IMPORTANT NOTE: This article and timeline are outdated and being rewritten/reworked. See the new WIP version here.
| Kingdom of Kaywell | ||||||
| Nairahak gn Kaywell | ||||||
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| Motto "For the everlasting glory of Uingffh!" Other traditional mottos:
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| Anthem Naitahlawulak gn Uingffhaestia "Uingffhian Glory" | ||||||
 Uingffh, capital world and homeworld of the Kingdom of Kaywell
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 Diagram of the Ingffhaestian System, capital system and home system of the Kingdom of Kaywell
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| Capital | Korroway, Uingffh, Ingffhaestian System | |||||
| Largest city | Golorropolis, Golorra, Tayloron System | |||||
| Official languages | Golagat | |||||
| Ethnic groups | Tabulons (Kaywellian, Jebellian, Nerusgan, Osuwan, Kelargan, Barian, Uopian, Liyrian, Flornelian, Bagyan, Uveerian, Morbidian), Lortei, Mordions, Ophisians, Yangteonians, Kalaians, Nera Nelinians, Danulians, Krybolartarian Lizards, Squirmlians, Ferans, Floranias, Cergals, Sheepillies, Zanthens, Jasperions, Finolians, Tertanians, Xymethystas | |||||
| Demonym | Kaywellian, tabulon | |||||
| Religion |
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| Government |
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| Highmost Ring | Shol Gregrox Kaywell | |||||
| Highmost Admiral | Urlum Eudae Kaywell | |||||
| Legislature |
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| - | Upper house | Imperial House of the Affluent | ||||
| - | Lower house | Imperial House of the Lower | ||||
| History | ||||||
| - | Unification of Kaywell | November 14, 1150 | ||||
| - | First Age of Imperium | 1400-1700 | ||||
| - | Age of Reform | 1700-1900 | ||||
| - | Modern Era | 1900-2045 | ||||
| - | Second Age of Imperium | 2045-2080 | ||||
| - | Second Apocalix | November 14, 2080 | ||||
| - | Imperialization | 2080-2092 | ||||
| - | Interstellar Age of Imperium | 2092-2199 | ||||
| - | Kaywell-Tellurius War | 2125 | ||||
| - | Fortunato's Rebellion, Third Apocalix, and Garmageddonist Insurrection | 2199 | ||||
| Population | ||||||
| - | 6.82 trillion | |||||
| GDP (nominal) | 2199 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | 1.315 quintillion imperial sters | ||||
| - | Per capita | 192,815.25 imperial sters | ||||
| Currency | Imperial sters | |||||
| Drives on the | Right | |||||
The Kingdom of Kaywell, sometimes referred to as the Empire of Kaywell, the Imperial Kingdom of Kaywell, the Uingffhian Empire, the Uingffhian Star Empire, the Ingffhaestian Empire, the Ingffhaestian Star Empire, the Imperium of Tabulonkind, or simply Kaywell, is an interstellar hyperpower of various alien races in the Orion-Cygnus Arm, the arm of the Milky Way the Earth resides in. Kaywell is most notable for its strict social conservatism, species-based caste system, and exceptionally powerful military. It officially comprises 51 various star systems and countless planets and moons, but also controls three other star systems in secret; these three systems serve as the locations for top-secret weapons research. The superhabitable moon of Uingffh serves as Kaywell's capital and origin, with its native sentient species - the tabulons - serving as Kaywell's dominant species. Kaywell's capital system is the Ingffhaestian System (known to humans as Gliese 105), where Uingffh exists as the moon of the gas giant Coppelius.
The Kingdom formed on the moon Uingffh on November 14, 1150 when a trio of tabulons named Otho, Gauss, and Nero Kaywell united the region's various small warring kingdoms under their reign in the Unification War. Seating themselves as the newly-formed kingdom's royal family, Otho, Gauss, and Nero steadily developed their nation's economy and society. Within three centuries, Kaywell had grown into a prosperous kingdom with a thriving economy and a rich culture. By the rise of the 15th Century, the Kingdom of Kaywell had begun to develop imperialist ideologies and began a program of expansionism across Uingffh, which proved highly successful; by the 1700s, Kaywell had gained control of all parts of Uingffh save for the island continents of Uveerius and Uopia. Shortly after, however, indigenous rights movements, internal disputes, and other factors caused this "Kaywell Empire" to begin collapsing. By the beginning of the 19th Century, Kaywell had retreated back into its southern Ulstonian territory, with its former colonies either restoring their sovereignty or splitting off into new nations.
Kaywell coexisted with its neighbors in peace until the late 21st Century, when pro-imperialist Kaywellian politicians and royals began reviving imperialist sentiment in the kingdom. This culminated in Kaywell instigating numerous invasions and invasion attempts on nearby Uingffhian continents. Though these conquests had mixed effectiveness, they only served as a diversion as Kaywell developed space-based weapons of mass destruction; after pretending to sign a peace treaty with the other Uingffhian nations, Kaywell deployed these weapons on every Uingffhian nation aside from Kaywell itself, leading to these nations' destruction and later annexation by Kaywell.
The annexation of all of Uingffh did not mark the end of this second imperialist phase; Kaywell continued to expand its influence in the form of interplanetary and interstellar conquests. Throughout the following years, Kaywell established control over not only the entire Ingffhaestian solar system, but also the orbiting Avimotalis and Heranis Systems, which they renamed to Nathansias and Tayloron respectively following their conquests. In the process, many other alien civilizations were forcibly subjugated into the Kingdom, where they suffered from marginalization under a developing species caste system. Over a period of several more decades, the Kaywellian Empire conquered dozens upon dozens of other star systems, forcibly incorporating any alien species they came across into their strict social hierarchy under the pretense of tabulon racial supremacy. In the process, they acquired numerous artifacts left behind by the ancient Izlondian civilization, adding on to their already-powerful military.
In 2125, the tabulons came across the humans, a species native to the Sol System (designated the Feter System by Kaywell). The humans, as the equally-imperialist Tellurian Empire, refused to submit to the Kingdom and launched a devastating war on Kaywell, leading to billions of fatalities including Hypat Ilum Kaywell, the youngest member of the Kaywellian Royal Family. At the end of the year, however, Kaywell scored a victory against the humans and concluded the war by using one of the Izlondian artifacts to reset human society back to a 20th Century level, presumably preventing the humans from going against the Kingdom ever again.
The Tellurian attack, however, led to the formation of a small, secretive fascist faction in Kaywellian society led by Third Princess Urlum Eudae Kaywell, who had led the second imperialism back in the late 21st Century. This secret faction, the Garmageddonists, saw the Tellurian attack as evidence of the savagery of non-tabulons and advocated for harsher policies towards said groups - most notably the direct subjugation of Earth under the Kingdom. Urlum and her supporters worked in the shadows towards this goal throughout succeeding years; in 2199, she had a human abducted onto Uingffh for her to manipulate into forming a new dictatorship on Earth to justify a Kaywellian invasion. This plan succeeded and led to Kaywell's reorganization into the Garmageddonist Imperial Sovereignty of Thrawn later that year, though both the Thrawn Sovereignty and Urlum would fall shortly after their rise due to a rebellion led by both tabulons and other species. After a brief but violent period of political unrest, Earth and Kaywell's former interstellar territory would eventually settle into the more egalitarian and democratic Ingffhaestian Federation.
Kaywellian society was once notable for its focus on the arts, science, and culture. The Kingdom tended to prefer intellectual pursuits and encouraged art, music, creative writing, theater, and other forms of expression amongst its citizens, who enjoyed high-quality and rigorous education under the Kingdom's many private schools, colleges, and universities. Sports and other physical activities, though, were not marginalized, with most tabulons viewing them as essential for health, wellbeing, and overall happiness. Ultimately, however, with the rise of a laissez-faire capitalism-esque economic system following the beginning of Kaywell's interstellar era, the arts and humanities lost their value in Kaywellian society, with the tabulons viewing them as wastes of time and energy due to corporations' inability to profit from and exploit them; instead, the Kaywellians began promoting more "practical" careers like those in STEM fields, with liberal and fine arts being restricted to the richest and wealthiest in imperial society. Though Kaywell held traditionalist cultural values and social norms, the Kingdom also supported scientific advancement and readily funded ventures into outer space, though these ventures largely had imperialist and expansionist motivations behind them.
The most significant aspect of Kaywell's society and politics was its strict caste system, known as the Nerus Korndelia. The Nerus Korndelia segregated each alien race living under the Kingdom into ranks which arbitrarily assigned them specific roles; for example, the Nerus Korndelia assigned the Cergal species of the planet Cergin the role of spaceship designers. The various castes of the Nerus Korndelia were far from equal; the tabulons, the highest-ranking species in the Nerus Korndelia, enjoyed much greater degrees of freedom than lower-ranking species and frequently abused their power and exploited members of lower castes. Furthermore, the tabulons were the only species involved in the integration of species into the Nerus Korndelia; species subjugated into the Kingdom of Kaywell had absolutely no say in the role the Nerus Korndelia assigned to them. Kaywell punished deviation from said assigned roles severely, utilizing cruel and unusual methods like torture to "correct" deviant individuals. Oftentimes, they simply executed deviants on the spot - a privilege tabulons were free to exert on "lower" species. Overall, the Nerus Korndelia serves to perpetuate racist notions of tabulon supremacy; in fact, it originated from an earlier system known as the Korndelia, which segregated races within the tabulon species in a similar fashion.
The Kaywellian Kingdom's government is a parliamentary monarchy. Though a royal family exists, political power rests in the democratically-elected High Imperial Parliament, the Kingdom's legislature, according to Kaywellian law. Notably, however, Kaywell follows the principles of a Herrenvolk Democracy, with only one alien species - the Uingffh-native tabulons - enjoying the power to vote or run for office. All other alien species under the Kingdom's rule do not have voting rights. In addition, compared to royal families in other parliamentary monarchies, Kaywell's royal family exerts significantly more power over its nation; the reigning monarch and their children enjoy various freedoms and privileges including the right to execute or punish their servants as they see fit and the ability to directly propose or even pass legislation.
The Kingdom of Kaywell's dominant religion is Keliosity, which revolves around the worship of the gas giant Coppelius, Uingffh's parent planet, as the deity Kelios. The exact form of Keliosity promoted by Kaywell, however, has varied throughout its history. When the Kingdom initially formed, it practiced its own form of Keliosity known as Kaywellian Keliosity, which wove Kaywell's emphasis on the arts, science, and culture into Keliostic beliefs. During Kaywell's first phase of imperialism, Kaywellian Keliosity began to promote the inherent supremacy of Kaywellian tabulons and Keliostic followers. These imperialist traits largely died away after the end of Kaywell's first imperial era. As the rest of Uingffh modernized, Kaywellian Keliosity further declined as the Kingdom began introducing religious freedom, but maintianed its status as the most popular religion in the nation. When Kaywell began its second imperialist phase, it switched to a new form of Keliosity: Izlondo-Keliosity, which arose in response to the discovery of the ruins of the Izlondian civilization, an ancient alien society responsible for artificially seeding all known life except for the tabulons, who had naturally evolved from the Izlondians. Izlondo-Keliosity professed that the Izlondians were divine disciples of Kelios and that the tabulons, as direct descendants of the Izlondians, were also blessed and held a Kelios-given duty to purify the rest of the cosmos through conquest. As Kaywell's new state-sponsored religion, Izlondo-Keliosity guided Kaywell's many interstellar conquests throughout the 21st and 22nd centuries. After the war with Earth in 2125, the Garmageddonist party adopted a new radical form of Keliosity: Esoteric Keliosity, which advocated for the complete genocide of non-tabulon sentients and the authoritarian control of tabulons in the name of divine salvation. Esoteric Keliosity briefly became the dominant form of Keliosity when the Garmageddonists seized power in 2199, but was then outlawed when the Ingffhaestian Federation formed after the disastrous events of 2199. Kaywell's former territories now practice several different forms of Keliosity, with the statistically largest denominations being Kaywellian Keliosity and a more moderate form of Izlondo-Keliosity that does not contain tabulon supremacist elements.
History[]
Important note: Terms for government-related organizations such as "Council of Nations", "House of Affluence", or "Social Democrats" are translated from Golagat, the native language of the tabulon civilization, to English.
The Kingdom of Kaywell's history prior to the Second Imperialism is somewhat unclear due the loss of some records during the violent conquest of Uingffh amid the eve of the Second Imperialism and during the violent reign of the Urlum Eudae Kaywell regime. Though big-picture information is available, more specific events cannot be outlined.
Formation, War of Unity, and Development (pre-1150-1400)[]
Prior to Kaywell's formation, the region of Ulstonia it would come to inhabit (also called Kaywell) was home to several smaller kingdoms and warlord states locked in conflict. During the decade of the 1140s, a trio of nobles - Otho rei Oronius, Gauss rei Keyman, and Nero rei Hadrian - began campaigning for a unification of the Kaywell region into a single kingdom, having lost many of their family members to wars between the micro-kingdoms. Over the next few years, the trio amassed numerous like-minded supporters who had also suffered under the kingdoms' many wars and armed conflicts; many of these supporters were soldiers and militiamen growing tired of fighting needless, protracted wars in the name of petty kingdoms.
By the end of the decade, support for Kaywellian unification - particularly from military-involved individuals - had grown substantially, with the trio of nobles enjoying the support of a body of soldiers rivaling the size of a large army. In 1150, Otho, Gauss, and Nero finally put their plan into action and mounted an invasion of the Kaywellian micro-kingdoms using their many soldier supporters, beginning the War of Unity. Though the kingdoms had the advantage of combined territory, their refusal to work together led to their swift ends, which sometimes occurred at the hands of their own soldiers. In addition, many smaller villages welcomed the unity trio's occupation, themselves dissatisfied with the divided state of the region.
Flag of the Kingdom of Kaywell upon its formation on November 14, 1150.
By November 14 of that year, the three nobles had ousted the rulers of all of the Kaywellian mini-kingdoms and united them under a new nation: the Kingdom of Kaywell. Otho, Gauss, and Nero established themselves as the monarchs of Kaywell, becoming Otho Oronius Kaywell, Gauss Keyman Kaywell, and Nero Hadrian Kaywell. Because none of the three shared a sex (Otho was female, Gauss was male, and Nero was somale), the trio was able to marry each other and become the first members of the Kaywellian Royal Family.
Residents living under the newly-established Kaywell regime welcomed this changing, lauding the political stability and newfound peace it brought. The Royal Family's success in incurring economic growth only increased public support of them. Over the next few centuries, the Kaywellian economy continued to grow as a united Kaywellian culture began to emerge; Kaywellians adopted sophisticated lifestyles that focused on the arts (painting, creative writing, music, etc.), academics, and sciences. These opulent lifestyles, however, were largely restricted to aristocratic families such as those inheriting the nobiliary particle of "rei"; servants and the poor continued to languish under the same unsatisfactory living conditions they suffered under prior to Kaywell's formation.
Keliosity, a religion that had dominated the Kaywellian micro-kingdoms prior to the War of Unity, persisted in the newly-formed Kingdom of Kaywell as its dominant religion. Keliosity's basic principles entailed the worship of Coppelius, Uingffh's parent planet, as the home of the god Kelios, also known as The All. The united Kingdom of Kaywell's version of Keliosity underwent some minor changes over the succeeding centuries to better align with Kaywell's artistic, intellectual culture; this version of Keliosity became known as Kaywellian Keliosity.
First Age of Imperium (1400-1700)[]
By the beginning of the 15th Century, Kaywell had grown into one of the most prosperous and influential nations on Uingffh under the rules of first monarchs Otho, Gauss, and Nero and the newly-appointed second reigning monarch, Queen Sirona Grannus Kaywell. The Kingdom, already a prominent hotspot for the arts and scientific advancements, was now becoming one of the first nations on Uingffh to industrialize; capitalism was also beginning to arise as Kaywell's dominant economic system, contributing to Kaywell's economic growth.
This economic and cultural prosperity, however, also gave rise to imperialist sentiment amongst Kaywellian natives, who desired to spread the Kingdom of Kaywell's prosperity outside of the Kaywell region (termed the "aetherland") to other parts of the moon. Some particularly nationalistic Kaywellians believed in the inherent genetic superiority of Kaywellians as a race and advocated for the subjugation and "civilization" of other peoples they viewed as primitive and savages. Ever-growing businesses and corporations, which flourished under Kaywell's nascent capitalism, viewed imperialism as an opportunity to gain access to new resources and larger markets. Devout Keliosites also supported Kaywellian imperialism, seeking to convert foreigners to Keliosity. Some Kaywellians supported imperialism simply out of a curiosity about the rest of Uingffh.
Kaywellian Island Conquests and the Rise of the Conquerators[]
Thus, the 15th Century marked the beginning of a period of Kaywellian history known as the First Age of Imperium, which was marked by conquests of foreign lands. Kaywell began by colonizing various islands off the shore of Kaywell, such as Kirbani Island, during the rest of the 15th Century; to this end, Queen Sirona sent trained explorers, later dubbed Conquerators, on long sea voyages to these islands. There, they recorded information about the islands' resources, environment, and native societies (if any) before returning to Kaywell to exchange this information with Her Majesty. Thanks to advances in sea-based travel and ship construction, the vast majority of Conquerators safely returned to the kingdom mainland.
The Kingdom then sent more Kaywellians of various backgrounds to settle these islands and claim them as Kaywellian territory. Most of these island colonies became successful, particularly in the agriculture sector; their tropical environment allowed for the cultivation and growth of numerous crops, including a few newly-discovered ones. However, this came at the expense of the islands' natives, who suffered from not only oppression and mistreatment from Kaywellian colonists, but also diseases imported from Kaywell. Diseases imported from the islands, meanwhile, seldom impacted Kaywell due to its advances in medicine and healthcare; despite this, most doctors made no move to help treat ill natives, viewing them as less important than the economic prosperity colonization brought them.
These first island colonizations corresponded with the introduction of racial discrimination into Kaywellian culture. Kaywellian playwrights and writers stereotyped native Uingffhian islanders as backwards and savage while praising Kaywellians as civilized and mature. On some colonies, noblemen utilized natives as slave labor on massive plantations; in extreme cases, conquerators outright massacred natives, such as when Conquerator Kitconnorius rei Tharsis massacred the native Nargent tribe on the island of Korlon.
Formation of the Order of Scentrilla[]
Flag of the Order of Scentrilla.
A notable conquerator during Kaywell's island conquest era was Scentile rei Scentrilla, who, alongside her subordinate knights played an integral role in the conquests of multiple islands including the large Kirbani Island.
For their efforts in securing colonies for the Kingdom of Kaywell, Scentile rei Scentrilla and her subordinates were not only granted the noble title of rei, but also awarded status as an order of chivalry by Queen Sirona and the Keliostic Church in around 1485; Conquerator rei Scentrilla stepped up as the order's grandmaster. This order, the Order of Scentrilla, was the first order of chivalry formed in the Kingdom of Kaywell.
The formation of the Order of Scentrilla forced Kaywell to establish a management system for future members of the order as well as for members of future orders. The monarchy or church would take responsibility of appointing future grandmasters, who themselves held the responsibility of appointing their senior knights, generals, and admirals. Scentrilla's formation also established the traditions of granting the nobiliary particle of rei and the name of the order as a surname, though both would become voluntary in later years.
The order of Scentrilla notably established black as its signature color. Conquerator Scentile chose this color to represent the smoke and soot that covered Kirbani battlefields after her conquest of the island. Later orders would keep with this tradition and adopt their own signature colors.
Colonization of the Ulstonian Supercontinent[]
Rough estimated political map of Uingffh circa 1500.
Beginning around the 16th Century, Kaywell had established dominion over most of the islands in the eastern Liyingffhian and Tornelingffhian oceans. By 1525, Sirona Grannus Kaywell had passed away, with her heir (somale term for son/daughter) Mesmo Martius Kaywell taking the throne in her place. As ring, Mesmo changed the focus of Kaywellian imperialism from island conquests to land conquests.
