The Fourth Galactic Power

by The Real BONK'er

As humanity and other Council races develop along the path set by the Reapers, a different civilization is born. Developing alongside but separately from other species, isolated from the wider galaxy. An Empire with its own FTL technology, independent of Mass Relays. What will happen if a civilization so different from others in almost every way, joins the Galactic community?

1. CODEX: Carvins and their history

A/N: Hello, my name is TheRealBONK'er. No, not my real name, that would be quite silly indeed. This is my fanfiction, The Fourth Galactic Power. My second attempt at writing it, to be exact. When I wrote it the first time, I was... a different person than I am now. Not someone I would call 'mature'. And as I wrote the chapters of this story, and even managed to end its ME2 part, I couldn't help but feel worse and worse with the direction I took with it at the beginning. This led to me abandoning the idea of writing it for a few years, although I never truly forgot about it.

And now after finishing school and deciding to take a gap year, as well as with the Mass Effect Legendary Edition releasing, I felt that maaaaaayyyyyyyyybe it was truly the time to rewrite it. I'm keeping the "legacy" TFGP stories for anyone interested in reading them, but I would not recommend them to someone past the age of 16 to read it. Then again, I respect it if you desire to do so. I may delete them at some point later on if I feel like it, though no promises.

In any case, for people who actually read the "legacy" fics (if they're still alive and actually bothered reading this), I have made a few important changes to the story, especially its beginning. So I would appreciate you not rioting at my doorstep if something is inconsistent with the original fics. As far as I'm concerned, they're non-canon, and likely a product of a child. This is also done to flesh out the world, especially that of the species that I'm adding: the carvins.

For the uninitiated, this story is about putting my own created race, the carvins, into the Mass Effect Universe. Technically, it is a crossover with the game "Spore", but considering its popularity on this platform, and the fact that the only real links to the game itself is the fact I've created my species using it, as well as the appearance of the Grox (though not exactly in the same way as in the game itself), I decided to not add it to the tags list. If you feel insulted by this act, then I am sorry, but this isn't a United States university campus, we do not have safe spaces here. You are free to leave at any time though, I am not stopping you.

"But TheRealBONKer!" I hear you say. "Canonically, the humans were the fourth galactic power. Shouldn't you call your story The Fifth Galactic Power instead?" My dear Timmy, your criticism is valid indeed. I have genuinely thought about a name change, but in this alternate universe in which carvins exist, I have ranked them above the humans in terms of overall civilization strength. They will not belong to the Council, true, but the strength of their Empire is much greater than that of the Humans, something that I hope to convince you to through the first few chapters and as the story unfolds.

The first chapter will only detail the characteristics of the carvins themselves, their physiology, homeworld, as well as history which will be told through their own calendar. Mind you, not all information about the carvins will be revealed immediately. Some will be given in small tidbits across the entire story. And even the carvins themselves do not know everything :)

Also, be warned. While this story will explore the adventures of Commander Shepard (partially through his new carvin companion), but it will also heavily focus on the interactions between the Carvin Empire and the rest of the galaxy, as the carvins themselves are a significant focus of the story.

I am open to any and all constructive feedback, with the emphasis on constructive.

Now, with that unnecessarily long introduction, we can finally start. I promise, the next introductions should be shorter... hopefully.

That being said,

Enjoy!

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Entry 825179A

Carvins - Overview

Authored by: Matriarch Jialyia

Approved by: Carvin Imperial Institute of History, Citadel Cultural Center

Summary: Originating from Carvistorn, carvins are the youngest race to join the ranks of Citadel Races, in 2184. A very homogeneous society, carvins are most often compared to turians with their emphasis on order and law, as well as a prevalent presence of the military within the government. However their expansionism and the often bluntly pragmatic approach towards the rest of galactic community are a cause of various tensions between the Carvin Empire and other Citadel Races. They are most notably known for the fact that their civilization is almost completely based on rather arcane technologies. This is especially true of their Faster Than Light travel, which relies on a phenomenon called by the carvins "warp", making them largely independent from the mass effect phenomenon, and by extent, element zero. However it is known that they use eezo comm buoys and employ it in industry as well as to a limited extent in weaponry. All of the recent requests by the Citadel Council to share their technology with the rest of the galaxy was met with instantaneous rejection by the Carvin Empire. Having heavily augmented themselves mechanically (particularly their limbs), many of the carvin bodily modifications have been known to violate various Council laws on cybernetic enhancements. Council efforts to restrict them are currently at an impasse.

Entry 825179C

Carvins - Biology

(A/N: For a visual representation, go to Sporepedia, search and select "filter by all", and type "therealbonker". It is visual reference only.)

Height: 1.9 - 2.2m

Backbone group: vertebrates

Group: Unclear. A mix of reptilian, avian and insectoid traits is exhibited by the species.

Diet: Omnivorous

Lifestyle: Largely predatory.

Amino acid type: levo-amino based.

Summary: All normal adult carvins stand at approximately 6.7 feet tall. Unlike the majority of species in the galaxy, characterized by an almost completely vertical posture, Carvins, while still retaining some verticality, are much more horizontally oriented. Their torso is placed forward of their legs and tilted accordingly, while the balance is kept by a massive spiky tail. Their skin is covered in small, yet highly durable scales, with some outer bone structures on the chest and tail. They possess extreme regenerative capabilities (to the point of being able to completely heal lost organs if given enough resources), as well as a redundant heart, granting them a long average lifespan of 900 human years. Their blood colour is blue. Numerous, seemingly non-matching and evolutionary redundant genetic traits, combined with an unnatural genetic code suggest heavy interference in carvin genome. As of this moment the culprit is unknown, as Carvin Empire lies outside the Mass Relay Network, and the carvins themselves are reluctant to allow Citadel officials into their space unmonitored.

Lifestyle and adaptation: While carvins are capable and often willing to consume plant-based life, their diet is primarily based on meat. Their three larger outer jaws containing sharp teeth, as well as a pair of horizontally aligned smaller ones serving as the actual "mouth" of a carvin, suggest adaptation to hunting and ripping apart thick hide, skin or meat. Their muscles are observed to be strong, with a great emphasis on the limbs, granting impressive speed and endurance. Those are further magnified by cybernetic implants widely present and employed in the Carvin Empire. In particular, their tail is a prime example of their predatory approach. It is built like a saw blade, and the spikes themselves can be launched at an enemy at distances between 10 and 15 meters. Below the spiked saw of the tail, carvins also possess a poison gland, producing small venomous darts containing neurotoxins (to which the carvins themselves are immune). Just like the spikes, those darts can be launched at significant distances and the neurotoxin is highly lethal. Interestingly enough, carvins also have a pair of feathered wings sticking out of their shoulder blades. The wings are clearly not big or strong enough to support flight of a carvin, but can provide limited gliding abilities. It is theorized that the carvins were once smaller and thus capable of flight, however the carvin Imperial Institute of History refused to provide the necessary data to verify this.

Brutes: A special subgroup of carvins exist, referred to as the "brutes". Those carvins have been discovered to possess altered genes on the chromosomes 7 and 8, which cause them to grow taller and bulkier, while intensifying their fight-or-flight instincts, thus making them inherently more aggressive. A side effect is a reduced maximum intellectual potential. The genes required for a carvin to manifest brute traits are recessive. Non-brute carvins are still capable of being the carriers of the gene.

Senses:

Vision - Carvins possess a pair of extremely large eyes. Slightly larger than salarian eyes, carvin eyes retain a much larger range of movement as well as an average vertical field of view of 160 degrees and 230 degrees horizontal field of view. Both eyes are directed forward (as opposed to a krogan wide-set), further underlining predatory nature. While their size makes them prone to damage, the extreme regenerative abilities of the carvins can restore a damaged or destroyed eye in between a few weeks up to a couple of months (depending on the damage and food intake). Carvins, like turians, see in a larger range of colours than humans, especially in the infrared spectrum.

Olfaction - Carvins do not have a nose like most other species. Instead, they possess olfactory receptors within the three large outer jaws. Their outside placement causes the carvins to have an excellent sense of smell. Carvins are particularly sensitive to plasma within the blood, capable of sensing it from significant distances under right circumstances. This was also observed to stimulate the production of adrenaline (carvin equivalent) if the smell is intense enough.

Auditory system - Gill-like structures on the side of the carvin's head are responsible for receiving auditory stimuli. They can open and close, depending on the sound intensity, however it is known that carvins possess some degree of conscious control over this reflex. When open completely, the sensitivity to auditory stimuli increases dramatically, yet it also makes the carvin vulnerable to loud noises, which may stun a carvin for a moment if intense enough. Carvin hearing range is larger than that of humans.

Taste - Taste receptors are located on the tongue within the carvin's oral cavity, behind the second set of jaws. No notable traits were observed.

Touch - When not replaced by cybernetics, sensitivity is noted to be above average. Texture and temperature recognition of objects by carvins is impressive. Cybernetic enhancements further magnify those effects. With personal tuning, an augmented carvin can increase or decrease their sensitivity to various stimuli, such as temperature, pain or vibrations.

Special bodily traits:

Extreme regeneration - Carvins are capable of regenerating virtually every organ tissue or cell if given enough time and resources. This is the main factor contributing to their long lifespan. Whole limbs have been known to heal within years, or even months under intensive therapy. This has a lot to do with the carvin nervous system. If a certain part of the nervous system does not provide feedback to the brain, the body stimulates regeneration in that area until the damage is repaired and the healed area reestablishes connection with the brain. This explains the lack of cases of overgrowth of carvin tissue in the damaged areas, as well as the lack of regeneration of body parts replaced bycybernetics, as carvin implants integrate with the nervous system seamlessly, fooling the brain into thinking that the replaced areas are completely healthy. The only real exception from this regenerative ability is the brain. While the grey matter can be regrown in time to repair cerebral damage, memories and abilities contained in the damaged area of the brain will be lost and will have to be learned again. Severe cerebral damage may lead to long-term memory loss, motor skills impediment, or autism. However, aside from the memories, most of the afflictions can be treated with time, and lost skills relearned after the damage is healed, given the long lifespan of the carvins.

Rage - Often compared to its krogan counterpart, the carvin rage has many symptoms that overlap with the Blood Rage. Both cause unresponsiveness to pain, boost the regenerative abilities of the subject, and put the body in the state of overdrive. The differentiating factor, and the one that makes the carvin Rage much more disturbing, is the fact that a fully exhausted krogan will simply starve their body of resources, unable to maintain bodily functions and die, regardless of Blood Rage's effect. By contrast, carvin nervous system signals enzymes in the body if the sugar and fat reserves are depleted, and start dissolving internal organs for nutrition. This usually begins with the skin, followed up by muscles, then organs of the digestive system (liver, intestines, spleen, pancreas) and kidneys. This self-devouring process may continue even when reaching vital organs such as the hearts, lungs. Even if an enraged carvin survives a difficult fight, if it depleted their nutritious reserves enough, they may still succumb to internal wounds caused by their body's response if not treated in time. Rage is much more potent in brutes.

Limited poikilothermia - While still capable of somewhat regulating their internal temperature, carvins are partially poikilothermic, allowing them to function in a variety of temperatures without the fear of death by temperature. As such they require less specialized clothing or equipment to combat the threats of extreme temperatures.

Extreme disease immunity - Through the combination of a much more expansive complimentary system, a larger concentration of phagocytes in blood and tissue, as well as various other less significant factors, carvins are incredibly resistant to disease. In particular, they seem to be virtually immune to parasitic and bacterial infections due to a previously unseen evolutionary adaptation - body-produced viruses. In addition to antibody-producing leukocytes, carvin immune system also produces special "viral" leukocytes. These carry the RNA of a virus, best categorized as a bacteriophage (though capable of attacking other organisms), which has been seemingly living in symbiosis with the carvins. A hyper-aggressive pathogen that attacks any outside body that does not share the carvin's antigens. In case of an infection, the "viral" leukocytes produce these viruses and flood the infected area with them. Viruses then attack the infecting pathogens like a traditional virus would, multiplying in the process. After the infection is vanquished, the remaining viruses are either consumed by phagocytes or their proteins are broken down by the complimentary system. A side effect of this adaptation is that carvins are inherently poisonous for other species. The virus itself can only survive in liquids of specific pH outside of the carvin body, and is hyper-lethal. This reduces its spread to a minimum, explaining the lack of mass cross-species infections in carvin-settled areas. The virus itself is likely not an outside organism in a symbiotic relationship with the carvins, as given its lack of efficient spread across other organisms and the fact that its RNA is passed down to the carvin offspring alongside genetic material makes it clear that it was a uniquely-carvin adaptation.

Hardened genetic structure - Carvin DNA is highly resistant to editing. Any attempts to edit it are immediately rectified by the cells that restore its original structure through exchanging the altered parts of the DNA or taking a backup copy from nearby cells if too much alteration has been inflicted. Consequently this also provides the carvins with resistance to radiation. However, in case of a brute-force mass DNA alteration, the entire genome collapses across the carvin's body. It causes terrible tumors and massive deformations of both internal and external tissues. Carvins experiencing such issues die in almost all instances (partly due to the autoimmune response targeting the tumors and mutations), and all who somehow survive are sterile. As far as Carvin Empire is concerned, the field of genetic therapy for carvins is a dead end.

Uniform genome - Every carvin shares nearly the exact same genetic code with their brethren. The only differences are the chromosomes responsible for the two sexes and potentially chromosomes 7 and 8, responsible for the manifestation of brute traits. Reasons why they do not manifest symptoms of inbreeding akin to other species is unknown.

Reproduction and growth

Sexuality - Like with most other species, carvins reproduce sexually. Both males and females of the species exist, however they do not exhibit sexual dimorphism. When trying to find a mate, carvins will release pheromones, looking for compatibility. If a carvin of the opposite sex is also interested in finding a mate and the feedback to the pheromones is positive, it is a sign for both parties to start a romantic relationship.

Oviparity - Carvins reproduce through laying eggs like most reptiles, avians and insects. However there exists no real sexual intercourse between the carvins. Instead, reproduction is conducted through the poison glands on the tail. A male carvin can go into a state of reproductive potential and his poison darts are also filled with his seed containing genetic information. They are then injected into the bloodstream of the female. Since carvins are resistant to each others' neurotoxins, the dart does little damage, but it injects the genetic material into the female's bloodstream. The material then travels through the body and if it's not destroyed on its way, it reaches the female's egg, fertilizing it. The egg then requires a large amount of nutrients from the female, prompting very strong appetite. Carvin females carry the egg inside them for a month before laying it, and thanks to the extreme regeneration of the carvins, it only takes a few days for the female to be able to be safely fertilized again. The maximum number of eggs being laid at once is 3. The egg takes between 1 and 2 months to fully mature, after which a carvin hatchling breaks it open and is thus born.

Rapid growth - Carvins mature very quickly. They achieve sexual maturity at the (human) age of 6 and fully stop growing at the age of 10. This causes the young carvins to have incredibly big appetites, especially early on after hatching. Combined with the natural fertility of carvin females, this puts the carvins behind the salarians in terms of fertility, but considering their longer lifespans and shortage of females in salarian communities combined with cultural reproductive customs, carvin populations tend to rise faster than salarian.

Brain psychological characteristics

Flat brain structure - Due to the shape and size of their heads, carvin brains are smaller and flatter than those of other species (slightly larger than half of a human brain). However, their grey matter density is much higher as a result. This more compact and condensed structure has a slight positive effect on the speed of their thinking processes.

Mind control resistance - Numerous small points are present in the carvin brains, seemingly abnormal and resembling tumors. These "reactive blockers", as they are referred to by the carvins, are in fact sensitive to various mind-altering means. From certain psychoactive drugs that specifically target free will, through specific ultrasonic and infrasonic frequencies, to even certain electromagnetic waves. When a disturbance is detected, the blockers cause weak but repeating and painful electric shocks within the brain, buzzing in the ears, as well as a gradual release of adrenaline (carvin equivalent) into the body. Those means reduce concentration, disrupting the effects of mind-altering factors. Symptoms scale with intensity of these factors and may cause long-term damage to the carvin's psyche, autism, or insanity. While not fully immune to psychoactive substances, as they can still get "drunk" or "high", it takes much more effort to bring a carvin to such a state. As a side effect, carvins have been observed to gravitate towards stronger beverages and are so far the only race besides the krogan to be able to sustainably consume ryncol.

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Entry 825184E

Carvistorn - Planetary guide

Mother star: Maarv

Orbital distance - 1.2 AU (average)

Orbital period - 1.42 Earth Years

Keplerian Ratio - 0.857

Radius - 7,122 km

Day Length - 26.8 Earth Hours

Atm. Pressure - 1.21 atm.

