Sagittarium

"A symbol of unity for all the live in the core, the brightest object in the entire galaxy... Ironic considering it is a black hole, but brightest nonetheless. In the night sky of all planets privileged to be under the control of our nation, and in many of their skies during the day, its brilliance shows through. Truly, no nation could ask for a better symbol of unity." -First General Lexus Castillo, 21007

Template:True Nation InfoboxSagittarium (Demonym, Sagittarian) is a fairly large state within the Milky Way Core. While originally having a human majority, the nation has since become one of the most diverse nations in the galaxy, with no one species clearly ahead in population figures. The core itself is almost entirely occupied by the nation, almost 10 billion stars make up this nation, making it a Kardashev III civilization, one of many in the Milky Way Galaxy. Sagittarium is one of the most populace nations within the Confederacy of Borealis, and is the second largest in terms of area. The capital of the nation is Thalia, a planet numbering in the top twenty most populous planets.

Sagittarium was the first modern nation to colonize Sagittarius A*, the central black hole of the Milky Way. The nation was founded in 20567 CE by Klein Vay during the Split of the Lactean Confederacy, a time of chaos in the Milky Way. It was founded as a means to reinstate order to the then chaotic Milky Way Galaxy. In its crusade for order, the state became totalitarian, regularly reeducating and quite often times killing dissenters. The relative freedom enjoyed by those of the former LaC was widely terminated by the government in favor of radical devotion to the government.

During this period, Sagittarium was the largest and most powerful great power in the Milky Way. Its influence extended many kilo-light-years around its literal and political center, Sagittarius A*. When the Confederacy of Borealis was founded, it could hardly hold a candle to the energy available to Sagittarium.

In the 32nd millennia, the death of Vay caused a succession crisis. In the same year, The Ekrosian Guardians began their crusade, destroying everything in their path to the center of the galaxy. Felix Adebayo, a prominent general within the nation took power and became the successor to Vay. Adebayo was able to organize the offensive against the Guardians, allowing for the nation to stop and even push back the Guardians, a feat in and of itself. With the Confederacy of Borealis gaining great power after absorbing the majority of other nations in the galaxy, the power and prestige of Sagittarium slowly began eroding as foreign companies, individuals, and policy began affecting the once incredibly isolationist state.

An expensive conflict in the Occult Galaxy marked the beginning of the end of the nation's golden age. Already declining, they decided to invest huge sums of money and resources into keeping the fairly large galaxy under its influence. An economic crash during the invasion, felt across the wider galaxy, hit it especially hard. The Sagittarian government, with debt larger than its entire gross domestic product, withdrew from the conflict, leaving its largest trading partner in shambles. It could do little to aid the struggling economy, and continued dwindling even as the rest of the galaxy recovered.

Widespread protest from many non-humans across the region, starting in the late 41,000's tested how the nation would respond to internal instability. It fared poorly, using lethal weapons on crowds was the worst possible move and the nation saw extreme sanctions. The Chancellor at the time, Eris Sailem, stepped down amongst pressures to reform the authoritarian state. A decently functional democracy was established, just democratic enough to permit entry into the Confederacy of Borealis, the only way the new government believed would aid the struggling economy.

To this day, ghosts of its authoritarian past haunt Sagittarium. Many presidents have been corrupt and it has one of the lowest democracy scores in the Confederacy. The nation is permitted to remain in the Confederacy due to the huge value of Sagittarius A* as an energy source as well as its undeniably large economic output.

History

Background

Before the formation of Sagittarium, the core of the Milky Way was largely empty. Planets were far more likely to be ejected from their systems and supernovae were more common, leading to the core having far less life for having far more stars than the rest of the galaxy.

Until the 25th millenium, the distance to the core was too great for most civilizations to consider colonizing it. Much easier energy sources were available. They planned to wait for FTL technology to advance to the point of allowing easier travel to the area. As it stood, it took several hundred years to get to the area, the density of the stars made colonization even harder, as terraforming planets required moving hundreds of stars into new locations.

The Lactean Confederacy was the first to land ships in the area. They chose a fairly stable system, home to the then unnamed planet Thalia and set up a military base on it. The base was used to aid the construction of a means to gather power from Sagittarius A*. This base and construction project were mostly to solidify its claims over the core rather than actually defend it. During the the War of the Decamillennial Transition, it was reinforced several times, but remained a minor base as few believed it to be worth to attack the entirely undeveloped core.

