Uen Imperial Protectorate
The national government for the Fennec core worlds.
Public Agenda
Rupeeans survive despite their scorched world, and their attitude is that they are a people made strong by thriving under a harsh mistress. They can seem condescending or even discriminatory to other races in matters of survival or exposure, but are also known to value hard-bitten survivors who can keep up with them.
Two great events define the Rupeean civilian or soldier's national character - the shame (or thrill) of their old association with criminal enterprise and the plague of piracy that emerged from their home system, and a sense of nationalistic pride in the new empire. The latter may prove fragile and could turn into something worse, should the empire itself be laid low.
A large proportion of Rupeeans remain in the employ of interstellar criminal empires of various types - these tend to see themselves as born survivors, and are more skittish than their imperial brethren.
History
1 ARC - Colony established, vegetation and bioforms seeded onto planet, colonist population genetically tailored into present species and deposited on planet's poles.
45 ARC - biosphere considered established and seeding process scales back, according to archeological records.
48 ARC - Population centres established and self-sufficiency achieved in the short term. Colony ship Oregano misattributes this stability to full industrial development and shuts down ready for disassembly. Data, manufacturing capability and technology widely lost in the process, and the Rupeean civilisation would require untold centuries to recover.
2880’s ARC - Generally accepted nadir of technological loss. Approximately the only colonial technology known to still work are expedition-grade base radios, the only means through which arctic and antarctic civilizations remain aware of one another.
3389 ARC - The end of the Rupeean Dark Age. The steam engine is independently reinvented in 3 seperate Polar nations, and homegrown technology begins to be introduced. Abortive wars of conquest/unification are frequent on both poles as nations attempt to swallow one another whole.
3415 ARC - Launch of the first purpose-built expeditionary sandcrawler and the beginning of the landship era. Warfare is quickly monopolised by tracked landships that carry their own supplies and are not prone to separation or piecemeal destruction as a vehicle convoy would.
3521 ARC - First physical contact of polar civilisations is achieved, after the loss of 3 earlier coal-fired landship expeditions with all hands. Also the first testing of a diesel-powered landship later that year.
3661 ARC - First transequatorial trade mission, using a combination of military carrier landships and Duner-caches to supply a fleet of large biplanes. Their patrons, the arctic Ruphaari's royal family, begin efforts to build a global league of nations in order to rule.
3697 ARC - The first reliable electronic air-conditioning system is developed in the antarctic Duchy of Kuraas, which is the accepted reason for the mass adoption of municipal electricity in the same year. Polar Rupeeans often claim this is the only time they bowed to the pressure of their planet's climate. To which Duner Rupeeans often laugh aloud.
3745 ARC - Catastrophic world war breaks out in both hemispheres, causing terrible damage to the little fertile land as napalm based weapons are deployed liberally. The victorious League powers are immediately turned to solving widespread famine and accompanying plagues as populations almost collapse.
3976 ARC - First manned spaceflight. Due to greater than anticipated fuel efficiencies in upper atmosphere, also the first manned orbit. Efforts to build a satellite based communications system begin shortly after.
4012 ARC - Probes sent to a cluster of comets that were seen behaving oddly. Examination finds the comets consist mainly of a milky blue crystal that bent or defied gravity under certain conditions. Retrieved samples were tested and incorporated into the first artificial gravity prototypes the following year.
4024 ARC - Experimental production of manufactured gravity-altering crystal, known as cavorite. While the comets consisted of large veins of the pure crystal, no current production method has yet created fragments much larger than 1 cm3. Gravity negation technology leads to a new class of large landships, known as skiffs or sandskiffs.
4135 ARC - Opening of the Grand Aeisi Spire, an efficient agrav-operated space elevator built not far from a majority-Duner republic's capital and owned wholly by the Aeisi government. Spaceflight and eventual colonisation of space accelerated remarkably as a result.
4138 ARC - First recorded official response to illegal activities in space, as a mining vessel is hijacked and the crew ransomed using rudimentary ship-ship weapons. This event marks the beginning of an arms race between criminal cartels and League police and naval forces that rapidly brings Rupeean naval technology towards a military standard.
4175 ARC - First testing of a Lwyd Rift FTL drive, bringing a Rupeean craft to the adjacent star system and leading to first contact with the international community. Contact is established and Rupeean horizons extend to the near-galactic (literally) overnight.