Ring Mesmo spread new supporting arguments for Kaywellian imperialism resembling the 18th Century American cultural belief of Manifest Destiny. According to Mesmo and fir supporters, Kaywell held not only a duty, but also a destiny to conquer the entirety of the Ulstonian supercontinent. Much like Kaywellian imperialism under Queen Sirona, Mesmo's Kaywellian "Manifest Destiny" was riddled with racist rhetoric, with fir beliefs driving notions of Kaywellian racial superiority. Many Kaywellian colonists claimed to have a duty to "civilize" foreign peoples, whom they deemed savage and backwards.
The first region to be invaded was the Osuwa region, or the northeastern parts of the Ulstonian supercontinent, during the middle of the 16th Century. At the time, Osuwa was inhabited by various native tribes in varying stages of development; some continued to live hunter-gatherer lifestyles while others pursued sedentary lifestyles. Regardless of lifestyle, however, these tribes were vastly outclassed by the Kingdom of Kaywell territorially, technologically, and militarily; within less than a decade, Kaywell had established control over the entirety of the Osuwa region and had begun developing prosperous colonies that exploited Osuwa's plentiful natural resources. This came at the expense of not only the natural environment, but also the Osuwan natives, whom the Kaywellian colonists invariably oppressed under their new rule. Kaywell not only enslaved or even outright massacred native Osuwans, but also endeavored to suppress and erase native Osuwan culture to promote its own, self-proclaimed "civilized" culture; for instance, the Kingdom set up numerous boarding schools for native children to be assimilated into Kaywellian culture. In the process, teachers would use violent methods such as physical beating, deliberate starvation, and deliberate thirst to force the children to adopt Kaywellian cultural traditions. Hundreds of natives died in this manner throughout the colonization of Osuwa.
Rough estimated political map of Uingffh following the invasion of the Osuwa region.
Mesmo then had Kaywell conquer the Nerusgol sea region in the late 16th Century for its arable farmland and large water supply. At the time, various small, warring kingdoms similar to the ones inhabiting Kaywell pre-War of Unity inhabited the land areas around the sea. Mesmo used similar tactics to Kaywell's original founders to conquer Nerusgol, seeding support for a more stable rule under Kaywell amongst the Nerusgan populace while playing local rulers into deeper rivalries in order to weaken their strength. This proved successful, with the Nerusgans staging revolutions while allowing Kaywellian troops to occupy the region. However, Kaywell ultimately betrayed the Nerusgans by restricting them to marginalized positions in Kaywellian society on the basis of their race, with the Nerusgans becoming a significant source of cheap, poorly-paid labor. Kaywell's still-growing military might quelled any revolts staged by the Nerusgans against Kaywell.
Rough estimated political map of Uingffh following the invasion of the Nerusgol region.
Afterwards, the Kingdom declared war against the nation of Kelargar, whose unique food, goods, and culture attracted Ring Mesmo's attention. Initially, Kaywell had the upper hand, with its much larger armies easily overpowering Kelargar's. However, Kelargar soon chose to ally with neighboring nations in the Great Bar and Jebellion, resulting in much stronger resistance to Kaywellian colonization. This prompted Kaywell to enact its first-ever military draft, sending millions of young tabulons out to war; though it took some time to train these new recruits for battle, their enlistment ultimately turned the war to Kaywell's side. By the end of the 16th Century, Kaywell had conquered all three of its enemies. The Kingdom then proceeded to stereotype Kelargar and the Great Bar's inhabitants as barbaric and dangerous for their combined efforts to resist Kaywellian colonizations and performed numerous massacres against them; death toll estimates reach as high as 1.25 million, with many historians qualifying these massacres as a genocide.
Rough estimated political map of Uingffh following the invasions of Kelargar, Jebellion, and the Great Bar.
Jebellians, meanwhile, received rather lenient treatment in comparison due to the Kingdom's unusually large population of Jebellian immigrants whose origin traces back to before the First Age of Imperium; nonetheless, Kaywellians viewed non-Kaywell-born Jebellians with suspicion.
Formation of the Orders of Kerbos and Novus[]
During the first half of Kaywell's land conquest era, the Kingdom established two new orders of chivalry.
Flag of the Order of Kerbos.
The first of these two orders was the Order of Kerbos, which Kaywell formed out of Conquerator Polaris vir Kerbos and her subordinates in 1585. vir Kerbos (christened rei Kerbos following the formation of her order) earned her status as grandmaster of the Kerbos Order for her efforts in conquering both Osuwa and Nerusgol. Notably, Polaris actually originated as a Kelargan merchant who settled and eventually rose in Kaywellian society; because she had risen to honor and chivalry before the conquest of Kelargar and the formation of the Korndelia Caste System, she was not subject to the racial discrimination that came with them, being viewed as an "honorary Kaywellian" by the Empire's populace and government. Polaris chose orange as its signature color to represent the orange-colored deserts of Osuwa, which formed the location of many of its battles during the conquest of Osuwa.
Flag of the Order of Novus.
The second new order, the Order of Novus, formed in 1601 after the royal family appointed Conquerator Siliskus vir Novus and his legion of knights chivalric order status. The members of the Order of Novus had played an integral role in not only the war against the joint forces of Kelargar, Jebellion, and the Great Bar; but also the conversion of thousands of Kelargans, Jebellians, and Barians into devout followers of Keliosity, warranting the establishment of their order. The Knights of Novus adopted green as their signature color due to its significance in Keliosity, representing the repentance of sin.
Creation of the Korndelia Caste System[]
By the time Kaywell conquered Kelargar, Jebellion, and the Great Bar, the non-Kaywellians subjugated by the Kingdom (at this point touted as an empire), had become increasingly hard to manage. Their Kaywellian masters struggled to organize them and determined their worth. In response to this, imperial advisor Kormin Korndelia proposed the creation of a racial caste system placing tabulons into different societal rankings and positions based off of their origin. Kaywellians would be at the top of this system and would enjoy the most freedom and control of all the groups in the system. Ring Mesmo readily supported this plan, thus leading to the establishment of the Korndelia System circa November 5, 1605.
Under the Korndelia Caste System, Kaywellians occupied the top of the social pyramid as Kormin promised. Below the Kaywellians, in order, were Jebellians, Nerusgans, Osuwans, Kelargans, and finally Barians. Exceptions to this caste system, however, did exist; for instance, non-Kaywellian war heroes like Polaris rei Kerbos did not find themselves marginalized and were instead granted "honorary Kaywellian" status. Kormin and Mesmo also included provisions ensuring that any groups of people newly subjugated into the Empire of Kaywell would have a place in the Korndelia.
Kaywell Conquers the Uingffhian Island Continents[]
The first new ethnic group to experience admittance into the Korndelia System was the Morbidian race, whose kingdom of Morbidia saw its annexation into Kaywell in the early 17th Century. Unlike with other invasions, Kaywell did not invade Morbidia through military force, but through strategic economic measures instead; prior to its annexation, Morbidia was suffering through a severe famine brought about by large-scale desertification, itself brought about by poor agricultural practices similar to the practices that led to America's Dust Bowl. In response, Kaywell offered to trade food and agricultural goods with Morbidia; though Ring Mesmo presented this as a gesture of goodwill, fir true intentions were to slowly make Morbidia economically dependent on Kaywell. Mesmo's plan proved successful; over a period of roughly ten years, the Kingdom of Morbidia became dependent on the Empire of Kaywell for food and other necessities. When Kaywell threatened to cut off its economic ties with Morbidia if the latter failed to agree to annex itself into Kaywell, Morbidia readily agreed to strip itself of its sovereignty, resulting in Morbidia falling under Kaywellian control. As a reward for their compliance, Morbidians were granted a relatively high spot in the Korndelia System, falling just under the Jebellians, though they still suffered from worker exploitation under Kaywellian masters.
Rough estimated political map of Uingffh following the invasion of the Kingdom of Morbidia.
Morbidia's conquest meant the realization of Ring Mesmo and other Kaywellian colonialists' dream of conquering the entirety of Ulstonia. By then, however, most Kaywellians including Mesmo had since begun entertaining aspirations of conquering the entirety of Uingffh itself; to this end, the Empire of Kaywell began declaring war on nations inhabiting Uingffh's smaller island continents.
During the middle 17th Century, Kaywell conquered the Bagyo Isles off the coast of the Osuwa region. Much like Osuwa, the Bagyo Isles were inhabited by a collection of disorganized tribes of varying nature until Conquerator Farlo rei Magellan claimed the islands as colonies of the Kaywell Empire in 1658. The natives resisted Kaywellian authority, so Ring Mesmo dispatched the Kaywellian imperial army, who quickly defeated and subjugated the indigenous Bagyans due to their superior arms and technology. For their dissent against the Kaywellian Empire, the Bagyans not only were placed at the very bottom of the Korndelia caste system as unpaid slave labor, but also had their native culture erased; Kaywell censored their culture and had Keliostic missionaries work to convert Bagyan natives to Keliosity often through unethical means.
Rough estimated political map of Uingffh following the invasion of the Bagyo Isles.
Kaywell also conquered the Flornelian island continent, which laid off the coast of Kelargar, during this time. Unlike the conquest of Bagyo, the conquest of Flornelia proved relatively uneventful and nonviolent for Kaywell due to its already-sparse population; within a few years, the entirety of the continent alongside all of its adjacent islands officially fell under Kaywellian control. Most of the few natives that did reside on the continent were killed off by diseases imported from Kaywell; the few that did survive were granted an intermediate position in the Korndelia system.
Rough estimated political map of Uingffh following the invasion of the Flornelian island continent.
The Kaywellian Empire's final successful conquest was that of the Liyres island continent off the coast of the Kaywell region. The native Liyrians, united under a nascent democracy which saw the threat of Kaywell's empire, had built up a sizeable military force beforehand; when Kaywell attempted to conquer the continent, the Liyrians put up a potent resistance and successfully drove off the colonists. This led to a lengthy war between Kaywell and Liyres that took up the rest of the 17th Century. Kaywell eventually won the war and colonized Liyres in exactly 1700, but it was a pyrrhic victory, with Liyres successfully taking out much of Kaywell's military, setting the stage for the Age of Reform.
In addition to Bagyo, Flornelia, and Liyres, Kaywell also attempted to conquer the island continents of Uopia and Uveerius. However, both continents' nations, much like Liyres, had developed strong militaries beforehand and competently resisted Kaywellian colonization. The Kingdom of Kaywell ultimately chose to abandon its conquests of Uopia and Uveerius and concentrate its resources on invading Liyres due to Liyres' greater economic potential and importance to the Kingdom.
Formation of the Order of Uris[]
Flag of the Order of Uris.
The conquest of Liyres also marked the formation of the Order of Uris, the last of the four chivalric orders formed during the First Age of Imperium. During the Liyrian war, Kaywellian Conquerator Shin Uriel Uris scored a significant number of victories and ultimately proved critical to Kaywell's victory against the island nation; for fir efforts in Liyres' conquest, King Mesmo awarded order status to fir and fir lower knights.
The Order of Uris adopted blue as its signature color upon formation for two main reasons. For one, blue represented the ocean between Kaywell and Liyres; due to Liyres being an island continent off the coast of Kaywell, many of the battles during their war took place in a naval setting. Secondly, medium blue was the color of both the flag of Liyres and the Liyrian tabulons themselves.
Age of Reform (1700-1900)[]
Rough estimated political map of Uingffh following the invasion of the Liyres Republic; this marked Kaywell's greatest territorial extent during the First Age of Imperium.
By the dawn of the 18th Century, the first Empire of Kaywell had reached its fullest territorial extent, controlling the entirety of the Ulstonian supercontinent as well as the island continents of Bagyo, Flornelia, and Liyres.
However, the 18th Century also marked the end of the First Age of Imperium and the beginning of the Empire's decline, which became referred to as the Age of Reform. Inspired by Liyres' resistance to Kaywellian colonialism, indigenous tabulons subjugated under the Empire's rule began staging uprisings against Kaywell in a bid for freedom and equality. The fact that the Liyres war had weakened Kaywell's military allowed these uprisings to flourish even more.
The first region to secede from Kaywell was Morbidia, where discontent had begun to grow after the Liyrian war led to a food shortage, thus eliminating the Morbidians' reason for supporting Kaywell. In Morbidia, an individual by the name of Oceania mu Orwell began promoting an ideology known as Orwellism, an ideology similar to communism and socialism that advocated for a seizure of the means of production by the people. Orwellism quickly spread throughout Morbidia, culminating in numerous violent revolutions led by disgruntled Morbidian laborers against Kaywellian nobility. By the year 1713, Morbidia had seceded as the People's Democratic Republic of Morbidia.
Next were the Bagyo Isles, where the overworked natives advocated for liberation from Kaywellian masters much like the Morbidians. Unlike Morbidia, however, the Bagyans did not profess a certain ideology and simply worked to liberate themselves from slavery; slave revolts throughout the early 18th Century led to Bagyo's declaration of independence in 1715. However, due to the Bagyans' lack of an established system of government, the island continent quickly fell into disorder and anarchy; historians blame this disorder not on the Bagyans, but on Kaywell itself for refusing to educate the Bagyans in politics and governance.
In order to fund efforts to rebuild the military and reassert control over its dissenting populace, Kaywell increased taxes on more obedient colonies like Flornelia and Osuwa. However, these taxation policies only resulted in discontent among Osuwa's citizens, who had grown used to Kaywell's earlier system of salutary neglect. When Osuwans attempted to protest Kaywell's heightened taxes, the Kingdom responded with military force and even massacred Osuwan colonists on the streets, resulting in Osuwa carrying out a lengthy revolution against the Empire of Kaywell. This ended with most of the Osuwa region and parts of the Great Bar region splitting off into the United States of Osuwa on July 4, 1776 - coincidentally the same date as the formation date of the United States of America, a nation on Earth extremely similar to Osuwa in nature. Ironically, Osuwa would soon undergo its own imperial phase that included its conquest of the Bagyo Isles.
Afterwards, emboldened by the secessions of Morbidia, Bagyo, and Osuwa, several natives both in colonies and in the Kaywellian motherland itself began carrying out massive civil rights movements calling for the establishment of better rights for non-Kaywellians. Unlike previous independence movements, these indigenous rights movements were largely nonviolent in nature, using peaceful yet effective methods to sway others into supporting their cause. In 1801, the descendants of various old Nerusgan monarchs signed into law an act that would unite the Nerusgol region into the Nerusgol Union, thereby making the region independent from Kaywell. Kelargar regained its sovereignty in 1825 after a movement led by a descendant of the Kelargan royal family; the Great Bar regained its independence six years later through similar means. Both nations became parliamentary monarchies following their independence, though Kelargar would transition into a full republic a few decades afterwards. In 1832, Liyres regained its independence as a democratic commonwealth after its own peaceful independence movement.
Formation of the Council of Nations[]
By the late 19th Century, many former Kaywellian colonies and non-Kaywellian nations - namely Kelargar, Osuwa, the Great Bar, Liyres, Morbidia, Uveerius, and Uopia - had formed a coalition known as the Council of Nations advocating for democracy and civil rights. In 1897, the Council pushed forth a treaty to Kaywell asking for the nation to relinquish control of the rest of its colonies and dismantle its Korndelia caste system in order to promote racial equality.
By then, Kaywell had accepted a new individual as its monarch: Queen Wexxia Sylandro Kaywell, who had taken the crown in 1734 after the Geptunian Revolution (see section below). In contrast to the views of the late Ring Mesmo Martius Kaywell, Wexxia was sympathetic towards non-Kaywellians and held no ill will against nations that had split from Kaywell; these views were shared by many Kaywellian citizens, themselves moved by indigenous civil rights movements. As such, Wexxia readily agreed to sign the Council of Nations' treaty less than a month later. The signage of this treaty not only granted Jebellion and Flornelia independence from Kaywell, but also marked the beginning of the Uingffhian modern era.
Geptunia Revolution[]
An unrelated, short-lived, yet notable event that occurred during the Age of Reform was the Geptunia Revolution from 1732 to 1733. In 1731, the death of Ring Mesmo Martius Kaywell led to the crowning of the fourth Kaywellian monarch, Queen Geptunia Sylandro Kaywell, a year later.
Geptunia proved to be a highly unpopular and controversial ruler due to her supercilious nature. As queen, Geptunia would live a lavish lifestyle at the expense of the poor and middle classes, who languished in even deeper poverty under her rule. Geptunia would impose excessive taxes on Kaywell's citizens only to use her money to construct extravagant palaces, stables, and other objects of luxury.
Geptunia's selfishness and vanity caused the Kaywellian people to ignite a revolution against her less than a year after she took the crown. This revolution proved swift in nature, as royal soldiers, themselves suffering under Geptunia's rule, turned on the monarchy and participated in the rebellion; together, disgruntled Kaywellians sacked cities and burned any and all objects associated with or promoting Geptunia.
Queen Geptunia's true undoing, however, came at the hands of a fellow royal: the older Wexxia Sylandro Kaywell. Shortly after the revolutions began, deposed princess Wexxia came out of hiding and revealed that her younger sister Geptunia had blackmailed her into exile in a bid for power; specifically, Geptunia threatened to expose her sister's romantic history with other women if she failed to allow her to take the crown. When Wexxia revealed her past to the rebels after coming out of hiding, however, the rebels supported her and sought to install her as queen instead of Geptunia.
Eventually, near the end of 1733, a storm of Kaywellians led by Wexxia stormed Geptunia's palace and ransacked Geptunia's luxurious belongings. Shortly afterwards, they captured Geptunia herself and subsequently imprisoned her for corruption, blackmailing, and a wealth of other crimes. In 1734, Queen Geptunia was executed, after which Kaywell crowned Wexxia as the next queen of the Kingdom of Kaywell.
Modern Era (1900-2045)[]
Rough estimated political map of Uingffh following the end of the Age of Reform and the beginning of the Modern Era.
Shortly after signing the liberation treaty in 1898, Queen Wexxia died of natural causes in 1899. Despite her homoromantic past, Wexxia had chosen to bear children with males and somales in order to continue the royal bloodline; in 1900, her eldest son, Yorgos Bilionis Kaywell, took the throne and became the sixth King of Kaywell.
By this time, Kaywell and other Uingffhian nations had begun to modernize, with technology ever-advancing and becoming more available to the average citizen. High-tech skyscrapers and cities came to accompany Kaywell's traditional buildings, palaces, and historical sites. This also corresponded with a shift in Kaywellian politics towards progressivism and social equality - a continuation of the indigenous civil rights movements during the Age of Reform. Among the reforms achieved were protections for LGBTQ+ individuals, policies promoting racial equality in Kaywellian society, and improved accessibility for both disabled people and neurodivergent people.
Despite Kaywell's growing social progressivism, the Kingdom held on to its cultural roots and practiced its traditions in non-discriminatory ways. For instance, despite King Yorgos' implementation of religious freedom in 1911, Keliosity remained the most dominant religion in Kaywellian society even throughout the modern era.
Additionally, King Yorgos kept the four chivalric orders of Kaywell - Scentrilla, Novus, Kerbos, and Uris - in place, albeit more as ceremonial guards as opposed to actual soldiers. The king responded to criticisms of the orders being symbols of Kaywellian imperialism and racism by readily welcoming members of other racial groups into the orders' ranks. Yorgos Bilionis Kaywell also sent the four orders on charitable missions to less fortunate areas of Kaywell to promote social equality-related causes such as ensuring racial equity and providing for the poor.
Establishment of the Kaywellian Parliament[]
Shortly after the crowning of King Yorgos Bilionis Kaywell, calls for a more democratic government began to arise amongst Kaywell's citizens; at the time, Kaywell was the only nation on Ulstonia to practice an absolute monarchical system of government. Neaby democratic nations such as Osuwa and Nerusgol also called for a democratization of Kaywell.
Eventually, King Yorgos agreed to establish the Kaywellian Parliament on December 25, 1901, partly due to pressure from outside forces and partly due to genuine empathy towards his citizens. This newly-established Kaywellian Parliament consisted of three branches:
- The Executive Assembly, a body led by an elected Prime Minister responsible for enforcing and carrying out laws.