Surface Temp - 24C

Surface Gravity - 1.08 g

Mass - 1.523 Earth Masses

Satellites - Invira, Nari

HOMEWORLD

Species - Carvin

Capital - Lexaant

Population 9.8 billion

Population (L4 and L5 orbital stations) 1.6 million

Description: After an agreement has been made between the Council and the Carvin Empire, and a delegation was sent to visit the carvin homeworld, the asari envoy described the planet as a "very accurate reflection of carvins themselves", while her turian counterpart called the planet "a fortress world if there ever was one". Indeed, the extensive planetary defense system, both on the ground and in orbit shows the dedication of the Carvin Empire to order and security of their homeworld. Countless unmanned defense satellites orbit the planet alongside a few larger manned space stations that house transports and starfighters, as well as provide docking space for larger warships. On the surface, several planetary defense cannons constantly scan the approaches to the planet in search of potential hostiles. Simple yet sturdy architecture of the carvins gives an impression of concrete bunkers, protecting the carvin citizenry from an invader, whoever they may be. A lush and fertile Gaia world once, after the industrial revolution, the initial expansion beyond their homeworld and the subsequent war with the enigmatic Grox civilization, Carvistorn struggled for centuries with resource depletion, pollution and the collapse of local ecosystems. To solve this problem, carvins have augmented their planet in a similar way they did themselves. Multiple oxygenators and atmospheric purifiers work tirelessly to maintain healthy atmosphere composition alongside the planet's now restored flora. In the oceans, carvins have built purification and plastic recycling plants that brought life back to the waters of Carvistorn. Since the second carvin exodus from their planet in search of new worlds to settle and the resulting influx of natural resources, Carvistorn has become a strange planet by the galactic standards. Not a polluted industrial wasteland akin to Tuchanka or some parts of Earth (as the carvin efforts to restore it have been largely successful), but not a balanced ecosystem like Thessia, nor a tropical paradise similar to salarian Sur'Kesh either (as just like carvins themselves, mechanical augmentations have become an essential part of the planet). Furthermore, Carvistorn's orbit is much more elliptical than most life-bearing planets, resulting in very cold winters and brief periods of extreme heat during summer.

Continents: Carvistorn has 4 continents (discounting the ice caps on its poles), from the largest to smallest: Veltan (location of the planetary capital), Narai, Karto and Lidar. Veltan and Narai constitute over 65% of the planet's entire landmass. In addition, islands of various sizes are scattered across the oceans, historically enhancing the maritime travel between continents.

CITADEL TRAVEL ADVISORY: Carvistorn is located outside the effective range of the Mass Relay Network, making it off-limits for commercial travel. In addition Carvin Empire does not accept non-carvin visitors, with the exception of Council Races' envoys arriving on preset dates and with previously established aims. Negotiations for the opening of commercial travel are pending.

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STORY OF THE CARVIN CIVILIZATION (carvin calendar)

33,000 Before Unification (Earliest evidence of carvin settlement): Discovery of the oldest carvin settlements to date in the forests of Raxaani Highlands mark the official beginning to the organized carvin societies. These settlers lived in houses made of clay and mud supported by wood, and made their living by hunting in the forests, fishing in the streams and rivers present in the region. There is also evidence of first attempts to domesticate animals and organized burial rituals. However at this point the carvins did not spread past the largest continent of the planet, Veltan.

14,000 BU (Global presence): Preserved underground remains indicate that the carvins managed to spread across most of the planet, with the exception of a few small and isolated islands. Exact means of travel through such long distances were not confirmed, but it is suspected that among the many expeditionary ships that were sent across the world, some managed to survive and reach other continents.

9,000 (Copper Age): First evidence of smelting of copper and creation of copper tools. In addition several other settled peoples spring up across the whole planet. Organized trade begins to connect the scattered settlements. The nomadic carvins begin raiding the villages and towns of their settled brethren, prompting the rise of fortified and well armed settlements.

6,000 BU (Bronze Age): Carvins learn to alloy their smelted copper with tin, arsenic, and other metals to create bronze. While the raids and invasions of tribal and nomadic carvins destroyed multiple civilizations, the rest that survived turned into powerful and militarized city-states, competing for trade and resources in their respective regions. City sackings are common, yet complete conquest remains rare and is in most cases temporary. Written texts and simple codes of law begin to emerge in the most culturally and technologically advanced civilizations.

5,800 BU (Iron Age): With the collapse of the Bronze Age and gradual spread of iron smelting techniques across the continent of Veltan, civilizations there begin to rapidly overtake the rest of the world in the rate of development.

5,720 BU (Grand conquest): On the second largest continent of Carvistorn, Narai, a recently settled civilization of Tershani carvins unites under a powerful brute chieftain Dakin Tu'Kraan. He manages to subjugate the nearby tribes and starts to rapidly expand across the continent. The small city states cannot resist the attack and multiple prospering cities are subjugated by the warlord.

5,497 BU (The Coalition): Fearing subjugation, the city-states and tribes of Narai form a coalition against Dakin's forces. The Tershani expansion is slowed down but not stopped. Over half of the continent's landmass has been conquered. Back on Veltan, the carvin city states start to expand beyond their city walls, and the richer civilizations absorb their smaller neighbors, either through conquest or oaths of fealty. Other continents lag behind in development and did not move past the copper and bronze ages yet.

5,411 BU (The fall of the warlord): Somewhat unceremoniously, Dakin Tu'Kraan is assassinated on the order of one of his children, possibly his eldest son Arkin Tu'Kraan, the first in line to inherit his father's massive empire. However, the subsequent family feud between him and his brothers and sisters shattered the Tershan Empire. Now fragmented and fighting amongst themselves, Tershan forces are finally halted by the unified forces of the Narai's great coalition.

5,163 BU (The Bleeding of Narai): After a series of bloody and brutal conflicts, Tershan Empire is all but destroyed. The strength of the unified forces of the coalition combined with petty infighting and rebellions of conquered peoples have caused a total collapse of the unifying tribal structure of the deceased Dakin that held the empire together. The coalition was disbanded shortly after victory was declared, yet even before that some old rivals aimed at settling past scores. Overall the conflicts and resulting famines decreased the population size of Narai by over 35%.

5,100 - 4,600 BU (The Little Ice Age): Likely due to a combination of reduced solar activity, increased rate of volcanic eruptions during the period, and the decrease in population following the decline of Tershan Empire, the Little Ice Age drastically slowed down societal and technological development across the entirety of Carvistorn. Carvins that even during their tribal times rarely struggled to survive during winter, found themselves freezing to death in the thousands each year. Little Ice Age also brought a gruesome end to a large amount of tribal and nomadic communities of carvins, as they either settled out of necessity or died out, ill-equipped to survive the extreme temperatures that transpired.

4,600 - 4,450 BU (The Thaw): Simply referred to as "The Thaw", this period saw a slow return to normality following the globally rising temperature. As the crop production starts to increase, so does the carvin population. This leads to a period of peace and prosperity for most civilizations.

4,300 BU (Naturalists): Following the Bleeding of Narai and The Little Ice Age, a spiritual awakening occurred in a group of local animist shamans. The wars of The Coalition against the Tershani have been recognized as an affront to nature, due to the devastation that they caused, with the Little Ice Age thought to be the Nature's punishment. A loosely organized religious group of Naturalist appears, slowly spreading through the continent of Narai.

4,200 - 3,500 BU (The "Golden Antiquity"): A period of relative peace on the planet caused an acceleration in technological advances. This prompted developments in the fields of mathematics, philosophy, law, and astronomy especially, as new instruments allowed for the confirmation of the Spherical Carvistorn theory. Innovations in smelting combined with the general proliferation of ironworking prompt the use of improved tools and devices. Carvin civilizations experiencing the Golden Antiquity gradually shift towards stone and marble for building their newest public buildings. Oldest partially preserved public buildings built out of marble come from this period.

3,421 BU (Emergence of the "Purists"): The first highly organized religious group emerges on the continent of Veltan. In contrast to the local animism widely practiced across the majority of carvin settlements or the Naturalists, the Purists are the first to have an established doctrine, beliefs and authority groups. The primary Purist belief is in the superiority of carvin species over all life on Carvistorn and the need to tame it. They strive for a total overlordship over nature as opposed to a harmonious coexistence. It is their belief that The Stars (the main deities of the Purists) have bestowed them with a mission to elevate themselves over the Nature and not subordinate themselves to it. They also advocate for persecution of brutes, whom they view as being wild, feral, and incapable of ascension to a higher level of being. The means to rule were to be limited to the most elevated and supreme of the carvins, that being the nobility and the clergy, leaving out the common folk. Emergence of the Purists also marks the beginning of the clergy becoming a true organized estate within early carvin societies.

3,300 - 3,100 BU (Purist expansion): The Purist missionaries spread across the entirety of Veltan. Their ideology and teachings permanently impact the carvin society, sowing the seeds of the future cult of progress and innovation. Regional patriarchs become influential enough to rival the power of counts and sometimes even dukes. As a result of the Purist expansion, carvin brutes have been locked away from social progression, with many noble brutes being stripped of their status, and their wealth seized either by their lieges or the church. Brutes are forced to occupy the lower spheres of society, often being either slaves, simple peasants, or poor townspeople. Some brutes form their own communities in defiance of the Purist church, but are often destroyed in crusades and hunts orchestrated by the faithful. The rest end up mostly as mercenaries.

2,990 BU (Establishment of the Harka Matriarchy): A powerful matriarch Maira We'Harka establishes a matrilineal monarchy on the continent of Lidar, becoming the dominant power there. While still stuck in the late Bronze Age, the realm becomes one of the most prosperous civilizations on the planet through a mix of conquest and trade agreements. In addition it is one of the few monarchies on the entire planet with a codified succession based on sex. The Enatic-Cognatic (female favoring) succession law introduced by the matriarch herself is so far recorded to have been present only on Lidar at the time, while Agnatic-Cognatic (male favoring) monarchies have been present on all other continents, though still rarer than Absolute Cognatic (equal inheritance) monarchies widely practiced all over Carvistorn.

2,780 BU (First intercontinental trade networks): Due to the relatively close proximity and multiple islands of various sizes in between, first stable naval trade routes have been established between the continents of Veltan and Narai through the Okrati Ocean. Coastal nations become incredibly rich from the resulting trade, as the few nations that do have viable trade ports impose harsh tariffs on imported goods. Veltan's technological innovations and exotic fruits are traded with Narai for dyes, spices, and textiles. Ironworking spreads to Narai along with the Purist church, though the latter has difficulty in maintaining integrity over large distances. Soon, multiple sects and heresies emerge on Narai, mixing with local animist and totemist beliefs.

2,600 - 2,400 BU (First Era of Religious Turmoil): The discovery of Narai by Veltani civilizations and the subsequent exchange of information, ideas, and philosophy, caused a time of extreme instability between nations and cultures of both continents. The Narai carvins, after being exposed to the Purist faith and its subsequent heresies, began to fight amongst themselves on the grounds of religious supremacy. Local animist beliefs that shaped regional cultures for millennia were now being questioned by the new foreign missionaries that sought to eradicate the pagan beliefs as well as the spiritual leaders that promoted them. The Naturalists on the other hand found themselves directly opposing the new foreign religion, thus becoming more organized in the process. While relatively peaceful (as they treat the devastation brought by the war as a sin), they become highly aggressive towards the missionaries and their converts.

Meanwhile on Veltan, the ideas of the necessity of carvin supremacy over nature for survival were challenged by the discovery of prospering societies on Narai. Critics of the Purist faith called out the falsehood of the Purist teachings that a civilization had to completely and utterly subdue the surrounding nature to become successful. This was further magnified by the arrival of brute scholars and philosophers from Narai, disproving the Purist argument that brute carvins were incapable of elevating themselves over their biological urges. A series of heresies and sects have established themselves in all but the most pious countries on Veltan, followed by a series of brute rebellions across the entire continent, demanding equal treatment and return of brutes to nobility. Multiple Purist patriarchs were assassinated, leading to an increased fragmentation of the faith. Naturalist faith, due to its lack of organization at this point in time, and the deeply entrenched Purist beliefs, does not find

2,400 BU (Dawn of Feudalism): As the power of the clergy diminished during the Era of Religious Turmoil, two things happened. First, a significant amount of influence returned to the rulers. Second, the clergy and religion were unviable means of controlling the masses. To solve this, many rulers, from kings to counts started giving away land and privileges to the noble knights that assisted in crushing religious and brute revolts. This turned the traditional warrior estate into a class of landed gentry that in addition to ruling over parts of the domain (making it more manageable in the process), provided the crown they served with cavalry mounts, livestock, crops, and manpower, as they could draft the tenants that worked their land into the army.

2,278 BU (Birth of the Xaltar Empire): While many great kings and tribal chiefs have claimed hegemony over entire regions, or (as with Dakin Tu'Kraan) even subcontinents, not one of them lasted past the second generation of rulers. The mighty superpowers were always fragmented during inheritance by the children of the deceased ruler. This changed as the great king Xalt managed to unify the various culturally homogeneous lands under his banner during the late Era of Religious Turmoil. He killed all of his siblings that with him inherited the domain of his father, and embraced feudalism to stabilize the realm, granting the lands to the utmost loyal subjects. To prevent the breakup of his lands, he implemented a system of inheritance in which after his death, his children would either pledge loyalty to the most powerful one as vassals, or duel to the death for their right to the throne. By the code of law that he established, the duels would be held in the royal palace. In addition to cultural pressure for a just conclusion to duels of this kind, any underhanded scheme was, by his testament, grounds for disinheritance and exclusion of the entire line from succession. This law was one of the few laws in carvin history that never failed to produce an adequate solution for succession before the eventual dissolution of the Xaltari monarchy.

This succession law, among other important laws that Xalt wrote down for generations to come, became an essential part of the internal politics of the Empire. The Purist patriarchs residing in his domain, as well as his own vassals, have all pledged loyalty to the new Emperor, as he placed the newly forged imperial crown on top of his head. Over time, the carvins living in that region would start calling themselves Xaltari, the descendants of the first Emperor.

2,100 - 1,700 BU (Age of warring states): Xalt's imperial ambitions prompted other kings, dukes, and even counts to expand their territory at the cost of others. The most important players to emerge from that period are the kingdoms of Vaxan, Marak and Zarran on Veltan, and the Raada, Lynak, and Caranogr kingdoms on Narai. King of Caranogr even attempted to proclaim himself the Emperor, but due to his conversion to Purism and a large number of local indigenous religions still present in his realm, he was not recognized as Emperor by his subjects, and consequently neither by his neighbours. Multiple smaller countries still remain, though they have either pledged oaths of vassalage to their larger neighbors, had large enough geographic barriers to make an invasion undesirable, or maintained a careful network of alliances to defend themselves from potential transgressions.

1,600 BU (Iron age in the Harka Realm): The Harkan matriarchy, cut off from the rest of the world by oceans, placed in a temperate climate, and without many rivals to facilitate rapid advancement, finally masters ironworking. Despite this major technological leap, it still lies woefully behind the advanced nations on Veltan and Narai.

1,560 (Invention of first firearms): Even though the explosive properties of gunpowder were known before and used in the primitive cannons, around 1660 first real firearms began to appear. Those were difficult to aim, slow to reload, and required a stand to be aimed properly. Thus they were only used in small batallions, while the mainstay ranged warfare was still dominated by bows and crossbows. Still, this development in the making of gunpowder-based weaponry was to change the very concept of warfare.

1,549 BU (Invention of the printing press): Despite written language already existing in all civilized societies on the planet, the lack of means to produce written works quickly hampered both cultural, technological and administrative advancement. That changed on Narai, where Izvar Ri'Tuun, an inventor from Caranogr created the first printing press adopted for the Caranogri alphabet. Afterwards, the invention spread across the continent and beyond, revolutionizing administration and slowly bringing literacy beyond the richest aristocracy and the clergy.

1,400 BU (Rise of trading kingdoms and republics): With the continents of Veltan and Narai highly connected by trade, and with multiple rich and prospering countries on the rise, the coastlines of both continents became richer and more developed. This led to the rise of various trading kingdoms, but also contributed to the establishment of first relatively modern republican governments. Communities of merchants, sailors, and artisans often overthrew their monarchist lieges either through brute force, or by bureaucratic scheming. These merchant republics, with councils as their main governmental body, quickly became rich and influential enough to stand as equals next to the strongest kingdoms on both continents, as their riches meant that their professional mercenary armies were large and well-equipped.

