Post by Kenoshi on Jul 12, 2009 0:58:04 GMT -5
Preface:
The Tairez War was an event that left a significant mark on known space. Though it occurred ten years ago, its scars still run deep on many worlds. A sudden invasion by a frighteningly powerful naval force, wielding advanced technology, causing widespread death and destruction. Strangely enough, they were human, though they claimed to represent a galaxy-spanning empire far older than any other civilization. Their goal was one of conquest, utter dominion over all other worlds, and the enslavement of all other life. An alliance of Confed, Selven, and Talosian forces managed to break their assault and drive them away. The war was suddenly over without a word as to explain why.
They had left as quickly as they had arrived. The amount of information available on the Tairez has been frustratingly sparse, and only through a painstakingly slow process of research across many different civilizations has any information about them been found.
What is known is that the Tairez are human. Any bodies retrieved in the course of the war revealed a genetic profile that originates on Earth. Yet the technology that they possessed....advanced energy weapons, shield technology, highly precise, long range jump drives....these could not have originated from any offshoot of the Confed. No other civilization known could have provided that technology to them, let alone having a reason to do so. And there is no indication of a system of origin for their war machine. They had Jumped in from somewhere very distant, and then returned to that place, leaving no possible means of tracking them. Somewhere far more remote than any know colony created by humanity. So there must be something to the claims of the few Tairez ambassadors who had been send out to offer the conditions of surrender that they would accept.
The Legend:
According to their own accounts, the Tairez Empire began over 250,000 years ago, in a distant galaxy. They had grown to immense power over the millennia, controlling millions of inhabited systems. They had technologies that could shape worlds and destroy suns. They had found ways to cross into other planes of existence and, by their heroic accounts, had even challenged the gods themselves.
But then they had challenged something that was too great for even their military might, and their vast civilization simply vanished. All that remained of them were scattered ruins, and colonies that they had seeded on many worlds, having gone back to the stone age after losing touch with the Empire. Earth having been one of those colonies, so they tell.
The Recent History:
A group of humans, led by a charismatic leader, left the Earth in 2189, on a pilgrimage to a distant star, far beyond the charted boundaries of Confed space, following a vision that the leader had in a dream. Orbiting that star they found a desolate planet, upon which they built a settlement, and subsequently discovered ancient ruins, dating back thousands of years. Amidst those ruins they found a thick metal tablet engraved in alien symbols. Examining the tablet, the leader activated it and a holographic image appeared to them, in the form of a human: the avatar of a complex AI that was built into the tablet. It told him and his people of the Tairez empire, and that they were all that remained of it. It told him that they had a birthright to reclaim, to restore humanity to its former purity and greatness. The leader and his people's visions had been rewarded beyond their wildest imagination....they followed the tablet's instructions, and began the process of rebuilding a lost civilization.
In the decades that followed the humans assumed the title of the Tairez, and they used the instructions in the tablet to recreate some of the advanced technology that their ancestors once possessed, and they built a Utopian society, spanning several systems. They perfected themselves bodily, modifying their genes to eliminate hereditary diseases and other signs of imperfection, bringing to reality their idealized concept of what it means to be human. All that was left was to prove their might to the rest of humanity, which they viewed as debased and ignorant. They despised recoms, seeing them as corruptions of human genetic purity, only fit to be enslaved or purged, and even more so they hated alien species, seeing them as rivals to be conquered. And so they set about planning an invasion of Confed space and the surrounding territories.
The Facts:
What has been observed of the Tairez is that while their technology is impressive, their tactics are poor. They attack with overwhelming force, and cause indiscriminate damage to entire planets in an attempt to shock their opponents into submission, but they lack much planning beyond that. Their ships were too few to really occupy anything that they conquered, and while they favored fighting in space, they showed little imagination in how they conducted ship-to-ship battles, relying heavily on automated drones to do the fighting for them, and showing signs of confusion when their efforts were thwarted. They had an expectation of winning, almost a sense of being destined to win, and they weren't prepared to deal with the possibility of being defeated. So they withdrew in confusion.
This sheds a light upon the realities of Tairez society: a decadent, imperialistic culture convinced of its own inherent superiority, believing itself to be an extension of a great civilization that existed thousands of years ago, but lacking much of a plan of how to resurrect that civilization beyond having faith that things will just work out in their favor.
The rare visitors to Tairez cities have brought back accounts of gleaming cities with near-impossible architecture, achingly beautiful works of art, largely automated so its citizens can go about lives of ease. The average Tairez is beautiful and in remarkable health, usually quite long-lived, and occupy themselves in artistic pursuits. Other species can be found in their cities as slaves; the practice of slavery being seen as a sign of the superiority of the Tairez. Most curious is the extent to which the Tairez are dependent on artificial intelligence to guide them. Just as the tablet guided their recent ancestors to rebuild their civilization, the ever-present AI counsels the Tairez in nearly all their affairs, from government to private life. It is quite possible that the AI had suggested the invasion of Confed space, for reasons only known to it.
