On The Fraternal War...

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swright
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On The Fraternal War...

Post by swright »

While The Fraternal War took place approximately two centuries ago, give or take, the effects of such a decisive clash between major human factions would certainly have implications affecting post-war events.

Ostensibly The Andolians' empirical eminence and their considerable authority in The Confederation was largely established by an effective campaign against the Light-Bearers and an even more effective political maneuver with regards to both the Spaceborn and the Klk'k. Not only did the injustices perpetrated against the Spaceborn dissuade The Shapers from opposing the war, but the tradegy on Ktah, namely the Hoshino Uprising and the attempted genocide of the Klk'k would have brought sharp opposition against the Light-Bearers from other meme-groups as well. Further, the Andolians' successful efforts to ressurect Ktah and their continued protection of The Klk'k would serve to advance the group's political clout if not morally, at least by proxy from the gratitude and loyalty of those whom they liberated.

Following the war, the remaining Light-Bearers were taken into custody and turned over to elements of The Spaceborn, The Klk'k, and The Shmrn, the three groups being those who had suffered injustices enacted by the former, though it is believed that some may have found sanctuary in systems controlled by The Shapers.

At present, there seems to be little content regarding the Light-Bearers themselves other than the conditions which brought about their demise. Of course they are, or were, members of the Homo Sapiens Suprahomo subspecies, though presumably this group is nearly extinct. The group shared an ideology similar to that held by The Shapers, that through eugenics humanity may acheive a state of biological perfection. This shared ideology facilitated the cooperative venture between these two groups that eventually led to the uplift program which produced the Dgn and the Shmrn.

As far as I know, this short summary is the extent of the content written or conceived with regards to this now non-extant faction. If I have missed anything, or if there are contrived details which are yet to be documented, please reply with such.

Now, if I may, I would like to ask a few questions about the war and the defeated Light-Bearers. If the answers to such questions are spoilers to future storyline content, please feel free to ignore my request and/or direct me to a more appropriately discreet forum.

Are there any Light-Bearers remaining at the 'current' time? If so, are they pure-bred suprahomo, or has their genetic line become diluted, perhaps with superioris genes? (Certainly those Light-Bearers which may have survived the war in Shaper custody would have found their hosts to be sympathetic to any desire to preserve a carefully engineered genetic line.) Further, if they have survived, what level of freedom do they have in current society? One would not think that the children of war criminals would be punished or detained due to the sins of their fathers, though they certainly might find themselves victims of unending scrutiny by organizations such as Homeland Security's IntelSec.

What did/do they look like? Are they distinquishable from the homo sapiens sapiens, or remarkably differing in appearance like The Shapers? Other than their ideological desire to be seated at the head of the evolutionary table, what can be said of their culture? What level of preeminence did they have among the other human meme-groups before The Fraternal War? Obviously their military-industrial complex was weaker or at least less prepared than The Andolians', but how did it compare to the other human factions?

Are there any particular artstyle comments about Light-Bearer technology? Further, do any Light-Bearer equipment, bases, or vessels still exist? If so, in what state or condition might these be? (Two hundred years is a long time, but in the vacuum of space it is highly conceivable that technological elements of the faction, whether fully or partially operational, might remain.)

How long did the war last? Did it 'start' on Ktah? (The timeline might lead one to believe The Andolians' impetus for military action against fellow humans may have stemmed from The Light-Bearers' obdurate slaughter of a sentient race, though in all likelihood there were other less noble factors instigating hostilities between the two groups.) How did the Shmrn respond during the conflict? And After? How large was the Light-Bearer population, and how many colonies, bases, etc? What was their capital system and/or world?

Was this engagement premeditated by The Andolians, or precipitated by the atrocities of the defunct group? (Certainly it would seem the former, as the devestating effectiveness of the anti-Light-Bearer campaign would suggest.) Was there any diplomatic response by non-human powers? (Specifically, the Rlaan, Uln, or Aera.)

Any further discussion of this period in VS history would be greatly appreciated. It is my goal, with permission of course, to develop a storyline for the period in question, or in the very least, to exhort further development of the historical past of humanity.
jackS
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Post by jackS »

