Klonor
| |
| Flag of Klonor | |
| Motto: Illegitimi non Carborundum | |
| Map To Large For Page | |
| Region | The Klonor Empire |
|---|---|
| Capital | SR-2091 (Officially) Deneb (Actuality) |
| Official Language(s) | Hinlish |
| Leader | Grand Duke Solomon Klonor (Inherited Monarchy) Amy Keane & Mary Salm (Consuls) |
| Population | 5 billion+ |
| Currency | floren |
| NS Sunset XML | |
The Associated Systems of Klonor is a peculiar and fascinating nation. Originating in the simple Duchy of Klonor, a small principality located in central Africa on Old Earth ruled by the Duke Solomon Klonor, the minor nation only achieved its current notoriety after it emerged onto the Galactic scene. Intitially a piggy-back space power, using purchased ships to travel to its new home via an alien travel pathway, it was not long before the nation began to research and manufacture their own technology and transportation vessels. Currently controlling seven stellar-systems and fielding a military fleet on par with those of the largest of nations, Klonor is regarded as a power within the Universe.
Contents
The History of Klonor
The Klonor Empire: Rise to Power
Klonors ascension to power can be directly traced to another nation: the Empire of Jimathon. Klonor, at the time styling itself the Klonor Empire despite its lack of any conquered foreign holdings, was only just beginning to expand into space and had only recently constructed anything approaching a 'modern' navy. Nominal allies with Jimathon for years, the two nations had only minor contact before an attempted coup d'etat staged by Klonor and Jimathonian revolutionaries. Financed and led primarily by the Sons of Dor, an extremist group feeling that one of the Duke Klonors distant relatives should have ascended to the throne instead of him, the attempted usurpers hijacked a Jimathonian Destroyer known as The Manifest and assaulted the Duke in planned assassination. Utilizing a state-of-the-art power source known as the MiniStar, The Manifest was a match for even the strongest of Klonor vessels and the juggernaught seemed on the brink of succeeding. It was only when the two nations combined their forces that they were able to halt the threat to both governments. Known as the Manifest Incident, the shocking ease with which the rebels managed to assume control of one of the most poweful vessels in known space clued the rulers of the seperate nations into just how vulnerable they were to usurpation of their power. They began drafting proposals for an Alliance that would solidify control over their territory.
Upon suggestion from the Duke Klonor, the proposed Galactic Klonor-Jimathonian Alliance was modified slightly and opened to the Galaxy at large. An unprecedented success, eventually the Alliances numbers swelled to over 75 Member Nations, a size still unmatched by any other Space Alliance and providing the first forum for cooperation and conversation on a massive scale for those nations located outside of the Sol system. Though holding no official power, the lack of interest most nations showed in the running of the Galactic Alliance and the influence gained from being one of the Founders made Klonor the de facto ruler of the Galactic Alliance. The resources, personnel, and intelligence of 75+ nations greatly helped propel Klonor to the height of the Galactic food chain.
The Klonor/Jimathon Split
However, the calm did not last long and the Empires of Klonor and Jimathon were soon at one-anothers throats. Though the cause of the hostility has since been lost in time, the Duke Klonor attempted to insight an internal revolution within Jimathon to assume control while, at home, he kidnapped and imprisoned the Emperor Jimathon until his allies could cement their control over his domain. Unfortunately, the Duke did not fully comprehend either the incompetence of his allies in Jimathon or the cunning of his new prisoner. With a combination of betrayal by his Jimathonian consipirators and escape by the Emperor Jimathon, the Dukes plans were squashed and it was only the timely interference of Abel Salm, the leader of the Klonor Space Corps, that prevented the situation from degenerating into total war. With the staus quo restored, the Emperor Jimathon back on his throne and Klonor once more completely commited to friendship, the two nations continued on as if nothing had happened. Commited entirely in secret, not even the Galactic Alliance was aware of the attempted coup or near-war. As a result, the GA took no action against either nation and the massive Alliance continued on, blissfully unaware of how close it had been to Civil War. In fact, the incident has largely faded from public memory and, if it had not been for the Jimathonian invention of the Trophy Light, in all likelihood it would now be completely forgotten by all except the odd history professor and the Duke himself.