Early History

With the collapse of the Lactean Confederacy (LaC) came a power vacuum within the galaxy. Nature abhors a vacuum and the former remains of the LaC soon filled with hundreds of thousands of nations, fiefs, and organizations vying to shape the galaxy into their own image. The federal government of the LaC left behind the resources of largest recorded military in history. Most soldiers deserted the day the government collapsed. What remained of the chain of command became little more than stubborn troops and a handful of generals that refused to accept that their nation was destroyed.

Among these generals was Klein Vay. He, however, was fully aware that no amount of fighting would bring back the LaC. He wished to establish a new nation, a fundamentally different one. With a large number of soldiers still following his orders, he managed to secure a handful of planets somewhat near to Earth. From there, he attacked the more brutal warlords or dictators scattered throughout the galaxy, giving the people a relatively free life. This carried on from 20387 to 20650, when the focus shifted from taking planets one at a time to taking far more valuable targets. After several months of deliberation, it was decided that there were no location more valuable than the center of the Milky Way. The large amount of energy that can be extracted from this black hole made it ideal for colonization.

All the citizens of the planets were given a choice. This choice was to abandon their home worlds and board a stolen colony ship or to be left behind on a derelict world stripped of its resources to fuel the fleet. They were essentially forced to accompany Vay to the core. This is when the nation first declared itself to be "Sagittarium." Vay, instead of continuing as the Grand General, became the first Chancellor of Sagittarium.

Voyage to the Core

Being empty of civilization as most cores are, the main challenge to overcome was defeating the remnant of the Lactean Federal government within the core. There was nothing particularly challenging about venturing to the core itself.

With one of the largest and most advanced fleets in the galaxy, the newly formed Sagittarium began to make its way towards Sagittarius A*. This fleet consisted of ten mega-freighters converted into ark-ships each able to hold several billion in stasis, three hundred battleships also containing people in stasis, over one hundred thousand corvettes, and over ten million fighters. The journey took almost 200 years of nigh continuous travel. Most of the crew and passengers remained in suspended animation, with only a handful of officers and the Chancellor being awake during the trip. The long voyage was uneventful. Most systems on the ships were automated, so the chances of a coup or mutiny were almost none.

The True Establishment of Sagittarium

The remnant of the Lactean Federal military was split from the rest of the nation by centuries of light-lag. Their only wormhole, leading to Aeros, was destroyed, leaving them stranded. The soldiers were entirely unaware of the chaos taking place and decided to wait for the wormhole to be repaired. When the large fleet of Vay arrived, rather than a fight like he expected, they embraced his return. He had the vast number of people awoken slowly, only as fast as habitation could be built for them. As soon as he arrived, he became the de facto leader by virtue of his eloquence alone. He had the original general presiding over Sagittarius A* become his second in command. Shortly thereafter, construction resumed on the Sagittarius Space Station, picking up where the Lactean Confederacy left off.

Expansion

With access to the most massive object for millions of light years in any direction, Sagittarium wasted no time taking advantage of this. The large power output of the black hole was used to star lift all the nearby stars. Truly massive beams of energy were fired from the black hole (taking several years to hit their targets). Once they did, the matter of collecting the materials was simple. Star lifting, a process usually taking many decades, took mere weeks with this huge, and cheap, energy source.

The people soon began expanding from the center. Soon, they occupied several hundred stars. While there are no official records of this occurring, it would be impossible to populate these stars without some use of cloning. This cloning allowed the population to jump to several trillion within a century. Whole planets would have needed to have been occupied by facilities to create so many clones.

In what was first an effort to expedite population growth, billions of androids, named Thalians, were created. The government soon realized the potential of these beings and took care to make them blend in to society perfectly. Most Thalians were entirely unaware of their identity as machines, and their mostly biological flesh gave the illusion of being alive. The government altered their subconscious to be eternally loyal to the state. They were designed to be nationalists, thereby encouraging the rest of the population to be the same. These were an almost entirely synthetic machine designed to insight loyalty in the population. They influenced the population subtly, creating a nation of fanatics without the relatively costly manipulation via drugs and nanites other polities have tried in the past.

From Thalia, trillions of individuals went to colonize the core. These individuals crewed ships and terraformed worlds. In 21107, the capital of Sagittarium was moved to the station itself from Thalia. After another 250 years, the population had exploded after the presumably cloned humans were able to have children of their own. What went from a small colony around the central black hole exploded into one of the most powerful empires of the galaxy. The large power of the central black hole was not only enough to tear apart every star for several light years for materials. The raw mass available to the empire rivaled nations thousands of years older than it.