- The Legislative Assembly, a larger body tasked with creating and reviewing laws and policies; this branch is divided into two houses:
- The House of the Lower, the lower house of Kaywell's legislative sector and the body responsible for actually creating and drafting legislation.
- The House of the Affluent, the upper house of Kaywell's legislative assembly and the body responsible for reviewing bills drafted by the House of the Lower.
- The Great Royal Court, Kaywell's judicial body; it reviewed laws and policies already passed by the House of the Affluent upon request by a suing citizen.
The majority of tabulons, including both Kaywellians and residents of other countries, lauded Kaywell's democratic reforms. Kaywellian citizens celebrated their newfound political freedom as international news outlets recorded these celebrations; the very first Kaywellian general election, which occurred on December 31, 1901, was a highly publicized event.
Overall, the Kaywellian parliament saw significant success in practice while helping to continue Kaywell's trend towards increased freedom. Political instability plagued the Parliament's first few years, but it quickly settled. Kaywellian elections notably operated by a ranked/preferential voting system (as opposed to the "first past the post" system used in many Earth democracies), allowing for more effective representation of minorities and greater political diversity in Parliament.
By the 1920s, the many newly-elected Kaywellian politicians had coalesced into four major political parties. The Progress Party advocated for personal and social freedoms in the Kingdom along with greater economic freedom for businesses and private companies. The Social Democrats also advocated for civil rights, but supported regulations on businesses. The Royal Traditionalist Party supported maintaining Kaywellian cultural traditions while promoting freedom for businesses. Lastly, the Federalists argued for regulation in both personal and economic matters.
Formation of the Kaywell Astronomical Division[]
The modern era and the liberation treaty coincided with the advent of spacefaring technology in tabulon civilization; on November 14, 1905, the Kingdom of Kaywell established the Kaywell Astronomical Division (KAD) as the overseers of its newly-publicized space program as part of the celebration of Kaywell's 755th year of existence.
Kaywellian space research actually predated the formation of the KAD by at least a decade, but remained a governmental secret until the KAD's formation. Throughout its existence, the KAD manufactured numerous rockets, space shuttles, probes, satellites, and even space stations; by the year 2099, the KAD had constructed three large-scale manned space stations - named K-1, K-2, and K-3 - into orbits around Coppelius.
During the modern era, the KAD was one of three space technology organizations responsible for the majority of Uingffhian space travel-related feats, the other two being the Morbidian Space and Aeronautics Division (MSAD) and the private Osuwan company BlueBliss. The KAD in particularly was responsible for constructing the first manned Uingffhian space station (K-1) in 1955, sending out the first probe to land on the nearby moon Gula in 1979, and sending out the first probe to study the outer Ingffhaestian System in 2005. By the late 21st Century, the KAD had constructed research stations on Gula, other moons of Coppelius, and the Coppelian trojan planet Saringffh.
Discovery of the Ophisians, Sheepillies, Mordions, and Lortei[]
In 1984, the KAD sent an unmanned spacecraft, the Ibridas, to study Ibiridius, Ingffhaestia's fast-rotating third planet. There, the Ibridas Probe reported the detection of anomalous signals originating from the Ibiridian surface. This quickly led to the discovery of the Ophisians, an emerging sentient civilization native to the planet; at the time, the gemstone-like species had begun developing advanced communication technology, causing the signals that the Ibridas detected.
Initially, Kaywellian citizens and other tabulons across Uingffh expressed their eagerness to contact and learn more about the Ophisians and their society. However, a year after the discovery, the Council of Nations ended up voting against further contact with the Ophisians, citing two main reasons. For one, due to Ibiridius' fast rotation, landing on the planet would prove difficult and would require the construction of an expensive and specialized spacecraft. Secondly (and more importantly), Uingffhian world leaders, including King Yorgos, believed that interfering with the Ophisians would actually prove detrimental to the development of both Ophisian society and Ibiridius' biosphere by introducing unnecessary foreign factors. Though protests broke out intermittently over the decision, tabulonkind eventually came to accept it, especially following the release of concurring opinions from tabulon astronomers and biologists.
In 1990, communication equipment in the Kingdom of Kaywell and other Uingffhian nations detected similar artificial signals originating from Nathansias and Tayloron, Ingffhaestia's two companion red dwarfs; the KAD had discovered planets around both stars decades prior, so life in the system had already been in the question. Analysis of these signals led to the identification of three more emerging sentient civilizations: the Sheepillies of Hevectavia, third moon of Tayloron's sixth planet Jasper; the Mordions of Cornelia, moon of Tayloron's fourth planet; and the Lortei of Nathansias' fifth planet Euphemia. This brought the total number of intelligent civilizations in the Ingffhaestian System up to five. Like with the Ophisians, both the Council of Nations and the tabulon populace chose to leave the three newly-discovered societies alone, this time also due to the fact that travel to Ingffhaestia's companion stars proved out of the tabulons' technological reach at the time.
Adoption of Jool Halleoneus[]
Later photograph of Jool Halleoneus following his adoption by the Kaywell Family, turning him into First Prince Jool Halleoneus Kaywell.
Sometime in 1984, Prince Sarnus Robau Kaywell (then a small child), the only child of Crown Prince Shol Gregrox Kaywell and the grandchild of King Yorgos, befriended a seemingly-impoverished tabulon of Uveerian descent while playing alone in the Korroway Palace gardens. Over the succeeding months, the two developed a very close platonic relationship which they attempted to keep a secret from the rest of the royal family.
Initially unbeknownst to Prince Sarnus, the Uveerian tabulon in question, Jool Halleoneus, was actually a child of the Uveerian noble family of Halleoneus; he ran away from the family in 1983 after suffering from parental abuse, sneaking onto a cargo ship and eventually ending up in Kaywell, a nation he had dreamed of visiting. The Halleoneus Family's search for their son soon became worldwide news, leading to the inadvertent outing of Jool's status on July 20, 1984 after Kaywellian passerbyers recognized the tabulon who would often play with Sarnus in the palace gardens.
The revelation attracted Uingffh-wide media attention, with the Halleoneus Family travelling to Kaywell to retrieve their lost son. However, Sarnus, who had learned about the family's abusive treatment through Jool, pleaded for his parents to adopt him. The Kaywell Family initially refused to adopt Jool, but after Jool presented both photographic and video evidence of his abuse, the Kaywells agreed to adopt him on August 8, christening him as First Prince Jool Halleoneus Kaywell. The Halleoneus Family also ended up facing criminal charges from the Uveerian government for its treatment of its son.
Aside from a sense of genuine kindness and empathy, the Kaywell Family also had other reasons for adopting Jool. For one, it would improve the Kingdom's international reputation, presenting them as generous and compassionate. Secondly, it would increase their international influence and soft power to have an individual from another country in their family.
Jool's kindness made him popular amongst the Kaywellian people despite his lack of biological relations with the rest of the Kaywell Family. Many touted him as an "honorary Kaywellian" or a "Kaywellian in spirit", with Jool regularly expressing his love and patriotism for the Kingdom (though he also made sure not to devolve into jingoistic nationalism and acknowledged the Kingdom's flaws). Nonetheless, Jool's new status as the oldest child of the Kaywell Family raised questions over the ethics of a non-Kaywellian possibly taking the position of king of Kaywell in the future. Ultimately, the Kaywell Family chose to bar Jool from ever taking the throne due to not sharing his family's bloodline, keeping Jool as a first prince but appointing Sarnus as the true crown prince. Prince Jool accepted this decision, stating that he had no desire to become king in the first place and that he only cared about being able to spend time with a family he loves.
Discovery of the Great Pit and the Izlondian Ruins[]
Ring Shol Gregrox Kaywell, the seventh regnant monarch of the Kingdom of Kaywell.
In 2005, King Yorgos died of natural causes inside a Kaywellian hospital, leading shortly after to the coronation of the seventh monarch of Kaywell: Ring Shol Gregrox Kaywell. That same year, fe and fir spouses Tyepolbynar Imterril and Reander Lito (both of whom received the surname of Kaywell following their coppel's coronation) had their second biological child: Urlum Eudae Kaywell, the third princess of Kaywell. Princess Urlum would go on to display exceptional intelligence in a variety of fields including mathematics, literature, and science, being touted as a child prodigy; in her adolescent years, she embarked on research expeditions to Uingffhian islands to study their wildlife, climate, former indigenous cultures (if any), etc.
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Third Princess Urlum Eudae Kaywell, discoverer of the Izlondian ruins.
During one of those expeditions, a biological research expedition to the Flornelian island of Terrestria in 2044, Urlum and her crew came across an undiscovered island south of the Flornelian island continent, where they discovered an enigmatic pit (later dubbed the Great Pit) that led to what appeared to be a sprawling underground layer of the Uingffhian crust. There, the third princess discovered the existence of extremely old, yet well-preserved ruins of a civilization whose architecture did not match that of any known civilizations, including the Ophisians, Sheepillies, Mordions, and Lortei (whose architecture was determined through analysis of their signal data).
A symbol that frequently appeared on the Izlondian ruins. This symbol is speculated to be the insignia of the Izlondian civilization
Photograph of the Terraces of Telatarus, a series of terraced cliffs containing some of the best-preserved ruins of the Izlondian civilizations. The Terraces were named for Telatarus, an underworld deity in Keliostic mythology.
Further analysis and research of the ruins revealed their true source: an ancient intelligent civilization that had died out approximately 3 billion years ago. This civilization, named Izlondia according to its dominant species, the Drori, had once controlled all of Uingffh and possibly all of Ingffhaestia before dying out in a catastrophic accident involving wormhole technology; it was this calamity, dubbed the First Apocalix, that had rendered their vast cities trapped underground.
More importantly, evidence pointed to the Drori species forming the ancestors of the tabulon race. In addition to bearing a remarkably similar appearance to modern tabulons (with their only major physical difference being their lack of wing-tentacles), the Izlondians also shared a significant amount of DNA - 97.5% - with the tabulons as demonstrated by another study carried out later in 2044. Evolutionary scientists postulated that the First Apocalix spared a small handful of Drori who would later come to evolve into the tabulon race.
Most significantly, however, the Izlondians provided an explanation for the shared biology between the life-forms of the Ingffhaestian System. Xenobiologists at the KAD and similar organizations have long noted unusual biological similarities between life on Uingffh and life on other planets and moons in Ingffhaestia: the presence of cells and DNA, division into plants and animals, similar body structures in animals, etc. These similarities were long dismissed as either coincidences or a natural tendency of evolution, but analysis of records left behind by the Izlondians revealed that they had, in fact, seeded life on other planets and moons, accounting for the similarities; specifically, they sent out large moon-sized space stations to place samples of non-sentient Izlondian life forms on potentially habitable worlds. Once more, these records pointed to the Izlondians sending these "Izlondian arks" to not only other celestial bodies within Ingffhaestia, but also other solar systems outside of Ingffhaestia, raising the possibility of extraingffhaestian lifeforms on worlds around other stars.
The fact that the tabulons were the direct descendants of an exceptionally advanced civilization that seeded all other life in local space had significant effects on tabulon society. Across Uingffh, discoveries relating to the Izlondians fueled calls for heightened space exploration and the development of more powerful means of space travel. Citizens of Kaywell, however, experienced the most fervor regarding the Izlondians; influenced by Kaywell supremacist beliefs originating from the First Age of Imperium, Kaywellians (including Urlum Eudae Kaywell herself) took Izlondia-related revelations as evidence for the belief that the tabulons were a superior race destined to subjugate all others within their rule. Citizens of the United States of Osuwa also experienced a similar fervor to a less fanatical degree. These sentiments would lead to the rise of a Second Age of Imperium where Kaywell took it upon itself to conquer Uingffh itself in order to spread these beliefs and fulfill their self-proclaimed manifest destiny to establish a tabulon-led interstellar empire.
Development of Izlondo-Keliosity[]
The most extreme of tabulon supremacists in Kaywell combined notions of tabulon supremacy related to the Izlondians with religious principles, viewing the Izlondians - and thus, by extension, the tabulons - as divine. Izlondo-Keliosity, a new radical Keliostic sect that arose in late 2044, professed that the Izlondians were a divine civilization blessed by Kelios firself and that the tabulons, as their descendants, carried the responsibility of reclaiming the Izlondians' interstellar empire in the name of winning Kelios' favor. Izlondo-Keliosity also asserted that due to being direct descendants of the Izlondians rather than products of their life-seeding experiments, the tabulons held an importance above other sentient races.
Izlondo-Keliosity spread rapidly amongst Kaywellian citizens to the point that by the beginning of 2045, over 75% of Keliostics in Kaywell (or 54% of all citizens in the Kingdom) identified as Izlondo-Keliostic. The rise of this new religion further cemented Kaywell's path towards a new Age of Imperium similar to the first Age of Imperium. In addition, Izlondo-Keliosity quickly spread to the neighboring United States of Osuwa, a nation which had grown into one of Kaywell's closest allies; this influenced Osuwa's decision to unite with Kaywell during the Second Age of Imperium.
Beginning of the Second Age of Imperium (2045-2080)[]
By the beginning of 2045, support for Kaywellian expansionism and tabulon supremacy had grown to encompass a majority of Kaywell's citizens. Numerous influential Kaywellian figures, including Third Princess Urlum, had begun spreading propaganda-like messages calling for the Kingdom to subjugate all of Uingffh under its rule in order to ensure that the tabulons received their "rightful" prosperity.
The government felt the effects of tabulon exceptionalist sentiment as well. Though neither Ring Shol nor leading figures in the Kaywellian Parliament publicly expressed their support for these beliefs, they carried out policies seemingly in support; most notably, they raised large amounts of funding towards Kaywell's already-bloated military and arms manufacturing budgets, including towards an experimental space weaponry program, in seeming preparation for large-scale attacks against other Uingffhian nations.
Notably, the Kingdom of Kaywell grew its military not by increasing taxes on its citizens, but rather by diverting funds from its welfare, education, and healthcare budgets. This proved successful for Kaywell's intended purpose of growing the military - by November 14, 2045, Kaywell's military budget had grown to 2.15 trillion sters (equal to roughly 2.15 trillion USD, as U.S. Dollars and Sters are assumed to have equal value due to a lack of clarity on the relationships between interstellar currencies). This move also had little effect on the overall quality of Kaywellian healthcare and education, whose private sectors maintained a high standard of quality. The group that ultimately suffered from this move was the poor and working-class, who found access to basic essentials like schooling and healthcare increasingly restricted as private interests hiked prices on such services and military spending rendered public services nearly nonexistent. Apathetic attitudes from Kaywellian expansionists and tabulon supremacists, who applied social darwinist principles to Kaywellian economics by blaming the poor's own lack of merit for their own poverty, only worsened the poor's living conditions.
Eventually, on November 14, 2045, Ring Shol Gregrox Kaywell finally expressed fir public support for a new Kaywellian imperialism alongside Parliament during a speech held for Kaywell's 895th anniversary. In this speech, later dubbed the Declaration of Imperation, the Ring announced fir intention to invade/declare war against all other nations on Uingffh and assert the dominance of Kaywell and the tabulons across as much area as possible, declaring the reformation of the Empire of Kaywell. Later historians often speculate that Ring Shol did not actually support Kaywellian imperialism initially, but Princess Urlum Eudae Kaywell (who did support it) blackmailed Shol into instigating the Declaration of Imperation by threatening to reveal Shol's past homoromantic relationships with other somales prior to marrying Reander and Tyepolbynar.
The Declaration of Imperation marked the official beginning of the Second Age of Imperium.
Declaration of Imperation[]
This speech has been translated from Golagat, the national language of the Kingdom of Kaywell and the main language of the tabulon race, to English. Some translation errors may exist.
Disorder. Crime. Decadence. Incivility. Anarchy. Lethargy. Change. Degeneracy.
We noble tabulons of Uingffhaestia have descended from the most prosperous of civilizations: the Izlondians, blessed by Kelios firself. The blood of affluence runs through our veins. And yet... we let the vices of degeneracy taint our noble blood and tarnish the legacy of our ancestors!The world is tainted with sin. What of the Nerusgol Union, and its ensurance of democracy and political freedom? A hogwash of anarchy and disorder! What of the People's Republic of Morbidia, and its devotion to economic equality? A backwards nation of lazy clods! What of the Kingdom of the Great Bar, and its natural ways of living? A country of savage barbarity! What of the Liyres Commonwealth, and its emphasis on the common good? A cesspool of unbridled communism! What of the Bagyo Isles, and its fierce spirit of independence? A zenith of crime and poverty! What of the Flornelian Union, and its inhabitants' tranquil lifestyles? A world of wasted potential! What of Kelargar, Uveerius, and Uopia, and their "culturally rich" societies? Heresies upon the one true god: Kelios!
As esteemed tabulons of the Kingdom of Kaywell, it is our ultimate burden, our manifest destiny, and our imperious fate to rid the noble aetherland of our ancestors of the degeneracies of the modern world and revive the glorious light of morality, tradition, and order! Such is the nature of the world: the strong devour the weak. It is not hatred, but love that is the sin! No longer shall the decadence of progress, the tyranny known as love desecrate our Uingffhaestia; the prosperity of Izlondia shall return, and by us Kaywellians' guiding hand!
It is with this Declaration of Imperation that I, Ring Shol Gregrox Kaywell, 7th regnant monarch of the Kingdom of Kaywell, duly use the power vested in me to officially reform the Empire of Kaywell and declare everlasting war on the degeneracy that plagues Uingffh! May all the backwards nations of Ingffhaestia tremble before our unparalleled might; we will emerge victorious. For the everlasting glory of Uingffh!
Shol Gregrox Kaywell, November 14, 2045
Conquest of Uingffh[]
Kaywell-Osuwa Unification Treaty (2046)[]
Political map of Uingffh prior to the Second Age of Imperium
The first nation to respond to the Declaration of Imperation was the United States of Osuwa, Kaywell's closest ally. As fellow supporters of tabulon supremacy, the Osuwan government, including president Odyssia rei Iphelia, petitioned on November 15 to unify Osuwa and Kaywell in order to increase the military strength and resources of the pro-imperial forces. The fact that Ring Shol did not explicitly criticize Osuwa in fir rant against other Uingffhian nations bolstered the Osuwan people's confidence.
Indeed, Kaywell itself also supported annexing Osuwa on friendly terms in order to increase its own strength. On January 23, 2046, Ring Shol and President Odyssia signed the Kaywell-Osuwa Unification Treaty, which formally absorbed the entirety of Osuwa's territory into the Kingdom/Empire of Kaywell; this singular move instantly made Kaywell the largest and most powerful nation on Uingffh before any fighting could even begin. As a reward for her cooperation, Odyssia was appointed the prime minister of the Kaywellian parliament while numerous other influential Osuwan families, including the founders of BlueBliis, were awarded nobility status. Though some isolated fights and disputes occurred, the citizens of Kaywell and the newly-subjugated Osuwa largely encouraged the two nations' unity, united by their shared Izlondo-Keliostic belief in tabulon dominion over Uingffh and the stars beyond.
The peaceful annexation of Osuwa also established a principle that differed the Second Age of Imperium from the first: tabulon racial equality. Because tabulon supremacy and Izlondo-Keliosity stressed the inherent superiority of all tabulons regardless of race (and more importantly, the inherent inferiority of the many non-tabulon races the tabulons held knowledge of but were yet to physically contact), both the government and citizens of Kaywell made no moves to discriminate against the Osuwans or reinstate the Korndelia racial caste system of old. Instead, Kaywellians and Osuwans ridiculed foreign nations on the basis of their political ideologies and culture. They demonized both more progressive Uingffhian nations' left-leaning policies and more conservative Uingffhian nations' cultural devotion for inhibiting the realization of the tabulons' interstellar manifest destiny, accepting foreign-born tabulons as long as they displayed a devotion to Kaywell and Osuwa's ideologies. So ultimately, Kaywell only accepted foreigners that agreed with their policies.
Meanwhile, other nations of Uingffh reacted with surprise and distaste, with many world leaders publicly denouncing Kaywell's actions; in particular, the Council of Nations blasted the United States of Osuwa for betraying them by unifying with Kaywell. Nonetheless, however, no Uingffhian nation performed any actual military maneuvers against Kaywell, knowing that the Imperial Kingdom would easily defeat them now that it had Osuwa's military might on its side as well; instead, the nations spent their time building up their militaries in preparation for a counter-revolt.
