The United Aularite Sovereignty

*"My Duty To The Sovereignty, My Life For Aulara."*
―Sovereignty Soldier’s Oath Of Allegiance
The **United Aularite Sovereignty**, officially known as the **Greater United Aularite Empire** or the **Greater Aularan Empire of the Aularite Systems**, holds the absolute power over the Aularite Sectors and its neighboring menagerie of star systems, exerting its authority over the abhuman Aelgeist race that reside there. Its gnarled roots twisted in a millennia of blood can be traced back to its founder and first ruler, Rei'kharch Vycter Vohn Alexand, who established its foundation and laid the groundwork for its ascension to power.

Throughout the late 59th millennium, the Aularite Empire in its early years embarked on a relentless campaign of conquest, launching grueling crusade after grueling crusade into the surrounding territories of Aulara Prime, that has lasted for the 16-millennia. Vycters original objective was to extend his peoples rule over the entirety of the Aularite Sector and to reclaim the Golden Age of Technology human colonies that had recently been cut off from the larger human empire due to the onset of the Long Dark. But now the Sovereignty grinds ever onward in an endless march to assert its dominance over the known universe, enslaving and exterminating any and all races that would set to challenge Aelgeist dominance.

Under the leadership of its ever growing Legacy of ruling Rei'kharchs, the Aularite Empire has became a formidable force, utilizing advanced technology and overwhelming force to achieve its goals. Over time, the empire would establish itself as a totalitarian governing body, crushing any opposition and quashing any dissidence that threatened its grip on power.

## Organization

The Aularite Empire is organized as a unitary one-party totalitarian state, ruled by a military dictatorship that exercises the total control over the society of the Sovereignty. The Vyctocyst ideology of Vyctocystsm goes beyond the *'Humanity First'* sentiments of most human empires and human-xenos enclaves, into virulent anti-baseline human racism, eugenics, and Pan-Aularanism with the goal of creating an Aularite hegemony over the universe and hell for everyone else.

Rejecting the notion of citizenship equating nationality, the Vyctocysts embraced bizarre notions of humanity. Blood determined who was Aularan and through it, a member of the *superior Aelgeist peoples*. Anyone of Aularan blood could be a member of the *Aelgeist*. Related peoples - like those of the Northern Benamian Expanse or the Western Lleronite Sectors - were also considered Aularanic.

Those not considered Aularan face fates worse than death. The *Üntergeisenen* (subhumans) are seen to encompass the vast majority of the universal human population, including Abhumans such as the Elkiedai, Wayfinders, and especially Psiots or those capable of using the Void to their benefit. Many worlds during the opening years of the First Aularan Expansion Crusade would have their human residents slaughtered outright by Vyctocyst death armies or herded into industrial slave camps to be killed after being exploited as slaves. Due to their overwhelming successes, organized extermination campaigns seems to have taken a backseat in the modern 90th Millennium, in favor of brutal exploitation, and then death - Instead of being killed immediately, they are killed *after* propping up the Vyctocyst regime through forced labor.

Other governmental positions, such as the Advanced Ministry of Applied Research are also known to be active within the Empire, Solely placed under the control of the Deaths-Head Union to continue the Empire's scientific advancements.

## Ideology and Society

"*When we arose from the tunnels of Aulara we were lost, a broken collection of exiles newly thrust upon the verge of death. At first we thought our new habitation would sooner poison and destroy us. How wrong we were. Aulara saw what was in every one of us, our strength and our indestructible spirit, and together. We took this truth and made it manifest. This Emergence, this... Great Change is the rebirth and evolution of our people. A people fit to stride the stars and shatter our enemies.*"
―*Vycter Vohn Alexand*
The Aularite Empire's ultra-nationalistic ideals centered on the superiority of the Aelgeist People, a strong military, and total commitment to the Sovereignty's government. Their ideals are symbolized by the Aularite Triad, which emphasizes Duty, Obedience, and Loyalty. The filtration masks ubiquitously worn by the Aelgeists, once a badge of low station, is now valued within their Aularan identity, as Vycter Alexand once regarded mask-wearing to be a testament to the fortitude of the Aelgeist, and the Aularan System.

## Ideology

Central to the Greater Aularan Empire is the idea that the Aularan people, and by extension, the Aelgeist race are the sole chosen of their God, and are inherently physically and intellectually superior to all other races, with the various other sub-races of humanity to be left relegated into slavery by the Empire at best - in the case of the Creedo populations of the Eastern Olmadus Territories, or mass extermination in industrial death camps at the worst - in the case of the Psycast populations wherever the Aularan warmachine went.

