Democratic Republic of Thule

The Democratic Republic of Thule is mainly build upon Economy and Defense, including their fleet. Workers are almost as important to their society as soldiers. Everyone does their part in keeping the machine running. Their goal is to improve the live of the society, not that of individuals.

The Democratic Republic of Thule made their first contact with another faction in 2183C.E. In general, they are a very careful and very defensive faction, and have a hard time trusting others. They never owned many planets or sectors because they were focusing on trading and defending what is theirs, instead of expanding. This was crucial in the First Pan-Galactic War (1PGW), as they did not own anything of worth to anybody and had no one to aid. Once there was an attack by the SWOKs Consortium, which outmatched the defending ships 2:1, but due to mine fields, Turret emplacements and other well prepared defenses the attack was repelled. This impressive defense made it clear, that the people of Thule will not give up easily. Nobody made a second attempt to attack the Republic of Thule for the following years. However, the price for this was a badly damaged fleet. Repairing and reproducing those ships was slowly, because there were no trading partners since the war started so they had barely any resources left.

When the Pan-Galactic Republic was founded at the end of the 1PGW, the Republic of Thule joined as fast as possible. The pressure on them was rising, sectors around them were held by criminals. By joining the Pan-Galactic Republic (PGR) they would have military backup. In the Following years they pushed back the syndicates and criminals together with other factions of the PGR and gained a small number of sectors by doing so. As the criminal threat was gone, they started trading again. During the following period of prosperity most of their money was invested in better weaponry, defenses and mining equipment, only about 20% was invested in boosting the economy.

## Second Pan-Galactic War

When the PGR fell apart, they quickly stopped trading with others, as they feared their transports could get raided. They started patrolling their borders and to fortify their sectors even more. When there was nothing left they could fortify, they focused on improving their level of self-sufficiency by building more factories or they upgraded their ships. As there was no trading partner and no trust in potential partners, the economy took a hard hit. Everyone in the Republic of Thule was living at a minimum and many people learned how to live on their own.

Because of their well prepared defenses and their constantly upgraded and polished navy, many small factions did not even try to attack. For bigger factions the relation between cost and result was too bad if they had planned to attack the Republic. This lead to the Republic of Thule being one of the very few factions that had no military interaction in the Second Pan-Galactic War

## Imperial Era & Third Pan-Galactic War

When the Empire was rising in power, it was growing fast, so the Republic of Thule sent out spies to the Empire. Their Intelligence department was among the best. Many Systems joined the Empire or were forced to join. The people of Thule did not join, as they did not know if they could trust them. Instead they prepared better defenses and built a stronger navy and improved their selfsufficiency. The Empire showed little interest in conquering their sectors for a long time. Instead the empire was making it harder and harder for non-empire worlds to trade, which was grinding on the Republics economy. In 3220C.E. the Empire suddenly prepared an invasion force to attack the Republic of Thule. As a fast reaction, the Republic decided to power down automated defenses and sent out most of their navy and their intelligence department to hide. That way the civilians would be saved, as the Empire would not have to fight. Rumors were going around that there are other factions that are also displeased with the empire. The plan was to retake the Sectors of Thule at a later point - with or without help.

Now the thulic navy was a nomadic fleet, and needed to hide somewhere, and now they needed to find and trust allies more than ever. When intercepting imperial radiochatter, they heard about numerous factions breaking contact or disappearing, as well as informations about riots against the Empire. They started looking for enemies of the Empire that may be considered allies. Encountering a scout of the fleet of SivCorp and asking what the fleet is doing there, the thulic ships learned about the fate of SivCorp's homeworld. After a short time, the thulic fleet asked, if they could join SivCorp's fleet, as they lacked fire power and lifesupport.

When the Third Pan-Galactic War broke out they they were part of the conglomerate, fighting the Empire, in the hope of freeing their home. As they had no way to reinforce their fleet, they held themselves in the background, spying on the empire and delivering intel to the conglomerate. Sometimes they did some precision strikes against the Empire, to steal data or prototypes, but that was a rare occasion. In 3334C.E. the Coalition managed to liberate their homesectors and free their people, only to realize that the population there was halfed. The Empire had departed and tortured many, as they wanted informations on the positions and plans of the hiding navy. Witnessing such horrors, the thulic navy now was one of the driving forces of the coalition to keep the pressure on and destroy the Empire once and for all.

## Post War & Calamity

After the war the Republic of Thule was part of the Pan-Galactic Council, as size or "success" in the war was not of interest. They were a respected member, even though they were that small, as they had fought impressively in the war, especially after the liberation of their homeworld. In the council, they often held careful and preventive views, as this was part of their nature. One of the last important votes they initialized was, that every ship of council members should have their armament between a minimum and a maximum, so uprising threats like another Empire could be dealt with effectively. This vote was denied by most other council members, as it also held the risk of boosting the rising threat, should a member of the council become that threat. Instead it was declared that every member of the council has to reduce their military strength, which proved to be a huge mistake in the following years.

When the Calamity happened, the Republic of Thule took a hard hit. Their home world was destroyed and they lost contact to one sector. A big part of their shipyards and fleet was in these sectors. As they still had to rebuild many things from the 3PGW, their defenses were in a bad shape. They started to trade and mine almost aggressively, so they could build a better navy to defend their sectors. The fate of other factions was not important to them, as they could not even help themselves. The goal was to help at least their former allies as soon as they would be able to defend their home.