“Peace is just a period of transition between wars.”

- TAVARUS ULTIMO, MARGRAVE TETRARCH OF THE PRECENTOR TETRARCHY

Major Political Powers

  • The Precentor Tetrarchy is foremost among the Successor States that claim heirship to the mantle of ancient Rome. Originally organized as a Republican assembly, the Precentors briefly fell under the rule of the Arsian Despots before the Four Legates overthrew the tyrannical dictators and established the Tetrarchy. In the decades before the modern era, the Tetrarchy waged a decade-long war with the Nexonian Republic in the most recent historical iteration of the Trials of Succession. The Precentors won and absorbed most of the Nexonian territories, though a rump state still exists in the Antares Reach — a region of space on the Precentor periphery that divides the Tetrarchy from the Isterian Magistracy.

    As its name suggests, the Precentor Tetrarchy is ruled by four Tetrarchs, with a senate that primarily serves an administrative function. The Primarch serves as first-among-equals, a Comital Tetrarch serves as the Primarch’s heir-apparent, and two Margrave Tetrarchs act as governor-regents of border territories. In times of crisis, the Primarch, with consent from the senate and other tetrarchs, can appoint a Praetor, empowered with supra-jurisdictional martial authority over the state’s military and naval armada.

    In the two centuries since its founding, the Tetrarchy has only anointed one Praetor — Titus Teuthus. A wartime mentor to Tavarus Ultimo and the son of Primarch Acheron, Teuthus rebelled against his father in the waning days of the Nexonian Trial of Succession. That rebellion was put down by Ultimo, for which he was rewarded with an elevation to Margrave Tetrarch.

    In the two decades since the end of the Titus Rebellion, the Tetrarchy has greatly expanded its influence, rising to become one of the foremost military powers among the Successor States. As a result, the Tetrarchs have made many enemies, not least among them their Isterian neighbours, who view the Precentor state’s ongoing expansion with trepidation.

  • The legitimacy of the Successor States rests on their ability to draw a linkage to the pre-Caelum Concordia nations of Old Terra. Where the Precentor Tetrarchy claims lineage to the ancient Roman Empire, the Isterians link their lineage to ancient Rome’s old eternal nemesis, Carthage. As such, the Isterian Magistracy naturally sees the Tetrarchy as its chief great power rival. This antagonism is further exacerbated by the two states’ geographic juxtaposition to one another, buffered only by the inert rump state of the Nexonian Diaspora.

    In contrast to the martial might of the Precentor legions, the Magistracy’s strength is based on its economic power and strong naval tradition. Their navies are staffed exclusively by Isterian citizens, while their armies are primarily recruited from non-Isterian sources, such as Varangian mercenaries. The sole exception to this rule is the elite Sacred Band, which serve directly under the Strategoi — the core generals of the Isterian military.

    The Isterian state is ruled by two Magistrates, elected for six year terms from among a senatorial body — the Council of Suffets — that represents the Magistracy’s leading families. These officials represent the various classes of Isterian society, from the core mercantilist interests that form the Magistracy’s power base to the noble families that inherit generational claims over various naval forces.

  • In the aftermath of humanity’s emergence from the Long Unknown, the First Trial of Succession reshaped the political map of the galaxy. The first great interstellar human nation to materialize from this reordering was the Nabarene Dominion, ruled by the Humayun monarchs. Shortly thereafter, the Shutathian Ascendency rose to challenge the Nabarene hegemony, leading to decades of conflict that culminated in the Second Trial of Succession (47 AT).

    Neither domain emerged victorious from the Trial, which significantly weakened both states. As a result, numerous other political entities emerged to fill the power vacuum, laying the foundation for the rise of new Successor States like the Precentor Assembly and the Isterian Magistracy. In the midst of this political reordering, a new religion, born from the preachings of a legendary prophet known as the Chimeran Sibyl, began proliferating across both the Nabarene Dominion and the Shutathian Ascendancy.

    Over time, the Chimeran Sibyl and his disciples redirected the socio-cultural evolution of both great nations, culminating in the Chimeran Trial of Succession (770 AT) — one of the few notably peaceful Trials that led to the political fusion of the two great arch-rivals. The Empire of the Shutath-Nabar, unified under the reign of the newly-anointed line of Shah-Humayuns, became a hegemonic juggernaut and remains the mightiest of humanity’s Successor States.

  • When humanity was taking its first steps into the great galactic unknown, the Chazrak were already an old and prominent interstellar species. They were among the first species to venture into the stars and are believed to have been among the elder races that helped to found the Galactic Concord.

    Like with other interstellar species, much of Chazrak history was lost to the devastation of the Long Unknown. But whereas most species came to forgive humanity for their role in ushering in the Genetic Legacy, the Chazrak continue to harbour a lingering distrust of humans and scions — one that persists to the modern era.

    In the millennia since the end of the Concord War, the Chazrak Union has experienced significant changes to its socio-political order. Once a highly concentrated and centralized society, over time the Union has become increasingly decentralized with direct governance falling to hyper-localized entities.

