History of Pilon
The Hegemony of Pilon traces its roots to an ancient order dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and technology in the hopes that one day this would lead to the development of a perfect society. Only bits and pieces still survive in early historical documents about the homeland of the Pilonese people, but scholars who have studied them know that the land was a wet and humid area, probably overrun with jungles where humanity struggled to fight back the encroaching vegetation. No name for this culture is given.
This civilization was ruled by a religious order that passed down tales of an even earlier culture who they claimed to be the survivors of whom the Gods punished for their pursuit of forbidden knowledge. The order purposely kept the specifics of what the forbidden knowledge was vague so anything that the order didn’t like could be passed off as forbidden knowledge and be banned. The civilization was extremely militaristic and oppressive; there are even accounts of human sacrifice and torture carried out by priests of this order.
As the civilization grew in prominence they began to war with surrounding lands and took slaves from these lands, many of whom were technologically more advanced. The slaves took with them their ideas, technology and culture creating a melting pot of ideas and an ever increasingly discontent populace. Eventually an Order that was based on the ideas of the ancient culture and pursued ultimate knowledge in the hopes that one day it would lead to a Utopia sprang up and was called the Order of the Open Eye, which depicted itself by a white sun with a turquoise triangle in the background.
When the Order of the Open Eye grew sufficiently powerful an uprising against their overlords was staged, with support of many of the common people of the land, a bloody civil war spread through the lands and many people died, both from the weapons of the military and from the diseases and hardships of the jungle territory. The war had its toll on the military however as many crops were destroyed in the war, soon the military had no food to pay their soldiers with and when most of the army defected the slaves won, going on a rampage through the cities tearing down the temples and looting anything that could be used. These survivors left the lands on an exodus to find a new land, where they could begin their research and not be interfered with by religion or oppressive peoples who would make them slaves. This was the beginning of the nation of Pilon.
After 8 years of traveling they came to a region called the Burmese Highlands, where they were welcomed by other nations and given aid as the foundations for their civilization were made. As the years passed Pilon grew to prominence in the Burmese Highlands, eventually becoming the elected UN delegate for the region.
It was at about this time that a split between the Burmese people began between the Conservative nations led by religion, tradition and skepticism and the Liberal nations who enjoyed a diverse set of beliefs, new ideas, and an optimistic look to the future. As Pilon was one of the Liberal nations many of the decisions made by Pilon in the United Nations led to angry outbursts by the Conservative nations, especially Planktonia, the most powerful of the Conservative nations who had an eye for Pilon’s UN position.
Eventually the Conservative nations convinced enough of the Centrist nations to come over to their side and Pilon lost its UN Delegate position. This was followed shortly by a tirade of endorsements that were contrary to the founding beliefs of Pilon and many of the Liberal nations. It was because of this loss and what Pilon took to be insults to the Pilonese people that resulted in a cold war and an arms buildup in the region, which consequently led to the collapse of many of the economically weak nations and a resulting power grab that left the Conservative nations in a drastically more powerful position.
Over 1800 years had passed since Pilon came to the Burmese Highlands, and in that time they had progressed to a point of modern technology. The growing fear in the region was that a nuclear war would break out between the nations and the entire region would be destroyed. Increasing pressure was put on Pilon to conform to the Conservative ways, tariffs on Pilonese goods were put in place, and Pilonese citizens were harassed and detained when traveling into these other countries. It was at this point that Pilon decided to leave the Burmese Highlands and find a new home.
Initially Pilon moved off the plateau and into the swampy lands next to the ocean below the Burmese Highlands, they set up floating platforms that supported entire cities, massive amounts of money were put into genetic research in the hopes of adapting the Pilonese people to the new environment, and also to help treat the effects of the toxic waste being purposely dumped into the region by the nations of the Burmese Highlands. This was only a concern for another generation however because an extremely virulent plague broke out in the Burmese Highlands, probably a mutated strain of the Flu or other similar disease, and most of the Burmese nations collapsed or left the region. The few survivors who stayed in the region were taken in by Pilon as refugees and eventually added to Pilon’s society. The acceptance of refugees into Pilonese society became a prevalent theme in Pilonese foreign policy in years to come. As the years passed Pilon’s technological level grew. They developed a mature space program and explored the solar system, advanced considerably in computer and medical technology, and also developed a stable form of cold Fusion, solving an energy crisis in the country. As the lowlands were not terribly rich in natural resources Pilon turned to the bounties of the ocean for most of their economic development, establishing underwater colonies and mining stations, fishing farms, and even underwater laboratories where they experimented on fish and other marine life.
