Throneworld: Crux Terra
Government: Hereditary dictatorship
Language: Terran (official), various other colonial dialects
Allegedly founded by the war hero Caiss-Sol, the Empire has lasted for more than five hundred cycles alone in the galaxy. It has colonized dozens upon dozens of world, holding a sizable portion of space, and is dived into ten prefectures and ruled by an emperor at Crux Terra, the ancient homeworld of the Empire. The symbol of the Interplanetary Empire is an eagle, with outspread wings, backed by the galactic communication symbol, all ringed by a laurel. Though the Empire had no interactions with alien species for its entire current existence, this does not mean its history has been without tumult; the Interplanetary Empire has been wracked with countless civil wars and rebellions, dynastic quarreling and intrigue between the Old Houses. Though the position of Emperor of Mankind is legally recognized as hereditary and is passed down to the current emperor's successor, quarreling amongst the Old Houses within the Senate causes dynasties to come and go, ambitious Houses using the Senate to vote out the current reigning House for their own, causing an ever-changing political environment that, fortunately, usually does not affect the common citizen. If legends are to be believed, the Interplanetary Empire of Mankind was founded AI 01 by the mythical Caiss-Sol, an admiral of the Crux Terran Republic who saved the crumbling, corrupt Republic by taking the reins of power from the Senate, eventually declaring himself emperor. His dynasty, the Caissid Dynasty, ruled for eighty more years, with Primus, Caiss-Sol's son, and then Primus's adopted son, Octavian, pushing the frontiers of the Empire forward, colonizing a multitude of star systems. The twenty-one Patron Houses were at this time cementing their power and building themselves as patrician houses, their members filling the, now ceremonial, Senate, the imperial bureaucracy, and the positions of prefect. Around AI 85, the Caissid Dynasty ended when Octavian failed to produce an heir; House Geminorum was elected by the Senate, with Geminorum urging, to the imperial throne with Authari Nonus Geminus. A series of rebellions of Outer World colonies tore the Empire apart, and the ruthlessness with which the Geminorum emperors responded with left many worlds depopulated and scarred. The Geminian Dynasty, to handle the countless internal wars, reordered the Caissid military, updating it for modern use, by training a larger body of marines with heavy orbital dropping training. After their dynasty of five emperors, all known for their ruthlessness and efficiency, House Geminorum was then removed by the Senate and House Eridani in AI 154, which elected itself to the throne immediately afterwards. The Eridanian Dynasty only had four emperors on the throne before the Geminian Dynasty came back, putting Secundus Horace Geminus on the throne in AI 215. Secundus, after a ten cycle reign, was then assassinated by House Andromedae, who replaced Secundus with Emperor Trajan Apollo, who reorganized the Geminian military with the modern Quadrant system, giving out more power to the prefects and governors, especially those of the Outer Worlds. Trajan was followed by his son, Honorius I Trajan Apollo, and then he was followed by Honorius II and Honorius III. The Andromedan Dynasty was a time of recovery from the Geminian warmongering and Eridianian corruption, refreshing the Empire after two hundred years of existence. In AI, Honorius III died mysteriously while visiting Astar, possibly by a Geminorum assassin. The Senate was divided on what House to elect next, when House Serpentis established a three emperor dynasty, the Serpentid Dynasty, while the rest of the galaxy bickered. Salazar Serpens, the first Serpentid emperor, reformed the Imperial credit system and oversaw a colonizing boom, adding a dozen new systems into the Empire. His son, Galerius S. Iulius Nerva Serpens was more interested in expanding the Caissian Palace on Crux Terra, adding on new levels and wings, making it into the Golden Palace, and he also was the first emperor to have an official harem. Galerius produced no legitimate heir, so he adopted a political rival's infant son, who became Aemilian Galerius Serpens. When Aemilian murdered his adopted father and ascended the Imperial throne, he changed his nomen from Serpens back to his biological family's name of Days, his name becoming Aemilian Tertius, the name of his real father, Galerius Days. Aemilian ruled for more than ten cycles as a just and merciful emperor, trade flourished and colonies grew during his reign. Aemilian was ousted by House Cancri, claiming that since he was an Outworlder he was unfit to rule the Empire. Aemilian fled to Arsinoe and there he and his wife lived until they died