was seen as weak due to his indecisiveness during the battle. This coupled with the catastrophic losses suffered by the Union in the Milky Way eventually led to a military coup on the Union capital world of Hades, killing Chancellor Philip and taking control of the government. However, the generals, though they agreed on their hatred of Philip, equally hated each other, and in a matter of days the generals left to their respective homeworlds, each claiming independence and fracturing the Union into several smaller states that began fighting amongst themselves, seemingly ignoring the NRR who also began conquering more of their worlds, taking Hades herself in 752 AUA.

In the years following the death of Dante, the Union had become relatively less domineering and xenophobic, with several of the generals, namely King Orion Velaks I of the Kingdom of Koriander, who believed that Dante’s humae supremacy had led to their downfall in a galaxy full of aliens. Because of this, King Orion I was able to broker a ceasefire with the NRR forces, offering to assist them in defeating the other remnants in exchange that his nation survive. The NRR obliged, though threatened to destroy him if he betrayed them.

Seeking to survive, the king held up his end of the bargain, assisting the NRR in destroying what remained of the Union and even conquering some worlds, creating a decently powerful enclave of humae planets in the Tartarus sector.

After conquering the rest of the Union, the NRR began the slow process of deradicalizing the Union worlds, creating reeducation camps to stamp out their hateful beliefs and eventually accept the NRR as their new rulers. Though most of the planets obliged, the rebellious planet of Hades refused to be silenced.

A former general of the Union, General Yimread Saxon, rallied supporters of the Union ways and staged a second coup, now against the new NRR governor, Hedros Lorr, killing him and claiming the capital city of Spartia as his own in 754 AUA. NRR troops moved in to retake the city, however the rebellious populace took up arms using old Union weapons and armor and held the NRR troops at bay, killing tens of thousands of the soldiers in the opening hours of the siege. As the Union loyalists bravely held off the NRR troops, other cities on the planet were also inspired, rising up against the NRR soldiers and engulfing the entire planet in rebellion. The NRR, stretched thin on the planet, were forced to request outside assistance, which came in the form of zyyntorean legionnaires stationed on the occupied syrus world of Antil.

The zyyntorean troops, led by Legate Terriae Gai Incarious, landed on the world in late 754 AUA, greatly assisting the NRR troops and helping them capture several of the key resistance bases, including Spartia. Despite this, the insurrection had done its damage, and the rebellious militias retreated into the mountains and forests of the planet, continuing their insurgency for almost a decade after.

Though the insurrection continued, the NRR claimed victory over the world and stationed more troops on Hades and other former Union worlds under the fear that they too would rebel. A joint military base between the NRR and zyyntoreans was also established, and the zyyntoreans especially further pacified the populace by introducing Zyyntorism, which taught tolerance and honorable conduct to the impressionable citizens of the planet as well as others, which proved to a more effective weapon against the hatred of the Union than any gun or sword the NRR used against them.

### Tártv’s Great War:

“We will stand by you as we always have, spravac, but I have little faith that our alliance will survive this war, if we even survive.”

* Emperor Gabriel to Seránó Tártv

In the early 880s AUA, the new and soon to be infamous Prime Seránó Tártv was elected by the Spravac Empire to serve as the new head prime of the Primehood. Unparalleled in his ferocity and political manipulation, Tártv began amassing gargantuan armies to prepare for a full on conquest of the Milky Way, which he sought to accomplish through proxy wars and regular warfare. As per tradition, the NRR pledged its forces to the Empire, though the Emperor feared that the wars the spravac waged would plunge the NRR into an eternal state of conflict.

Though the NRR had officially allied itself with the spravac, the NRR provided piecemeal military support to Tártv’s cause. The largest concentration of NRR troops began at the Battles of the Grand Prison, where the NRR deployed over 300 ships to assist the spravac in freeing the hundreds of thousands of Incubi and Didact prisoners that the Qaze Dominion had abducted.

Following the disastrous Battles of the Grand Prison, the NRR formally only fought in the war when spravac planets were under threat, with the Emperor avoiding full scale invasion by the other galactic powers by acting purely defensively. Though this tactic spared military intervention at the hands of the newly formed Coalition of the Milky Way, economic sanctions in the form of trade embargos wrecked the economy, as xamon and Uresian merchants pulled out from NRR worlds, making the NRR’s only true source of revenue come from spravac traders.

This state of affairs infuriated the NRR people, as poverty in the larger cities increased, leaving the NRR in a state of economic shambles, leading to many NRR citizens believing that the NRR’s alliance with the spravac should end while others believed that the Republic should commit fully into the war in order to regain their lost riches. The Emperor retained his defensive state, wary of breaking his alliance and making the Republic enemies of the spravac once more, a conflict he was keen on avoiding.

However, the Emperor morally condemned the spravac for their actions, which kept the spravac in check in the latter stages of the war, though Prime Tártv would not relax his attacks for long.

### The Mu Crisis:

“The NRR we know and love is gone, replaced by despotism and oppression. Through the Emperor’s tyranny and paranoia we have become lost, becoming the very thing we swore to fight against. Though not the Chancellor by any means, the Emperor’s judgement has been clouded by his millenia of ruling, spitting in the face of democracy and fair rule. We, as the frontier of the Republic, have suffered for long enough, and will no longer tolerate this draconian government.”