The Tairez War was an event that left a significant mark on known space. Though it occurred ten years ago, its scars still run deep on many worlds. A sudden invasion by a frighteningly powerful naval force, wielding advanced technology, causing widespread death and destruction. Strangely enough, they were human, though they claimed to represent a galaxy-spanning empire far older than any other civilization. Their goal was one of conquest, utter dominion over all other worlds, and the enslavement of all other life. An alliance of Confed, Selven, and Talosian forces managed to break their assault and drive them away. The war was suddenly over without a word as to explain why.
They had left as quickly as they had arrived. The amount of information available on the Tairez has been frustratingly sparse, and only through a painstakingly slow process of research across many different civilizations has any information about them been found.
What is known is that the Tairez are human. Any bodies retrieved in the course of the war revealed a genetic profile that originates on Earth. Yet the technology that they possessed....advanced energy weapons, shield technology, highly precise, long range jump drives....these could not have originated from any offshoot of the Confed. No other civilization known could have provided that technology to them, let alone having a reason to do so. And there is no indication of a system of origin for their war machine. They had Jumped in from somewhere very distant, and then returned to that place, leaving no possible means of tracking them. Somewhere far more remote than any know colony created by humanity. So there must be something to the claims of the few Tairez ambassadors who had been send out to offer the conditions of surrender that they would accept.
The Legend:
According to their own accounts, the Tairez Empire began over 250,000 years ago, in a distant galaxy. They had grown to immense power over the millennia, controlling millions of inhabited systems. They had technologies that could shape worlds and destroy suns. They had found ways to cross into other planes of existence and, by their heroic accounts, had even challenged the gods themselves.
But then they had challenged something that was too great for even their military might, and their vast civilization simply vanished. All that remained of them were scattered ruins, and colonies that they had seeded on many worlds, having gone back to the stone age after losing touch with the Empire. Earth having been one of those colonies, so they tell.
The Recent History:
A group of humans, led by a charismatic leader, left the Earth in 2189, on a pilgrimage to a distant star, far beyond the charted boundaries of Confed space, following a vision that the leader had in a dream. Orbiting that star they found a desolate planet, upon which they built a settlement, and subsequently discovered ancient ruins, dating back thousands of years. Amidst those ruins they found a thick metal tablet engraved in alien symbols. Examining the tablet, the leader activated it and a holographic image appeared to them, in the form of a human: the avatar of a complex AI that was built into the tablet. It told him and his people of the Tairez empire, and that they were all that remained of it. It told him that they had a birthright to reclaim, to restore humanity to its former purity and greatness. The leader and his people's visions had been rewarded beyond their wildest imagination....they followed the tablet's instructions, and began the process of rebuilding a lost civilization.
In the decades that followed the humans assumed the title of the Tairez, and they used the instructions in the tablet to recreate some of the advanced technology that their ancestors once possessed, and they built a Utopian society, spanning several systems. They perfected themselves bodily, modifying their genes to eliminate hereditary diseases and other signs of imperfection, bringing to reality their idealized concept of what it means to be human. All that was left was to prove their might to the rest of humanity, which they viewed as debased and ignorant. They despised recoms, seeing them as corruptions of human genetic purity, only fit to be enslaved or purged, and even more so they hated alien species, seeing them as rivals to be conquered. And so they set about planning an invasion of Confed space and the surrounding territories.
The Facts:
What has been observed of the Tairez is that while their technology is impressive, their tactics are poor. They attack with overwhelming force, and cause indiscriminate damage to entire planets in an attempt to shock their opponents into submission, but they lack much planning beyond that. Their ships were too few to really occupy anything that they conquered, and while they favored fighting in space, they showed little imagination in how they conducted ship-to-ship battles, relying heavily on automated drones to do the fighting for them, and showing signs of confusion when their efforts were thwarted. They had an expectation of winning, almost a sense of being destined to win, and they weren't prepared to deal with the possibility of being defeated. So they withdrew in confusion.
This sheds a light upon the realities of Tairez society: a decadent, imperialistic culture convinced of its own inherent superiority, believing itself to be an extension of a great civilization that existed thousands of years ago, but lacking much of a plan of how to resurrect that civilization beyond having faith that things will just work out in their favor.
The rare visitors to Tairez cities have brought back accounts of gleaming cities with near-impossible architecture, achingly beautiful works of art, largely automated so its citizens can go about lives of ease. The average Tairez is beautiful and in remarkable health, usually quite long-lived, and occupy themselves in artistic pursuits. Other species can be found in their cities as slaves; the practice of slavery being seen as a sign of the superiority of the Tairez. Most curious is the extent to which the Tairez are dependent on artificial intelligence to guide them. Just as the tablet guided their recent ancestors to rebuild their civilization, the ever-present AI counsels the Tairez in nearly all their affairs, from government to private life. It is quite possible that the AI had suggested the invasion of Confed space, for reasons only known to it.