02: Open Y/N?
Prelude
While I am young, my father took the time to make sure I knew much of the galaxy. I attended the greatest schools Ession could offer, and mastered subjects ranging from history to arithmetic. I did not achieve these things naturally, mind you. I was given special forms of therapy and implants to help accelerate the growth of my mind. I thought as a middle-aged man might at the age of ten, and my wisdom has only grown since taking up the title of Archlord. Thus, I feel qualified to write out my thoughts on the people that populate this galaxy.
Before I begin, I must preface this by making it clear that I do not believe fascism to be a successful form of permanent governance. It is, by far, the most efficient way to lead any state, but it also comes with a myriad of drawbacks that compound every year that it is put into operation.
That being said, one cannot deny the success of both the First Order and the Imperial Remnant. Recently, the Remnant has adopted a moff council, but both these nations were built upon the backs of powerful leaders with visions of grandeur. For the sake of this entry, I will be focusing on how this came to be, rather than what it has become very recently.
Both the Remnant and the First Order could prove to be powerful allies for the Dominion, though both have their own conflicts that I suspect they will be embroiled in for another decade at the least. Both stem from the galactic empire of old, of which my family served in the upper echelons for the entirety of its existence. Eventually that empire evolved into the Fels, which then shattered and reformed a few dozen times between now and the Gulag Plague.
A Fel has not shown up in the galaxy in many years. Whilst the Grayson family stems from the Fels, our blood is so diluted that I would have no real claim. I doubt either of these powers would care to hear it anyway.
The relevance, or rather the irrelevance of the Fels aside, both the First Order and the Remnant are their successors.
The First Order
I will start with the First Order, as they are the larger of the two and their history less extensive. The First Order itself cropped up to the north of the infantile Galactic Alliance almost a decade ago on the Essonian calendar. Few saw them as a threat, considering that the tyranny of the One Sith yet remained and most galactic powers were concerned with them. Aside from a few skirmishes with the alliance, the First Order grew within the bosom of the outer rim, far from the great wars that had torn the core worlds asunder.
One would think that such a government would have trouble building any kind of a following in such a poor region of space, but the First Order proved their critics wrong. They utilized Bespin and worlds like it to turn a huge profit, and their policy of high military spending during their earliest growth helped them to maintain a powerful economy.
Soon, my father had killed the Dark Lord of the Sith, leaving the One Sith's corpse for the Galactic Alliance to consume. Suddenly the Sith were no longer a threat, but something else had arisen upon the alliance's borders.
Despite their outward appearance and their full adoption of old imperial policies, the First Order has proven itself to be rather civilized. I can find no example of any war crimes being committed in their name, and those that might have been covered up were done so particularly well. Up until very recently, they've managed to avoid all out war with the alliance as well, though we all knew such a conflict was coming. The alliance, whilst a military oligarchy and an empire in its own right, has a strong distaste for fascism. They espouse individual freedoms that all sentient have a right to from birth, of which I agree.
Even still, the people of the First Order live relatively good lives if my intelligence is correct. I do not expect their government to last particularly longer than their current leadership; I believe when the time comes they will reorganize into a more democratic system. That aside, while the Dominion may disagree vehemently on issues of that like with the First Order, they are the better of the two choices.
Unlike the alliance, they are honest about their intentions, nor do they have anything we can see as particularly abhorrent in their records as of yet.
When dealing with the First Order, it is important to remember one's manners. They are an aristocratic people, one that likely has a mind for expansion beyond their little corner of the galaxy. Play to their egos and they, like the imperials of old, will likely lend you an honest ear. Unlike their predecessors, they have shown a certain honor in war. I believe they would make worthy allies that one could trust, at least until the mutual enemy has been destroyed.
After that, who can say?
The Imperial Remnant
Moving on from the First Order, we come to the Imperial Remnant. Modeled off of the empire of old, the Remnant takes pride in its heritage. Unlike the First Order, the Remnant has a particularly colored history; a history that my family has taken part in directly.
When the Gulag Plague came to an end, the Fel Imperium rose once again. The Imperium was ascendant for a time, though it was plagued by the same problems that it had suffered before the plague. Numerous wars with the late Sith Empire and bloody skirmishes with the Mandalorians left the Fels weakened. Their hold on the Bastion and its sister worlds began to slip, which is when my grandfather took a large contingent of the empire's forces and allied with Darth Vulcanus.
Vulcanus sought to restore the Sith Empire in his image, and my grandfather saw him as the most reliable way to preserve the empire. Unfortunately, his faith was misplaced. My grandfather was killed, our family forced into servitude, and the New Order fell apart shortly thereafter.
Former moffs and admirals then gathered to the north of the Republic, where they created a military junta with the old Galactic Empire in mind. As with all governments of such a sort, the junta collapsed in on itself, with the warlords fighting another over scraps of territory.
