Third Imperium - Twilight and the Long Night

Twilight and the Long Night

Historians generally acknowledge the beginning of the Twilight of the Second Imperium as starting with the monetary crisis of -1776 Imperial. When the Imperial Treasury on Hub refused to acknowledge the monetary issue made by the branch treasury at Antares, shockwaves of fiscal doubt spread throughout the empire. As with all large interstellar polities, the lifeblood of the Second Imperium was interstellar trade, and once it became unclear that the currency issued by one part of the Imperium would be recognized in another, commerce began its inexorable grind to a halt.

Though the damage began almost immediately, the Second Imperium was a vast and resilient polity, and took two and a half centuries to completely collapse - its death throes are generally recognized as ending in -1526 Imperial when the last remnant state claiming to be the Rule of Man splintered and broke apart. This period of Twilight was followed by a fifteen hundred year period of chaos commonly referred to as the Long Night, which only ended when Cleon transformed the Sylean Federation into the Third Imperium and declared himself Emperor in the year 0.

During the Long Night, interstellar trade was reduced to trickle in most regions of the former empire. Remnant states arose in some places, while in other regions some systems were cut off from galactic society by stellar geography or mere neglect. Many planets, lacking regular shipments of Imperial products, regressed technologically, descending into pre-industrial societies. Others, deprived of essential commodities and unable to meet their needs with domestic production, simply died off. Where interstellar travel was still possible, successor states that came into contact with one another began warring as often as they began trading. Miniature empires rose, prospered, and fell throughout the Long Night, and in many cases, surviving records are fragmentary or entirely missing. One of the great endeavors of academia in the Third Imperium is unearthing and understanding information about this period.

Despite the chaos and uncertainty of the Long Night, it was also a period of growth and expansion for humanity. Unfettered by the cumbersome bureaucracy of the First Imperium and the military rule of the Second Imperium, humanity expanded far beyond its former borders. Solomani made contact with the Darrian strain of humaniti - and after receiving the jump drive from Solomani traders, the Darrians achieved (and lost) technological capabilities as yet unmatched in human history, including the infamous Star Trigger. Humaniti made contact with the K'kree, and established stronger relations with the Aslan. In addition, while the areas formerly occupied by the Imperium had descended into chaos, other regions of the galaxy had not. The Zhodani Consulate never experienced the Long Night and grew to its present size during that era. The Vargr and Aslan experienced some of the greatest surges of expansion in the racial histories. In the case of the Aslan, their push into human held regions of space resulted in the first in a series of border wars that spanned nearly fourteen hundred years and didn't end until the nascent Third Imperium finally organized resistance to the incursions.

The ending of the Long Night was set into motion with the founding of the Sylean Federation, an interstellar state founded in the Sylea system in what is now the Core Sector in -650 Imperial. The Federation had a tightly controlled, highly centralized government, and thus it too nearly six centuries to grow, mostly by using its dominant trading position to draw several surrounding systems into itself. The typical Sylean method of expansion was to establish a trading relationship with another system, arrange for their trading partner to become dependent upon Sylean goods, and then use that dominant position to force the system to agree to join the Federation. In -30 Imperial, Cleon Zhunastu took control of the industrial consortium that was the real power in the Federation and set about expanding its borders. Over thirty years of flexing Sylea's economic, diplomatic, and military might, Cleon had vastly increased the size of the Federation, extending it to encompass nearly all of what is now the Core Sector.

Cleon envisioned a dominion that extended well beyond a single sector, and realized that the heavily centralized Sylean government was not suited to such a task. Through intense political maneuvering, Cleon's allies convinced the Grand Senate of the Federation to propose that the Imperium be revived and that Cleon should be crowned the first Emperor of the Third Imperium. This claim was made plausible due to the fact that one of the last claimants to the throne of the Rule of Man during the Twilight years had used Sylea as his capital. Thus, Cleon was able to trace the legitimacy of the Sylean Federation itself through this petty emperor to the Rule of Man, and consequently to the original Vilani Empire. In a somewhat perverse way, the primary proponents of the legitimacy of the Ramshackle Empire as the legitimate heir to the First Imperium are the Emperors of the Third Imperium, as their claim to rulership is based upon that connection.

