After Ether: Ascension

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Key Concepts

The Viennes Naval Treaty

Fourty-eight years ago the Enduscaran Federation emerged triumphant from the Fifth Reflex War - the Endwar - and vanquished the enigmatic Masters and their clone-sanjaks. This twenty-nine month war was not the longest but probably the largest in centuries and perhaps since the Ragnarok Period more than half a millenia ago. Having just completed one war but aware that the Mastery of Suns still existed in a distant corner of known space beyond the Melporne River neither the Enduscaran senate nor their SOLAR advisors had any appetite for a war in their backyard. But by its very nature the enormous Enduscaran battlefleet was a threat to those near Endusspace; the Holy Germanian Empire, the Hellesphere, Gondwana, not to mention sundry smaller states.

In a pair of brilliant political moves, Endus first formalized a number of pre-existing treaties and agreements and merged them into what was soon dubbed the 'Panhelios', eventually the greatest true pan-stellar supranational organization since before Ragnarok. Inviting almost every starfaring state within navigational range, Endus envisioned a future in which states would see themselves as equals - with Endus as first among equals. As a corollary to this, Endus also proposed a sweeping naval limitation treaty to cover most of known space. In addition to heading off any potential arms races before they becamse self-sustaining the proposal also controlled or outright banned various 'uncivilized' weapons such as umbraships and long-range cruise missiles. While supremely contentious, buy-in from the HGE (facing down a potential arms race with Endus itself and still in the midst of a depression) and Gondwana put enough pressure onto other states that ratification became a possibility. The final push towards broad ratification was the departure of the Enduscaran Expeditionary Force for the distant world of Rubicon; literally overnight the Enduscaran fleet in known space was halved in size at which point ratification went from a trickle to a landslide. As of four decades ago effectively every spacefaring power that could lay claim to a cosmofleet bigger than a handful of light cruisers was a signatory of the Viennes Naval Treaty (the VNT).​

One of the key elements that helped the adoption of the VNT was that for most states it was quite generous; a state with one-tenth the economic strength of Endus could have anywhere between one-seventh and one-fifth its registered fleet tonnage (whichdid not actually equate mass of ships but was instead the result of a more complicated calculation). All but the most militant states found this to comfortably fulfil their defense needs. What was so insidious was the hidden costs of actually doing so: the Enduscaran Federation's massive military was tightly integrated and was backed by an enormous and highly automated industrial capability and as a result could achieve efficiencies of scale that few others could match. In theory an alignment of smaller states would be able to stand up to Endus (or, for that matter, other great powers). In practice such an alignment would be spending its money far less efficiently and would be easy to politically cleave, making it difficult for one such to actually achieve a superior position to the Federation.

Ultimately this scenario never came to pass. Provincial interests meant that most states cared far more about threats and challenges in the near abroad and keeping up with the Joneses, not forming some sprawling alliance to challenge Endus or the other great powers force-on-force. As such the VNT performed admirably and a common sentiment was that it had managed to bring some sanity to spiraling military expenditures. While there were some cheats, for three and a half decades the VNT's military caps and the Panhelios talking shop put a proverbial wet blanket on arms races and excessive interstate conflict.​

An unanticipated (or perhaps to some in the upper echelons of SOLAR, anticipated) effect of the VNT was the hollowing out of many national defense industries. Even with the departure of the EEF Endus still had an enormous fleet mostly consisting of young ships completed within the previous half decade, not to mention many others stored incomplete or never commissioned. As part of its committment to reduce its fleet strength down to that it had granted itself under the VNT, Endus offered warships both complete and incomplete to 'responsible' states at attractive prices. With highly efficient naval yards lying idle and only partially converted to civilian use, the shipbuilding concerns of Endus could continue to do so as the sector was consolidated into the sprawling Endus Shipbuilding Industry Conglomerate (officially abbreviated as ESINCO). A number of other manufacturers saw the writing on the wall and managed to get their own share of a pie that was being progressively divided into fewer and fewer major slices. Hoersch of Kassel and Luftkriegwerft GmbH ​became two prominent defense contractors from the HRE and alongside Royal Bretwaldan Shipwrights these became known as the Big Four. These, alongside the Next Seven and their subsidiaries, eventually accounted for upwards of 90% of all cosmonaval and aerospace programs by Écu exchange rate equivalent.