4181 ARC - Surveying and pre-colonisation construction begins on the habitable planets Tarii and Rasaan. First colonists installed soon after, with frequent contact and occasional importation of settlers from the homeworld.
4210 ARC - Construction of the Zaahiri Spire on Rasaan, a more robust and rationalised model of space elevator than the original Aeisi Spire, which maximises the flow of peaceful trade with other stellar factions. The nine-tailed posthuman Sestians remain close allies, and a Rupeean Sestian population soon develops in Rasaan’s colder climates.
4542 ARC - The Battle of Adriaapoli Station. A League combined fleet is caught and destroyed by an armada of mainly Rupeean pirates and renegades armed with foreign ships and weapons. The loss of their main protection force leads to the dissolution of the League amidst infighting, recriminations and an alarming number of coups performed by the power-hungry Cartel leaders. Anarchy spreads beyond Rupeean space as state shipyards are turned to interstellar crime organisations to fit their own favoured styles of warship.
4587 ARC - Crixin Val Sel Uen, a Duner mercenary in unexpected command of an unemployed heavy landship, begins a career in statecraft by overthrowing a corrupt and warlike dictatorship in Kuraasi territory. Gathering a mix of civilian interests, partisan militias and professional military officers to his banner, Uen begins to eliminate nearby Cartel successor states.
4590 ARC - Coalition forces led by Uen's Kuraasi ships eliminate the major centres of resistance in the antarctic hemisphere. In an effort to prevent further instability they coauthor a common constitution designed to bring peace to the planet. By careful maneuvering, Uen places himself at the popular and legal head of the new constitutional government. Economic recovery begins in the south.
4594 ARC - Calls to adopt the new constitution flood the northern hemisphere's petty dictatorships, and popular uprisings combined with conveniently timed attacks from Duner partisans and Coalition landships overthrow several in rapid succession. Other powers accept the new way of things, and adopt the model constitution in surrender.
4597 ARC - In global executive control and considered a hero by the masses, Uen uses a legal pretext to initiate his coronation as the first emperor of Rupee Quay.
4611 ARC - Control of the rest of the system is established after a hard-fought battle with a number of local and interstellar crime cartels, using the command styles and organisational patterns of desert-bound landships to rapidly train and equip a small starcruiser squadron.
4615 ARC - Uen's Imperial Protectorate is first recognised by other interstellar powers. 4620 ARC - Present day by Rupeean Calender
45 ARC - biosphere considered established and seeding process scales back, according to archeological records.
48 ARC - Population centres established and self-sufficiency achieved in the short term. Colony ship Oregano misattributes this stability to full industrial development and shuts down ready for disassembly. Data, manufacturing capability and technology widely lost in the process, and the Rupeean civilisation would require untold centuries to recover.
2880’s ARC - Generally accepted nadir of technological loss. Approximately the only colonial technology known to still work are expedition-grade base radios, the only means through which arctic and antarctic civilizations remain aware of one another.
3389 ARC - The end of the Rupeean Dark Age. The steam engine is independently reinvented in 3 seperate Polar nations, and homegrown technology begins to be introduced. Abortive wars of conquest/unification are frequent on both poles as nations attempt to swallow one another whole.
3415 ARC - Launch of the first purpose-built expeditionary sandcrawler and the beginning of the landship era. Warfare is quickly monopolised by tracked landships that carry their own supplies and are not prone to separation or piecemeal destruction as a vehicle convoy would.
3521 ARC - First physical contact of polar civilisations is achieved, after the loss of 3 earlier coal-fired landship expeditions with all hands. Also the first testing of a diesel-powered landship later that year.
3661 ARC - First transequatorial trade mission, using a combination of military carrier landships and Duner-caches to supply a fleet of large biplanes. Their patrons, the arctic Ruphaari's royal family, begin efforts to build a global league of nations in order to rule.
3697 ARC - The first reliable electronic air-conditioning system is developed in the antarctic Duchy of Kuraas, which is the accepted reason for the mass adoption of municipal electricity in the same year. Polar Rupeeans often claim this is the only time they bowed to the pressure of their planet's climate. To which Duner Rupeeans often laugh aloud.