1,193 - 1,006 BU (The Brute Rebellions): By the time of the first millennium Before Unification, the memories of the Religious Turmoil started to fade away, as all who lived through this period have died already. This reignited the desire for freedom and equality within the now institutionally oppressed brute communities. Their natural inclination and aptitude for combat sparked a wave of rebellious sentiments across Veltan. Enraged brute mobs and bands began marauding through the lands, freeing brute slaves and serfs from servitude. This in turn caused regular serfs to join their brute brethren in their fight for freedom. Most of the trading kingdoms and republics were forced and often willing to agree to the concessions requested by the organized brutes, as they could not afford to antagonize them, given their prevalence in their mercenary armies. Those concessions included restoration of noble titles to the brute bloodlines that had their titles revoked (assuming any descendants survived), reopening of state institutions to the brutes, and in rare cases even abolishing serfdom.

In feudal realms, the rebellions were much bloodier, wreaking havoc in the countryside. Various rich and poor aristocrats were killed by the brute rebels. Some of the rebellions were put down, while in other realms, moderate reformist ideas prompted both the rulers and the church to compromise. The newly crowned Empress of Xaltar, who allegedly had a secret brute fighting instructor that through rigorous training ensured her ascension to the throne, had allied with the moderates within the Purist church and after replacing various radical Purist patriarchs, managed to implement several reforms into the both church and imperial law. In the end, while serfdom was not abolished (after crushing the peasant revolts), various positions in lower ranks in the imperial court and army were reopened to the brutes. The radicals within the Purist church protested these measures substantially, but after the First Era of Religious Turmoil and the replacement of patriarchs within Xaltar Empire, the few violent insurrections that followed were easily and ruthlessly crushed by the Empress.

800 BU (Birth of Colonialism): Because of the incredible trade dominance of the few but rich coastal trading kingdoms and republics, combined with the increased rate of technological advancement, some of the realms possessing sea access began exploring alternative trade routes. Instead of sailing west, towards Narai, they turned east to the undiscovered ocean. The initial exploration efforts led to the discovery of the Emerald Strip, an archipelago rich in mineral wealth (emeralds especially, hence the name), but more importantly an important staging area for any future colonial endeavours. This area became heavily contested during the initial colonization fervor.

As exploration eastward continued, the explorers from Kingdom Zarran discovered the continent of Karto (name derived from the Zarrani word "Kartosh", roughly meaning "unsullied land"), which had failed to advance technologically. The carvin civilizations there were either still nomadic or lived in small cities and towns, and have not created any sophisticated form of government. Their population density was significantly smaller than the average of other continents at the time. This, combined with the vast untapped natural resources of the continent prompted the great powers of Veltan to begin rapidly colonizing the coastal areas for themselves. Still, the relatively new technology and somewhat unreliable means of long-distance travel slowed down the colonization process substantially.

675-741 BU (Wars of the Emerald Strip): While the easternmost realms began to rapidly colonize islands of the Emerald Strip and the coast of Karto and getting rich in the process, with the Kingdom of Zarran leading the efforts using its powerful navy, other rulers looked jealously at the islands that provided a vital link between Veltan and Karto. Control of at least some of them was necessary to commence overseas colonization efforts. Thus, in 675 BU the kingdom of Vaxan, trying to secure at least some vital access to the ocean, declared war on a small duchy of Mair that held a few islands on the Emerald Strip. The duchy was no match for Vaxan's army, however during the war, King of Zarran ordered an occupation of the Mair's islands that Vaxan wanted to acquire in the peace settlement. After Mair's surrender the scheme was exposed, and the enraged King of Vaxan declared war on Zarran in 671 BU.

Seeing her two main rivals fighting amongst each other, the now old Empress of Xaltar began making plans for an intervention in the conflict in order to secure some vital ports for her own Empire as well. After a series of costly battles and sieges which pushed back Zarrani forces deeper into their own territory, she decided to declare war on Zarran in 659 BU. Realizing his precarious situation and that he could not stand against the two giants crashing down on him from both sides, king of Zarran appealed to some of the closest merchant kingdoms and republics for help. In exchange he promised them exclusive rights of trade with his new colonies, lands of the Xaltar Empire which they bordered, as well as a sharp restriction of trade with the continental realms, making them more reliant on the trade with the merchant states for luxurious products.

After the agreement was signed, the Western Alliance of the trading realms, as it was referred to, declared war on Xaltar Empire. After a long and grueling conflict, during which multiple smaller kingdoms and duchies took the opportunity to seize smaller chips of territory from the great powers through undeclared border conflicts, a peace treaty was signed on the island of Ira, the largest in the entire Emerald Strip. Kingdom of Zarran had to cede the islands of the now annexed duchy of Mair to Vaxan, as well as two other islands to the Xaltar Empire. Additionally, coastal areas were designated for colonization by the two powers on the new continent of Karto. In exchange, they were to give up all claims to the Zarrani territories, while Xaltar Empire had to cede a part of its western lands to the Western Alliance.

502 BU (Discovery of Lidar): The exploration fervor which originated from the Kingdom of Zarran spreaded to Narai civilizations very slowly, as they were still slightly behind their Veltani counterparts in terms of technology, but also because of their lack of convenient access to the continent of Karto. However, when the new navigational instruments became available alongside bigger and more sturdy naval vessels, various explorers have been contracted by the realms on Narai to potentially look for other landmasses. This effort was spearheaded by the Kingdom of Raada which took on several loans to hire 3 explorers at once in an effort to find and colonize the new lands first. Their investment paid off as they were the first to discover and begin the settling of the fourth and last continent of Carvistorn, Lidar. They crossed the Crimson Ocean (named after the once plentiful red coral reefs) in 505 BU, and established their first settlement in 502 BU.

500-450 BU (Colonization of Lidar): After first contact with the severely underdeveloped and technologically backwards civilizations on Lidar by the Kingdom of Raada, an extensive process of colonization began, starting from the continents fertile coastlines. Having no knowledge of firearms, with weapons from the early iron age, and with outdated tactics to bear, the Harka Matriarchy and its subjects found themselves defeated in all the ensuing conflicts. The ruling matriarch at the time, Vanaaia We'Harka, faced with the subjugation of her realm, turned towards Raada's colonial rivals in the region for help in reclaiming the lands lost to the Kingdom of Raada. In exchange she agreed to lease several strategically important trading ports of the Matriarchy or its subjects (to their outrage). She was however betrayed, as in the wars that followed the agreement, her "allies" simply annexed the reclaimed lands themselves. Afterwards, as the Matriarchy was destabilized by internal unrest, they used the ports they have leased to launch several invasions and integrate large swaths of territory into their spheres of influence.

Vanaaia, faced with a total collapse of her realm decided against better judgement to seek protection in the Kingdom of Raada through an oath of vassalage. This resulted in a string of rebellions across the already unstable country, fragmenting it into countless smaller cliques and warlords. Vanaaia herself was assassinated, and her daughter Manaaia inherited but a fraction of the once great Matriarchy and finally officially came under the protection of the Kingdom of Raada through an oath of vassalage in 459 BU. Other cliques were either absorbed by colonial powers or their subjects on the continent.

420 BU (Beginning of the Second Era of Religious Turmoil): As tensions begin to rise between the reformists and the traditionalists within the Purist church over the issue of reforming the faith to fit the modern world, some of the reformist groups, having found no means of debating the issue of reformation with their traditionalist brethren, start to call for secessions from the main church. This drive for religious, but also administrative autonomy is led by the rapidly growing urban merchant class. The cities across Veltan, but also in some coastal regions of Narai (where the Purists have established themselves), become melting pots of reformist ideas and strongpoints of autonomy.

Merchants, while also concerned with the religious issues brought by the reformists, were however more interested in asserting their own independence through this new movement. They have long desired the same respect as the nobility (who stifled market competition by monopolizing resource production and impoverishing the peasantry, thus reducing average personal spending) and the clergy (who dominated the administration and bureaucracy, while levying significant taxes from urban trade). As such they fiercely resisted any attempts at subjugation by the other estates or even their own crown, leading to rebellions and decline of both internal and external trade among other issues.

418-415 BU (The Child Emperor and the reformation of Purism): Tensions reached a breaking point when through a mix of scheming, disinheritance and sanctioned duels, in 518 the Imperial Crown of Xaltar ended up with the 11 year old Emperor Xol, the youngest son of one of the deceased children of the previous Empress. Practically a child, he was deemed as the only legitimate descendant of the Xalt's bloodline, as other claimants and lineages either died out or were disqualified from succession for scheming and kinslaying. Because of his age, his rule was highly unstable, and knowing that he needed legitimacy, 28 cities of Xaltar have formed a League (known as the League of 28), and after allying with the reformists within the Purist church, demanded of the new Emperor to suspend all religious laws, and form a new independent church that would address the grievances of the reformists and religious minorities, under a threat of rebellion. Xol, in spite of his advisors' suggestions, agreed. Despite his youth, he was one of the most intelligent rulers at the time, and saw an opportunity to reform the Empire into a more modern state.

In 415 BU, with the help of the reformists within the country, Emperor Xol established the Astral Church, which among many changes re-enfranchised the brutes completely and refuted the idea of the clerical and noble dominance within the society. It still maintained the divinity of the Stars and advocated for inner development and elevation over natural instincts, yet its doctrine clearly stated that the complete ascendance was possible for all, even the brutes. Almost instantly this led to multiple nobles and aristocrats defecting or rebelling against the crown as well as peasant revolts across the countryside, as in the eyes of the peasantry, the divinity of the noble overlordship was shattered with the reformation of the Purist church. Within the first two years, even the most autonomous of the bourgeoisie had concluded that this state of affairs was unsustainable. A council was called, with the representatives of nobles, clergy, cities, and even a few somewhat literate peasant leaders attending. In what would be the first royal constitution on the planet, the Imperial Articles were written, establishing a clear set of universal laws and limiting the power of both the nobility and the church over the public affairs. Serfdom was completely abolished, with a limited land reform being conducted to supplement it. In addition, a perpetual diet was established in order to placate the richer estates. It would form a basis for the Parliament's formation after the end of the monarchy. Despite these reforms, Emperor Xol managed to both stabilize the realm and dilute the power of the most influential estates, while still maintaining extensive executive and legislative powers of his own.

413-361 BU (Wars of Religion): Reformist and pluralistic ideas from the Xaltar Empire quickly spread to the neighbouring states, facilitating the birth of reformist ideas across the continent. The neighbours of Xaltar were far from pleased by this development and in 413, in an attempt to both end the religious schism and prevent the spread of pluralism, kingdoms of Vaxan and Zarran, aided by their minor vassals and allies, launched a joint invasion of the Xaltar Empire. However, the extensive reforms combined with a new religious and political identity caused a wave of proto-nationalism across the Empire. The newly emancipated peasants became fiercely defensive over their new rights. This combined with a unified church doctrine, strong and loyal urban populace, and the relatively placated nobles, gave incredible resilience to the defenders. Emperor Xol himself, despite being only 16 years old, led from the front alongside his commanders, garnering huge support from the army. While to his north-east parts of his army delayed the Zarrani advance, his main force inflicted a crushing defeat on the Vaxani army in the battle of Taxaant, where through a bold and aggressive assault of brute pikemen and riflemen, the Xaltari army completely routed the Vaxani forces, inflicting a staggering 31,000 losses, and capturing over 3,000 soldiers, while suffering 18,000 casualties of their own - the bloodies battle of all Wars of Religion in that period. In the colonial nations at Karto, the invasion of Xaltari colonies by the kingdom of Zarran was successful, but the subsequent costs of occupation forced the coalition forces to withdraw, as guerrilla fighters made the task of occupying the land nearly impossible. The coalition states were forced to sue for peace and through this defeat were themselves destabilized.

On the western coast of Veltan, other kingdoms, duchies and republics began waging war on each other on both religious and political grounds. The Kingdom of Marak led the traditionalist crusades against the neighbouring heretic states, however the tide could not be stopped. With the death of its jingoistic king, the kingdom was forced to abandon its ambitions of forcefully mending the schism within the purist church. Smaller states continued to engage in conflict in attempts to convert heretics or conquer the lands of the faithful, causing hundreds of thousands of both military and civilian deaths. Furthermore, as the divinity of both noble and royal rule was being questioned, organized and semi-permanent diets proliferated across the continent, stripping away the royal, but mostly noble power across the realms. All of those conflicts were slowly spreading to Narai, however they never reached the same intensity or severity as they did on Veltan. The Purist church was less entrenched there, and with naturalist as well as local animist faiths less organized and rigid (therefore less resistant to change), many of the issues presented could have been and were resolved peacefully.

357 BU (Establishment of the State of Rakart): In 360, due to the distance between the colonial possessions and their motherland, as well as the recent bloody wars conducted against the Xaltar Empire that brought devastation both at home and overseas, Zarrani colonies on Karto demanded a major governmental reform of the colonial administration, that would effectively grant independence to the colonies. After their request was denied, they rose up in arms to fight for independence. The rebellion was crushed, but at a high cost, and facing a widespread discontent and a significant loss of revenue, the crown of Zarran agreed to implement some of the reforms presented by the colonial administration. This resulted in the state of Rakart being created - an autonomous subject of Zarran that still primarily traded with and exported to its overlord, yet possessed independent government institutions, courts, laws, administration, and even a semi-independent army. This was a first colonial government organized in that matter and would become a model for other future colonial states, and result in some of those states breaking away from their overlords completely.

349 BU (End of the Purist Reformation): After almost a century of bleeding and devastation caused by the fractures within the Purist church, the representatives of all denominations of the Purist faith have gathered in the city of Taxaant, the site of the Vaxani defeat against the Xaltar Empire. During what would later be called, the "Council of 2000", theologians, preachers, patriarchs, statesmen, nobles, scholars and other members of the intelligentsia debated and discussed the matters of their faith, the ideas of mending of the schism, and future interactions between the various denominations. In the end, a religious peace was signed, allowing the practice of the splinter denominations of Purism in the respective states that embraced them under the principle "whose realm, their religion".

322 BU (Birth of modern political thought): Radik De'Kaan, a statesman and philosopher from Zarran completes by far the most influential philosophical and political work of carvin history: "On Nations, Rulership and the State". An in-depth analysis of both past and contemporary political systems, it is the first work of its time with interdisciplinary characteristics. In it he recognizes a natural inclination of the carvins to form into highly organized and orderly communities and create social structures emphasizing order first and liberties second, usually with a strong leader or state at its center. States with weak central government, or with the power too diluted tend to fall into infighting and are thus weakened. However, he also underlined the importance of discourse and conflict of ideas, as they facilitated change and thus adaptation, yet he advocated for it in a controlled environment where excesses could be prevented. The work became controversial as it rejected the ideas of both pure republicanism and absolute monarchy. In his eyes, the republican and democratic states of the time, even though rich and prosperous, were internally unstable and prone to populism. On the other hand he criticized monarchy and the feudal order for limiting the space for conflict of ideas, social mobility and potential ineptitude of the monarch and his closest aides.

De'Kaan also studied the slowly proliferating phenomenon of nationalism. Through it he stressed the importance of a culturally unified state, as such a state was both more capable and willing to fight for the betterment of its inhabitants. Two main aspects of cultural assimilation that he stressed were vital for any successful assimilation process were economic integration (a disincentive for possible reunification with previous homeland) and at least limited public participation through state institutions (a way for the assimilated to feel integrated into the system).

His proposal for a successful government was a parliamentary meritocracy, with a strong yet controllable military for support. A parliament had to be established, with members that could be voted on based on the public's desires, thus promoting healthy political discourse and facilitating political participation. The government would be led by a council of ministers, specialists in their respective fields, with a single most competent member as the head of state, that being an elected monarch, or simply a higher minister, who was to give direction for the state and by extent its people. To facilitate internal discourse, social mobility, meritocracy and controlled conflicts of ideas, De'Kaan advocated for abolishing special noble privileges, despite being a noble himself.

The military's role, just as the government's was primarily to serve the people and the state. Politicized army, such as one dominated by noble officers, was in his eyes inherently selfish and thus prone to corruption. Being a professional member of the military was to be a highest form of self-sacrifice, as one that had done so was to be ready to give up any and all of his ideals for the betterment of their fellow citizen.

With De'Kaan's work being copied and read in both royal and republican courts all over the planet, a movement of revolutionizing the ruling and governing style started to spread, as more and more philosophers, political thinkers and statesmen began writing their own treatises on the topic. In addition, it laid the groundwork for the subsequent rise of Rationalism.

