Milo Tyranne
Character
- The Miln -
[Artist Link]
Designation - Sentient.Homeworld - Hafnip.
Language - Galactic Basic Standard, Milnish.
Average height of adults - 1 standard meter.
Fur color - Ranges from pure white to dark brown or gray.
Breathes - Type I atmosphere.
Strengths -
Excellent dexterity and physical reaction time.
Quick learners, able to take on new behavior and skills very easily.
Able to endure higher G-forces than most larger beings due to their small size and compact build.
Unique biology gives them a high resistance to the detrimental effects of alcohol, some forms of spice and many poisons.
Small in stature.
Physically weak compared to "normal sized" beings.
Possess a near-uncontrollable fear reflex; Miln are naturally tuned more toward flight than fight. This fear can be controlled only with heavy psychological conditioning, though most of the species' general population goes without this. Such conditioning is essential for Miln intending to interact with alien species.
The Miln are a sentient, rodentoid species, standing just a meter tall at the most. Covered in fur - the coloration of which can range from pure white to dark brown or gray, with a range of patterns and markings - they have small, compact builds, reminiscent of the proportions of a mouse standing on its hind legs; they stand digitigrade, and have four digits on their hands and feet. Their hands are capable of amazing dexterity and small-scale precision.
Especially remarkable is the extreme resistance which Miln biology has to the effects alcohol, many poisons and certain varieties of spice. The Miln possess three livers, which work in concert and are extremely efficient at their job, filtering toxins out of the Miln blood-stream at a rate far faster than many species. Miln livers are also "self-cleaning" to a greater degree than those of other species, meaning that they will remain healthy despite tremendous abuse. Surviving Miln records of their home-world's biosphere indicate that much of the plant-life developed strong poisons to prevent being fed on by herbivorous animals, which Miln biology adapted to, explaining the presence of such a robust detoxification system.
One particularly famous - or infamous - result of this adaptation is the fact that Miln cannot easily get drunk; the strongest drinks enjoyed by many other species are at best capable of getting a Miln slightly buzzed. Members of the species will sometimes use this ability to win drinking contests; due to their small size, many other races figure a Miln for an easy mark due to their body mass, only to find themselves being drunk under the table by one of the little beings.
Average Lifespan - 70-90 standard years.
Estimated Population - 100-200 million.
Diet - The Miln are omnivorous, but enjoy a high proportion of cereals such as rice and various grains in their diet. They also have a fondness for insects; a popular Miln snack is fried locusts, breaded and occasionally served with dipping sauce of various flavors.
Communication -
The Miln have adopted Galactic Basic Standard as their language, speaking it with a slightly high-pitched Coruscanti accent, despite their planet's great distance from the Core. The Miln have their own language - Milnish - which all members of the species are generally taught to speak, but which is seldom used except in very private conversation. Milnish speech is composed of chitters and squeaks which are difficult for most other species to replicate, and is generally spoken too fast for most other species to easily follow.
Culture -
The Miln have a diverse culture, united primarily by an intense survivalist sentiment stemming from the species' near extinction and subsequent slow recovery. Miln unity is primarily attributed to a pseudo-religious ideology known as Eoism; fostered by the new environment in which the species has found itself, Eoism primarily centers around the belief that all material and societal problems can be solved through intelligent, practical application and development of outer space and its resources, rejecting purely ideological struggle as a waste of time and resources. As a result, the Miln are generally regarded as having - at least among one-another - a peaceful, eminently practical society, with a focus on solving problems the smart way.
Due to the nature of their near extinction centuries ago, the Miln do have a bit of a stubborn streak, and a commitment to self defense and massive retaliation which would give even the most aggressive conqueror pause. Though their technological development is still several thousand years behind much of the Galaxy, the government of their home system, the Hafnip Federation, has declared that, in the event of war with a hostile power, there shall be no attempt on the part of the Miln to surrender. Any conflict undertaken by the species is total war, and is to the death, either theirs or the enemy's.
Historically, the Miln have only waged war when the very survival of their species and culture were at stake. As such, the Miln do not undertake the art of war lightly; a fundamentally peaceful people, it was a major leap for the Miln to accept large-scale combat as a necessity under certain circumstances, but in the centuries since their introduction to warfare, they have taken the concept of readiness and overwhelming force to heart. From an early age, Miln children are educated in self defense and elementary strategic thought; during time of war, every physically able member of the population is considered an effective combatant. Despite their limited technology and small size, Miln special forces - maintained at full readiness even in peacetime - are considered to be some of the best in the known Galaxy.
Perhaps the best known representatives of the Miln species, however, are not their army or navy, but their explorers. Though still far behind the curve in terms of technology, the Hafnip Federation has an active and very professional inter-stellar exploration and development organization, the Miln Astrogational Corps, or MAC.
An elite scout organization, members of the MAC function as the vanguards of the Miln species in the wider Galaxy. With responsibilities ranging from long-range astrogational surveys to first contact with alien species, the organization is widely regarded by denizens of the Outer Rim as being a collection of some of the most simultaneously competent and stubborn beings in their business, despite their often outdated technology and comparatively small size of their supporting government.
Originally formed well before the Miln were exposed to the wider Galaxy, the MAC was originally charged with exploring the frontiers of their home system as the species expanded out from their home-world to found their first space colonies. When the Miln achieved interstellar travel, the MAC graduated to exploring other systems and laying the ground-work for the first Miln colonies around other stars. Today, the MAC continues their proud tradition of long-range exploration and research. The organization also frequently initiates first contact with new alien species, and has thus included diplomacy within its unofficial mission statement.
MAC scouts are considered some of the toughest beings in space; despite their species' small size and relatively primitive technology, Miln spacers routinely push boundaries and endure hardships other races would find unthinkable. The organization has the following motto:
"Not by strength, but by guile shall we know."
Technology level -
The Miln, unfortunately for them, are generally behind the curve in terms of technology, though they have learned to make up for this deficiency with creative utilization of what they do have. The Miln are considered a "late isotopic" civilization; at the time of their first contact with the wider Galaxy, they had developed nuclear fission and large-scale space travel within their own star system, but had not (and have not) yet managed practical fusion power (though they had created thermonuclear devices). They had not yet developed hyperdrive technology at that time, though they have developed and begun to use their own crude drives within the last few decades.
Though deficient in many areas, the Miln have nonetheless achieved significant feats of engineering and exploration with their relatively primitive resources. At the time of the First Galactic Civil War, the Miln had achieved space travel, and had developed it to the point that travel within their star system - while limited to sublight speeds - was routine. Using mass drivers, chemical rockets and nuclear propulsion, the species had gone as far as beginning to mine their system's asteroid belt, as well as building huge, free-floating orbital habitats at their home-world's natural Lagrangian points to house their burgeoning population. At the time of first contact, over 2,000 such colonies - the vast majority being of the mammoth 24 kilometer long cylindrical type, with a maximum population density of 5 million each - had been built, housing a total population of over 10 billion Miln. Historical accounts by Imperial-era scouts describe the beauty of seeing vast shoals of these free-floating settlements.
In addition to the intensive exploration and development of their own system, the Miln strained to reach other stars, and were making their first steps toward the exploration and eventual colonization of nearby systems at the time of first contact. In the centuries since, they have achieved a form of hyperspace travel known as a "blackout drive".
The blackout drive is so named due to the fact that beings cannot be conscious while the drive is in operation. Similar in concept to a standard hyperdrive, the blackout drive is significantly more primitive in design and cuts numerous corners in order to function, a necessity due to the limitations of Miln resources and technology. Because the species does not possess fusion power, the unit condenses gamma radiation from the ship's fission power source instead, which takes significantly longer than with conventional drives. This radiation builds up in the blackout drive's condenser coils, and like a normal hyperdrive, is then released, causing a ripple in the time-space matrix off which the ship can repel, thus entering hyperspace.
