The Vatakuec Oligarchy

The Vatakuec Oligarchy is a large empire of around five hundred systems, stretching from the tail end of the eastern arm, to the broad belt of systems once inhabited by the Hundred Lions Confederacy. Since it subsumed those territories, its closest neighbours would be the fractured states of the Aschen Confederation and the sprawling dominion of UCON.

The Oligarchy is controlled by a ruling dynasty of Kings and Priests, who control both the state and the religion. They rule from the origination of the Oligarchy, the Vatakuechomeworld of Vata. The Oligarchy is now composed of three distinct peoples. The first, are the Vatakuec, a brutal space-faring race that has nothing humanity would recognise as morals. The second, are the peoples of the First Republic of Nikeah. They were conquered in the first expansion, and now form the middle band of territory.

The latest addition to the Oligarchy are the one hundred systems of the Hundred Lions Confederacy. The war to conquer these systems was long and costly for the Oligarchy, but the rewards in both military might and resources definitly outweighs the cost. Another benefit of this expansion was that the Oligarchy was brought into contact with two large space-fairing civilizations. Already, the Oligarchy is planning its third-phase expansion, into the local region around Terra, and outlying UCON territories.

The Oligarchy is highly industrialized, its size allowing it to be fairly self-sufficient. Since its beginning, the dynasty of leaders has pushed aggressive military expansion, using this to grab more territory, and by definition, resources. Because of this, it has a massive military budget, focussed primarily on its land army, with the navy taking a back seat. Since the large-scale naval battles that took place during the conquest of both the Republic of Nikeah and the Hundred Lions Confederacy, much more focus has been put on developing a stronger navy.

The Progenitors
Very little is known about the creators of the Vatakuec. Through extensive digging on their barren homeworld, Vata, you would find ruins of an impossibly ancient and advanced civilization. Most experts on the field, believe that the Vatakuec were genetically engineered weapons, designed to fight a war, to avoid the losses their creators would have suffered

Obviously, the experiments worked too well. The Vatakuec's various modifications gave them a remarkable degree of sentience, rather than the mindless killing machines they were intended to be. The first few creatures, designated “Primes” escaped from their facilities, and began to breed despite being apparently sterile.

Soon, in the barren deserts that existed around the progenitor cities became infested with the creatures, and an aggressive biological weapon was deployed to wipe them out. Unfortunatly, the harsh desert of Vata already contained a pathogen similar to the weapon in most water sources, and the Vatakuec quickly developed a resistance, with few creatures dying from the plague.

The only result of the biological attack was the destruction of the outlying Progenitor cities, weakening them. As the creatures spread across the continent, raising massive hive-cities out of the sand and rock of the desert, like fresh mountains, both above and below the ground. The Progenitors had run out of options. They had to destroy the Vatakuec or be destroyed themselves. One hundred and sixteen thermo-nuclear warheads detonated over the desert, wiping out 90% of the Vatakuec population. The detonation of these warheads also brought about a nuclear winter that killed off the Progenitors.

The remaining Vatakuec existed underground for the next two centuries, feeding on other burrowing animals, and underground springs. Eventually, the conditions on the surface allowed the population to filter up, forming close-knit birth tribes, and rebuilding what little civilization they had gained before the nuclear fire forced them underground.

The Unification and rise of the Dynasty
For another four centuries, the Vatakuec slowly gained more trappings of civilization, tribes becoming city states, flint knives and axes becoming brutally curved bronze khopesh. Wars blighted all six continents, as every state was locked in a battle for survival.

The largest state, Arkosh was led by a strong queen, who had dreams of unifying the warring lands, and forging an empire that would persist for milennia. She played upon the devastation that could be found across the planet, the skeletal remains of the Progenitor cities, the plains of volcanic glass that stretched across the eastern continents. She fashioned it into a legend of the sun falling from the sky, destroying the first of their kind.

She pulled in the nearest city states, converting them to her new religion. Once she controlled the continent upon which her nation was founded, the new belief system spread like wildfire, blowing away many tribal superstions, as the Vatakuec saw the thread of credibility in the legend.

It all seemed poised to collapse when the empress was on her deathbed. With her strong leadership gone, the city-states would fall back into another century of war. With her dying breaths, she sent her son, and a trusted servant into the mountains, with a suit of ornate plate armour, fashioned out of gold, polished to a high sheen. The instructions she gave him were to put on the suit, and walk from the mountains to the city, and to proclaim himself as the sun incarnate, and he would be swept up as the new leader of the empire. Little did she know that she had successfully forged the millennia-spanning dynasty she had once dreamed of.