3745 ARC - Catastrophic world war breaks out in both hemispheres, causing terrible damage to the little fertile land as napalm based weapons are deployed liberally. The victorious League powers are immediately turned to solving widespread famine and accompanying plagues as populations almost collapse.
3976 ARC - First manned spaceflight. Due to greater than anticipated fuel efficiencies in upper atmosphere, also the first manned orbit. Efforts to build a satellite based communications system begin shortly after.
4012 ARC - Probes sent to a cluster of comets that were seen behaving oddly. Examination finds the comets consist mainly of a milky blue crystal that bent or defied gravity under certain conditions. Retrieved samples were tested and incorporated into the first artificial gravity prototypes the following year.
4024 ARC - Experimental production of manufactured gravity-altering crystal, known as cavorite. While the comets consisted of large veins of the pure crystal, no current production method has yet created fragments much larger than 1 cm3. Gravity negation technology leads to a new class of large landships, known as skiffs or sandskiffs.
4135 ARC - Opening of the Grand Aeisi Spire, an efficient agrav-operated space elevator built not far from a majority-Duner republic's capital and owned wholly by the Aeisi government. Spaceflight and eventual colonisation of space accelerated remarkably as a result.
4138 ARC - First recorded official response to illegal activities in space, as a mining vessel is hijacked and the crew ransomed using rudimentary ship-ship weapons. This event marks the beginning of an arms race between criminal cartels and League police and naval forces that rapidly brings Rupeean naval technology towards a military standard.
4175 ARC - First testing of a Lwyd Rift FTL drive, bringing a Rupeean craft to the adjacent star system and leading to first contact with the international community. Contact is established and Rupeean horizons extend to the near-galactic (literally) overnight.
4181 ARC - Surveying and pre-colonisation construction begins on the habitable planets Tarii and Rasaan. First colonists installed soon after, with frequent contact and occasional importation of settlers from the homeworld.
4210 ARC - Construction of the Zaahiri Spire on Rasaan, a more robust and rationalised model of space elevator than the original Aeisi Spire, which maximises the flow of peaceful trade with other stellar factions. The nine-tailed posthuman Sestians remain close allies, and a Rupeean Sestian population soon develops in Rasaan’s colder climates.
4542 ARC - The Battle of Adriaapoli Station. A League combined fleet is caught and destroyed by an armada of mainly Rupeean pirates and renegades armed with foreign ships and weapons. The loss of their main protection force leads to the dissolution of the League amidst infighting, recriminations and an alarming number of coups performed by the power-hungry Cartel leaders. Anarchy spreads beyond Rupeean space as state shipyards are turned to interstellar crime organisations to fit their own favoured styles of warship.
4587 ARC - Crixin Val Sel Uen, a Duner mercenary in unexpected command of an unemployed heavy landship, begins a career in statecraft by overthrowing a corrupt and warlike dictatorship in Kuraasi territory. Gathering a mix of civilian interests, partisan militias and professional military officers to his banner, Uen begins to eliminate nearby Cartel successor states.
4590 ARC - Coalition forces led by Uen's Kuraasi ships eliminate the major centres of resistance in the antarctic hemisphere. In an effort to prevent further instability they coauthor a common constitution designed to bring peace to the planet. By careful maneuvering, Uen places himself at the popular and legal head of the new constitutional government. Economic recovery begins in the south.
4594 ARC - Calls to adopt the new constitution flood the northern hemisphere's petty dictatorships, and popular uprisings combined with conveniently timed attacks from Duner partisans and Coalition landships overthrow several in rapid succession. Other powers accept the new way of things, and adopt the model constitution in surrender.
4597 ARC - In global executive control and considered a hero by the masses, Uen uses a legal pretext to initiate his coronation as the first emperor of Rupee Quay.
4611 ARC - Control of the rest of the system is established after a hard-fought battle with a number of local and interstellar crime cartels, using the command styles and organisational patterns of desert-bound landships to rapidly train and equip a small starcruiser squadron.
4615 ARC - Uen's Imperial Protectorate is first recognised by other interstellar powers. 4620 ARC - Present day by Rupeean Calender
Demography and Population
Postwar, most affluent citizens are those who were necessary or valued by pre-Coalition regimes. Whether doctors and specialist engineers, retired mobsters and lucky fixers, or simply well-heeled specialists who somehow survived the anarchy. They form the major buyers of luxury goods and collectively form the majority of private employers. Some welcome the new regime, some resent it, but none are in any position to offer resistance.
