Kingdoms of Old
The First Dominion
Founded in 2866 a.r., the First Dominion was the beginning of the idea of a ‘great kingdom’. The Dominion actually dates back to before they were star-faring, back to when the planet was unified by the so-called ‘Peaceful Conqueror’ Angu, who supervised the carving of the Capitol into a mountain, a massive city structure with a population that would eventually exceed 20 million. It was this place that served as the nerve center for the entire Dominion, governed by a council who elected a potentate to act as ceremonial head of state. The potentate traveled from system to system within the Dominion, waving their hand and solidifying a wide interstellar cultural identity, the Anguan culture as modern historians call it.
When the Dominion of Angu was at its peak, it controlled much of the Deep, and to date is the largest kingdom ever, by number of systems under its control.
The founding of the First Dominion, as they would later be called, marked the beginning of the second era of the recorded history of the Array. The Anguan culture was the first to reach TL-15, and it took a while for the rest of the Array to catch up.
The Dominion was administered centrally, from their Capitol world of Vieden. Everything was decided there, and so it took a long time for decisions to be made. At times there were uprisings that had a chance to get out of hand, because the admirals of the Dominion fleets were the only ones that had operational independence of any kind, so planet-side developments were often left unchecked. This also meant that environmental crises, such as unexpected vulcanism or asteroidal collisions, events that required large-scale intervention, could severely damage or even wipe out subject populations far from Vieden. Yet the Dominion resisted giving autonomy on any level to subject worlds, except as it related to local commerce and agriculture. Even manufacturing was controlled by the Capitol.
3000 years before the events of the game, in 4140 a.r., a star went supernova in the sector of Vieden, almost completely destroying the Capitol’s population and facilities. Within two generations the lack of a head caused the First Dominion to dissipate, though their enduring cultural impact on the Array, and especially on the kingdoms and worlds of the Deep, cannot be overstated. More than half of the worlds currently in the Deep have substantial influence from the Anguan culture, even those in sectors never controlled by the First Dominion.
The Second Dominion
The Second Dominion, that of the conqueror Cinsuala, marks a dark time for much of the Deep. Though her Dominion never quite equaled that of Angu, Cinsuala is still remembered, not just for her brutality, but also for the fact that she conquered a thousand worlds in one lifetime.
Cinsuala and her cohort of genetically enhanced humans are one of the main reasons for the second Edict, the proscription against genetically modified humans, an issue over which the Compact signatories will go to war.
Gelloine
Smaller Kingdoms
- The Ushanti Union
- Osterosza
- Attaia
- The Small Entente
- Aenon
- D’Chenko
- The Florian Syndicate
- The Three Fools
- The Irun De’an League
- The Combine
- The Pocket