318-315 BU (Harka war of independence): The colonial vassal state of Harka, with the blessing of the Kingdom of Raada managed to consolidate a significant part of the once powerful Matriarchy, including some of the coastal areas lost to the past allies of Matriarch Vanaaia. This made the Kingdom of Raada the uncontested dominant colonial power on the continent. However with the ideas of nationalism and national sovereignty spreading across the globe, a growing number of Harkan intelligentsia formed an independence movement within the Harkan society and government, which eventually led to the uprising in 318.

Matriarch Manaaia, having long wanted to reverse the humiliating treaties that she was forced to accept after her ascension to power, supported the revolution and called for a statewide revolt. The colonial garrisons of Raada were completely overrun by the Harkan colonial army that joined the rebels shortly after the outbreak of the war.

Having lost multiple battles and forced to the brink of defeat, Kingdom of Raada sent thousands of soldiers as reinforcements through other colonial territories that they still controlled, however they could not achieve anything other than a stalemate. Their call for help to other colonial powers was refused, as they lost substantial territory because of the past wars with them. Some, such as the kingdom of Caranogr and Lynak even began supplying the rebels with weapons and supplies. In the end, unable to re-establish its presence in Harka and faced with looming bankruptcy, Kingdom of Raada sued for peace. All past treaties binding Harka and Raada were undone in the peace treaty and all territories inhabited mostly by Harkari were to be ceded back to the newly formed State of Harka. In order to acquire more land in the peace deal, many of the enthnic cultures in disputed territories were split into seperate sub-groups so that the Harkari were declared the most prevalent culture in the area.

Matriarch Manaaia, despite her best efforts, was not to be the monarch of this new state. The revolutionary leaders, inspired by the writing of Radik De'Kaan, established the first modern Parliament and a Council of Ministers presiding over it, as well as reduced Manaaia to the head of the Council, reserving the right to remove her from her post should she become incapable or an alternative candidate be available.

301 BU (Beginning of the Era of Rationalism): The commonly accepted event that officially began the rise of rationalism and enlightenment across the planet was the murder of Emperor Xol. While beloved by the general public for his reforms and substantial efforts in developing the country and its colonies, a plot of both young and old nobles, bitter about losing their privileges, killed the Emperor in an attempt to threaten the new Imperial Diet to revoke the reforms that robbed them of their past influence. The plotters were uncovered, had been put on a public trial, their property seized by the state, and were eventually executed in the imperial capital Kravas.

Still, given the Emperor's youth and consequently a lack of successor, the Imperial Diet became the main governing body of the Empire during the supposed Interregnum. By the laws of the first Emperor, Xalt, there was no one that could be placed on the Imperial throne. As such, it was determined that the Xaltari monarchy needed to be dissolved so as to ensure the security and continued stability of the realm. In its stead, a Council of Ministers, akin to the suggestions of Radik Du'Kraan, was established, with the President of the Council of Ministers to be the highest ranking official in the government administration. However unlike in the State of Harka where the head of the Council was largely a ceremonial role that was to give advice and point the country in a general direction, the President of the Council of Ministers had a more active role within the state.

In addition to being the head of the Council of Ministers, the President was also to be granted the title of Eternal Regent, in respect to the ancient law that dicated the succession of Xaltari Emperors, as well to maintain the name "Xaltar Empire". They could initiate the voting on specific laws within the Imperial Diet and had a vote equal to 1/5th of all votes. They were also the head of the military and its commander in chief during peacetime.

Outside of Xaltar Empire, the growing literacy and the subsequent expansion of institutions of learning led to a surge of new scientists and their discoveries, particularly in the field of medicine and optics, with the most rapidly advancing field of astronomy. Nearly all planets within the home system have been discovered and named at this time.

300-240 BU (Crisis of Monarchy): As rationalism spread across the world and a growing number of non-monarchist states, many thinkers and philosophers began to question the ruling status quo, with kings and emperors at its center. The scandals involving the royalty and nobility who held a tight grip on the means of governance began to be exposed en masse, causing waves of criticism for the monarchy. Some states tried to combat this by implementing government reforms that shared the power with the masses or provided an illusion of doing so. Others, such as the Kingdom of Caranogr decided to simply strengthen the legitimacy of their rule. In 408 BU, king of Caranogr crowned himself Emperor, and began to selectively implement the ideas of rationalism, attempting to build an image of himself as an enlightened monarch. He began to personally oversee development projects across his new empire, and was viewed as a just and righteous monarch, even within some of the more moderate republican circles.

On Veltan, several royal houses attempted to place their own relatives on the throne of Xaltar, thus ending the Eternal Regency and the spread of anti-monarchist ideas in the region. Their efforts however failed, and with the increased popular representation actually contributing to internal stability and order within the Xaltar Empire, several popular revolutions flared in the nearby monarchies, trying to build a similar state to that of Xaltar. The most notable and bloody revolutions of 398 and 374 BU, took place in Zarran and a small kingdom of Paala. Both were ruthlessly crushed, yet in the case of Paala, where the state was weaker, revolutionaries managed to briefly dethrone the king before being put down by royalists. Other revolutions were either insignificant or had mostly bloodless conclusions, with kings and queens establishing constitutional and semi-constitutional monarchies to appease the revolutionaries.

233 BU (Invention of Steam Engine and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution): In 233 BU a Xaltari inventor Kadir Te'Raan built a first working steam engine and submitted a patent to the state. The invention was viewed as a scientific breakthrough, and Te'Raan was granted a loan to build more engines. Within a few years, the engines began to spread across the country and beyond, marking the beginning of mechanized production. Over the course of a few years, steam-powered factories emerged, bringing means of mass production to the cities. This, combined with advances in agriculture and the ability to sustain large populations, caused a demographic spike.

Mechanized textile factories became the main employer during the early years of the Revolution, which were quickly followed up by steel foundries and construction workers, as demand for steel and housing drastically increased with a rapid migration of thousands of redundant peasants into the cities seeking employment. Later, the creation of steam-powered locomotives on railways interconnected the vast landmasses of all four continents, making travel and transportation easier.

Deposits of coal, iron and other rare metals became vital for countries to industrialize, and a series of small wars were fought in order to secure the richest mining sites.

202 BU (Invention of the telegraph): The phenomenon of electricity allowed for the development of more advanced mechanisms and devices. However the telegraph allowed for a fast, reliable and long-range communication between states, regions, and even continents. Long telegraph cables began to be laid across continents and below the oceans. Within a decade, whole world was connected with a network of receivers and transmitters.

162-152 BU (The Grey Decade): As the world modernized and the mechanization of industry continued, large number of factory workers, construction workers, and farm labourers were pushed more and more by both their employers (who wished to earn as much from the new means of mass production) and the government (setting work quotas to outcompete and outproduce rival states). The term used to describe the physical labourers who were the backbone of the Industrial Revolution became the "grey shirt workers" (or greyshirts for short), from the usual colour of their clothing and to distinguish them from the "blue shirt workers", or blueshirts (referring to clerks, administrators, bureaucrats, etc.).

The grey shirt workers, having been pressured to perform over their physical capacity had only began to take a stand as some of the more educated and literate workers joined their ranks, likely due to the natural sense of public service. Those smarter workers that questioned the authority of the factory and plantation owners over time began to emerge as leaders for the exploited labourers and started to organize strikes and sometimes even assaults on their employers in an attempt to force better working conditions. The trade unions and worker militias that emerged were brutally suppressed by the state, but given their importance for the industrialization process, neither the government nor the employers could simply force them to accept their will. Some worker organizations even murdered their employers and ended up in fights with the army and police.

The resulting mode of operations became the "decapitation" of the trade unions and worker militias. Since the uneducated and less conscious workers gathered around their more educated and conscious colleagues, governmental and capitalist efforts focused on the removal of the few leading figures that presented the real threat. This in turn caused a severe backlash from the workers, who struck hard and fast against the authorities. These "socialists" started to organize in groups and communities spanning several factories and industrial complexes, uniting to force better working conditions. For ten years, tensions, political violence and skirmishes between the socialist militias and the police continued in the major industrial centers of the planet. In some states, the violence finally achieved its aim of granting the workers better wages, working conditions and work days, while in others brutal crackdown of the socialist militias and trade unions suppressed the sentiments to a manageable level.

147 BU (First manned balloon flight): The first flight of a balloon with passengers was successfully conducted in Caranogr. This marked the beginning of the era of aviation by the carvin species.

141-132 BU (The Nine Years War): Considered by many historians as the first global conflict, the Eight Years War was also the first conflict in the history of modern war. Kingdom of Zarran, hoping to capitalize on the colonial weakness of the Kingdom of Raada, sought to acquire some of its colonial possessions in the archipelagos between the continents of Veltan and Narai and by forcing concessions to Raada's enemies become the greatest naval power in the world, and possibly claim an Imperial crown of their own. Raada, facing hostility from Zarran, the Empire of Caranogr, the Kingdom of Lynak, and their old colony Harka, along smaller nations in their spheres of influence, sought help from the Great Powers of Veltan. Thus an alliance of Raada, Xaltar, Vaxan, and a few coastal trading republics from Veltan, was declared war upon by the Zarran coalition.

The war saw the first widespread use of the machinegun and breech-loaded artillery. This in turn started to make the old tactics of the previous conflicts obsolete. Despite being one of the sturdiest species of Carvistorn, a few well-operated machineguns could stop or at least slow down the traditional charge attacks before a vicious melee combat ensued.

A large part of the war was fought by sea, with steamer ironclads, monitors and proto-cruisers. Raada managed to inflict an important defeat on the still modernizing and growing navy of Harka in the First Battle of Port Karr. This engagement practically destroyed Harka's capacity to wage naval war and made it difficult to resist a naval blockade by Raada, forcing the developing nation to continue operations only on land. However in the relatively calm and cramped waters of the Okrati ocean, with multiple islands and naval bases, Raada fleet struggled to compete against the overwhelming numbers and force of Zarran coalition. The aim of the latter was to effectively isolate Raada and prevent all reinforcements form Veltan to assist the kingdom.

The Emerald Strip was utterly devastated, as island garrisons and ports changed hands multiple times, still being a vital link with the colonial possessions of Veltani nations on Karto. On Karto itself, the 1st Colonial Army Corp of Vaxan, after a short series of battles in the lush forests of the continent, pushed back Raada's defenders deep into their colony. However, supply issues resulting from nearly constant combat in the Glaucous Ocean separating Veltan from Karto, starved both sides of supplies. As such, later in the war, offensives were carried out only when sufficient supplies were delivered from the homlands.

Both Zarran and Raada also found themselves in a vicious ground war against their continental enemies. Raada, having more continental landmass than Zarran, fought a war of mobility with Caranogr and Lynak, trying to stall for time until their Veltani allies landed on the eastern coast of Narai and took the fight to the enemy. Zarran on the other hand practiced a doctrine of proto-trench warfare, building a string of fortifications along the border and natural barriers, attempting to attrition its enemies. In the Battle of the Shora Pass alone, the battle took a heavy toll, with 66,000 Xaltari and 38,000 Zarrani dead after two months of fighting for a geographic gateway to Zarran's heartland.

The first ones to cross the oceans and reach the enemy was the 1st Expeditionary Army of Lynak, who at a loss of nearly a third of their navy managed to cross the Okrati ocean and land on the western coast of Veltan through an island hopping campaign on the archipelagos that connected Narai and Veltan. The Lynak fleet would later on be forced to withdraw by the naval reinforcements from Xaltar and the Expeditionary Army itself would be gradually destroyed by Xaltar and Vaxan alongside their minor allies.

Breakthrough in the war came when the Zarrani fleet was lured out by Raada's navy and later mostly destroyed in the battle of Ugiraat Straits by a joint force of Vaxan and Raada. This effectively put the naval dominance in the hands of Raada and its allies. Fearing an imminent naval invasion and trying to cut losses, Zarran's allies forced their war leader to end the war.

The following treaties with all the belligerents ensured the naval dominance of Raada, by forcing a maximum number of vessels each nation could build in relation to Raada. In addition, the archipelagos and small states of Okrati ocean that found themselves dragged into conflict between the two sides were all annexed by the winners. Yet aside from the additional reparations paid by the losers, most of the Great Powers were not hurt too much by this war, out of fear of a global dominance of Raada.

Outside of this conflict, state of Marak, largely neutral in the world affairs, exploited the conflict to subjugate and conquer some smaller and less relevant states in a series of short wars and militarized border disputes. While nowhere nearly as powerful as some of its larger imperialist neighbours, Marak became an important regional player.

130-60 BU (The Long Peace): A period of carvin history that was characterized by an unusually low level of violence and interstate conflicts or disputes. The peace of 133 BU left the world in a state of balance that no state was able to upset. Economic growth combined with steadily improving living conditions counteracted the losses and casualties sustained during the Nine Years War.

In 111 BU, the first crude oil refinery is created, and oil starts to slowly substitute coal and steam power as the main fuel of machinery. It also marks the beginning of motorization industry.

Several states, trying to circumvent the limitations on naval ship numbers begin to invest heavily into heavily armed and armored warships. Battleships built after 100 BU were all practically invulnerable to the old vessels of the Nine Years War. So while the largest navy was still that of Raada, other nations such as Caranogr, Xaltar and especially Harka started to increasingly outmatch Raada in terms of overall quality.

In 98 BU the first aeroplane was launched, revolutionizing avionics and means of air travel. Balloons and blimps that once dominated the means of air travel slowly started to be phased out in favour of the faster and more maneuverable planes.

Aside from scientific and military advancements, multiple governmental changes, either enforced violently by the public or through peaceful means occurred. Monarchies either became increasingly constitutional, reduced the monarchs to ceremonial roles, or were dissolved completely. An increasing trend of meritocracy started to take over in the upper structures of the government. Mass-produced press combined with an almost universal literacy meant that state cabinets and public officials were increasingly held up to harsh scrutiny.

60-54 (The Recession): Despite the prosperity that the Long Peace had brought, the production simply rose too quickly in comparison to the wages of ordinary citizens. Speculation and overproduction eventually led to a series of stock market crashes across multiple nations. Standard of living dropped severely and a large part of the large industrial conglomerates present at the time collapsed. Free market economy was largely abandoned in favour of extensive protectionism and interventionism, a change that is still seen in the present economic model of the Empire. Intercontinental trade waned, as long distance transportation was becoming increasingly uneconomical with the increasing severity of the economic collapse. This in turn promoted trade within various continents, bringing old rivals and enemies closer together out of necessity.

49 BU (Rakart independence): Rakart, still a semi-independent state and largely tied to Zarran, was spared from the devastation of Nine Years War by remaining neutral. However, since the war was lost by Zarran and its allies, the political and economic ties between the two countries began to slowly disappear. Rakart was forced to trade with Zarran's enemies during and after the war, since the joint Raada-Xaltar-Vaxan naval blockade prevented trade with Zarran. Economic links started to be reestablished in the later part of the Long Peace, however the Recession made this endeavour both fruitless and counterproductive. As such, the state of Rakart officially declared independence from Zarran in all aspects of its existence. Kingdom of Zarran wanted to reestablish itself as Rakart's overlord, however fearing a military intervention from other nations (particularly Raada), it was forced to accept this resolution.

42 BU (Geopolitical shifts): Despite the previous cooperation during the Nine Years War, the old alliances and friendships slowly came to an end during the long peace. The incessant desire to control the naval power of other great powers by Raada pushed away its old allies. Xaltar and Vaxan even openly withdrew from the naval agreements of 133 BU, and began establishing friendly relations with the State of Harka. The economic integration and interdependence forced upon the continent of Veltan by the Recession also brought the two great powers closer to Raada's main naval rival, Zarran. Colonies and subjects of the once hostile nations began to trade with each other first, and after the initial success in bringing down unemployment, the mainland nations began to relax old embargos and restrictions on eachother.

An effort by Raada was made to weaken this new block by multiple subversion attempts in Harka State, however after Vaxan and Zarran troops were stationed in the country under the pretext of conducting "joint military exercises", Raadani government abandoned its efforts at subverting Harka. Instead they also turned to their old enemies. Through several amendments to the naval agreements of 133 BU, Raada effectively lifted all restrictions on Caranogr and Lynak for their naval armaments programme. To also protect the state of Rakart from a possible encroachment by the old Veltani colonial powers, Raadani government signed several defense treaties with Rakart, promising to aid them in case of any supposed aggression from its ex-overlords.

All those networks of alliances effectively divided the planet into the Veltan-Lidar and the Narai-Karto blocs. While there was some influence overlap between these two factions, particularly in Karto and Lidar where the Great Powers still had some colonies, but their influence over these regions increasingly started to shift towards their rivals.