Transequatorial landship guilds have long formed a broad if clannish sect of their own, with internal class structures incomprehensible to the leyman. Impossible to truly break by the various mobs and dictatorships that had sprouted up, they formed a valuable member of the Coalition and have been rewarded with additional status and privileges in return for permitting recruitment to the still recovering Imperial Navy.
The largest employer planetside and in the wider system is the Imperial Armed Forces, including a starfaring navy, crisis-relief corps and regular army. Generally well paid and one of the few sources of regular food and money available to citizens, soldiers have been increasingly committed to logistics, infrastructure and famine relief in an effort to kickstart recovery through brute force and sheer force of his majesty’s will. Disciplined and motivated by a sense of the weight of destiny behind them, individual soldiers range from pillars of local communities to persistent troublemakers. Many civilians remember the bloody excesses of the days before the Coalition's war, and half-expect this army to turn much like the last had.
The poor may be found in struggling agricultural villages or urban slums all over the planet. Crixin's government has done what it can to find them jobs, deliver aid or simply put them in uniform, but long years of strife has created a depth of destitution that eludes such measures. Petty crime and the occasional mugging are common, although any organisation of the criminal classes is largely prevented.
As much a way of life as an ethnicity, Duner communities range from small, well-positioned trading cities in the tropics, to villages cropping up around rare and exceptionally valuable underground oases that fringe the deserts, to packs of nomads riding sleek, scaled beasts of burden between obscure oases and curiously ancient mines in the depths of the equatorial desert. Duners are laconic, self-reliant, often enigmatic and a literal breed apart from the soft Polar city-dwellers or farmers. Duners are occasionally mistrusted and depicted as ill-educated and violent barbarians half crazed by sunlight. Duner tradition dictates every adult carries a rifle or a kopis-like sword at all times. Most swords worn in public are purely ceremonial, but some are anything but...
Territories
Rupee Quay Bandir
The home system of the UIP, containing their origin world.
Rasaan Bandir
A core system of the UIP, and the centre of their international trade.
Tarii Bandir
A core system of the UIP, and the only Rupeean world with significant oceans.
Cuurie’al Bandir and Kaab Bandir
Systems controlled by the UIP. Not significantly populated, but with some economic or strategic significance.
Military
For a description of military doctrine etc, see Rupeean Armed Forces
Approximate Naval Numbers:
For the sake of managing the numbers involved, fleet elements have been given below rather than total ship count, so as to exclude hulls under long-term maintenance or mothballed vessels. Actual military operations involve multiple fleet elements operating in concert, but each element is expected to operate independently. Fleet element types are: Cruiser squadron - 5-6 ships. Normally 3 light cruisers giving support and protection for 2 heavy cruisers. Often but not always supported by a general purpose support cruiser in the second line.
Destroyer Squadron - 5-10 ships. Normally 5 destroyers, sometimes led by a light cruiser and sometimes reinforced by available escort frigates if the mission range allows.
Frigate Squadron - Typically 6 escort frigates and 6 scout frigates. Almost always reinforced by other fleet elements if resistance is expected, often deployed as supplemental forces. Approximate Fleet Elements:
Cruiser squadrons - 215, of which 8 are Guards Cruiser Squadrons.
Destroyer squadrons - 165, of which 6 are Guards Destroyer Squadrons.
Frigate squadrons - 65, of which 7 are Guards Frigate Squadrons
For the sake of managing the numbers involved, fleet elements have been given below rather than total ship count, so as to exclude hulls under long-term maintenance or mothballed vessels. Actual military operations involve multiple fleet elements operating in concert, but each element is expected to operate independently. Fleet element types are: Cruiser squadron - 5-6 ships. Normally 3 light cruisers giving support and protection for 2 heavy cruisers. Often but not always supported by a general purpose support cruiser in the second line.
Destroyer Squadron - 5-10 ships. Normally 5 destroyers, sometimes led by a light cruiser and sometimes reinforced by available escort frigates if the mission range allows.
