The Alien Wars

The development of the Beta Hyperdrive in 1280 opened vast new vistas of exploration to Humanity, allowing even small ships to travel far faster than the speed of light. In the succeeding decades, Terrans colonized hundreds of worlds. Humanity soon had its first encounter with a hostile species — the fearsome Xenovores. In 1301, the deep space explorer the 'Cassandra' entered Xenovore territory; the Xenovores captured it, interrogated its crew, and then ate them. The Xenovores decided Humanity was the next species they would conquer and subjugate.
For the rest of the fourteenth century, Humanity found itself embroiled in war. The early years were marked by repeated failures and defeats, as Terrans reacted to the Xenovore attack badly. It took them decades to learn how to fight the foe properly, in part because a civil war pitting the United Antares against the Spinward Union distracted many Terrans. In the early 2350s, Xenovore offensives reached Antares itself, and nearly destroyed it. If not for the brave efforts and noble sacrifices of Antares defenders, the home of Humanity would have fallen to the enemy, and then it would likely only have been a matter of time before the Xenovores conquered the rest of Terran space.
But such, thankfully, was not to be. After the failure of the Xenovore offensives, the tide turned and Humanity went on the attack. By 1369, the Terran navy had pushed the Xenovores back to their own territory... and then Humanity went on the attack. Slowly but surely Terran forces fought their way into Xenovore space, often suffering massive casualties. In 1396, a suicide attack force reached the Xenovore Throneworld and destroyed it, shattering the Xenovore empire forever.

The Terran Empire

In the decades following the end of the Xenovore War, the fragile alliance of Terran governments collapsed, plunging Terran space into an anarchic period. By the 1420s, Antares was the center of a small group of systems called the Terran Union. Admiral Marissa DeValiere, commander of the Centra Defense Fleet, began a campaign of reunification. Her fleet traveled from system to system, reconquering worlds that had fallen under the sway of mobs or petty warlords. By 1436, following not only her successful military campaign but some brilliant political maneuvering, she was made President for Life of the Terran Union... soon to be known as the Terran Empire, and her successors as Emperors.
The Empire existed for nearly 300 years, weathering wars with the Thorgons and Ackálians, a civil war, and various periods of internal Galactic turmoil and other difficulties. By the mid-1600s, the increasingly despotic Empire was experiencing greater unrest than ever, and this eventually led to several rebellions. Most of these were quashed, but gradually feelings of dissatisfaction and revolt spread. In 1703, a band of rebels boarded Emperor Sigismund’s flagship and killed him, ending the DeValiere line and the Empire.

The Galactic Federation

The two years following Sigismund’s death were a time of tremendous chaos, as factions within the rebel forces tried to become the new rulers of one small piece of the Empire or another, and other worlds and states that had been more or less unwilling Imperial subjects declared their own independence. However, the main rebel government was strong, organized, honest, and well-supported, and most of the subjects of the Empire longed for stability as much as freedom. The Terran Republic, as the new government called itself, handled the transition with aplomb and a minimum of bloodshed. It immediately drafted a new constitution and negotiated diplomatic relations with the Conjoined Civilizations Republic and the Mon’dabi Federation, both of which continued the support they’d provided during the rebellion. Some Republic officials feared that enemies of the Empire would take advantage of the confusion and apparent weakness of the new government, but fortune was kind to the fledgling Terran state. The rebellion utterly surprised the Thorgons, but they expected the entire Empire to collapse into anarchy and war — a situation they could easily take advantage of. The Hegemony militarized its side of the Neutral Zone and hunkered down to wait for the expected implosion. By the time it accepted that the predicted collapse would not happen, the Republic had already regained control of most of the former Imperial Navy.
As for the Ackálians, any intentions they had of creeping into the antispinward regions of former Imperial space were derailed by their initial encounter with the Roin’esh Union as the Ackálian Empire expanded to antispinward. The first Roin’esh attack on the Ackálian Border Fleet occurred in 1704, and while generally ineffective, it focused Ackálian attention away from Human space.

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