The other nations of the Burmese Lowlands began to segment as happened in the Burmese Highlands. Pilon wanted to avoid the mistakes of the past and began a search of other likeminded nations that Pilon could ally with where they could research without being threatened again. At about the same time a colony on Mars was established that would eventually become the largest off world settlement of Pilon. The scientists on this colony helped in the collective terraforming of Mars by a variety of nations, which eventually resulted in the submersion of the colony in the ocean that was formed in the northern hemisphere of the planet.
Eventually the Pilonese discovered the region called Sisgardia and were welcomed by its members into alliances with them and were offered a place among them. Plans were drawn up for a new underwater arcology that would be large enough to house 250 million people. It took several years for the arcology to be completed and when it was finished it was called Transhumana, which became the capitol of Pilon. As the Pilonese people migrated to Transhumana and the colony on Mars, which was called Utopia, construction began on 5 additional arcologies, 2 on Mars and 3 in Sisgardia. Pilon also joined the World Technological Entity and the Sisgardian Fellowship of Nations at this point, the first international alliances Pilon would join. As time passed Pilon slowly transformed into a more aquatic people, first living entirely underwater, then moving most of their operations underwater and developing specialized fish to help with underwater work projects. After a couple international crisis’ on both Mars and Sisgardia Pilon took in refugees that were not human, but as had happened before with the Burmese people they were welcomed into Pilonese society and the culture grew in diversity and experience because of the new additions. Of significant note here is the migration of Elves and Gnomes.
The Gnomes claimed to have knowledge of an ancient civilization that resembled the ancient stories in Pilon’s past and further archeological and linguistic studies revealed that these Gnomes and the Pilonese people had a common ancestry. Though no theories could satisfactorily explain how this was possible research in the area continues even to this day, as it is believed that the civilization described was based in the waters around Sisgardia. Ancient myths of the area tell of a civilization that was lost beneath the waves in a cataclysm that destroyed the island and its people. The Gnomes also brought with them advances in Computer technology that brought the level of computing power up to that of a human brain. New software was developed that allowed these computers to interpret their environments and created the first true AIs in Pilon. These AIs were seen as free willed beings like any other sentient and were given full rights in Pilonese society. Many of them developed new means to couple biological with machine and Cybernetic devices were introduced into the society.
The Elves brought with them a natural resistance to disease like none ever before seen my Pilonese scientists. With the consent of these Elves experimentation was begun to try and isolate the specific genes that caused this resistance in the hopes of creating a well adjusted species of Aquatic life that could be used to oversee a transformation of the Pilonese ecological system beyond anything ever before attempted on Earth. Massive amounts of money were diverted to this project as more and more genes in both humans and other species were identified and catalogued. Revolutionary methods for manipulating the DNA of creatures were developed giving Pilon’s geneticists unprecedented control over their natural environment.
Later on 3 more significant races were brought into the society, Orcs, Dwarves, and Protoss. The Orcs were mostly refugees from nations were destroyed in the wars between Melkor and Sirithil, with their fast reproductive rates the Orcs quickly became the most populous non-human race in Pilon and became the backbone of the Pilonese military and the industrial sectors.
Dwarves brought with them knowledge of economics and banking that no other race could equal and quickly revolutionized the economic system in Pilon transforming it from a welfare state to a capitalist nation and brining Pilonese made products into the international market. They also helped to organize the research projects to develop concrete gains instead of arbitrary studies that had overrun much of the nation. The government put out plans towards what they called a Transhuman society, a society that had progressed beyond what it was to be human through social, economic, and technological reforms, and pushed the scientists to bring the Pilonese people to that point.
The Protoss were the first race to come to Pilon with any type of Psionic ability. Using studies of their DNA, Pilon was able to start up its Psionics program, where various people are given augmentations to their DNA to allow for limited Psionic ability. This was mostly used in by the intelligence community in Pilon and still today most spies and interrogators employed by Pilon have Psionic ability.