* High Governor Vladimir Hax on reasons for secession

Following the end of the disastrous Spravac-Milky Way War, the NRR was in a state of economic collapse, with the value of the Denarius falling by over 200%. This economic turmoil was mostly contained in the core worlds of the NRR, however in the fringe colonies of the Magnaverse and the Muverse, the extent of the NRR giant was much more muted. Politically, the Mu Governorate was also suffering from instability and anger towards the Emperor’s millenia long reign. Though few complained before, the recent events and the Emperor’s apparent inability to quell dissent and poverty in the fringe led to frequent riots and pillaging. The Emperor, under ill advice from Blood Alchemist Rótzerátziv Tzártzá, the Emperor commissioned spravac troops to station in the Muverse to stamp out descent, which led to four unsuccessful coup attempts in 923 AUA towards High Governor Kelvin Moore, who with help from Incubus bodyguards, slaughtered the rebels in what became known as the Year of Dissent. The presence of the spravac managed to force much of Mu into submission, save for the local kenesz hive queens, which was known as the Mu Regency Hive, who frequently clashed with spravac enforcers whenever the kenesz attempted to expand their tunnel networks, a series of skirmishes known colloquially as the Tunnel War.

The moment of truth came in 930 AUA with the next election, incumbent Moore went up against the radical Vladimir Hax, who was well known amongst the populace and the empire for his inflammatory rhetoric and criticisms of the NRR. Previously, the Oculi Imperatoris did not pay much attention to him, as he was only able to ascend to local offices on his home planet of Gantaun, however they suddenly paid very close attention to him after he announced his candidacy for High Governor of the Muverse. In order to secure the election in his favor, High Governor Moore hired the Didact and Incubus Ásczor Zgripf to intimidate voters and even assassinate Hax if possible. However, Hax discovered the plot through a tip-off from Drifters Radio, who publicly accused Governor Moore of election fraud and conspiracy, smearing the governor and allowing Hax to win the election in 931 AUA.

Hax’s first order of business was to expel the spravac soldiers stationed on the planet, citing that they threatened NRR sovereignty and were becoming too invasive in local politics. The Emperor, too focused on dealing with the fallout of the Spravac Empire’s conquest of the Milky Way, ignored Didact Zgripf’s protests on the matter.

Tensions rose even higher after Zgripf’s spies revealed to the Emperor that the Sanchem Pact, a rival political faction, was preparing to support High Governor Hax in a bid for independence. The Emperor, desperate to keep the NRR together, deployed units from the 4th Mu LDF (Star Legion) to enforce peacekeeping efforts in Mu and keep an eye on Governor Hax. The spravac were also declared by the Emperor to serve as peacekeepers as well, a cruel irony that would push Hax over the edge, who delivered a rousing speech as he announced his intention to secede from the New Roman Republic, doing so officially in 935 AUA.

### The Mu Wars:

“The traitorous Mu dogs will quail at the sight of our hordes, they will soon realize their foolishness when my Incubi have bled their empire dry.”

* Didact Ásczor Zgripf to Emperor Gabriel

Following the Mu Declaration of Secession, High Governor Hax immediately mobilized the soldiers in Mu, who largely stayed loyal to him, preparing a grand reception to meet the NRR and his allies. The spravac, under orders of Zgripf, promptly invaded the planets of Vespin and Prenterghaste, brutalizing their populations and slaughtering the Mu defenders on the planet. However, the populations on those planets did not take their new oppression laying down, taking up arms and referring to themselves as Hax’s Hammers, launching a deadly guerilla campaign that ensured the spravac were unable to take any land with losing tens of thousands of troops.

Because the NRR was still building its economy from the previous great war, the Emperor sent a comparatively small force to the far away Muverse, only sending forth three million initial troops, which he incorrectly believed would be able to take on the Mu Governorate. At first, his assumption proved correct, as the Republic’s armies swiftly established beachheads on Kolara and Gantaun, which left Tyrannica as the only other world that had yet to be invaded.

To remedy this issue, the NRR requested the volkhouri to accompany the spravac in their invasion, which the volkhouri did dutifully and reluctantly in 936 AUA, facing great success against the Mu soldiers while frequently clashing strategically with their spravac allies, who they disliked intensely due to a history of war with each other. The volkhouri also protested to being forced to work alongside spravac, whose conduct in battle they found to be distasteful and dishonorable. The Emperor refused, rationalizing that if the volkhouri fought alongside spravac they would establish a relationship with them and strengthen their alliance for the wars to come.

Torn Asunder:

“This is the end of the New Roman Republic as we know it, it isn’t everyday I see an empire collapse so spectacularly.”

* Overseer Baneful Ire on the NRR Collapse

The Gatatol Crusade:

“The aliens have crossed us at last, proof that you cannot rely on the word and honor of lesser beings. Let's go at them, brothers, for God and the Republic!”

* High Marshall Balros Helgen of the Knights Templar

Valeez’s Will:

“The zyyntoreans have come to our aid, to arms!”

* President Vestarious Gai Nostrez of the Holy Republic of Horizon

Family Feud:

“As if one enemy from within wasn’t enough, now my own blood seeks to destroy us.”

* Emperor Francisco Santiago-Cortez

The Latin Wars:

“The last vestiges of my traitor brother remain for us to stomp out, and we will paint the stars with their blood.”

* Emperor Alexander Santiago-Cortez