Given that Cleon had instigated the political maneuvering that led to him being offered the crown, Cleon, of course, accepted immediately. 651 years after the Sylean Federation had been founded, it was dissolved. Cleon declared that the year of his ascension to the Imperial Throne to be a Holiday Year to mark his coronation, proclaiming it to be Year Zero of a new calendar. Though most of the galaxy didn't know it yet, the Long Night had ended, and the Third Imperium had begun.

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Third Imperium - Second Imperium: The Rule of Man

Second Imperium: The Rule of Man

The humans from Terra were still balkanized when they discovered Jump drive and began colonizing their solar system in 2058 A.D. Because of the dearth of nearby stars, the Solomani were confined to their own solar system for the next four decades despite having the Jump drive. During this time period, the Terrans developed an extensive variety of jump-capable ships that were tested by years of use before they were able to make the leap to another star. It wasn't until 2094 A.D. that they were able to mount an expedition to Barnard's Star, and it wasn't until 2096 A.D. that the Terrans encountered the Vilani in that system.

The discovery that they were not only not alone in the universe but that the aliens they discovered were also human sent shockwaves through Terran society. The stories the Terrans heard of the Imperium's size staggered them. The fact that most worlds more than a few parsecs away from Terra were already claimed and inhabited was a source of consternation. Even so, joint international expeditions met with Vilani representatives and explored nearby star systems. In 2110 A.D., the Terrans launched an effort to colonize Barnard's Star even though Vilani prospectors were already working on the system's primary planet. This rush to colonization almost inevitably led to conflict between the upstart Terrans and the Imperials.

Things came to a head in 2113 A.D. (-2405 Imperial) when a caravan of Vilani vessels ignored Terran traffic signals, resulting in a confrontation that became the spark that ignited the First Interstellar War. Although this resulted in what was ostensibly a Terran victory in 2121 A.D., the Imperium didn't even really know it had been in a war. Because of the Imperial Bureaux system devolved so much responsibility for managing local affairs downward to provincial governors, the first war was fought with only the resources available in the region. Because being unable to handle such matters without help from the Imperial throne was seen as a failure for a provincial governor, resulting in a loss of prestige and personal power, there was significant reluctance on the part of the Vilani provincial authorities to seek help from the central authority.

On the Terran side, the war, although a victory, exposed command and control issues resulting from having fractured forces drawn from multiple nations. After much negotiation, in 2122 A.D. most of the nations of Terra signed the Treaty of New York, placing their space-faring forces under the centralized control of an empowered United Nations. In 2123 A.D., most of the off-world colonies were invited to join the compact, and by 2130 the organization was formalized as the Terran Confederation, placing all Solomani possessions under a single governmental authority.

Over the next one hundred and eighty years, the Terran Confederation and the First Imperium fought a series of wars, although the exact number is subject of some debate among historians. Due to the slowness of interstellar communication, no consensus can be reached as to when the later conflicts began or ended due to the array of armistices, ceasefires, and relatively rare periods of peace. In many cases, conflict would begin in one region before news of a peace accommodation could reach the local area or the respective capitals, sparking a new conflict. Although most scholars generally count seven interstellar conflicts between the Terrans and the Vilani following the first, there is much disagreement as to when each one began or ended, and some scholar maintain that there more or fewer wars than this number. As a general matter, academics have mostly agreed to simply refer to the wars between the Terran Confederation and the First Imperium as the "Nth Interstellar War", with proper accounting requiring that the specific dates of the war being discussed to be defined by the speaker.