Kaywellian Invasions of Bagyo and Liyres (2046-2051)[]
Political map of Uingffh on January 1, 2046
Shortly after Osuwa voluntarily had itself absorbed into the Empire of Kaywell, Kaywell declared war on the Bagyo and Liyres islands. Aside from being ideal first targets (Bagyo's poverty and Liyres' pacifism rendered them vulnerable to invasion), the two island continents were also conquered as an act of Kaywellian and Osuwan retribution for being former colonies that later broke away and declared independence.
Even though Liyres and Bagyo would prove easy conquests, Kaywell still enacted a military draft specifically of adolescents of all genders. Prime Minister Odyssia, Ring Shol, and Princess Urlum enacted this policy in order to instill discipline, patriotism, and other Kaywellian values into teens in place of oversensitivity, entitlement, rebelliousness. In Princess Urlum's words, Kaywellian teens were "special snowflakes that desperately needed exposure to the real world." Kaywell also promoted support for the war within the nation by having its government and corporations implement a propaganda program portraying the war as a mission to "civilize" Liyres and Jebellion and further the Izlondo-Keliostic cause of tabulon supremacy and Uingffhian dominion.
Throughout late winter and spring 2046, Kaywell deployed initial invasion forces of an estimated 215,000 troops to the Bagyo Isles and an estimated 255,000 troops to the Liyres Commonwealth alongside countless naval ships, tanks, fighter jets, and other military weapons. As predicted, Kaywell easily conquered both nations by the end of the year. Bagyo, in its perilous state of political unrest and widespread poverty, was utterly incapable of fighting back against the Kingdom's massive imperial army; its capital of Alinam quickly fell to Kaywell's control on August 17, 2046. Some Bagyan citizens even defected to Kaywell during the war, believing that the nation would bring them out of poverty and bring forth an era of economic prosperity. This notion only proved partially true due to Kaywell enacting a system of trickle-down economics and unregulated capitalism on Bagyo following the conquest; though Kaywell lifted the Isles from poverty, only the richest of citizens and corporations reaped its benefits, with the poor and working-class continuing to live in squalor and suffer exploitation from the upper classes.
In Liyres, enemy morale was much stronger, with the Liyrians fiercely fighting for the maintenance of their freedom and values. However, the Imperial Kingdom of Kaywell's superior military power combined with its own fierce morale born from powerful propaganda ultimately won over the Liyres' compassionate fighting. On September 8, 2046, Liyres' capital, Aldnoah, fell to Kaywellian control as imperial forces captured Liyres' governmental officials. Afterwards, Kaywell proceeded to repeal almost all of Liyres' progressive social policies, believing them to constitute decadence and degeneracy; in their place, the Kingdom implemented strict laws restricting Liyrians' personal lives down to how they dressed, how they talked, etc.
Notably, despite Kaywell annexing both Liyres and Bagyo in 2046, beginning its conquest of Nerusgol a year later, and succeeding in instilling nationalism into teenage militart conscripts, the war with Liyres and Bagyo continued until 2051. This came about not because internal rebellions plagued Kaywell's newly-acquired colonies, but because the Kingdom's top officials held a desire to continue performing wanton attacks on both nations out of personal revenge and an effort to promote Kaywellian nationalism. Throughout the next five years, the Kaywellian military bombed random Liyrian and Bagyan towns and massacred their citizens in the thousands in the name of "Kaywellian exceptionalism", touting its atrocities as "a display of the consequences of failing to live up to the high expectations of life as an esteemed, eminent tabulon." By 2051, the Kingdom had killed an estimated 10 million Liyrians and Bagyans for their political ideologies; though the Council of Nations expressed their consternation towards what many agreed to be a genocide against anti-Kaywell Liyrians and Bagyans, they were incapable of taking action due to focusing their efforts on defending against other Kaywellian invasions.
Kaywellian Invasion of Nerusgol and the Introduction of Urlum Eudae Kaywell (2047-2054)[]
Political map of Uingffh on January 1, 2047
After securing control of Alinam and Aldnoah, the Kaywell Empire announced its intentions to invade the Nerusgol Union next on January 6, 2047, sending 235,000 troops (including many youth conscripts) alongside air and land-based weaponry. Like the conquests of Liyres and Bagyo, the war with Nerusgol initially proved easy due to Nerusgol's decentralized nature, with the Union's constituent regions struggling to band together against the Imperial Kingdom's forces.
However, the war began to shift towards Nerusgol's favor in 2049 when Kelargar announced its allyship with Nerusgol and sent troops and weaponry from its own potent military to the Union. This slowed the progress of Kaywell's invasion as Kelargan troops fought back against the Imperial Kingdom's own forces. Then, in 2050, Morbidia announced its allyship with Kelargar and Nerusgol and sent its own military aid, further hampering Kaywell's invasion efforts.
In response to the deteriorating war situation, Kaywell sent Third Princess Urlum, who had recently studied military tactics and strategy, into Nerusgol as a strategist and tactician in 2051. There, the princess' prodigious intellect translated into clever battle strategies and tactical maneuvers, quickly turning the tide of the war back to Kaywell's favor; by 2052, Kaywell had resumed taking Nerusgan territory at an alarming pace. Despite being outnumbered by joint Nerusgol-Kelargar-Morbidia forces, Urlum Eudae Kaywell's cunning scored a number of victories for Kaywell; for example, during the Battle of Nibraltaria, Urlum used bombs to destabilize a section of the Nerusgol Straits' cliff walls, causing it to fall into the strait below and generate an artificial megatsunami which decimated both the naval and land forces of the enemy. This megatsunami proceeded to cause further devastation in Nerusgan cities along the Nerusgol Straits, further weakening the Union's forces.
By November of 2054, Kaywell had claimed all of Nerusgol's territory save for its capital, Nerome. In the ensuing Battle of Nerusgol, the armies of Kaywell and the Nerusgol resistance front fought near the border of Nerome as Princess Urlum and her subordinates secretly installed bombs along the then-unstable slopes of Mount Lazarus, an active volcano located in close proximity to Nerome. Then, after evacuating the Kaywellian troops, Urlum detonated the bombs, causing a significant portion of Mount Lazarus to break away in the largest landslide in Uingffhian history. This landslide effectively killed or trapped all Nerusgan, Kelargan, and Morbidian forces stationed at Nerome while the resultant ash and dust cloud rendered any aerial activities dangerous and infeasible. Shortly afterwards, the instability brought about by the blasts and its resultant mudslides triggered an eruption from the mountain itself, further crippling any surviving enemy forces. The Mount Lazarus eruption measured a VEI 5 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index and released an ash plume 15.5 kilometers high into the Uingffhian atmosphere.
By December, volcanic activity in and around Lazarus had largely subsided. By then, the landslide and eruption had destroyed the entirety of Nerome and killed an estimated 89,324 civilians, including the city's government officials. On December 16, Kaywell declared the battle a Kaywellian victory and claimed Nerusgol for itself. The Kaywellian public lauded Urlum for her unique strategies during the war; meanwhile other world leaders and figures denounced her as a war criminal whose tactics went against established war conventions and rules, most notably the Nazaria Convention created during the Age of Reform. Urlum's strategies had killed thousands of innocent non-combattants including numerous medics, which the Convention identified as neutral parties In response, the third princess affirmed her willingness to blatantly ignore war treaties and conventions, believing such conventions to constitute degeneracy and a hinderance of Kaywellian prosperity.
This speech has been translated from Golagat, the national language of the Kingdom of Kaywell and the main language of the tabulon race, to English. Some translation errors may exist.
The backwards nations of the world deceive. 'You shall not harm non-combattants,' 'you shall not torture,' 'you shall not cause extensive property destruction,' 'you shall not take hostages' - all deceptions fabricated by nations of weaklings endeavoring to hide from the harsh realities of life!
But not our esteemed Kingdom of Kaywell, which has embraced the necessities of war. Yes... the world is but another struggle to survive not unlike the competition of animals! No one will help you, and it us up to you and you alone to realize your dreams using any means necessary. And thus we of Kaywell shall use any means necessary to realize us tabulons' destiny to lay dominion over the stars, blessed by the Izlondians and Kelios! If we must destroy Uingffh and recreate it anew to achieve that end, then so be it.The only good enemy of Kaywell is a dead one. For the everlasting glory of Uingffh!
Urlum Eudae Kaywell, December 18, 2054
Kaywellian Invasion of Kelargar (2055-2058)[]
Political map of Uingffh on January 1, 2055
After the annexation of Nerusgol, the Empire of Kaywell quickly chose its next target for conquest: Kelargar, partly as an act of revenge for allying with Nerusgol.
Kelargar proved another quick conquest; it had exhausted most of its own military in the Nerusgol war and now struggled to revitalize it within such a short timeframe. In addition, though Morbidia announced its support of Kelargar despite its opposing ideals due to their shared enemy (Kaywell), it was unable to send military aid due to Kaywellian imperial forces stationed at the now-conquered Nerusgol region blocking any and all Morbidian attempts at transporting resources to Kelargar.
After officially declaring war on the Kelargar Republic on February 14, 2055, Kaywell sent 228,000 troops to the nation to invade. These ground forces, alongside numerous tank platoons and military aircraft, defeated Kelargar's weakened defense forces with ease; within just a month, 25% of Kelargar had fallen to Kaywell. In the process, the Kaywellian imperial army destroyed not only countless Kelargan cities, but also important Kelargan cultural sites in a deliberate effort to erase a culture they deemed inferior to Kaywell's. Progress slowed slightly later in the war, but only due to Kaywell choosing to invest more of its resources towards internal developments like its new colonies and its governmental budgets.
Kaywell continued on its track of bombing Kelargan cities (major cultural centers included) until April 2057, when the Kingdom had claimed all of Kelargar save for its capital city of Nerus. There, Kelargar had gathered up the remains of its military as well as all of its surviving governmental officials. On April 15, the Great Battle of Nerus official commenced, with the Kelargan remnants engaging in combat with the imperial forces led by Princess Urlum. During the battle, Urlum deliberately collapsed Nerus' tall skyscrapers in order to trap or crush Kelargans underneath - a strategy which proved effective, earning Kaywell a victory along with official control of Kelargar's territory on April 22, 2057. The Kelargan government's surviving officials were later detained by imperial soldiers and incarcerated as prisoners of war.
Kaywell, however, protracted the war to 2058, viewing it as incomplete; though the Kingdom had claimed all of Kelargar's territory, Kelargar culture continued to persist in Kelargan colonial subjects and surviving cultural sites. The rest of 2057 and 2058 thus constituted a war against Kelargan culture. Kaywellian military troops and forces scoured the nation for any surviving Kelargan historical and cultural sites before promptly destroying them. High-ranking personnel including Princess Urlum initiated a smear campaign against particularly devout Kelargans, painting them as savage, dangerous, and "in need of Kaywellian civilization."
This war on Kelargan culture also saw prominence within the aetherland, where corporations and governmental figures, including Ring Shol, carried out similar anti-Kelargan campaigns. In addition to spreading propaganda portraying the Kelargan culture in a negative light, Kaywell also upheld tabulons of the Kelargan race who embraced Kaywellian culture, extensively enumerating their "civilizing journey" in order to encourage other Kelargans to follow suit. Some particularly nationalistic or religious Kaywellians resorted to more forceful means to convert Kelargans to Kaywellian culture; for instance, Keliostic missionaries set up numerous boarding schools specifically designed to indoctrinate Kelargan children into adopting the ways of Keliosity and Kaywell. These missionaries and school staff occasionally used extreme methods to accomplish this, including thirst, starvation, and corporal punishment.
The most extremist of Kaywellian politicians authorized the army and police to carry out the mass persecution of cultural Kelargans. These armies would regularly raid Kelargan settlements and capture any Kelargan who showed even minor indications of native cultural expression. These raids often devolved into outright massacres and mass killings; by the end of 2058, Kaywell had claimed the lives of an estimated 789,000 Kelargans in this manner.
Kaywellian Invasion of Jebellion, Formation of the Uingffhian Liberation Front, and the Liberation of Liyres (2058-2064)[]
Political map of Uingffh on January 1, 2058
On March 13, 2058 (incidentally, Princess Urlum's 58th birthday), the Empire of Kaywell declared war on Jebellion Island. Due to Jebellion's smaller size, Kaywell sent only 157,000 troops to the island and an accordingly smaller amount of tanks, aircraft, naval warships, and other military arms; Kaywell also performed attacks on the Kingdom of the Great Bar in order to prevent them from sending aid to Jebellion, though it had no intention of actually invading the Great Bar until the completion of the invasion of Jebellion.
The subsequent war proved largely in Kaywell's favor until January 16, 2059. That day, the rest of the nations on Uingffh - Jebellion, the Great Bar, Uveerius, Uopia, Flornelia, and Morbidia - banded together and formed the Uingffhian Liberation Front, a temporary union between the six nations dedicated to stopping Kaywell's imperialist expansion. Shortly after its formation, the ULF deployed its first forces to Jebellion, where they significantly slowed Kaywell's invasion progress there.
Ultimately, the deployment of Urlum Eudae Kaywell into Jebellion once again granted Kaywell a decisive victory after several long years of war. During the climatic April 22, 2064 Battle of Jebellion City, Princess Urlum had Kaywellian submarines destabilize the artificial sand island that formed Jebellion City's foundation, leading to the losses of all ULF forces on the island, the deaths or capturing of all surviving Jebellian government officials, and the annexation of Jebellion itself.
However, Jebellion's annexation came at the cost of Kaywell's Liyres colony, where another ULF force, noticing Kaywell's focus on acquiring Jebellion, took advantage of the relative lack of troops in Liyres to initiate a counter-revolution which began in mid 2062. This Liberation of Liyres saw the debut of Alpha Canum Venaticorum (alias Cor Caroli), another skilled strategist and tactician (this time Kelargan) rivaling Urlum in intelligence. Most notably, when the ULF liberated the Liyrian capital Aldnoah on May 8, 2064, Cor Caroli utilized a strategy similar to the Mount Lazarus strategy Kaywell used during the Battle of Nerome: she used bombs to destabilize the flanks of nearby active volcanoes Mount Lindor and Mount Nara, eliminating the remaining Kaywellian forces stationed in Liyres. This time, Alpha Canum Venaticorum managed to strategically aim these landslides away from populated areas, sparing Aldnoah and nearby settlements from destruction.
Liberation of Jebellion (2064-2067)[]
Political map of Uingffh on June 1, 2064
Shortly after liberating Liyres, the ULF declared its intention to liberate Jebellion from Kaywell's control on June 3, 2064. As a recently-acquired Kaywellian colony without an established Kaywellian presence, Jebellion formed a prime target of the ULF's next operations.
The ULF's member nations collectively sent a force of 203,000 soldiers, including Venaticorum, to the island to drive away Kaywell's forces. In response, Kaywell halted its expansionism in order to focus on defense, sending Princess Urlum to deal with the Liberation Front. The Third Princess and Cor Caroli fought numerous close strategic and tactical battles across Jebellion, with many on both sides touting their relationship as one of the most culturally-significant rivalries of tabulon history.
After numerous complex battles, including one where Venaticorum and Urlum repeatedly caused dozens of artificial landslides along a Jebellian hillside in frustrated attempts to bury their respective enemies under rubble, the ULF finally liberated Jebellion Island on December 27, 2067. However, this did not come without immense losses on both sides, with a combined death toll of 67,832 soldiers. Princess Urlum notably showed less tactical and strategic prowess on the battlefield during the liberation of Jebellion, but this was likely done by her on purpose as a way to gauge Cor Caroli's strength.
Liberation of Kelargar (2068-2072)[]
Political map of Uingffh on January 1, 2067
After liberating Jebellion, the ULF announced its intention to next liberate Kelargar on January 2, 2068.
The liberation of Kelargar proved a test of the ULF's soft power. While armed combat did occur between ULF forces and the Kaywellian Imperial Army, the majority of the Liberation Front's strength came from propaganda posters, programs, and pamphlets promoting native Kelargan culture. This in turn led to the rise of a ULF-backed underground army of native Kelargans led by Kelargan politician Litia von Lucerna opposing Kaywellian occupation. Alpha Canum Venaticorum also acted as a prime figure in this program of Kelargan patriotism, being a Kelargan herself.
In response, however, Kaywell introduced its own nationalistic propaganda program, in fact forming a new parliamentary organization specifically for propaganda: the Imperial Ministry of Truth. In its colonies, including Kelargar, the newly-formed IMT worked alongside pro-Kaywell corporations to spread patriotic messages portraying Kaywellian culture as superior to Kelargar's and Kaywellian occupation as beneficial to Kelargans. The Ministry of Truth, at times, also resorted to more extreme methods, such as the arrest and torture of pro-Kelargar activists.
Meanwhile, within the aetherland, Kaywell encouraged its citizens to contribute to the war effort. Aside from glorifying conscription and service in the army, the Kingdom also promoted other forms of support for the war; the Ministry of Truth encouraged artists and other creatives to submit pro-Kaywell propaganda works and encouraged workers and corporations to produce weapons and other military resources to fight the ULF. These aetherland propaganda notably made use of traditional gender norms and other stereotypes - another appeal to Kaywellian culture and tradition.
Though both sides fought valiantly through both soft power and hard power, the ULF ultimately gained the upper hand due to the relatively young age of the Kaywellian colony in Kelargar. By November 5, 2072, a pair of large ULF armies led by Alpha and Litia had gathered in the ruins of Nerus City, where Kaywell has set up its provisional colonial capital. Urlum's strategies initially gave the Kaywellian colonial forces an upper hand, but Venaticorum and von Lucerna's forces' advantage in numbers and morale earned them a decisive victory roughly two days later. The Kelargar colony crumbled shortly after, with practically all remaining Kaywellian individuals fleeing the region as the Kelargans reclaimed their autonomy. Alpha Canum Venaticorum and Litia von Lucerna were lauded as war heroes by the ULF and the Kelargan people; paradoxically, Urlum Eudae Kaywell was also lauded by Kaywell as a war hero due to her efforts in the war despite the Kingdom's loss.
Liberation of Bagyo and the Prim Gulf States (2072-2080)[]
Political map of Uingffh on December 1, 2072
Following the liberation of Kelargar, the Kaywellian military concentrated its forces in Nerusgol. Princess Urlum and other military strategists believed the ULF would target Nerusgol next due to its proximity to Kelargar.
However, Cor Caroli and the ULF knew Kaywell would try defending Nerusgol and instead attacked the Bagyo Isles and Osuwa. In both areas, the ULF encouraged the natives to rise up against Kaywell and fight for their freedom; in Bagyo, the ULF specifically portrayed the liberation as a matter of class conflict and worker's rights, using messages of class equality and labor rights to garner support from native Bagyans.
The ULF initially carried the upper hand in the war due to the amount of time it took the imperial military to move its forces across Ulstonia from Nerusgol to Bagyo and Osuwa; within that timeframe, the Liberation Front quickly liberated almost all of Bagyo. Once the Kaywellian military arrived, however, the war swiftly transformed into an even match. Though the ULF ultimately liberated Bagyo and its capital of Alinam on November 26, 2073, they experienced significant difficulty in reclaiming Osuwa due to Kaywell's counterefforts. Furthermore, the ULF experienced resistance from Osuwan natives themselves due to Osuwa having voluntarily absorbed itself into the Kingdom of Kaywell.
A notably strategy Princess Urlum used against the ULF was the creation of tension between Alpha Canum Venaticorum and Litia von Lucerna. In 2075, after conducting background research on both individuals, Urlum and other high-ranking individuals in Kaywell's military discovered that Venaticorum and von Lucerna's political beliefs strongly conflicted; while Venaticorum exercised fierce leftist beliefs, von Lucerna carried staunch conservative opinions. Kaywell played upon this conflict by publicly broadcasting their opinions across Uingffh; though these had the appearance of normal Kaywellian propaganda and were seemingly created to convince citizens to view the ULF as hypocritical, their true intention was to spur conflict between the two ULF figures. This effort proved successful in creating a schism within the ULF between conservative nationalists like Litia and leftist revolutionaries like Alpha, hampering the ULF's efforts throughout 2075-2077.