As the Millennia came and went, the idea of Aularan culture being inherently superior to all others would progressively take an extreme turn, with system-wide cultural assimilation projects being undertaken by the Empire. These range from subtle influencing, wherein locals are supposedly prompted to abandon all aspects of their religions and cultures in favor of Aularanization and the technological advancement it brings, or outright enforcement, where plans to enforce mandatory speaking of the Aularan language in public under pain of re-education or death are being undertaken.

With regards to race, the Empire has deemed all Xenos Species, and the abhuman and baseline varieties of humanity, and certain other groups of people as "*Üntergeisen*" - Sub-Geist. While the prime target of the Empire's aggression has been the Psychic populations within their territories, other races have received varying treatment by the Empire.

The Empire also places extremely stringent regulations for personal health, with obesity seen as an impediment and disfigurement, with strict dieting and hygiene encouraged in Empire propaganda. With planetary euthanasia centers existing across the Empire, the program intended to weed out incurable illness and mutation in civilians - including children - through mass-murder. Those who suffer from mental illness and birth defects, ranging from dementia to physical deformities, are destined only for one of two fates, cruel experimentation or outright extermination. The Aularan Sovereignty standards on Aelgeist perfection are indiscriminate and extreme, emphasized in their condemnation and *"cleansing"* of entire abhuman civilizations in the wake the First Aularan Expansion Crusade.

### Superiority

Over successive millennia of consecutive generations and living on Aulara during the Golden Age of Mankind, these harsh conditions would physically change the worlds inhabitants, biologically making their bodies adapted to survive Aulara better than baseline humans; growing lungs to breath and filter the toxic atmosphere, and their bodies more resistant to the heavier gravity of their planet. Due to living under strict sanctions imposed by the Ancient Human Empire during the Golden Age for untold generations, the Aelgeist already developed a strong sense of isolation which quickly turned into otherness, seeing themselves different from and very wary of ordinary humans. This would only quickly become exasperated due to the onset of the Dark Ages of the Long Dark, and its effects upon the Aularite People.

In the early 59th Millennium Vycter Vohn Alexand validated the Aelgeist's mutations as proof for the Aelgeist being an entirely new and entirely superior race. Vycter shaped the Aelgeist's age-old feelings of grievance into a sense of purpose, giving them pride in their past and belief in their future, to reclaim the Aelgeist's rights that were lost in the Golden Age by force.

### Human Rights

Aularan brutality is widely accepted in their society. They do not hesitate to execute those who are not born up to standards or who sympathize with the Sovereignties enemies. Prior to the Second Aularan Expansion Crusade, there were moderates and conscientious objectors in Aularan society in which most of them have been executed as traitors or driven underground. Rei'kharchs often urge their citizens to turn in dissenters to the authorities in order to reeducate them and "expunge their weakness for the greater good."

During the Second Aularan Expansion Crusade, Aularan atrocities were quite prevalent against Elkeidai prisoners of war and civilians. Prisoners of the Aelgeist are often tortured to death or even used as unwilling test subjects for a number of agonizingly fatal experiments. Live public executions are also practiced.

### Militarism

"*The path we have chosen is not an easy one. Struggle is the father of all things and true virtue lies in bloodshed. But we will not tire, we will not falter, we will not fail! In the blood of our warriors comes the price we must pay. Blood alone moves the wheels of history. And we will be resolute! We will fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win our just triumph!*"
―Rei'kharch Sybastian Heiller III
The Aularan Empire has a long and storied history, and one of the central pillars of this great civilization has always been its vast and powerful military. Indeed, for most Aelgeist citizens, the military is considered to be the single most important institution in their lives, and the vast majority of the Sovereignty's resources - both financial and otherwise - are channelled into maintaining its strength and reach.

Unfortunately, this intense focus on the military has come at a cost, particularly for the average Aelgeist civilian. With so much attention and resources being devoted to the military, there is very little left over for things like healthcare, education, and social welfare programs. This has led to a great deal of hardship and suffering for many citizens, particularly those living in more impoverished areas of the Empire.

Compounding this issue is the fact that many high-ranking officials in the Aelgeist military display very little compassion or empathy for their own soldiers or civilians in general. Often motivated primarily by a desire for power and glory, these individuals are indifferent to the suffering of those around them, caring only for their own advancement and prestige.

Moreover, this lack of compassion is not reserved solely for Aelgeist citizens - it also extends to people of other races and species throughout the galaxy. Many Aelgeist military officials regard these ‘lesser’ races with contempt, treating them with cruelty and disdain.

Taken together, these factors have created a culture within the Aularan Empire that prioritizes military strength and power above all else, even at the expense of the well-being of the Empire's own citizens. Whether this approach is sustainable in the long term remains to be seen, but for now, it is clear that the military is king in the Aularan Empire.