The discovery of psionics led to a small amount of money being diverted to studies into what was classified as the Parasciences. Scientists do research into such concepts as parallel universes with non-existent nations, a power called Magic or Ancane Knowledge, a variety of Occult phenomenon, and Psionics.
Also a new race was created known as the Elphins, who were a hybrid of Dolphins and Elves, who were meant to be the overseers of a great underwater ecosystem. The plans were laid out and after exhaustive computer simulations eventually a working model was created. The new ecosystem was called the Eco-Jungle, and traced its roots to the rain forests of the Burmese Lowlands, only the Eco-Jungle was underwater and had many more species interacting with one another, also niche were designed for the Elphins and the Arcologies along with all of its inhabitants. The slow introduction of the Eco-jungle to Sisgardian Waters was begun. The organization provided by the Dwarves allowed for giant leaps forward in the areas where money was focused, especially in Medical, Computers, and Genetics. This was when the Node was first invented and all aspects of Pilonese society were changed. Of all technological developments in Pilon, none has been more profound or affected the culture as much as the Node and what is known as the Nodelink, which is the means by which Nodes communicate with one another.
With the Node implants the rate of discoveries increased 10 fold, and new generations were able to catch up to their predecessors in record time. Soon after a new generation of Node was developed that not only allowed the sharing of ideas of information but also sharing emotions and gave access to the Nodelink by those without node implants. New outposts were established around the Solar System, but none of them ever had the same success that the Martian Colony had. The Venusian Colony was settled in the hopes of one day creating an ocean on Venus to found another colony like on Mars. The others were mostly economically valuable colonies.
When the nations on Mars began to organize themselves Pilon’s colony there grew in population and they became an active member in Martian Politics. Pilon joined the MIDAS defense treaty and later also joined the Duma. The formation of the MIDAS defense treaty caused increased tensions between its members and the Vascilian League, a group of xenophobic nations that banded together and claimed the southern pole of Mars.
Eventually the cold war between the Vascilian and MIDAS nations resulted in a short lived war between the two powers which failed to resolve any of their differences. Pilon participated in the war by committing mostly to the space battle. After the war the two powers eventually warmed to one another and with the collapse of most of the Vascilian League’s nations eventually the most prominent nation in the Vascilian League, Auman, was allowed to join MIDAS. While recovering from the war Pilon began a program to transform everything in their society to biological based technologies, where ships and buildings were grown instead of built and all living creatures in Pilon were linked by new nodes that could transmit data and receive instructions from the whole creating a hierarchy between the sentient and non-sentient creatures in Pilon’s Eco-Jungle which had by now spread to Mars after being adapted to Martian conditions.
Later a project to quickly adapt a region to a suitable environment for Pilon’s Eco-jungle was started known as the Eco-Bomb project. The goal was to be able to deliver a buildup of power that caused a chain reaction that resulted in an environment ripe for Eco-jungle introduction. After several decades several of these bombs were tested in Pilonese territory in Sisgardia and the above water territory in Sisgardia was adapted to a land based version of the Eco-Jungle. The political fallout of the development of this potential weapon resulted in strict restrictions on the use of it to future expansions into new territory or when explicit permission was given to use it. Since then the Eco-Bomb has only been used once, to expand Pilon’s territory on Mars.
As the transition process continued to total organic technology Pilon’s culture transformed as well, finally achieving the goals of transhumanism set forth by the government. It was at this point that a majority of the human population of Pilon began to classify themselves as transhumans instead of humans. This was also when radical improvements in genetic engineering made possible some of the base goals of Pilon allowing them to achieve a harmony with nature never before achieved. This made Pilon’s sentient population an intricate part of the Eco-Jungle’s ecosystem. The radical transformations made it more and more difficult for Pilonese citizens to comprehend regular human thinking or their culture, and often caused problems when dealing with others in the future.
Pilon’s next great project was to delve an underground tunnel that connected the territory of Pilon with the Hellas Basin. Though originally used as a military outpost for rapid response to Auman forces if the need ever became apparent, those forces were deployed in the face of a refugee crisis and were used to help evacuate more refugees to Pilon. This caused a loud outcry by many of the nations with holdings in the Hellas Basin who saw Pilon’s military base as a threat. Eventually, after being paid off, the Pilonese sealed off the tunnel entrance and rigged the inside of the tunnel with explosives to prevent others from reopening the tunnel. About this same time a splinter organization, mostly comprised of renegade military forces of Pilon made contact with Pilon again, calling them selves Pilonia. These Pilonians were originally met with hostility in Pilon as they posed a severe threat to national security and had already betrayed Pilon’s trust once by going rogue, however after several centuries, the Pilonese government warmed up to them.