A time passed where the remnant fell into obscurity, at least until a number of survivors reformed themselves and allied with the Republic. this went about as well as one might imagine, and eventually the remnant parted ways with its erstwhile allies.
From there, they dispersed for a long time. Eventually some made their way to the outer rim, which was how the First Order was born. Many saw the Order as the future of the empire, but one man saw things differently. Though I've yet to meet him in person and ask him his reasoning, Tanomas Graf and a number of his followers broke off from the order. He and his cult of personality settled over Kamino and its sister worlds, forming their own pocket empire they simply named: The Imperial Remnant.
So far as I can tell, the First Order focuses more on the writings of scholars that tell of a different past than the Remnant. The Remnant believes in the more widely accepted history of the galaxy, and both embrace these different version of the Galactic Empire.
Politically, I expect the Remnant will have to be similarity dealt with. They seem to have more of a mind for slaughter and a general disregard for the lives of those not within their borders, which the First Order does not have. They hold far less power than the First Order, yet they seem to share the same level of ambition. I will have to deal with Graf and his followers personally. I do not know if they would make worthy allies, though their eagerness for conflict may prove to be useful in the same way that the Mandalorians are.
At best, they may prove themselves to be a capable power in the south. If they prove themselves and focus more on self-improvement and the betterment of the people, they could make for loyal allies. At worst, they could either be a weapon to use against our enemies in the south, or another obstacle to be dealt with accordingly. Time will tell how things go. Tanomas Graf is a wild card to say the least, and I can't predict what he intends until I look him in the eyes. I sincerely hope they prove themselves to be capable, I would rather avoid yet another senseless war if at all possible.
We have more important things to deal with as a galaxy - the Arch Enemy grows ever stronger beyond the veil.
Personal Report: 01
It was recommended that I record my thoughts and feelings on...well, myself as well as the state of the galaxy. The counselor said that it would help me cope with my rather unique circumstances, and since I cannot tell her how I feel, I should at least tell myself.
I am terrified of what I have wrought.
The Dominion has arisen from the ashes of Atrisia as a galactic superpower. Within a year, we have amassed a fleet and the resources required to operate it from virtually nothing. I personally command one of the most powerful vessels in the galaxy, and our armies swell in the upper thousands. Dozens of worlds have already joined our cause - the senate is bloated with politicians from every corner of the stars.
Every day, I get up and review the state of this union. Every day I attend to the senate as its guardian, dealing with men bickering men and women for hours on end. I lead crusades across the stars, and my mind interlaces with every man under my command. I have felt the death of millions in the hearts of those that have died. I have felt the courage of my men, the triumph they feel when they slog through a particularly terrifying battle, the relief that washes over them when the mortar fire around them finally ceases.
I maintain the peace between the Jedi and the Sith. Were it not for my position as their focal point, I fully believe they would have slaughtered one another by now. Diplomats from lands I have never heard of come to offer deals of trade or military alliances. Young queens and daughters of royalty attempt to garner my attentions any time I leave my duties for a bit of respite.
All these women want is the Dominion. All these strangers want is what we have built with our blood and the lives of those fallen. I have no doubt in my mind that we will continue to find success, and the weight of what we have forged keeps me awake in the earliest hours of the morning.
I am only seventeen years old. Today is my birthday, but no one knows of it. I have no friends, only acquaintances, and I have never felt love like other young men have. I've never been to a party, nor have I ever spent an evening flirting with the pretty young things that I see wandering across the streets. I've never been intoxicated; I've never had my father pick me up from a precinct after a night of fun.
My life thus far has been ruling and conquering. I am nothing else. The Dominion is me and I am it. Was this what my parents wished of me when they made the decision to have a child? Was this what my mother, who only wanted to own a small farm in Ession's wilds would have wanted of us? Is this the future my father saw when he plunged his sword through the Dark Lord's heart?
I do not know, nor will I ever know. I cannot relent, for the Dominion is still fragile and will falter if I do. I enjoy the conquest and the games of politics, of that I will not lie, but my heart aches. I have not known love since I was very young, and friendship is a foreign concept to me. I think I have a vague concept of these feelings from my observation of others and the shreds of memories I receive when connecting with the minds of my soldiers, but even those are hollow feelings.
The Dark Side cannot touch me because I do not feel. I am the perfect Jedi because I have no empathy. My compassion is a false thing that I take to only because I know it is the right thing to do. I am the purity of the Jedi Order given form. My entire life is built upon the old order's doctrines.
I am the leader my father promised, and I will head this army against the abyss until my dying days, but I worry. I cannot speak of my issues with any living being, for my rulership would be seen as weak. I am little save for contempt and ambition, yet I feel nothing.
I am the Jedi Lord. I am the force. I am the Archlord of the Dominion.
And yet I worry that I do not have a soul.
