Phoenix Empire

Phoenix Empire
Simurghshahr
Imperial Standard	Coat of Arms
Motto:
[insert motto]
Imperial Anthem
Ghale Phoenicia
Royal Anthem
[???]
Cloud Map
Capital	Luxor
Official language	Phoenician
Recognized auxiliary languages	Altain, Jardini, Lechian, Old Imperial*, Osakan, Turanian
Religion	Phoenix Church
Demonym	Imperial, Phoenician
Government	Absolute Monarchy
- Phoenix Ascendant	Disputed*
- Kyriarch	Vacant
- Imperial Regent	Duke Angus Feril
Legislature	Estates General
History
- First Phoenix Ascension	0 AE
- Crises of the Third Millenium	2345 - 3014 AE
- Jardin War	3000 - 5322 AE
- Phoenix Republican Uprising	5322 AE
Systems	1,000+
Currency	Thaler, Dirham, Regional Currencies
Patron Saint

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Imperial Standard-bearer

The Phoenix Dynasty, also known as Simurghshahr or officially as the Phoenix Empire, is a powerful sovereign state of the Large Magellanic Cloud. Due to its central spatial position it connects every region of the Cloud; it shares a single long border with both the Jardin Republic and the Free Star League in the direction of the Magellanic stream and sits astride the Great Rift to antispinward. The Empire proper is comprised of more than a thousand star systems and hundreds of billions of subjects, by far the largest, most populous country in the galaxy.

Founded with the Starforge's arrival in the first century AE the Empire is the oldest civilization of the Cloud. With exclusive control over its arcane powers, the Dynasty retained a popular legitimacy that was never seriously challenged across five millennia of continuous rule from the First Phoenix Ascension to the modern day. Over time the Dynasty threaded their ever-expanding empire with a network of stable wormholes unparalleled in breadth and scope, such that even the most distant peripheries of the Empire were more than a few month's travel from the Starforge's final resting place over Luxor.

Early in the Empire's history, Phoenixes adopted the practice of elevating the founders of new colonies to special dignities, privileges, and even entitlements to specific sovereignties. A general populace hungry for upward social mobility would seize on the process, catalyzing much of the Empire's explosive expansion. The process would eventually develop into the Patent of Nobility, which continues to encourage expansion and exploitation of fallow systems to this day.

Government

Duchies

Duchy of Starholm

(Revilla)

Duchy of The New Colonies

(Al-Akbar)

Duchy of Vasudan

(Wo)

Duchy of Armstrong

(Hawkwood)

Rifter March

(Deliliac)

Military & Security Organs

Imperial & Royal

Imperial Navy & Army

Emerging from the Jardin Wars, the twin services of the Imperial Navy and Army are the permanent standing military arm of the Phoenix Empire, which must never be confused with the Royal Starforce or the Imperial Guard. It principally directs its energies against the Jardin Republic, leaving the other strategic priorities it disdains as unimportant to Starforce and the Guard. A massive bureaucracy negotiates with the Estates General whose consent is essential for the various corvees and levies necessary to maintain its authorized strength. Ostensibly apolitical they are collectively one of the most powerful interests groups of the Empire at large, equal to any of the major houses.

Imperial Navy

• Star Patrol
• Battlefleet
• Reserve Command

Imperial Army

• Garrison Command
• Assault Command
• Occupation Command

Ministry of Security

• Imperial Marshals
• Intelligence Agency

Royal

Imperial Guard

Many institutions and protect the Phoenix in its various aspects. Of all of them the Imperial Guard alone cares only for the safety of the Phoenix the actual, living person and the members of the Royal House in purpose. Not the Phoenix as its abstract body the state, nor its soul, nor its interests abroad, their only task is safety of the fragile human body upon the throne. They operate as the personal army of the Phoenix on the battlefield, as open inspectors, or as secret investigators if need be. Answering only to the Phoenix their powers are broad and nigh on unrestricted.

Phoenix Starforce

Where the Imperial Navy and Army are the arms of the Empire as a collective whole, Starforce is meant to be the popular muster of the nobility as the private volunteer armies of the Royal Household. Ostensibly overseen somewhat loosely by the Household Registry and the Phoenix's appointed Marshal it is in practice a decentralized, highly irregular heterogeny of various units. The active strength of Starforce is constantly fluctuating as new formations are authorized and others folded up, transferred, or disbanded on a whim. As it provides the largest share by far of the Empire's Cavalry, unfairly or not, it has become strongly associated with the stereotype of adventurism and glory-seeking in former League Space and the Rift.

Doctrine

In the Empire there are two general design philosophies: the Ships of the Wall and the Cavalry. The former are solidly protected and bristling with long range firepower, the Battleships and Heavy Cruisers, who form the backbone of walls of battle with their dense overlapping fire. If they can be said to have a fault it is speed, for no Ship of the Wall has been mistaken as capable of rapid maneuver and a formation once broken often has little chance of reforming. No master of ships bothers to ask them to hunt, to chase - any act where celerity and audacity are chief amongst virtues.

For these tasks the Empire calls upon the Cavalry.

There are few postings with the romance of an Imperial Cavalry vessel, lance armed warriors riding through the star lanes. Here and gone again in twinkling leaving behind only the swirl of stellar dust, they raid beyond the Blue/Red Line or The Wall, prowl and hunt for the enemy ahead of the fleet in lone squadrons, in battle charge at a gallop in masses to the decisive point again and again, harry and board the survivors in the rout. The cavalry are an independent and flexible arm.

A Dragoonship of the Heartbreakers

Amongst the Cavalry are a separate breed, the Dragoons, with little of the glamor and dash of traditional cavalry nor the solid respect accorded to the Ships of the Wall. They are large parasite STL battlecraft, hitching a ride between stars, able to perform like a warship several times their mass without the expensive impediment of a stardrive. Of their many virtues, the chief is that they are quite cheap, a fact which particularly recommends them for thankless but exhausting security and policing duties. Tragically the very nature of the onerous, stupefying petty taskings they are assigned oft means Dragoon units rarely receive the supplies and maintenance they are wonted. Between their mean reputation and the spartan austerity of their quarters and amenities these regiments almost never attract the talent that could exploit them to full effect.

Aristocratic in reputation the Cavalry commands highlight the social friction and fault lines of Imperial society and class that run through its armed forces. Most Cavalry units are Starforce, officered largely by and recruiting from the nobility. In contrast, many Dragoon elements are Imperial Navy.

References

Citations

Bibliography