## Science and technology

The Aularan Sovereignty, while slow in their technological development due to their incessant warmongering, needless racial cleansing, and countless ongoing conflicts both from within and without, has made various technological discoveries and leaps in the 40 millennia following the end of the Golden Age of Technology in the mid. 50th millennium, thanks to the Sovereignties discovery of the technology caches known as the Black Armories that were once maintained by the ancient Vix Mechanicum when it was once a secret religious society during the Golden Age of Technology. While the Sovereignty has discovered only a fraction of these various advanced technologies in vaults located across the Milky Way, each Black Armory has led to aggressive leaps in technological development on the basis of their clumsy reverse-engineering of Vix Mechanicum technology.

Aerospace technology has advanced with the discovery of anti-gravity, with voidcraft such as the massive Ausmerzer and newly designed high speed FTL-capable spaceships such as the Haunebu-V making use of powerful anti-gravity engines, in part maintained by the massive "Dy-Glocke" Void-Drive devices.

While advances in meta-physics and neo-chemistry have been tenuous at best, with developments in energy weapons such as lasers and Tesla-based technology being barely maintained by the Sovereignty, ranging from ancient low-grade laser technology and high-burn plasmor weaponry to the eldritch and poorly understood Diesel powered beam weaponry, as well as super weapons such as ancient Vix designed V-3 Nova Rockets, or the infamous Solar Orbiting platform beam Cannons, a massive orbital mirror that can annihilate potential threats to the Sovereignty while minimizing collateral damage.

The ultimate expression of the Sovereignty's technological development would have been their development of the apocalyptic World-Eater Star Weapons; the Sovereignty secured victory against The Thorcennae Enclaves in the late 72nd millennium with the destruction of their homeworld Thentus by the Aularan-developed super weapon known as the "Der Bestrafer" (The Punisher), the most powerful World Ending type super-weapon of its type ever built.

Robotics, computing, and artificial intelligence have also advanced at an incredible rate, with robots and automatons in common use across the Sovereignty, in both civilian and military capacities. These range from mundane protocol, cleaning, and mail-sorting robots to weapons of war, ranging from the nimble Übersoldat units to even larger mechanized monstrosities, such as the Autoturrets and Guard Robot units, the Zitadelle units, the iconic Panzerhund Pattern Titans, and outright weapons of terror like the Monitor Pattern Titans and the prototype Zerstörer Pattern War-Walker.

Lastly is the Sovereignty's capacity in developing advanced genetics and biological splicing, most passionately promoted and advanced by the notorious DR. Wilhelm Kahlbach. These new medical and genetic technologies whilst merely juvenile when compared to the Imperiums expertise in gene-craft as seen in the Imperial Marine Legions, and their Luminarchs, has nonetheless allowed the Sovereignty to create ghastly monstrosities such as their own Super Soldiers, lumbering, vat-grown Frankenstein-esque monsters crafted out of the mutated and deformed bodies of captives or "volunteers".

Other technologies based on these highly unethical experiments have been developed, such as the Kampfhund, gene-edited and vat-grown guard dogs modified by cybernetic augments and injections of various chemicals. Wilhelm Kahlbach's ultimate goal, however, was to create a merger of the:

> "Power of the human brain with the efficiency of the machine, and the certainty of steel."
>
>

To create the specialized robots known simply as *"Machine Men"*, containing disembodied human brains as central processing units.

The Sovereignty has modernized its weapon technologies over time, with new designs of infantry body armor, weapons once fielded in limited quantities and various new derivatives were put into service. Most notably derivitive patterns of Ancient Vix Mechanicum power suits have been put into service in the elite super soldier regiments of the 903rd Division Mahl Radekh, likely derived from the ancient Power Armor technologies captured by the Sovereignty in the Black Armory on the planet Yudaerus in the 80th Millennium. However, while impressive, many of their technologies are iterative developments of advances pioneered by the Kahltehk Engineering Syndicate (KES) all the way back to the 65th Millennium, rather than original creations.

The sole exceptions being the upgrades pioneered by the KES, which include Übersoldaten moving through wormholes, and the world forges fueled by proto-stars, intended to power the Sovereignty's research progress.

### Alphabet

The Aelgeist use their own form of a symbol alphabet, similar to Eastern Asian written languages. The first Rei'kharch, Vycter Vohn Alexand implemented this system in a successful attempt to control speech by restricting the use of 'outmoded' Golden Age alphabets. This is actually a form of newspeak, designed to dissuade alternative thinking, as there is no symbol for 'surrender'.