Difference between revisions of "History of Hrydonia"

Revision as of 17:04, 4 August 2006

In the Beginning...

The land that is now known as the Empire of Hrydonia was discovered in the mid 1600s AD by an English explorer, whose journey is only known due to its mention by a lower-class scholar. Scholars believe that Hrydonia derived its name from the name of the aboriginal inhabitants (or at least the aborigines that this explorer encountered), who called themselves Rydoniet, which was rendered in Latin as Rydonii, which became "Hrydonia".

From this, scholars have hypothesized that the Latinate name of Hrydonia shows that the discoverer of Hrydonia was educated enough to know Latin, which by extension shows that (presumably) he must have been a member of the nobility, or at least the son of a rich merchant. Scholars have also hypothesized that the native population within Hrydonia's present borders was around 50 million at the time of discovery.

Empire

Empire was declared in the early to mid 1700s AD, which scholars believe to be about 1720. However the exact date is unknown, as the records of the Hrydonian Emperors show that the first Emperors used a system in which the year was counted from a year after the first Emperor was crowned, so most lists say, for example: "Emperor Alexander I: R. 0-5".

After the Empire was declared, the bulk of Hrydonia's military and economic energies was devoted, for some 170 years, to the conquest of the aboriginals, and thus Hrydonia readily tested modern weapons, from the first rifled muskets to early machine guns, against the aboriginals. Another consequence of this was that Hrydonia cared very little about the outside world, devoting its energies instead to subjugating the natives.

The Empire Expands

About 360 years after the establishment of the Empire, a small spacecraft intended to start a colony on Mars was launched. Contact was lost, unfortuately, but in the time since then Hrydonia has expanded, forming small colonies in the Sol system (on Luna, Mars, and various bodies in the Asteroid Belt). After sporadic support from the Imperial Government, the Konstantinov Superluminal Engine was successfully tested in July 2376 by a two-way journey lasting approximately 2 months round trip between the asteroid belt in the Sol System and Barnard's Star. Once at Barnard's Star, the unmanned probe that undertook the journey gathered astronomical data on Barnard's Star and returned to earth. The probe returned in mid-August with the data, having successfully accomplished its mission. In April 2420, a colonization ship departed for a system discovered by an unmannned probe some years earlier, which was approximately 2000 light-years away from the Sol system. Some 38 years later, the ship arrived in the system. Terraforming is currently underway, but is not expected to take much longer due to the similarity that was already present. Several other settlements were established on various other bodies in the system, and an unmanned ship was constructed and sent back to the Sol System carrying a message. The message stated that the colony ship successfully made it to the target system, which was duly named the Kingston System, and contained, among other things, a map of the route taken and a general report of the trip.