Apologies for the delayed response -- ISCA deadline took priority.
swright wrote: Ostensibly The Andolians' empirical eminence and their considerable authority in The Confederation was largely established by an effective campaign against the Light-Bearers and an even more effective political maneuver with regards to both the Spaceborn and the Klk'k. Not only did the injustices perpetrated against the Spaceborn dissuade The Shapers from opposing the war, but the tradegy on Ktah, namely the Hoshino Uprising and the attempted genocide of the Klk'k would have brought sharp opposition against the Light-Bearers from other meme-groups as well. Further, the Andolians' successful efforts to ressurect Ktah and their continued protection of The Klk'k would serve to advance the group's political clout if not morally, at least by proxy from the gratitude and loyalty of those whom they liberated.
Worth noting is that a significant impetus in the formation of the Confederation was the fear of the Andolians shared by the other meme-groups (and the belief that including them in the Confederation was the most effective way to constrain them from future similar actions). Given the systematic destruction of billions of Light-Bearers, the restoration efforts on Ktah did little to convince anyone of the Andolians having a particular advantage in moral authority. While the attempted xenocide on Ktah and the exposure of the Space-born did much to remove any support for the Light-Bearers and their actions, neither served to significantly strengthen the external perception of the Andolians.
swright wrote: Following the war, the remaining Light-Bearers were taken into custody and turned over to elements of The Spaceborn, The Klk'k, and The Shmrn, the three groups being those who had suffered injustices enacted by the former, though it is believed that some may have found sanctuary in systems controlled by The Shapers.
I believe that forced sterilization programs were also mentioned in existing documentation.
swright wrote: At present, there seems to be little content regarding the Light-Bearers themselves other than the conditions which brought about their demise. Of course they are, or were, members of the Homo Sapiens Suprahomo subspecies, though presumably this group is nearly extinct. The group shared an ideology similar to that held by The Shapers, that through eugenics humanity may acheive a state of biological perfection. This shared ideology facilitated the cooperative venture between these two groups that eventually led to the uplift program which produced the Dgn and the Shmrn.

As far as I know, this short summary is the extent of the content written or conceived with regards to this now non-extant faction. If I have missed anything, or if there are contrived details which are yet to be documented, please reply with such.

Now, if I may, I would like to ask a few questions about the war and the defeated Light-Bearers. If the answers to such questions are spoilers to future storyline content, please feel free to ignore my request and/or direct me to a more appropriately discreet forum.
We don't really have a more 'appropriately discreet' forum :-/ -- hence, the opt-in e-mailing one a copy of the universe primer rather than pointing one to the forum in question :-|
Discussions of spoiler or otherwise-unknown-to-in-universe-groups material has generally been conveyed via direct communication among the devels and other interested parties, although, as per the above mention, anyone can opt-in on getting a copy of the universe primer.
swright wrote: Are there any Light-Bearers remaining at the 'current' time? If so, are they pure-bred suprahomo, or has their genetic line become diluted, perhaps with superioris genes? (Certainly those Light-Bearers which may have survived the war in Shaper custody would have found their hosts to be sympathetic to any desire to preserve a carefully engineered genetic line.) Further, if they have survived, what level of freedom do they have in current society? One would not think that the children of war criminals would be punished or detained due to the sins of their fathers, though they certainly might find themselves victims of unending scrutiny by organizations such as Homeland Security's IntelSec.
Members of the Light-Bearer meme-group: yes, but extremely few within the Confederation, and none publicly, as any hint of the Light-Bearer meme tends to cause members of the Simons to conduct a hunt. Those fleeing into unexplored space rarely stayed ahead of future human expansion and were hunted diligently by the Simons. Those few who fled off of the jump network entirely gained a longer respite, but the practical limitations of such journeys meant that all but the most well-hidden outposts could only be temporary homes -- anything reachable by a defeated and fleeing group via SPEC would clearly soon become reachable by those searching for them, especially with greater resources behind them.

Descendents of Light-Bearers: yes, but only in small numbers, and generally integrated into other societies, if not necessarily into other gene pools. As the Andolian view of the war was not a war against a polity or a people, but a culture, ideology, and general worldview ( i.e. a set of ideas and beliefs) that the Andolians believed intrinsically diseased, given the behaviors undertaken by their adherents, in the most general case, only those young enough to be deemed viable candidates for successful re-education were even given an opportunity for a post-internment existence. After dispersion among many worlds, the total population of living Suprahomo is quite small, especially pure-strains. Existing populations are generally ideologically integrated into their surroundings, and, while subject to surveillance, are not otherwise infringed upon provided no contact with Light-Bearers has been observed.

