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The rule of the New Leaders has evolved into an oligarchy, with the surviving New Leaders taking control of the various government ministries. The policies of the New Leaders have moderated somewhat during this period, however, they are even more determined to remove or reduce the threat from the other races. They continue to focus on two goals, transferring useable infrastructure (factories, labs, etc.) from populations to be eliminated, and eliminating the offending populations.
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October 14, 2366
A newly constructed tug group arrives in orbit over Madras Prime. Shortly after arriving the tugs link up with the two commercial shipyards in orbit over the planet and began towing them towards the warp point to New Birmingham. The tugs will take almost two years to reach their destination. This is the first step in the ruling council’s plan to reduce the threat from the aliens within the area controlled by the Zog race.
December 7, 2366
Four very large ships settle into orbit over Madras Prime. For now they remain quiescent, waiting. The Zog orbital controllers on the ground were ordered to assign the ships into parking orbits, then to forget about them. None of the Madras were told about the ships. For now the ships remain silent, buttoned up.
December 9, 2366
A Zog geo-survey ship that had just entered the Wolf 629 system detected a civilization on the system’s innermost planet shortly after recovering from the transit. The ship transited out again, back to the Gliese 752 system where it sent an emergency message to the Frontier Fleet guard group over New Birmingham. The Group’s commander immediately dispatched a message warning both the Home Fleet and the Frontier Fleet about the new race.
December 11, 2366
Colonel Dlevravrevliashav received permission to begin operations against the new race on this date. Concurrently, the four large ships in orbit over Madras Prime received orders to begin operations. The four ships were the Zog race’s first Zogformer ships, and they immediately began altering the atmosphere of the Madras home world.
Even as the Frontier Fleet ships returned to Planter Prime to refuel and rearm before departing, the Zogformer ships over Madras Prime began releasing nano-bots programmed to reduce the oxygen content of the atmosphere.
December 14, 2366
On this date a detachment of the Frontier Fleet departed Planter Prime for Wolf 629. The detachment consisted of twenty-six warships, two jump-ships, and three large support ships, each carrying eight gunboats.
An Overview of the Zog Empire
As has been noted elsewhere, the rulers of the Zog Expanses change on a semi-regular basis, and along with the rulers their basic policies change as well. While this may seem to be a rather haphazard way of ruling an interstellar empire, in reality it works quite well for the Zogs, primarily because in reality the Zog Expanses are ruled by an entrenched bureaucracy. While the ruling party changes, sometimes bloodily, and the top echelons of the bureaucracy often changes with the parties, the bureaucracy continues regardless. Taxes are collected, garbage hauled away, and criminals suppressed regardless of the changes at the top. The bureaucracy has been largely immune to the constant change that the Zog political system imposes on the government, and it is this bedrock that the system depends on to continue functioning.
The Zog bureaucracy permeates all Zog organizations, including the military and the conquests, and is largely responsible for binding the Expanses together into one cohesive organization, often in spite of the ruling party. There have been several occasions in the last one hundred years when the bureaucrats rose up and overthrew the political rulers of the time, however, this was not a fundamental change of the system and the new rulers simply became the new political party, ephemeral as all of the other Zog parties.
Based on its experience both before and during the warp point collapse, the Zog government has decided that embarking on a massive colonization program will inevitably lead to endless civil wars that will ultimately result in the extinction of the race. Therefore, colonization has been forbidden. To bolster Zog strength in lieu of colonization previous governments have embarked on the conquest of other races, and this has led to the establishment of significant extra-systemic forces. To reduce the risk of rebellion, the government and the military have instituted significant controls to limit the ability of the military forces deployed beyond the home system to compete with or even survive without the home system. Some of these controls will be covered below.
Currently, the Zog Expanses are organized into two divisions, the Zog Direct Rule Zone, and the Organized Frontier Section.