Two factors make it a necessity for Miln crews and passengers to be placed into stasis while the blackout drive is in operation. One: while the Miln are accomplished spacefarers, they do not possess certain technologies other species often take for granted; one of these is the inertial compensator, which would normally prevent living crews and passengers from being crushed by the near-instantaneous acceleration which accompanies a hyperspace jump. Thus, crew, passengers and fragile cargo must be rendered inert to avoid damage. Two: Miln null quantum field generator technology is still relatively primitive; though effective at keeping a vessel in hyperspace, the field is not projected around the ship, as with a conventional drive, but is conducted directly through the hull and fittings, flooding the vessel with deadly radiation which would destroy any unprotected organic material in seconds. Miln crews must thus enter protective stasis prior to every hyperspace jump, and hyperdrive-equipped vessels of Miln design are thus equipped with heavily insulated stasis booths for crew and passengers, as well as non-sentient animal cargo and biological material. Of note, few Miln ships are equipped with backup hyperdrives; if the primary drive is irreparably disabled, the vessel reverts to becoming a sleeper ship.
Miln navicomputers are also fairly primitive; whereas most contemporary models used in the wider Galaxy can store sequences of calculations to enable strings of successive jumps, Miln units must re-calibrate and recalculate after every individual jump, which can make complex flights with multiple course corrections take significantly longer.
Other Miln technology is also relatively primitive. Though the species has developed computers, interstellar travel, fairly advanced structural engineering and fission power, they still lag considerably in many areas. In addition their shortcomings in hyperdrive technology, the Miln have notably lagged in the field of user interface design, with many of their control and input schemes being decidedly clunky and un-intuitive. The Miln do possesses reasonably sophisticated droid technology, however, and a good thing too, as the species' starships must by necessity make heavy use of automated systems in their design.
There are additional drawbacks to Miln spacecraft design, however.
Aside from the previously mentioned issues of dangerous hyperdrive systems and a lack of inertial dampers, Miln ships do not possess artificial gravity, repulsorlift technology, advanced cooling systems or deflector shields, all system which the Miln have not yet been able to successfully develop on their own. In place of artificial gravity generators, some Miln ships - especially those of significant size or outfitted for long-range flights - are equipped with a centrifuge area which simulates the pull of gravity by spinning, drawing objects and beings "down" toward the inside wall. Parts of the ship not spun by the centrifuge are subject to microgravity or zero gravity conditions; this can cause space sickness in certain individuals, and prolonged exposure to weightless conditions can lead to severe loss of bone and muscle mass, damage to eyesight in some species due to the effects of intraocular and intracranial pressure, and even shifts in the placement of internal organs. Miln space medicine has risen admirably to the challenge of preventing and/or reversing these conditions, but it is still advised that all crew and passengers aboard Miln vessels, when not in stasis, spend at least part of their day in the "gravity" block to prevent them from developing.
Miln lack of advanced cooling technology - coupled with the high-heat nature of the fission reactor technology used to power most of their ships - requires the species to incorporate large and elaborate radiant cooling vanes into many of their spacecraft. Often taking up the vast bulk of a ship's surface area, these vanes keep the ship's equipment and crew from roasting, though they are enormous and make easy targets. Significant damage to the cooling vanes can lead to a catastrophic reactor meltdown aboard Miln ships; the cooling vanes of Miln warships are heavily armored.
Miln lack of deflector shields is also an issue. The closest thing most Miln ships have to such technology is a relatively anemic electrostatic repulsion field projected around the hull, meant to keep micro-meteors and other small-scale debris from damaging the ship; this field is useless against anything larger than small rocks, however, and is utterly ineffective against modern weapons. The Miln do have countermeasures against certain energy weapons, but they can be circumvented by a competent captain or pilot.
Besides these things, Miln craft are also typically limited to use only in space. While the wider Galaxy typically makes use of repulsor technology, deflector shields and at least semi-aerodynamic hull-forms to enable spacecraft to function within a planetary atmosphere, most Miln space vessels do not have this capability. Miln ships - especially those capable of interstellar travel - are relatively large and usually fragile, meaning that they would not likely survive a plunge into an atmosphere, even if they could land on a planetary surface, which most cannot. Miln vessels thus often carry smaller craft capable of reentering an atmosphere and then returning to orbit for recovery by the mother-ship, though their cargo and passenger capacity is typically not large. Most craft of such design incorporate advanced lifting body designs and high-efficiency chemical propulsion.
In addition to the intensive exploration and development of their own system, the Miln strained to reach other stars, and were making their first steps toward the exploration and eventual colonization of nearby systems at the time of first contact. In the centuries since, they have achieved a form of hyperspace travel known as a "blackout drive".
The blackout drive is so named due to the fact that beings cannot be conscious while the drive is in operation. Similar in concept to a standard hyperdrive, the blackout drive is significantly more primitive in design and cuts numerous corners in order to function, a necessity due to the limitations of Miln resources and technology. Because the species does not possess fusion power, the unit condenses gamma radiation from the ship's fission power source instead, which takes significantly longer than with conventional drives. This radiation builds up in the blackout drive's condenser coils, and like a normal hyperdrive, is then released, causing a ripple in the time-space matrix off which the ship can repel, thus entering hyperspace.
Two factors make it a necessity for Miln crews and passengers to be placed into stasis while the blackout drive is in operation. One: while the Miln are accomplished spacefarers, they do not possess certain technologies other species often take for granted; one of these is the inertial compensator, which would normally prevent living crews and passengers from being crushed by the near-instantaneous acceleration which accompanies a hyperspace jump. Thus, crew, passengers and fragile cargo must be rendered inert to avoid damage. Two: Miln null quantum field generator technology is still relatively primitive; though effective at keeping a vessel in hyperspace, the field is not projected around the ship, as with a conventional drive, but is conducted directly through the hull and fittings, flooding the vessel with deadly radiation which would destroy any unprotected organic material in seconds. Miln crews must thus enter protective stasis prior to every hyperspace jump, and hyperdrive-equipped vessels of Miln design are thus equipped with heavily insulated stasis booths for crew and passengers, as well as non-sentient animal cargo and biological material. Of note, few Miln ships are equipped with backup hyperdrives; if the primary drive is irreparably disabled, the vessel reverts to becoming a sleeper ship.
Miln navicomputers are also fairly primitive; whereas most contemporary models used in the wider Galaxy can store sequences of calculations to enable strings of successive jumps, Miln units must re-calibrate and recalculate after every individual jump, which can make complex flights with multiple course corrections take significantly longer.
Other Miln technology is also relatively primitive. Though the species has developed computers, interstellar travel, fairly advanced structural engineering and fission power, they still lag considerably in many areas. In addition their shortcomings in hyperdrive technology, the Miln have notably lagged in the field of user interface design, with many of their control and input schemes being decidedly clunky and un-intuitive. The Miln do possesses reasonably sophisticated droid technology, however, and a good thing too, as the species' starships must by necessity make heavy use of automated systems in their design.
There are additional drawbacks to Miln spacecraft design, however.
Aside from the previously mentioned issues of dangerous hyperdrive systems and a lack of inertial dampers, Miln ships do not possess artificial gravity, repulsorlift technology, advanced cooling systems or deflector shields, all system which the Miln have not yet been able to successfully develop on their own. In place of artificial gravity generators, some Miln ships - especially those of significant size or outfitted for long-range flights - are equipped with a centrifuge area which simulates the pull of gravity by spinning, drawing objects and beings "down" toward the inside wall. Parts of the ship not spun by the centrifuge are subject to microgravity or zero gravity conditions; this can cause space sickness in certain individuals, and prolonged exposure to weightless conditions can lead to severe loss of bone and muscle mass, damage to eyesight in some species due to the effects of intraocular and intracranial pressure, and even shifts in the placement of internal organs. Miln space medicine has risen admirably to the challenge of preventing and/or reversing these conditions, but it is still advised that all crew and passengers aboard Miln vessels, when not in stasis, spend at least part of their day in the "gravity" block to prevent them from developing.