The Second through Seventh Interstellar Wars were back and forth affairs, mostly confined to the Dingir and Sol subsectors, fought between the Terran Confederation and the Vilani provincial authority. It was not until the Solomani seized Dingir itself in the Eighth Interstellar War that the Vilani Emperor took notice and dispatched a sizeable fleet to the theater of operations. Unfortunately, by then the Terrans has developed the Jump-3, which gave them a strategic advantage so great that they were able to crush the Imperial forces, forcing them to relinquish control of the Solomani Rim. From that point on, the Terrans were on the offensive. The Treaty of of Ensular, signed in 2299 A.D., ended the war with the Vilani ceding all territory rimward of Vega to the Terrans.

Primed by centuries of decline, corruption, and decay, the Vilani Empire collapsed almost immediately after this defeat. The Terrans, emboldened by their victory, fell upon the former territories of the disintegrating empire like wolves, with the Terran Confederation setting out to swallow an opponent hundreds of times larger than itself. The entire Terran officer corps, more than one hundred thousand strong, was dispatched to the former Imperial domains, but even that was not enough. Junior officers found themselves thrust into positions of authority far exceeding anything they were prepared for: Ensigns found themselves commanding entire space stations, lieutenants found themselves acting as planetary governors, commanders were placed in charge of entire subsectors. The Vilani Empire had been vast and unwieldy even with the massive Imperial bureaucracy, and the Terran Confederation simply didn't have the manpower to effectively assume control of it. For fifteen years, the Terran forces tried to impose military rule upon the remnants of the First Imperium.

In 2317, the Terran Secretariat voted to transfer control of the conquered territories directly to Terra, a move that would have wrecked havoc across the former dominions of the Imperium. Admiral Hiroshi Estigarriba, commander of the Terran Navy, realized the cost such a transfer would impose, and moved to install himself as regent of the Vilani Empire and protector of Terra. The personal loyalty the officer corps held towards Estigarriba smoothed the way for this takeover, as did the fact that the Terran forces had integrated Vilani military assets into their own ranks. The Terran fleet headquarters at Dingir became the capital of the new Imperium, but the administrative hub remained on Vland. The Terran Confederation was simply dissolved.

What might have been a temporary situation was transformed into a permanent shift when Estigarriba died and his chief of staff succeeded him, crowning himself Emperor Hiroshi II. For the next five hundred years or so, the combined Solomani-Vilani Empire dominated interstellar politics. This period, known either as the Rule of Man or the Ramshackle Empire, depending on how the speaker feels about this period, is officially referred to as the Second Imperium. Hiroshi II transferred the government from Dingir and Vland to a centrally located world named Hub by the Terrans and Ershur by the Vilani, and the capital remained there for the next four centuries.

Depending on who one asks, the Second Imperium was either a period of innovation and progress following the stagnation of the First Imperium, or a time of chaos and growing instability. Solomani migrated from the Terran dominions and spread throughout the new empire, brining with them their ambition and exuberance. The rigid Vilani caste system was swept away by the new regime, opening the way for a newly dynamic society to emerge, but also creating an uncertainty alien to the denizens of the First Imperium. The Terrans swept aside the old system, unleashing an era of invention and devlopment, but weren't able to come up with a replacement that allowed them to effectively manage such a vast domain.The First Imperiums caste system and heavy economic control had been cumbersome and employed a bloated bureuacracy, but the system of military rule employed by the Second Imperium wasn't any more effective, and in the end it proved to be just as brittle.

In -1776 Imperial or 2742 A.D., the Second Imperium faced a financial crisis that marked the beginning of the end for the regime. The treasury at Hub refused to honor a monetary issue from the Imperial treasury at Antares, resulting in a monetary crisis that shattered the confidence in interstellar trade and effective governmental power. Though the Rule of Man limped on in some form or another for the next two and a half centuries, the writing was on the wall: Eventual collapse was inevitable. The Twilight had begun.

