WELCOME

   Welcome to the Grand Empire of the Stars Campaign. I am your humble Skymarshal, Damon Bradley. If you have any questions about the material, feel free to email me at Idahobeef@yahoo.com. This game has no pre-set goals and can continue indefinitely, or until most players want to quit. I am trying to lead a game where diplomacy between players is far more important than fighting, as well as testing new technologies from the UTM and my own super secret tech source book. This game will also be testing some new rules I have borrowed from GSF, including building of unlimited PDCs on planets, new trade rules (hint: the lower your RM the better!), and stronger warship hulls.

HUMAN HISTORY

   During the early expansion wave of the Terran Federation a small fleet of colonization ships passed through a pre-surveyed warp point which was undergoing unusual fluctuations. While the captain of the TFNS Laura Ingraham  noticed the energy spike from the warp point he detected nothing strange, until he reappeared in the transit system…..which looked nothing like the survey data he had been given from Terran Survey Command! After the twelve other ships appeared insystem, Captain Todd Kes scouted the inner system, which contained a single T world. Several of the other freighters packed with colonists tried to re-enter the warp point but nothing seemed to work. It appeared that it was a bizarre one-way warp point and not only that but every ships’ chronometer had been set-back 900 years as well!! With little hope of retracing their steps, the colonists landed on the new T-world in the system and named it Homeworld. The freighters were mothballed in hopes of one day having sufficient population to reactivate them and the brave colonists set about making this planet their new home. Within 300 years, the population of Homeworld had skyrocketed due to its’ very Earth-like environment and the draw of the stars and ancient tales of the “Federation” beckoned the humans back out into the stars.

   When the humans of Homeworld returned to the stars they found a fertile sphere of habitable worlds and a few friendly alien races, although all were less powerful than they and provided no competition to human expansion. A federal democracy was formed after the fifteenth world was colonized and the Grand Republic was created. After extensive expansion the Republic came into contact with several other races that were highly militant, including the Pitar, Onctillians, and the M’Dok. The shock of meeting the M’Dok and the failure of the Republic in effectively dealing with them enabled the famous General Ian Clarke to take power and overthrow the government of the Republic.

   Assimilation of worlds and aliens races took place for nearly 600 years and the Empire continued to expand until the humans encountered their ultimate enemy, the Harvestors of Life. A genocidal and fantastically powerful alien force from some unknown part of the galaxy, the Harvestors of Life would appear out of nowhere and destroy entire worlds, slaughtering each planets’ inhabitants methodically and ruthlessly. Their endless campaign of total annihilation against the Grand Imperium came at a time when the Empire had sustained generations of peace and had few battlefleets had been mobilized. Within a year however the Empire (under famed Fleet Admiral Anthony St. John) had thrown hundreds of warships at the Harvestors and beaten them back into the Dead Zone, an area of intense radiation where no organic life could live for long among various stars of that accursed region.

   This action only spelled doom for the humans, for without their knowledge the increasingly desperate Harvestors used their super science to open a dimensional portal of some kind and appeared within striking range of the Homeworld. In minutes of arriving the Harvestors opened fire and the 40 billion humans inhabiting the Empires’ largest and most important planet died in a gruesome bombardment of nuclear rain. They then disappeared. With the death of the entire royal family, competing sector governors and political factions are now struggling for control of the Empire. Some systems are trying to assert their independence during this crisis and previously conquered and amalgamated races are asserting their independence as well.

   With this in mind, now is the time to play the game. The goals are this: to survive, to conquer, and watch out for the Harvestors! You must parlay with independent military commanders, defend your systems, negotiate with other players and alien races, and conquer the galaxy! Oh the Glory!!! With that in mind I, your humble Skymarshal, wish you the best and may the best man win!