Miln lack of advanced cooling technology - coupled with the high-heat nature of the fission reactor technology used to power most of their ships - requires the species to incorporate large and elaborate radiant cooling vanes into many of their spacecraft. Often taking up the vast bulk of a ship's surface area, these vanes keep the ship's equipment and crew from roasting, though they are enormous and make easy targets. Significant damage to the cooling vanes can lead to a catastrophic reactor meltdown aboard Miln ships; the cooling vanes of Miln warships are heavily armored.
Miln lack of deflector shields is also an issue. The closest thing most Miln ships have to such technology is a relatively anemic electrostatic repulsion field projected around the hull, meant to keep micro-meteors and other small-scale debris from damaging the ship; this field is useless against anything larger than small rocks, however, and is utterly ineffective against modern weapons. The Miln do have countermeasures against certain energy weapons, but they can be circumvented by a competent captain or pilot.
Besides these things, Miln craft are also typically limited to use only in space. While the wider Galaxy typically makes use of repulsor technology, deflector shields and at least semi-aerodynamic hull-forms to enable spacecraft to function within a planetary atmosphere, most Miln space vessels do not have this capability. Miln ships - especially those capable of interstellar travel - are relatively large and usually fragile, meaning that they would not likely survive a plunge into an atmosphere, even if they could land on a planetary surface, which most cannot. Miln vessels thus often carry smaller craft capable of reentering an atmosphere and then returning to orbit for recovery by the mother-ship, though their cargo and passenger capacity is typically not large. Most craft of such design incorporate advanced lifting body designs and high-efficiency chemical propulsion.
Though it is a new art to them, Miln progress in the field of weapons technology has advanced admirably since the days when they faced down the Galactic Empire with re-purposed nuclear blasting caps and the engine exhaust of their primitive ships. Having learned the ways of war only grudgingly, but recognizing the necessity of creating devices which could keep their people safe should outsiders again come to threaten their kind, the Miln embarked on a long and - especially to them - radical militarization program.
In the centuries since the Miln-Imperial War, the species has made significant progress in tactical and strategic thinking; excellent tacticians, they are often able to see weaknesses and advantages which most other commanders would not even consider, due to their unique social and technological perspective. Unfortunately, their technological advancement leaves something to be desired, and though they are often able to make their equipment serve their purposes admirably, the Miln have yet to develop certain commonly available devices used by much of the rest of the Galaxy.
Key among these is the Miln failure to develop a compact equivalent to modern blasters; in fact, the Miln have only recently developed directed energy weapons of any kind. The species predominantly makes used of advanced slugthrower designs; Miln "space troopers," for example, are often armed with recoilless guns or rockets, in addition to slugthrower pistols firing caseless ammunition. Though this technology is considered antiquated by much of the Galaxy, the Miln have found ways to make it work well for them, such as hypervelocity ammunition for small arms capable of defeating common plastoid body armor, explosive and incendiary rounds, and other munitions.
The Miln have also developed heavy slugthrower artillery and missile systems, considered at least as advanced as any similar technology elsewhere.
The real Miln advantage in any kind of warfare, however, is the species' expertise in the field of nuclear weapons.
Originally developed by the Miln for peaceful purposes, such as large scale earth-moving and demolition, the atomic bomb was known to the Miln long before their war with the Galactic Empire. Over the centuries, the Miln have developed hundreds of specialized nuclear devices; due to the high content of fissionable material in their system's asteroid belt, such devices were relatively easy for them to construct, and have thus been built and deployed in huge numbers.
Partially due to their undeniable effectiveness, and partially due to the psychological effect the weapons have been observed to have on other races, the Miln employ nuclear devices in both tactical and strategic capacities. Their willingness to actively use fission weapons tends to be what sets the Miln apart from most other species in war.
Miln nuclear device classification and policy fall into the two major areas of military thought: tactical devices, that is warheads of relatively small scale meant to be employed in regular battle, and strategic devices, which are typically large scale and are used against appropriately large-scale targets – such as cities, factory complexes, and other infrastructure – as part of a larger strategy.
The vast bulk of the Miln nuclear arsenal falls into the former category; everything from nuclear anti-ship missiles, which can strip away the shields of a star destroyer on impact, to nuclear artillery and land mines for use in large-scale ground warfare. Miln weapons of “tactical” class typically do not exceed a yield equivalent to 20 kilotons of detonite, and smaller devices usually incorporate “dial-a-yield” technology which enables their output to be set between 10 tons and 1 kiloton equivalent, higher or lower depending on the device.
The Miln tactical nuclear arsenal incorporates numerous specialized warhead types as well. The Miln Federation is one of the few modern states to actively possess and hold ready neutron bombs in its arsenal; these weapons are generally of tactical scale yield and radius of effect, and in the event of large scale and prolonged ground war, would be deployed as “area denial” devices to prevent the enemy from making use of strategically important terrain. Though considered an important part of long-term Miln ground tactics, neutron weapons have been widely criticized even by the species themselves, and have become the subject of intense political and moral debate.
The Miln strategic nuclear arsenal, while smaller, is no less terrifying.
Though the species does not yet possess the technology to construct baradium fission devices, they do have the ability to build thermonuclear fusion devices of titanic power, with yields in the hundreds of megatons detonite equivalent.
Honed early in the species' space-faring history as demolition devices meant to divert extinction-level asteroid strikes and destroy other dangerous stellar debris, Miln strategic weapons are powerful in inverse proportion to the diminutive size of their builders. Meant to be employed primarily as a “second strike” option in the event of war, these devices rival the forces of nature itself in destructive power, with the ability to wipe whole cities cleanly from the map if targeted against planetary infrastructure.
In their long history, the Miln have never actually launched a strategic nuclear strike against an enemy, though official policy specifies that such a tactic should never be employed as a first resort. The weapons would be deployed in the aftermath of a crippling attack against the Miln home colonies, and would target enemy military and industrial facilities, as well as population centers.
It is questionable whether such a retaliation would be effective, however; Miln strategic bombing capability takes the form of Force Vev, the Miln long-range strategic bomber force. Equipped with crewed hyperspace-capable aerospace bombers, the Force, named for the Aurebesh letter Vev (V), alternatively standing for Victory or Vengeance, has the task of flying retaliatory raids against hostile planets. In order to do this, the pilots and crews would likely have to fly their spacecraft past modern planetary defenses, including interceptor ships, missile fire and planetary deflector screens (to be cracked with a preliminary nuclear bombardment). Given these obstacles, and the general inferiority of Miln aerospace technology, it is doubtful to many military strategists that such a force could survive long enough drop a single bomb, much less have the crews return to their bases alive. Nevertheless, many cite the Miln willingness to carry out such missions as an important intimidation factor in the species' foreign policy.
In the centuries since the Miln-Imperial War, the species has made significant progress in tactical and strategic thinking; excellent tacticians, they are often able to see weaknesses and advantages which most other commanders would not even consider, due to their unique social and technological perspective. Unfortunately, their technological advancement leaves something to be desired, and though they are often able to make their equipment serve their purposes admirably, the Miln have yet to develop certain commonly available devices used by much of the rest of the Galaxy.
Key among these is the Miln failure to develop a compact equivalent to modern blasters; in fact, the Miln have only recently developed directed energy weapons of any kind. The species predominantly makes used of advanced slugthrower designs; Miln "space troopers," for example, are often armed with recoilless guns or rockets, in addition to slugthrower pistols firing caseless ammunition. Though this technology is considered antiquated by much of the Galaxy, the Miln have found ways to make it work well for them, such as hypervelocity ammunition for small arms capable of defeating common plastoid body armor, explosive and incendiary rounds, and other munitions.
