FINAL YEARS OF THE PRE-STELLAR ERA
At the time of the Great War, there were six great nations at odds with one another.
- Ent'Shelari Republic
- Dahetian Republics
- Hukatian Empire
- North and South Sidessia (in civil war)
- Kalopan Empire
- Farkade Union
Heavily disputing control of the globe at least for the past century or two.
Thrown against each other in dirty resource wars to feed their ever expanding industry and war machine, regional conflicts soon had these powers meet with each other. Fully bloomed world war. Each fighting on multiple fronts against multiple declared enemies - both deploying terrible weapons against one another, just as soon as they were developed live on the frontlines.
The armsrace had made it so the sun hadn't shined in half a decade. Records of this time are rare and sparse, often removed from context by the movements of the tribes that remained. Legend has it, a small circle of generals accorded to finally put a stop to the massacre. It is unclear if the technology was intentionally leaked, or if it developed independently. But someone had finally split the atom. It didn't matter to that circle who had it, they knew it had to be used if they wanted to fix the world, if they wanted to reset the cycle of violence. If the world had to be burned so it could truly flourish again, if all flags had to be burned to unite everyone, so it had to be done.
It was the last day of summer, 92 PSE.
600 million gone in an instant.
The ash, the radiation, and the scavengers, claimed the remaining 6 billion in the following decade.
YEAR ZERO
The southern regions of the world, mostly a vast sea populated by a single continent, were largely unaffected by the exchange and its effects. Without global trade or ultramarine enemies left to fight. The handfull of organized groups and states that remained in the south continent coalesced into the Commonwealth of Sidessia.
Though, the reality of the aftermath of the nuclear war is that most of the northern lands were far too razed to occupy. Though nature always found a way to creep back in. And so the Commonwealth learned quickly. They too had to adapt.
Engineers, doctors and ecologists alike worked to create variants of known crops and cattle, resistant to the radiation, resistant to the terrible climate that slowly waned... Then it occurred to them, if designing was the key to survival in a new world - then why not redesign themselves?
The result of these decades of research, questionable, inhumane, but deemed VITAL research, were the Kahikōpafi (better translated as "divine servant", or crudely "angel"). The Angels were a mass-produceable workforce designed to clear and re-settle the northern wastelands. Greater resistance, greater strength, superior intellect, balanced by constant work-load, constant oversight, and short lifespans. Easily spotted by their characteristic looks, it was almost impossible to miss those 'elite slaves' amidst the public - and oh they tried.
As the employment of Angels grew. So did the public sentiment that these beings were something else, something more than mere tools sent to work in no-man's-land, something more than lead-soldiers to be cast and mowed down by conflict.
Each generation of Angels meant a different conflict between demand, performance, and the public perception. Different skillsets, different lifespans, different patches in behavior patterns and social skills. Even limited breeding generations for the farthest reaches of the land.
Them Angels fought hard to earn a spot. And a well deserved spot indeed, they had brought that world up from the ashes almost entirely on their own. By the time of the Somoga Event, it had been almost three centuries the Angels had become the Hoku's right hand.
And the promise of freedom came with one last pharaonic task - run for the stars.
Within a few years of building the Somoga Square Zaega Array (Okuiuka Zaaega Iutso det Somoga, O.Za.I.So. literal for Plateau), a radio telescope range, the Somoga Event happened. A stream of radio, gamma rays and radiation all across the high energy spectrum. Peaking on a cluster of stars in Hokushoku's celestial south. The energy levels required to produce such an event from this distance - the physicists reckoned, would require destruction on a planetary scale - compatible with the deployment of a theoretical superweapon, a relativistic missile. No other explanations satisfied the case.
They had barely any chance to ask themselves if they were alone. The forest echoed a roar back at them.
GOLDEN STELLAR ERA
Sending Angels and Hoku to nearby planets in their own system was quite above ordinary - compared to what they had previously achieved on the surface of their homeworld. Settling their neighboring ice world of Namenza with a permanent Angel and Hoku population. But looking up at the stars, require some far more sophisticated leaps.
The Specter, as the Chelok call them, was a natural step in manning missions sent to distant moons, planets - and then stars. The specter chassis varied with the designated tasks, from being simple cores operating whole factories, to UAVs and UTVs, down to being more avipodomorphic with recognizable and relatable faces and expressions, working as police, healthcare, or assistant units worldwide and offworld.
The development of better and even more autonomous AI allowed the hoku to dare sending precurssor missions at various extra-solar planets during their first stellar era, both habitable and uninhabitable worlds, these robotic missions had the same intent of their first efforts, pave infraestructure and acquire intel for the upcoming organic population, once they figured how the hell one does safely traverse interstellar space.
Auot'zae never became habitable again in its full extension because of the still radioactive zones, but the fallout had thinned enough in areas which could be treated and recovered with work. Because many northern cultures and technologies were lost, groups of kahikopafis adopted the ancient languages, and custoums of these lost civilizations as their own, while some created entirely new ways to have a sense of ownership over their fates, hence why we see the reapperance of old tongues such as Hukat and Entselari throughout off-world populations later on.