Ultimately, the ULF only succeeded in liberating Amazingffh, an Osuwan state located close to the Prim Gulf that lay between the Bagyo Isles and eastern Ulstonia, by 2080. By then, over 350,000 soldiers on both sides had perished in the two liberations. Furthermore, the outcome of the Bagyo and Osuwa wars would prove irrelevant after Kaywell unveiled its true invasion plan in 2080.
Second Apocalix (2080)[]
This speech has been translated from Golagat, the national language of the Kingdom of Kaywell and the main language of the tabulon race, to English. Some translation errors may exist.
The hills are alive with the sound of music. A sound that belongs to the ears of Kaywell and Kaywell only.
With this final act, we shall finally wipe away Uingffhaestia's sins. No more shall the degenerate love of Flornelia, Nerusgol, Morbidia, Jebellion, the Great Bar, Kelargar, Uveerius, Uopia, Bagyo, or Liyres degrade the purity of our holy homeworld with its iniquity.The Uingffh Liberation Front is dead. The clarity of Kaywell shall prevail. All of Uingffh surrender or die. This is the Second Apocalix. For the Everlasting Glory of Uingffh!
Urlum Eudae Kaywell, November 14, 2080
Political map of Uingffh on November 13, 2080
At exactly 06:00 UTC (Uingffh Standard Time) on November 14, 2080, Uingffhian authorities detected a total of 15 extraterrestrial objects on trajectories targeting major population centers and capitals on Uingffh. These objects all measured 2.8 kilometers in length. Due to their unusually precise movements and shared unusual missile-shaped structure, Uingffhian governments deduced these objects as artificial in nature. Some tabulons suspected an alien invasion from one of the Ingffhaestian Star System's other sentient civilizations, but the architecture of the objects did not match those of any known sentient race. Uingffhian society devolved into a panic at the prospect of a possible invasion by unknown forces.
Computer model of an Ars Vesalum-class landing castle, released to the Kaywellian public in 2081 as part of a Kaywell nationalist program
Approximately five minutes later, however, Third Princess Urlum broadcasted a speech to the entirety of Uingffh revealing Kaywell as the constructor of these objects, termed Ars Vesalum-Class Landing Castles. In this broadcast, the princess revealed that the Second Age of Imperium's land invasions over the last 35 years were, in fact, a diversion and that she both knew and intended their inevitable failure; the impending attack by the landing castles, which the Imperial Kingdom had secretly begun constructing in 2050, constituted Kaywell's true invasion plan. Urlum Eudae Kaywell concluded her speech with nationalist lines that would later become culturally significant in the Kingdom.
By the speech's conclusion, the targets of the landing castles had become apparent: capitals and population centers across every nation on Uingffh except for the Kingdom of Kaywell and its Osuwan colonies. The Uingffh Liberation Front and its member nations utilized a variety of methods, including nuclear warheads imported from the Morbidian Republic, to halt the landing castles' advance, but to no avail; Kaywell had equipped advanced shielding and hull technology (which some alleged were derived from Izlondian technology found in the Great Pit ruins) that rendered the landing castles immune to most conventional Uingffhian weaponry. Meanwhile, governments ordered their citizens to take shelter in designated underground evacuation centers or to move as far away from projected impact sites as possible.
At 06:31 UTC, 12 of the 15 landing castles impacted the Uingffhian cities of Utopolitan (capital of Uopia), Amazia (capital of Osuwa's Amazingffh province), Utarangia (capital of Uveerius), Aldnoah (capital of Liyres), Nerome (capital of Nerusgol), Stantain (capital of Morbidia), Luciferous (major population center of Morbidia), Jebellion City (capital of Jebellion Island), Castle Bebellia (capital of the Great Bar), Festum (capital of Flornelia) and Nerus (capital of Kelargar). These impacts generated explosions and massive shockwaves that caused immense destruction on a subcontinental scale. In an instant, the shockwave burned all life-forms within a 500 kilometer radius of each impact epicenter, wiped out entire cities, generated tsunamis in the nearby oceans, and threw gigantic amounts of debris into the air. The remaining three Ars Vesalums remained in low Uingffhian orbit as reserve forces in case the ULF's resistance proved too strong for the landing castles on Uingffh to handle.
Ultimately, Kaywell would not need to utilize its reserved landing castles, for the 12 other Ars Vesalums' efforts proved sufficient in destabilizing and eliminating the ULF and its member nations. The initial impacts successfully eliminated large portions of the affected enemy nations' governments, including the elected leaders of the Great Bar, Jebellion, Flornelia, and Liyres. After the initial impacts, the Ars Vesalums on Uingffh entered a "moving castle" mode where they utilized retractable legs to achieve mobility; using this mode, the landing castles scoured their surrounding areas for any surviving government officials or ULF figures. They had completed this task by the beginning of December 2080, with Kaywellian forces capturing all remaining world leaders along with both Alpha Canum Venaticorum and Litia von Lucerna. By then, an estimated 1 billion tabulons had died due to the war.
Posterity would come to know the 2080 violent landing castle invasion of Uingffh as the Second Apocalix. This is a reference to the First Apocalix, the apocalyptic event that led to the demise of the Izlondians; likewise, the Second Apocalix represented the demise of the "decadent" pre-Kaywell society of Uingffh.
Imperialization of Uingffh (2080-2092)[]
This speech has been translated from Golagat, the national language of the Kingdom of Kaywell and the main language of the tabulon race, to English. Some translation errors may exist.
Citizens of Kaywell, lend your eyes and ears to the new ruler of all of Uingffh.
Blessed by Kelios and fir Izlondian disciples, we have achieved the conquest - no, purification of Uingffh. No more shall the degeneracy of backwards foreign nations tarnish the everlasting glory of our noble homeworld; we are now one nation, united under one flag! And together, we shall rise.But do not interpret this as the end of history. The struggle to survive is a struggle that will not cease to dictate our lives until the end of time itself. Arduous days lie ahead of us - arduous days of adjustment, purification, and cleansing. But at the end of it all, our empire shall shine brighter than it has ever before.
May these days of imperialization allow the strong to succeed by their own merits, and the weak fade into oblivion.
Shol Gregrox Kaywell, December 25, 2080
On December 25, 2080, the Kingdom of Kaywell formally gained control of all of Uingffh, rendering it the sole nation on the moon. A new era of Uingffhian timekeeping was established in commemoration of the Second Apocalix and Kaywell's rise to power: Ascension Ring Kaywellia. Beginning in the Earth year 2081, the Uingffhian year count would reset to zero, with succeeding years being denoted by an "a.r.k." appended following the number; the first Uingffhian year after the Second Apocalix would be designated 0 a.r.k.
Though Kaywell had plans to continue its expansionism to an interplanetary level, the Kingdom instead chose to prioritize recovering Uingffhian society after the Second Apocalix and adjusting Uingffh to its imperial rule. This so-called Imperialization of Uingffh would last over a decade and involve the establishment of Kaywellian principles across multiple areas of society.
Political imperialization[]
Following the conquest of Uingffh, Kaywell formally abolished all existing Uingffhian governments (including the Council of Nations) as its current government asserted authority over the entirety of Uingffh.
Aside from a slight increase in the power of the Kaywellian royal family, the existing Kaywellian government experienced no significant changes. The Kaywellian Parliament, however, did see a change in name to the High Imperial Parliament as well as an increase in its number of members to accommodate Kaywell's vastly increased population. Kaywell changed the names of departments within the parliament accordingly; the Great Royal Court became the High Imperial Court, the Executive Assembly became the Imperial Executive Assembly, etc. The title of the regnant monarch also received a slight adjustment with the addition of "Highmost"; Ring Shol became Highmost Ring Shol.
More importantly, the Kaywell Empire established a variety of governmental policies and organizations designed to further assert Kaywell's control over Uingffh. On January 6, 2081, Highmost Ring Shol had the High Imperial Parliament pass the Kaywell First Act, which illegalized public protest against Kaywell in the name of "preserving order and loyalty to the greatest nation of all". This led to the creation of numerous organizations and policies designed to enforce this law as well as new legislation and orders that expanded upon the act to include other forms of dissent, including religious dissent.
Political party suppression[]
The passage of the Kaywell First Act corresponded with the suppression and decline of the Progress Party and the Social Democrats - the two left-wing political parties leftover from the modern era. Already in decline due to their opposition to the Second Age of Imperium, the Kaywell First Act and associated policies only quickened their demise by allowing the federal government to arrest its more prominent members for "conspiring against Kaywell and the will of Kelios." This led to their remaining members going into hiding or avoiding the public eye in fear of arrest. By 2083, both parties had ceased to exist, Kaywell having either arrested or intimidated their members into obscurity.
The Federalist Party also saw less severe, but still significant suppression for their support of economic regulations, which conflicted with Kaywell's support of economic freedom and free-market capitalism. However, they still saw some support for their devotion to Kaywellian social traditions. Ultimately, while the Federalists did not cease to exist like the progressives and social democrats, they did find themselves delegated to the status of minor third party with no significant political power.
The political party suppression that came with Kaywell's political imperialization left the Royal Traditionalists (since renamed the Imperial Traditionalists) as the only prominent political party predating the Second Age of Imperium. However, most Kaywellian citizens, now even more conservative following the Second Apocalix and the Second Age, saw even the Royal Traditionalists as too moderate for their tastes. In addition, Kaywellians still supported democracy and disliked the prospect of having only one dominant political party. These two factors led to the formation of the aptly-named Kaywell First Party, on September 3, 2085. The Kaywell First Party was a far-right party advocating for Kaywellian ultranationalism, supporting Kaywellian traditions and radical right-wing policies with even more fervency than the Imperial Traditionalists; the Kaywell Firsters quickly grew into the most popular political party in the Kingdom of Kaywell within less than a year. The Imperial Traditionalists, meanwhile, ended up adopting the role of Kaywell's "left-wing" party, but solely due to the Kaywell First Party making the Imperial Traditionalists appear progressive by comparison; they still retained the same conservative beliefs they had adopted during the modern era.
Formalization of the Kaywell Imperial Ministry of Truth (KIMT)[]
On January 7, a day after passing the Kaywell First Act, the High Imperial Parliament formalized the wartime Imperial Ministry of Truth into federal law. The IMT (now the Kaywell Imperial Ministry of Truth, or KIMT) became Kaywell's official federal department of propaganda, carrying the responsibility of producing and distributing works promoting Kaywellian nationalism across multiple media forms. Among its most notable imperialization-era propaganda works was the television series Glory, a war story dramatizing the Second Age of Imperium from Princess Urlum's perspective; the series quickly rose to popularity during Uingffh's imperialization.
In practice, the Ministry of Truth proved to have relatively low influence on Kaywellian society; due to the Kingdom's devotion to free-market policies, multiple large corporations had already taken up the responsibility of creating and spreading pro-Kaywell propaganda. At times, the KIMT partnered with media corporations to jointly produce pieces of propaganda. In addition, it should be stressed that the KIMT's sole purpose was to disseminate its own propaganda works, not restrict existing works of media; the Imperial Morality Police carried that responsibility.
Economic imperialization[]
After conquering Uingffh, Kaywell continued to utilize capitalism as its economic system. However, imperialization saw the promotion of laissez-faire capitalism, greater economic freedom, and free-market policies; Kaywell's high-ranking figures associated socialism, communism, welfarism, and economic regulations with the "degeneracy" of foreign nations, but also genuinely saw the benefits of relaxed economic regulations. In addition, Kaywellians supported limitless capitalism as part of their social darwinist nature, opposing assistance of the poor on the basis of the poor being at fault for their own poverty. Kaywell termed its specific economic system "Kaywellian Capitalism".
Throughout Kaywell's imperialization, the High Imperial Parliament and the Kaywell Family struck down practically all of its pre-Second Age economic regulations, including a variety of workers' rights legislation such as the right for workers to strike. Labor unions and minimum wage requirements were outlawed while practices like child labor once again became legal. Only environmental regulations remained in place, as the natural environment of Uingffh itself had become a symbol of Kaywellian patriotism; however, Kaywell relaxed regulations concerning private operations on other celestial bodies, such as Coppelius' other moons. The Kingdom also slashed funding for public institutions like public schools, universities, and healthcare; instead, they allocated funding towards the development of private education and healthcare. Lastly, Kaywell completely eliminated its welfare budget in the Poor Independence Act of November 29, 2083, re-allocating its funds to the military and law enforcement budgets. Despite Kaywell's support of economic freedom, taxes remained relatively high to fund the imperial military; Kaywell's tax system remained flat and was not adjusted based on its citizens' income.
The Imperial Kingdom's libertarian economic policies translated into exceptional economic growth across Uingffh. Throughout imperialization, Kaywell's economy grew at a frightening rate; by imperialization's end in 2092, Kaywell's (and by extension, Uingffh's) GDP was equal to 215 trillion sters (since renamed to imperial sters). In addition, the average income of Kaywellian citizens rose above 100,000 imperial sters. Cities and colonies grew more advanced and sophisticated with each year as standards of living improved.
However, economic imperialization also led to extreme increases in economic inequality, with the 10% richest Kaywellians earning 366.32 times as much money as the 10% poorest by 2092. With the crackdown on labor legislation in favor of the freedom of business owners, workers - among them many children - found their rights and freedoms nearly nonexistent as Kaywellian corporations, viewing them as nothing but tools for profit, exploited them in order to maximize productivity and output. Some business executives went as far as using corporal punishment like whipping to punish poor work performance; on the other end of the spectrum, other overseers became negligent to the point where workplaces became extremely unsafe. Workplace deaths increased by nearly tenfold to 11.14 million in 2092. Workers could not protest against their conditions due to the outlawing of labor unions and the more general outlawing of public protesting following the Kaywell First Act's passage; as a side effect of this, many workers began to internalize the views of their overseers, viewing productivity as the sole determiner of their worth and their suffering under employers as evidence of their own poor moral worth.
As the lifestyles of Kaywell's upper-class grew even more opulent, those of lower-class and poor families only worsened as the poor fell deeper into poverty. With the privatization of most education, healthcare, and other similar services, poor Kaywellian families - many of which were of ethnic minorities, whom imperialization-era economic inequality disproportionately affected - struggled not only to access the most basic essentials, but also to ensure their children's access to such needs due to private schools and hospitals drastically increasing the prices of their services. In addition, the elimination of welfare in favor of economic growth sentenced both poor families and their posterity to lifetimes of poverty due to their inability to use government aid to recover themselves. Kaywell's high flat tax rates hurt the poor even more while negligibly affecting Kaywell's affluent population due to their vastly higher income.
Perhaps the most important effect of economic imperialization was a significant shift in Kaywellian culture. Prior to the conquest of Uingffh, Kaywell placed high value on the arts and humanities as well as most forms of science. But with the rise of Kaywellian capitalism, liberal and performing arts fell out of Kaywellian society's favor due to corporations not viewing them as profitable; in their place, the Kingdom began to promote more practical fields like engineering, manufacturing, technology, etc. Science, meanwhile, was only promoted as a means for Kaywell to carry out its imperialism and "spread [its] glory across the stars." The arts were still enjoyed and appreciated, but only by the richest and most affluent in Kaywellian society, who saw them as mere pasttimes rather than profitable careers.
Middle- and upper-class Kaywellian citizens had a variety of justifications for the economic inequality produced by imperialization. The most progressive of Kaywellians (which still meant strongly fiscally conservative) saw economic inequality as a necessary evil in order to achieve economic growth. Meanwhile, most Kaywellians blamed the poor themselves for their own poverty, but expressed their beliefs in different ways. Imperial Traditionalists and other "moderates" sympathized with the poor, but encouraged them to get their own better-paying careers - a process largely impossible thanks to the abolition of wage requirements - as opposed to directly helping them or passing legislation addressing Kaywell's lack of welfare. By contrast, more radical, nationalistic Kaywellians such as members of the Kaywell First party were more blunt in their beliefs, viewing those in poverty as failures who not only became poor due to their lack of merit, but also deserved to stay in poverty as punishment for said lack of merit as well as to prevent them from "spreading their impurity to the rich." Such social darwinists frequently carried out beatings, attacks, and even murders of poor or homeless people in public; the Kaywellian government pressed no criminal charges against them, sometimes even pressing charges against the victims for fighting back and "disrupting the peace and order of the Kingdom."
Social imperialization[]
One of the most significant aspects of Kaywell's imperialization was the imperialization of its society and culture. Throughout the 2080s and early 2090s, Uingffh saw a significant shift in its planetary culture towards far-right politics and nationalism. Kaywellians in power instilled their ultranationalist beliefs into their citizens through policies, public displays, education, and other methods.
First came the censorship of pre-Second Apocalix Uingffhian society through the January 8, 2081 New World Order Act. This act outlawed the display and distribution of symbols, audio, objects, etc, such as flags, directly associated with old Uingffhian nations and their governments. The NWO Act also authorized the imperial military to demolish any non-Kaywellian governmental buildings. Following the enactment of the New World Order Act, Kaywell had nationalist symbols placed across Uingffh; the Kingdom's supporters erected massive Kaywell flags onto large buildings, statues of Second Age Kaywellian war heroes upon the ruins of old non-Kaywellian government offices, and glorified paintings of the royal family in museums.
The New World Order Act also involved the suppression of religious minorities, establishing Keliosity - specifically, Izlondo-Keliosity - as the Kingdom's state-sponsered religion. In addition to banning displays associated with other religions outside of Keliostic sects, the NWO Act authorized Kaywell's military and law enforcement to carry out the religious persecution and "re-education" of Kaywellian religious minorities. Throughout imperialization, Kaywellian soldiers and police officers arrested an estimated 348 million religious "heretics", of which they murdered an estimated 215 million; most present historians cite this event, dubbed the Baptism of Uingffh, as a genocide. The NWO Act's religious clauses also led to the demonization of religious minorities in Kaywellian society, the derogatory portrayal of religious minorities in both state- and corporate-sponsored propaganda, an increase in the religious freedom of Keliostics specifically, and the general erosion (and later eradication) of the separation between church and state.
Afterwards, Kaywellian society began to increase its animosity towards minority groups. The Kingdom followed a methodical approach in removing rights from minority groups, targeting minorities one by one. Before then, however, the Kingdom passed the Keliostic Freedom Act on April 8, 2082; the act permitted Keliostic Kaywellians to refuse services, including essential services, from anyone on the basis of their Keliostic beliefs. This led to the exclusion of many LGBTQ+ individuals from services and employment as Kaywellian business owners, healthcare providers, teachers, etc. cited conflicts with certain verses of Keliostic text apparently forbidding homosexuality (though later studies carried out in the 23rd Century would reveal many of these verses as mistranslations, showing that they forbade other sexual crimes such as pedophilia, necrophilia, bestiality, sexual assault, etc.).
Transgender people were then targeted first, with Highmost Ring Shol and the High Imperial Parliament passing the Child Protection Act on June 28, 2082. Contrary to its seemingly docile name, the Child Protection Act prohibited transgender people from being within a certain distance from children on the basis that transgender people were "child predators." The subsequent and similar School Protection Act of July 9, 2082 outlawed transgender-inclusive sexual education, gender-neutral bathrooms, transgender inclusion in sports, and other similar accommodations. Kaywell's next piece of anti-transgender legislation came on November 1, 2082, when the High Imperial Parliament passed the Three Genders Act. As its name implied, the Three Genders Act removed legal recognition of gender identities outside of the traditional tabulon gender trinary of male, female, and somale. Lastly, the March 13, 2083 Act to Prevent Self-Mutilation deemed all transgender surgeries a criminal offense and labelled past receivers of transgender surgery criminals; this act effectively illegalized both being transgender and supporting transgender people in the Kingdom of Kaywell.