37 BU (Forming of alliances): At the beginning of 37 BU, a conference was held in the Xaltari Imperial capital of Kravas. During it, a series of agreements were signed between Xaltar and its recent allies, formalizing the creation of the Veltan-Lidar Mutual Assistance pact (VLMA for short). The alliance, while military in nature, also outlined the terms of political and economic cooperation. Moreover it brought an increasing number of smaller and insignificant states into the sphere of influence of VLMA countries. On Veltan only the State of Marak remained non-aligned. However most importantly, the alliance increasingly isolated the Narai countries who only signed a few defensive pacts, and those did not have enough overlap to match VLMA.

Seeing this as an act of aggression and a means to dominate the other great powers, Emperor of Caranogr and his Imperial Parliament swiftly began to work on a counterbalance to this new threat. Before the end of the year, his efforts bore fruit through the formation of Narai-Karto Cooperation Initiative (NKCI). Its member states did little to hide the fact that they viewed themselves as a counterbalance to the VLMA and that they also sought to dominate the planet militarily, politically and economically.

19-0 BU (The Great War): The official formation of both VLMA and NKCI marked the beginning of a build-up of hostilities that eventually led to the Great War. The war itself started simply. A trading convoy from Xaltar was heading for Harka. Radaani intelligence have discovered that the Xaltari hid military equipment and supplies on their merchant ships for some time, seeking to quietly supply Harka in their potential war with Raada. Before the convoy could reach Harka waters, it was intercepted and seized by the Raadani fleet.

This was the excuse the VLMA needed to begin hostilities. A message was sent to the Harka government by the merchant ship, which then passed the message to Xaltar Empire, informing about the incident. Immediately a rhethoric began to circulate, calling for war with Raada for the violation of neutrality of civilian merchant ships. Later that day, VLMA member states launched several preemptive bombing raids on military and industrial instalations on Narai, as well as crossed the border from their overseas territories on Karto into Rakart. To avoid confusion and clustering of information, most important events and battles are as follows:

- VLMA invasion of Rakart: VLMA forces crossed the border with Rakart after a wave of bombers and fighters began to bombard Rakart's cities. Even though army of Rakart was not surprised, the overwhelming numbers forced the defenders to steadily retreat towards natural barriers where they could wear the enemy down. The front would become stale for the first decade of the war, after which only the development of tanks and the Assault Troop tactics would allow the breaking of the stalemate.

- Harka consolidation of Lidar: Harka and several smaller states aligned with the VLMA launched a rapid advance against the NKCI colonial possessions on Lidar. While Caranogri colonies managed to blunt the advance, the colonies of Raada were rapidly taken over by a coastal advance of Harka troops, which were constantly assisted by the coastal bombardment conducted by the Harka navy, arguably one of the most modern in the world. A relief force of Raada's Crimson Fleet was intercepted by Harka ships. Battle ended inconclusively, however in this way it still stopped reinforcements from reaching Raada's colonies. Lidar would see the most brutal pacification efforts both by Harka and the NKCI.

- Battle for the Okrati ocean: In an attempt to counterattack and bring the fight to the VLMA, the NKCI, spearheaded by the Caranogri marines, began to strike at the archipelagos on the Okrati ocean. An island hopping campaign ensued, and continued as a back-and-fourth between the two factions until the end of the war. The most contested area became the island of Farr, the largest one between the two continents and an important staging area for any future invasion on either continent. Four separate battles took place for the island, with a total casualty rate of over 1.7 million. One of the factors that contributed to the high lethality of the theater were the islands themselves, as since the islands were isolated and naval supremacy unstable, there was often no way to retreat or transport the wounded away from the battlefield. The lackluster space for large airfields on the islands prompted a development of aircraft carriers, first from converted cruisers and battleships, and later through dedicated naval vessels.

- Invasion of Harka: NKCI forces landed on the beachhead in the Caranogri colonies and began an effort to knock Harka out of the war. During the Second Battle of Port Karr, navy of Harka was forced to flee and repair away from the frontline, securing the flow of supplies from Narai. Lynak forces also tested the first tanks in combat against the Harka forces. Although successful at first due to the element of surprise, the low reliability of the vehicles combined with several losses caused by unsupported tank attacks led Lynak command to abandon the idea of a tank programme for the time. However, Harka High Command captured several vehicles and send their findings to their allies, encouraging the development of similar vehicles alongside proposed ways of their employment. Within 3 years however, Harka would fall and a bloody partisan warfare ensued, followed by a brutal repression by a joint Raada-Lynak occupation. The Harka government escaped by air and sea alongside the rest of its fleet to join their allies on Veltan and begin planning their country's liberation.

- First invasion of Veltan: An initial success in the Okrati ocean, NKCI forces staged a naval landing on the western coast of Veltan, targeting the minor trading republics allied with the VLMA. During "Operation Cinder", the initial amphibious landing of nearly 800,000 soldiers and their equipment secured a foothold from which the expanded eastward towards the core of the continent and into the lands of Xaltar and Vaxan as well as their subjects. However the proximity of especially Xaltari troops forced the advancing NKCI to slow down and settle in for 2 of some of the hottest summers in Carvistorn's history (attributed to the rapidly progressing climate change). It is estimated that over 150,000 died from dehydration and hyperthermia on both sides. Finally, after defeating Rakart and diverting significant forces to the endeavour, a joint VLMA force led by a Xaltari general Traxis Ri'Kaan, using his new Assault Troop tactics combined with a compliment of the first generation tanks based on the designs provided by Harka, conducted an attack that broke through the NKCI line and plunged deep into their rear. Having their ports and supply depots threatened, NKCI forces began a retreat in order to stabilize the front, however the audacity and speed of the VLMA assault quickly turned the retreat into a rout. In the end, out of all 1.7 million NKCI soldiers who fought during this campaign, 600,000 made it out. The rest were either captured or killed. Another naval invasion was planned, but the deteriorating naval superiority forced the NKCI General Staff to abandon the plans for the time being.

- Narai campaign: Following the success of general Traxis Ri'Kaan, the VLMA launched a major counteroffensive on the Okrati ocean. Within a few months most of the Okrati was largely under VLMA control. In order to divert the NKCI navy from the potential landing grounds, a fleet of over 300 submarines and light cruisers was sent to the Crimson ocean, raiding supply convoys to starve the forces occupying Lidar. That and multiple coastal bombing campaigns finally led to the invasion of Narai. Beginning in 12 BU, the landings primarily targeted Lynak, the weakest and most vulnerable of all NKCI great powers. VLMA marines, later supported by tanks and mobile infantry to support, rapidly advanced deep into the Lynak territory with a specific intent of capturing the rich coal and oil deposits located in the Eastern Narai Highlands. Oil wells and refineries from that region amounted to around 3/5 of all fuel production of NKCI. The highlands were captured, however as the VLMA forces advanced deeper into Narai, the partisan activity behind their lines started to become unbearable. Military police and soldiers had to execute entire villages to ensure a steady flow of supplies for the increasing number of troops stationed on the continent. The issues were magnified by the fact that NKCI navy, specifically the Radaani, started to use unrestricted submarine warfare against the VLMA. The attackers were forced to attack only after several months of preparation to ensure adequate supplies for the ongoing offensives. Meanwhile the combined armies of Lynak, Caranogr and Raada, fighting on their own territory, wore the invaders down with constant attacks and incursions that further strained the already overloaded supplies of VLMA.

- Withdrawal from Narai: The NKCI learned from their campaign on Veltan and during the later stages of the Narai campaign started to employ their own armored formations in coordination with artillery and air support. Furthermore, their geographic proximity to their supply lines and industrial centers meant that their forces could replenish their own losses much quicker than VLMA. So while the NKCI field divisions were on average at 80-95% strength, VLMA fielded divisions at around 60% strength, with entire corps effectively reduced to brigades or regiments. Eventually, Traxis Ri'Kaan made a painful decision to begin a slow withdrawal before what happened at Veltan would happen to the VLMA forces. The invaders began to slowly withdraw while burning all they could to the ground. Villages were slaughtered, crops requisitioned or poisoned, coal mines collapsed, oil fields torched, factories and steel mills blown up, and even entire cities burned to the ground. A brutal scorched-earth policy was put into place in an attempt to leave as little for the NKCI to recover as possible. This effort went so far as to purposefully sink oil tankers in ports and dockyards after the evacuation efforts from Narai ended and then set them alight in order to destroy the vital naval infrastructure and prevent pursuit. After the end of this costly campaign, VLMA High Command instructed that any action taken against the continent of Narai was to be limited to bomber raids and naval skirmishes with the NKCI fleets.

- Failed reconquests: Faced with a stalemate, both VLMA and NKCI sought to harm their enemies in different ways. Several attempts were made to land on the smaller continents of Lidar and Karto respectively, however neither side wanted to risk a long drawn out campaign like before without a certainty of success. As such all invasions on the occupied continents were either cancelled, got sunk on the way to their destination, bogged down and got destroyed, or were forced to withdraw in the face of overwhelming odds.

- The nuclear race: In 8 BU during the final months of the Narai campaign, a group of VLMA scientists put forward a theoretical implementation of the uranium 235 as an explosive material. Early tests and calculations, while not universally conclusive, provided a promising concept that the VLMA High Command took notice of. Several top secret facilities were established in the hard-to-reach areas of Veltan in addition to uranium mines, all to facilitate the development of weaponized uranium. The details of the project were classified even for some of the highest levels of the government for the fear of leaks. However, an effort to suddenly begin excavation of an otherwise worthless and non-applicable resource caught the attention of the NKCI leadership. Several spies were sent to Veltan by submarines and long-range paradrops. By 5 BU, the agents managed to acquire some of the details of the project and deliver them to Narai, albeit at a high cost (198 out of all 232 spies were either killed or captured by the VLMA). This prompted the NKCI to start their own nuclear programme. Once this was discovered by the partisans and spies in occupied Harka, VLMA scientific and administrative staff was thoroughly screened, with a lot of the researchers executed and some simply relegated to other duties. While this prevented further leaks from happening, it significantly slowed down the research efforts, allowing NKCI to catch up with their own efforts.

- The Okrati Storm: The initial projections for the uranium bomb were promising, however the NKCI leadership determined that if they were to ever use it, they felt the need to find a closer airbase to launch the future nuclear bombers from. Seeing a long and logistically unfeasible invasion of Karto as a dead end, the High Command made a difficult decision to once again commit their forces in an assault on the Okrati ocean. A series of invasions launched in quick succession on the most important ports and islands between Narai and Veltan was planned well in advance. Several elite infantry divisions were retrained for naval invasions to ensure the success of the upcoming operations. In what would become known as the Okrati Storm, NKCI managed to capture over half of the important islands they required, as well as accomplished nearly 80% of their objectives in a matter of a few months. The combined VLMA fleet was severely battered during the Battle of Larsha, losing 4 modern battleships and 2 assault carriers, alongside many other escort vessels. Within the rest of the year, NKCI dominated the Okrati ocean completely and a third operation against Veltan started to be planned.

- Invasion of Marak: Wanting to avoid a rapid and effective response that they met during the first invasion of Veltan, the NKCI General Staff proposed an idea of invading the neutral state of Marak. Marak refused docking rights and stationing troops in the country, showing hostility to either side that wanted to enforce their demands by force. However through this diplomatic stance, it also ensured that limited VLMA forces were located near its borders. After a year of preparation and deception efforts, the largest naval invasion in history was conducted. 260,000 soldiers in the first wave, with 3 million troops waiting to be rapidly transported into the beachhead afterwards headed for Veltan with an objective of rapidly taking the neutral country and use it as a staging ground for future offensives.

- Stalemate on Veltan: The invasion of Marak was conducted without an official declaration of war, and the outer defenses of Marak were overrun within the first two days. Marak, faced with subjugation, was forced to finally align itself with VLMA, however by the time allied forces began entering the country, NKCI armored divisions were already at the outskirts of the capital. Having issues in supplying the 3 million troops that were hastily landed on the continent, the soldiers were allowed and even encouraged to live off the land, especially in terms of food. This was done to ease the burden on the transportation of military supplies and equipment. NKCI forces capitalized on the surprise and lackluster response of the VLMA and took Marak within a few months, forcing the government into exile. The reorganization of frontlines by the defenders was chaotic and gave the attackers plenty of room to advance. Yet just as VLMA before them, the NKCI increasingly found themselves fighting against an enemy that fought ever more ferociously and was capable of throwing everything at them for the purpose of stopping them. However, the united High Command of NKCI approached the campaign of outright refusal to compherend any sort of defeat. They believed that the war was to be decided by that campaign and as such abandoning the offensives was simply not an option.

Year 0 (The Darkest Day): The nuclear development race concluded in one of the most grim days in the history of carvin civilization. The frontlines still remained relatively fluid, but the states of the two alliances were more and more tired of the war. Both sides have depleted almost all of their resources, and their staying power was on the brink of collapse. A single decisive blow had to come to end the war in favour of one side. That day came on the New Year's Eve.

It is unclear how the specific events have transpired that caused the near simultaneous deployment of nuclear armaments by both sides, as most of the leading figures that ordered the nuclear bombings were killed, however one thing is certain: Both sides sought to rid the other of its leadership through the bombing of the capital of the opposing alliance leader. VLMA's target was Ortoz, the capital city of Caranogr, and NKCI's was Kravas, the capital of Xaltar. Both cities, being located deep inland, provided relatively good protection from invasion and were thus home to the joint general staff of their respective alliances.

On the dawn of the New Year's Eve, a freighter transporting the nuclear bomb and the plane that would carry it joined the Zarrani aircraft carrier Vanguard. Vanguard was not adapted to launch or transport heavy bombers, however it was deemed acceptable for the plane to fly a one-way trip to Ortoz and drop the bomb without returning. Two detatchable jet engines were attached to the plane to help it take off from the relatively short runway, and despite various doubts and uncertainties (as suggested by the fact that a recovery crew was also present on the freighter that transported the nuke in case the launch failed), the bomber, poetically nicknamed "The Flower of Veltan", launched successfully.

It took a long route away from large cities and military bases so as to avoid RADAR coverage. Most of the airforce was either on the sea or any of the frontlines that were still seing combat. As such, only a token fighter force was left at the Caranogri capital. Flying from the east, The Flower of Veltan had the benefit of the sun blinding any potential observers, aside from RADAR. Before the anti-air defense could scramble to destroy the lone bomber, the bomb was dropped, and shortly after the entire city was leveled to the ground.

On the other side of the world, NKCI forces have pushed out of the now capitulated Marak, but were terribly exhausted. Supply issues plagued the 2nd NKCI Army Group since no stable sea connection could be established between Narai and Veltan, but they still managed to take significant amount of territory, primarily from minor states of VLMA. Due to being the third major attempt at the invasion of Veltan, and the most successful one to date, the NKCI high command refused to abandon that front. Thousands of bombers and planes were launched from the old and new airbases in Marak to level the cities of VLMA member states despite the constant fuel and spare parts shortages.

In a daring raid suggested by the Commander in Chief of the unified NKCI airforce, a bomber fleet was to break through the intial defense belt of VLMA and head for the Xaltari capital. The bomber transporting the nuke was to be disguised among the bombers sent. After full day of preparations, diversionary attacks and approximately 89,000 losses across the entire frontline, the bomber fleet left from the airfields in Marak and headed for Kravas. Fighter coverage was only available at the beginning, after which, the bombers flew at high altitude.

The bombers first began to drop aluminium powder to jam and confuse Xaltari RADAR stations, then began to drop their bombs. Out of the 450 bombers sent, it is estimated that over 200 were lost, however the disguise worked and the nuclear bomb was dropped successfully. Within a span of half a day, the high command of both alliances were decapitated. Central leadership collapsed, and neither side had the capacity to wage the war effectively anymore.

Year 0 (Treaty of the Twin Suns): What remained of the leaderships of both alliances met in a then small town of Lexaant on Veltan to discuss the end of the war. It was determined that both the loss of life, devastation, and increasingly visible damage to Carvistorn's climate were unsustainable for the carvin civilization. After 19 years of fighting, nearly half a billion dead, 2 months of negotiations, deals and agreements, the Treaty of the Twin Suns came into effect, officially ending the Great War. Every state on Carvistorn had signed the treaty either voluntarily or was coerced to. Through it, all carvin independent states were dissolved and unified into a single entity of the Carvin Empire.

New administrative divisions were established, alongside a new currency, a unified parliament and a council of ministers who held great executive powers, with the President of the Council of Ministers to be chosen from the pool of all carvins. The capital of the Empire was to be the new city of Lexaant, where the treaty was signed. As a compromise between the two great powers, the Xaltari language, which already was spoken in the majority of the planet was to become the state language. However, the Caranogri language was to be taught in the military and nowhere else, so that the army could have the means of communication safe from potential eavesdropping by civilians or other hostile parties.