The Miln have also developed heavy slugthrower artillery and missile systems, considered at least as advanced as any similar technology elsewhere.
The real Miln advantage in any kind of warfare, however, is the species' expertise in the field of nuclear weapons.
Originally developed by the Miln for peaceful purposes, such as large scale earth-moving and demolition, the atomic bomb was known to the Miln long before their war with the Galactic Empire. Over the centuries, the Miln have developed hundreds of specialized nuclear devices; due to the high content of fissionable material in their system's asteroid belt, such devices were relatively easy for them to construct, and have thus been built and deployed in huge numbers.
Partially due to their undeniable effectiveness, and partially due to the psychological effect the weapons have been observed to have on other races, the Miln employ nuclear devices in both tactical and strategic capacities. Their willingness to actively use fission weapons tends to be what sets the Miln apart from most other species in war.
Miln nuclear device classification and policy fall into the two major areas of military thought: tactical devices, that is warheads of relatively small scale meant to be employed in regular battle, and strategic devices, which are typically large scale and are used against appropriately large-scale targets – such as cities, factory complexes, and other infrastructure – as part of a larger strategy.
The vast bulk of the Miln nuclear arsenal falls into the former category; everything from nuclear anti-ship missiles, which can strip away the shields of a star destroyer on impact, to nuclear artillery and land mines for use in large-scale ground warfare. Miln weapons of “tactical” class typically do not exceed a yield equivalent to 20 kilotons of detonite, and smaller devices usually incorporate “dial-a-yield” technology which enables their output to be set between 10 tons and 1 kiloton equivalent, higher or lower depending on the device.
The Miln tactical nuclear arsenal incorporates numerous specialized warhead types as well. The Miln Federation is one of the few modern states to actively possess and hold ready neutron bombs in its arsenal; these weapons are generally of tactical scale yield and radius of effect, and in the event of large scale and prolonged ground war, would be deployed as “area denial” devices to prevent the enemy from making use of strategically important terrain. Though considered an important part of long-term Miln ground tactics, neutron weapons have been widely criticized even by the species themselves, and have become the subject of intense political and moral debate.
The Miln strategic nuclear arsenal, while smaller, is no less terrifying.
Though the species does not yet possess the technology to construct baradium fission devices, they do have the ability to build thermonuclear fusion devices of titanic power, with yields in the hundreds of megatons detonite equivalent.
Honed early in the species' space-faring history as demolition devices meant to divert extinction-level asteroid strikes and destroy other dangerous stellar debris, Miln strategic weapons are powerful in inverse proportion to the diminutive size of their builders. Meant to be employed primarily as a “second strike” option in the event of war, these devices rival the forces of nature itself in destructive power, with the ability to wipe whole cities cleanly from the map if targeted against planetary infrastructure.
In their long history, the Miln have never actually launched a strategic nuclear strike against an enemy, though official policy specifies that such a tactic should never be employed as a first resort. The weapons would be deployed in the aftermath of a crippling attack against the Miln home colonies, and would target enemy military and industrial facilities, as well as population centers.
It is questionable whether such a retaliation would be effective, however; Miln strategic bombing capability takes the form of Force Vev, the Miln long-range strategic bomber force. Equipped with crewed hyperspace-capable aerospace bombers, the Force, named for the Aurebesh letter Vev (V), alternatively standing for Victory or Vengeance, has the task of flying retaliatory raids against hostile planets. In order to do this, the pilots and crews would likely have to fly their spacecraft past modern planetary defenses, including interceptor ships, missile fire and planetary deflector screens (to be cracked with a preliminary nuclear bombardment). Given these obstacles, and the general inferiority of Miln aerospace technology, it is doubtful to many military strategists that such a force could survive long enough drop a single bomb, much less have the crews return to their bases alive. Nevertheless, many cite the Miln willingness to carry out such missions as an important intimidation factor in the species' foreign policy.
- General behavior -
The Miln are an unusual people, isolated for millennia from the wider Galaxy, and bearing a unique evolutionary and social history which is distinct from many other species.“Oh, sure, they seem like pushovers; if you let them, they run, every time. But I'll tell you this; you need to make sure that they can run. And when they go... let them.”
_Unknown spacer.
Descended from rodentoid ancestors, small prey animals low on the food chain of their planet. The pressure exerted on them by their environment was immense; Hafnip boasted an ecology which supported many apex predators as ferocious and deadly as any in the Galaxy, and prey animals had to adapt or die. The Miln solution to the challenge of survival was to develop their intelligence; over their evolutionary history, the ancestors of the modern Miln developed larger and larger brains, and eventually, sapience, a quality which unlocked vast new potential for them.
Due to their lineage, however, the Miln have an interesting relationship with fear. Descended from prey animals, they still retain the overbalanced fight or flight responses of a small rodent, liable to bolt or hide at the first sign of danger. Though intelligent and inquisitive, and not averse to risk, their fear response has proven a hindrance in certain aspects of their culture, most prominently in their dealings with other species, many of whom trigger Miln “predator warning” instincts. This fear response can be suppressed and/or channeled with proper conditioning, but most of the Miln population would still flee in terror from even the most benign alien.
This being said, the Miln are not necessarily averse to conflict, when it is necessary.
A common piece of advice given to beings dealing with the Miln is this:
Always give a Miln a way out.
Miln will and usually do run from a fight. If given an avenue of escape, they can almost always be trusted to take that route; however, like many animals, a Miln can become disproportionately dangerous when cornered.
A cornered Miln is not a pleasant thing. Especially in a physical confrontation, a Miln without an escape plan will generally fight to the death, or at least until rendered unconscious, and can be counted upon to try and bring their attacker down with them. A Miln fighting for its life is vicious and creative, and will generally fight dirty; a famous Outer Rim story tells of a Miln captain cornered in a Tatooine cantina by multiple Gank Killers, none of whom survived the encounter thanks to the last-ditch flechette mine the little being had hidden in a vest pocket.
This instinct to fight when cornered does not always apply to personal danger, either. If confronted with a threat which goes beyond themselves, especially one to their family and loved ones, a Miln will if necessary sacrifice themselves to ensure the threat is destroyed. Miln in ancient times, for example, would band together for protection from predators; if such a tactic did not work, however, a member of the group might purposely go out to hunt the predator on their own, expecting to die, but with the intent of drawing the predator far enough away to enable their friends and family to escape.
In general, the Miln are an inquisitive and gregarious people, even to outsiders, if properly conditioned not to regard them as potential predators. Though seen as somewhat isolationist by many, this is mainly a practical consideration on the part of the Miln government, as aliens among the general population would most likely cause widespread panic, due to the species' overdeveloped fear reaction. There are programs underway to acclimatize the common Miln to alien presence, however, and it is projected that within a century or so, foreigners might be able to visit openly.
- History -
The Miln, in the grand scheme of Galactic history, are a fairly young civilization, only having contact with the wider Galaxy for a few centuries now.Prior to this event, Miln history is fairly standard as sentient races go; the earliest Miln were hunter-gatherers on their home-world of Hafnip, living in tribes composed of multiple family units. Eventually, some of these groups discovered agriculture; this advance led to the founding of the earliest permanent Miln settlements, first villages, later towns and cities.
The Miln planetary government did form relatively quickly, compared to many other races; warfare being unknown to the species, larger entities often organically absorbed smaller ones when they encountered one-another, forming first kingdoms, later countries, superpowers, and finally, a unified state encompassing all Miln settlements. The Miln are unusual in that such a unified government actually emerged before the species achieved a true industrial age, though this came soon afterward.