Fortunately for history, the Trophy Light did exist and has kept this particular skirmish from completely disappearing into the mists of time. A seemingly ordinary cigarette, the Trophy Light was in fact a top-level Jimathonian project designed to instill artificial immortality on those lucky enough to come into its posession. Inserting a viral bio-agent into the body of those who smoke it, the virus is then infected with a complex mutagen. When the host eventually dies, either through natural causes or a tragic accident, the virus eats the dying cells and the mutagen forces it to excrete living ones. Usually taking more than a month to be truly effective, but capable of working near-instantaneously if stimulated with copious amounts of electricity, the end result is the effective re-birth of the deceased, just as he/she/it was prior to their death. It is with this impressive technology that the Duke has been able to survive throughout the ages, and this incident being the point where he partook of a Trophy Light has allowed it to remain within the memories of Klonor, however vaguely that may be.
The Death of the Duke Klonor
It was at this point in history, with Klonor seemingly on top of the world at at peace with all surrounding nations, that a new threat arose, this time from within. Supreme General Abel Salm, Commander of the Klonor Space Corps, assassinated the Duke within his chambers and, displaying a doctored video of the Dukes natural demise to the public, assumed control of the Empire. Supposedly displeased with the policies of the Duke, upset with the participation in the Galactic Alliance, which greatly supported potential enemies while providing no real support to Klonor, and the habit of selling Klonor combat and civilian vessels to other nations, giving them nearly infinite samples of Klonor technology with which to work out possible offensive weaponry, General Salm worked towards creating what he called "A Strong Klonor". He immediately withdrew membership from the Galactic Alliance and all other Organizations of which Klonor was a member, began a sudden and dramatic military overhaul, and instituted a mandatory and wide-spread draft that inducted more than a quarter of the total population into the armed forces, giving no regard to the impossibility of adequately supporting such a large military. He seemed on the verge of embarking on a massive war of conquest, something which seemed all to likely to succeed, as other nations publicly acknowledged their lack of preparedness to defend against such a sudden and massive attack, when his plans were suddenly and violently halted.
The Duke, re-born thanks to the immortality bestowed upon him by the Trophy Lights, returned and did unto Salm as Salm attempted to do unto him. At least, he believed he did. It was only centuries later that it was discovered that Salm managed to survive his supposed execution. Regardless, the result was the Duke back in control and Klonor once more entering both the Galactic Alliance and friendship with the other nations of the Galaxy.
The Fall of the Galactic Alliance
Under continued pressure from nationalist groups with Klonor, which had gained substantial strength during the reign of Salm, the Duke regretfully resigned from the Galactic Alliance. There was no threat of revolution or assassination, as there was with Salm, but the Duke felt it was his responsibility to obey will of his people. As the Founder of the Alliance, and essentially its driving force, the Alliance crumbled soon after Klonor permanently withdrew. The majority of its members quickly abandoned the Alliance as well and the remaining members, who never officialy withdrew their membership, simply ceased reporting to the whole and eventually drifted apart. Soon afterwards the Alliance was declared officially dead.
The Golden Age
What followed after Klonor withdrew from the Galactic Alliance is often referred to as a Golden Age, though there has been no connection made between the two events.
Shortly after the withdrawl from the Galactic Alliance, Klonor scientists discovered what is commonly referred to as "Nexus Tech". A revolutionary new power source, the application of this technology increased the speed and range of Klonor craft exponentially, allowing for rapid travel outside of the Sub-Space Jump-Node Network and even making Inter-Galactic travel a possibility. In addition to simply providing locomotion, the Nexus Cannon, a weapon which makes use of Nexus Energy, is arguably the most powerful offensive weapon in the Klonor arsenal. Though extremely large, unable to be installed on any except the largest of ships, and also slow to fire, requiring a full day to recharge after each shot, the massive energy unleashed by each individual discharge is perfectly capable of atomizing an entire planet, let alone an enemy ship. The installation of Nexus propulsion aboard the New Dawn 03 was what enabled the discovery, exploration, and colonization of the distant SR-2091, an Extra-Galactic stellar-system well out of reach of normal Sub-Space and G/TD travel.