3-18 After Unification (AU) (First 15 Year Plan): The first endeavour that the United Imperial Government undertook was rebuilding the infrastructure and reconnect all the regions of the world through a unified communication and transportation system, followed by a gradual restoration of civilian economy. After extensive planning and investigation of potential areas for development, the First 15 Year Plan was put into effect and a massive public works campaign was launched alongside it. At its conclusion in 18 AU, the unemployment and homelessness levels have both exceeded their targets by 2 and 3 percentage points respectively. All targets of the plan were met, however despite pessimistic predictions for some sectors, they were not exceeded substantially. Despite some resistance to the integration coming from some of the more autonomous and independent areas of the planet, the general integration into the Carvin Empire was so far proceeding as planned.

25 AU (Beginning of the Digital Era): Advancements in computing and programming greatly facilitated the planetary integration of all of the once independent states and regions. With the invention of local networks, several state-owned and private enterprises began to develop a large scale version of that system. This led to the creation of the early version of the Cyberweb present today.

47 AU (Project Restoration): In an effort to at least partially restore the climate and biosphere of Carvistorn damaged by the industrial revolution and decades of devastating conflict, a planetwide effort aimed at limiting pollution and increasing recycling was started by the Council of Ministers, and approved by the parliament. After proper infrastructure and logistics were put in place, waste recycling and resource saving began to be ruthlessly enforced by law. Imperial police was given the right to monitor the recycling efforts of the citizens, arrest them in case of non-compliance, and send the detainees into forced labour camps or have them do harsh community service. Several old battleships were sunk in the highly polluted oceans after extensive cleaning to restore the native flora and fauna, particularly the once massive coral reefs of the Crimson ocean. Penal labour from prisons was used to build sewage treatment plants and purification plants in polluted rivers, lakes and oceans.

50-81 AU (First Stage of space exploration): Decades of interstate conflicts of the past took a significant toll on Carvistorn's natural resources. Even after the Edict of Planetary Restoration was put into effect, natural scientists and government officials began to increasingly signal that despite the recent global integration efforts, the Empire was at an increasing risk of resource shortages, and that even with the already extensive recycling efforts and even if the population growth was halted, there would be no way to escape the reality of resource shortage without a harsh reduction of population. This prompted the President and the Council of Ministers to begin space exploration initiative, as advances in optic and other observation methods have long proven there to be rich natural resources outside of Carvistorn.

First successful launch of a carvin-made rocket into outer space was conducted on the 53rd AU, followed by a first successful satellite launch the same year. Despite these successes, the cost of launching artificial satellites into space was calculated to be extremely uneconomical in the context of Carvistorn's slowly depleting resources. The Imperial Ministry for Space Exploration (IMSE) was thus pressured by the government to continue research on more fuel-efficient and possibly even reusable designs for future space travel.

First carvin was launched into space in 57 AU, proving that with the right equipment, carvins can survive in vacuum. Several satellites were also launched towards the moons of Carvistorn, Invira and Nair, and the two were mapped extensively thanks to these missions.

Real breakthrough in space exploration came with the manned landings on Invira and later Nair. While no atmosphere was observed on the surface of the moons, several samples taken from the surface of both celestial bodies indicated that the moons could significantly alleviate the shortages in minerals threatening Carvistorn. The moonrock of Invira was found to be rich in iron, titanium and magnesium, while samples from the surface of Nair contained aluminium and silicon. Afterwards, several manned and unmanned missions were flown to the moons in an effort to map mineral deposits and even potential settlements in the far future.

Modular space station launched in 62 AU became the first permanent carvin presence in space. At the time it was primarily a research and listening facility, conducting experiments in space, observing other space objects in proximity, and attempting to pick up signals from the void that could indicate the presence of alien life.

In 66 AU specrtal analysis from the planet nearest to Carvistorn, Mantaar, led to a groundbreaking discovery. Mantaar was observed to possess a small atmosphere, potentially capable of sustaining life and multiple small bodies of water (the size of lakes and rivers rather than seas and oceans). After several failed missions to Mantaar, a successful pass was accomplished by one of the probes, magnifying the previous discoveries. The planet's surface was home to basic forms of life, such as bacteria, single-cell eukaryotes like protists, and even algae colonies near the equator. While not habitable at the time, it was speculated that Mantaar could become the first relatively self-sufficient carvin settlement outside of Carvistorn. It was given the classification of T0.5 (on a scale from T0 being completely uninhabitable, to T3 a lush Gaia world akin to pre-industrialized Carvistorn)

Mantaar was the target of 11 separate attempts of sending a carvin probe. 4 of them failed in early stages of the flight, 5 either crashed or did not reach the planet, and only 3 successfully landed, one being a static probe, and the other 2 being specially designed rovers. The rovers would be active for 5 and 8 years respectively.

71 AU saw the launch of the biggest and most advanced telescope at the time, the Project-972, later renamed to simply Seer 9. The telescope would make tens of thousands of high-resolution pictures of celestial bodies located even dozens of light years away.

By 73 AU, the frequency of launches and space missions was reduced, since while they did provide prospects for addressing the resource shortage, the transport methods themselves were simply deemed too costly for the time. IMSE was still allowed to send astronauts into the few permanent space stations orbiting Carvistorn in additon to the cheap launch and maintenance of satellites, but their main focus, aside from studying the space itself, was to find more economic means of space travel.

55 AU (Beginning of genetic engineering): Researchers from the Imperial Institute of Biology have successfully transferred a gene from one bacteria to another. This event marks the beginning of the modern field of genetic engineering. Later advances would result in the creation of more fruitful crops resitant to harsh climates, as well as specialized algae meant to absorb carbon dioxide and methane from the atmosphere at much faster rate than any other organism. Several experiments were conducted on the carvin genome, however all ended in failure, either by not producing results or by collapsing the genome entirely. Later advances would confirm that the carvin genetic code is virtually stagnant and uneditable.

166 AU (Tackling overpopulation): By end of the first half of the 2nd century after unification, carvin population reached a barely sustainable 10 billion. With any potential colonization efforts predicted to be available in at most 300 years, the Council of Ministers have forced upon the Parliament a law of planned procreation. Every family was allowed to have up to 2 children, and only if both partners are 300 years old or older. Having a single child was allowed, however no additional benefits were given. Additional babies or those that hatched before the 300 year mark were subject to euthanasia and their parents to arrest and at least 50 years of penal labour. The law had its desired effect of slowing down demographic growth, however there were a few "lawless" children that were allowed to live, even though their parents facing severe punishment. They would often become "children of the Empire", that is have the Empire become their legal guardian. Those would then grow up to become blindly loyal clerks and officials for the state aparatus, ruthlessly efficient at their jobs.

209 AU (Beginning of the Second Stage of space exploration): Probably the most important discovery since the ability to control fire, a derelict spaceship wreckage was found in the Raxaani highlands near the border between the past states of Xaltar and Zarran. This revealed two important things: first that the carvins were indeed not alone in the Universe, and the second that there indeed existed an economic way to traverse the void, and second that alien life existed in the universe, possibly far more powerful and advanced than initially anticipated.

However the presence of the ship on Carvistorn sparked a metaphysical debate. Some critics of religious groups, particularly the Purists, have associated the "Stars" worshipped by them to be the aliens who could have possibly arrived on Carvistorn and influenced the primitive carvin communities.

Nevertheless, the metaphysical issue was largely ignored in favour of reverse-engineering the ship's propulsion and means of rapid space travel. After several months of careful study of the drive core and engines, imperial researchers managed to document and understand the concept of "warp jumping", marking the beginning of viable space travel. The basic principle allows for the affected object to enter a dimension of space that behaves drastically different from the normal one. A spaceship present within this fabric of space can move at incredible speeds using its normal propulsion system. Gravitational distortions caused by the presence of large celestial bodies in space can serve as a point of reference for the navigation system of the ship.

A carvin-made drive core aimed at replicating the phenomenon generated by the alien spaceship was installed on the first modern starship, the "Pioneer-01". The ship's maiden voyage saw it jump from the orbit of the planet (which it managed to reach in the single most fuel-efficient run to date) to the immediate vicinity of Mantaar. It had accomplished this in a few seconds. Pioneer-01 had then circumnavigated Mantaar's orbit, to then return to Carvistorn and land.

216-222 AU (Settling the Void): With the space travel technology revolutionized by the findings from the crashed alien spaceship, the IMSE was granted funds to develop bigger and better designs that would allow the Empire to exploit the vast resources available in the void. Several mining expeditions were sent to the moons of Carvistorn, Invira and Nair. However, seeking to make the process more efficient and streamlined, the first permanent settlement was established on Invira - a mining complex which would send iron, titanium and magnesium to the homeworld, while importing food and equipment to maintain operations. Expanding the settlement was helped by the fact that a significant amount of oxygen was trapped in the moonrock, which could be harvested as a byproduct during the refining process and be used as breathing air for the personnel.

A similar facility was constructed on Nair 3 years later, and ambitious plans were drawn up to set up automated mining facilities in the asteroid belt and bring its riches under Empire's control as well. All of those projects began to slowly bring an end to the looming threat of resource shortage on Carvistorn. By 220 AU, the collective population of all permanent settlements reached 7,000.

235 AU (Colonization of Mantaar): While several manned and unmanned expeditions to Mantaar were conducted before, the planet's atmosphere was deemed to be too thin for a mass unsupported colonization effort that was previously proposed. Only in 235 a flotilla of colony ships with prefabricated structures was sent to Mantaar in hopes of settling the promising planet. Even though it was smaller than Carvistorn, its dense core provided both a relatively strong gravity (making the gravity issue less significant), and an adequate magnetic field, protecting the planet from radiation. This meant that carvins could walk on the planet without many of the necessary equipment needed elsewhere, outside of breather masks and basic pressure suits, as the atmosphere was too thin to sustain anything outside of microbial life.

Initially, similarly to Carvistorn's moons, only research and mining facilities were established, but when large amounts of frozen carbon dioxide were found under the surface, multiple terraforming concepts began to be debated. A second habitable planet with a stable and breathable atmosphere could potentially end the overpopulation problem of Carvistorn. It was calculated that should the process begin immediately, it could be completed within two, perhaps three carvin lifetimes, as the planet was already hosting life, and the planet's physical characteristics could facilitate a quick successful transformation into a lush garden world.

238 AU (Beginning of terraforming process): With technology finally providing the necessary equipment and means of terraforming, a programme to terraform Mantaar was launched in 238 AU. In an attempt to thicken the atmosphere of the planet, several gigantic mirrors were set up around the planet, heating up strategic areas of land, and slowly melting and releasing the carbon dioxide trapped within the planet's crust into the atmosphere. Additionally millions of tonnes of frozen greenhouse gasses, particularly methane and nitrous oxide (most of them take from industrial waste) were shipped to Mantaar to speed up the process of expanding the thin atmosphere. Nitrous oxide was particularly chosen so that it could later on be purified into nitrogen, facilitating the creation of a Carvistorn-like atmosphere.

Alongside the greenhouse gasses, several genetically engineered weeds were transported to Mantaar and began to slowly convert the CO2 in the atmosphere into oxygen. Native organisms were also "farmed" and fed to allow them to grow in number and speed up the process. Organic waste produced by the colonists was used to fertilize the soil near the settlements with plans to later transform these areas into farmlands.

Additional oxygen was mined from Carvistorn's moons, asteroids, and obtained from electrolysing thousands of tonnes of water mined from asteroids and several moons and planetoids scattered across Maarv system.

Overall, the terraformation of Mantaar was declared a number 1 long term goal for the Empire, and resources alongside both state and private investments were allocated accordingly.

300 AU (Colonial expansion): Increased resources available, combined with the steadily improving living conditions on Mantaar, and the fact that carvins have proved to be incredibly resilient colonists, allowed the Empire to increasingly start resettling its population from Carvistorn. By the dawn of the 4th century, Invira and Nair settlements grew to a collective 400,000. Mantaar saw a population explosion especially after the migration waves of 252 and 279, and reaching a population of 2.7 million by the same time. Still, despite the available living space and potential population capacity, the Empire did not abolish the planned procreation restrictions of 166 AU, fearing overwhelming the slowly growing ecosystem of Mantaar.

311 AU (Establishing of Imperial Space Navy): The spaceship extracted from Carvistorn proved that additional life existed in the Universe, and that economic space travel was possible. However, aside from giving the carvin civilization with means of FTL travel, it provided schematics of sophisticated weapons, particularly lasers. This in turn suggested the existence of hostile intelligent life forms. After the crises threatening Carvistorn began to be addressed and colonization of Mantaar was commenced, the issue of security was brought up. The Carvin Imperial Armed Forces were ill-equipped to defend the planet from any potential invader and they requested an establishment of a dedicated space branch or even a total transformation into a modern Space Force.

The result was the Establishment of Imperial Space Navy in 311 AU, with 6 ships purpose-built as military patrol craft (at 217m in length), as well as 4 repurposed civilian freighters being its first armada. Elite Army, Navy, and Airforce officers were transferred to the new Space Force to begin building up command structures and devise strategies for potential interstellar conflicts. Both state and private military contractors were finally allowed to conduct research on the technology recovered from the alien wreckage, as this right was previously reserved for state research organizations. Several non-military enterprises were also given access to the data, however they were prohibited from distributing the information to the wider public.

337 AU (Beyond Maarv): Several unmanned probes were sent outside of the home system of Maarv, however maintaining contact with them proved to be difficult. The communication suite on the alien wreckage, especially the quantum tunneling mechanism and the quantum entanglement communicator, were expensive to replicate on such a scale at the time. As such, probes could only be sent at close range of up to 10 light years away and then forced to return. But in 337 AU, a flotilla of 7 manned explorer ships were sent across the immediate neighbourhood of Maarv intent on mapping and examining the nearby systems for potential colonization. The initiative was a success, and a comprehensive map of the galactic region was starting to be developed.

504 AU (Carvistorn-Mantaar quantum tunnel): Due to the physical constraints of conventional communication and an apparent lack of application of the warp phenomenon to the concept of FTL communication, a local Cyberweb was set up on Mantaar to provide similar access on the colony and to counteract the severe lag caused by the distance between Carvistorn and Mantaar.

But in 499 AU a primitive quantum tunnelling communicator (similar to the one found on the alien wreckage) was tested on an unmanned probe placed at the edge of the Maarv system. The small device capable of transmitting and receiving only 10 bits of data at once sent a test message to Carvistorn in binary, which was received 70% faster than the predicted time of a conventional transmitter. Immediately work began to develop a larger and stronger variant of the device with an aim to connect the Cyberwebs of Carvistorn and Mantaar.

First stable connection with an average delay of 10 seconds was established in early 500 AU, which was quickly expanded and improved to a full scale stable commercial link in 504 AU. This allowed for a virtually instantaneous communication between the now 5,700,000 colonists and Carvistorn. The Cyberwebs of both worlds were thus merged into one, and despite the costs, the system was adopted as a basis for future comm infrastructure expansions.

770 AU (Launching of L4 and L5 space stations):

983 AU (Beginning of the Final stage of terraforming Mantaar): Through warming up the planet, expanding its atmosphere, and flooding the surface with microbes and small to medium-sized plants, the environment on Mantaar was rapidly transformed from a life-bearing yet still dangerous world, into a flourishing colony that however still required significant amount of equipment to thrive. Introduction of larger flora (especially trees) and small animals was the final step of transforming Mantaar into a T1 world (a planet with a stable sustainable ecosystem largely independent of outside interference).

Genetically altered trees native to Carvistorn were gradually introduced to Mantaar's ecosystem alongside tiny insects, reptiles and even small mammals (all herbivorous and genetically engineered to survive in the still unstable environmnent). Optimistic estimates from the time pointed at the year 1,400, when the planetary biosphere was to be stable enough to support carvin inhabitants without specialized equipment.

1,012-23 AU (The Grox Invasion): First encounter with an alien civilization. Very few records have survived detailing the first contact due to the speed and devastation of the initial assault, but the automated listening posts were silenced a few minutes before the attack proper began. Data recovered from boxes of ships and Mantaar defense instalations after the war suggest that Mantaar was left defenseless in less than an hour. Only at Carvistorn, after a series of cyberwarfare attacks that completely crippled the Cybernet for a short time was the enemy identified and properly engaged. Imperial Space Navy lost 60% of its strength in the opening alien assault on the planet, managing to destroy only few smaller vessels in return, and was forced to flee. L4 and L5 habitats were shot down and fell into the atmosphere, killing over 600,000. Simultaneous launch of nuclear warheads among other less powerful armaments managed to destroy or disable some of the larger warships of the alien invading force, however the core of their assault fleet remained intact.