Miln technology advanced rapidly in the time before first contact. Within only a century or so of their first steam engine, the species had achieved space travel within their star system, beginning with simple robotic instruments fired aloft by huge mass drivers, and later by progressively more advanced chemical rockets. It was not long before Miln explorers begin to make crewed forays into orbit above their world, later visiting its satellites, first for short visits, but later setting up permanent bases and settlements.
These first expeditions ranged further and further afield as time went on; first the moons, and later Hafnip's planetary neighbors. These scientific missions were followed later by commercial interests, exploiting the vast natural resources to be found, which in turn led to the colonization of near space by Miln pioneers.
Miln in ever-increasing numbers began to live and work in space as time went on, eventually leading to the construction of vast orbital habitats housing millions of people. Within a few centuries, the number of Miln living in space matched the number living planet-side, and shortly afterward, begin to exceed it. The species had many reasons for such a massive migration into space; aside from desiring the abundant natural resources, many Miln were following an instinctual drive to seek a safer environment. Though the species had developed an industrial society, the planet upon which they lived was still a dangerous place; their technology had afforded them a measure of respect from the local predators, but the Miln were still not truly at the top of their planet's food chain, and venturing outside the fortified cities without heavy armament and a large group was still considered tantamount to suicide. In space, as far as the Miln knew, no such predators existed; a Miln in the colonies did not have to compulsively bar their windows and doors, lest a ravenous beast try to sneak inside.
Space was a safe place; to live, to work, to raise a family.
And so, the Miln colonized the inner reaches of their solar system. As their presence in space grew, so to did their ambitions, and it was not long before the Miln began to turn their attention further afield; ignorant of the realities of the wider Galaxy, the species fostered high hopes for their future within it.
But then came First Contact.
“Inconsequential folk, the Miln; their technology is laughable, and never have I met a more fearful and retiring people. They should be no trouble for us to handle.”
_Commodore Fedorov Paln, commenting on the threat posed by the Miln to the Empire, circa 10 BBY.
Hafnip was first discovered by the Imperial Survey Corps around 12 BBY. Initially cataloged by a long-range probot, the planet and its star system would not be visited by an organic Imperial representative for another year.This was due to two factors, mainly, the first being workload; the Imperial Survey Corps was notoriously overworked during the height of the Galactic Empire, with new planets being discovered at the rate of one every 207 standard minutes; Hafnip was easily lost in the shuffle, set aside as other, more interesting discoveries came in.
The second was classification; though the probot had observed the Miln during its survey of the system, an oversight in its programming caused it to file any pre-hyperdrive civilization as “primitive”, which could mean anything from stone-age hunter-gatherers to a space-age people on the cusp of interstellar exploration.
This was not to say the probe discovered nothing it considered of note, though; in a mineral survey, it discovered that the system's asteroid belt – the remains of a destroyed Super-Coruscant – contained massive deposits of fissionable material, such as Uranium and Thorium, in addition to other heavy metals and useful elements. That the Miln had been mining these deposits for centuries was not mentioned, nor would it have been a concern; such materials were valuable to the burgeoning Empire, and workers would eventually be sent in to extract them, locals or no.
First contact between the Miln and Humans of the Galactic Empire first occurred in 11 BBY, when an ISC Pacifier entered the system on a routine followup survey. During a tour of the outer planets, the ship encountered an enormous intra-system helium tanker en route from mining operations at the system's largest gas giant. Though initially frightened of the newcomer, the Miln crew greeted the Imperial vessel, welcoming it to the system.
The Miln, up to that point, had grappled with the Fermi paradox; never before in their recorded history had they been visited by alien beings, nor had their primitive instruments been able to observe conclusive evidence of other species within the Galaxy, leading them to theorize that intelligent life at least was a rare, if not unique occurrence within at least their region of space. The arrival of visitors from the stars, therefore, was a momentous occasion; despite their instinctual fear, the Miln were heartened to know that others at least marginally similar to themselves existed in the Galaxy, and welcomed them with open arms.
The Imperials, for their part, were not nearly so enthusiastic at the discovery of space-faring natives occupying their new raw materials mine.
Relations with the Miln were quickly taken over by the Imperial Navy, which established a small garrison station in the system's asteroid belt, and began acquiring mining rights to the surrounding area. Their demands were initially well received by the Miln; after all, a few resource asteroids seemed like a more than fair price to pay for relations with an alien culture.
Over the next half decade, however, Imperial mining operations began to chew through the resources conceded to them at a frightening rate, with the Empire demanding access to more and more. Unused to dealing with such aggressive demands, the Miln conceded without much complaint at first, but as the demands became more arrogant, and the Miln lost access to more and more of the resources they had come to depend on, the diminutive rodentoids began to cool down to the novelty of their interstellar visitors.
In 5 BBY, things came to a head.
The trouble arose initially over the supposed “theft” of a major resource asteroid.
For generations, the Miln had mined large asteroids for metals, fissionable materials and other elements, specialists identifying the most promising rocks, which were then fitted with large engines and moved out of their native orbit, bringing them closer to the orbital colonies around Hafnip, where the raw materials would be processed and used. Such “delivery” operations had been commonplace before the coming of the Empire, but the ever-expanding claims the newcomers had made in the asteroid belt had disrupted the trade, leading to much consternation and confusion on the part of the Miln who made their livelihoods as deep space prospectors. Imperial claims shifted by the day, it seemed, and resource asteroids slated for transportation to Hafnip could find themselves within Imperial territory, usually with almost no notice.
Such was the case with VY236, a mostly unremarkable rock about 3 kilometers in length, primarily rich in chromium. The crew working VY236, a group of 10 Miln prospectors and engine fitters representing the Pulsar Deep Space Resources corporation, were nearly finished with the installation of propulsion units on the asteroid when word came that Imperial territory had shifted again, and that they were now occupying Imperial property.
Rather than giving up their prize, however, the team decided to snub Imperial authority and completed the asteroid's fitting out, igniting the engines to begin the trip back to their home-world.
An Imperial scout vessel was dispatched as soon as the departure was detected, rendezvousing with the asteroid and ordering the crew to alter course back toward the Imperial concession or be fired upon. In hindsight, it was likely this phrasing that caused confusion amid the Miln on the asteroid; not possessing a military of their own, or a history of armed conflict for that matter, threat of force against a fellow sentient was a difficult concept to grasp; to the scout's instructions, the Miln foreman responded with a request for clarification, asking what fire had to do with the current situation. The Imperial commander, assuming that the Miln were making light of the situation, ordered his gunners to fire a warning shot across the asteroid's path.
This had the opposite of the intended effect.
As the Miln were predisposed to do, the crew of the asteroid tried to run, firing the asteroid's nuclear pulse engine to try and outrun their pursuers. The edge of the exhaust cone, basically the directed output of a megaton-scale fusion device, caught the closely following Imperial scout ship, stripping the vessel's shields and causing minor hull damage. Taking this as hostile action, the Imperial commander retaliated, bringing his weapons to bear on the asteroid and razing the surface installations.
All 10 Miln on VY236 were killed.
The Imperial attack on VY236 caused a substantial panic on Hafnip; in the Miln view, the Imperials had demonstrated themselves to be hostile predators, and most believed it would only be a matter of time before they came for the rest of the Miln population. Worse yet, while the Miln were a space-faring civilization, they had not yet developed the capacity for interstellar travel; ultimately, if the Empire came for them on Hafnip or their orbital colonies, the Miln had nowhere they could run.
They were cornered.
The population of Green Rest – mainly prospectors, propulsion engineers and other space development specialists – were informed via a radionic message that they were now subjects of the Galactic Empire, and to await the arrival of their new Human governor. Despite the speciesist disdain for the Miln professed by at least the higher-ranking Human officers assigned to the system garrison, the diminutive rodentoids were admired at least for their skill in working the asteroids, extracting the valuable resources the Empire wanted.
