THE SECOND UNITED KINGDOM OF SOL
A far flung empire of two-thousand suns, the Solar Kingdom is still an infinitesimal spec in the vastness of our galaxy. However the Solar Kingdom is more than just star-fleets and stellar warriors. It is also made up of billions of people, most of them human, many of them not. It is also a place of great change and growth, as its citizens rise phoenix-like from the ashes of a devastating war a generation earlier.
Straddling the great sweep of the Milky Way's Orion arm, the Solar Kingdom lays claim to some fifty light years of territory, yet is ever reaching out with its noble fleets, daring scouts, independent traders, and freelance explorers. Will it survive against a dangerous and hostile universe, not to mention the far more sinister dangers within its own borders?
Only time - and your actions! - will tell.
HISTORY OF THE KINGDOM
The history of the Second United Kingdom of Sol is considered to have begun with what historians now call the Union of Worlds*. The Union, primarily led by the long-lived ælves of Epsilon Eridani, was a loose and peaceful association of sentient species that the ælves had made contact with in the century prior. Focusing mostly on scientific advancement, exchange of knowledge, and mutual cooperation there hadn't been an armed conflict among the Union Worlds in close to three thousand years. Traveling via a gravitic-drive ships that came as close to the speed of light as possible, journeys between worlds still took years... Which was not an insurmountable barrier to these long-lived species. The Union was a prosperous and stable alliance that kept this section of the galaxy at peace for ten millennia.
It was at this time that Union traders first encountered a vicious and extremely xenophobic species who promptly attacked and nearly destroyed the harmless merchant ships they encountered. Traveling via sub-light colony ships in an outwards expansion from Sigma Draconis, the techno-barbarian Orchoth viewed all other species as deadly competitors and immediately set out to eliminate the members of the Union.
The Union, having been at peace for millennia, had no idea how to defend itself against this ruthless foe. In desperation, they decided to look for another species with the necessary skills to fight the invaders. One of the best possibilies lay with a short-lived, warlike hominid species living on one of the Union's ecological preservation worlds. They had been encounted by Union traders more than two-thousand years ago, but deemed too primitive to be brought into the fold. But now the Union was desperate.
And so the Union of Worlds came to Earth.
At that time, humanity was still limited to just their single world. Earth had just achieved nuclear fission and begun to launch crude radio satellites into orbit around their own world, but had fallen into a state of constant national bickering on the break of thermonuclear conflict. It was at this time that the ælves arrived in their sleek, cigar-shaped ships and made an offer to one of the most powerful national groups on the planet, the Commonwealth of Nations and its head, King Edward VIII**. If the Commonwealth would aid them in their battle against the Orchoth invading force, the ælves would provide Earth with Union gravitic technology and starships. Edward VIII met with his American and western European counterparts, but quickly took the ælves up on their offer. The Allies set out to build the most powerful battlefleet the galaxy had ever seen.
For one-hundred years the war waged on, with Human/Union fleets encountering and destroying Orcish invader groups, and the invaders doing vice versa. There were few distinct victories, just grinding, vicious fighting against an enemy too maniacally homicidal to consider making any peace. Eventually, the Union located the nexus point of the raiders' activity and deduced that this must be their homeworld. Unleashing a genocidal "planet killer" bomb (a recent human invention that combined human thermonuclear technology with ævlish magics properly known as the Teller–Ulam-Fëanor Configuration, for its three chief contributors, Edward Teller, Stanislaw Ulam, and Fëanor Curufinwë most people know of it by the ominous nickname: the Sphere of Annihilation ) they eradicated the Orcish fleet yards and killed all but a tiny fraction of the invader race.
Their enemies now eradicated, the humans turned around and announced that they would now be building "The Empire of Humanity."