of old age. The Cancrian Dynasty began in AI 275 with Genseric I Osiris Pius Cancer and lasted until 318. All Cancrian rulers were either named Genseric after their founder, or Horace, a common Cancri praenomen. A notable period of Cancrian rule was the Rule of Brothers, when Genseric III Caesar Horace Cancer and Horace II Horace Sinister Cancer jointly ruled the burgeoning Empire after the destructive Brothers' War. Cancrian dominance ended in 318, after a total of seven emperors, with Genseric V G. Dexter Argos Augusts Cancer, who when he died, the Senate elevated House Scorpii to the throne, the great Scorpii admiral, Menelaus Nikophorus Lucian Matthew Scorpius made emperor. The Scorpian Dynasty reigned until AI 431 with a total of eleven emperors, it was a time of general stability and strong emperors, with many famous emperors and Imperial family members; such as Domitian the Wise, the namesake of the planet Emperor Domitian, and his son Romulus the Mad, who initiated the Third Outer War, and Romulus' successors's daughter, Princess Thalia ended the conflict and had a small, beautiful world named after her. This great dynasty ended when Menelaus III Menelaus Tiberius crashed in his luxury ship on Aria. The Senate was again undeceive and divided on which Patron House should claim the throne when the son of the Lord of House Algol took the throne as Ibrahim Samir Akin Maurice Perseus, and ruled as the one and only Algol emperor from AI 431 to 474. Ibrahim was arrested after forty-three cycles on the throne by House Geminorum and executed for unjust reasons after a long and prosperous reign. But before House Geminorum could ascend the throne, House Andromedae intervened and had themselves reelected with Septimus Apollo Honorius Domitor Augustus Andromedus, but only two other emperors followed him, and the restored Andromedan Dynasty ended in 490 with the upstart House Arcturi ascending the throne after blackmailing the entire Senate, the act that the Lords of House Arcturi had been planning for hundreds of cycles. Lord Lucius Aurelius Titus Arcturus took the crown, putting down numerous rebellions and suppressing and fighting back the other Houses, especially his rival House Geminorum. The first Arcturian Dynasty lasted until 508 with only four emperors when House Libri, having took up the fight against House Arcturi after Arcturi and Geminorum signed the Treaty of Axex, set up a rival emperorship on Ridia, the Libri baseworld, and started the Libra Wars of 506-511, which started out as vicious naval and planetary battles, but settled out into a stalemate cold war in the later years. There were only two Librian emperors; Caiss V Marcus and his son, Abrecan Caiss Adelard Luthec Librus. Abrecan was killed by Phocas Gordian Arcturus in the Arcturian bombings of Ridia in 511, ending the short-lived Librian Dynasty and the Libra Wars. Phocas reclaimed the Empire, taking on the agnomen Hannibal. His son, Tiberius III Phocas Vespasian Lucius Arcturus reigned during the Empire's first contact with alien life, the Necroid Plague, where the Empire was almost destroyed by the savage, undead lifeforms. His son, Hadrian Tiberius Trajan Severus ruled after the plague, rebuilding the Empire, guarding against future encounters with alien life, and he turned the Cyclopses into a psychic elite corps after psionics came back to humanity through Meryl Sheridan of Rama II, who ultimately saved the Empire. Hadrian's son Justinian, was emperor when the Prothen Protectorates contacted the Empire, at first with hostility, but then with friendship, and when the Sinn Empire invaded the Interplanetary Empire and the Great War was fought. Titus II Justinian Domitor Arcturus, after the death of his father, was held captive on Crux Terra while the Sinn fleet bombarded the planet. Again the Empire was saved by an unlikely, psychic hero; the outcast and renegade Marcus Sirius and a Prothen justiciar slew the Sinn Thar, Draco Ravorn, and then used their Great Weapon against them, ending the Sinn siege of Crux Terra. Emperor Titus then ordered the entire Imperial Navy to bomb Akshak, the Sinn throneworld, until no living thing could exist on the planet. The Sinn moved their capital to Korduun and hastily signed a peace treaty with the Empire. Titus' son, Trajan Titus Fulvius Victorius Augustus Arcturus reigned for many cycles after the Great War in a time of peace and regrowth. Trajan's son, Romulus Trajan Antonius Augustus Arcturus ruled the Interplanetary Empire during the Protean Invasion of 659 and the Second Great War, where all sentient races united to stop the Cyth from wiping them out, where the Empire was nearly brought to its knees with the rest of the galaxy. Again, the Empire and also the galaxy was saved by an Imperial Knight, Trajan Librus, and a small team comprised of all species.
