Alganna Eternity
| Alganna Eternity | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| Notable Populations | Kimmigani, Civago, Zylari, [marsupials] | |
| Capital | Algan, New Alba - Gamikaniina System | |
| Ruler | Emperor Wilvaris Frando | |
| Official Political System | Imperium | |
| Evaluated Political System | Decentralized Imperium | |
The Alganna Eternity is a union of autocratic Great Houses. It's the largest, most populous, and most militarily powerful known galactic power, as well as one of the oldest, but its internal divisions and slow momentum restrict its ambitions.
Overview
Order. Merit. Hierarchy. High culture. The Alganna Eternity stands for these things more than anything else. Their story in space spans millenia, and its existence in more or less its current form is over five hundred years old. The Eternity has had remarkable success, though it hasn't been rapid. From a roving and fractious fleet of desperate refugees has grown the galactic bastion of law and trade and stability. It's the Eternity that guards commerce routes from piracy; the Eternity that created the lingua franca known as Galactic Common (although they mostly speak a slightly older version of it); the Eternity that enlightens primitive peoples and brings them to the stars; the Eternity that will, as its name implies, outlast all else. That is at least the view of its patriots.
The Eternity's interest in the newly-opened dark region stems from the fact that it was founded by a people that was originally from this area of space, specifically the planet Alba. When disaster struck their world, several hundred thousand inhabitants fled on a centuries-long sublight journey referred to reverentially as the Foremarch. This journey occupies a significant amount of cultural space as a time of legendary figures and deep tragedies and great deeds of heroism. As such, the planet Alba is regarded almost religiously as a sacred world, not to be touched by the new colonization efforts of outsiders. Other sites that the fleet is known to have passed through are also considered off-limits, but Alba is of particular importance.
History
The Alganna Eternity has its origins in an ancient ecological disaster on the Kimmigan homeworld of Alba. Most of the population was wiped out, although thousands of society's elites and tens of thousands of their servants escaped on massive sublight colony ships, mostly as one single fleet but in some cases as fragmented groups of craft splitting off from the main body. This disaster occurred over 1500 years ago, and the Kimmigan spent the subsequent 642 years exploring the neighboring systems for habitable worlds. Of note is that given their primitive level of technology, the fact that the fleet survived at all is a remarkable achievement, and the Foremarch, as this period is called, still occupies a large place in Alganna culture. As it grew, this roving fleet left behind stations and settlements of excess population, some of which were slightly modified with primitive biotechnology to adapt to their new homes. During its journey, the Kimmigan fleet came across another devastated world still populated by Civago survivors, who despite said devastation had managed to rebuild a pre-spaceflight but sophisticated society and culture. The Civago were contacted by the Kimmigan and offered a place in the journey that would eventually lead to the planet of New Alba.
New Alba, upon its discovery by the Kimmigan around the Terran year 1600, was praised as a lush and beautiful paradise world with a strong resemblance to the Alba of old. Although by this time the centuries in space had led to an attitude of detachment from planetary life, it was deemed entirely appropriate to colonize the planet at least in memory of their fallen homeworld. However, it was upon New Alba a century later that two discoveries would fundamentally change the role of the Kimmigan species: faster than light travel, and quantum entanglement communications. Once the possibilities were fully grasped, the Alganna Eternity was declared as an empire, with the current fleet's admiral as Emperor and Shipmaster, and its capital at Algan on New Alba.
Kimmigan society had always been stratified, and over the 642-year Foremarch this stratification had transformed from cynical material elitism to a genuine system of rank and nobility. Over the next century, the ten or so planets that had previously been colonized were contacted, and brought into the fold and elevated under semi-independent but distinctly subordinate noble houses.
Society
There is no strict distinction between civilian and military in the Alganna Eternity; ones rank exists as both simultaneously. However, those seeking to avoid a martial role in life would do well to avoid rising in their station; the life of a serf is not exactly uncomfortable with the automation of manual labor, and the majority of serfs contentedly work as accountants, scientists, roboticists, supervisors, or any number of comfortable but humble jobs. Neither are serfs forced into combat; combat is socially regarded as the reward of those brave enough to seek it. All that defines a serf is that they are at the bottom of a social hierarchy with which they seldom interact, and that they need to ask permission to move or to change professions; most of them will never meet anybody of rank, and so they live with one another more or less as equals. The nobility is hardly any more free, for their role in life is to ply the void in which they will fight and almost certainly die, and every one of them but the Emperor has someone above them in their hierarchy.
However, in light of the hardships of the Foremarch and the flexibility required to face its challenges, Kimmigan society also is paradoxically meritocratic; the station of one's birth certainly matters, but only when privilege breeds competency. Competency itself is the goal, and if a commoner proves themselves capable, they can rise to high station without controversy.
The Alganna Eternity, although its foundational population was largely Kimmigan, espouses the same meritocratic beliefs about station as it does about species. Several times in its history, the Eternity has discovered a sentient species at a pre-spacefaring level of social development, and the standard practice is for Eternity representatives to quietly and covertly contact the world's leadership and offer them a choice: to spend the next several generations altering their society to join the galactic community on equal terms, with the elites retaining their status as thanks for aiding in their species' development; or resist this change, and be reduced entirely to servitude. The Eternity prefers that a contacted species chooses the former; so far, all have. Notable such populations integrated by the Eternity were the Zylari and the [marsupials].
Eternalism
There can't be said to be a single unifying Alganna culture; it's fractious and varied and competitive. However, one of the unifying aspects is its state religion, The Eternal Cycle, or Eternalism. This is a the philosophical and moral belief system more than it is a zealous faith; a cultural framework that shapes behavior, governance, and long-term thinking. The Empire acknowledges their deities quietly, treating them as natural forces rather than objects of devotion. The system is inherently syncretic, lacking a single fixed structure or universal all-encompassing interpretation. While the traditional Kimmigan Divine Seven are recognized are the pre-eminent deities of Eternalism, the religion isn't practiced to the exclusion of all others. Local alien gods are absorbed into this framework in different ways at different places, rather than having their existence denied.
Eternalism posits that life exists perpetually within cycles of reincarnation. One's actions in life determine their place in the next. Upon death, souls enter a chaotic realm between life and death, where they are reshaped by the various gods according to what they have proven themselves to be. Strength and consistency in one life are rewarded with further strengths in the next. Reincarnation is not reward or punishment, but continuation under pressure, where each life refines or erodes the next. Failure is not precisely sin, only an inability to endure hardship, and failure attracts further unsuitedness. Those defined by inaction or collapse may lose continuity entirely.
Technology
The Eternity's long history in space has brought them to the cutting edge of many technologies, but their actual development rate is slower than that of other powers. However, they currently exist roughly on par technologically with the Directorate, although they typically arrived at the same or a similar technology through a different means and also typically apply it differently.
Military Technology
The default and most widespread form of lethal weaponry, whether for craft or infantry, is the discohesionizer. It disrupts the molecular bonds of its target, leading to rapid dis-integration. The most effective defense against a discohesionizer is to use incredibly dense materials for armor. For non-lethal handheld weapons, the Eternity uses axonic weapons either at range or in melee. Axonic weapons target the nervous system of the target by either activating (in the case of axonic activators) or disabling (in the case of axonic disablers) the nerves directly, causing either a temporary seizure or the simple collapse of the target.
Military
The Eternity, despite its martial culture, has never truly warred with another power. This is largely because for a majority of its history, it was the only galactic power it knew of. Instead, its Great Houses have sparred with one another in a series of vicious conflicts that have at times advanced and at times held back their technological development.