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Third Imperium - First Imperium: The Vilani Empire

First Imperium: The Vilani Empire

In approximately -9200 Imperial, or 4800 B.C., a strain of humanity that had been settled on the planet Vland discovered the Jump drive. As the Ancients had been wiped out nearly two hundred thousand years prior, and the Droyne had apparently abandoned the use of Jump drive, this made the Vilani the only Jump capable civilization in the Orion Arm. Over the next several thousand years, the Vilani leveraged this technological edge to dominate their neighbors and carve out an empire that spanned hundreds of parsecs. Over the centuries, the Vilani discovered several other non-Vilani human civilizations, as well as non-human aliens such as the Vegans.

Initially, the Vilani sought to exert their influence over the civilizations they came into contact with via trade and economic muscle. However, as the races that the Vilani came into direct contact with explored beyond the reaches of Vilani influence, civilizations gained access to Vilani technology without being assimilated into Vilani culture. Starting in -5400 Imperial, or 900 B.C., the Vilani launched a series of conflicts now known as the Consolidation Wars. Over the next thousand years, the Vilani conquered and subjugated its neighbors to Vland's rule until there were no civilized states on its border.

In -4045, the Vilani formally established their holdings as an interstellar empire, which they referred to as the Ziru Sirka - the Grand Empire of the Stars. The First Imperium, as it is now known, controlled approximately 27 sectors of space, and incorporated somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 inhabited worlds. Control came at a cost. When the Consolidation Wars began, the Vilani ceased exploring and focused on claiming control over known space. Once the Consolidation Wars ended, the Vilani were confronted with the difficulty of administering a vast empire in which getting a message to the outlying regions could take a year or more.

The Vilani responded to the challenge of managing their interstellar empire by dividing their efforts and becoming more hidebound and conservative. The entire Ziru Sirka was divided into three administrative districts known as Bureaux, which managed their respective regions mostly autonomously from one another, subject only to supervision from the Emperor. Vilani culture also became quite inflexible, with a caste system dominating the lives of the citizenry. Throughout the existence of the Ziru Sirka, a citizen could expect to have their entire life determined by the circumstances of their birth. As one might expect, this rigid stratification of society resulted in stagnation. Not only did exploration cease, technological progress ground to a halt. It took the Vilani nearly three thousand years to go from Jump-1 drives to Jump-2 drives. After the Ziru Sirka came into being, even that slow pace of technological advancement ended.

With no enemies of note on its borders, the Ziru Sirka lasted for 1,200 years despite its obvious flaws. Meanwhile, things were stirring in the rest of the galaxy. In 900 B.C., the Zhodani discovered Jump drive technology. In 180 B.C., the Hivers did as well. The K'Kree unified their homeworld in roughly 200 A.D., and discovered Jump drive technology in about 375 A.D.

In 2087 A.D., or -2431 Imperial, the Solomani discovered the Jump drive, and within the next ten years, came into contact with the First Imperium. Within twenty years, the Solomani and Vilani were at war.

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Third Imperium - Major Races

Major Races

In the Third Imperium, the designation of a race as "major" is a relatively arbitrary distinction based upon a single well-defined criteria: Did the race in questions develop Jump drive technology on its own. If yes, the race is classified as a major race. Races that received Jump drive technology through contact with other interstellar civilizations or based upon the discovery of the artifacts left behind by another race are classified as minor races. There are currently eight acknowledged major races, three of which are strains of humaniti - the Solomani, the Vilani, and the Zhodani - and two of which - the Ancients and the Droyne - are only recognized as major races based on archaeological evidence.

Designation as a major race has no direct relationship to the power, influence, or importance of that race. Several "minor" races are important players in known space, while at least one major race is decidedly not. The Droyne are a major race, but they rarely make Jump capable ships, and have no discernible impact on galactic society or politics. On the other hand, achieving Jump drive technology before their neighbors has enabled several of the other major races to carve out extensive holdings and impose their will upon their less lucky neighbors.

