Hi folks well one I just wanted to say YES I am still typing up my next few chapters for my game story. I still think I need the practice before I start writing a real book and I greatly enjoy writing for you guys so that story ain't gonna die anytime soon
Well on the positive side my College Writing prof. said she looks forward to seeing my name on a book some day soon so that's a moral boost for me
Anyway here is a wee bit of a preview of the Icaran Star Empire from my planned book.
Brief History:
The Icaran City State was once a prosperous metropolis on the outer most tip of Greece, the Icarans themselves were a race of poets, priests and philosophers and because of this their army was nearly non-existant.
One day in the year 2,000 BC the Spartans, a society dedicated to waging warfare and who's entire male populace made up its army fell upon the outer territories of the Icarans; sweeping aside all of what little resistance the Icaran army could throw together.
At this time in Icaran history the city state was ruled by the Triumverate, a council of three "kings" and unfortunately for the war effort these three men were incompetent military commanders and so devoted to the idea that women were inferior they would not even permit the icaran female populace to take up the farming duties that the men they sent off to war could no longer perform.
After two bloody years of war and famine somewhere in the order of half the Icaran population died, the bulk of this being men, and still the Triumverate refused to allow women to perform any of the necessary tasks that the men now gone could not.
In the last days of the second year of the war, when all seemed lost one man, Alexander, who commanded the Icaran home garrison led his troops in a violent coup against the triumverate, and it is said that he personally put the heads of the triumverate on pikes and marched them through the city as a symbol of the end of the Triumverate's rule.
In a series of sweeping reforms Alexander reformed the Icaran army, women were drafted and taught to use the bow and ride horses to war while the men provided the heavy infantry forces which now carried long rectagular shields and short swords instead of the old bronze round shields and long spears. Gone also was the bronze armor that the Triumverate had issued due to it's cheap cost, this was replaced by the latest in Icaran armor, segmented iron plates that provided much more protection for Icaran warriors.
Alexander also created the first "special forces" units, made up entirely of women who proved to be exceptional shots and posessed deadly skills with short bladed daggers. Alexander named this force of women the "shadow daggers" and gave them the task to raid the Spartan supply trains and small phalanxes of Spartiate warriors.
As the shadow daggers struck throughout the the fallen territories hundreds of spartiate warriors were killed, and the morale of the Spartan army began to faulter.
In the middle of the third and final year of the war the Spartan king had grown weary of the hit and run night attacks on his army and decided to march into one final battle against the upstart Icarans whom he beleived were on the very edge of breaking.
In this final showdown the entire Spartan army and the newly formed Icaran Army met on an open field near Icara city its self. As the two armies engaged one another the Spartans found to their suprise not a broken and defeated garrison but a fresh and battle ready force which relied on mobility, cavalry and archers in support of a force of heavy infantry columns.
Before the spartans even got into range with their spears the Icaran horse archers (almost entirely women and young girls) had killed hundreds; The archers on foot had also begun raining arrows down upon the slowly moving phalanx causing massive casualties.
Alexander himself led the Icaran infantry in a brutal charge into the Spartan ranks and legend says that he led this charge even while his horse archers continued to pour arrows into the flanks and rear of the phalanxes.
The battle raged for over two hours and at the end of it the entire Spartan army had been destroyed, Icaran soldiers worked their way through the corpses and slit the throats of the Spartan wounded until not a single Spartan soldier was left alive.
Though the Icarans paid a heavy price for their victory Alexander did not end his crusade with the destruction of the Spartan army but instead marched the Icaran army against Sparta its self; liberating the Helots and adding them to the population of the fast growing Icaran territories.
During the final seige of Sparta Alexander ordered all the boys over the age of seven put to the sword as they had already been indoctinated in the Spartan way of life, though wherever his armies marched Alexander showed equal lack mercy to any of his soldiers who looted or raped in the conquered Spartan territories.
In the end the bulk of the Spartan female populace, the entire helot population and most of the young males were added to the newly formed Icaran Empire; but even this was not enough for Alexander.
Sensing the mixed fear and zeal of his people Alexander recruited still more soldiers from the newly aquired populations and for the next 30 years he continued a bloody crusade that cut a swathe through the entirety of Europe.
When Alexander was 70 he finally ended his crusades and for the first time in decades Alexander returned to Icara city. In their gratitude the people of the new Icaran Empire declared Alexander to be "Praetor Alexander the 1st" and gave him near absolute power to rule the Icaran Empire such as it was.