The Dominion is densely populated with stars, however, many of these harbor dead or gaseous worlds. Very few were deemed high-priority targets for the Hoku's purpose: Escape the Dominion grasp, whatever it was.
The closest of such worlds was aptly named Muhori (in Sidessian mythology, it is an island where demigods reside), some 20 light-years from the Paza system. A brand new, barren and young, oceanic world.
In their early attempts to settle this distant jewel, the Hoku also independently developed what they would later recognize as the modern Starlane. An excavated "tube" in the interstellar medium that allows for safe relativistic travel.
The first crewed ships to cross the void were egg-ships, which incubated an Angel crew in the final two decades of their century-long trip to settle Muhori. Though specter crews were sent to that and other likely target at close to twice that speed.
In the 1000 years since the last great war, the Hoku Expanse (Azapaxako Hoku) had already set foot on five new worlds beyond its home system. But not all worlds were as welcoming as Muhori.
FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH THE CHELOK
One world called their attention heavily. Qekohoshoku - the golden world. A tropical world with golden vegetation reminiscent of their own homeworld. When the Expanse got there in 734 SE (7,929 of the Ecumenical Era, by Chelok reckoning), they met a local population of Chelok. Their first contact with alien society which they weren't aware existed at the time.
The locals received their extraterrestrial visitors with warm, and told stories of the greater Chelok domain, a string of 'island nations' that crossed straight through the Expanse's claim to the heavens. The population of Qekohoshoku however, was an estranged strain of the Chelok Empire, the presence of the Expanse would be tolerated, but deals and commerce would probably have better success dealing straight with the administrative core of humanity, at Dheghom.
And so the Hoku did use what they had learned on Qekohoshoku and took their case to Dheghom - albeit on a cautious foot.
Meeting the Chelok was a far more underwhelming event than what the tales and the allure for the strange would have you believe. Very few trips, mostly letters through beamed lasers. To the Hoku, they seemed far too firmly planted in place, far too preoccupied with themselves, far too unconcerned about whatever it was they witnessed almost a millenium ago.
'The Dominion'. It had a name, and the Chelok knew of it, had dealt with it. They were there at its founding. With a concerned expression, they told the Hoku what they knew. From what they understood, they had little to fear for themselves in the time being, but they also didn't condemn the Expanse's posture about keeping their distance of it, lest they did not cross humanity.
The exchanges between the Chelok Empire and the Hoku Expanse marked the end of the golden stellar era, and the start of the lower stellar era.
LOWER STELLAR ERA
In 1739 SE, an Expanse expedition mission stumbled on another silent civilization around their north celestial hemisphere. The Nan-Nan of Anaya. A world just shy of 25 light-years from the Expanse colony of Voliloshoku. A race of stout water-adjacent reptilians, highly empathetic, idealistic and curious beings, just getting the hang of launching their first satellites. Peacefully integrated them into the Expanse via various technology trade accords. A significant fraction of Nan-Nan now lives in multiple hoku worlds and trade routes.
It had been almost a thousand years since their meeting with the Chelok. During a uneventful winter night of 1977 SE, a strange object pierced the comet cloud of the Muhori system at hyperbolic velocity, recorded in photographic plates that wouldn't be revised until decades later.
Ground telescopes looked for any new comets for that season, but amongst the bright comets they noticed outgassing and ices spraying and settling on the surface of a very dark object past the asteroid belt, later observation lead to finding the object in a very inclined and hypebolic trajectory, which meant the object did not originate from within the systems sparse comet cloud, instead, it pointed the heart of the Dominion... Authorities kept the existence of the object a top secret and limited the use of large telescopes to avoid employees and students from leaking the news, they only had a six-year window to study the object before it were catapulted out the system. It took a few weeks for the rendezvouz with the object, within a month of mission Kooratalil (in hoku mythology, the serpent that guards the gates of the Underworld) decent visual contact with the object could be made, about 752 meters long, a constellation of debris surrounded the bulky halved starship, the dark metal coating the lizard-like armor plates were flaking away due at least four millenia of micrometeorite impacts.
Exploring the ship revealed that this half seemed to be the lower deck and engine module of a sort of warship, given the amount of warheads and antimatter storage equipment, no crew in sight, but enough biological samples were collected for several species to be cloned in-vitro back on Muhori by our xenobiologists. To this day a top secret, maybe buried under files no one alive knows about.
The warship couldn't be slowed down without risking being too public about it, and so the government scanned and collected everything they could about it and allowed it to drift away into space. The problem with the whole secrecy of the operation is that you can't tell people not not go there because you don't want them to know something is actually there. Less than 3 years later, the crew of a comet-mining ship stumbled upon the dark vessel, taking time to document, explore and stream it for the whole world to see, while they attempted to jump-start it for several days, too far to be jumped upon by the authorities, they finally managed to turn the warship on, which immediately cried for help before being shut off. The crew of the Pearly Tear IV was trialed and executed for high treason in-situ upon arrival of the navy.