Frigate Squadron - Typically 6 escort frigates and 6 scout frigates. Almost always reinforced by other fleet elements if resistance is expected, often deployed as supplemental forces. Approximate Fleet Elements:
Cruiser squadrons - 215, of which 8 are Guards Cruiser Squadrons.
Destroyer squadrons - 165, of which 6 are Guards Destroyer Squadrons.
Frigate squadrons - 65, of which 7 are Guards Frigate Squadrons
Technological Level
Foreign Relations
First Contact Procedures: Standing procedures are not really expected to be observed in the moment, but focus on making contact and establishing some form of communication by all non-classified means available, while remaining at combat readiness and available to respond to force in kind. Officers are encouraged to make nonviolent can act quite freely in this scenario.
Among all nations, Fennecs are followed by a low-level suspicion and fear that (should they ever achieve access to the air conditioning) they will knock the ambient temperature several degrees beyond what everyone else considers tolerable...
With Tri-Star Commonwealth:
The UIP officially continues to establish itself as a legitimate power in their region of space, and so seeking diplomatic ties with independent factions such as the Commonwealth is largely in their interests. Joint or cross-border economic opportunities are also available, albeit controlled and maintained by the crown to prevent returning to unforunate past incidents. Among the general population, the Fennecs maintain a standoffish but ultimately friendly relationship with the transhumans of the Commonwealth. The only serious points of friction are the perils of navigating clan structures for the more individualistic Commonwealth citizens, where the loosely familial socioeconomic and political structures are at best considered incomprehensible, and at worst are remniscent of the hidebound Terrans.
The UIP officially continues to establish itself as a legitimate power in their region of space, and so seeking diplomatic ties with independent factions such as the Commonwealth is largely in their interests. Joint or cross-border economic opportunities are also available, albeit controlled and maintained by the crown to prevent returning to unforunate past incidents. Among the general population, the Fennecs maintain a standoffish but ultimately friendly relationship with the transhumans of the Commonwealth. The only serious points of friction are the perils of navigating clan structures for the more individualistic Commonwealth citizens, where the loosely familial socioeconomic and political structures are at best considered incomprehensible, and at worst are remniscent of the hidebound Terrans.
Education
Still recovering from decades of civil war, the education system has been the recipient of much interest by Rupee Quay's coalition and later Crown governments. Students for the past 20-25 years have been raised amidst intensive academic and vocational programmes designed, rumour has it, by the infamously prolific emperor himself. Older populations likely had much less formal education, with considerable variance in length and quality depending on where they lived.
Main Races:
Fennecs
Kitsunes
Fennecs
Kitsunes
Founding Date
4597 ARC
Type
Governmental, Senate/Parliament
Formation Type
Demonym
often simply 'Rupeean' or 'Fennec'
Government System
Monarchy, Constitutional
Economic System
Market economy
Currency
Official currency is the Req (officially the Coalition Army Ration Requisition Unit, a currency unit originally fixed to the average price of a half day's food and water in the tropic latitudes of Rupee Quay). Low in value by the time it was transferred to the traditional Water Standard, so no smaller denominations are required. The original League-era currency, the Scatch, is still in circulation in many places on all 3 worlds. To coax the more elusive Duner communities gradually onto the new standard, Scatch is still being accepted as legal tender for a full century after the introduction of Req.
Legislative Body
Planetary or provincial governments set policy independently, with executive and legislative power provided to two tracks of elected officials. Cross-house party membership is forbidden to ensure additional separation of powers.
The Emperor and his household claim overall executive and judiciary authority and may set laws by public decree, but this power is rarely invoked due to the reigning Emperor's predeliction to find and delegate to trusted subordinates. A weaker ruler may overuse this power, stretching it thin.
The Emperor and his household claim overall executive and judiciary authority and may set laws by public decree, but this power is rarely invoked due to the reigning Emperor's predeliction to find and delegate to trusted subordinates. A weaker ruler may overuse this power, stretching it thin.
Related Traditions
Controlled Territories
Neighboring Nations
Manufactured Items
Related Items
Notable Members
Close Allies
Populations are trusting and comfortable alongside one another, temperature preferences aside, with unbroken historic good relations. EoS was one of the first states to recognise the UIP as legitimate.
Military Allies
Governments receptive to closer contact. Populations relatively friendly to one another with few known friction points or wedge issues.
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