The annexation of Green Rest had been quite deliberate in that regard; the commander of the garrison, Commodore Fedorov Paln, had long considered demonstrating the utility of the Miln as a slave race as a means of furthering his own career. Now with a population of Miln under his control, Paln intended to test his theories, expecting that the naturally timid creatures could easily be controlled.
Such was not the case.
As a preliminary step in training the Miln of Green Rest, the population of the asteroid was rounded up for division into work details. The Miln, assuming that the stormtroopers sent to collect them were herding them together for extermination, imagined themselves to be cornered.
And cornered Miln were anything but timid.
The Massacre of Green Rest is considered by many to be the formal beginning of the Miln-Imperial war. The population of the asteroid colony, some 5,000 Miln, rose up against a force of 200 stormtroopers sent to gather them. Despite being armed only with hand tools, kitchen knives, other hastily improvised implements and only mob tactics, the Miln managed to inflict over 50 casualties. In retaliation, they were indeed entirely exterminated by the Imperials, though not before a chilling message was broadcast by the defenders.
They are killing us. We cannot get out. Save yourselves.
The subsequent evacuation of the asteroid belt by the Miln occurred in short order. Thousands fled to the inner planets, taking with them numerous resource asteroids and concentrating at the Hafnip orbital colonies. The Miln had never fought a war before; the concept was all but unknown to them. However, the new and significant danger placed before them forced the diminutive creatures to think in new ways; unable to flee from the new predator that was the Empire, they were forced to make a stand, and a massive one at that, requiring whole new ways of thinking and specialized technologies the species had never before explored.
To their credit, they rose admirably to the challenge; within a year, the first Miln warships had been developed, and in 4 BBY, a Miln fleet some 3,000 strong set out for the asteroid belt, the first of many attempts to dislodge the Imperials from their holdings in the system. Despite their weight of numbers, new weapon technology and resolve, however, the Miln were beaten handily at the First Battle of the Belt, during which a scant handful of Imperial survey and patrol craft decimated 90% of the fleet sent against them. Imperial weapons and tactics severely over-matched the novice Miln, and the attack only served to set the Empire on the offensive, launching raids deep into the system. There, they wreaked untold destruction, annihilating Miln industrial and administrative targets, as well as population centers.
To the Imperials, it was little more than target practice, though to the Miln, it was a war for their very survival.
War raged in the system for 4 standard years. In that time, the Miln suffered horrific losses against the Empire; by 1 BBY, 70% of the entire Miln population in space had been wiped out, with entire colony groups reduced to drifting shoals of wreckage.
The Miln themselves had very little to show for it; convinced that the Imperials were determined to exterminate them, they had never let up their attacks. Over time, their technology and tactics had grown more sophisticated; Imperial casualties continued to be frustratingly light, but by late in the war the Miln had begun to employ weapons which were at least marginally capable of damaging Imperial vessels, and had adopted strategies learned by observing the way the Empire fought, as well as more original tactics derived from the way the Miln dealt with the deadly predators of their home-world.
Ultimately, the Miln were fighting a delaying action; realistically, they knew they could never hope to beat the Empire, but perhaps they could keep them back long enough for their people to discover a way to survive. Even if they could not, the Miln would not submit to the claws of a predator without a fight, whatever it cost.
On the other end of things, the Empire looked upon the Miln as little more than a nuisance, a localized blip which barely even registered on their annual expenditures. The local garrison only operated a dozen or so small ships, more than enough firepower to deal with the threat of the indigenous sentients.
They were nothing to the Empire; not even worth the trouble of extermination, at least up until that point.
The end of the Miln-Imperial war came in 0 ABY, with the arrival of the Interrogator.
The Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Interrogator was on routine patrol in the Outer Rim, and was not originally scheduled to visit the Miln home system. The ship was diverted to the aid of the system's garrison at the suggestion of Commodore Paln, who mentioned the difficulties he had encountered with the native population in a hypercomm conversation with Interrogator's commander, Captain Morgan Yeln. Captain Yeln suggested that perhaps the Commodore's lack of any vessels exceeding light corvette size had failed to sufficiently impress upon the locals the scale and power of their foe, and that a show of force by a ship the size of his own might drive home the futility of their actions. Paln, by this time thoroughly frustrated by the Miln's refusal to surrender, readily agreed to try the Captain's idea.
Interrogator arrived in the system's outer reaches shortly afterward, and was quickly detected by Miln long-range sensors, which despite their relative primitiveness had no trouble picking up an object over a kilometer and a half in length. Understandably, the ship's arrival caused substantial consternation among the Miln; it was larger by several orders of magnitude than anything the Imperials had yet fielded against them, and it was on a direct course for the home-world.
What followed was, in the perspective of the Miln, perhaps the single most important space battle of the entire war.
Wanting to advertise his presence to the Miln, Captain Yeln ordered a leisurely sublight cruise through the system's inner planets, giving the locals time to be impressed by the incredible scale and power of one of the Empire's most formidable warships. This was to be Yeln's undoing, as the Miln made good use of the extra time, assembling the largest single fleet ever seen in the system up to that time to meet the Interrogator.
The Miln fleet, which encompassed every space-worthy vessel which could be found and fitted with armament, met Interrogator at the Hafnip Absolute Defense Line, a point just beyond the orbit of the planet's furthest natural satellite. Captain Yeln, not expecting to find an actual opposing force in his way, had come alone; he was not concerned, however, especially given that his vessel overwhelmingly outclassed anything the Miln could field against it.
The Miln, however, were not about to back down. They assumed that Interrogator could only mean the end for them; the Empire had finally brought the other hand out from behind its back, and was about to swat them down with it. The only thing left to do for the Miln was to fight on until the end, and hope that at least a few of their own would survive, somehow.
The battle which followed was indeed apocalyptic in scale and ferocity.
Though the Miln ships were little better than target practice for Interrogator's gunners, the Star Destroyer's shields absorbed volley after volley of Miln anti-ship missiles and mass driver bolts. Despite the loss of thousands of vessels, the Miln kept pouring on fire, crews ramming their own ships against the doonium behemoth's deflectors and hull when they ran out of ordnance. Such was the bombardment that, after many hours, the shields of the Imperial battle wagon actually collapsed, and the Miln defenders descended on it. Braving the ship's still formidable close-in weapons, Miln war vessels closed to latch on, disgorging their crews to fight the Imperials aboard.
Despite horrific casualties, including the near-complete decimation of their combined fleet, the Interrogator was eventually subdued and captured by the Miln. The victory came as a surprise; despite their ferocity in defending their home, few among the Miln had expected to succeed. The badly mauled but still intact Star Destroyer was now sailed by a prize crew, and though it had cost the Miln much to achieve such a victory, many believed that their actions might give the Empire pause in continuing their war against them.
They were wrong.
In point of fact, the Miln had signed their own death warrant with the taking of the Interrogator.
In managing to achieve such a victory, the Miln had brought themselves under the direct scrutiny of a government which had conquered thousands of worlds. The Miln, tiny rodentoids from a backwater world in the depths of Wild Space, had managed to bring down not just a ship, but a symbol of the Empire's irresistible might.
Such an act could not go unpunished.
The Miln enjoyed a few months of peace after the battle, unaware that it was the calm before a storm such as they had never seen.
They had brought down a single Star Destroyer, and it had cost them nearly all of their fighting strength. To finish them off, the Empire sent nine; nine ships, each a kilometer and a half long, all with very simple instructions.
Leave nothing alive on or around Hafnip.
Imperial Navy high command had authorized Base Delta Zero against Hafnip. Upon the task force's arrival, the Miln made an attempt to fight them off, even fielding the half-crippled Interrogator in their desperation, but in their weakened state they were swatted aside as the Empire laid waste to their world. The nine Star Destroyers conducted an orbital bombardment of Hafnip for a full standard day. Nothing on the surface survived; the forests and plains burned in immense firestorms, the smoke from which blackened the sky. Seas boiled, volcanoes erupted and groundquakes shook the earth; every industrial site and population center was reduced to a lake of molten slag by sheets of turbolaser bolts.
