Rocarro / The World Engine (WRopT)

[Kal]

"A mysterious megastructure is discovered around a star."
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• Intent: An inoperative planet-builder for Wondrous Ruins of the Past.
• Image Credit: Planet Printer and Expedition to the Canyon of Gods by Logan Turner. Srina's Contest Headers.
  
  • Builders' Bulwark - Rakatan Ship, Jan Duursema.
• Canon: N/A
• Permissions: N/A
• Links: Kwa, Gree, Rakata.

• Planet Name: Rocarro / The World Engine
• Demonym: Rocarrian / Various local variants.
• Region: Deep Core, roughly midway between Byss and Odik.
• System Name: Ducion-40 (Designation) / Various local variants.
• System Features: Ducion-40 is a small system whose planets orbit quite far away from the bright star at its centre.
  
  • Ducion-40: A fairly young B-type star, Ducion-40 is large and almost painfully bright - the two habitable planets are fairly distant due to its intense radiation output. Approximately 21% of its surface area is obstructed by a Dyson Swarm; this aged array has suffered from millennia of lacking maintenance but is still semi-functional. Since the World Engine no longer functions as intended, spacers can semi-safely tap into the swarm's enormous power surplus to top-up their own fuel reserves. Just don't poke any automated defences.
  • Callistheria: There is evidence to suggest that this sun-scorched world once housed verdant jungles and vibrant seas. Unfortunately, some sort of ancient cataclysm pushed it closer to its host star; the seas and much of the atmosphere have long since boiled away as a result. The remaining water is largely contained within slow-moving banks of searing steam. Despite this, life clings to caverns deep below the surface - this is believed to be the work of some kind of automated terraforming system capable of moderate improvisation.
  • Morsanquia: Rocarro's tropical sister world, Morsanquia orbits a bit closer to their shared star. Its surface is covered by a massive ocean interspersed with numerous islands and archipelagos as well as a few larger landmasses. Flesh Raiders dominate the world; if there were once other Sentient inhabitants they have long since been wiped out by the mutated lower-caste Rakata. The planet has a difficult to explain population of Dragon Turtles, namely Longmaws and Reefbacks - despite the two being native to different worlds.
  • Rocarro / The World Engine: Rocarro is about sixty percent of a fully-formed planet hugged by a colossal megastructure frozen in the middle of its construction sequence. The planetary core's heat is retained by a seemingly unbreakable force field of alien make. It is somewhat unclear how the planet has a stable gravitational field. Days are slightly shorter than Coruscant standard at twenty-three hours; due to its distance from the local star, Rocarro has an orbital period of nearly three thousand local days. There do not seem to be any sort of clearly defined seasons, however - a terraforming system has locked it in some sort of 'neverending spring'.
• Location: Deep Core, roughly midway between Byss and Odik.
• Major Imports: N/A, the locals are incapable of spaceflight.
• Major Exports: N/A, the locals are incapable of spaceflight.
• Unexploited Resources: Gree Artefacts, Kwa Artefacts, miscellaneous salvage.

• Gravity: 1.01 Standard
• Climate: Temperate, unusually hospitable.
• Primary Terrain: Grasslands, Forests, Oceans.
• Atmosphere: Type I (Rocarro) | Variable (The World Engine)

• Capital City: N/A, the planet is not unified.
• Planetary Features: Kwa Ruins, Terraforming Systems, Pre-Industrial Settlements.
• Major Locations: Rocarro is dotted by numerous villages and hamlets and a dozen or so proper cities. Life is abundant and thriving, making it easy for the locals to feed themselves - droughts are all but unheard of, under ordinary circumstances food can be grown year-round. While civilisation has spread across much of the planet, there are still wild places aplenty, primarily forests and the odd jungle or swamp.
• Force Nexus: The Canyon of Gods is a large T-Shaped canyon into which dozens of Kwa faces have been carved, each depicting a being that the ancients greatly respected, from famous philosophers-poets to great warriors. Many have entered local myths as gods or spirits.
  