Shaper custody: As mentioned in the description of the Shaper faction, they find the concept of human slavery fundamentally abhorrent to their ideals of personal freedoms. Thus, while those Light-Bearers who fled to Shaper space may have faced a less dire fate than those remaining to face the Andolians, they were not welcomed with open arms. Precise details on the number of Light-Bearers who submitted themselves to Shaper control have never been made available, and it is generally believed that only those Light-Bearers with useful skills or information were well treated in Shaper custody. Within a few months of the end of the war, only limited signs of the Light-Bearer influx could be seen, and the number of Light-Bearers presented by the Shapers to the Shmrn, Space-born, and Klk'k delegations for oversight by said aggrieved parties is widely believed to be much smaller than the number arriving within Shaper space.
swright wrote: What did/do they look like? Are they distinquishable from the homo sapiens sapiens, or remarkably differing in appearance like The Shapers?
swright wrote:Other than their ideological desire to be seated at the head of the evolutionary table, what can be said of their culture?
Being supra- rather than super- human in nature, all of the genes in the Lightbearer genepool were of human origin, but the mix doesn't reflect the configuration of any particular historical group. An individual Lightbearer can, unlike the Shapers, blend in (to a degree) with any sufficiently diverse population of homo sapiens sapiens, although groups of them would be conspicuous, and there would likely be clear suspicions of heritage. Differences would be most acute at age extrema -- suprahomo tend heavily toward earlier growth spurts, and age very gracefully compared to sapiens. Suprahomo skin tends to be devoid of any visible blemishes and only memorable injuries tend to leave visible scars. Suprahomo do not suffer from hair loss, hair discoloration, or other similar aging effects stemming directly from isolated genetic traits.

Lightbearers stood 1.9 - 2.3 meters in height, and had universally muscular builds and bulk scaled to their size. Skin tones, while given to some variation, were heavily centered in bronzes, such as can be found in Mediterranean-Persian hues. Hair color varied widely, but the hair itself was always straight and frequently worn long. Lightbearer men traditionally wore full beards, again of arbitrary color, frequently of no correspondence to hair color, but, unlike their hair, tightly curled, and kept close and neat.

One of the keys in understanding the Lightbearers was that they didn't have a _desire_ to be seated at the head of the evolutionary table, but a steadfast, axiomatic belief that humans already were, by definition, at the head of the evolutionary table, and that all that was necessary was a perfection of humanity. The Lightbearers believed universally in a creator deity with specific interest in humanity, and in a literal interpretation of humanity being created in said deity's image. This literal view was central to the negative reaction of the Lightbearers to the Klk'k, as the only (vaguely) anthropomorphic sentients discovered.

At all levels of Lightbearer society, the hallmark of their culture was confidence. While in retrospect, hubris may seem the more appropriate term, for the Lightbearers, their place in the cosmos made them feel entirely secure in their sense of selves. Lightbearers, in attempting to be the ultimate expression of humanity, developed what many other contemporary cultures considered an indulgent hedonistic streak. Excesses in all manner and direction were not uncommon, but the excesses themselves were not of uncommon origin -- the Lightbearers did little that others did not, but they did it moreso, both "good" and "bad".
swright wrote:What level of preeminence did they have among the other human meme-groups before The Fraternal War? Obviously their military-industrial complex was weaker or at least less prepared than The Andolians', but how did it compare to the other human factions?
The Lightbearers quickly shot to power in the early human FTL era through aggressively expansionist growth and exploration policies and favorable starting conditions, having weathered the nano-plague in relative stability. While their relative power was waning even before their destruction, especially as the Shapers became increasingly more effective in adapting themselves to inhospitable environments in the post-SPEC age, the Lightbearers were, if not second to the Andolians, then sufficiently close to other contenders as to be considered tied for "second" in their military output leading up to the war. However, as all space navies were quite diminutive prior to the Fraternal War, it is difficult to draw much from such comparisons. The Andolians were particularly advantaged, not just by their industrial capacity, but by the rapidity with which they were able to reorient total capacity toward military ends.
swright wrote: Are there any particular artstyle comments about Light-Bearer technology? Further, do any Light-Bearer equipment, bases, or vessels still exist? If so, in what state or condition might these be? (Two hundred years is a long time, but in the vacuum of space it is highly conceivable that technological elements of the faction, whether fully or partially operational, might remain.)
The Light-Bearers were capable, if not always masters of every art pursued, and their constructions captured both their solid workmanship and reverence for the aesthetic. Light-Bearer ships were unnecessarily pretty, but such beauty was, pragmatically, only skin deep, and any damage would reveal that the artisans working on the exterior had been working on an exterior separate and almost distinct from the craft or station underneath.