On their way out, the Imperial vessels turned their weapons on what remained of the Miln orbital infrastructure. Of the several hundred space habitats which had survived the conflict up to that point, only three were spared, plus a handful of moon bases and deep space installations, all somehow overlooked in the unimaginable carnage.
And that was it.
The Empire withdrew from the system shortly afterward; even with the resources to be had, the cost of maintaining even a small garrison in a remote region of Wild Space was considered an unnecessary expense, especially as the Galactic Civil War began to escalate. In 2 ABY, a clerical error resulted in the system itself being dropped from Imperial records.
For generations, the Miln had mined large asteroids for metals, fissionable materials and other elements, specialists identifying the most promising rocks, which were then fitted with large engines and moved out of their native orbit, bringing them closer to the orbital colonies around Hafnip, where the raw materials would be processed and used. Such “delivery” operations had been commonplace before the coming of the Empire, but the ever-expanding claims the newcomers had made in the asteroid belt had disrupted the trade, leading to much consternation and confusion on the part of the Miln who made their livelihoods as deep space prospectors. Imperial claims shifted by the day, it seemed, and resource asteroids slated for transportation to Hafnip could find themselves within Imperial territory, usually with almost no notice.
Such was the case with VY236, a mostly unremarkable rock about 3 kilometers in length, primarily rich in chromium. The crew working VY236, a group of 10 Miln prospectors and engine fitters representing the Pulsar Deep Space Resources corporation, were nearly finished with the installation of propulsion units on the asteroid when word came that Imperial territory had shifted again, and that they were now occupying Imperial property.
Rather than giving up their prize, however, the team decided to snub Imperial authority and completed the asteroid's fitting out, igniting the engines to begin the trip back to their home-world.
An Imperial scout vessel was dispatched as soon as the departure was detected, rendezvousing with the asteroid and ordering the crew to alter course back toward the Imperial concession or be fired upon. In hindsight, it was likely this phrasing that caused confusion amid the Miln on the asteroid; not possessing a military of their own, or a history of armed conflict for that matter, threat of force against a fellow sentient was a difficult concept to grasp; to the scout's instructions, the Miln foreman responded with a request for clarification, asking what fire had to do with the current situation. The Imperial commander, assuming that the Miln were making light of the situation, ordered his gunners to fire a warning shot across the asteroid's path.
This had the opposite of the intended effect.
As the Miln were predisposed to do, the crew of the asteroid tried to run, firing the asteroid's nuclear pulse engine to try and outrun their pursuers. The edge of the exhaust cone, basically the directed output of a megaton-scale fusion device, caught the closely following Imperial scout ship, stripping the vessel's shields and causing minor hull damage. Taking this as hostile action, the Imperial commander retaliated, bringing his weapons to bear on the asteroid and razing the surface installations.
All 10 Miln on VY236 were killed.
The Imperial attack on VY236 caused a substantial panic on Hafnip; in the Miln view, the Imperials had demonstrated themselves to be hostile predators, and most believed it would only be a matter of time before they came for the rest of the Miln population. Worse yet, while the Miln were a space-faring civilization, they had not yet developed the capacity for interstellar travel; ultimately, if the Empire came for them on Hafnip or their orbital colonies, the Miln had nowhere they could run.
They were cornered.
“We cannot flee. We have nowhere to go. All we can do, what we all must do, is try, as hard and as long and as fiercely as we can, to survive.”
_Prime Minister Til Jeren, leader of the Hafnip Federation, circa 5 BBY.
The Miln-Imperial War would not be called such for another year, but in the aftermath of VY236, the Empire began to exert a firmer hand within the system. The number of armed patrols in the system's outer reaches was increased, and larger and larger sections of the asteroid belt were claimed, increasingly without consultation of the Miln government. This policy peaked in 4 BBY, when the Empire engulfed the Green Rest deep space colony, a major Miln settlement within the belt, into its zone of control.The population of Green Rest – mainly prospectors, propulsion engineers and other space development specialists – were informed via a radionic message that they were now subjects of the Galactic Empire, and to await the arrival of their new Human governor. Despite the speciesist disdain for the Miln professed by at least the higher-ranking Human officers assigned to the system garrison, the diminutive rodentoids were admired at least for their skill in working the asteroids, extracting the valuable resources the Empire wanted.
The annexation of Green Rest had been quite deliberate in that regard; the commander of the garrison, Commodore Fedorov Paln, had long considered demonstrating the utility of the Miln as a slave race as a means of furthering his own career. Now with a population of Miln under his control, Paln intended to test his theories, expecting that the naturally timid creatures could easily be controlled.
Such was not the case.
As a preliminary step in training the Miln of Green Rest, the population of the asteroid was rounded up for division into work details. The Miln, assuming that the stormtroopers sent to collect them were herding them together for extermination, imagined themselves to be cornered.
And cornered Miln were anything but timid.
The Massacre of Green Rest is considered by many to be the formal beginning of the Miln-Imperial war. The population of the asteroid colony, some 5,000 Miln, rose up against a force of 200 stormtroopers sent to gather them. Despite being armed only with hand tools, kitchen knives, other hastily improvised implements and only mob tactics, the Miln managed to inflict over 50 casualties. In retaliation, they were indeed entirely exterminated by the Imperials, though not before a chilling message was broadcast by the defenders.
They are killing us. We cannot get out. Save yourselves.
The subsequent evacuation of the asteroid belt by the Miln occurred in short order. Thousands fled to the inner planets, taking with them numerous resource asteroids and concentrating at the Hafnip orbital colonies. The Miln had never fought a war before; the concept was all but unknown to them. However, the new and significant danger placed before them forced the diminutive creatures to think in new ways; unable to flee from the new predator that was the Empire, they were forced to make a stand, and a massive one at that, requiring whole new ways of thinking and specialized technologies the species had never before explored.
To their credit, they rose admirably to the challenge; within a year, the first Miln warships had been developed, and in 4 BBY, a Miln fleet some 3,000 strong set out for the asteroid belt, the first of many attempts to dislodge the Imperials from their holdings in the system. Despite their weight of numbers, new weapon technology and resolve, however, the Miln were beaten handily at the First Battle of the Belt, during which a scant handful of Imperial survey and patrol craft decimated 90% of the fleet sent against them. Imperial weapons and tactics severely over-matched the novice Miln, and the attack only served to set the Empire on the offensive, launching raids deep into the system. There, they wreaked untold destruction, annihilating Miln industrial and administrative targets, as well as population centers.
To the Imperials, it was little more than target practice, though to the Miln, it was a war for their very survival.
War raged in the system for 4 standard years. In that time, the Miln suffered horrific losses against the Empire; by 1 BBY, 70% of the entire Miln population in space had been wiped out, with entire colony groups reduced to drifting shoals of wreckage.
The Miln themselves had very little to show for it; convinced that the Imperials were determined to exterminate them, they had never let up their attacks. Over time, their technology and tactics had grown more sophisticated; Imperial casualties continued to be frustratingly light, but by late in the war the Miln had begun to employ weapons which were at least marginally capable of damaging Imperial vessels, and had adopted strategies learned by observing the way the Empire fought, as well as more original tactics derived from the way the Miln dealt with the deadly predators of their home-world.
Ultimately, the Miln were fighting a delaying action; realistically, they knew they could never hope to beat the Empire, but perhaps they could keep them back long enough for their people to discover a way to survive. Even if they could not, the Miln would not submit to the claws of a predator without a fight, whatever it cost.
On the other end of things, the Empire looked upon the Miln as little more than a nuisance, a localized blip which barely even registered on their annual expenditures. The local garrison only operated a dozen or so small ships, more than enough firepower to deal with the threat of the indigenous sentients.