"THE PING"
... As the event would come to later be called by the public was a day of panic worldwide, for centuries the consensus was that the we were safe for as long as they kept moving away from the Dominion, and now that the Ping was sent, it was only a matter of a century or two before They showed up inside the Hoku Expanse. Although the panic was quickly settled out by the authorities, various commands and investments were issued in further developing weapons and combat ships for a possible disastrous first contact with the races of the Dominion, this Lower Stellar Era had its development focusing on faster and smaller maneuverable starships, energy-based and relativistic weapons.
The intent of miniaturizing combat-able ships and starships was to ease in the manufacturing effort and the formation of potential resistance militias across Hoku space. This wasn't much of a problem due the common traditions of the spacefaring peoples, there was no shortage of work and technological niche opportunities in the industry, and the time for the outsider's arrival had been set into the foreseeable future, thus infighting almost completely ceased.
Soon enough, many of the hoku born into the LSE were enrolled into local militias, interstellar patrol groups and radar stations across known space, waiting for the Dominion to respond to the ping.
The Chelok at their nearby homeworld of Dhéģhōm were the first to detect the ping some 50 years later, and immediately frowned upon the trading with us, because they were bringing the Dominion closer to them and such an encounter could have unpleasant consequences.
At the time being, the south polar star of Auot'zae, Kuoosate'zapa (or Forzai, by its arrene name) was the nearest Dominion system and the first to respond the Ping. The message took 78 years to reach Forzai, a decade-long discussion resulted into an escorted First Contact fleet with ten vessels. Which weren't noticed until their decelleration plume shone at the edge of the comet cloud like a nova directed at them.
THE HOKU JOIN THE DOMINION
It was then, in 2239 SE, that the Dominion revealed themselves to the Hoku, not as a monolith. But as multi-race 'colaborative framework'. Chelok members, the Ygiv, a few Saffi, the Arrene, and ONE Qire science officer.
They refuse to elaborate on the nature of the events that created the Somoga Event, testimonies are hard to cross - but they do make it clear it was not going to happen ever again.
The Dominion has plenty of space and resources for both civilizations thousands of times over, there was nothing the we personally had that was of interest to them, except our known biospheres, which as arguably non-negotiable given the scale of the Arrene force. Private groups however had great interest in trading and learning the ways of the hoku to sell their culture and artifacts as novelties back in the Dominion's capital worlds.
Many Hoku, mainly as researchers, opted for returning with the diplomatic fleet to the heart of the Dominion to learn more and establish a viable pacific presence within, in such a way as to have a representative seat within the community. This was quite a historic moment for both parties, for the arrene, it would be a chance to start pacific relations from the start with a new race. Given the first encounters with the Chelok and Qire were pretty disastrous, not to speak from the outright oppressive way they colonized the Yigiv people before they became a spacefaring civilization as preemptive action.
The Hoku are considered to have joined as soon as the diplomatic fleet knocked at their doorstep, although bureocracy held that a few decades to be effected. Shortly followed by the Nan-Nan, a century after. Though more like an alternate arm of the Dominion, a distant neighbor state rather than part of it, nonetheless given the power and technological disparity, many saw the relationship as a creeping assimilation. It was not without reason, the hoku had clear motives to gulp, being under a Qire Duke's command at times.
DOMINION ERA
With a population of 40 billion at the time, the Hoku Expanse had no shortage of work to be done, though many repetitive tasks were acomplished by machinery, we were reaching a near post-scarcity societal stage, with very few places struggling with obtaining sustenance or resources and only for a lack of heavy equipment, since the off-world colonies needed vast amounts of supplies and tech coming from the core worlds in order the keep productivity and growth rate. The terrible weather and acessibility meant many of those colonies would make it cheaper to manufacture machinery in nearby asteroids, moons, or simply import it from the Dominion's merchant flocks and scout ships. So while the core worlds and capital colonies across the Expanse concentrated the Hoku tech and prowess, the Dominion basically taught colonists how to survive in those extreme environments in which the we were just barely able to settle, given the greater reliability in delivery times by the faster Arrene and Qire ships.
Because of the political reasons behind the expanse, colonies never had any necessity of rebel against the Hoku domain because they weren't really being pressured to produce any goods, their only goal was to be there as a backup in case of catastrophic fail of mainland society, of course, from time to time, companies, private groups, and the navy would bring new technology, goals, and gratifications to the most succesful settlements. Over time, several moon, belter, and farmer colonies were simply abandoned by succeeding generations, because of lack of greater opportunity and goals, with populations migrating towards the core worlds and even venturing into the dominion.
Though the Expanse did not posess any goods that peaked further interest within the Dominion, apart from the occasional novelties, the paved starlanes were still of importance for Dominion scouts and researchers because it signified safe paths to reaching further regions of space of particular interest like nebulae and potentially habitable star systems, without risking slow and dangerous trips across the frontier. Allowing them to remain close to civilization in case of emergencies while they venture into uncharted space.
This state of peace lasted 1000 Chelok-years, and were recorded as one of the most prosperous periods in Hoku history. A period before the 'Unrelenting Force' came upon us...