The Interplanetary Empire is dived into four military sectors, the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta Quadrants, which has no effect on the people who live there, but it streamlines military distribution. Culturally, it is divided into the Inner Worlds and Outer Worlds, the boundary being the Edict Sector. The inhabitants of Inner Worlds, called Inworlders, have archaic names; tend to have corporate or state jobs; high standards of living; live on populous, fully-terraformed planets with a fast Net and easy transportation; and this is also where the wealthy, industrious Old Houses make their homes, in fact many Inworlders are part of one of the massive Houses. The Outworlders are used to harder jobs, lower salaries, slower transportation, and a more rugged lifestyle. Lastly, and most important in the eyes of the state, the Empire is divided into ten prefectures, centered around, and deriving their names from, the worlds New Tanis, Harappa, Clovis, Pretorius, Polyphemus, Atlas, Balder, Astar, New Odessa, and Nara. The prefects are in charge of maintaining, and ultimately commanding, prefectural garrisons and fleets, though these soldiers are still paid and owe their service to the emperor on Crux Terra. The Quadrant fleets are under the direct command of the emperor and his chosen admirals. Inner Worlds are garrisoned by trained ground marines and armor who answer to the planetary governor, and then the prefect, and a mix of prefectural and Quadrant ships patrol the space lanes of the Inner Worlds. Outer Worlds are garrisoned by special soldiers called Colonial Security officers, or Co-Sec officers, who double as a policing force and planetary garrison as they are given light marine training. Co-Sec chain of command is like the imperial marine garrisons of the Inner Worlds. The more dangerous and pirate-ridden space lanes of the Outer Worlds are patrolled by prefectural ships alone. Militias, unlike in the Inner Worlds, are encouraged by the Outworlder governors and prefects, as long as they then enter into the imperial chain of command. In the days of the Republic, what is now most of the Inner Worlds was called the Colonial Territories, and the few border systems that would one day be in both the Inner Worlds and Outer, were called the Fringe. One of the first acts as Emperor of Mankind, Caiss-Sol reformed the Republic economy, changing from the inflated drachmas to the Imperial credit system, whose largest and most common unit was the credit. Following the credit in value was the bezant, worth half a credit; the aureus, a quarter of a credit; and the denarius, worth a tenth of an Imperial credit. Caiss-Sol also created the Interplanetary Standard Calendar (ISC) which started with the cycle of his coronation day as Emperor of Mankind, Anno Imperium (AI) 01. The largest unit of time measurement of the ISC is the cycle, which is how long it takes Crux Terra to orbit once around its sun, Sol Primus. Smaller standardized measurements of time are seconds, 100 seconds makes a minute, which in turn 100 minutes makes an hour, and 10 hours to a sol and so on. All of the units of ISC measurement are based off of Crux Terran time; so 5:00 on Crux Terra is when the sun is at its highest, while on another world five o' clock is when the sun is low in the morning sky. This makes interplanetary business planning easier, as one can give standard time which applies to all planets, though it can make moving to other planets confusing at first. Cycles before the founding of the empire are shown with -AI after the cycle, for example the cycle Caiss-Sol was born was 34 -AI. He also made the Interplanetary Standard Measurement System (ISMS) which revolves around eight basic units: the meter (m) for length, the gram (g) for mass, the previously mentioned second (s) for time, the tarquin (T) for electrical current, the boreas (b) for thermodynamic temperature, the lucian (L) for luminous intensity, the arkkilon (a) for amount of substance, and the quintian (Q) for electromagnetic output. The oldest and most important elements used by the Empire are geon, a noble gas used for industrial and domestic light tubes across the Empire, as well as shipboard lighting and a catalyst in laser weaponry; astarium, a tough but flexible metal most often used for body armor and, in alloys, almost all urban buildings in the Empire; neotanium, a tougher metal used in ships' hulls and military and science buildings; and utherium, an utheride, radioactive but used as the core and key component of fuel cells and power generators, industrial, military, and domestic, across the Empire. The Empire has not encountered intelligent alien life throughout its entire history, only discovering undeveloped animal lifeforms on certain worlds or adapting their own animals for life on other planets. There were three alleged claims of discovery of alien life in the Empire's past; the first was during the days of the Caissid Dynasty and the early dynasties, where there was a strong, wide-spread belief in an ancient alien race called the Knowers that existed long before the Empire. This probably arose from the discovery of ruins on Harappa that turned out to be unusual geologic features, according to the official report. The second is when an archaeologist, Desiderius Lafayette, who discovered ruins on Regis III in AI 387 that he claimed were made by a race called the Xenotheans. He formed a religion around his findings, known as the Hybrid Church of Omnology, a cult known for blackmail and attacking those speaking out against it. The emperors ignored this new religion until it faded to the background and its threat forgotten. And thirdly and most recently, scientists discovered a new natural element, epsileus, a crystalline element unlike any other. People began to talk of aliens, the Precursors, who left the crystal-substance behind them. This was the most strongly believed by the mass of Imperial citizens because of the scientific backing. The existence of the Precursors was eventually refuted by scientists from the Academy at Eridani and field scientists investigating the rumored places where the Precursors were supposed to have dwelt, such as the caves of Regis I.