Prelude
While I am young, my father took the time to make sure I knew much of the galaxy. I attended the greatest schools Ession could offer, and mastered subjects ranging from history to arithmetic. I did not achieve these things naturally, mind you. I was given special forms of therapy and implants to help accelerate the growth of my mind. I thought as a middle-aged man might at the age of ten, and my wisdom has only grown since taking up the title of Archlord. Thus, I feel qualified to write out my thoughts on the people that populate this galaxy.
Before I begin, I must preface this by making it clear that I do not believe fascism to be a successful form of permanent governance. It is, by far, the most efficient way to lead any state, but it also comes with a myriad of drawbacks that compound every year that it is put into operation.
That being said, one cannot deny the success of both the First Order and the Imperial Remnant. Recently, the Remnant has adopted a moff council, but both these nations were built upon the backs of powerful leaders with visions of grandeur. For the sake of this entry, I will be focusing on how this came to be, rather than what it has become very recently.
Both the Remnant and the First Order could prove to be powerful allies for the Dominion, though both have their own conflicts that I suspect they will be embroiled in for another decade at the least. Both stem from the galactic empire of old, of which my family served in the upper echelons for the entirety of its existence. Eventually that empire evolved into the Fels, which then shattered and reformed a few dozen times between now and the Gulag Plague.
A Fel has not shown up in the galaxy in many years. Whilst the Grayson family stems from the Fels, our blood is so diluted that I would have no real claim. I doubt either of these powers would care to hear it anyway.
The relevance, or rather the irrelevance of the Fels aside, both the First Order and the Remnant are their successors.
The First Order
I will start with the First Order, as they are the larger of the two and their history less extensive. The First Order itself cropped up to the north of the infantile Galactic Alliance almost a decade ago on the Essonian calendar. Few saw them as a threat, considering that the tyranny of the One Sith yet remained and most galactic powers were concerned with them. Aside from a few skirmishes with the alliance, the First Order grew within the bosom of the outer rim, far from the great wars that had torn the core worlds asunder.
One would think that such a government would have trouble building any kind of a following in such a poor region of space, but the First Order proved their critics wrong. They utilized Bespin and worlds like it to turn a huge profit, and their policy of high military spending during their earliest growth helped them to maintain a powerful economy.
Soon, my father had killed the Dark Lord of the Sith, leaving the One Sith's corpse for the Galactic Alliance to consume. Suddenly the Sith were no longer a threat, but something else had arisen upon the alliance's borders.
Despite their outward appearance and their full adoption of old imperial policies, the First Order has proven itself to be rather civilized. I can find no example of any war crimes being committed in their name, and those that might have been covered up were done so particularly well. Up until very recently, they've managed to avoid all out war with the alliance as well, though we all knew such a conflict was coming. The alliance, whilst a military oligarchy and an empire in its own right, has a strong distaste for fascism. They espouse individual freedoms that all sentient have a right to from birth, of which I agree.
Even still, the people of the First Order live relatively good lives if my intelligence is correct. I do not expect their government to last particularly longer than their current leadership; I believe when the time comes they will reorganize into a more democratic system. That aside, while the Dominion may disagree vehemently on issues of that like with the First Order, they are the better of the two choices.
Unlike the alliance, they are honest about their intentions, nor do they have anything we can see as particularly abhorrent in their records as of yet.
When dealing with the First Order, it is important to remember one's manners. They are an aristocratic people, one that likely has a mind for expansion beyond their little corner of the galaxy. Play to their egos and they, like the imperials of old, will likely lend you an honest ear. Unlike their predecessors, they have shown a certain honor in war. I believe they would make worthy allies that one could trust, at least until the mutual enemy has been destroyed.
After that, who can say?
The Imperial Remnant
Moving on from the First Order, we come to the Imperial Remnant. Modeled off of the empire of old, the Remnant takes pride in its heritage. Unlike the First Order, the Remnant has a particularly colored history; a history that my family has taken part in directly.
When the Gulag Plague came to an end, the Fel Imperium rose once again. The Imperium was ascendant for a time, though it was plagued by the same problems that it had suffered before the plague. Numerous wars with the late Sith Empire and bloody skirmishes with the Mandalorians left the Fels weakened. Their hold on the Bastion and its sister worlds began to slip, which is when my grandfather took a large contingent of the empire's forces and allied with Darth Vulcanus.
Vulcanus sought to restore the Sith Empire in his image, and my grandfather saw him as the most reliable way to preserve the empire. Unfortunately, his faith was misplaced. My grandfather was killed, our family forced into servitude, and the New Order fell apart shortly thereafter.
Former moffs and admirals then gathered to the north of the Republic, where they created a military junta with the old Galactic Empire in mind. As with all governments of such a sort, the junta collapsed in on itself, with the warlords fighting another over scraps of territory.