  • Intent: A Kwa memorial repurposed by the locals.
  • Nexus Name: The Canyon of Gods
  • Nexus Alignment: Neutral, Light-leaning.
  • Size: Medium; a narrow canyon seven-point-eight kilometres in total length.
  • Strength: Moderate; has a tangible, but not overwhelming, effect on its surroundings.
  • Accessibility: Guarded by Morrahani warriors and a major population of Whuffa worms. The Canyon of Gods is by far the most sacred site on the planet, according to Morrahani doctrine - outsiders are likely to be questioned or attacked outright, though anyone able to wield the Force might be able to pass themselves off as a pilgrim or even a prophet. Morrahani Witch-Priests would surely investigate.
  • Effects: The Canyon of Gods confers a sense of unyielding permanence; entropy itself is partially suspended within the canyon proper, keeping the faces intact despite the passage of millennia and slowing the ageing of people who reside there long-term. The memory of the beings the faces honour seem almost tangible here; visions and hallucinations of the Kwa and their greatest works are common.

Spoiler: Canyon of Gods

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• The Continent: Nearly eighty percent of Rocarro's landmass is formed together into a massive continent hugging the Edge.
  
  • Highport is the capital of the Aidine Empire and the largest city on the planet. A sprawling metropolis spreading out from a deepwater port located in massive cove sheltered from the environment, this city of cities serves as the beating heart of the Empire, a mazework of politicised bureaucracy from which all laws flow and to which all roads lead. Recent innovations have led to the construction of tall 'anchorage towers' to which airships can anchor. The tidy city grid and tall stone structures of Highport is the pride of the Aidine.
  • The Wicked West is the Aidine term for the dense jungles and foggy swamps from which the most embittered Calthids launch raids in the hopes of toppling their Empire. The land is hostile and the locals even more so, at least to those who look Aidine - avoid tidy rows of buttons, neatly braided hair, shiny slugthrowers, and a fear-induced twitchiness if you wish to traverse this region unmolested.
  • Emberfall is a massive crater nearly seventeen kilometres across positioned on the border between the Aidine Empire and a Morrahani Kingdom. It was scoured of all life by an ancient weapon of such terrible potency that life still shuns it - its blackened soil can sustain only the hardiest of life. This eerie site is a known gathering place of the reviled Dark Side Cult known as the Chosen of the Builders.
  • Sentinel's Rest, a town in the immediate proximity of the Canyon of Gods, is a neutral meeting place where Morrahani monarchs and foreign diplomats converge to peacefully resolve their issues within eyesight of the gods - and a number of heavily-armed and mostly impartial warriors sworn to their defence. When the Conclave gathers, it often does so here, though it is a point of constant debate and much contention that the Wizards of the Aidine and Warlocks of the Mezrani are only rarely permitted into the Canyon itself.
  • Stormpeak, while not the largest, is certainly the strangest and most prestigious settlement erected by the Mezrani Clans - it is nestled against the Edge of the World atop a thousand-metre (half-finished) mountain. Airships or endurance is required to reach it, for while paths do climb the mountainside they are steep and dangerous. The settlement itself is largely carved from the rock with some sort of Gree energy tools; the heavily-fortified stronghold at its heart holds the 'Superweapon' of the Mezrani, a Gree torpedo launcher able to produce an allegedly endless stream of fort-wrecking bolts. The tinkers of this lofty (literally) place are both skilled and free-thinking.
• The Three Seas: The Continent is surrounded by a major body of water traditionally divided into three more or less distinct seas, namely the Sea of Sorrows (which surrounds the Cursed Land), the Aidine Sea, and the Sea of Spirits (near Morrahani lands).
  
  • The Isle of Kings is a rocky but otherwise geographically unremarkable island a few dozen kilometres from the Morrahani coast. Since a quirk of Morrahani culture prevents their monarchs from bending the knee to any but a fellow Morrahani King/Queen, this island has been made a kingdom of its own - if the Kings and Queens of the Morrahani need to unify behind one not among their number, this individual can be crowned the King/Queen of this uninhabited rock. Naturally, this 'legalese nonsense' is a fairly rare occurence.
  • Jasisian's Paradise is a chain of idyllic subtropical isles recently discovered by Aidine explorers. It is named not after the explorer who found it, but after a long-dead writer whose most famous story was set in exactly such a location - this has proven to be an excellent marketing strategy, allowing the Aidine upper-class to brag about their classical education even as they peruse vacation locations. Well, future vacation locations - the colonies there are quite small and the journey takes almost a week in your average civilian airship.
  • The Maelstrom, otherwise known as Esara's Maw after a Morrahani sea goddess, is a large whirlpool that has endured throughout all of recorded history. In actuality, it is an advanced terraforming system meant to cycle water and purge any contaminants; for this reason, it is located near several major ocean currents. A few especially free-thinking Mezrani scholars have almost stumbled across the truth.
• The Cursed Land: The second-largest landmass on Rocarro is an eight of the Continent's size, but still fairly sizeable; this 'Cursed Land' is a wild and untamed land of rugged steppes, vibrant jungles, and harsh deserts - made all the more inhospitable by the native Flesh Raiders.
  
