Alech Dominion

The Alech Dominion is a human empire that controls roughly one galaxy with a few tiny outposts in other galaxies. They are an associate state of the CoB, but not a true member.

Despite this, they are currently a fairly minor power in the galactic scheme of things when compared to the civilizations such as the Borealis Confederacy. The Alech Dominion is an offshoot of the Confederacy of Borealis. (See History below.)

Location

The Alech Dominion is on the verge of breaking into Kardashev scale level four in the Saliac galaxy. (NGC 1313) They’ve mostly colonized their own galaxy, but not to the ludicrously overpopulated levels of galaxies like the Milky Way. Their home cluster is labelled the Dominion Stars, (RC 3739-108) and it is home to most of their megastructures and gigantic planet-cities. Their home system is called Borodin, and is a trinary system of 2 Red dwarves and an Orange dwarf, but not a binary of the type one might expect. The red dwarves obit with each other in two quasi-circels, and the orange dwarf orbits with the red dwarves in a highly elliptical shape. Their capital and homeworld is the planet Alech, the fourth planet from the star Borodin A, an Orange dwarf.

Culture/Government

The Alech Dominion is a militaristic democracy. However, its’ democratic ideals rarely stretch beyond holding fair elections. To be sure, the Dominion carries out all of its’ voting fairly, but political/ideological freedom is a gray area in the Dominion. It’s about as common for a peaceful protest to be broken up by force as it is for one to go off without a hitch. The Dominion’s initial reasoning for the restriction of some civil liberties such as freedom of speech and travel came from an outside enemy.

There was a species indigenous to the Saliac galaxy, a hive mind of creatures resembling larger, upright forms of the Terran beetle. They had a firm hold on roughly a third of the galaxy when the Confederacy’s colony fleet, spread across the galaxy and with their intergalactic comms fried because of a serious wormhole fluctuation, arrived in the galaxy. Several of the colony ships happened to land in the Dominion Stars, and the cluster soon became the strongest bastion of human resistance in the Saliac galaxy. (Cont’d in History.) The following long war and isolation caused them to shed some of their more naive democratic ideals in favor of the more cold and pragmatic strategies they required to survive against a far larger foe. Their society has begun to shift back towards total democracy since they gained control of their galaxy, but restoration of all civil liberties is likely a long while off, both because of deeply entrenched tradition and the fact that the Dominion’s days of bloodshed are likely far from over.

As for the militaristic aspect, they have a very large and volunteer only army with the possibility for conscription open in any prolonged combat. They aren’t strong enough to go toe to toe with most intergalactic contenders, but their defensive strategies are among the most advanced and respected in the universe because of their… unique history.

History

As previously stated, the original human colony fleet sent to NGC 1313 in 9973 was scattered at varying speeds, reduced in number, and cut off from calling for help from the wider Confederacy by a large wormhole fluctuation. The reason that the Confederacy had even been able to open a wormhole to the galaxy in the first place before the innovations that made intergalactic wormholes commonplace was a combination of its’ close proximity to the Milky Way and the discovery of a natural but unstable wormhole pair. However, the Confederate scientists jumped the gun when they found the natural pair. They failed to notice a slight deviation in the established pattern of the wormhole’s fluctuation, which was enough for an unexpected wave to decimate and damage the entire fleet. Worse, the wormhole collapsed when the colony fleet exited, locking them far away from the rest of the Confederacy. The remaining colony ships touched down at their intended destinations across the galaxy, but some found their landing sites already inhabited. Those unlucky ships were either blasted out of the skies or overrun shortly after touching down. The indigenous hive-minded aliens of Saliac were not kind to outsiders. A more in-depth analysis of the war against the Saliac aliens can be found in the article, “The Screk War.” The Alech Dominion's capital system of Borodin was found and the planet Alech settled by the CoBS Void Venture in 9973. Since the Dominion’s technical victory, they’ve repopulated their galaxy and rescued the few survivors on other worlds in their galaxy. Because of their long war and exile, they maintain a relatively large military force for a smaller stellar nation because of paranoia. 

Their galaxy has remained neutral in large scale galactic wars because they recognize their weakness. Thusly, their main diplomatic strategy is flying under the radar, so as not to aggravate the stronger powers around them. Recently however, with their first dyson spheres finishing construction, they have begun to establish colonies and outposts on the fringes of nearby galaxies. Whether or not they realize it, they are opening themselves up to attack with these actions. The real question is why. The politicians and commanders of the Dominion have proven highly competent in the past, so it’s unlikely they don't realize that expanding into nearby galaxies could spike tensions. So what, then, would motivate them to take this risk? Are the leaders of the Dominion not their progenitors equals in diplomacy, or are they hiding something they believe too powerful for their enemies to resist?