In addition to Nexus Tech, the creation of the new Battleship class of combat vessels nearly doubled the combat capabilities of the Klonor Space Corps. With the Battleship class ready for deployment, and each individual ship equaling three Destroyers in ability, the Klonor Space Corps was suddenly able to project its power much more efficiently, dispatching only one ship instead of an entire fleet. This allowed them to preserve their resources for further research, construction, and expansion. Furthermore, the massive vessels provided a new class capable of supporting the Nexus Tech, which Destroyers could only do after massive overhauls and which Cruisers could not handle no matter how many modifications were performed.
Beyond the simple scientific advances of the Post-GA days, there were also incredible religious and philosophical advances. The Way of the Spirit, originally a small religion viewed as a somewhat troublesome cult, gained significant sway within the government and populace and, despite initial fears of a religious revolution, proved to actually be as harmless and peace loving as they claimed to be. There were initial minor troubles between the Way and the well-established Pantheon, but once each religion made no serious attempts to convert or destroy the other they settled into peaceful co-existence. A much more ancient problem, the racial tensions between the Elves and Humans who jointly inhabited the Epsilon Pegasi system, was also laid to rest; each group finally managing to progress past the long-standing prejudices that had been plaguing the system for centuies. Except for an extreme minority of extremists, universally reviled by the rest of Klonor, the entire populace has moved past the superficial differences which had kept them seperated for so long.
The Divided Peoples of Klonor
Tragedy struck one night when, in a plot by a mysterious society of still undiscovered strength, intention, and composition, the government of the Klonor Empire was eliminated in a single night.
The Duke Klonor himself was the first to go, killed within the Vicegral Palace in Deneb. The actual means are still unknown, but the attackers seemed to have obliterated the Dukes mind from within, painfully reducing the monarch to a lifeless corpse. Following the Duke, the System Governments are similarly executed, then the Planetary Executers, and finally the Regional Magistrates. Within hours the entire governing body had been swept aside and anarchy rose up in its wake. The Klonor Empire, which had survived for centuries, then fragmented into several distinct factions that warred amongst one another and fell victim to alien invaders.
What followed is commonly referred to in Klonor simply as "The Bad Times", a period of unprecedented suffering and horror that has yet to be equaled even in the centuries since its start.
The Epsilon Pegasi Civil War
One of the clearest and most violent examples of the suffering that rose up in the wake of the Empires collapse, and a memory which still stings Klonor citizens to this day, was the Civil War within Epsilon Pegasi between the Human and Elvish inhabitants of the system. The Humans were descendants of the original Klonor settlers, those who had embarked from the Duchy of Klonor back on Old Earth and colonised the multi-planet Pegasi system. The Elves, though there for centuries already, were newcomers who had settled on one of the uninhabited planets while fleeing from persecution on Earth several years after the Humans had already departed for the Stars.
The war was clearly started by the Humans, located on the fifth planet, several months after the Fall. Until then the system had managed to hold itself together better than the rest of the former Empire, but as the isolation continued the stress grew to high. The Humans, numerically superior to the Elves and holding a larger portion of the remainder of the Klonor Space Corps, began to slowly demote and remove from command all the Elves within the military. It was done slowly and quietly, no overt "All Elves must leave or die", but after several weeks it became obvious that within a few months there would not be a single Elf Officer remaining aboard any ship. Already the new commanders were beginning place restrictions on travel to and from the Elvish planet, restricting commerce, and even proposing radical identification programs. It was clear to all that the ultimate goal was to reduce the Elves to second class citizens, possibly even slave status, after the Humans had removed them from any possible position of resistance.
Chosing to resist rather than meekly submit, the remaining Elvish officers launched a preemptive strike against the Human occupied world and some of the larger combat vessels under Human control. What followed afterwards can at best be called Total War, and at worst attempted Genocide on both sides. Neither side was satisfied with anything less than complete domination of the opposing species, and both worked hard to achieve it. The Humans were larger in number and had greater experience waging war, the Elves had usually concerned themselves with internal matters prior to the Fall, but the Elves were nearly fanatical and still retained contact with their commanders, while the Humans lost contact with theirs when the Empire fell. Neither side was able to conquer the other and, while civlians were being hearded into work/execution camps reminiscent of the Holocaust of the 20'th Century Old Earth, the militaries were constantly on the brink of collapse.