Zenith

The nation reached its most powerful (relative to the other nations in the galaxy) in 21732 CE. It occupied almost one percent of the stars in the core while having power consumption equal to 1% of the total stars in the galaxy. They were striving to become a Kardeshev III civilization. The nation was truly a power to contend with. It offered the same stability the LaC did, except they were far more open about their imperialism. The energy Sagittarium had at its disposal made it a force to be reckoned with.

Unlike most of the other nations within the Milky Way at the time, Vay never had Sagittarium form alliances. This was not a foolish strategy, rather, it served to advance the idea that Sagittarium was the most powerful nation in the galaxy with no need for alliances. Weak allies drag a nation down and, in a galaxy where no nations rivaled it, all allies were weak. Various treaties were signed, however. They were mostly designed to secure access to lucrative trade deals which would further the strength of Sagittarium. Despite being an empire, there were thousands of state-owned corporations created to serve the interest of the state first and deliver profit second. These corporations were some of the largest in the galaxy at the time. CloseSpace Corp was the most extensive of these businesses, operating in several thousand nations selling weapons slightly inferior to the weapons produced for the Sagittarian military.

The nation was often seen as a liberating force when it conquered nations smaller than it, and, for the most part, it was. For the humans absorbed into their extensive empire, quality of life almost always improved as order was returned to their lives. For nonhumans, one would expect them to be drafted into the military according to their abilities. Stronger species would make better soldiers while the more intelligent ones would make better researchers. The racist dogma of Vay ended up causing aliens to be viewed as "useful" rather than inferior, often landing them better-payed positions, albeit with much less freedom that what was afforded to the average human.

Shifting Galactic Landscape

While Sagittarium absolutely dominated the politics of the Milky Way, behaving as the astropolitical and literal center of the galaxy, it struggled to gain influence far beyond Via Lactea. The few campaigns against satellite galaxies ended in failure for the nation, causing some of the few defeats it has ever experienced. Even the edges of the Milky Way were areas it had trouble influencing. Really, its sphere of influence extended only two to three kilo-light-years around the core (while not directly controlling this area, it had large influence there). Polities outside of this area, while most certainly conscious of Sagittarium in their foreign policy, were much harder to exert influence over.

The Tenth Lactean Congress, a coalition of hundreds of states and organizations, in particular was problematic for Sagittarium. Despite controlling less than a per mille of the energy of Sagittarium, the Congress time and again proved to seed resistance to its hegemony in the galaxy. Its abilities to spread democracy, its mobile nature (rarely convening in the same place), and its abilities to garner support among the common people were unparalleled. This and it tended to receive generous support from the few nations large enough to rival Sagittarium such as Cassiopeia Consortium and The Diunity of Fornax. The latter of this pair was especially generous, using the Congress for its own ends.

Vay's Death

Sagittarium continued its expansion, attempting several dozen times to gain influence in a satellite galaxy. Despite being the most powerful polity in the galaxy, each and every attempt ended in failure. Vay grew more and more frustrated with his general's incompetence, going as far as to fire his generals and lead the campaign against Sextans I himself. Leaving a specially designed Thalian to rule the nation in his place, he departed to Sextans I. With his ability to more easily understand the situation at hand than any of his generals, his armies began routing their foes. The Octet and their forces fell before the now much more strategic forces of Sagittarium.

Unknown to anyone in the Milky Way, the warfare disturbed members of the Pestelentia Family, a classification of organisms capable of interstellar flight. Similar to Von Neumann Probes, these creatures self-replicated with the material at hand. One of the more aggressive species, The Pestilence, would cause a disaster for the nation. Drawn to the warp bubbles of Sagittarium's ships like moths to a flame, they soon swarmed the ships once they got close to their habitat. At first, there were few, but they began increasing in commonality. Vay ordered the ships to reverse in course, but by the time they entered the habitat, it was far too late. They began eating away at the hulls of Vay's ships. Quadrillions of them slowly "bit" tiny pieces of the ships away. Cut off from the outside, those inside the ships died to air-leakage, starvation, or directly to Pestilence individuals that managed to board the ships. It was unknown how exactly Vay died, as the entirety of the fleet was consumed. His death, in 31431 CE, marked an end of an era.

Succession Crisis

Vay, having lived for so long already, was seen in a similar way as one would see a law of the universe, permanent and unchanging. His death sent waves throughout not just Sagittarium, but also the wider galaxy as a whole. The Founder's Council, as the highest council in the nation was known, was divided in how to address the issue. Since they were more than capable of carrying on running the nation as they had, half of the council decided they did not need another Chancellor. The other half believed that Vay was more than a leader, but a symbol of unity, necessary for the nation to continue as it has. Normally, the Chancellor would break ties in the council, so they ended up setting the issue to the side to focus more on running the country.