A time passed where the remnant fell into obscurity, at least until a number of survivors reformed themselves and allied with the Republic. this went about as well as one might imagine, and eventually the remnant parted ways with its erstwhile allies.
From there, they dispersed for a long time. Eventually some made their way to the outer rim, which was how the First Order was born. Many saw the Order as the future of the empire, but one man saw things differently. Though I've yet to meet him in person and ask him his reasoning, Tanomas Graf and a number of his followers broke off from the order. He and his cult of personality settled over Kamino and its sister worlds, forming their own pocket empire they simply named: The Imperial Remnant.
So far as I can tell, the First Order focuses more on the writings of scholars that tell of a different past than the Remnant. The Remnant believes in the more widely accepted history of the galaxy, and both embrace these different version of the Galactic Empire.
Politically, I expect the Remnant will have to be similarity dealt with. They seem to have more of a mind for slaughter and a general disregard for the lives of those not within their borders, which the First Order does not have. They hold far less power than the First Order, yet they seem to share the same level of ambition. I will have to deal with Graf and his followers personally. I do not know if they would make worthy allies, though their eagerness for conflict may prove to be useful in the same way that the Mandalorians are.
At best, they may prove themselves to be a capable power in the south. If they prove themselves and focus more on self-improvement and the betterment of the people, they could make for loyal allies. At worst, they could either be a weapon to use against our enemies in the south, or another obstacle to be dealt with accordingly. Time will tell how things go. Tanomas Graf is a wild card to say the least, and I can't predict what he intends until I look him in the eyes. I sincerely hope they prove themselves to be capable, I would rather avoid yet another senseless war if at all possible.
We have more important things to deal with as a galaxy - the Arch Enemy grows ever stronger beyond the veil.
Personal Report: 01
It was recommended that I record my thoughts and feelings on...well, myself as well as the state of the galaxy. The counselor said that it would help me cope with my rather unique circumstances, and since I cannot tell her how I feel, I should at least tell myself.
I am terrified of what I have wrought.
The Dominion has arisen from the ashes of Atrisia as a galactic superpower. Within a year, we have amassed a fleet and the resources required to operate it from virtually nothing. I personally command one of the most powerful vessels in the galaxy, and our armies swell in the upper thousands. Dozens of worlds have already joined our cause - the senate is bloated with politicians from every corner of the stars.
Every day, I get up and review the state of this union. Every day I attend to the senate as its guardian, dealing with men bickering men and women for hours on end. I lead crusades across the stars, and my mind interlaces with every man under my command. I have felt the death of millions in the hearts of those that have died. I have felt the courage of my men, the triumph they feel when they slog through a particularly terrifying battle, the relief that washes over them when the mortar fire around them finally ceases.
I maintain the peace between the Jedi and the Sith. Were it not for my position as their focal point, I fully believe they would have slaughtered one another by now. Diplomats from lands I have never heard of come to offer deals of trade or military alliances. Young queens and daughters of royalty attempt to garner my attentions any time I leave my duties for a bit of respite.
All these women want is the Dominion. All these strangers want is what we have built with our blood and the lives of those fallen. I have no doubt in my mind that we will continue to find success, and the weight of what we have forged keeps me awake in the earliest hours of the morning.
I am only seventeen years old. Today is my birthday, but no one knows of it. I have no friends, only acquaintances, and I have never felt love like other young men have. I've never been to a party, nor have I ever spent an evening flirting with the pretty young things that I see wandering across the streets. I've never been intoxicated; I've never had my father pick me up from a precinct after a night of fun.
My life thus far has been ruling and conquering. I am nothing else. The Dominion is me and I am it. Was this what my parents wished of me when they made the decision to have a child? Was this what my mother, who only wanted to own a small farm in Ession's wilds would have wanted of us? Is this the future my father saw when he plunged his sword through the Dark Lord's heart?
I do not know, nor will I ever know. I cannot relent, for the Dominion is still fragile and will falter if I do. I enjoy the conquest and the games of politics, of that I will not lie, but my heart aches. I have not known love since I was very young, and friendship is a foreign concept to me. I think I have a vague concept of these feelings from my observation of others and the shreds of memories I receive when connecting with the minds of my soldiers, but even those are hollow feelings.
The Dark Side cannot touch me because I do not feel. I am the perfect Jedi because I have no empathy. My compassion is a false thing that I take to only because I know it is the right thing to do. I am the purity of the Jedi Order given form. My entire life is built upon the old order's doctrines.
I am the leader my father promised, and I will head this army against the abyss until my dying days, but I worry. I cannot speak of my issues with any living being, for my rulership would be seen as weak. I am little save for contempt and ambition, yet I feel nothing.
I am the Jedi Lord. I am the force. I am the Archlord of the Dominion.
And yet I worry that I do not have a soul.