The known major races are:

Ancients: Little is known of the Ancients due to the fact that they apparently died out two hundred thousand years ago, leaving behind little but a handful of enigmatic artifacts, but they are regarded as a major race. They are known to have moved vast numbers of humans and scattered them across the Orion Arm, and to have transplanted wolves from Earth to Lair. They are also known to have waged a millennia-long interstellar war that seems to have wiped them out. These events which could only have been accomplished with the aid of Jump drives, coupled with a handful of examples of Ancient technology that clearly show Jump capability, have led to the Ancients being classified as a major race.

Aslan: The Aslan are roughly human-sized bipedal carnivores descended from pouncing hunter stock. Their appearance is superficially reminiscent of lions from Earth, so the first humans to encounter them dubbed them the "Aslan", and the "lion-like" comparison has stuck ever since. They are not related to lions or any other Earth feline in any way. Aslan have a retractable dewclaw on their thumb which they can use as a weapon. Aslan females outnumber Aslan males by about three to one. The Aslan are organized into clans, which are dominated in almost all by the female members. Female Aslan control trade, commerce, industry, and every other aspect of Aslan society, leaving politics and warfare as the only professions available to male Aslan. Young male Aslan, called Ihatei, are expected to seek out and obtain land holdings to prove their worth, givin aslan society a permanent expansionist bent. Though the Aslan Hierate is dominated by the Aslan, they have ranged far beyond its borders, and many have become loyal Imperial citizens.

Droyne: The Droyne are only considered to be a major race as a result of archaeological discoveries showing that the race had Jump capable ships as far back as eight thousand years before the present day. Droyne society is divided into rigid castes, membership of which is determined in a Droyne's adolescence. Changes in diet and environment morph an individual Droyne into a form suitable for their caste, and Droyne of different castes can look very different. The six castes are: Drone, leader, sport, technician, warrior, and worker. Most Droyne are about three feet tall, but warrior and worker caste Droyne can be larger than the average human. Droyne are hairless and grey, with small wings and tails, making them look a bit like gargoyles. Other than the sport caste, most Droyne are unimaginative and uncreative. How a race like the Droyne discovered Jump drive technology is a mystery. Why they apparently gave up Jump drive technology ages ago is also a mystery. The Droyne are genetically identical to the Chirpers.

Hivers: Hivers are a non-humanoid six-fold radial symmetrical race that vaguely resemble starfish. They move about on five of their limbs which they use interchangeably as arms and legs, while the sixth limb has evolved into a "head". Hivers are extremely alien, and can be described as unsentimental, uncaring, and even callous. They simply drop their offspring off in the wilderness and any who survive their first five years become part of whatever Hiver settlement they then happen to wander into. Hivers are hermaphroditic, and have no particular courtship or bonding rituals - whenever two Hivers meet they "mate" by joining together one of their limbs which has evolved into their sexual organ. To preserve genetic diversity in their species, they occasionally send "ambassadors" around to the various worlds of the Hiver Federation to shake hands with other Hivers on multiple planets. The Hivers are mostly nonviolent, and have fought only one war, against the Two Thousand Worlds of the K'kree. The Hivers won, although the specifics of their victory are unclear. Hivers are mostly found in the Hiver Federation, but individual Hivers have traveled throughout known space.

K'kree: The K'ree are gregarious, hexopodal herbivores that walk on four legs and use their remaining two limbs as arms. They are nicknamed "centaurs", although they don't really look much like the classical conception of centaurs. They can also smell the meat on your breath and think the universe would be a better place if you and all your kind were wiped out. Descended from herd animals, the K'kree are both social and claustrophobic - a K'kree who is isolated from other of his kind or confined to a small space for any extended period of time will probably die. K'kree are rarely found outside of the Two Thousand Worlds because they generally don't travel in anything less than a large group, and that kind of travel is incredibly expensive. Any K'kree who would willingly choose to live by themselves among other races would be considered insane by his fellows.