Precious few Light-Bearer vessels still exist, but some of their outposts, both those constructed pre-defeat and those constructed post-flight still exist in under-inhabited and remote systems. Many have been directly assaulted, but others merely pillaged, relocated, or otherwise repurposed by pirates or other tertiary entities. Several stations abandoned or surrendered, rather than defeated, are still in use by one entity or another, and others have become the nearly unrecognizable centers of subsequent colonizations.
swright wrote: How long did the war last? Did it 'start' on Ktah? (The timeline might lead one to believe The Andolians' impetus for military action against fellow humans may have stemmed from The Light-Bearers' obdurate slaughter of a sentient race, though in all likelihood there were other less noble factors instigating hostilities between the two groups.) How did the Shmrn respond during the conflict? And After? How large was the Light-Bearer population, and how many colonies, bases, etc? What was their capital system and/or world?
The Shmrn had little response during the conflict, not being well equipped in either information or supplies for any sort of slave resistance. Many Shmrn died alongside their Light-Bearer masters in the planetary bombardments. They were afterwards pleased to be freed from cruelty at the hands of the Light-Bearers, but not particularly thankful to the humans in general (although they hold no particular grudge against the Andolians for those killed in the bombings). Shmrn general opinion of humans is frequently dim, but not antagonistic -- they are more cynical than angry.

The Light-bearers began the war with a population of ~20 billion spread across 11 major colony systems and with outposts in another 2 dozen or so systems, the whole of which was ruled from a world called (thanks here to Oblivion) "Cradle".

The war did indeed start on Ktah, and lasted for a few years, but in 3 distinct phases. Preliminary activity centered on Ktah, with assorted skirmishes elsewhere in uninhabited or newly inhabited areas. Without existing infrastructure in the system, and with a lengthy resupply route, a significant portion of the Andolian fleet had to be kept at and along the route to Ktah to support the safety of the Ktah restoration efforts. Once the situation in space and on the ground at Ktah stabilized, the war moved in a new direction, with Andolian forces taking much more aggressive stances, and heavily raiding Light-Bearer colonies and pushing the lines of battle back into Light-Bearer space. The political climate among the other human meme-groups became much more volatile at this point, as what had previously seemed, if unpleasantly violent, something that could be rationalized as merely a logical extension of the previous era's border conflicts was turning into something more disturbing. However, it was at this juncture that the Space-Born were revealed by successful raiding parties, thus considerably disrupting the political will of third parties for mediation. Throughout this phase of the war, the Andolians seemed to be winning, so to speak, but only by attrition. However, the Andolians were in fact committing only those forces necessary to continue to make minimal progress while holding back (and physically concealing) the rest of their production (greatly misjudged in quantity by Light-Bearer intelligence when on full war-time resource allocation), especially of next-generation vessels, for a reserve strike force. The third, and final phase of the war came swiftly (and not far ahead of renewed stirrings of calls for peace), with massive Andolian strike fleets taking Light-Bearer defenders by surprise in simultaneous attacks on five of their core worlds. Further complicating matters for the defenders was the supposition that, as had happened with Ktah, the Andolians would invest significant time and resources in asserting control over a populated planet. Instead, the Andolians mostly bypassed the planets after securing orbital superiority, completing initial planetary bombardment, and beginning kinetic bombardment operations. The infrastructure of the Light-Bearer core worlds was destroyed in a matter of days, as the Andolian fleets marched relentlessly on. The smaller Light-Bearer outpost worlds actually fared better, as they were deemed small enough to manage through more traditional means.

The planetary meteor bombardments were unexpected in scope, and utterly devastating, lasting, in the case of Cradle, the most developed of the colonies, continuously for well over two weeks. Bombardments did not cease until both sufficient debris was present in the atmosphere to make unsupported existence on the surface short-term untenable and all detectable planetary infrastructure had been damaged beyond likely ability to provide support. Third party media, when reporting on the aftereffects, would come to call the practice "Dusting a World" and frequent comparisons were made to the salting of Carthage, among many other more horrific comparisons, depending upon the political alignment of the media in question.
swright wrote: Was this engagement premeditated by The Andolians, or precipitated by the atrocities of the defunct group? (Certainly it would seem the former, as the devestating effectiveness of the anti-Light-Bearer campaign would suggest.) Was there any diplomatic response by non-human powers? (Specifically, the Rlaan, Uln, or Aera.)
The Andolians had been preparing for some form of more intense military action as a contingency ever since the invention of the SPEC drive, but had no particular plans to engage the Light-bearers until they were witness to the Light-Bearer occupation of Ktah. In particular, they did not deem conflict, which would no doubt be very costly in both lives and materials, necessary when expansion was still A) proceeding in an unhindered fashion, and B) going well for them relative to other powers.

The Rlaan, Uln, and Aera had not yet been encountered at the time of the Fraternal war.
swright wrote: Any further discussion of this period in VS history would be greatly appreciated. It is my goal, with permission of course, to develop a storyline for the period in question, or in the very least, to exhort further development of the historical past of humanity.
Sounds like a good plan to me :)
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