Zog Direct Rule Zone
The Direct Rule Zone includes the Zog home system Gliese 563.2, as well as the resource systems of EG-165 and Lacaille 9352. The Gliese 563.2 system is the location of the planet that is now known as the Treasure House, and has been deemed important enough to warrant direct control by the home system’s bureaucracy and military. The four systems in between Zog Prime and the Treasure House are all uninhabited and unexploited, and are considered “Shared Responsibility” systems with the Organized Frontier Section. This gives the Zog Direct Rule Zone control of four exploited planets:
Zog Prime (Zog Home System):
Population: 11.545 billion
Industry: 9,500
Mines (All): 3,101
Labs: 480
SY: 15/54
Hell (Zog Home System):
Mines (all): 517
EG-165 (Adjacent to the Zog system)
Mines (All): 1467 (Located on three different moons and planets)
Lacaille 9352 (Adjacent to the Zog system)
Mines (All): 1241 (Located on three different moons and planets)
Gateway (Gliese 563.2):
Mines (All): 412 (awaiting transport to Treasure House)
Treasure House (Gliese 563.2)
Mines (All): 1084
Zog Military Forces Assigned to the Direct Rule Zone
The Zog Home Fleet possesses the best technology deployed by the Zog race. This includes SCAM drives and the cloaking devices deployed on the latest generation of Home Fleet ships. To limit the ability of the Frontier Fleet to resist the Home Fleet if direct intervention becomes necessary the two systems listed above, along with advanced ECM/ECCM systems, have been limited to deployment on the Home Fleet. The commander of the Frontier Fleet has mounted a near continuous campaign to obtain access to more advanced technology for his fleet and has in fact succeeded in several cases, but only in limited circumstances. This is not likely to change unless an overwhelming threat is encountered.
Home Fleet (Zog Home System)
4xLarge Support Ship
16xMunitions Ship
3xGlamatus Mk 3B Strike Cruisers
14xGlamatus Mk 2 Strike Cruisers
4xGomalus Mk 3 Jump Cruisers
17xDuldrus Mk 3 Area Defense Cruisers
13xDulduros Mk 3 Bombardment Cruisers
25xDulalas Mk 3 Missile Destroyers
4xDulalas Mk 2 Missile Destroyers
32xTrinthasil Gunboats
Home Fleet Detachment Gliese 563.2
2xGlamatus Mk 3B Strike Cruisers
1xGomalus Mk 3 Jump Cruisers
2xDuldrus Mk 3 Area Defense Cruisers
3xDulduros Mk 3 Bombardment Cruisers
6xDulalas Mk 3 Missile Destroyers
Organized Frontier Section
The Frontier Section includes all exploited systems outside of the Direct Rule Zone. To date this includes the three conquered species and their planets and colonies. Initially, the conquest of these races proved to be very problematic for the Zogs in light of their “no colonization” policy. Because of this policy the Zogs were prevented from shipping in administrators for the newly conquered races, which meant that they must rely on the conquered races to police themselves. There were army units garrisoning the planets, of course, but without administrators the combat units were hampered in their ability to deal with the populace and in effectively integrating the conquered territories into the economy of the Zog Expanses. In the end the Zog bureaucracy solved this problem by compromising. Large groups of administrators were sent to each conquered world, and doomed, environment-controlled cities were built to house them. These were not considered colonies though, and the administrators posted to these new cities were not colonists. A prerequisite of assignment to one of these new “Administration Centers” was a five-year contraception implant. Tours of duty were three years, with a possible one year extension. Administrators were given bonuses for completion of their tour and promotion on their return, encouraging them to consider their assignment as temporary, not an existence separate from the home world. In typical Zog conquest philosophy the new Administration Centers were built right in the center of the most heavily populated continent on each conquered planet. The Administration Centers were built to house 100,000 Zog administrators, no more or less. The one exception to this was the Administration Center on Planter Prime, which is the capital of the Organized Frontier Section.
