A YJA moment - The Martians (Part Two)

Mars has a long history, most of which is barely understood.  Its believed that the planet served as either a colony or outpost by a highly advanced civilization.  There are ruins on the planet that are impossibly old, and there are artifacts with technology far in advance of anything even modern Martians can achieve.

During the 19th Century, the planet Mars was known by its inhabitants by another name: Barsoom.  In that world were many different species of beings, each antagonistic with each other.  The four-armed reptilian Tharks warred constantly with the Red Martians, near-humans who had settled into a series of city-states such as Helium and Zodanga. The Red nations themselves held rivalries and fought with each other over resources and land.

During this period the Malacandrans, the beings we know today as Martians, were dominated by their White Martian minority.  They hid in subterranean cities, using their shapeshifting and psychic powers to manipulate the other species in order to prevent them from accidentally discovering their civilization.

Enter John Carter of Earth.  The former American Confederate soldier was hiding in a cave when he accidentally activated an Ancient teleportation relic, which transported him to Barsoom.  There he encountered the Tharks, Red Martians, and the mysterious White Martians which all were in conflict.  He brokered peace between the peoples of Barsoom and became a leader in Helium.

Years after Carter left for the final time, a calamity struck the planet.  Unbeknownst to the other nations, another species dwelled on Barsoom.  It was a race of scavengers who had been defeated by the Ancients and had hidden in secret pockets throughout the planet in order to hide while their systems healed themselves.  Modern scholars would name them Cydonians, after the "face" which marked one of their largest vaults.

In 1898 the Cydonians awoke, bursting out of their stasis-tombs like locusts and swept across Mars.  The city-states of the Red Martians and the Thark enclaves quickly fell to the highly advanced intruders and soon the remains of their civilizations were picked clean for useful materials, minerals, and bio-matter.

The Cydonians then left for Earth, where they would attack London, only to fall to a biological weapon dropped on them by a member of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  With the intruders defeated and the threat to Mars over, the White and Green Martians emerged from their hidden cities and claimed the planet for themselves.

As a footnote: Few people know that in 1885, John Carter and Deja Thoris signed a peace treaty with United States President Andrew Jackson.  Part of the agreement was granting Earth land on Barsoom to set up an embassy, something that wouldn't happen until almost 140 years later.  But that is another story for another day.

A YJA Moment - The Twelve Colonies

Thousands of years ago the Dynasty known as House Cyrann spread out from the Core Worlds, seeking new systems and natural resources to exploit. Amongst them was a multi-star known as Cyrannus in which was rich in metals and other rare minerals. Soon the Dynasty had planted settlements on a dozen different planets. The leaders of the Cyrann referred to these outposts as The Colonies.

Over the years these colonies grew to become nations in their own right.  They numbered twelve – Aerelon, Aquaria, Canceron, Caprica, Gemenon, Leonis, Libris, Picon, Sagittaron, Scorpia, Tauron, and Virgon.  While all had originally descended from the population of their homeworld Kobol, they each developed into unique cultures.

The First Cylon War changed everything. Kobol had developed intelligent machines which turned against their creators and attempted to eradicate all organic life in the universe. The various nations gathered together into a confederation known as the United Colonies of Kobol to face the threat.  The Battlestars of the Colonies managed to keep the worst of the attacks away from their inhabited worlds.

The Cylons were stopped but the war resulted in the complete destruction of Kobol. Cut off the newly formed Imperium, the United Colonies continued to operate independently for many centuries.  Their technology grew, developing their own limited form of FTL (faster-than-light) drives based on the old Spacing Guild Space Fold technology.

They believed that the Cylons had been destroyed during the War, but they were wrong.  In the darkness of space, their Basestars survived and the machines developed new synthetic technology to create infiltrators that looked exactly like humans. They undermined the Colonies from within, allowing the Cyclons to attack without warning.

The Second Cylon War was short and devistating. Utilizing stolen FTL drive technology, they emerged in the Cyrannus system, launching nukes at every settlement they found.  Though some human ships were able to jump out of the system, most were surprised by the attack and perished in white-hot nuclear explosions.  Within forty-eight hours the United Colonies of Kobol were no more.

The fate of the Cylons remains unknown.