Next, from 2084 to 2085, Kaywell passed similar restrictive policies on other members of the LGBTQ+ community - specifically homosexuals, bisexuals, asexuals, and other identities revolving around sexual attraction as opposed to gender, though the Ministry of Truth had been disseminating homophobic propaganda for months before then. On January 16, 2084, the High Imperial Parliament and Highmost Ring Shol passed the Purity Extension, which extended the Child and School Protection Acts to also affect other LGBTQ+ community members; the extension of the School Protection Act in particular also permitted Keliostics teachers to readily encourage Keliosity and Keliostic messages in their teaching. Afterwards, the April 18, 2084 Noval Act (named after the Parliamentarian who passed it, Neelios Noval) formally restricted same-sex couples from even more services, including adoption, employment, healthcare, education, etc. while significantly lessening or eliminating altogether punishments for hate-motivated crimes. Then, on December 23, 2084, Highmost Ring Shol had the imperial parliament pass the Act to Protect the Sanctity of Marriage, which banned federal recognition of not only same-sex marriage, but also polyamorous marriage and other "deviant" forms of marriage by limiting the definition of marriage to the traditional union of one male, one female, and one somale. This sweeping act, however, still proved unsatisfactory to Kaywell Firsters, leading to the Tyranny of Same-Sex Love Act's passage on February 14, 2085. Said act illegalized homosexuality altogether, including outside of marriage; the act also included increased funding for a vigorous homophobic "sexual purity" propaganda program being exercised by the Ministry of Truth as well as subsidies for media corporations carrying out similar programs.
Afterwards, Kaywell began imposing a dress code, federally-enforced traditional rituals, and other restrictions onto the lives of its citizens. The June 6, 2085 Decency Act banned tabulons from wearing clothing associated with genders aside from their own, though this part of the act proved to have little effect on Kaywellian society since most tabulon decorative dresswear was gender neutral to begin with. The act also forced tabulons to wear more formal clothing in public and drastically increased the severity of punishments for public nudity and the wearing of gang-related clothing. A series of subsequent acts, laws, and policies passed throughout 2086 enforced other traditions including the necessary greetings for members of the Kaywellian aristocracy; for instance, the vir Respect Act of November 25, 2086 mandated a Kaywellian salute from citizens whenever they first contact a holder of the noble title of vir (awarded for military achievements) in person. The similar rei and Royal Respect Act of December 14 mandated bowing in the presence of holders of the noble title of rei (an inherited nobiliary particle) and kneeling in the presence of members of the Kaywellian Royal Family.
The loosening of protections for neurodivergent Kaywellians, including autistic people and people with ADHD, followed at the behest of Third Princess Urlum, who viewed neurodivergent people's tendencies towards social deviance as threatening to Kaywellian order. It began with an increase in the funding and freedom of Kaywell's police and military forces in February 2087 in crushing dissent; in particular, Princess Urlum and Highmost Ring Shol added stereoptyical autistic stims, such as hand flapping, onto the list of behaviors for Kaywellians to look for as signs of dissent. Afterwards, throughout Spring 2087, the Ministry of Truth and other propaganda organizations began stereotyping people with mental disabilities as "anti-Kaywellian", leading to increased rates of bullying amongst neurodivergent people. Official legislation against the neurodivergent began with the passage of the Mental Decency Act on June 12, 2087, which extended the Decency Act to include punishments for common neurodivergent behaviors including stimming, fidgeting, hyperactivity, etc. and non-enforced guidelines against special interests and hyperfixations. The September 20, 2087 "No Special Treatment" Act eliminated special education, special education plans, and other accommodations for both neurodivergent people and low-performing students in schools. Lastly, the January 17, 2088 Autism Talks Act established special facilities where parents were mandated to send any neurodivergent children to in order to rid them of their neurodiversity - a practice that involved a number of traumatic and unethical methods including physical and verbal abuse.
Kaywell's discrimination against neurodivergent people ultimately adversely affected neurotypicals as well. The High Imperial Parliament's discriminatory policies against people with autism, ADHD, and similar diagnoses led to the rise of a wider stigma around self-expression, mental health, and struggle. Acts like the Mental Decency Act, which stigmatized obsessive interests on particular topics, encouraged Kaywellians to hide their passions for their interests and only express love for topics society deemed "practical" (in other words, what Kaywellian corporations deemed profitable); in general, it led citizens to prioritize appearing presentable to others rather than truly expressing themselves. Ableist policies also cast a negative connotation onto mental health and self-care, which after their passage led many citizens to view their own emotional needs as a burden to others and a hinderance to productivity, which they quickly began to view as their sole determiner of their worth in Kaywell's increasingly-corporatocratic society. Policies like the "No Special Treatment Act" encouraged perfectionism (ironically, a common trait of both ADHD and autism) in Kaywellian students, who came to view poor grades and/or test scores as genuine signs of low moral worth despite schools' rather narrow focus of topics.
Kaywell spent the remaining four years of its imperialization clamping down on the protections of people with physical disabilities and other deformities. Though the Kingdom did not directly discriminate against the disabled, it did revoke numerous laws and policies providing accommodations for such individuals on the basis of them adversely affecting economic growth. In addition, the privatization of Kaywellian healthcare and the subsequent drastic price rise in Kaywellian healthcare services during economic imperialization left many treatments and services for the disabled unaffordable. Both of these occurrences left a majority of disabled Kaywellians in poverty - itself deemed an indicator of low merit and low moral worth by Kaywellian society after economic imperialization.
One exception did exist, however: glowing tabulons, genetically-mutated individuals that made up 0.0001% (or a million out of Uingffh's population of 10 billion at the time). The Kingdom of Kaywell harshly and directly discriminated against such individuals due to Izlondo-Keliosity considering the existence of luminous tabulons blasphemous against Kelios; on February 14, 2088, Highmost Ring Shol and the High Imperial Parliament passed the Final Solution to Blasphemy Act, which stripped glowing tabulons of all rights and gave the military, police, and even private citizens to capture and exterminate them on sight. Throughout the remaining four years of imperialization and the decades afterward, Kaywell carried out an attempted genocide on glowing tabulons, with imperial troops scouring Uingffh as propaganda organizations demonized tabulons who glowed. Ultimately, however, Kaywell succeeded in capturing and killing a measly 18,596 glowing tabulons due to their extreme rarity; most luminescent tabulons easily escaped persecution by either going into hiding or using special skin products to conceal their glowing identity.
Formation of the Kaywell Imperial Morality Police (KIMP)[]
The passages of the Kaywell First Act and the New World Order Act led to the formation of the Kaywell Imperial Morality Police, or the KIMP, an official vice squad acting under the High Imperial Parliament and the Kaywell Family. The Kaywellian government tasked this new police force with enforcing the "communal order of Kaywell," or the various conservative and nationalist policies passed during imperialization; the KIMP would later become the sole police force in Kaywell, exercising overwhelming power and authority over Kaywellian citizens.
The Morality Police would come to use the high freedom granted by Kaywell's government to punish criminals and "the immoral" with extreme brutality. The KIMP frequently resorted to cruel and unusual methods such as public beatings, burnings, torture, and even execution to enforce the Kingdom's societal norms and strict laws. Even before the government began to pass official policies against minorities such as the LGBTQ+ community, the KIMP disproportionately targeted minorities with a disproportionate amount of force; a notable example was the April 22, 2082 death of Joruse Clementia, a gay tabulon whom morality police officers stabbed to death before throwing his body into a nearby river.
The KIMP was also strict on seemingly minor crimes, most notably minute deviations in the dress code imposed by the Decency Act and other similar policies. The Imperial Morality Police punished with extreme force a multitude of individuals for minor infractions such as wearing their rings or crowns slightly slanted or donning rainbow-colored clothing. Morality police officers giving "deviant" citizens lengthy lectures or event whippings on account of their presentation became a common sight on Kaywellian streets.
In addition, the KIMP established "re-education camps" for repeat offenders as well as political dissenters (including deposed leaders and politicians of non-Kaywellian nations). Within these re-education camps, KIMP officers would utilize extreme methods such as physical and mental abuse, including conversion therapy-like practices on LGBTQ+ people, to forcefully conform admittants to Kaywellian society. More often than not, re-education camps caused severe psychological harm or even physical harm; an estimated 17.8 million people died in re-education camps by 2092. KIMP officers also reportedly sexually assaulted and/or raped detainees on a regular basis.
Formation of the Kaywell Associated Student Body (KASB)[]
Though imperialization mostly continued without hinderance, the Kingdom of Kaywell did see one consistent source of resistance against its social conservatism: its youth. Throughout the first half of imperialization, Kaywell's older generations complained about the "oversensitivity" of young people as children, teens, and young adults took to the streets and protested against Kaywell's policies in spite of government censorship from groups like the Morality Police. In response to this growing problem, Princess Urlum Eudae Kaywell resolved to stop the issue at its roots by instilling discipline into Kaywellian children.
Normally, she would accomplish this by enacting a mass military conscription of minors, but the lack of ongoing warfare forced the Third Princess to instead establish the Kaywell Associated Student Body (KASB) on April 22, 2085. The Kaywell Family designed this organization to indoctrinate and "teach Kaywell's youth the integrity, liberty, and prosperity of their noble nation" while young and impressionable. The simultaneous Youth Reality Act mandated all Kaywellians under the age of 54 (biologically equivalent to humans under the age of 18) to begin attending KASB sessions.
While Kaywell's many sophisticate private schools placed high value on academics and intelligence, the KASB focused on physical strength and training. Within the Associated Student Body, adults - largely military personnel, Kaywellian nationalists, devout Izlondo-Keliostics, or a mix between the three - had Kaywellians as young as toddlers perform military drills and exercises, strenuous physical exercises, and highly competitive sports with the intent of instilling discipline. Much like other enforcers of Kaywellian government organizations, KASB staff did not hesitate to use corporal punishment such as whipping to punish insolent children. When the Associated Student Body did not put Kaywellian youth through strenuous physical activity, it had children attend speeches and lectures about either Kaywellian nationalism, Izlondo-Keliosity, or both.
The KASB mostly succeeded in quelling youth rebelliousness in Kaywell. Though most adolescents continued to hold sympathies towards social justice, KASB activities robbed them of any time to carry out protests and provided them with a suitable method of expressing their anger: competitive sports and physical exercise. More importantly, however, the Associated Student Body led to the rise of a new generation of young people fanatically loyal and devoted to the Imperial Kingdom and all of its values regardless of good and bad; this contributed to Kaywell's success in conquering other star systems in its later years by supplying its military with plenty of loyal, obedient soldiers.
Militarization[]
Aside from social, political, and economic changes to Kaywellian society, militarization also occurred during imperialization as preparation for Kaywell's planned interplanetary and interstellar conquests. In addition to diverting large amounts of funding from the already-depleted education and healthcare budgets towards the military and relaxing labor laws to encourage increased production, the Imperial Kingdom also glorified the military for its citizens; the Ministry of Truth and private propaganda organizations set about portraying Kaywell's Imperial Armed Forces as a necessary, beneficial, and integral part of Kaywell's culture and is maintenance.
Included in Kaywell's militarization was the formalization and expansion of its navy's commissioned officer ranks. Prior to Kaywell's takeover, Fleet Admiral was the highest ranking in its imperial navy; however, imperialization added two new ranks of admiral above Fleet Admiral. The rank High Admiral was created for the most elite of Kaywell's fleet admirals and would later come to include most of the reinstated four orders' highest-ranking naval members. The rank Highmost Admiral was created to act as the supreme commander of the entire star navy; Highmost Ring Shol awarded this title to Princess Urlum shortly after the Second Apocalix.
Reinstatement of the Four Chivalric Orders[]
On January 15, 2081, Parliament and the royal family both agreed to reinstate all four of its First Age-era chivalric orders as legitimate military powers. Kerbos, Novus, Uris, and Scentrilla all regained the rights to military weapons such as tanks, aircraft, ships, etc. and were freed from their original ceremonial and charitable duties.
Notably, many of the four orders' members supported the orders' pre-Second Apocalix charitable duties and protested against the re-militarization of the orders. Kaywell ultimately paid no significant heed to these dissenters and simply had the Morality Police arrest them, afterwards promptly replacing them with more nationalistic, military-supporting Kaywellians. Within only a little over a year, the Kingdom had restored its four orders to their former militaristic glory.
Formation of the Order of Apollyon[]
Unbeknownst to the Kaywellian populace, January 15, 2081 also marked the establishment of a new fifth order: the Order of Apollyon. The royal family established this top-secret order to manage Kaywell's classified projects, such as the Kingdom's weapons of mass destruction during their planning phases. Kaywell handed command of the Apollyonic Order to the Tharsis Family, an esteemed noble family closely allied with the Kaywells.
Later in the Kingdom of Kaywell's history, the Order of Apollyon would assume responsibility over the study, maintenance, and use of the various Izlondian artifacts it would acquire during its interstellar conquests.
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One of the most significant aspects of imperialization's militarization was the creation of an official military force for space combat: the Kaywell Imperial Star Navy, which the Kingdom of Kaywell Star Navy Act established on December 6, 2082. Kaywell, much like militarization as a whole, created the Star Navy in anticipation of its future interplanetary and interstellar conquests following the completion of its imperialization.
Any space or orbital weaponry constructed in secret prior to Uingffh's conquest, such as the Ars Vesalum-class landing castles, immediately saw their integration into the Star Navy's ranks. Some other resources in other branches of the Armed Forces, such as missiles and nuclear warheads, also saw relocation into the Star Navy. The Kingdom's ambitions of interstellar conquest had begun to render on-planet combat such as those of armies and sea-based navies obsolete, though Kaywell also took care not to neglect its existing army, navy, and air force in the event of an on-planet emergency.
Throughout 2083-2092, Kaywellian aerospace engineers designed and constructed a variety of other new spaceships for the Space Navy. These ships were divided into categories similar to those used for traditional naval ships, designating them as corvettes, destroyers, frigates, cruisers, or carriers; their physical appearance and characteristics, however, only minimally resembled those of sea-based ships. By 2092, Kaywell had constructed a total of 990 starships in 28 different ship classes; the largest of these, the Apollonius-class battle cruiser, reached a length of 1.6 kilometers and could destroy a continent from orbit, though most Kaywellian spaceships had lengths smaller than one kilometer.
In addition, Highmost Admiral Urlum and other imperial engineers created the blueprints for an even larger ship, the Polyhex-class world breaker, in 2090. As its name implies, the 2-kilometer Polyhex would have the power to render an entire planet uninhabitable from orbit with a single shot from its bow cannon. The Highmost Admiral also derived the Polyhex's design from the Ars Vesalum-class landing castles, specifically the missile-shaped body the landing castles' legs and retractable "petals" attached to. Actual construction of Polyhex-classes, however, would not begin until 2094 during the war with Euphemia.
Beginning of the Interstellar Age of Imperium and the Kaywellian Invasion of Local Space (2092-2199)[]
By 2092, Kaywell had evolved into a fledgling, yet formidable spacefaring power prepared for cosmic warfare with its well-developed space military. As part of the celebrations for Kaywell's 942nd anniversary, Emperioso Shol gave a speech on November 14 of that year proclaiming the beginning of Kaywell's space conquests.
This speech has been translated from Golagat, the national language of the Kingdom of Kaywell and the main language of the tabulon race, to English. Some translation errors may exist.
Dear citizens of our mighty, esteemed Kaywell...
For years, we have toiled hard to secure the blessings of integrity, liberty, and prosperity and surmount pre-Kaywell Uingffh's shadow of degeneracy. For years, we have toiled hard to secure our rightful rule over this glorious moon we call our home. For years, we have toiled hard to free our economy from the shackles of regulation. For years, we have toiled hard to restore the morality and discipline of our society. For years, we have toiled hard to rein in the rebelliousness of our spoiled youth. For years, we have toiled hard to prepare ourselves from our interstellar destiny.And now our hard toilage has born fruit - the blessings of integrity, liberty, and prosperity have been secured. The most loyal of us, such as our Ministry of Truth, have cemented our just and deserved rule. Our policies have pulverized the shackles of economic regulation and allowed our economy to soar freely. Our Morality Police has restored peace, civility, and morality to our languishing populace. The Associated Student Body has pacified the unrest in our young. Our great and powerful military has skyrocketed us towards our Kelios-given duty to inhabit the stars.
And now, it is time for us to harvest that fruit and spread our dominion across the galaxy. Let us be ardent in our nation and prideful in our Kaywellian blood as we spread Uingffh's everlasting glory to the farthest frontiers of space! Wake up, Kaywell! Civilization awaits!
Shol Gregrox Kaywell, November 14, 2092
November 14, 2092 marks the beginning of the Interstellar Age of Imperium, or Kaywell's conquest of numerous star systems within a few hundred light-years of Ingffhaestia.
Kaywellian Conquest of the Ingffhaestian System (2092-2098)[]
The first system Kaywell conquered was, naturally, its home system: the Ingffhaestian System. After Shol's speech proclaiming the beginning of the Interstellar Age of Imperium, the Kingdom of Kaywell set out settling the planets and moons within its system - often at the expense of any native life-forms on their surfaces.
Colonization of Ingffhaestia (2092-2094)[]
Simplified diagram of the Ingffhaestian planetary system. Distances not to scale
Kaywell began by colonizing the planets and moons orbiting the Ingffhaestia star itself. This process proved relatively uneventful at first due to a lack of contact with native sentient life and instead consisted of the Kingdom establishing colonies and cities on celestial bodies. By mid-2093, the Kingdom had established open-air (non-domed) colonies on Gula, Herzlinger, Moringffh, and Saringffh as well as domed colonies on Siara, Ajooni, and numerous moons of Coppelius and Sovin.
Notably, Kaywell encountered native life on Gula, Herzlinger, Moringffh, and Saringffh, though none of these life-forms exhibited sentience or heightened intelligence. Gula's life consisted solely of extremophile microorganisms while the other three worlds' life consisted of non-intelligent plants and animals. In colonizing these worlds to boost its economy, Kaywell adversely damaged their ecosystems by replacing habitats with colonies. In addition, some Kaywellian farmers domesticated alien plants before selling them as luxury decorations.
Flag of the Ophisian civilization
Ibiridius, homeworld of the sentient Ophisians, was Kaywell's most notable conquest. Upon reaching the oblate planet on October 11, 2093, in accordance to its tabulon supremacist doctrines, the Kingdom immediately declared war on all Ophisians on Ibiridius and refused to hold any diplomatic meetings with the species. Due to the Ophisians' inferior technology, war unpreparedness, and divided nature, Kaywell very quickly defeated their nations and established control of Ibiridius by just November 27 that same year. The Ophisians' only strategic advantage was their planet's fast spin and thick atmosphere, which rendered its surface difficult to access; nonetheless, Kaywell easily circumvented this obstacle by conducting bombardments from orbit, where the Ophisians could not reach them. An estimated 2.3 billion Ophisians perished during Kaywell's invasion.
After their subjugation, the Ophisians found themselves delegated to the status of slaves under the tabulon race, which spent the remainder of 2093 erasing the Ophisians' culture and forcing them to adopt the cultural traditions of Kaywell. Policies like the Ophisian Labor Act of November 30 stripped practically all fundamental rights from Ophisians and allowed the tabulons to exploit them as unpaid labor. Some Ophisians initially attempted to revolt against Kaywell, but violent crackdowns on such dissent by the Imperial Morality Police quickly mollified other members of the species and caused them to accept their fate. The Ophisians' enslavement also hurt the Kaywellian working poor, who experienced job loss as Kaywellian employers replaced them with Ophisian slaves. Ultimately, more privileged tabulons justified the plight of both the poor and the Ophisians with Social Darwinism and looked down upon them with disdain, believing that they had won fair and square over both groups.
The day Kaywell conquered Ibiridius came to be known as Ophisian Giving Day, which the Highmost Ring later declared a national holiday. During this holiday, Kaywellians would prepare feasts of food derived from non-sentient Ibiridian flora and fauna to celebrate Kaywell's first contact with another sentient race. However, Ophisian Giving Day largely covered up the true violent nature of Kaywell's contact with the Ophisians and portrayed the event as a peaceful "pacification" of Ibiridius' "barbaric" society.