The aliens, later revealed to call themselves "the Grox", began an indiscriminate bombardment of industrial centers and military instalations, then deployed their ground forces to assault the planet. However Grox ground forces were comprised almost exclusively of cybernetically augmented yet barely sentient organic drones under direct control by the Grox. Even though their tactics and equipment were superior, an average carvin was capable of taking down several of the Grox drones before being killed.

To this day the motives of the invaders were not established, but historians theorize that they may have been looking to acquire test subjects, slaves or perhaps a subservient speices, as Carvistorn was significantly depleted from resources, and nothing short of strip-mining the planet completely would remedy this fact. No sightings of the Grox were reported ever since, even after establishing contact with the Citadel Council.

1,013 AU (Fall of Lexaant): The Grox have attempted several assaults on the Imperial capital, Lexaant, but all have been repulsed sooner or later. The semi-sentient organic drones were determined to be mostly incapable of quick and efficient decision making required to take control of the city, aside from the visually distinct officers, who have been observed to be taller, bulkier and better armed. Remnants of the Imperial Army in the city armed the civilian populace and began training them in urban combat. Eventually, the Grox began to simply bombard the city from orbit to reduce cover for the defending resistance. Finally, in the late winter of 1,013 AU, the main resistance in the city collapsed. Nevertheless individual fighting by insurgent groups continued, chipping away at the strength of the occupying forces, and the continent of Veltan as a whole remained in the fight.

It was after the fall of the city that the actual Grox individuals were observed on Carvistorn. Heavily augmented just as their drones, they have been determined to be fully sentient and possess remarkable intelligence, possibly a result of their cybernetics.

1,014 AU (Destruction of the Imperial Government and Armed Forces): Imperial Army, after losing several crucial battles alongside most of its general staff, was left completely in shambles. Imperial President, the Council of Ministers and the Parliament members were also captured or killed, leaving the Empire without a unified leadership. Several lower ranking officers left from the Imperial Armed Forces began to organize resistance on the local level. The most prominent of those officers was General Seviros Ra'Taan, who established his base of operations in southwestern Veltan.

1,015 AU (Fall of Lidar): Due to its size, population, and relatively forgiving geography, Lidar was the first of the 4 continents to fall to the Grox. No capitulation was declared, but the defenders simply had no means to fight the invaders outside of occasional insurgent and partisan activities.

1,016 AU (Fall of Mantaar): The relatively tiny population of Mantaar was still one of the most viciously resisting parts of the Empire, despite its isolation from the homeworld. Nonetheless, it was eventually defeated by the advanced enemy army and their sophisticated air support. Mantaar would be the location of the first prison and death camps constructed by the Grox, where brutal experimentation on carvin civilians and soldiers alike would be conducted alongside regular executions.

1,017 AU (Official establishment of the United Home Army): Several independent resistance groups merged with General Seviros' forces to form a United Home Army. While not an army in a traditional sense, it was an underground organization that would fight the Grox anywhere it could, procure weapons, supply and arm the civilian residents of occupied cities, with a clear objective of eventually driving the invaders off Carvistorn.

Remnants of the Imperial Space Navy have also contacted Seviros at the time, and submitted a report that dictated the doctrine of the Home Army for the rest of the war. Since the beginning of the war, the Grox have allegedly not brought any reinforcements with them, suggesting that the invading force they had sent was, at least for the time being, on its own. Knowing this, Seviros adopted the strategy of maximum attrition. He wanted to bleed the Grox dry at every opportunity and stretch their forces thin enough so that one day an effective counterattack could be mounted.

The Home Army also used concealed pick-up sites to supply the remains of the Imperial Space Fleet with supplies to sustain them. Special courier ships brought in food and water, and rarely also munitions.

1,018 AU (Fall of Narai and Karto): In a brutal campaign of extermination and indiscriminate bombing, the continents of Narai and Karto were brutally subjugated by the Grox forces. The biggest bastion of resistance on Narai, the city of Quataan, was utterly destroyed by what would later be identified as an anti-matter bomb. Many times stronger than any of the fission or fusion bombs developed by the Empire previously, the entire city was wiped out in a moment, alongside its 38,000,000 inhabitants. The bomb had briefly shook the entire tectonic structure of the planet, causing earthquakes planetwide, and the giant crater remaining from the event is still present on the surface and can be visited alongside the monument for the fallen of the war.

After the destruction of Quataan, most of the resistance forces fled into the wilderness or concealed themselves in the civilian populations of other cities so as to avoid the devastating losses of any future anti-matter bombings. Quataan however would live on as a fuel for the fighting spirit of the Carvin Empire.

1,019 AU (Initial successes): In a series of counteroffensives conducted by the Home Army, multiple towns and cities were recaptured, and several Grox garrisons seized alongside the equipment inside. This also revealed the extent of the Grox prison and death camp networks. After the liberation of the complex near Travalaan, the Home Army uncovered the brutal Grox experiments on carvins, with disfigured and mutated carcasses that no longer resembled a carvin found deep in the facility. This information was then spread across the planet, inciting more unrest in the occupied regions and making thousands flock to the Home Army.

A group of partisans also hijacked a Grox transport ship after it unloaded its troops and equipment. They then managed to leave the atmosphere and under heavy fire ram the ship into one of the Grox escort vessels. The target ship was disabled, though not destroyed, and the partisans all perished during the attack.

The biggest success of the resistance so far however was capturing a live Grox officer. After extensive interrogation (which proved to be fruitless), the officer was dissected and their augmentations taken for study. The resulting data obtained provided insight on the Grox nature and their operating protocols. First of all, the Grox could interface directly and wirelessly with almost any device that had the hardware capacity to be interfaced with.

Second of all, the Grox were in a constant wireless communication with each other and their equipment, unless their cybernetic transmitter and receiver were damaged or jammed.

Third of all, part of the Grox consciousness was determined to be artificial. They were literally a fusion of organic and synthetic minds. Its synthetic part was especially brought to attention by the Home Army engineers and IT specialists, as the most basic underlying algorithms and processes were extremely unusual by all standards, even those of the positronic AI theorized and hypothesized before the war. Those processes were discovered to be present in almost all of the Grox systems, which just as the Grox temselves were all interconnected with each other.

A potential application of those findings was proposed, in the form of a virus that would target this specific part of the code on which everything else was built. It was hoped that such an attack could fry the Grox network completely, or at least temporarily disable it, allowing the carvin resistance to fight back. In utmost secrecy, all of the Home Army's technicians, programmers, hackers, engineers, and IT specialists were to work in secret to develop a virus that could target that part of the code. Details of the project remain classified to this day.

1,020 AU (Cultist carvins): As most of the world fell to the Grox attacks, a religious sect of the Purist church comprised of carvins from all denominations was observed. Those carvins preached that the Grox were indeed the rumored "Stars" that brought salvation to the carvins. They declared fighting against the Grox to be blasphemy and sought to erradicate the heretics who resisted salvation.

Those "Grox cultists", as they started to be called, began infiltrating various cells of the Home Army, leading to many costly defeats for the resistance. Faced with spies and infiltrators in his ranks, General Seviros made a difficult and drastic decision of imposing atheism on all of the members of the Home Army. All members of the Home Army were to renounce any previous faith they practiced and give up all their religious items or artifacts they possessed. Individuals who did not comply were purged, either by being sent to remote locations where they could not do much harm, or more often simply executed. This institutionalized atheism persisted well after the war was over and would ingrain itself in the carvin culture.

1,021 AU (Attacks on the Grox fleet): Years of fighting had taken a toll on the Grox troop numbers. Forces were constantly moved to the continuously flaring up partisan hotspots. This constant air and space traffic that appeared was exploited by the Home Army on multiple occasions. Several attacks were carried out by infiltrators who, using reverse-engineered Grox cloaking technology, hid on their transport ships. They were then transported onto various vessels on the Grox fleet that blockaded the planet, where they would wreak havoc on the surprised crew, killing thousands in the process and ramming the Grox ships into each other. Through these attacks, 3 cruiser-sized vessels, 7 escort frigates, and 11 picket corvettes were destroyed.

The Grox countered those tactics by meticulously scanning the transport ships and by increasing garrisons in their fleet, but this took away the manpower from Carvistorn, which they were increasingly losing control over. The wilderness and countryside was only accessible to automated drones and aircraft, which themselves were common targets of carvin partisans. Even in the most well garrisoned cities such as Lexaant, several "free zones" began to pop up, even if only for a few days.

1,023 (The final assault and the end of the war): After 4 years of constant work, the Home Army Cyberwarfare Division finally produced the wonder weapon that would end the war: a virus codenamed Grox999. Tested once (to minimize chances of leaks) on a captured Grox officer, the subject experienced a total failure of the cybernetics and a consequent shock of the organic part of the body. Much of the technical details of the program itself remains classified, but it is known that the virus successfully attacked the designated parts of the code, leading to a total system failure. General Seviros however decided that the virus had to be uploaded directly into the Grox system to avoid as many failsafes as possible.

In what would become the final operation of the Grox War, Operation Shockwave was born. Consisting of two phases: "Shock" - a general uprising across the planet to lure as many Grox vessels to the surface, and "Wave" - an infiltration assault using captured Grox ships alongside the remnants of the Imperial Space Navy to board one of the major Grox ships and upload the virus directly into their network.

Years of occupation, training, and supplying the civilian resistance across the planet finally culminated in one of the most horrifying days of the Empire. All control over the countryside that the Grox still had vanished in a few minutes. Civilians took to the city streets, assaulting Grox patrols and garrisons. It is estimated that over 2 million perished during the fighting on the first day planetwide.

The plan worked though. A swarm of rapid response ships, including fighters, transports, and even small picket ships such as corvettes, entered the atmosphere and began engaging the resistance. Dozens of fighters were destroyed, and a concentrated fire on one of the corvettes forced it to perform an emergency landing on the planet, where it was stormed and seized by the Home Army. Few transport ships that delivered the troops to the surface returned, as many were destroyed or grounded and subsequently captured by the resistance.

On the 5th day after Operation Shockwave was put into effect, a flotilla of 41 appropriated transport ships and a single repaired Grox corvette were launched towards the Grox fleet. First 7 were loaded with electromagnetic bombs, reverse-engineered from various wreckages of Grox ships on Carvistorn, aimed at blinding the fleet even for a moment. The rest were filled with the most skilled and experienced soldiers of the Home Army onboard and were to be escorted by the remnants of the Imperial Space Fleet to the core of the Grox formation. 4 out of 7 bomb-ships were destroyed on approach, however the rest detonated successfully, disabling much of the screening vessels. In a practically suicidal maneuver, the remaining transport ships dashed through the slowly recovering Grox formation. Out of 34 transports, 11 managed to reach the flagship of the Grox fleet. Once there the soldiers of the Home Army were able to fight their way into the command center of the ship and upload the virus.

According to both eye witnesses and recordings of the remains of the carvin fleet, the effect was immediate. All ships were disabled immediately, with some overloading and exploding on the spot. Remaining Grox forces on the ground were reported to die in unison after the upload. Vessels that were not destroyed by the virus were then picked apart by the carvin fleet remnants. By the end of the day, only a fraction of the Grox ships managed to recover and survive. They fled the system afterwards, ending the Grox War.

It would not be revealed until after the operation that general Seviros was among the soldiers assaulting the Grox flagship. This bold yet arguably reckless behaviour made him a war hero.

1,024-26 AU (Post-war resolution): The Grox War had cut down the entire Carvistorn population from 11 billion to 7.5 billion, virtually wiped out all settlements in the Maarv system outside of the carvin homeworld. No governmental structure remained outside of the Home Army, and the people learned to respect the military. In 1,025 by the order of General Seviros, a public referendum was held on the issue of creating a new government. The question was whether to return to the old imperial system or allow the veterans of the war to create a new one. In a historic 94% vote, the populace had voted for the military to reform the government as they saw fit, putting trust in the leaders that led them through arguably the worst time in history. They even requested General Seviros to become the head of the new government.

However Seviros refused. In a speech following the announcement of the referendum results, he pointed out the need for a strong government to lead the carvin race, but denounced the idea of one individual being the leader to all. Under his guidance, a basis for modern system of governance was laid instead. 4 "High Generals" were chosen from the ranks of the Home Army, thought to be the most capable leaders remaining on the planet. They were to rule over the Carvin Empire as a pseudo-council, giving directions to it as a whole, but each would govern a small portion of that Empire. They were to rotate their portions so as to prevent secession. Outside of that, every region (that would later on become a Sector) controlled by a High General would have its own Council of Ministers, so as to be more in touch with the people they governed. They too were to rotate their posts with each other, however that rotation was not to be synchronized with that of the High Generals. The military itself was to be a supporting part of the government, however was forbidden to interfere in the political process of the Empire.

Seviros himself refused the post of the High General as well, and when asked by the newly formed government if he had a wish, instead requested to have himself and 50,000 of his best soldiers frozen cryogenically using the technology recovered from the destroyed Grox ships, and to be awoken after at least a thousand years to have the hardy veterans enjoy an Empire rebuilt. His wish was granted in 1026 when 50,000 soldiers were ceremonially frozen, with General Seviros being the last one to step into his pod.

1,026-1,500 AU (The Great Reconstruction): Grox technology recovered from the destroyed warships and their databanks catapulted the Carvin Empire several centuries forward. Improved warp engines, stronger quantum tunneling communicators, and especially advances in electronics and computing, all radically accelerated the recovery of the Carvin Empire. Even the once again ecologically destabilized Carvistorn began reconstruction of its ecosystem using the advances uncovered from the Grox databanks.

Within the first 100 years, settlements on Invira, Nair and Mantaar were reestablished and began to grow rapidly after the planned procreation law was officially abolished in 1,026 AU (it was still technically in effect during the war, as there was no opportunity to change it, but few obeyed it anyway). The means of terraformation of Mantaar were also improved, and with all this new technology, the predictions for a stable ecosystem were placed on the 17th century. Some private and state corporations even proposed to begin terraforming the moons of Carvistorn to support life in the future.

Cybernet was reconstructed bigger and more advanced than ever. All lag between every carvin-made object within the Maarv system was practically removed. The bandwith size that was once available only to the government and the military was made publically available to the average citizen and the market, since the overall bandwith was increased substantially.

The Home Army was reformed into the Imperial Armed Forces, fully transitioning into a space force in all aspects. The Navy and the Army were reborn as formations fully capable of waging war in space, while the Airforce was reorganized into the Imperial Starfighter Corps as a branch of the Navy. Modern weapons, especially ultraviolet and even x-ray frequency lasers recovered from the Grox ships, alongside sophisticated plasma weaponry for shorter range and ground use made the new Imperial Armed Forces a very dangerous formation. In addition, introduction of energy shields, barriers projected by specially designed generators, revolutionized both vehicle and personal protection. While determined to be potentially dangerous in the long-term for many organisms, due to the relatively intense radiation created by the shield, the carvins were proven have enough resistance to radiation to use this new equipment.

One of the most surprising discoveries was the existence of a new element. While scarce even in the wreckage of the Grox fleet, it was discovered to have mass and space-time altering properties. This "element zero" (A/N: using the name as a placeholder, don't kill me.) could create a dark energy field when subjected to electric current, allowing it to increase or reduce mass in that specific field. Its potential application in FTL drives was suggested and tested, however the drive core prototypes were found nowhere near as effective as the new Grox warp drives. As such it was primarily studied for industrial and military applications, but its scarcity at the time limiting potential use.

By 1,400 AU, Carvistorn's population jumped back to 9.8 billion, while the Mantaar colony had reached a record-high population count of 12.3 million. Multiple expeditions beyond the Maarv system were launched after a partially intact galactic map was recovered from the black box of one of the Grox ships. The first settlement outside of Maarv system was established in 1456 AU, on a lush T2.7 world named Kiratorn. Its discovery however did not stop the terraforming effors on Mantaar, and in fact hastened it, as thousands of samples were taken and screened for potential introduction into Mantaar's biosphere.

Thanks to the great advancements in complex mechanisms and the study of the Grox cybernetic augmentations, military cybernetic augmentations were introduced en masse into the Imperial Armed Forces. Every soldier was required to have all of their limbs replaced with cybernetics, so as to reduce the demand for food, increase speed and agility, and improve the overall sturdiness of the augmented individual. This also led to the commercial variants of these cybernetics becoming increasingly available, which in 1481, led to the implementation of the Law of Implanting. This law regulated what kind of augmentations and cybernetics an individual could have installed. Ordinary implants that replaced specific limbs were allowed, any cerebral enhancements, deep connection or direct interface augmentations such as the ones used by the Grox were banned.

