Author Topic: The Unification Wars - The Founding of Lanquassia  (Read 3065 times)

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Offline Summercat (OP)

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The Unification Wars - The Founding of Lanquassia
« on: October 06, 2006, 08:53:13 AM »
Beginings of something kinda random, decided to post it here

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Lanquassia

In the course of analyzing the first stage of the unification wars, one must approach each of the eleven powers as their own entity, unlike different factions of the same entity they are today. This is as true for Earth as it is for Novo Roma, and it is as true for New Edo as it was for Lanquassia.

The Order of the Oblong Table

Long before the Heinz-Ramkin was developed, opening the stars to humanity, a quest to conquer space was effectivly led by the Order of the Oblong Table. The Order's orgins are shrouded in mystery, and at least four 'official' histories provided from the knighthood have been debunked. The first mention of the Order was in 2008, as part of a document on astro-biology.

Regardless of their origins, the Order soon exploded in public membership, with dozens of amatur astronomers and science-majors joining every year. Undisclosed supporters of the Order allowed the launching of a deep space telescope in 2011, and the Order's first manned mission in space in 2013. Although some scientists and journalists were mebers of the Order, most worked for government programs and not directly for the Order's stated purpose of exploring and exploiting space.

Like England's Order of the British Empire, the Order of the Oblong Table had a merit-based membership and ranking scheme. Unlike the OBE, the OOT did have a rank and order structure, although this was understood to only take effect while a member was working directly for the Order.

When the Heinz-Ramkin FTL engine was developed in 2018, the first survey ship had only one crew member that belonged to the OOT, however, by 2032, most of the United Nations Space Exploration Command's ships were commanded, if not completly crewed, by the Order.

The Order's Role in the 'First Colony' era

Of the 60 or so habitable worlds discovered by the time of the Unification Wars, 34 were discovered by the Order. In 2044, when the first colony ship from Earth to Alpha Centauri was launched, the Order had stayed entirely in the field of exploration, but by 2053, sentiments had apparently changed, and the Order started laying down and constructing cargo and multiple-use colony ships.

In 2055, when the first of the Cobalt-class of colony ships was completed, the Order was approached by a conglomorate of minor powers in Southeast-Asia and Pacifica, wishing to charter the Cobalt to colonize a planet around Pho's Star. The Order, after a short debate within its command, agreed, and helped colonize Lutra. Later, they did the same for Coral in 2058.

It was at the end of the colonization effort of Coral when the Order announced they would, themselves, colonize a world. In 2060, the Order's ships left the orbit of Earth, bearing with them the majority of their members. They came to a pre-selected world, and named their new home, Lanquassia.

After Lanquassia was colonized, the Order continued to work for UNSEC to explore and discover new worlds and systems, up until the United Nation's dissolution in 2074, two weeks after Earth's WWIII began.

To this day, the Order still acts under UNSEC's guidelines of sharing all exploration information with everyone, and continues to lead the expansion of the human frontier, and lead the cautious probing of Drdj territory.

Lanquassia's Early Days

At first glance, and even the second, Lanquassia seemed to be a near garden world, as near-Earth as any world. At the first, exagerated reports from the colony, various organizations accused the Order of the Oblong Table of hiding the existance of Lanquassia, until the Order, in an unusually direct reply, mentioned that the existance of the world had been logged some ten years prior.

Exagerated reports or not, Lanquassia would have been a major puzzle to Astro-biologists of 60 years prior - the atmosphere was easily breathable, and the vegetable and animal life both edible and digestable by humans. However, a planet that is even partially habitable by humans appears to be another effective copy of Earth's biosphere, although often with interesting variations.

The Lanquassia System only has six planets - 2 rocky planets close in, 3 gas giants, then a frozen iceball right on the hyper limit. In between the third and fourth planets is an impressive ring of asteroids that could have once been a large moon or a small planet, torn apart by its neighbor gas-giants. The asteroids were mineral rich, and the Order's experiance in deep space operations made the metals easy to acquire for Lanquassia's burgoning industry.

Because of the Order's direct involvement in the colonization of Lanquassia, the planet quickly caught up and outpaced it's older siblings, enough so that when refugees started pouring in from Earth to all the colonies in 2075-2080, many refugees could not tell the difference between their old home and their new.

Unlike many of the colony worlds, the citizens of Lanquassia did not shun or disparege the refugees who came to live amoung them, but instead did their best to intigrate them into the new society that was arising on the world.

It was in 2081, near the end of the Final War on Earth, that the Order officially relinquished control of the newly-formed Federation of Lanquassia, and instead swore itself to its service as roving officials, or Justices of the Peace among the world - and later, it's daughter worlds.

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To be continued. Whew, one entry. I think I ought to break it down later on for my wiki - nix as much of the Order from the Lanquassia entry...and put it in its own...
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Summercat »
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