The state religion of the Interplanetary Empire was, for more than five hundred cycles, the Imperial Faith, which deified Caiss-Sol as the benevolent protector and ancient founder of the Empire, as well as a cult of personality around the current Emperor. It was Cancrian Emperor Horace III Genseric Porphyrogenitus Cancer that, after the Reign of Brothers, established the Imperial religion to cement belief in Caiss-Sol and the Emperor of Mankind. After Horace III died, his successors and the Scorpian Dynasty that succeeded them continued to promote the importance of the Faith, using as a cementing force in the Empire. Cults dedicated to various, hypothesized alien races such as the Knowers, were common and faded in and out of popularity, but never growing above a small, gnostic cult. The exception was the Church of Omnology started by Desiderius, which grew and became popular among scholastics and the Empire's celebrities but remained at its heart a secretive cult worshipping the supposed Xenotheans. By AI 540 Omnology was waning in influence, and finally vanished to the public less than ten cycles later. Marcus Sirius, the one who ended the Greater Incursions, saving both the Interplanetary and Nersarrim empires using the most powerful weapon in the galaxy, the Planet Architect; even using it to create a new world now called Marcus' Earth, was killed by a Cyclops assassin once he spacewalked off the mighty vessel he had just sent toward a black hole. Because of his power and sudden change of heart upon the Architect, sparing the lives of billions and refusing to take out his revenge on the Empire, Marcus became a martyr and a cult formed around him, the Children of Marcus, based on Marcus' Earth. Crux Terra, the site of Marcus' martyrdom, his birthworld Regis IV, and Marcus' Earth all became holy worlds to the Children. Soon they put the honorific -Sol at the end of Marcus' name; Marcus-Sol became a god-like figure to the cult, one who transcended his humanity. Titus II Justinian Arcturus Sinn-slayer, the Emperor who ordered Marcus' death, tried feebly to suppress the cult and the rising faith in Marcus; he stated that the appendage of -Sol to Marcus' name was heresy and understated the role and glory of Caiss-Sol. But Titus Justinian failed in his attempt to suppress Marcianism. The Children of Marcus had grown to a major cult and the mass majority of Imperial citizens, whether workers, marines, bureaucrats, or High Inworlders, revered Marcus-Sol in one form of devotion or another. Statuettes of Marcus-Sol became popular, people swore by the name of Marcus, were married in his name, buried their dead asking for his guidance, and holo-statues of Marcus-Sol watched over the skylines of such worlds as Uther, Sichuan, and Regis IV. So Titus Justinian gave in. Near the end of his reign, Titus Justinian officially recognized Marcianism, allowing an enormous holo of Marcus-Sol to be erected on the Boulevard of Emperors on Crux Terra, right next to Caiss-Sol's holo. It was Titus II's son, Emperor Trajan Titus Fulvius Victorius Augustus Arcturus that made Marcianism the state religion of the Interplanetary Empire on AI 615, much to Empire-wide celebration. The already celebrated holidays of Marcus' birth on 2.11, his ending of the Greater Incursions and creation of Marcus' Earth on 4.23, and his death in the early morning of 4.24 became Imperial holidays; days where the Emperor threw lavish feasts, workers celebrated with their friends and families, and hostilities ceased. Marcianism is also popular among the Nersarr, whose very existence as a species was saved by the great hero. Many members of the Children of Marcus are Nersarr or Rranthi. Marcus-Sol is recognized though as the patron of the Interplanetary Empire, space-travel, soldiers, widows, and orphans. Marcus-Sol's House symbol, three, many-pointed stars, were added to the Imperial flag on the eagle's chest, during Trajan Titus' reign.