  • The Bone Roads is the term used to describe a series of gaping holes into the Edge of the World found in the Cursed Lands - and the paths which Flesh Raider war parties have taken to reach the Continent, often under the leadership of the Chosen of the Builders and other Darksiders. Many such paths have been sealed off or fortified, often with forts and in a recent case with hundreds of gunpowder devices rigged to explode if stepped on. None of these methods have managed to fully prevent further incursions, however.
  • Port Vengeance, the only true sign of civilisation in the Cursed Land, is a heavily-militarised Aidine colony. It is encircled by towering stone walls outfitted with some of the heaviest slugthrowers developed by Aidine engineers. A glorified military outpost, there is little to no true civilian industry in the port 'town' - only soldiers, soldiers' families, and the odd merchant or adventurer live here.
  • Builders' Bulwark is an ancient 'stronghold' of unsurpassed endurance, its dark grey walls able to weather the most potent explosives cooked up by the Mezrani without denting. It appears to have sunken into the terrain, with only a long structure reminiscent of a fin visible above the surface. It once held great troves of technology, but little remains in salvageable condition. When the Flesh Raider tribes are unified by some great Warlord or another, they often gather around it - as does the Chosen of the Builders.
• The Edge of the World: This wondrous megastructure once had the potential to 'print' entire planets, but now rests cold and unused at the 'edge' of Rocarro. In places it rises thousands of kilometres into the 'sky', creating an intimidating figure able to blot out the sun.
  
  • The Material Synthesis Array was once a true wonder, a gargantuan network of highly advanced material synthesis devices designed to convert energy from the local star into physical matter, which in turn is used to 'print' an entire planet. The other planets in the system are proof of its effectiveness, though little remains of the once-great array. War, entropy, and scavengers have destroyed most systems and the few that remain could surely only be restored to functionality with long-forgotten techniques and technologies.
  • The Tertiary Control Matrix, the only remaining oversight system, is a damaged AI core of Gree design. It suffers frequent malfunctions yet seems aware of these and the risk they pose - as such, it limits itself to keeping the most critical systems functional as it awaits the return of its creators. It has waited in vain for tens of thousands of years and seems likely to continue to do so until it encounters flaws beyond its ability to repair; as a last resort, its self-destruction would allow backup systems to keep going for several millennia more.
  • The Halls of Slaughter are both graveyard and warzone, a network of battle-scarred tunnels and facilities dotted with the mummified corpses of Kwa and Rakatan warriors and the rusting chassis of destroyed Gree droids. Careful scrutiny would reveal that the Kwa and Gree appear to have fought each other, then joined together to do battle with a Rakatan incursion, then abandoned the station itself.

• Native Species: Whuffa Worms, various lifeforms sourced from Dathomir.
• Immigrated Species: Zabraks. Kwi and Dathomirians arrived 'a few millennia ago'.
• Population: Moderate; roughly four hundred and sixty million sentients across all cultures.
• Demographics: The population of Rocarro is predominantly Zabrak, though a number of Dathomirians arrived 'a few millenia ago' - they have interbred to a certain degree, though tribes or clans of 'pureblooded' Dathomirians can still be found. Speciesism is fairly rare, but tension can arise from a variety of more nuanced ethnic or cultural lines. The planet's most notable cultures are described briefly below.
  