They were nothing to the Empire; not even worth the trouble of extermination, at least up until that point.
The end of the Miln-Imperial war came in 0 ABY, with the arrival of the Interrogator.
The Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Interrogator was on routine patrol in the Outer Rim, and was not originally scheduled to visit the Miln home system. The ship was diverted to the aid of the system's garrison at the suggestion of Commodore Paln, who mentioned the difficulties he had encountered with the native population in a hypercomm conversation with Interrogator's commander, Captain Morgan Yeln. Captain Yeln suggested that perhaps the Commodore's lack of any vessels exceeding light corvette size had failed to sufficiently impress upon the locals the scale and power of their foe, and that a show of force by a ship the size of his own might drive home the futility of their actions. Paln, by this time thoroughly frustrated by the Miln's refusal to surrender, readily agreed to try the Captain's idea.
Interrogator arrived in the system's outer reaches shortly afterward, and was quickly detected by Miln long-range sensors, which despite their relative primitiveness had no trouble picking up an object over a kilometer and a half in length. Understandably, the ship's arrival caused substantial consternation among the Miln; it was larger by several orders of magnitude than anything the Imperials had yet fielded against them, and it was on a direct course for the home-world.
What followed was, in the perspective of the Miln, perhaps the single most important space battle of the entire war.
Wanting to advertise his presence to the Miln, Captain Yeln ordered a leisurely sublight cruise through the system's inner planets, giving the locals time to be impressed by the incredible scale and power of one of the Empire's most formidable warships. This was to be Yeln's undoing, as the Miln made good use of the extra time, assembling the largest single fleet ever seen in the system up to that time to meet the Interrogator.
The Miln fleet, which encompassed every space-worthy vessel which could be found and fitted with armament, met Interrogator at the Hafnip Absolute Defense Line, a point just beyond the orbit of the planet's furthest natural satellite. Captain Yeln, not expecting to find an actual opposing force in his way, had come alone; he was not concerned, however, especially given that his vessel overwhelmingly outclassed anything the Miln could field against it.
The Miln, however, were not about to back down. They assumed that Interrogator could only mean the end for them; the Empire had finally brought the other hand out from behind its back, and was about to swat them down with it. The only thing left to do for the Miln was to fight on until the end, and hope that at least a few of their own would survive, somehow.
The battle which followed was indeed apocalyptic in scale and ferocity.
Though the Miln ships were little better than target practice for Interrogator's gunners, the Star Destroyer's shields absorbed volley after volley of Miln anti-ship missiles and mass driver bolts. Despite the loss of thousands of vessels, the Miln kept pouring on fire, crews ramming their own ships against the doonium behemoth's deflectors and hull when they ran out of ordnance. Such was the bombardment that, after many hours, the shields of the Imperial battle wagon actually collapsed, and the Miln defenders descended on it. Braving the ship's still formidable close-in weapons, Miln war vessels closed to latch on, disgorging their crews to fight the Imperials aboard.
Despite horrific casualties, including the near-complete decimation of their combined fleet, the Interrogator was eventually subdued and captured by the Miln. The victory came as a surprise; despite their ferocity in defending their home, few among the Miln had expected to succeed. The badly mauled but still intact Star Destroyer was now sailed by a prize crew, and though it had cost the Miln much to achieve such a victory, many believed that their actions might give the Empire pause in continuing their war against them.
They were wrong.
In point of fact, the Miln had signed their own death warrant with the taking of the Interrogator.
In managing to achieve such a victory, the Miln had brought themselves under the direct scrutiny of a government which had conquered thousands of worlds. The Miln, tiny rodentoids from a backwater world in the depths of Wild Space, had managed to bring down not just a ship, but a symbol of the Empire's irresistible might.
Such an act could not go unpunished.
The Miln enjoyed a few months of peace after the battle, unaware that it was the calm before a storm such as they had never seen.
They had brought down a single Star Destroyer, and it had cost them nearly all of their fighting strength. To finish them off, the Empire sent nine; nine ships, each a kilometer and a half long, all with very simple instructions.
Leave nothing alive on or around Hafnip.
Imperial Navy high command had authorized Base Delta Zero against Hafnip. Upon the task force's arrival, the Miln made an attempt to fight them off, even fielding the half-crippled Interrogator in their desperation, but in their weakened state they were swatted aside as the Empire laid waste to their world. The nine Star Destroyers conducted an orbital bombardment of Hafnip for a full standard day. Nothing on the surface survived; the forests and plains burned in immense firestorms, the smoke from which blackened the sky. Seas boiled, volcanoes erupted and groundquakes shook the earth; every industrial site and population center was reduced to a lake of molten slag by sheets of turbolaser bolts.
On their way out, the Imperial vessels turned their weapons on what remained of the Miln orbital infrastructure. Of the several hundred space habitats which had survived the conflict up to that point, only three were spared, plus a handful of moon bases and deep space installations, all somehow overlooked in the unimaginable carnage.
And that was it.
The Empire withdrew from the system shortly afterward; even with the resources to be had, the cost of maintaining even a small garrison in a remote region of Wild Space was considered an unnecessary expense, especially as the Galactic Civil War began to escalate. In 2 ABY, a clerical error resulted in the system itself being dropped from Imperial records.
The Miln who survived the war were few; just over 15 million, out of a prewar peak of over 10 billion. Though the Empire had left to fight other enemies, the process of rebuilding was far from easy; with their home-world rendered uninhabitable, and their space infrastructure in shambles, the species was reduced to subsistence level, cultivating and reclaiming what resources they could at a glacial pace.
The experience of the war with the Empire radically changed Miln society, as well. In addition to the need to survive, so too came the imperative to be ready. Life on other worlds existed, they now knew, and more important they also knew that at least some of it was hostile; should the Empire or others like them come calling again, they would not find the Miln to be the meek, naive species they had been before.
The Miln labored to improve their technology, though the Empire and its contemporaries had a long lead to catch up to. Unfortunately, the species had little opportunity to study what alien technology they had been able to capture; they had only been in possession of Interrogator for a few months, and all samples taken off the ship for study had been at a university on Hafnip during the bombardment, the wreck itself having been towed away by the Empire afterward. Nevertheless, the Miln were able to make certain key advances. Most significantly, their first crude hyperdrive, which was successfully tested in 794 ABY, about 50 years ago.
The discovery of hyperdrive has opened a bold new age in Miln space exploration; for the first time, the Miln have been able to realize their long-time dream of visiting other star systems, taking their first tentative steps out into the wider Galaxy, understandably cautious after the traumas of the past, but eager to explore.
In recent years, the Miln have begun to make their presence known in Wild Space and the Outer Rim, primarily represented by their explorers and merchants, who have a well-earned reputation for toughness and competence. The Miln have also made efforts to seed colonies on and around the planets of several nearby star systems, hoping to spread out their population base and avoid repeating their close brush with extinction.
Due to their relative isolation in a remote region of Wild Space, and compounded by their only fairly recent development of interstellar travel, the Miln were not effected by the Gulag Virus outbreaks which swept through the Galaxy in centuries past. The more recent Netherworld Event, on the other hand, during which some one million Miln vanished without a trace, was more keenly felt. The event has caused ripples in the largely nascent realm of Miln theology, failure of Miln science to explain the disappearances causing many to seek alternative answers.
Notable Player-Characters – Milo Tyranne.
Intent - This species is primarily intended to be that of my own character, a Miln scout. However, my other intention is to add a species with a unique psychological aspect – a prey species mindset and instincts – to this particular Star Wars fanon. I'd like to see how myself and others role-play this aspect.
I also want to add a species with a distinctly “hard sci-fi” flavor, as well as a technological disadvantage which they must overcome through intelligence, compared to the general “sword and raygun” aesthetic of the Star Wars setting, and see how they interact.