While it has often been debated as to why the members of the Union raised little or no objection when their erstwhile "allies" established an empire right after the defeat of the Orchoth, it is generally agreed that the next five hundred years was a golden age for humanity. The First United Solar Kingdom, working with the technological knowledge of the Old Union and the unbridled curiosity of Humanity, explored vast new swathes of space, establishing new colonies and discovering new civilizations in what is now known as the Core. The First Kingdom achieved amazing feats of technology - terraforming worlds, creating sold energy forcefields, and mastering advanced teleportation and matter replication technologies. They improved upon the ælves gravitic technology and continued to refine ways to merge magic and machine.
Then, tragically, it all went wrong.
It began when one of the seven great houses that rules the Kingdom fell into dispute with another house concerning the line of succession after the death of Queen Elizabeth IV, childless in 2650. Within months the dispute had escalated to the dissolution of parliament. Then the war-fleets mobilized; a Sphere of Annihilation was dropped on the first rebel house's homeworld, and, in retaliation, four of the remaining houses banded together to launch a surprise attack on Earth itself. Millions died, but all of the opposing houses came to the unspoken mutual agreement that no further planet killers would be used. The Interregnum Wars dragged on with only conventional weapons. When it ended, the Kingdom was decimated. Billions were dead, infrastructure was in shambles. There was no trade. There was no government. What the Orchoth had failed to accomplish in a century, Humanity had done to itself in only a decade.
* The Union of Worlds consisted of the Halflings of Alpha Centauri and 61 Cygni; Dwarves of Alpha Canis Majoris; Gnomes of Alpha Canis Minoris; and the ælves of Epsilon Eridani, Epsilon Indi, and Tau Ceti.
** The ælves found the ideas of representative democracy or collectivist socialism to be tantamount to insanity, having lived for several millennia under their own monarchy. Thus they never understood why the Americans or the Soviets should have been considered "superpowers."
THE PROTECTORATE
In the final years of the Interregnum Wars, a charismatic young knight named Elizabeth Huntingdon rallied a dozen worlds to her banner, forming the Protectorate. Lady Elizabeth served by popular acclaim as the "Lord Protector of the Union of Earth" from 2653 until her death in 2658. One of Lady Elizabeth's first acts in office was the arrest, trial, and execution of the various pretenders to the throne. Efforts by Lady Elizabeth to reform the government along republican lines led to her loss of popular support and a near coup by Parliament. The power of the throne was restored with the coronation of King Charles XX in 2661.
In 2815, the Solar Kingdom again found itself on the brink of civil war, as disputes between the royalist and republican factions in the Colonies lead to a series of skirmishes now known as The Barons' War. The kingdom was at this time ruled by Queen Joan I, the third sovereign in the House Americ dynasty.
Although the Solar Kingdom had a robust administrative system, the nature of government under the Americ Dynasty was ill-defined and uncertain. Joan and her predecessors had ruled using the principle of vis et voluntas, literally "force and will," taking executive and sometimes arbitrary decisions, often justified on the basis that the sovereign was above the law. Many contemporary political scientists believed that the sovereign should rule in accordance with the custom and the law, with the counsel of parliament, but there was no model for what should happen if the crown refused to do so.
The rebel barons took an oath that they would "stand fast for the liberty of the realm", and demanded that the Queen confirm the Charter of Rights that had been declared by Elizabeth Huntingdom in the Interregnum, and which was perceived by the barons of the Colonies to protect their rights. The nobility of the Core and the Homeworlds and the Loyalist Barons that led about a third of the Colonies regarded the Charter of Rights as dangerously democratic and treasonous. The Aesir Church was able to intervein and bring representatives of all factions to the negotiation table.
Carta Liberae Solis (the Charter of Free Suns, commonly called "Carta Solis") was first drafted by the Archbishop of Odin to make peace between the unpopular queen and the rebel baronies. It promised the protection of human rights for humans and aliens, promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to due process of law for all freemen, and placed limitations on the feudal privileges of the Crown.
Carta Solis has become the keystone of the Solar Kingdom's political system and is typically renewed by each monarch, although as time has passed and then fledgling Solar Parliament has grown in power, the charter has lost some of its practical significance. In the present day, it is almost unthinkable that the Crown would act against the unwritten constitution, let alone go so far as to abuse the Carta Solis.