Many potential replacements, from both in the Founder's Council and outside of it began trying to gain support, mostly from generals and other powerful individuals. When one candidate was found to have paid for the assassination of another, everyone involved in the assassination were executed. The Council immediately voted to take the issue back on and appoint a new Chancellor. All of this, of course, was kept secret from the wider populace. They were still under the impression that Vay was in the Sextans I galaxy valiantly fighting to conquer it.

Debate again gripped the Council. Some switched sides, but they were still divided. In the end, they voted to enter a "state of observation" in which they would pay attention to all of the most likely candidates to the position and determine if any were worthy. They were intentionally vague as to make sure none of the candidates would try cheating.

The Ekrosian Crusade

Main Article: The Ekrosian Guardians

In the midst of the decision to observe, the most recent of the Ekrosian Crusades began. A time in which sextillions of machines, lifeforms, and other entities flood out of the Sheol Galaxy, usually heading for a large black hole or significant body. The previous crusade targeted the Fluorescence Galaxy, with this one targeting Sagittarius A* in particular. The Founder's Council voted to take no action, instead seeing which individual would step up to defeat the Ekrosians.

The lack of direction from the Council, while intentional, still caused great difficulty for the military. To coordinate offenses, generals often waited for insight from the Council or just managed everything they could in their own sectors. Felix Abedayo, one of the leading generals in the military at the time, grew frustrated with the Council's inaction. After determining the council must have been doing this intentionally, he immediately had his fleet enter the capital on "official business." He looked directly into a camera he knew the council was viewing as he delivered a speech to his troops and the citizens of Sagittarium. In this speech, Abedayo declared that the leaders of Sagittarium were incompetent and, effective today, he would be the one in control. He referred to himself as "Chancellor Abedayo," cementing his claim to the position.

This declaration caused the people to immediately start calling him "Chancellor" as well. All the troops in the nation also believed him. This statement, backed in little more than having the courage to say it, made him the next chancellor in the eyes of all. He issued orders to the generals, making sure to imitate his predecessor. The generals agreed to follow these orders with little hesitation. The might of Sagittarium returned with startling efficiency, reducing most of the guardians, physical or otherwise, to dust.

After the end of the campaign, Abedayo entered the council room, having ordered the guards to let him through. Everyone believed he was Chancellor, making him the Chancellor, even without official validation of any kind. Unanimously, the council voted to make Abedayo the next leader of Sagittarium for the sake of peace.

Abedayo's Rule

With power solidified in his hands, he had Sagittarium start their first successful campaign into a Dwarf Galaxy, the Sheol Galaxy itself. The guardians were nowhere to be found. Where researchers predicted there would be large numbers of guardians, there were none. Instead, the only significant entity in the galaxy was the nation Rendell. Abedayo had the capital world bombarded, other major worlds invaded, and already occupied most of the nation before the government of Rendell even realized they were at war.

The nation experienced a time of peace after this. Abedayo, just as his predecessor, was heavy-handed in the way things were ran. Many people in and around Sagittarium disappeared for weeks only to have their disappearances ruled as a "suicide." One of the most common ways to dispose bodies was to use them as mass to feed Sagittarius A*, turning dangerous or disagreeable individuals into most of their mass-energy. Sagittarium's population was still increasing at large rates, indirectly causing thousands of bodies to end up disposed in this manner.

In the Carina Dwarf Galaxy, Sagittarium's new colony, they quickly moved various black holes and stars into Carina's own central black hole, releasing huge amounts of energy. This energy was harvested to fuel colonization efforts. Wasting no time at all, the Sagittarian government paid trillions to relocate to the small galaxy with the goal of outnumbering the natives starting in 31794. The Confederacy of Borealis placed sanctions on the nation and publicly denounced the actions, expecting that to actually be enough to protect the natives. Another relatively nearby nation, Drusida, became a large trading partner with Sagittarium, allowing it to not even need trade with the CoB to begin with.

Decline

Despite the expansion of both economic and political influence, the nation was struggling to keep up with the Confederacy of Borealis. By the time Abedayo's rule ended, the Confederacy had an economy over twice as large as Sagittarium's. The next leader, Satella Laghari, saw further decline, pushing the nation far behind the Confederacy, especially after The Empyrean joined in 36812. As the nation fell from relative grace, it still saw large gains in power. It solidified control over Sheol and even gained small holdings in the Telusian Group with the help of Drusidia. This decline was merely a shift of relative power, it was by no means not a prosperous time for the nation.