Alexander the 1st did not live much longer, he died only three years later of illness and his son Lysander the 1st took the throne of his father. Where his father had forged an empire through blood drenched crusades Lysander added provinces through politics and economics, he reformed the government to include a nobility responsible for the management of the far flung Icaran holdings; over his administration Lysander only launched two wars against barbarian tribes to the west and though both of these wars were long and bloody ordeals the Icaran Empire grew by almost a quarter after these lands were conquered.
Lysander the 1st also set down new codes of law and justice that would make the nobles and commoners equally answerable to the law; these changes would last throughout the entire history of the Empire with very little change.
For the next two centuries Icaran armies would march and conquer tribe after tribe, city after city until the point where the whole of Europe and much of Africa was under Icaran rule. Many would wonder how the Icaran empire managed to stay so stable through two centuries of conquests and wars, and there are those who ask why so few rebellions happened. There is no single answer to these questions. In part it was the legal system of Icara that appealed to conquered cultures, for instead of being treated as slaves or second class citizens conquered peoples were simply added to the Empire as a new province and all those who did not resist were given legal citizenship.
Icara was not above rule through fear however and the Icaran "shadow daggers" who had grown from a raiding force made up entirely of women to a powerful secret police force ensured that those who might rebel never got the chance.
In the year 1238 AD a massive Icaran fleet of some two thousand ships and an army of over a hundred and fifty thousand men and women invaded Asia. At this point in Icaran history the Icaran sciences had produced early flintlock muskets and cannons which gave the Icaran Empire a massive advantage over it's asiatic foes. For five years Icaran armies swept across Asia. The bloodiest point of the early Crusade came when the Icaran armies invaded Japan, the primitive yet determined Japanese sent wave after wave of soldier against Icaran battle lines creating massive casualties on both sides. In the end however Icaran technology won out and Japan fell before Icara, though what was left of the country was barely calling a province.
The turning point in Icaran history is when the 32nd Icaran Regiment as well as the 8th London and 17th Spartan invaded China and ran streight into the armies of the Yuan dynasty.
All three Icaran regiments were completely destroyed and their weapons stolen and replicated by the Yuan scientists. As these weapons were given to the Chinese armies the Asian Crusade took it's bloodiest turn yet.
The Icaran army and fleet conducted a fighting retreat for the next twelve years and hundreds of thousands of Icarans and Chinese died before the Icaran fleet finally withdrew, the crusade forces had suffered the first true defeat the Icaran empire had suffered, of the one hundred and fifty thousand ground troops less then one third returned to Icara, and only eight hundred of the initial two thousand ships ever saw Icaran ports again.
More importantly this failed crusade would lead to a centuries long cold war between the Icaran Empire and the newly born "Empire of the Shining Star" which had risen to power under the Yuan dynasty. The positive side to this cold war however was the vast expendeture of resources on the sciences which brought advancement on by leaps and bounds.
Many small and several large wars were fought between the two great Empires over the centuries but for the most part it was a cold war where economy and politics had more value then troops and fleets.
In the year 3832 IY (Imperial Year- 1832 AD) the cold war would take a dramatic change as the first Icaran space craft orbited the Earth, this single action would lead to a change in global politics as the ESS and the Icaran Royal Empire began a race to the stars that would last for decades.
During this time period however much of the world's population was still independent of either Empire, and these independent alliances and nations began to fear the implications of the Icarans and Asians spreading to the rest of the solar system. Entire nations became aflame with riots and civil wars as factions fought amongst themselves as political leaders fought over what should be done about this new development.
For the next one hundred years the IRE and the ESS, even many of the smaller independent nations would develope space craft capable of reaching other planets in the Sol system creating stellar Empires and even more political termoil and strife.
The Icaran Royal Empire now became the Icaran Royal Star Empire and the Icaran Royal Space Navy took control of Mars, Io, Europa, Pluto, part of Luna, Triton, Deimos, Phobos and many other moons and asteroids. The Empire of the Shining Star claimed most of what was left while colonies belonging to independent nations usually resided on massive space stations or hidden in the asteroid belt.
A wise man once said "It is human to be curious" well unfortunately it is also human to seek struggle and competition with our neighbors; and shortly after the first colonies were established the First Space War occured in the year 1925 when Icaran Spacecraft on a deep range patrol encountered ESS spaceships doing the same. The battle that followed resulted in the destruction of both sides, only one Icaran scout managed to limp back to its port and report what had occured, and of course war quickly followed.