ROUGH TIMELINE
- -8000: Union of Worlds founded.
- 1900: Orc-Union War begins.
- 1935: Æ lves contact United Kingdom
- 2035: Orc-Union War Ends, First Solar Kingdom founded, Homeworlds colonized
- 2500: Core colonized
- 2650: Interegnum Wars begin
- 2661: Interegnum Wars end
- 2800: Colonies colonized
- 2815: The Barons War
- 2900: Border Marches colonized
- 2950: Frontier colonized
- 3021: Present Day
While the Solar Kingdom is an immense sprawl of some 2,000 stars. Yet there are only a few hundred of its star systems that hold habitable worlds. These vital planets are known as the Terrestrial Worlds, due to their resemblance to humanity's cradle of Earth.
Due to the range limitations of hyperspace drives and the lack of reliable FTL communications, the Solar Kingdom has expanded outward in "leaps" roughly ten to twelve lightyears at a time. This settlement pattern has resulted in the Solar Kingdom having five distinct regions: the Homeworlds, the Core, the Colonies, and the Border Marches, and finally the newly opened Frontier.
The seven star systems within 12 light years of Earth are known as the Homeworlds. These systems were the first ones colonized by humanity over a thousand years ago. Second only to Earth itself, they are home to the most important governmental, social, economic, and military structures in the Kingdom.
There are twenty-one systems beyond 12 light years but still within 24 light years of Earth. Known as the Core, each was first colonized by humanity over 500 years ago, collectively they are the "heartland" of the Solar Kingdom.
Next there are the forty systems within 36 light years of Earth. Still known as the Colonies, although each has been settled for over two-hundred years. The civilizations on these worlds are still hungry and growing, usually only home to a few hundred-thousand to maybe a million people... on planets that could easily sustain billions.
Up to 48 light years from Earth, we find the sixty star systems known as the Border Marches. At this distance, communication with Earth becomes unreliable at best and impossible at times. These are sparsely populated worlds, civilized for less than a century.
Humanity has yet to push out beyond 50 light years from Earth. A dozen star systems with terrestrial worlds have been found in the Frontier. Only the most stubbornly independent of homesteaders and foolhardy explorers have come to call these worlds home.
THE ARITSTOCRACY OF THE SOLAR KINGDOM
The Solar Kingdom is a semi-feudal constitutional monarchy. All executive power rests with the sovereign, who in turn, bestows that a limited portion of that power on members of the peerage and the chivalric orders. Titles of peerage are hereditary, although the titles of baron and below can be created (and retired) by the Sovereign at will.
The ranks of Peerage and their order of precedence are Duke, Marquess, Earl, Count, Baron, and Viscount; the ranks of Chivalry are baronet, knight, and esquire.
The titles of Count and Viscount are reserved for demihumans whose domains are primarily populated by demihumans. Although for almost all intents are purposes a Count and an Earl or a Viscount and a Baron are of equal rank, when the two interact socially the demihuman title falls behind the human title in order of precedence.
Persons related by blood to the sovereign hold ranks of Nobility. The specific order of precedence for members of the royal family is a complex affair, the specific rules of which are beyond the scope of this document (and not terribly likely to matter in a game session). Generally, it is enough to know that the order of precedence is the Sovereign, the Sovereign's consort, the Sovereign's eldest child, and then the rest of the Sovereign's children, siblings, uncles and aunts, and cousins. Many members of the royal family also hold ranks of peerage and for more distant family member, their title as peer often takes precedence over their noble title.
The current (as of 3021) immediate members of the royal family are:
- King Henry XII (the sovereign)
- Queen Renate (the king's second wife)
- Arthur, Prince of Luna (the king's eldest son and heir apparent)
- Trude, Duchess of Venus (the king's daughter-in-law)
- Dagny, Duke of Mars (the king's son)
- Torhild, Duchess of Saturn (the king's daughter)
L to R: Trude, Prince Arthur, Prince Dagny, King Henry XII, Queen Renate, Torhild