The First Phase Expansion
Almost a thousand years passed, and the dynasty forged in those mountains with a suit of golden plate persisted. Scientists probed the Progenitor cities, discovering many technological secrets, from percussion cap firearms to the automobile and hydrogen powered engines. The planet-spanning empire gorged itself on the products of their creators, learning and advancing in leaps and bounds.

The first real breakthrough began when a decrepit launch-site was discovered in the eastern glass desert, complete with a pair of launch-vehicles and modules. After a decade of detailed study, the Priest-King authorised a launch, aiming to land a small team on their system's smallest moon. The first rocket to be launched exploded after reaching the stratosphere. The second managed to reach the moon, and thus began the first expansion.

Over the next fifty years, the Oligarchy colonised all three moons orbiting Vata, and began work on a deep-space vehicle, to put colonists on every planet in their solar system. These were based on Progenitor prototypes, and were largely successful, and within another fifty years, the entire system was under Vatakuec control.

They began mining precious metals and noble gasses from the large asteroid belts, and the third planet in the system, a huge ringed gas-giant. With these resources, they built a fleet of twenty ships, complete with FTL technology built, once again, from Progenitor designs.

These ships ranged beyond the system, settling sixteen new systems, turning their ships into orbital bases, mining and constructing to spread the Oligarchy across the stars. These twenty systems quickly grew into sixty, then a hundred, three hundred years after the first ship left Vata.

The Second Phase Expansion
With a hundred worlds under their control, the Vatakuec began to broker contact with the nearby Republic of Nikeah, probing their defences with small warships and privateers. After they captured a few ships, and the Priest-King learned of their society, the Nikeans were declared heretics, damned to bring down the sun's wrath upon the worlds of the Vatakuec, and a campaign was raised against them.

The war was swift and brutal. The Nikeans were largely peaceful, often bribing aggressors with their vast wealth and resources. They were unprepared for the storm that broke, as the Oligarchy war-fleet swept over their borders, glassing the worlds that resisted their occupation, and assuming complete control of those that surrendered.

Within fifty years of bloody war, the First Republic capitulated, and became a protectorate of the Vatakuec Oligarchy, giving up its military in the form of the Ivahzaha. Their technology, and mastery of electromagnetic rail weapons greatly expanded Oligarchy prosperity, preparing them for the third phase expansion that would come half a century later.

The Third Phase Expansion
This is the most recent chapter in the Oligarchy history books, and involves the conquest of the Hundred Lions Confederacy. This large nation was wracked with internal strife, and fell swiftly to the Oligarchy invaders, assisted by the powerful weapons of the Nikeah Republic, they gained dominance rapidly, massacring the government in front of the nation.

After that truely brutal act, the majority of the Confederacy capitulated, and became the second protectorate of the Oligarchy. From them, they took advanced starship technology, and further developments of electromagnetic rail weapons gifted to the Confederacy by UCON.

Ormazd, Holy Light Bringer.
The worship of Ormazd is the proscribed religion within the Oligarchy. This stems from ancient beliefs that the controlled all life on the barren world of Vata Prime. This is partly down to the thermo-nuclear fire that scoured the planet's surface when the Vatakuec were first created.

The Priest-King is the personification of Ormazd for the Oligarchy, and is head of the religion. As such, thrice daily worship to the Priest-King is obligatory, and is enforced by the Commissars, the Quasi-religious and political officers present in all branches of the armed services.

The worship of the Holy Light Bringer consists of a mixture of silent meditation around a sacred torch and the ritual burning of the Priest. There are two hundred and seventy separate holidays, each one celebrating a different aspect of Ormazd. The main holiday is known as the Illumination, and often coincides with crusades and armed conflicts.

Arkash, the Bloodied one.
The Bloodied one is a brutal, violent deity that has sprung up in thousands of warrior-cults across the Oligarchy, and is worshiped in the bloodshed caused by the fires of battle. Worshipers are often driven underground, hiding from the purgation of the Commissars, and those who follow the holy light.

A believer is often heavily tattooed and scarred, principally found around the cheeks and palms. They are often reckless fighters, abandoning their rifles and flying into a killing rage, hacking their enemies apart with anything that comes to hand.

Some of the cults claim to have seen physical manifestations of the Bloodied One's wrath, horned, blood-red humanoids bearing blades as tall as a man. These sightings are yet to be confirmed but many worshipers wish to discover them, sometimes aided by the Invisible Sword, the Paramilitary arm of the Oligarchy regime.