The tabulons spent the remainder of 2093 and 2094 colonizing the rest of Ingffhaestia's orbiting worlds - namely Reander, the Urden-Entreri System, and their moons. They also constructed a variety of space stations and space settlements around already-colonized worlds. Kaywell mostly ignored the inner planets Deanos and Rimuru due to their high temperatures and hostile environments rendering colonization infeasible, but they did establish small research outposts to study both worlds from afar.
Ingffhaestia's conquest notably saw the revival of the Conquerator concept. As Kaywell colonized the planets and moons within its planetary system, many imperialist tabulons began applying the term once used for First Age of Imperium-era conquerors to those involved in Kaywell's new interplanetary conquests. These "new conquerators" received just as much, if not even more attention and respect from the Kaywellian populace as their First Age counterparts. Urlum Eudae Kaywell, whom the populace credited for pioneering both the Second Age of Imperium and the Interstellar Age of Imperium, became regarded as the first and greatest of the new conquerators.
Study of Ophisian biology[]
Studies (often unethically) performed on Ophisian specimens revealed their peculiar body structure, which consisted of a durable, gem-shaped main body housing vital organs and numerous fly-like particles controlled by the main body; the main body could control these particles at will to form limbs, tools, or even entire bodies. Kaywellian xenobiologists pointed to Ibiridius' highly variable conditions as the cause of this unusually body plan, which they claimed evolved out of a necessity to easily adapt to quickly-changing surroundings. Nonetheless, this trait attracted the appeal of corporate overseers and executives, who saw its potential to perform labor more efficiently; this contributed to the Ophisians' rampant exploitation under Kaywellian companies throughout Ingffhaestia's conquest.
More importantly, Kaywellian xenobiologists found that despite the Ophisians' erratic physiology, the specimens still shared basic biological structures with other known life forms including those on Uingffh. Both their main bodies and their external particles contained cells and DNA similar, and the main body contained organs rather similar to those found in Uingffhian fauna. The tabulons took this discovery as a confirmation of the Izlondian life seeding hypothesis first devised during the discovery of the Great Pit.
Discovery of the Kiran Artifact[]
On October 4, 2093, young Kaywellian astronomer Neprus Nerugol discovered a dwarf planet approaching the Ingffhaestian planetary system on a highly eccentric orbit. This dwarf planet, dubbed "Kiran" after a Keliostic deity of judgment, was found not to pose any threat of impacting any inhabited worlds or destabilizing any comet regions.
However, Kiran still piqued the interest of Ingffhaestian citizens due to its unusual shape; more precise imaging revealed the artifact possessed several large, erratically-shaped holes on its surface. Initially thought to be craters, these holes were later revealed as tunnels of some sort leading to some hollow center. Immediately after this discovery, the Kaywellian media erupted into a frenzy as citizens theorized Kiran's erratic nature; many theorized that Kiran was one of the constructs the Izlondians created to seed life.
To investigate further, the High Imperial Parliament agreed to send a fleet of 7 small ships (6 corvettes and a light cruiser) to Kiran's location on November 11 of that year. Upon their arrival at Kiran on November 24, they confirmed Kiran's nature as an artificial object; specifically, they revealed Kiran as a hollow spheroidal object with a radius of roughly 1950 kilometers.
More importantly, however, the ships' crew discovered consistencies between the architectural styles of the Kiran and the Izlondian ruins, providing further evidence for the Izlondian construct theory. At the behest of Izlondo-Keliostics, the parliament authorized the fleet's crew to conduct landing operations on Kiran in order to further ascertain its nature; in addition, they gave Third Princess Urlum, now an expert on ancient Izlondian society, permission to travel to the Kiran and conduct research with the ships' crew.
Landing operations officially began on January 1, 2094; the crew of the 7 ships, led by tabulon captain Cartius vir Cormierus, reported a mostly flat surface dotted by derelict structures resembling buildings and antennae, all of which had a composition of various high-grade steels and appearance similar to the Izlondian buildings found in the underground ruins. After a few hours, however, they stumbled upon a larger structure which they chose to explore further; this turned out to be the Kiran's "control room".
Inside the control, vir Cormierus, Princess Urlum, and the others found frozen samples of what appeared to be Izlondian lifeforms as well as mechanisms for releasing these frozen samples onto planets and moons, which they took as confirming the Izlondian life-seeding hypothesis. Shortly after, the crew managed to reactivate the Kiran's electrical systems.
On Kiran's control panel, only a single large button remained operational; the Council authorized the crew to press it on January 4. The pressing of the button led to the firing of several lasers in the Kiran's hollow inside, leading to a buildup of heat at the center of the Kiran. The eventual result was a sphere emanating heat comparable to a small star. After collecting the necessary scientific data, vir Cormierus' fleet exited Kiran on January 10 and returned to Uingffh on February 23; Kiran itself, meanwhile, was allowed to continue on its natural course through the Ingffhaestian System.
Incorporating the Kiran Artifact and the Terraformation of Digrazia[]
Throughout the rest of 2094, both the government and the citizenry hotly debated over how to use the Kiran Artifact, which had since settled into an trojan orbit at the Urden-Entreri binary ice giant planet system's L4 point. The majority of Kaywell's population desired to replicate and incorporate the technology of the Kiran into Kaywellian society (while respecting the Kiran itself as a religious object), but disagreed on how to do so.
Eventually, the Imperial Kingdom settled on utilizing the Kiran in two ways, the first of which being the replication of its laser technology for military use. Kaywellian military personnel noted the potential for the Imperial Armed Forces to utilize the artifact's heat-generating lasers as weaponry, replacing the tabulons' less efficient lasers and physical projectiles (e.g. missiles, bombs, etc.). Kaywell supported and quickly put forth this proposal, with weapons engineers and manufacturers studying and then replicating the laser cannons populating the interior of the Kiran. Afterwards, they mounted these turrets onto the Star Navy's spaceships, which reported greater combat efficiency and ability with the new lasers. In addition, the Kiran's heat lasers increased the potential for Kaywell to turn Urlum's proposed Polyhex-class world breaker a reality, providing new and more efficient ways to procure a world-destroying laser beam.
Kaywell also utilized the Kiran as a terraforming device. Throughout 2094, tabulons across Kaywell proposed placing the Kiran's artificial star into orbit around an icy planet or moon, which would theoretically result in the creation of liquid water oceans on said moon. The Kingdom ultimately chose Digrazia, a large icy moon orbiting the binary planets Urden and Entreri, as their target for terraformation due to its already-existing oceans below its surface and its potential use as an interstellar port between Ingffhaestia and the nearby Nathansias System once Kaywell conquered the latter. The High Imperial Parliament and the Kaywellian royal family both permitted the terraformation of Digrazia on August 15, 2094, with the Star Navy moving Kiran into a tight orbit around Digrazia. However, noticeable environmental effects would not manifest until later years.
Colonization of Avimotalis/Nathansias (2095-2096)[]
Simplified diagram of the Avimotalian/Nathansian planetary system. Distances not to scale
After establishing firm control over the Ingffhaestian System, the Kingdom of Kaywell began to carry out the conquest of the Nathansias System, the nearer of the two red dwarf systems orbiting Ingffhaestia. By then, the Star Navy's ship numbers had grown to 1595, with the Kingdom sending a vanguard fleet of 15 starships into the Nathansias System on January 6, 2095.
Flag of the lortei civilization of Euphemia
Thanks to advances in space travel, the fleet of 15 Kaywellian ships took a mere ten days to reach the Nathansias System. Upon their arrival, they immediately travelled to the planet Euphemia, which the crab-like lorteus race they discovered during the modern era called their homeworld, and declared their intentions to invade and "civilize" the "backwards" species.
To the tabulons' surprise, however, the lortei (who called their system Avimotalis) retaliated with attacks from their own space navy. The lortei revealed that the Kingdom of Kaywell's Second Apocalix broadcasts and other similar transmissions had made the Kingdom's imperialist intentions known to the rest of the Ingffhaestian star system, so they prepared accordingly. Using their advanced spacecraft, the lortei successfully destroyed 7 of the 15 Kaywellian ships and pushed the remaining 8 ships out of the Avimotalis.
In retaliation, the Kingdom sent more of its ships to the Avimotalis/Nathansias System, where more lorteusships moved to defend Euphemia in turn. What followed was a protracted and violent war between the tabulons and the lortei. By the end of 2095, both sides had lost over 100 starships, with a combined death toll of 673,000. Even after both sides of the war enacted conscription and increased military spending, the war continued to progress with no clear victory in sight.
As casualties and losses piled up on both sides in 2095, Princess Urlum took advantage of the situation to promote her Polyhex-class world breaker proposal, both publicly and privately contending that the construction of such a ship would quickly turn the tide of the war into Kaywell's favor. Eventually, the Kaywellian government gave into her proposal and began to construct the first Polyhex-class on November 26.
The first Polyhex-class, simply named the Polyhex, reached completion by just January 6. Its quick construction came about due to a combination of thorough prior planning, advanced construction technology, and (most notably) the use of Ophisian slave labor. Historians and other analysists have linked the deaths of an estimated 1,703 Ophisians to the construction of the Polyhex, though the Kaywellian public remained apathetic to these deaths due to a combination of tabulon supremacist beliefs, classism, general political apathy, social darwinist beliefs, and pro-Kaywell propaganda.
Both the royal family and the High Parliament suggested testing the Polyhex on an uninhabited moon or dwarf planet before proceeding to deploy it in battle. However, Princess Urlum refused, for she desired not only to give the lortei as little preparation time as possible, but also to use Euphemia itself as her testing ground. The Highmost Admiral publicized her points through the Kaywell First Party, which came to staunchly support her plan; subsequently, the Kaywellian government gave in to her proposal, permitting the Polyhex to begin travelling towards the Nathansias/Avimotalis System on January 27. High Admiral Olympus rei Tharsis was given command of the new battleship.
On February 14, the Polyhex arrived in orbit of Euphemia, with 37 escort ships and proceeded to aim its central world-breaking cannon at the planet itself. Hundreds of lorteus starships from Euphemia's defense fleet moved in to attack the newly-arrived Kaywellian fleet, but the Polyhex's advanced weaponry easily defeated them all in battle. In response, the lortei publicly broadcasted their surrender around two hours after the Polyhex-class's arrival, voluntarily relinquishing control of Euphemia to the tabulons.
On Urlum's orders, however, High Admiral Olympus fired the Polyhex at Euphemia anyway. The sheer heat from the laser destroyed or at least incapacitated most remaining lorteus ships. At 22:00 Uingffh Standard Time on the 14th, the Polyhex's laser struck the Euphemian surface, instantly generating a continent-sized explosion that burned everything within a ~2500 kilometer radius and killed an estimated 2.7 billion out of the 10.5 billion lortei on the moon; debris ejected from the impact site destroyed any surviving lorteus ships. Afterwards, the blast caused devastating earthquakes, megatsunamis, and other natural disasters across other parts of Euphemia, killing even more lortei. The myriad of debris thrown upwards by the Polyhex-class's firing then proceeded to spread across the planet as ash, eventually culminating with the cessation of Euphemia's habitability by the end of 2096.
The Polyhex's blast, which posterity later came to know as the Sundering of Euphemia, marked the defeat of the lortei at the hands of Kaywell; at the beginning of February 15, Kaywell officially declared its annexation of the Avimotalis System, which they commemorated by officially renaming the system to its traditional Kaywellian name: Nathansias. However, the Kingdom pursued no further erasure of lorteus culture, for the Sundering had already adequately achieved that task.
Notably, the Kingdom made efforts to save several lortei from Euphemia as the moon's environmental conditions rapidly deteriorated. However, the tabulons saved them not out of goodwill, but out of a desire to utilize the survivors as slave labor in a fashion similar to the Ophisians; the Nathansias Codes, a series of policies passed by the High Imperial Parliament and the Kaywell Family during the war's early stages, ensured the stripping of all fundamental rights from lortei once their conquest reached completion. In addition, Kaywell's act of "saving" lortei provided prime pro-imperialist propaganda material for the Ministry of Truth and other propaganda organizations, which portrayed Kaywell's saviorism as evidence of the tabulons' civilizing mission and superior moral character. By the end of 2096, Kaywell had saved an estimated 3.8 billion lortei - all of which ultimately becoming unpaid laborers working under either the government or one of Kaywell's massive corporations.
Colonization of Heranis/Tayloron (2096-2098)[]
Simplified diagram of the Heranian planetary system. Distances not to scale
As imperial conquerators explored the rest of the newly-claimed Nathansias System, Kaywell had already begun planning its invasion of the other Ingffhaestian companion system, the Tayloron System. On March 26, 2096, Kaywell officially declared war against the Tayloron and its native sentient crab-like species, the mordions (who knew Tayloron as Heranis), and began sending warships to the Tayloron/Heranis System.
Flag of the mordion civilization of Cornelia
Much like the lortei, the mordions had anticipated the Kingdom's attack on their home system and prepared their military (which was already rather large to begin with due to the mordions' militarized society) accordingly. Also like the lortei, the mordions showed competence in defending against Kaywell's invasion attempts, with their ships providing an even match for Kaywell's own ships. However, Kaywell had also anticipated the mordions' resistance to invasion; the Imperial Star Navy's initial attacks on the Heranis System served as a distraction to prevent the mordions from strengthening their military further. Kaywell spent the bulk of 2096 developing its own military to match the mordions.
Kaywell began producing more Polyhex-class warships in response to the success and subsequent public acclaim of the first Polyhex-class world breaker. By the end of 2096, the Kingdom had produced four more Polyhexes: the Suyuan, the Lindo, the An-mei, and the Ying-ying; the imperial military intended to use them against the Cornelians' four prominent strongholds: Cornelia itself, Saryllia's trojan Golorra, and the Saryllian moons Martuis and Mexus. Lorteus slaves were notably involved in the construction of the four Polyhexes, which ultimately claimed the lives of 203 after severe workplace injuries; several protests broke out during the earlier phases of construction as lortei expressed their dissatisfaction with constructing the very weapons that destroyed their own homeworld, but the Morality Police suppressed all of them with brute force and sent particularly disobedient individuals to re-education camps, causing the slaves to regain their docility.
In addition, Highmost Admiral Urlum predicted that the mordions, having witnessed the Sundering of Euphemia, would develop countermeasures against the Polyhexes. As such, she had conventional Kaywellian ships practice combat and orbital bombardment in scenarios where Polyhexes failed. She notably used Nathansian worlds such as Euphemia and the former lorteus colonies Sahariana, Rasaidor, Olympia, and Pluma as testing grounds for these orbital bombardments on purpose to suppress native rebellions occurring on those worlds.
On April 22, 2097, a total of 130 Kaywellian ships including the four new Polyhexes entered the Tayloron/Heranis System, beginning the climax of the Kaywell-Euphemia war: the Great Battle of Tayloron. Recognizing the destructive threat the Polyhexes posed, the mordions immediately redirected their forces to the four world breakers, which were then situated around the system's outer two ice giants. The mordions' ships succeeded in pushing back against the Polyhexes and preventing the four battleships and their escorts from advancing further into the Heranis System; the only celestial bodies that fell victim to the Polyhexes' planet-destroying beams were minor moons of the system's giant planets. On July 9, Kaywell deployed the original Polyhex to the Tayloron/Heranis System, but the Cornelians continued to hinder Kaywell's efforts.
The Cornelians forces' focus on the Polyhexes, however, eventually left the inner Heranian planets relatively undefended. This opened up an opportunity for the Kingdom to utilize conventional ships against the native mordions. Beginning in August 2097, the Kingdom began dispatching non-world breaker starships led by the Order of Kerbos into the Heranis System. Viewing the Polyhexes as a greater threat, the mordions chose to only send small forces to combat the new Kaywellian ships, allowing the Kaywellian forces to continue into the inner Heranian System relative unimpeded.
Then, in September 2097, the Order of Kerbos' ships caught the mordions by surprise when they entered low orbit around the system's populated inner planets and moons (specifically, Golorra and Cornelia) and easily defeated the planets' feeble defense fleets. Then, using their training under the Highmost Admiral, the Kerbos Order bombarded the worlds with conventional firepower, causing immense destruction on their surfaces similar in devastation to a single shot from a Polyhex-class. This orbital bombing, later dubbed the Great Heranian Orbital Bombings, claimed the lives of >17.5 billion mordions while levelling entire continents and cities on the affected planets' surfaces. Many members of the Cornelian government were among the dead.
Upon learning of the Order of Kerbos' orbital bombardments, the mordion forces in the outer system attempted to travel to the inner system. However, the five Polyhexes deployed by Kaywell would not let them, forcing them to watch powerlessly as the Kingdom of Kaywell bombed their homeworlds to ashes. The mordion forces' morale quickly plummeted, allowing the Polyhexes to overpower their fleets and secure control of the outer Heranian System by November 2098.
Flag of the sheepilly civilization of Hevectavia
This notably led to the discovery of Hevectavia, an exotic moon of Tayloron's sixth planet Jasper that contained seas of liquid hydrocarbon. Hevectavia exited as the homeworld of a civilization of hydrocarbon-based lifeforms known as the sheepillies, which the tabulons had discovered back during the modern era.
Because the sheepillies' civilization had a lower tech level (equivalent to early 21st Century Earth), they did not participate in the Kaywell-Cornelia war. This lower tech level also rendered the sheepillies highly vulnerable to Kaywellian exploitation and invasion, which ultimately occurred mere days after the first arrivals at Hevectavia in November 2096. On November 13, 2096, a large fleet of 145 Kaywellian starships, including the Polyhex, opened fire on the Hevectavian surface and caused controlled, yet considerable devastation, with 92 million sheepillies perishing. The tabulons, having displayed their military might to the sheepillies, threatened to cause further destruction if the sheepillies failed to surrender to Kaywell; the sheepillies, being inconceivably outgunned and overpowered by the Imperial Kingdom, surrendered within hours of the attack's commencement. After the sheepillies' quick surrender, Kaywell proceeded to mass-enslave the sheepilly species and dismantle the sheepillies' cities for resources.
With the entirety of Heranis conquered and the both the sheepillies' and the mordions' governments in shambles, the Kingdom of Kaywell declared Heranis' annexation on November 29, 2098. With this move came the formal renaming of Heranis to Tayloron and the stripping of all fundamental rights from both the mordions and the sheepillies, reducing the two species to slaves toiling under tabulon masters. However, this temporary role would not last long due to the creation of the Nerus Korndelia System shortly after. Meanwhile, the tabulons set about clearing the ruins from the Great Heranian Orbital Bombing to make way for tabulon colonists, erasing what remained of both mordion and sheepilly culture in the process.
The conquest of Tayloron also marked the conquest of the entire Ingffhaestian star system.
Creation of the Nerus Korndelia System[]
| Rank | Species | Role |
| 1 | Tabulons | N/A |
| 2 | Lortei | Personal servants |
| 3 | Mordions | Bodyguards and soldiers |
| 4 | Sheepillies | Engineers |
| 5 | Ophisians | Hard laborers |
With all three of Ingffhaestia's component systems conquered, Kaywell found itself with a multitude of alien species under its control. In response to complaints from tabulon slaveowners that the species had become increasingly difficult to manage, multiple Kaywellian politicians proposed the creation of a species caste system similar in nature to the Korndelia System of the First Age of Imperium.
On December 1, 2098, the High Imperial Parliament implemented this proposal through the passage of the Nerus Korndelia Act. The Nerus Korndelia Act officially created the Nerus Korndelia ("New Korndelia") System, a caste system which arranged Kaywell's inhabitants into various castes depending on their species. The Nerus Korndelia System established tabulons as its highest caste, giving them numerous privileges inaccessible to other castes including the right to vote and hold office.
Other species were arranged in accordance to the characteristics of physiology and pre-Kaywellian societies. The tabulons assigned the lortei the role of personal servants, butlers, and maids in Kaywellian society on account of the lortei's numerous limbs and nimble legs; the lortei ranked second in the Nerus Korndelia in terms of authority. The Nerus Korndelia System put the mordions right below the lortei and assigned them the role of bodyguards and foot soldiers due to their large, robust bodies. Kaywell ranked the sheepilly species fourth in its caste system and assigned them the role of engineers due to sheepilly society's emphasis on engineering and its many subfields; in particular, many sheepillies found themselves assigned to aerospace or military engineering due to Kaywell's extreme emphasis on the military. Lastly, the ophisians came to occupy the bottom of the Nerus Korndelia System as slaves and hard laborers due to their unusual bodies' high potential for use in dangerous labor.
