The Aun

The Aun are a people descended from the crew of the Armstrong, one of the original Ten--massive generation ships launched by pre-Union Earth before the Fall began in earnest. They are organized under two organizations: the government-in-exile Ecumenical Mandate and the imperialist Ecclesiastical Ascendancy.
The Aun have a longstanding grudge against Union. Having gone off-course for more than a thousand years, the Armstrong--their generation ship--eventually arrived at a habitable world in 1996u, only to find that Union, having rediscovered and used the technology of Old Humanity, had got there first. In place of the pristine garden they had promised themselves through the Navigator faith, they found the colony of Anthem. Anthemites attempted to integrate the Aun into their society, meeting them with force when they resisted. Eventually, the Anthemites resorted to a blockade; Aunic leadership, in turn pressed by their own people's agitation that bordered on revolutionary, threatened to de-orbit the Armstrong into the planet if the Anthemites continued to tie up their people in bureaucratic red tape. At an impasse, the Anthemites blinked first, and allowed the Aun to land and settle en masse. Anthemite culture, once a pocket on Aun'Ist, has now largely been forced off-world or exterminated by the Ascendancy.
In 2100, a monolith, polished to a black mirror shine, manifested over the capital of Aun'Ist. Its appearance lent the Aun visions and powers, and it performed miracles, though with no clear motive. In 2870, just as suddenly as it had appeared, however, it vanished. In the wake of this event, a new theocratic order, known as the Ascendancy, began to take control of Aun'Ist. The Ascendancy cemented its power by annexing Borea, Dodona and Calvary in the Cornucopia system, previously Union worlds. In response, Golgotha, a resort planet then controlled by the exiled Cornucopian royal family, was reinforced by Union forces and renamed Dawn Throne.
In 2890, the monolith, now known as Metat Aun by the Ascendancy, returned, leading to a religious war that engulfed Aun space. The aftermath of this war led to the exile of those Aun who would not submit to the Ascendancy--who eventually ended up in the Boundary Garden system--and the establishment of the imperial era of the Ascendancy. Under its auspices, the Ascendancy flattened the otherwise culturally-diverse Aun into one agglomerated citizenry and a rigid caste system.
In 4800, Metat Aun again disappeared. Afterward, the Ascendancy, in concert with their proxies in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Cornucopia, dispatched forces to Dawn Throne in Boundary Garden, securing the world against royalist forces. Ascendancy soldiers captured hundreds of GMS chassis in the aftermath, which were then ferried back to Aun space. These captured chassis would form the basis for the Ascendancy's formidable Ofanim, pilot-"Soul" pairs in chassis that are part war machine and part work of art.
In 5000, Metat Aun reappeared on Aun'Ist, in part prompting the Ascendancy to begin the Second Distal War.