Overall, a time of rebirth was upon the Empire.

1,600-1,900 AU (Third stage of space exploration): Even though more modern technology was available that could facilitate the expansion of the Carvin Empire beyond its borders, the time between the 11th to 16th century was largely focused on rebuilding and improving the existing infrastructure, colonies and settlements within the boundaries of the Maarv system and maybe its immediate neighbours. But once this effort bore fruit and the carvin population exploded to a collective 10 billion at the dawn of the 17th century, particularly on Mantaar and the new colony of Kiratorn, the Imperial Government determined that the Empire now had the capacity and and reason to expand beyond its borders and into the Void.

Multiple expeditions were conducted, mapping potential shipping lanes, resource deposits and garden worlds that could be settled. Over the course of a few decades, the number of star systems controlled by the Carvin Empire jumped from 5 to 29, and 8 additional garden worlds of varying climate were colonized. By the end of the Third Stage, the Empire controlled over 80 star systems and colonized a collective 19 planets.

This is also the time of an increased excavation and implementation of element zero. With new deposits discovered, several applications were suggested, such as local system comm-buoy networks that provided a cheaper alternative for communication between ships and facilities within a single system than a standard quantum tunnel (interstellar communication was still maintained by quantum tunneling), or the production of specific alloys required for prefabs desperately in demand as new worlds were settled and population increased.

In fact the relentless drive to settle new systems also brought with it a pronatal and pro-emigration policies. Couples that had more than 2 children were exempt from several taxes, and had easier access to social security and insurance. Access to schools, vocational and technical schools, as well as universities was also made easier as more were built. Every colony had to establish a school within 3 years of the founding. Volunteering to be a part of a first wave of colonizers guarranteed the volunteer and all of his potential family they took with them a free house and land. Migrants to the existing colonies were given only land and were exempted from property tax for the first 5 years of building their new house (no matter if it was constructed out of prefabricated components or in a traditional way on some of the older colonies).

With the expanding borders and frontier, both the government administration and the military also increased in size. Five Sectors of the Empire were established: the Inner Core, the Middle Belt, the Snowy Expanse, the Varsaai Cluster, and the Frontier. This created the need for two another High General seats, as one of the High Generals also had to administer Carvistorn, a "Sector" within itself. Planetary governors had their administrative powers expanded alongside several smaller district deputies reporting to them. Bureaucracy was simplified and a strong code of work ethics ingrained into the members of the administration to remove as much bureaucratic entanglement as possible.

The Imperial Military grew in size and variety as well. Mimicking the Grox fleet composition, several large Dreadnoughts, over a kilometer long, led fleets of smaller frontline cruisers, light escort frigates, as well as small picket ships such as corvettes, who could fly around and through the formations, hunting for fighters and larger damaged vessels (A/N: To clarify, carvin ship classification is different. While a cruiser is roughly equivalent to an average ME cruiser, frigates are basically lightweight escort cruisers, and corvettes are equivalent to ME frigates). Alongside them, frigate and cruiser-sized escort carriers transported large number of high-quality, well armed and shielded spacecraft into battle. Mantaar Drive Yards became the biggest military shipbuilding corporation, overtaking even the shipyards at Carvistorn. Meanwhile the Army of professional soldiers at its core, supplemented by young conscripts, was stationed in every system and on almost every world that the Empire controlled.

1,958-72 AU (The Varsaai Insurrection): As the Empire and consequently its administration expanded, cracks began to show within its bureaucratic apparatus. Several system and planetary governors were held to little scrutiny and slowly started to become largely autonomous. However, while it would seem that this development would largely take place in the Frontier Sector of the Empire, in actuality it found the most fertile ground within the systems and planets of the Varsaai Cluster. The High General who governed the sector at the time, Ravin Le'Kraan, was also increasingly interfering in the composition of the Council of Ministers, bureaucrats and clerks, as well as the election process of governors. He constructed a huge network of contacts and associates that granted him significant influence.

When other High Generals learned of this, they sought to remove the corrupted High General from office and replace him with someone of more merit, better abilities, and work ethic. In response Le'Kraan seceeded from the Empire, declaring Varsaai Cluster independent. Large part of the Imperial Fleet stationed in the Sector defected to him, although some of it refused to do so and withdrew to loyalist bases in other sectors. During a 5 year long campaign, Imperial Navy fought in multiple battles with the separatist flotillas and armies, and gradually pushed them back deeper and deeper into their territory.

But when the Navy and the Army reached the colonies of the Varsaai Cluster, they found a populace that fiercely resisted their presence and fought with unexpected ferocity to drive away the loyalists. The only way to maintain order were brutal repressions, mass executions and deportation of prisoners into labour and re-education camps. Even when Ravin Le'Kraan was found, captured, tortured and publicly executed for treason against the Empire, the unrest did not die down. The remaining 9 years of the Insurrection were not spent on fighting the separatist armies and fleets, but on pacifying and aggressively reintegrating the rebellious colonies, particularly through encouraging and even forcing migration to them from loyal colonies and Carvistorn to dillute the separatist sentiments. Only in 1,972 AU was the pacification effort declared complete.

The issue of Ravin Le'Kraan led to 2 significant changes within the Imperial administration. First, the Sector rotation interval of High Generals was shortened from 50 years to 20, so as to make it more difficult to build an administration and bureaucracy allied to a specific High General, rather than to the Empire itself. Second was the establishment of the Ravashir: a political and administrative police, loyal to the High General Council and the Carvin Empire as a whole, and which was given the role of investigating and eradicating corruption and treason within the state aparatus, the military, and even the civilian populace. While they were technically subordinated to the Ministry of Internal Security, they operated incredibly autonomously compared to conventional police forces, being able to investigate whoever they deemed suspicious, whenever they saw fit, and with a wide range of means to ensure that the results of their investigation will reflect reality. To prevent abuses, a very strict moral and ethical work code was imposed on the recruits and officers alike. Any and all deviations from this code were punished with expulsion from the Ravashir.

Even ordinary people across the Empire felt the impact of this rebellion, not just through taxes, drafts, or requisitioning of property, but also afterwards, when the education system was altered in a way to promote unity within the Empire. Dissenting opinions were tolerated much less than before, which did ensure loyalty, but stifled creativity in the process. This process began to be reversed after the discovery and subsequent long observation of Citadel Council, but the carvins born during the period of strictest implementation of the nationalistic education are on average still less creative and innovative than those born before the reform or after its relaxation.

2,021 AU (Completion of the Carvistorn Defense Grid): Started in 2000 AU, Carvistorn Defense Grid Project was aimed to transform Carvistorn into a fortress. Taught by the experiences of the Grox War that a well-organized and determined resistance could defeat an overwhelming enemy occupation, the Imperial Military High Command sought to prevent the fall of Carvistorn to any future invader. In addition to extensive orbital defenses, thousands of underground bases and bunkers buried beneath the surface were constructed across the planet. Those were then connected by networks of high-speed underground railways and a separate dedicated Cyberweb. Dedicated hydroponic farms, water purification plants, fusion reactors, and stockpiles of weapons, were placed in the strategic positions around the network. In its final form, the underground part of the Defense Grid was supposed to accomodate at least a billion carvins.

2,078 AU (First alien sightings since the Grox War): At the dawn of the 21st century, another colonization attempt was planned. As such exploration corporations and state funded explorer fleets were sent out to scout potential settlements and prospects for valuable resources. After the scout ships were launched in 2,069, they spent 9 years peacefully exploring the Void, until the contact in 2,078. One of the state-owned scout vessels, when surveying the eezo rich region of Nemean Abyss, registered several small vessels within the system it was located in. After acquiring and saving the signatures of the ships, it left the system and returned to the nearest drydock to report.

The signatures of scanned ships proved to be different than those of the Grox, and would later turn out to be pirates and smugglers. Nonetheless, the High General Council, not wanting to encounter a potentially hostile species unprepared again, requested specimens to be acquired for study by xenobiologists and the alien databanks to be studied for information about their civilization.

2,081 AU (Capture of aliens and the discovery of the wider galactic community): An alien freighter was acquired by a small Navy task force in Nemean Abyss, along with all of the crew. Alien subjects reacted with fear and did not recognize the carvin marines who took them into captivity. The ship's drive core was discovered to rely on element zero for FTL travel. Apart from the crew, the ship was transporting a cargo of what would later be revealed to be slaves. The species was identified as "batarians", and their practice of slavery even on their own people was discovered to be unusual based on the information from the ship's databanks.

Additionally almost all of the passengers were outfitted with small devices that provided data required to translate the language of multiple species, which were all carefully analyzed and provided insight into the languages of alien civilizations. The ship's databanks also provided a large map of the galaxy and locations of Mass Relays that would be discovered later.

2,113 AU (First Mass Relay examination): Having acquired the necessary location and information, a scientific expedition team escorted by a flotilla of military warships departed from the Empire and arrived at the Hourglass Nebula to study the Mass Relay. The investigation confirmed that the Relay was a part of an extensive network that allowed for FTL travel faster than even the Warp Drives.

Several interruptions to the investigation in the form of arriving alien vessels were dealt with quickly or narrowly avoided. Not a single ship was able to send any sort of distress signal, keeping the presence and identity of the Carvins a secret. Aside from the Mass Relay itself, a network of eezo-based comm buoys was discovered. After a careful setup, a listening station was built on one of the deep-space comm buoys, allowing the Empire to eavesdrop on the galaxy-wide network called the Extranet for over 200 years, and acquire information on the existence of the Citadel Council.

2,113 AU (Geth Rebellion): Increased chatter intercepted from the extranet informed the Empire of the rebellion of an AI race called "geth" agains their creators, the "quarians". Despite no evidence to suggest that carvin presence was detected in the extranet, several cybersecurity precautions were taken in order to ensure the safety of the Cyberweb from potential incursions by the AI.

2,145 AU (Awakening of general Seviros): Sensing the potential danger to the Empire in the form of the alien races, a unanimous decision was made by the High General Council to wake up general Seviros from the cryostasis. The veteran general spent the next 15 years acclimatizing to the new reality, and in 2,152, with the establishment of 2 additional Sectors, was offered the post of High General again, which he accepted alongside Tivennia Va'Xuun. His 50,000 cryogenically frozen soldiers were awoken 50 years later, once he ensured that there were institutions in place to allow them to easily reintegrate with the rest of the carvin society.

2,150-2,250 AU (The pre-first contact military expansion): Not wanting to be caught flat footed as during the Grox invasion, the Imperial Armed Forces saw the greatest expansion in its history. The new Relentless-class battleships were designed to match the Destiny Ascension, the flagship of the Citadel, at almost 2 kilometers in length. First sister ships of the class, "Relentless" and "Ruthless" were gifted as flagships to the two new High Generals (Seviros and Tivennia) and 4 more began construction near the second half of 23rd century. Outside of new designs, the Imperial Navy practically doubled in size, with a huge emphasis of patrol and line vessels such as cruisers and frigates. Its Starfighter Corps was also expanded after discovering that traditional eezo-based fighters are capable of FTL speeds, and 12 additional escort carriers were built, with 2 fully fledged battleship-sized carriers commissioned but not completed until 2,300 AU.

Imperial Army tripled the size of its professional cadre, and after the 50,000 veterans of the Grox war were woken up and reintegrated into society, many of them became officers and training instructors for both conscripts and professional recruits. It took the veterans some time to adapt to the new equipment, technology, and protocols, but by 2,250 AU, all of them almost seamlessly blended in with the society and the military.

2,280 AU (Settling the Nemean Abyss): After determining that Nemean Abyss was far beyond any galactic juridiction, as well as far away from all galactic infrastructure aside from its Mass Relays, the High General Council authorized the establishment of several small outposts across the outskirts of the region, far away from the Mass Relays. All alien vessels entering the carvin controlled systems were dispatched before they could report the carvin presence.

2,314 AU (Appearance of humans): Through the eavesdropping on the extranet, the imperial listening post on the comm buoy managed to intercept the news about a short conflict between the Citadel Council and a newly spacefaring species calling themselves "humans". However, an increased extranet activity of the Citadel intelligence services through the comm buoy lane being eavesdropped alerted the Imperial government that the carvins could have been discovered. The eavesdropping facility was to abandon any form of active study of the extranet and limit its activities to a passive listening post.

2,333 AU (Geth attack on the Citadel): After the entire network of the extranet was temporarily disrupted by the attack on the Citadel, Carvin Empire managed to temporarily commence active sweep of the extranet, acquiring the details of the attack easily from the compromised firewalls of the Citadel Database. According to the reports, a rogue Spectre (an elite Council operative) Saren Arterius had instigated the attack with the help of the geth and a massive battleship, larger than even the latest Relentless class.

Visual design of the ship was determined to be inconsistent with the rest of the geth armada. Imperial Bureau of Intelligence stated the lack of connection between the vessel and the Grox fleet, confirming it to be of unknown design and origin.

Human Systems Alliance was granted a seat of the Council for their efforts in saving the Council and destroying the geth flagship. Commander Shepard, an Alliance operative responsible for saving the Council was killed in action the same year by an unidentified vessel that destroyed the operative's command ship: SSV Normandy. However much of the crew survived the attack.

2,334 AU (First Contact with the Council): Possibly due to the activity of the carvin listening post as well as the new security restrictions implemented after the attack on the Citadel, a turian patrol along the comm buoy network near the Hourglass Nebula discovered the carvin instalation and seized it. A rapid response force of the Imperial Navy arrived at the site to drive away the enemy and a small skirmish ensued. However, the High General Council stepped in and ordered the carvin forces to withdraw. Instead an envoy ship was sent with a small team of carvins who studied the language and culture of the Citadel races from the information intercepted from the Extranet.

The envoys had officially announced the existence of the Carvin Empire to the galaxy and had apologized for the incident. Reparations were paid to the turians in resources, and the Empire began the process of integration with the galactic community.

Negotiations began with the Citadel Council to establish a carvin embassy on the Citadel, however the issue remains unresolved. Requests by the Council to have the Empire disarm its fleet and restrict the cybernetic augmentations (that by this point became a significant part of the carvin culture) were refused on the principle of sovereignty of individual civilizations.

Only time will tell how the relations with the Council evolve.

A/N: Phew! A MONTH worth of work finally over (pardon the style change to a more informal one, but I'm quite exhausted)! 27,000 words for God's sake! Also if your naive ass still thinks that every chapter I write on this story will be of similar length, I'm afraid your disappointment will be immeasurable, and your day will be ruined. In all seriousness I'm planning to write chapters between 6 and 9 (haha funny number, isn't it) thousand words, occasionally maybe more.

Before you ask, yes some of that carvin history is filler (I am the first one to concede that I had to fill it with something, and some names are simply arbitrary), but I believe that a lot of what I wrote has a place in the world that I'm trying to build and has a reason to be there. And if you complain that one guy cannot make a comprehensive and convincing history of an entire species spanning a period of 50,000 (human) years without making it feel completely like a cheap rip-off of human history, then I'm sorry but please set your expectations straight. I'm just one guy, and not a super smart one at that.

The fact that this version of the carvins is "nerfed" from what I previously produced should show you that I wasn't very "down to Earth" when I was writing this story for the first time. I hope that this iteration of it will be much better and more readable for an average person past the age of 12.

Now if you managed to reach this part of the chapter and somehow managed to remain interested in whatever's coming out of my retard brain, and maybe even wanting some more, then I have a question just for you. See, I like Shepard. I like the adventures that they go through, and it really doesn't matter to me what sex they are. However, there's the issue of romance that I wish to adapt accordingly.

Realistically, I can write 3 variants of Shepard romance in my story. 1 - A MaleShep x Liara; 2 - A MaleShep x Tali; or 3 - a FemShep x Garrus (I refuse to do any other romance on FemShep. If you think that there's anything better than Shakarian then you are objectively wrong). So if you prefer a specific romance and would like me to choose that one in my story, feel free to post it in your review of this chapter, or simply DM me your opinion. For this first chapter, the placeholder Shepard is male.

The rest of the details for Shepard (and their ME1 choices, since the story starts in 2184-85) will be found in the next chapter. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to fully abandon my dignified and serious persona by sniffing a litre (F*K THE IMPERIAL SYSTEM!) of gasoline to cope with the immense intellectual exhaustion that writing this 27,000 word monstrosity brought upon my sorry ass. Carry on!

Bonker out!