Economic Struggle

The Drusidian Collapse

Main Article: The Drusidian Collapse

In 39,081, the largest and most important trading partner of Sagittarium collapsed. Drusidia, having lost control over most of the Duchies it had set up, Drusidia became only a small section of the Occult Galaxy where it resided. In the Milky Way, this caused little issue for all nations except Sagittarium. It's economy was hit hard by the loss of its trade partner. The Sagittarian government decided it would be more beneficial overall to intervene in the Collapse and make sure the Neo-Terrans would remain able to trade with them.

What followed was a millennia-long intervention originally estimated to only have only lasted a few decades. The intervention, while, at first, artificially stimulated the economy, had began to drain the resources of the government. Resources meant for infrastructure had to be diverted to the conflict, further harming the economy of Sagittarium. While the government was more than capable of helping the economy recover from normal economic hardships, the large number of factors made this recession the largest the nation had ever faced. The Drusidian Collapse was not just a collapse of the unity of the Occult Galaxy, it was the collapse of any claim that Sagittarium had as an economic power.

Continued Downturn

By 40,000, the government seized the assets of most corporations within its borders. The state-capitalist model they were employing was not working to fix the economy. A socialist approach was taken instead. While resources were mostly managed by AI, minimizing losses and shortages, this was the last strike against the nation as anything resembling an economic power. Its economy effectively at zero, the nation's military technology slowly fell behind that of the nations around it, despite huge effort into its advancement.

In the early 41000's, the cognitive dissonance of the people believing Sagittarium was the best nation in the galaxy while also seeing the decline caused many to begin to protest. Never before has a protest occurred in the nation, so the government was quick to use lethal weapons on crowds in an attempt to make them disperse. All this did was make many more believe the government was hiding something. Information about the protest and the government's response ended up leaking to the wider galaxy. The sanctions that were just recently lifted were put back in place, destroying any prospect of returning to a capitalist society. In the midst of the fallout, the Chancellor, Eris Sailem, stepped down and urged other "less prominent" leaders, referring to the Founder's Council, to do the same. When they did, the nation was essentially dead.

An emergency Council was formed in the aftermath, mostly made up of generals, and Sagittarium temporarily became a Junta state. In this time, they tracked down all the former leaders and forced them to ratify a constitution. The constitution would create a mostly democratic government (described below) designed to alleviate the civil unrest experienced across Sagittarium.

Democratization

The nation became semi-democratic in 41057, when the constitution was ratified and the first elections took place. Many positions were filled with members of the Founder's Council, mostly advisory positions and as the head of some of the largest bureaus. Many of the Thalians were "freed" allowed to form their own opinions for the first time. Sagittarium was the only nation in the galaxy to give full and equal rights to sapient machines (separated from any direct access to a network of course). They also gave Thalians the right to procreate, allowing couples to adopt human or newly created Thalians.

Some of the more brutal leaders were "banished" to Sheol, which really meant that they just became government officials there. Sheol was given more independence as the historical treatment of its natives was questionable at best. Every state corporation was sold to competitors outside of the country in an attempt to integrate economies. In the rare act of genuinely putting the people of the country first, it was made illegal for the state to use corporations in the way that it had. This was all in an attempt to save face with the wider galactic community, with the end goal of joining the Confederacy of Borealis.

Joining the CoB

In 41184, the nation joined the Confederacy of Borealis and later in that same year, its colonies were made into independent nations which also joined. The economic boom caused by this was as of yet unseen in the nation. Now that it was moderately stable and open to trade, foreign investment poured into the relatively young economy. Many of its still vast military assets were sold, with the rest updated using grants from the Confederate government. The goal of the CoB in allowing them to join was to integrate the nation as quickly as possible.

Its relatively lax laws concerning the creation of androids and its insistence on android rights caused trillions of androids to immigrate to the country seeking amnesty. Large numbers of them still existed in the galaxy from before the strict laws were put in place. Rather than turn themselves in and risk deactivation, they pooled funds and purchased ships to venture to Sagittarium themselves.

With Sagittarium joining, the CoB had influence over 90% of the Milky Way itself and influence over most of the Dwarfs orbiting it. At the same time as Sagittarium joined, focus slowly shifted to politics in the area immediately around the Milky Way to outside it. There were thousands of nations in the local group alone. In the whole local universe there were likely hundreds of thousands.