  • The Morrahani are a spiritual people with a larger than average Dathomirian minority. They are fairly numerous and govern a large chunk of the planet's surface through half a dozen closely linked King- and Queendoms and a variety of tribes. Tattoos are a matter of great cultural significance, as are the Kwi - to ride one of them is a great honour. Force Users are influential and relatively plentiful.
  • The Mezrani are a small but powerful offshoot of the Morrahani. Their lands cling to the edge of the World Engine, which they dub the 'Edge of the World'. A nation of tinkers and adventurers, they have successfully restored dozens of handheld Gree energy weapons and a singular 'Superweapon' equivalent to a proton torpedo launcher to working order, enforcing peace with their larger neighbours. They are by far the most scientifically advanced of the planet's inhabitants, having produced a variety of early industrial age devices.
  • The Calthids are a nonhomogeneous category of dozens or hundreds of distinct tribes and groupings lumped together by the Aidine to represent those resistant to civilisation. The word literally means 'savage' in Aesuri - some Calthids take offence while others consider it an acceptable abstraction. The steady expansion of the Aidine Empire has pushed these peoples into jungles and other less-than-hospitable biomes. Their technological, logistical, and numerical inferiority puts them in a truly unenviable position.
  • The Aidine are the backbone of the largest civilisation on Rocarro, an expansionistic empire of the same name. Their culture places great emphasis on contracts, literacy, and numerical precision; many Aidine believe that everything can be explained through the application of sufficiently advanced mathematics. No concepts of racial purity get in the way of expansion: To act Aidine is to be Aidine, even complete outsiders can rise to the highest echelons of power through merit alone. The Aidine Empire always attempts to expand by way of diplomacy or subterfuge before military force is used - the less resistance, the better the treatment; they loathe the Calthids, but even they could conceivably ascend the social hierarchy if only they are willing to fully 'cast off the shackles of their primitive roots'.
• Primary Languages: Meherani (Morrahani and Mezrani), Aesuri (the Aidine), and various smaller languages.
  
  • Meherani is a system of subtle nuance loosely based on the language of the Kwa. It has a dozen subdialects.
  • Aesuri is a careful, often soft language with an emphasis on numerals. Its grammar is laborious and often simplified.
  The Force: Due to a higher-than-average occurrence of Force Sensitivity and various relics from Force-wielding ancients, it should come as no surprise that the Force is an essential part of Rocarrian society, which is not to say that the planet is unified behind one specific tradition.
  
  • The Witch-Priests of the Morrahani are spiritual leaders with significant secular power, tattooed sages with a fondness for prophecy. The warriors among them, the Witch-Knights, are charged with protecting sacred sites and relics - especially the Canyon of Gods.
  • The Warlocks of the Mezrani are free-thinking cousins of the Witch-Priests, tattooed scholars with a loose organisation that fosters a sense of wonder in all they do; those who learn the secrets of speaking to or understanding machines are especially honoured.
  • The Wizards of the Aidine are the most disciplined, centralised tradition by far. They study the secrets of the cosmos in the Celestial College of Highport and frequently wear robes or coats of azure silk. Specialisation is common, as is viewing their power in a more or less scientific light - the Archwizards of the Aidine claim to be able to calculate the fault lines of reality itself through intense study.
  • The Shamans of the Calthids are, like the Calthids themselves, several practices lumped into one by Aidine bureaucrats. Except for a tendency to pass on their teachings from master to apprentice rather than in groups, they have little in common.
  • The Conclave is a loose gathering of Force Users dedicated to avoiding conflict between their respective groups and combating their shared enemy, the Chosen. The Calthids are poorly represented due to Aidine vetoes. While founded on the idea of cooperation, it is by no means uncommon for their rare meetings to devolve into shouting matches or even fist fights; fortunately, fatalities are rare.
  • The Chosen of the Builders is a cult of Darksiders that has persisted despite repeated attempts to quash them by the Conclave and the nations it represents. The group is led by Hounds privy to secrets gleaned from a handful of Rakatan holocrons, who in turn rule over a 'court' of Whips. Low-ranking Force Users and non-Sensitive followers are known as Thralls - all others are slaves or foes. The cult is organised into independent cells and has been known to conscript Flesh Raiders from the Cursed Lands to wage war.
• Culture: Rocarro is a relatively diverse planet, all things considered, but some trends are found between cultures. These are described below, but it goes without saying that they may not hold true for all cultures and groups found on Rocarro, doubly so for remote groupings.
  