All this meant that by the time of the Sixth Reflex War the vast majority of warships and aircraft were built by one or more of only eleven manufacturing multinationals. This was rather less than one per four major Panhelios worlds. It is not an exageration to say that the Big Four had all become planetary-scale economies on their own merits. While nationalism among the great powers meant that they used locally-designed and -manufactured equipment, the dozens of also-ran states that populated the Panhelios generally used off the shelf warships and aircraft with only marginal modifications in sensing, command and crypto equipment - this was one of the few fields that truly had a flourishing independent sector. Indeed, within twenty years of the VNT entering into force the Big Four and Next Seven had effectively performed a regulatory capture by getting their products pre-announced. While in many ways the VNT was little more than an honor system with no meaningful enforcement system, the legitimacy of buying craft known to be compliant was a potent motivator.

Sectors

The Holy Suebi Empire

Theme: High Space Opera
Cues: Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica
Favored Milieu: Heavy Metal

Before the Godswar and Ragnarok, the Suebi Allthing was one of the core constituents of the great Rutasan Accord; old, rich and conservative. Indeed, the capital world itself of Neue Arthas lay inside the borders of the Allthing.

After Ragnarok, the Allthing was shattered. Terrorized by magical war-beasts, homes scorched by vast weapons of war, abandoned by the malfunctioning god-machines, humanity nonetheless hung on and, in a way, thrived. In its place was the Holy Suebi Empire; an empire of blood and iron built from the scattered survivors of one of the most heavily populated parts of the known space. Built in the image of its founding emperor-saint Beowulf Steiner the Empire was a bastion of stability in the tumultuous half-millenia following Ragnarok.

The stability has faltered of late though, and the House of Beowulf's has failed to guide the Empire effectively for well over a full lifetime. Instead the Electors rule now and while they nominally still pay lip service to the Empire, in most ways they are effectively independent states all squabbling for preminence. Some taboos and ancient laws exist merely until a major state too strong to be brutalized for breaking them does exactly that, while others such as the longstanding hostility towards 'witches' remain as strong as they did in the day of Beowulf Steiner.

Volstagg

Volstagg is large gas giant surrounded by orbiting space stations. The world is rich in ether and served as a major fuel provider for the Kaiserliche Sternmarine since before Ragnarök. The space stations are operated by a clan who send mining ships into the Volstagg’s atmosphere to gather ether for processing and to hunt the various beasts which make their home in the world’s turbulent air currents. It is dangerous work which lends itself an air of romanticism with the men and women who plunge into Volstagg as brave as any of the Emperor’s soldiers with many a song of the brave “Wind Riders of Volstagg.” A dozen moons orbit Volstagg containing a wealth of materials and home to mining colonies which also feed the HSE’s industries. Each clan acts as its own independent entity and gather in their own assembly to elect their system’s Jarl to speak for them in the Imperial Diet. The current Högtalarejarl is Lizbeth Lalli, a rather moderate woman who would prefer to see any potential succession issue resolved quickly as her world would be the first target in any future war.

Panhelios

Theme: Conventional Scifi
Cues: Babylon 5, Gundam, SBY
Favored Milieu: Heavy Metal

The Verge

Theme: Posthuman Space
Cues:
Favored Milieu: Infospace

Russospace

(approximate, years before present) Union of Progressive Peoples formed in the late Imperial Period.