A YJA Moment - The Spice Must Flow

Arrakis, also called Dune, is a planet in the constellation Canopus, a star over 300 light-years from the Sol System.  It is a desert planet, largely uninhabited except for a handful of species adapted to live in such a hostile world.  Among them are great Sandworms which burrow under the dunes.  Their existence and life cycle are responsible for a substance that has been in various times in galactic history, one of the most important substances in existence.  The drug is known as Melange or simply as the Spice.

Sometime in the distant past, the Imperium which controlled the galaxy utilized the Spice for a variety of purposes.  The Noble Houses used it as a method of life-extension; the Spacing Guild required it for their Navigators which made interplanetary travel possible, and the Bene Gesserit needed it to expand and fuel their potent psychic powers.  The Spice was mined by the Fremen a population of humans who dwell on the planet's mountainous outcroppings.

They attempted to transplant the building blocks for the creation of the drug to other worlds in order to reduce the importance of Arrakis.  Sandworm skeletons and fungal deposits have been discovered over a dozen worlds, along with the telltale signs of mining settlements. In almost every situation, these export attempts seem to have been failures, but their remains have provided some sources of Spice outside Dune, as evidenced by the Spice Mines of Kessel.

Spice is formed when subterranean fungal deposits come in contact with fluids produced by newly-born Sandworms.  The resulting chemical reaction creates the Spice along with an occupying gaseous discharge known as a blowout.  Getting Spice on Arrakis requires sifting through tons of sand particles in order to extract the tiny hidden grains of narcotic within.  After an expensive processing process, the drug is ready to be utilized, normally through some sort of inhaler.

The main ability of Spice is to expand consciousness, granting minor psychic awareness to most normal individuals and greatly enhancing the psionic powers of mentalists.  This, accompanied by extreme euphoria, makes the drug highly prized on the black market.  In addition, prolonged use has anti-agathic properties, extending the lifespans of most carbon-based lifeforms.  However, tests have shown that multi-generational use can cause genetic mutations to occur.

Arrakis was under the protection of the Nova Empire, which kept a strict quarantine to prevent unauthorized mining and to protect the Sandworms.  With the fall of the first empire and the chaotic formation of the Second Nova Empire, the planet's security detail is poorly staffed and under-equipped. This has allowed rogue mining operations to flourish on the planet, stopped only by the Fremen.

A YJA Moment - The Imperium

 With the emergence of the Spacing Guild and Space Fold technology, the Core Worlds expanded, and great Dynasties began to vie for control of the galaxy.  Families like the Atreides from Caladan, the Corrino of Kaitain, the Cyrann of Kobol, the Harkonnen of Giedi Prime, and the Organa from Alderaan fought with each other for land and resources.

When the machines created by the Cyrann revolted against their creators, the Dynasties came together to fight them.  The Cylon War unified the Core Worlds and under the Corrino they were forged into a new alliance. This alliance would eventually become known as the Old Empire, the Old Imperium, or simply the Imperium.

The Imperium lasted for thousands of years, their rule uncontested by any other force in the galaxy. It was full of powerful forces - Noble Houses made up of the former Dynasties, the Navigators of the Spacing Guild, the economic might of CHOAM, and the potent psychic abilities of the Bene Gesserit. For most of this time, they were ruled by House Corrino and his dreaded troops, the Sardaukar.

But an Emperor made the mistake of allowing a House feud to involve Arrakis, the desert world that held Melange, the drug which allowed the Navigators to function.  The Dune War would result in the fall of House Corrino and the ascendancy of House Atreides to the Golden Lion Throne. The new Emperor made reforms and changed the Imperium forever.

The last of the Imperial line was a near-omnipotent psychic known as the God-Emperor. Upon his death, the Imperium fractured, and the Noble Houses resumed warring against each other. During the battle, the planet of Arrakis was lost and soon space travel became far less frequent due to the rationing of the last reserves of Melange.

When the planet Corellia discovered Hyperdrive technology, the monopoly of the Spacing Guild was finally broken. Though slower than Space Folds, Hyperdrives were cheaper to produce, could navigate by computers, and was powered by easilier acquired fuel. The hyperdrive would allow a new interplanetary government, the Galactic Republic to sweep through the core worlds, assimilating the last vestiges of the Imperium.