The battles for Mars, Venus and Jupiter station are remembered as the first time in human history where full scale space fleets met each other in battle and though they were using primitive megaton level nuclear missiles, and early slug throwing cannons the battles can be described as nothing less then slaughter, dozens of space craft were destroyed in these battles, and thousands of spacers died.
The ground wars for Mars and Venus both claimed millions of lives as Icarans, ESS and Independents struggled for control of these colonies.
The first space war ended with the third battle of Luna where a combined fourty ship Icaran space fleet defeated the remnants of the Oceanan space fleet and proceeded to land ground troops on the ESS and Oceanan Lunar colonies, capturing both.
The treaty that was signed between Icara and the ESS following this war also ended the centuries long cold war between these two powerful Empires.
Unfortunately in 3423 IY a madman named Adolf Hitler rose to power in the Germania province of Icara, for five years he secretly built a small space fleet and appropriated resources to create an army and ocean navy as well. In 3428 the Nazi Reichsflotte launched a nuclear holocuast upon the Lunar colonies depopulating Luna in less then five hours and killing over two million people in the process.
This "Nazi Rebellion" as it is known in history lasted only two years as the full military might of Icara swung into action against the Germania province laying waste to entire cities and slaughtering all who apposed the Icaran reocupation forces. In the year 3430 Hitler himself was hung by Icaran General George Marshall who had replaced General Patton whom died leading the assault on the Rhine, along with almost all of the 36th York armored regiment.
For the next hundred years Icara and the ESS conquered many independent nations; growing even more powerful. Unfortunately for both of these Empires a "United Nations" was formed by many of the more powerful independent nations, and in the year 3562 this United Nations launched a devestating nuclear attack on both the Icaran Empire and the ESS killing tens of millions in a matter of hours.
In space the Icaran Royal fleet and the ESS fleet were almost entirely destroyed by suprise attacks launched by UN fleets which had been built in secret in the asteroid belt. This bloody and devestating attack forced the Icarans and Asians into an alliance of survival and for the next year and a half they would fight a losing war to preserve their nuclear ravaged Empires.
In the end however the last remnants of the Icaran and Asian militaries rallied for one last battle, a battle designed not to win the war but to simply buy time for the two billion Icaran and Asian evacuees that would be leaving Sol in massive colony ships that would keep them in stasis until they arrived at a system with inhabitable planets.
This battle is known by Icara as "The Last March", every last ship soldier and plane the Icarans and ESS had was launched against the overwhelming UN forces on earth and in space.
The remnants of the space fleets the two once great Empires surrounded the 300 ship evacuation fleet and fought a running battle against the UN space forces until something no one could ever have predicted occured.
Through a random act of fate the combined Icara/ESS fleets hit a spacial anomoly at just the right angle to allow passage through without destroying the fleet, though many of the warships who were accelerating much faster and at much different angles then the transports were lost.
The UN forces who attempted to pursue the Icaran/ESS fleet were not as fortunate however and none made it through this anomoly intact.
The new system that the Icaran/ESS fleet entered was later named Norvor by Astrogrophers and it had two inhabitable worlds, Icara and Brandenburg.
Icara was colonized as the name suggests by the bulk of the combined fleet, however Brandenburg was colonized by five million Asian colonists due to the damage done to their ships engines prventing them from changing course.
Only one hundred years after the new colonization the Icaran Empire and the ESS stood as a united Empire for the first time in history, though many of the Asians would still not intermarry with Icarans due to cultural moores. The new Icaran Royal Empire set forth into the stars once again and though many wars followed the Icaran power grew and any xeno race that they encountered swiftly fell into slavery or extinction.
Three thousand years of colonization and warfare later the Icaran Empire now stands as the most powerful Empire in history with over four million worlds and hundreds of sphereworlds with trillions upon trillions of human beings answering to the Praetor and the nobility. And yet despite the Empire's power there are still threats to our very survival both external and internal, explorers continue to discover new worlds and new species. Even human worlds are still being discovered and though many have reverted to barbarism others have formed zieable stellar Empires of their own.
Xeno Empires also threaten the existance of mankind as they seek to purge the galaxy of human life for reasons no human can fathom and despite her power Icara must still fight for its very survival against threats their ancestors could never even dream of in their most terrifying nightmares.
(some short tech descrriptions to follow)
Anyway for the time being that's the basic summery of my Icaran Empire's history, the first book I write will deal with the early space age and reveal the previous history.
God willing that sells well the sequal will deal with Icara at roughly the time that is in the game, while the third book and any sequals will deal with the Empire at it's height/most endangered.
What do you guys think so far?
Semi-OT: The Icaran Empire Preview (the book one)
Hybrid Mode