The collapse came months later when, after near constant fighting, the foreign nations of Vernii, Valinon, and Taka mobilised their military forces and conquered the system for their own purposes.
The Draconian-Rossian Alliance
An unpleasant chapter in Klonor history, the Draconian-Rossian Alliance is one of the strongest arguments for a democractic and peaceful government if there ever was one. Formed by the commanders of the Gamma Draconis and Ross 128 military installations, styling themselves Prince and Lord Admirals (respectively), its original intentions were to "Preserve the Klonor way of life" immediately after the Fall. The two military installations contained the bulk of the former Klonor Space Corps, more than enough military might to ensure the security of their own borders, eventually fell under the leadership of Supreme General Yunger Keane, the former leader of the Klonor Space Corps, and at first seemed the brightest hope in all the former Empire to unite the seperate factions and restore peace. However, despite their initial claims, the organization soon became nothing more than a military dictatorship completely subject to the whim of General Keane.
They quickly moved to invade and subjugate the Regulus Autarchy, one of the factions which came into being when the System Commander of Regulus attempted to make the system into his own domain, and pacified the system quite quickly and bloodily. Soon afterwards they moved to assert dominance over Epsilon Pegasi as well, but with the conquering by Taka/Vernii/Valinon they quickly left the negotiations table due to their lack of any strong claim and their inability to launch a three pronged assault on three seperate united nations.
After several months of routine maintenance, the DRA embarked on an unprovoked assault on an unaffiliated nation in the hopes of expanding its Empire and re-gaining the population and material resources it no longer had access to with the isolation of Deneb, Epsilon Pegasi, and Tau Ceti. However, when the defences that should have been easily swept aside without a single loss instead inflicted massive losses upon the DRA's assault fleet, General Keane was forced to re-evaluate his standing. Worse off than he had originally assumed, without access to the famed Denebian Shipyards and the technicians located within the system, the DRA's fleet was literally coming apart at the seams, two ships simply collapsing after being struck by an attack that would not have damaged their shields if they had been properly functioning.
It was at this point that the DRA folded upon itself, attempting merely to hold on to its current posessions and no longer bothering with planned expansion.
The Regulus Autarchy
A short-lived faction, the Commander of the Klonor Space Corps within the Regulus system declared himself Autarch, the undisputed ruler of the system, and proclaimed Regulus its own nation. However, before either he or is forces could perform any actions of significant impact, the system was conquered by the Draconian-Rossian Alliance and integrated into the military organization.
Lil miss
One of the most unanticipated reversals in the history of Klonor, the situation in the system of Deneb is commonly referred to as "The student surpassing the master". Lil miss was a nation which, like Klonor, had originally evolved on Old Earth. However, while they similarly expanded off the planet and into the Galaxy, the nation had no wish to form an Empire of its own. Forging an Alliance with Klonor, Lil miss purchased a planet within the system of Deneb, Klonors capital, and settled their several billion citizens upon the new and open territory. Seemingly content with a planet of their own, Lil miss had no military navy worth consideration and made no effort to expand their control outwards, content to leave the rest of the system to Klonor and the rest of the Universe to whoever wished to posess it.
However, when the Empire fell, the government of Lil miss could not pass up the golden opportunity that had so neatly landed in its lap. Citing humanitarian motivations, unwilling to leave their neighbors to wallow in chaos, Lil miss moved to achieve power over the Klonor inhabitants. While the government of Klonor was only recently demised, and its military therefore left leaderless, the alien nation used its superior population, which outnumbered the Klonor citizens by several billion, to assume control of the Klonor populated planet. With their dominance of the planet uncontested, the Klonor Space Corps ships in the system quickly conceded to the government of Lil miss.
Fortunately, Lil miss still had no real wish for Empire and made no effort to further expand their holdings. With their posession of the latest in Klonor defensive technology, technology which even the Draconian-Rossian Alliance had not had access to before the Empire fell, they were able to maintain uncontested control of the Deneb system and once again settled in to the routine of running their own affairs without regard for outside influences.