  • Birth and Merit: "Command is an Honour of Merit, but Rulership is an Honour of Birth. The cunningly ambitious can preside over goals in the short-term, but the weight of lineage better nurtures sensible sustainability." Mercisius Sadovan Salosa, Aidine philosopher. This idea is firmly rooted Aidine governance and has spread to the Morrahani, providing the philosophical foundation for aritstocracy, namely that while the nobility are not inherently superior, the expectations of lineage mould them into vessels for stable governance.
  • Marks of Pride: Morrahani, Mezrani, and some Aidine ethnic groups place cultural significance on tattoos, much like mainline Zabrak society. In Morrahani tradition these are typically spiritual or related to bloodlines (especially for aristocrats) while the Mezrani tend to emphasise individual accomplishments instead - Mezrani Warlocks receive tattoos based on the Force Powers they have mastered.
  • Spirituality: The Morrahani have a large pantheon of gods (both universal and local) and a tendency to take spiritual advice primarily from the Force Sensitive Witch-Priests; the Mezrani have a much looser concept of faith, with some honouring gods, others the Force as a whole, and others sticking to what they can see, touch, and calculate. The Aidine Empire houses numerous faiths and cults, none of which are officially endorsed - the closest they come to shared spirituality is an almost religious belief in idealised mathematics.
  • Slavery: Both the Morrahani and Aidine have historically employed slavery under certain circumstances, but both have scaled back the practice in recent decades. Notably, Empress Araseana of the Aidine recently abolished all forms of hereditary slavery, though the practice has long been effectively voided by generations of compounding restrictions. Slavery as a punishment for crimes and in some cases defaulting on debts remains a reality, however, despite the Aidine taking steps towards rebranding the practice as 'Indenture'.
  • Sports: Emberhand is a strange game favoured by the Mezrani and to a lesser extent Morrahani; three to seven players wearing thick leather gloves and protective masks or goggles attempt to hit skin (the more professional the game, the less skin is exposed; the most skilful only leave open a small slit on the back), with players who are burnt being disqualified. The Aidine, on the other hand, prefer foot races, competitive swimming, and a board game known as Kvass featuring a hexagonal grid and overly complicated arithmetic.

• Government: N/A, the planet is not unified.
  
  • The Aidine Empire is by far the largest nation - nearly half the planetary population lives within its ever-growing borders. It is currently led by Empress Araseana the Cloudtamer, formerly the Roadbuilder; the Throne's power is not unlimited, however, for the Convocation of the Land - a sort of democratic body of landowners, nobles, and merchants - curtail its influence somewhat. Bureaucrats, Wizards, and academics - particularly philosophers, mathematicians, and philosopher-mathematicians - exert subtler forms of power.
• Affiliation: The World Engine currently falls within the territory of the Galactic Alliance.
• Wealth: Low; the people of Rocarro have minimal contact with galactic society and little true wealth.
• Stability: Medium; wars, skirmishes, and banditry is relatively commonplace, but existential crises are rather rare.
• Freedom & Oppression: Varies greatly from region to region, but outright oppression is rare. The Aidine have the Throne Inspectorate, a number of spies, and a series of courts, while most Calthids resolve disputes by placing them before a chief, shaman, or the group as a whole; the Mezrani and Morrahani fall somewhere in between. Only the Aidine have a framework for limiting personal liability in commerce.

• Military: There is no unified Rocarrian defence force, though the World Engine might sport functional automated defence systems. Due to technological limitations, the biggest threat to a land invasion is local Force Users - that said, the well-organised armies of the Aidine number in the hundreds of thousands and have access to primitive slugthrowers, while the Mezrani have a few functional Gree weapons. The Morrahani rely on less advanced weaponry, for the most part, but even bows and spears are lethal in the hands of the Force Sensitive.
• Technology: Rocarro is a world on the precipice of the industrial revolution - it has arguably already begun among the Mezrani and to a lesser degree the Aidine, but has been hampered by the lack of high-energy fuel, coal or oil being impossible on such a young world. Due to its origins, technological relics are not unheard of - a functional Rakatan Battle Wand could be the prized heirloom of a noble house. Recent cooperation between Aidine engineers and Mezrani tinkers have seen a series of increasingly advanced airships take to the skies.

The Age of Gods
Born of unity and sundered by strife, the system once called Ducion-40 was envisioned as a joint project for several of the Celestials' servant races, most notably the Gree and Kwa. It is unclear if the Celestials themselves ordered its construction or whether the initiative came from their servants, due to the corrupted nature of the World Engine's remaining databanks - whatever the case, two and a half planets were successfully created.