Minor Political Powers

  • Following the Nexonian Trial of Succession, the Precentor Tetrarchy absorbed most of the Nexonian Republic, with the notable exception of a small rump state along the Antares Reach — a lengthy border region that creates a buffer between the Tetrarchy and the Isterian Magistracy. In subsequent years the Nexonian rump state became famed as a bastion of free inquiry and academic enterprise. But it also gained a reputation as a region that harboured smugglers, mercenaries, and even terrorists.

    It is here, on an Antares border world known as Gregos Alpha, that Erastus Drake, a Nexonian Archon, assumed leadership of an enclave that would grow into a famous center of learning and scholastic pursuits. Despite Drake’s indirect role in influencing Titus Teuthus’ rebellion against the Tetrarchy, over the years his enclave’s academy became renowned among Precentor elites. As Drake’s influence has grown, he has increasingly come into political conflict with other Nexonian enclave leaders and, more concerningly, with Tetricus, who sees the Archon’s intellectual impact within the Tetrarchy as a threat — both to Precentor stability and his own ambitions.

  • Like the Chazrak, the Topolians are among the oldest of the elder species. Ancient legends even suggest they were the first space-faring species in the galaxy, and possibly laid the foundation for the Galactic Concord. But where the Chazrak retreated into isolation following their emergence from the Long Unknown, the Topolians have pursued a policy of mass emigration. Their stated goal is to work towards revitalizing the Concord by reinforcing a sense of pan-galactic trust and harmony — an effort likely to take many centuries.

    Although they retain a small territorial nation-state, the Topolians have aggressively integrated themselves among the various galactic nations. Their home system and the broader diaspora are superficially governed by a distributed state network — the Entwine — that provides only minimal security and services. Instead, scattered Topolians willingly subject themselves to be governed by alien races, which serves as the foundational guiding principle for their reintegration policies.

Unaffiliated entities

  • By the end of the Concord War all mention of Old Terra had largely disappeared from the few surviving records. As the chaos of the Long Unknown began to unfold, all communication from the cradle of humanity ceased. Over the ensuing centuries, the increasingly isolated outposts of human civilization lost much of the knowledge of their pre-spacefaring history, and awareness of Old Terra became a distant memory.

    By the time humanity emerged from the depravations wrought by the Genetic Legacy, Old Terra had almost entirely faded into the realm of myth and legend. Then, shortly after the conclusion of the First Trial of Succession, an expedition of Nabarene scientists stumbled upon an incomprehensibly massive galactic gigastructure — over an entire astronomical unit in diameter — in a forgotten expanse of space. Subsequent investigation suggested the gigastructure resembled some advanced variant of a Dyson Sphere, though repeated attempts at penetrating to the interior proved fruitless.

    For centuries, the gigastructure represented an enduring generational mystery until shortly after the Battle of Arsia when, in the year 1191 AT, a Chazrak envoy to the newly-constituted Precentor Tetrarchy provided detailed star maps from before the Long Unknown, revealing the location of Old Terra as residing within the Dyson Sphere. In the centuries since this revelation, little progress has been made in understanding the purpose of the Terran Dyson Sphere or how it was built in such a seemingly short period of time. It remains one of the great wonders and mysteries of the modern galactic landscape.

  • In “The Iliad,” Hyperenor is mentioned as a Trojan warrior killed by King Menelaus.

    The son of Atreus then wounded Hyperenor, shepherd of his people, in the flank, and the bronze point made his entrails gush out as it tore in among them; on this his life came hurrying out of him at the place where he had been wounded, and his eyes were closed in darkness. (“The Iliad,” Book XIV)

    Among the ancient Romans, the Cult of Hyperenor was rumored to be a secret cabal of elite aristocrats who labored behind the scenes to influence the ancient emperors. Although the cult never achieved widespread adoption, rumours whispered of a mythic figure whose influence helped safeguard Rome’s long-term stability and prosperity. As decades and centuries passed, the story of “Hyperenor the Shepherd” became an obscure folklore legend — one of the very few to survive the turbulent millenia since the days of Ancient Rome.

  • Apart from the enduring myth of Hyperenor, another tale that has survived the passage of time is that of Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix.

    In ancient times, Sulla was a Roman general who, upon seizing power in the aftermath of the Roman Republic’s first civil war, attempted to reform the Roman constitution to usher in a new republic that would be better-steeled against the designs of ambitious elites. His reforms were eventually undone by the First Triumvirate, ultimately leading to the fall of the Republic and the rise of Imperial Rome under Augustus.

    In modern times, the Heirs of Sulla – or Sullan Order – is a pan-galactic political movement agitating for a return to republican government among the Successor States of the human diaspora. Its tenants also feature a fervent disavowal of the Trials of Succession, undercutting a foundational pillar of the modern interstellar order. As such, the Order is officially banned in many of the larger Successor States, including the Precentor Tetrarchy and the Empire of the Shutath-Nabar.