Planter Prime
Location: Gliese 667
Population: 1.689 billion (Zog Population: 70,000)
Industry: 1,304
Mines (All): 1,455
Labs: 28
SY: 11/33
Planter Prime is inhabited by a race the Zogs refer to as the “Planters”. This is a derogatory term, based on the fact that the Planters have devoted immense resources to farming efforts on their home planet, and are in fact expert agriculturalists. The Planters are amphibious, and prefer wet environments. Most Planter cities are built near water, and most have access to marshy areas, either natural or artificial. The Planters themselves average 1.7-2 meters of height, have dark brown, leathery skin and large, bulbous eyes. The Planters require an environment somewhat warmer than the Zogs (ideal temp for Zogs is -5.5, while for Planters it is 1.2). Preferred gravity is almost identical, but the Planters require much more oxygen in their atmosphere than the Zogs. This is true of almost all races encountered to date, as the Zogs require only .01 atmospheres of oxygen to thrive. Of all of the conquered races, the Planters are the most cooperative and have proved to be the most valuable. The Planters almost seem relieved to no longer have the burden of their own defense, and have more or less enthusiastically participated in the Zog military build up of their system.
The Zogs maintain one mining colony in the Gliese 667 system, on an asteroid of the “C” component. There are also several civilian mining efforts in the system.
Planter Prime Colony
Location: Gliese 680 (Adjacent to the Planter Home System)
Population: 1.689 billion (Zog Population: 70,000)
Industry: 11.57 million (all Planter)
Mines (All): 159
There are also two automated resource extraction efforts in the Gliese 680 system, comprising a total of 237 automated mines.
Madras Prime
Location: Herschel 5173
Population: 253.79 million (Zog Population: 90,000)
Industry: 0
Mines (All): 700
Labs: 0
SY: 0/0 (The two commercial shipyards that used to orbit this planet are being moved to New Birmingham)
The Madras are humanoid, with deep blue coloring and otherwise indistinguishable from humans, at least externally. The Madras are very spiritual, and have shown little interest in the day to day problems of running a civilization. This attitude likely explains their easy conquest by the Zogs. In addition, this racial attitude explains why they have made poor subjects. The Madras are always going off on pilgrimages or retreats, leaving vital work projects standing still for months or years. The Madras prefer a warmer climate than the Zogs or Planters (ideal temp 16.6 degrees). The Madras home planet has a gravity slightly lower than that of Zog (within 5%), and, as noted elsewhere, the Madras require much more oxygen than the Zogs.
New Birmingham
Location: Gliese 752
Population: 713.15 million (Zog Population: 50,000)
Industry: 881
Mines (All): 1,741
Labs: 0
SY: 5/15
New Birmingham is populated by the Zog’s old enemies, the Humans, and is a former Imperial colony isolated when the warp points collapsed. The Humans require much more oxygen than Zogs, and a higher temperature. In addition, the Humans evolved under a gravity approximately 1.4 times that of the Zog home planet. The New Birmingham humans have apparently reconciled themselves to being conquered and controlled by the Zogs, although the Zogs do not trust them. The only reason the Humans weren’t scheduled for the test run of the racial elimination system first instead of the Madras is that the Humans are actually useful and the Madras contribute little to the Zog Expanses.
Zog Military Forces assigned to the Organized Frontier Section
Frontier Fleet (Gliese 667)
8xDuldrus(M) Area Defense Cruisers
4xGomalus Mk-2IJ Jump Cruisers
9xMunitions Ships
9xDuldurlos class Bombardment Cruisers
2xGlamatus class Strike Cruisers
12xAigthasil class Missile Destroyers
9xDulalas class Missile Destroyers
Frontier Fleet Detachment #2 (Delta Pavonis, en route to Wolf 629)
3xLarge Support Ships
7xDuldrus(M) class Area Defense Cruisers
2xGomalus Mk-2IJ Jump Cruisers
5xDuldurlos class Bombardment Cruisers
6xGlamatus class Strike Cruisers
8xAigthasil class Missile Destroyers
24xTrithasil class Gunboats
Guard Group, Madras Prime (Herschel 5173)
1xDuldrus(M) Area Defense Cruisers
1xGomalus Mk-2IJ Jump Cruisers
1xDuldurlos class Bombardment Cruisers
4xDulalas class Missile Destroyers
Guard Group New Birmingham (Gliese 752)
1xDuldrus(M) Area Defense Cruisers
1xGomalus Mk-2IJ Jump Cruisers
1xGlamatus class Strike Cruisers
4xDulalas class Missile Destroyers
