Rise and Fall of

The New Roman Empire

Race: Stock Human
Difficulty: Hard
Galaxy: Large 2 arm spiral
Players: 8

We begin the story of the New Roman empire in our home system of Unuk. Looking around at the worlds in our home system we immediately find a green 2, a magnate civilization and a sweet spot world in our system!

Seeing such a wealth of resources within the boundaries of our own system, we immediately begin exploring our part of the galaxy with the expectation of finding more resources to help build and expand our civilization. In honor of the founding of our new empire we have designated this as year 1. (turn 1) In our early explorations we find no one at all and although we have heard rumors of a new Orion Senate, we have not seen any indication that those rumors are true and we have very little evidence at all that there are other advanced civilizations in the galaxy at all!

Then around year thirty-five we encounter the lead elements of the Riptezew empire. The Riptezew are a race of intelligent and as it turns out friendly insectoids. While their appearance is somewhat intimidating to us, we immediately set to work establishing relations with them. They call their race the Tachidi and the feelings of interest and curiosity blossom and almost immediately we begin trading and establishing good and mutually beneficial relations with them.

In the year fifty-seven we encountered our second civilization, the Nevaxim. Unlike the Tachidi, this species is very quiet and their fleets are belligerent but not overtly hostile even at first contact. We were busy expanding our empire to the east, towards the Nevaxim empire, and before long our eyes were opened to the true horror of the Nevaxim Hive. As we learned to our horror, this race is a race of sentient parasites living off of the living flesh of human bodies!

Seeing this and immediately realizing the threat, our military advisors immediately call for higher fleet production and parliament unanimously approved a shift in budgetary policy from Peace through Strength to Limited War in an effort to quickly expand our military. A few years later when a Nevaxim outpost is discovered in one of our core systems we quickly increased military spending to Total War!

With our industries working hard to produce a significant military machine, we were soon in a position to begin fielding a battle fleet. The first flotilla of our fleet was immediately dispatched to destroy a harvester colony in the Ungal system. Ungal is strategically located at a celestial crossroads of star lanes, perfectly positioned to protect our inner systems from outside forces. It was our belief that if we were to secure this system then we could fortify it and use it as a base to both defend our inner worlds and as a staging point for future expansion.

At first our war with the harvesters went well. Over a period of years we bombed the harvesters out of the Ungal and Kumba systems. Then soon after eradicating the infestation in these systems, we advanced into and then beyond the Arakis system. Soon thereafter we found ourselves involved in another new war.

It should be noted that during the harvester war we were able to encounter another friendly species, the Argro Federation (a species calling themselves the Raas). We established friendly relations with this race including military alliances in an effort to help secure our position in the galaxy. We also encountered the New Orions, who just happened to have their home world only two jumps from the strategic system of Ungal. Finally we were talking to and trading with a crystalline race from the Vrungar consortium. This is the time that we came across our new enemy, a mechanical race of technically evolved cybernetic machines calling themselves the Mechlars. The NP-125-QYYB Confederation.

We are not sure why NP-125-QYYB declared war on us, perhaps they were actually friends with the Harvesters. We were soundly trouncing the harvesters with the help of our Riptezew allies when war was declared so many believe this could have been their justification. Immediately after declaring war the machines attacked. With a force of over thirty ships they attacked the Ungal system and proceeded to bomb our two fledgling colonies there.

We had been caught by surprise. Our defenses in Ungal were immature having only a small handful of system ships assigned the duty of suppressing pirate activity there. When the attack came, our battle fleet was busy fighting the Harvesters and unless we were willing to surrender a great deal of what we had already won our fleet could not turn around at this time.

For this reason Fleet Admiral Toranaga fell back on the Kumba system and immediately began building a second battle fleet. This process took several years due to the fact that our reserves were never allowed to get too full before we fielded a new wave or armada of ships for combat on the harvester front. Looking back now, we may have been better served to keep a few more ships in reserve for emergencies such as this.

While waiting for the new fleet to form devastating news that the colony of Ungal II had been exterminated arrived at Toranaga’s headquarters. Hearing the news, there was a great cry from our people screaming for the military to do something about this menace of the machines! Sure, the harvesters were a frightening buch, but they had yet to destroy a single colony. Surely, many pundits argued, the military could see that the machines were a greater threat? As luck would have it, Toranaga finally did had enough new ships in reserve to form a fleet to retake the Ungal system.

When the fleet arrived we had nearly forty ships of the line to engage the enemy. With the help of our ally we had a good idea of how strong the machines in Ungal were because the Riptezew had already attempted to liberate the system twice! While they were able to whittle the defenders down some they did not have enough force available to them to liberate the system and their fleets were destroyed.

The battle with the machines was fierce and they not willing to give up their hard won conquest so easily. However in the end we were victorious having twenty-five ships survive the battle to defend what we have now formally defined as our premier fortress system. Having solidified this front, together with our allies we quickly move in to augment our defenses and repelled a quick and powerful counter attack with very few losses.

With the threat from the machines dealt with for now and our flank secured by the fortress system of Ungal we once again turn our attention on the Harvesters in the year one hundred forty four. As the years pass the harvester war is beginning to feel like an eternal war. We attack them in system after system and then proceed to purge each planet in those systems that have been infested by their ilk. After we cleansed the final world controlled by the harvesters and finally end the harvester war, we notice something that we should have seen earlier.