Solomani: Humans from Old Terra. They achieved Jump drive technology quite late in galactic terms, but their energy and exuberance allowed them to confront and defeat the First Imperium, dominating the Second Imperium and migrating throughout known space. As the Solomani conquerors merged their holdings with the First Imperium in the process of creating the Ramshackle Empire, Solomani are found throughout the Third Imperium as well as the Solomani Confederation.

Vargr: Vargr are genetically modified wolves transplanted from Earth hundreds of thousands of years ago by the Ancients. They are chaotic, anarchic, and often violent. Though they have a fundamental pack mentality, they tend to reject authority, although this attitude is by no means universal. Most Vargr are found in the Vargr Extents, but large numbers of them emigrated to other regions, including the Third Imperium, where many have become loyal Imperial citizens.

Vilani: Vilani are humans transplanted to Vland by the Ancients hundreds of thousands of years ago. They were the first strain of humanity known to achieve Jump drive technology, and they carved out a huge interstellar empire known as the Vilani Empire or the First Imperium. Culturally, Vilani tend to be very conservative, and almost hidebound, but are otherwise very similar to humans from Earth.

Zhodani: The Zhodani are humans who the Ancients transplanted to the planet Zhdant hundreds of thousands of years ago. As Zhdant is a lighter gravity world than Earth, they are on average taller and thinner than either Solomani or Vilani. A notable percentage of Zhodani are psionically gifted, and Zhodani society has embraced psionics as a boon to their lives. The Zhodani Consulate is run by psionically capable individuals - psionic talent is a requirement to hold government office in the Consulate. Most Zhodani live within the Zhodani Consulate, but they do have friendly relations with several neighboring states and some of these humans have emigrated to the Vargr Extents or the Aslan Hierate. They are rarely found in the Third Imperium, as the Imperials are hostile to the use of psionics and will generally assume any Zhodani in their midst is using telepathy to spy upon them.

Each race will be more completely detailed, including its GURPS point value, in a linked description.

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Third Imperium - Calendars and Dating

Calendars and Dating

By default, Traveller renders dates using the Imperial calendar, which counts the official founding of the Third Imperium as the "zero" year. The Imperial calendar starts its count of years at year 0 instead of year 1 because when Cleon I announced the conversion of the Sylean Federation into the Third Imperium, he declared that year to be a "jubilee year". It is currently the year 1120 by Imperial reckoning.

There are several other widely used means of accounting for dates in the Traveller universe. The first is the Vilani calendar, which dates to the founding of the First Imperium. Year 1 on this calendar is the equivalent to 473 A.D. on the Solomani calendar and the year -3084 on the Imperial calendar. The Third Imperium was founded in the Vilani year 3084, and it is currently the year 3882 by Vilani reckoning. Note that these dates don't align perfectly with the other two calendars, due to the fact that the Vilani year at 446 standard days in length is longer both the Solomani year and the Sylean year.

Another notable non-Imperial means of recording years is the Solomani calendar, which is basically the modern Gregorian calendar. By Solomani dating conventions, the Third Imperium was founded in 4251 A.D., and it is currently the year 5641 A.D. While the use of Solomani dating is fairly rare in the Imperium, nationalistic political considerations means that its use is common in the Solomani Confederation. Once again, the year counts don't line up perfectly, due to differences in the lengths of the Vilani, Sylean, and Solomani years.

The Aslan use their own dating system, based on the orbital period of their homeworld Kusyu, which is about 320 standard days long. Their calendar dates to the selection of their first ruling council of 29 clan leaders in -2083 on the Imperial calendar. According to the Aslan calendar, it is currently the year 3645.

The Zhodani also have their own calendar, which dates back to the first Psionic Games in -6731 on the Imperial Calendar (alternatively 2209 B.C.), The Zhodani count by Olympiads, which are held once every three Zhodani years. Each Zhodani year is only 273 standard days long, and consequently each Olympiad is 819 days long. The Zhodani are currently in the 3741^st Olympiad.

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