~1000-750 - Union of Progressive Peoples

~750-550 - Centralized Union (periphery splinters off due to conflicts, waystorms, etc)

~550 - The Overturn

~550-440 - New Men

~440-430 - War of Repudiation

~432 - Flight of New Men to Zorya

~430-150 - Cylord dominance

~410 - Sack of Mir

~400 - Landing on Iskandar

~380 - The Burning of the Books (Iskandar)

~150 - Mastery sweeps Cylords out of the Verge

~140-125 - Mastery takes several treaty ports on Polyarny

~125 - Mastery takeover of Polyarny

~50 - unrest against Mastery occupation increases substantially

~40-33 - Ground war of occupation

33 - Mastery 'localizes' the conflict and pulls troops out

33-32 - Collapse of Mastery-backed government

32-Now - Polyarny People's Republic

Iskandar

The Tsardom of Iskandar Constitutional monarchy with strong monarch Founded by a rogue (if such a term can be used) Cylord disgusted with the infighting between the other Cylords; takes followers and whatever civilians they can grab or recruit and sails south for Iskandar where the latter are dumped and told 'congrats you're all peasants now' while the Cylord proclaims themself the new Tsar of Iskandar. A generation later once everyone is settled, the Tsar orders all history burned and many other books transcribed, falsifying a new history of Iskandar and wiping the record of any connection with the (former) UPP and the Cylords. The true history remained a closely guarded secret by the royal house. Iskandar today is a fairly conventional constitutional monarchy, with a powerful crown and an upper house of nobility.

Mir

The bureaucratic center of UPP and the capital after the Overturn, Mir saw widespread fighting at the end of the War of Repudiation. Two decades later it was sacked by several Cylords, as a result the fragile truce between these warlords broke and the collapse of the former UPP worlds into a techo-barbarian dark age became irreversible. It was fought over repeatedly during the three centuries of Cylord dominance and it was a rare decade that it was controlled by a single one of the cyber-warlords. Today Mir is a world of survivors, of scavengers and the shreds of the broken Cylords. Struck briefly by clone-Sanjaks at the end of the Mastery's campaign against the Cylords, even then Mir was all but de-industrialized. Today little exists beyond blacksmiths and the forlorn remnants of the Cylords scrabbling through the tree-encrusted glories of ancient centuries.

Polyarny

Polyarny was a somewhat peripheral world to the old UPP, though it was never cut off from the core worlds such as Mir. Unfortunately, like so many others it fell prey to the nomadic Cylords, with its resources and people plundered over the centuries. Devolved into the techno-barbarism and pastoral sedentarism that characterized the former UPP 'Cylord Steppe' and many other worlds, Polyarny was ripe for capture by the victorious Mastery; something of a high-water mark for the Mastery, the distant empire exerted control over the locals for most of a century. The colonial government could only last so long however, and as the Mastery's grip weakened the flames of revolution were kindled. While governed by the Popular Front of Polyarny since the end of the revolutionary war three decades ago, Polyarny's government is indisputably controlled by the All-Regions Party. Already the recipient of significant military aid smuggled in during the revolutionary war, Polyarny has since undergone a military-industrial revolution with technology transferred from Zorya.

Zorya

Zorya was settled four centuries ago by elements of the New Men fleeing the Cylord's War of Repudiation,

The Former Mastery

Theme: Torn Apart Empire
Cues:
Favored Milieu: Sword and Starship

The Drifts

Theme: Pith Helmets and Beasts
Cues:
Favored Milieu: Steam Trek

Interspaces

The Sapmi

Thousands of years ago the Sapmi was a mildly prosperous corner of space split between a number of polities and faiths. Unfortunately some long forgotten dispute escalated far beyond whatever petty issue sparked it and with their powers, the Gods of Asgard cursed the entire region. As the years rolled into decades and decades into centuries, the stars of the Sampi dimmed, ever so slightly. And so the crops failed, the snow fell in summer, the glaciers advanced and the seas froze. By the Godswar they were all but vacant with their original inhabitants having long since departed to warmer and richer worlds, a state of affairs that has not changed in a millenia.

Life, however, finds a way. As the seas closed and the air chilled, the flora and fauna was forced to adapt or perish. And so they adapted - or perished. The biota on these worlds has adapted itself to the arctic conditions in myriads of ways.