Unfortunately, some sort of disagreement appears to have arisen between the Gree and the Kwa. It is unclear whether other ancients were involved and whether it was a localised conflict or a symptom of a greater disagreement. Whatever the reason, blood was spilt and damage done.

This conflict appears to have been sidelined by a Rakatan invasion, which was seemingly repelled albeit at great cost.

It is unclear whether the two races believed the World Engine to have been irreversibly damaged or whether their withdrawal was a strategic choice due to an inability to withstand a second Rakatan invasion, but whatever the reason the half-finished planet was abandoned. Rakatan colonies were established on the two other planets in the system, but Rocarro was left mostly alone - possibly due to a lack of faith in its structural stability.

Unbeknownst to the Rakata, Zabraks presumed to have been brought to the planet by the Kwa began to flourish in the forests and jungles.

By the time of the collapse of the Infinite Empire, the Rakatans had discovered the natives and begun hunting them for sport. The calamitous end of their dominion over the system scoured Callistheria of most life and killed many Rocarrians, but enough survived that the population persisted.

The Age of Tribes
It took many long years for the population to recover and many more for civilisation to properly develop. Relatively little is known of this prehistoric period due to limitations in Rocarrian archaeological knowledge, but many of the planet's largest cultures can trace their roots back to the tribes of this age; the Morrahani were the first to develop a written language (using Kwa writings as inspiration), giving them an edge in this category.

Due to the scattered and undeveloped nature of Zabrak society, their tribes were relatively easy prey to the physically formidable Flesh Raiders - it is entirely possible that they might have been wiped out had the bulk of the latter not been sealocked in the myth-shrouded Cursed Lands.

Despite being known as the Age of Tribes by local historians, several larger civilisations arose in this period. Highport is notably built on the ruins of a city erected in this era, as is the town known as Sentinel's Rest, for the Canyon of Gods had always drawn scholars and pilgrims in equal number.

The Age of Kings
In the end, it was outsiders that would mark the turning of the ages. Some decades prior to its destruction in 31 BBY, the Kwa Infinity Gate on their ancestral homeworld of Dathomir would activate several times, bringing with it the odd influx of Dathomirians or herd of Kwi - as the Morrahani had believed the partially-functional gate on their world to be a sacred relic, this was considered an act of divine intervention by many.

The groups that would soon splinter off into the Mezrani fervently disagreed, especially since the outsiders spoke of strange technologies.

Since the Witches of Dathomir had never been particularly technologically advanced, their coming only moderately accelerated the development, but their influence on Force Use was far more profound - some were integrated into the Morrahani Witch-Priests while others brought a rough but comprehensible approximation of the Book of Law to the Aidine. In these and other cases, interbreeding produced viable offspring.

It was during this time that the Morrahani Old Kingdom reached its height, only for the Mezrani to splinter off while the nation collapsed into strife and ruin; some blame the Chosen of the Builders for this travesty, though it has never been conclusively proven. The successor states that arose would clash for a time, but eventually a complex web of treaties, unwritten expectations, and alliances of marriage would lead to a tense peace.

At the same time, the Aidine flourished in their coastal lands - their growing population and blossoming industry allowed them to fold a number of lesser tribes and city-states into their nascent Empire, though at times war proved inevitable. Eventually, their stability and logistical mastery would see them exceed even the Old Kingdom in size and prestige, their borders bulging outwards until only great powers and the stubborn remained.

The Age of Discovery
This expansion and the steady advancement of technology continued until the planet was on the precipice of industrialisation, albeit slowed down by a general lack of high-energy fuel sources. Despite this, Mezrani-Aidine airships had begun to climb to the skies - which was when the status quo was shattered by the arrival of a massive 'full-metal airship' from the stars, its fearsome visage hiding a small host of pirates.

This 'dreadnought' began to raid the near-defenceless locals, prompting the Mezrani Clans to turn their 'Superweapon' against the intruders only for its shields to hold. The annoyed pirates returned fire, which would turn out to be the last mistake many of them would ever make.

As their turbolasers grazed the 'Edge of the World', ancient defence protocols began to stutter into action, dozens of other torpedo launchers waking from dormancy to respond to an external threat. The frigate was downed in a single withering volley, sending it plummeting onto Aidine soil.

One on one a blaster beats a primitive slugthrower nine times out of ten, but the Imperial Army had orders of magnitude more manpower.