Throne Unions

The **Throne Unions**, often known as just the **Unions** and originally known as the **Crown Lords**, is a major political power in the Divinity Cluster. It was founded in the late fifth century A.E. by the rulers of Crown and Palace, in the aftermath of the First Schism and the fall of the Republic Universa.

## History

### Expansion of the Republic Universa

The mighty feudal alliance of the Throne Unions have been a superpower of the cluster since the Treaty of Lordships in 482 A.E.. The unified civilization of the planet Crown (which went by the name of the Republic Universa, a parliamentary democracy with representatives from each Crown sovereign state) built the first voidbringer (a city-sized device that created space-bending "voids" that ships could travel through for interstellar flight) three decades beforehand in 452 A.E., with the help of the "Endless Star Church", a shadowy organization with powerful astronomical and engineering capabilities. The voidbringer allowed them to reach, survey, and colonize the planets and moons of the star Colossus. In 455 A.E., Republic astronomers stationed on the newly colonized Colossus moon Seraphi began receiving radio signals from the nearby system Gatehouse (before contacting the Palace natives, the people of Crown knew this star as "Amber)". Though the two systems began to sustain primitive contact with each other in 464 A.E., the Colossus and Gatehouse stars were around nine light-months apart, hindering the speed at which they could communicate.

### Rise of the Crown Lords

As the Republic Universa spread across two systems, a new power began to rise on Crown. Several aristocratic nations that had begrudgingly joined the Republic rebelled in 466 A.E., calling themselves the Crown Lords, who had secretly allied with the isolationist Endless Star Church, which, after building and handling operations of Astra's voidbringer, took on the name of the System Logistics Society. Barely a fifth of the Republic Universa joined this new government; but it was enough. After sending a portion of the Crown Lords war fleet to Colossus to deal with the Republic Universa stations and colonies there, the SLS shut down the voidbringer, trapping the Republic's fleets with those of the Lords, who had been unknowingly building and priming warships for decades in preparation. Using the element of surprise, they were able to destroy huge portions of the Republic's military power in both systems before the latter could retaliate. It took only two war-torn, chaotic, bloody years from the start of the rebellion for the Lords to establish control over the two systems, ending in 468 A.E.. The event became known as the the First Schism, as various institutions and organizations, originally unionized by the Republic Universa, scattered, split, and reformed in the years during and following the Crown Lord's revolution.

### Unification into the Throne Unions

It took another twenty  years (491 A.E.) before a voidbringers was built in Colossus (by the new power of the Crown Lords and their Society allies) to reach Gatehouse, (a very risky venture, voidbringers being incredibly hard and expensive to build with little yield; many people of Red Star believed building another would be ineffective) but , the two civilizations finally had reached each other. They met in orbit of Zaia, the moon of Palace, Gatehouse’s capital planet. Though the Gatehouse society had mastered localized lunar travel and had sent probes across the span of their solar system, their technology skyrocketed with the new contact with the Lords. Two years after ongoing diplomatic communication and unity, the Throne Unions were officially founded with a constitution know as the Treaty of Unions and Lordships. Within three decades, they had united two of the moons of the gas giant Xerxes (which had mercantile government systems instead of feudal), Jade and Sapphire, through the marriages of heirs to powerful economic operators, and captured the rebellious Opal through a minor conquest, ascending several wealthy tycoons of Xerxes to lordly status and sealing three of the cluster’s stars under Union rule.