The Pilonians were masters of espionage, developing a type of cloaking field that entirely removed the area from this reality; it was dubbed the Null Field generator. Several successive generations of the device were developed.
Also about this time a new nation calling themselves the Transhumanists showed up on Mars and hearing about the goals of Pilon quickly made contact with Pilon. The Transhumanists lacked the economic power of Pilon and never could finance the use of their nanotechnology, and eventually the government collapsed. It is unknown what happened to the laboratories in the ensuing civil war but many of the Transhumanist citizens were taken in to Pilon and began working in Pilon’s labs on Nanotechnology.
After the collapse of the Transhumanists government Pilonia and Pilon made a peace treaty and in the resulting exchange of technology Pilon received some of the first and second generation Null Field Generators. Seeing the potential of this new technology Pilon immediately began reverse engineering the first generation generators and used the second generation generators in the Hellas Tunnel and they reopened the tunnel, this time using it to finance freelance traders in the Hellas Sea to gain cheap trade goods from the nations around the sea. Later the second generation generators were removed when Pilon’s presence in the sea was discovered again. When Melkor came to Mars Pilon originally supported the action, as Pilon favors new membership on Mars, going so far as to support his forces in the space battle above Mars. However in the end of the ensuing war Melkor nuked Mars and one of the areas targeted by Melkor was Pilon, resulting in millions of deaths, bringing eternal distrust and hatred of Melkor to the Pilonese people.
Soon after the Melkor war Pilon made the decision to increase the security of their nation and constructed a powerful array of orbital defensive satellites and ground batteries. This array, called the Pilonese Defense Network, is capable of taking on a medium sized war fleet and when coordinated with MIDAS forces and the Pilonese fleet can be a powerful force against a heavy assault force. The Defensive Array has recently been extended to cover the Hellas Basin as well as the main colony of Pilon. A similar array has been constructed in Sisgardia that protects all Pilonese holdings there.
Eventually for unexplained reasons Pilonia also collapsed and many of its citizens were reunited with Pilon’s, the null field generators in Pilonia were destroyed to prevent others from stealing the technology and now Pilon has the only working models.
The massive influx of new technologies and the changing culture of Pilon led to a bloody civil war in which the people called out for an end of the benevolent dictatorship that had led them this long. Though initially resisted by the government and put down brutally the continued struggle by the people and the negative news coverage of the war convinced the government that it was in Pilon’s best interest to begin negotiations and 2 years after the begin of the war an end was declared. This is when the current, democratic government was put in place. Some of the advances brought in by the Pilonian scientists included a wormhole technology that is capable of being used in large ships to travel faster than light and on the surface to transfer from ground based gates to one another. This is a fairly common technology used by many different races and nations on Mars. When the joint Martian Colonization project was begun Pilon used this technology to set up a new colony in the system, calling it Netheril after a mythological empire of magic from Human history.
Pilon also helped in the construction of the Omeldor-1, donating supplies, labor, and technology to the effort. The labor forces used in this construction effort have now been diverted to establishing a colony in the Oort Cloud with the intentions of setting up another corporate mining operation similar to the one in the asteroid belt.
Pilon has been the staunch supporter of new membership on Mars, as they see the opportunity that multiple voices on Mars can bring compared to a few imperialist nations controlling large tracts of land. As such Pilon has a tendency to be rather hostile to nations who seem to seek large tracts of land on Mars. They also have sympathy for both refugees and those who have been enslaved in other nations, as Pilon values freedom. They are inherently distrustful of religiously devout nations as they remember how their people were treated when the religious controlled their lives in the beginning. Pilon continues to take in refugees from any nation that Pilon is not at war with.
Several years ago Pilon also negotiated for a trade port in Valinon controlled part of the Hellas Sea where Pilonese goods can be brought in through the tunnel and traded to the southern Martian nations.
Recently Pilon has also expressed an interest in acquiring territory in the Argyre Sea as this is the only other large body of water on Mars.
