About the Galaxy
IMPERIAL GALAXY is set in a small part of a vast interstellar empire. The Empire is ages-old, and is the pre-eminent power in most of a single galaxy. This power rests upon a trinity of technologies that have made the Empire great: BiTek, MekTek and PsiTek. Though the enemies of the Empire have sometimes proved to be superior in any one technological field, none can match the broad spectrum of Imperial might.
Politically, the Empire is repressive and authoritarian, but it is also often disorganized or at odds within itself. This is due to its power structure. The Emperor is the ultimate authority, but the Emperor.s authority is rarely used, other than to set and enforce the boundaries within which the true executives of Imperial power must work.
Power in the Empire largely lies with the several million Princes (the term is used for any gender) who govern the billions of sentients within the Empire. Princes provide the officer corps for the Imperial Navy and other services, they are also the governors of worlds, systems, sectors and quadrants. (Only the Imperial Navy is implemented in the Open Beta test.)
While princes need to cooperate together within their various services, they are also in competition with each other. Every century, or very occasionally earlier due to unknown events, a new Emperor must be chosen from the ranks of the princes. While the exact process is known only to certain priests, when it is time to choose a new ruler, several thousand of the most accomplished princes are invited to join in contention to become Emperor. They will contest with each other in various ways, including combat, until one is chosen.
To prepare for that ultimate contest, Princes regularly duel with each other, and attempt to prove their fitness to become Emperor by proving their ability in exploration, in daring raids into enemy systems, and by leading fleets in battle. One day, they hope to become contenders for the ultimate prize, to become the Emperor of the Imperial Galaxy.
Priests and Temples
The Emperor is able to exert his or her ultimate control through the priests who worship various aspects of the Emperor and who manage all technology, including the PsiTek communications network that links all princes together.
The Emperor allots priests to individual princes on the basis of their achievements, and also allows them a measure of command bandwidth, which is to say use of the PsiTek communications network to send and receive orders and information.
The different Temples are centres of worship of the Emperor in various aspects of the Imperial Person. Priests of the different Aspects have various skills and expertise related to their temple.s main field of technological research and management.
Princes typically seek to have as many priests of as many different Aspects as possible assigned to them, as priests are of enormous value in communication, combat, information storage and other ways.
Game Note: Priests and Acolytes are not fully implemented in the Open Beta Test. You will receive acolytes and priests but will not be able to use them until a later release of Imperial Galaxy.
Enemies of the Empire
The Empire is vast, and from time to time, Imperial attention is diverted from some portion of the realm. IMPERIAL GALAXY is set in the Rozaxra Domain (one of 25 domains), which has been neglected for some little time, perhaps five or six hundred years. This has allowed various Imperial enemies to make territorial gains within the domain, and the situation has reached a point where the Emperor has taken notice and ordered the Imperial Navy to rectify the matter, and so provided an opportunity for many princes to show their worth to the Empire.
The main enemies in the Rozaxra Domain are:
Sad-Eye Aliens. The proper name of these aliens is unpronounceable. They are called Sad-Eyes because they are a parasitic, telepathic alien race that inhabits host bodies of various other lifeforms. Though they rarely physically alter their hosts, one characteristic inevitably gives them away when they inhabit human or near-human bodies: their eyes constantly weep. Sad-Eyes are masters of Psitek.
Deader Aliens. Very little is known about Deaders, as they have not been encountered before and invariably commit suicide when at risk of defeat or capture, including mass suicide by ship or planet destruction. Deaders appear to have a Mektek bias.
Mrouzh Rebels. The Mrouzh were formerly part of the Empire and were allowed a limited level of self-government by a series of disinterested princes. However, they have now taken it too far, and declared full independence. Key members of the Mrouzh governing oligarchy were supposed to be conditioned for loyalty, it is of some concern that this conditioning has been broken, possibly with the assistance of the Sad-Eyes.
NakNuk Bitek Secessionists. One of the guiding principles of the Empire is that the trinity of technologies must be balanced. An advance in one area of tek should be matched by advances in other areas, and resources allocated to ensure this. Unfortunately, several hundred years ago a Prince who was governor of the Naknuk Reach authorized illegal research into a newly explored biomass entity that resulted in numerous breakthroughs in Bitek technology. These new discoveries were supposed to be suppressed until the trinity could be balanced, but the prince in question instead joined the biomass entity and initiated a secession attempt. Much of the Reach has been lost to the Empire but its further expansion has been limited by the Naknuk Secessionists total reliance on Bitek.
Criminals. Due to the lack of interest in the Rozaxra Domain from the Imperial Core, and little intervention from Princes, there has been a huge increase in criminal organizations, ranging from very large and well-organised pirate fleets to extensive smuggling rings and other law-breakers.
Local Rebels. Without direct Imperial supervision for decades or centuries, many systems have foolishly declared independence. Some of these local rebels have joined forces to form larger political entities.
About Princes
It is a great thing to be a prince of Empire, but princes are made, not born. The priests of the Aspect of the Emperor's Discerning Hand constantly rove the galaxy, descending on worlds to winnow through the population, seeking infant children that have the genetic potential to become princes. Once selected, and the memories of parents, friends and databases suitably adjusted so that the chosen child never existed, the prince-candidates are taken to be made anew, using the trinity of technologies that have made the Empire great: BiTek, MekTek and PsiTek.
The first death is of the original child, for it is no more. He or she is reborn in the BiTek vats of the priests of the Emperor's Aspect of the Kindly Gardener, their DNA reprogrammed to make the candidate prince potentially stronger, faster, more durable and mentally proficient.
The second death comes at the hands of the priests of the Aspect of the Rigorous Engineer, when the prince-candidate enters the operating theatres and workshops of the MekTek specialists. Here, the prince-candidate dies once more, to be reborn as a MekTek augmented organism, and will spend several years being trained to use their augmented body, and to interact with computers and artificial intelligences of the purely MekTek variety.
At the age of twelve, if BiTek has not run amok and made them monsters that need to be erased, or MekTek failed in some spectacular way, the prince-candidate goes to join the contemplative priests of the Aspect of the Emperor as Guardian of the Inner Way. There, though there is no physical death, they are reborn for the third time, when the priests link the prince's mind to the Imperial Core, and their training in the PsiTek sciences is begun. In this phase of their training they are assigned their own household and use their PsiTek abilities to impress these key servants with their own loyalty matrix. It is during this time that the prince's entire persona is recorded in the Imperial Core, a persona that will be constantly updated through the prince's entire life, as long as they are within PsiTek contact with a temple nexus. If they are killed, that persona can be downloaded into the one or more clone bodies that the priests of the Aspect of Weighty Decision may release should the prince be deemed worthy of rebirth.
When their PsiTek training is complete at age sixteen, the princes go to Battle School, to experience two years of extensive military training with the Imperial Navy, the Imperial Army and the Imperial Survey. During this time they are in competition with all other princes and duels and assassinations abound, within the rules laid down by the Emperor.
At eighteen, nearly all the princes graduate and are commissioned into their choice of Imperial service (in the initial game, only the Navy is available). From that point, they are full-fledged princes of the Empire and, subject to the authority of the Emperor and more senior princes, may do as they will.