The High Imperial Parliament also established extremely harsh punishments for individuals who deviated from the Nerus Korndelia System and its assigned roles. Simply wishing for a role or life outside from the one assigned by the caste system already warranted arrest by the Morality Police and time in one of the KIMP's re-education camps. More severe deviation from the caste system warranted torture, corporal punishment, and/or even execution in public as a show of the consequences of deviating from the norm. The Nerus Korndelia Act also prohibited tabulons and other high-ranking individuals from helping or improving the conditions of individuals in lower castes and punished such acts with time in a re-education camp, for the policymakers behind the Nerus Korndelia viewed the inequality within the Nerus Korndelia Act as necessary to preserve both "the genetic supremacy of the tabulon race" and the economic growth of the Kingdom.
Though Kaywell strictly enforced individuals' adherence to the Nerus Korndelia System's assigned roles, it did not strictly enforce the roles/castes' relationships with one another. The Nerus Korndelia Act included provisions that allowed for the alteration of the caste system in certain circumstances. The discovery or encounter of a new sentient species formed one of these circumstances, in which case the Kingdom would create a new caste for it to assign the species to. The act left the ranking of this new caste to the discretion of Kaywellian policymakers; depending on the species' abilities (or, more accurately, profitability), the new caste may end up ranking in-between two previously-established castes. Widespread rebellion amongst a particular species also formed grounds for a rearrangement of castes; in this scenario, the Kaywellian government would lower the rank of the species' caste or even expel the species entirely if the revolts are particularly severe. Depending on the severity of the revolts, "expulsion" from the Nerus Korndelia system can either mean the exile of all members of the species out of Kaywell-controlled star systems or the complete genocide of the species.
Discovery of the Thegasia Wormhole Gate and Creation of the Thegasia Drives[]
One of the first discoveries in the Tayloron System following its acquisition was the December 2098 discovery of an anomalously-shaped object in a high orbit around the dwarf star by numerous conquerators facilitating the settlement of the system's outer worlds. Later imaging and analysis revealed this object to be another Izlondian construct similar in nature to the Kiran.
The Kingdom of Kaywell dispatched a team of Izlondia experts and researchers led by Princess Urlum and another researcher named Misatia Katarusse to investigate this new object on December 19. Upon their arrival, they discovered not a hollowed spheroid like Kiran, but a ring-shaped object approximately 500 kilometers in diameter. Initially speculated to be some form of ring habitat like a Bishop Ring, landing parties sent onto the ring found no structures on its surface suggesting a residential nature. They did, however, find a similar composition and architecture to the Kiran, confirming the new artifact's Izlondian origins. Shorty after, they dubbed the artifact Thegasia as a nod to an old Uingffhian legend that identified the gate to Naitahlawulak (the tabulons' version of heaven) as a ring called Thegasia.
Third Princess Urlum and Head Researcher Katarusse's team, now dubbed the Thegasia Task Force (TTF), split up into multiple landing parties to investigate the Thegasia Artifact. Eventually, on December 20, one landing party chanced upon this ring object's control room; like Kiran's, Thegasia's control room contained one major button. A press of this button, however, did not have any effect on the Thegasia or the surrounding environment; subsequent analysis of the Thegasia's inner machinery revealed that natural factors such as meteor impacts had slowly damaged the artifact's systems over time to the point of rendering them inoperable.
However, the Thegasia's inner mechanisms remained intact enough for the researchers to deduce the artifact's function: Thegasia was designed to generate stable, long-term wormholes inside of its ring allowing instantaneous travel through long distances. This find proved revolutionary for Kaywellian society, which was stressing over its inability to conquer further due to its lack of faster-than-light (FTL) technology; using Thegasia, Kaywell could produce its own wormhole drives and eventually begin conquering star systems outside of its own.
Throughout the rest of December and the first half of 2099, the Kingdom of Kaywell's sheepilly engineers and tabulon overseers used salvaged Thegasia technology to engineer their own wormhole devices. Though work was intense, they eventually succeeding in procuring a small, efficient, and cost-effective wormhole generator in June of 2099: the Thegasia Drive. These drives would concentrate surrounding interstellar matter into a wormhole, within which the drive can then generate an exit wormhole at any point in our universe within a specific range. At their time of creation, the drives had a range of four light-years, but the Kingdom would develop models with larger ranges in the future. The Kingdom promptly installed Thegasia drives onto all of its starships, completing this task by December 2099.
Wormholes generated by the Thegasia Drive notably contracted over time from Hawking radiation before exploding, with smaller wormholes dying faster than larger ones. This rendered wormhole travel impractical for individuals, but proved acceptable for the much larger starship. Many Kaywellian military scientists proposed using this explosion as a weapon - a proposal that would later become a reality with the creation of the Star Crushers during the 2118-2121 war with the Zanthe Republic.
Kaywellian Conquest of the Proma and Tinara Systems (2100-2102)[]
With faster-than-light technology finally within its grasp, Kaywell began conquering star systems beyond Ingffhaestia. All the while, the Kaywellian Imperial Star Navy continued to grow at an alarming rate; by the beginning of 2100, the KISN's starship number had almost doubled to 3025 thanks to the efforts of enslaved sheepillies, ophisians, and other non-tabulons.
The first two systems conquered by Kaywell were the Proma and Tinara Systems, the two closest systems to Ingffhaestia. Both systems were centered around small red dwarf stars; the humans knew Tinara as LP 469-67, but had not yet discovered Proma. Both systems' conquests occurred roughly simultaneously.
Colonization of Proma[]
Simplified diagram of the Proman planetary system. Distances not to scale
On January 5, 2100, a fleet of 16 Kaywellian starships used their Thegasia Drives to successfully warp into the Proma System four light-years away from Ingffhaestia; this marked the first successful warp of an entire fleet to another star system in Kaywell's history. The ships then proceeded to analyze the system for planets, life, Izlondian artifacts, and other features of potential interest to the Kingdom.
Ultimately, the ships discovered four new terrestrial planets around Proma: Ladon, Ilsa, Icum, and Chasma, of which only Icum harbored conditions suitable for life (but did not harbor life of its own). They also confirmed the existence of the giant planets Nergius, Entokia, Sarvente, and Ruv, which the tabulons had discovered prior to the rise of interstellar imperialism using the radial velocity method. They detected neither native lifeforms nor Izlondian artifacts within the system.
As such, the colonization of Proma largely consisted of the relatively uneventful establishment of infrastructure, settlements, and other aspects of colonies on the system's planets and moons. Kaywell did not limit its colonization of Proma to hospitable worlds like Icum; both the government and large corporations also established enclosed colonies on airless terrestrials, space stations around the giant planets, and floating cloud cities in the atmospheres of both giant planets and the Venusian planet Ladon. In addition, Icum's colonies notably contained glass domes or similar structures designed to protect from harmful radiation released by Proma, an archetypal flare star. Some of these colonies installed large artificial, switchable lights within these domes to simulate day/night cycles, which Icum lacked due to being tidally locked to its parent star.
By 2102, Proma had become the home of a growing population of 584 million tabulons. Both propagandists and the wider Kaywellian culture lionized the system and its colonies as a symbol of Kayellian ingenuity and prosperity. However, Proma's colonization also notably involved the degradation of the Proman worlds' natural environments due to the construction of infrastructure, the mining of resources, and the importation of Uingffhian plants. Kaywell paid no heed to these adverse environmental effects as long as they did not directly detriment the tabulon colonists, as they viewed environmental regulations as damaging to its economy and saw Uingffh as the only world with an environment worth protecting.
Colonization of Tinara[]
Simplified diagram of the Tinaran planetary system. Distances not to scale
A few hours after the successful warp to Proma, another Kaywellian fleet led by Conquerator Mirn Nova Kirbani traveled to the Tinara System. Because Tinara laid at a distance of 7.1 light-years from Ingffhaestia - beyond the range of Thegasia Drives at the time - the fleet performed two warps to reach the system, spending a brief period of time in interstellar space to allow its drives to recharge.
Upon arriving in Tinara, the Kaywellian ships discovered an extensive system of planets: two inner terrestrials followed by five giant planets. The innermost of the giant planets contained two habitable moons; Palemarma's substantial magnetic field protected both moons from Tinara's characteristic red dwarf solar flares, allowing them to attain a higher level of habitability than full planets like Icum.
However, sentient civlizations already inhabited the two moons. The inner moon, known as Tertan by its native inhabitants, was inhabited by a race of humanlike aliens with antlers called the Tertanians; their society had achieved a tech level similar to 21st century humanity or pre-Kaywell conquest sheepilly society. The outer moon, known to its native inhabitants as Ferre, was inhabited by the square-shaped Ferans; the Ferans, though much more advanced than the Tertanians, focused their technology on arts and culture rather than defense. The Tertanians and Ferans, who exercised peaceful relationships with each other, had assigned names to their system's planets - Murmesa, Dend, Palemarma, Rubielle, Bronzia, Darhe, and Dek - which the tabulons would later appropriate due to the lack of alternate names for the planets.
Conquerator Mirn was impressed by the two species' exceptional compassion and kindness, but believed that those traits made the natives perfect slaves for the tabulons. On her command, Kaywell sent military forces to the system to conquer it. Highmost Admiral Urlum initially considered creating a unique strategy for invading Tinara due to her policy of creating a new battle plan for every invasion, but instead decided to simply use Polyhexes again due to the Tinaran natives' low threat and her desire to conserve resources.
Two newly-constructed Polyhex-class warships warped into orbit around Palemarma (Tertan and Ferre's parent gas giant) on August 12, 2100 and threatened to fire upon the two habitable moons if they failed to submit to Kaywell's rule and annex themselves into the Kingdom. As a demonstration, one of the Polyhexes fired upon a nearby lifeless moon of Palemarma, Cartormier, and destroyed it on August 15; this convinced the Tertanians and Ferans of the Kingdom's overwhelming might, resulting in their quick surrender on August 20.
In accordance to the Nerus Korndelia Act, the Kingdom granted the Tertanians and Ferans places in the Nerus Korndelia caste system. Both species were ultimately ranked below the current species part of the caste system due to the Tertanians and Ferans not originating from Ingffhaestia. Based on proposals made by Conquerator Mirn, the Kaywellian government turned the Tertanian race into unpaid farm laborers for the Kingdom's agricultural megacorporations due to Tertanian civilization's affinity for nature. Meanwhile, Kaywell made the Ferans unpaid musicians and artists due to the species' culture emphasizing both professions; this move notably put many already-struggling Kaywellian artists and musicians out of business due to companies preferring to hire Feran slaves instead. Kaywell reacted to these artists and musicians' plight with indifference and urges to "get a real job."
The tabulons spent 2101 and 2102 actually settling the Tinara System and its plentiful planets. Large space technology corporations partnered with the federal government to establish infrastructure and colonies in the Tinara System's planets and moons. These colonizations put the Nerus Korndelia system's new additions on display, with the tireless work of tertanian slaves becoming a common sight as massive plantations sprung up on Tertan and Ferre's surfaces. Feran musical performances also became a popular pastime for newly-arrived tabulon colonists. Compared to the mordions and lortei, the tertanians and ferans showed substantially lower rebelliousness, the mere sight of the Polyhex-classes (which remained in orbit to discourage revolts) proving enough to intimidate them into docility.
Like other planets and moons conquered by Kaywell, the inhabited worlds of the Tinara System experienced environmental harm as tabulon colonists introduced Uingffhian species. Flora and fauna native to Tertan and Ferre struggled to compete against invasive Uingffhian lifeforms, with the only truly thriving native wildlife being plants selected by Kaywellians for cultivation as luxury decoration. The tertanians and ferans themselves also suffered from colonization's environmental effects; specifically, they fell victim to diseases and viruses imported from Uingffh. Somewhat ironically, the tabulons made efforts to cure the natives of Uingffhian diseases, but only so that the natives could continue their work as slaves more efficiently.
Search for Izlondian artifacts[]
Shortly after the Tinara System's formal annexation into Kaywell in late 2100, studies on the biology of tertanians and ferans revealed that they, much like other species encountered by the tabulons, had numerous biological similarities to the tabulons. Kaywellian xenobiologists concluded that the two species likely originated from Izlondian life-seeding artifacts.
Throughout 2101, tabulon ships searched the Tinara System for any Izlondian artifacts similar to those found in Ingffhaestia. These searches initially appeared unsuccessful, with Kaywellian fleets repeatedly failing to find any large-scale artificial objects in the system aside from derelict tertanian and feran space stations.
But in the end, the Kaywellians' answer hid in plain sight; during August 2101, a small Kaywellian mining fleet surveying an asteroid belt between the orbits of Darhe and Dek discovered that many of the asteroids had a composition very similar to those of the known Izlondian artifacts. This led to further study of this asteroid belt, revealing that the entire belt had both a composition and total mass similar to that of a typical Izlondian construct.
The tabulons concluded that the Izlondian artifact that seeded all life on Tertan and Ferre was destroyed, and that the Darhe-Dek asteroid belt constituted its shattered remains. Further analysis of the asteroids/ruins found that the damage was consistent with the effects of prolonged asteroid impacts, pointing to a natural cause for the artifact's destruction.
Creation of the Dominion System[]
With the establishment of interstellar colonies came the need to create a method of governing them. Due to the large distances between stars and the expanding scope of the Kingdom's territory, the central Kaywellian government and its associated organizations began to face difficulty enforcing the Kingdom's many strict laws. Governance became particularly difficult in Proma and Tinara, where their tabulon colonists had already begun forging their own cultural identity.
This led to the creation of the Dominion System through the Dominion Act of October 9, 2101. The system divided up Kaywell's territory by establishing each star system (aside from Ingffhaestia itself) as an imperial dominion. Each dominion would be ruled by a federally-appointed duke, who would enforce the laws of Kaywell on behalf of the royal family and parliament. However, due to Kaywell's status as a unitary state, dominion dukes could not pass laws of their own and the federal government still held the final say in the matters of dominions. In addition, though dukes serve for life or until they choose to step down, the Dominion Act also gave them a series of democratically-elected advisors with established term limits.
The Dominion Act immediately established two dominions upon its passage: the Imperial Dominion of Proma and the Imperial Dominion of Tinara. A noblewoman by the name of Helestia rei Ora became the Duchess of Proma while Conquerator Mirn Nova Kirbani was appointed Duchess of Tinara, earning the title of rei in the process.
Rise of Bioengineering and Genetic Engineering[]
2100-2102 saw the rise of bioengineering - specifically, genetic manipulation - in mainstream Kaywellian society.
Prior to Tinara's and Proma's colonizations by the Kingdom, bioengineering and genetic engineering remained largely experimental. However, when tabulons attempted to establish colonies on the two systems' planets and moons, some economically important flora and fauna struggled to survive in their new environments. Most notably, gramen/Uingffhian plants struggled to photosynthesize Tinara and Proma's red light, which contrasted with Ingffhaestia's lighter orange light.
This necessitated the modification of such lifeforms to better fit their new environments - a task handed down to Kaywell's sheepilly engineers. This ultimately came in the form of modifying the organisms' genes prior to birth/germination in order to induce certain traits; for instance, sheepilly genetic engineers developed gramen with dark red leaves to better absorb the light of a red dwarf star.
In the end, these genetically modified Uingffhian organisms (GMUOs) proved highly successful in their new planetary environments. Though this greatly benefitted the Kaywellian economy, native lifeforms suffered as a result due to their inability to compete with invasive GMUOs.
The rise of Kaywellian bioengineering raised the question of whether or not to use such technology on tabulon fetuses in order to induce "desireable" traits. In the end, most Kaywellian citizens opposed the frivolous overusage of genetic modification on tabulons due to it constituting "a violation of the sanctity of life granted by Kelios." However, they welcomed its usage to eliminate certain traits they viewed as "impure" such as physical and mental disabilities, homosexuality, transgenderism, and Galeemia. On October 31, 2102, the High Imperial Parliament passed the Respect of the Body Act, which illegalized the use of genetic modification on tabulons aside from the those listed in a list of traits deemed impure, which included all of the traits mentioned before.
Interstellar Queer Rights Movement and the Pridefall Program[]
Notably, the time period of 2100-2102 saw an uptick in protests and peaceful demonstrations led by LGBTQ+ people and their supporters in protest of Kaywell's anti-LGBTQ+ policies. These LGBTQ+ protests were initially sporadic, small in scale, and easy for the Morality Police and the Kaywellian military to disband; nonetheless, they warranted concern from both the public and the government, especially from particularly devout Keliostics who saw the protests as a sign of an incoming "era of decadence" for the Kingdom.
However, by 2101, the protests had transformed into a nationwide protest group across all of Kaywell's star systems: the Interstellar Queer Rights Movement (IQRM). The IQRM called for the repeal of LGBTQ+-hostile legislation such as the Act to Protect the Sanctity of Marriage and for the Kaywellian government to recognize LGBTQ+ tabulons as equal citizens with the same basic rights as cisgender heterosexual tabulons.
Notably, the IQRM seemingly took a number of measures to appear "presentable" to the fiercely moralistic Kaywellian populace. They mostly used peaceful and nonviolent methods in order to counteract the stereotype of Kaywell-critical protesters as violent and damaging to property. They also expressed their support for other aspects of Kaywellian culture; they dressed in traditional Kaywellian clothing, publicly supported Kaywellian imperialism, and even donated funding to the Kaywell Imperial Armed Forces.
Unfortunately, however, these compromises proved insufficient to sway the minds of the staunchly conservative Kaywellians, who instead viewed the IQRM's attempts at appearing "civilized" as a ploy to infiltrate Kaywellian society and spread their "degeneracy" from within. On June 1, 2101, Highmost Ring Shol, Highmost Minister Odyssia, and Highmost Admiral Urlum all gave the order to suppress the IQRM with force in what became known as the Pridefall Program. Across Ingffhaestia, Nathansias, Tayloron, Proma, and Tinara, the Imperial Morality Police shuttled down to the locations of IQRM protests and arrested all protesters in sight. The morality police utilized tear gas, physical weapons, grenades, and even public beatings to suppress the Interstellar Queer Rights Movement. The morality police officers took no chances, even arresting innocent bystanders whom they mistook for protestors. Any IQRM members arrested were then tried on unfair sham trials without access to a lawyer or due process and sentenced to public torture, execution, or time in a re-education camp for abstract crimes such as challenging the crown or conspiring against Kelios.
Kaywell also worked to worsen the IQRM's already-negative public reception through propaganda. Kaywellian propagandists isolated the few IQRM protests that escalated into violence and portrayed them as the norm, casting the movement as violent, barbaric dissenters threatening the peace and order of Kaywell (ironically, many of the aforementioned IQRM protests grew violent because of actions performed by the morality police, not the protesters). In addition, high-ranking government officials burned IQRM- and LGBTQ+-related symbols and imagery in public as a symbolic show of Kaywell's opposition to deviant sexualities and gender identities.
The climax of the Pridefall Program occurred in December 2101 on Ambrose and Kodiak, two airless moons orbiting the ice giant Sarvente of the Proma System. On the two moons' surfaces, the remnants of the IQRM had taken up refuge in domed colonies managed by local leaders sympathetic to their cause. Upon finding out about the IQRM's location and helpless state, the grandmaster of the Order of Kerbos at the time, Kalaxis rei Kerbos, had one of his order's fleets position itself near Sarvente in anticipation of the publicly-broadcasted demise of the Interstellar Queer Rights Movement. This demise came on the 15th, when two of the fleet's Polyhex-classes fired upon the two moons, burning their surfaces along with all lifeforms on them. In total, the two moons' destructions killed an estimated 67.9 million people.
Podensis Scare[]
The glassings of Ambrose and Kodiak marked the end of not only the IQRM, but also pro-LGBTQ+ activism in Kaywell as a whole, for the disastrous fate of the IQRM and its members discouraged most remaining LGBTQ+ people and their supporters from even thinking about campaigning for policy reform. In addition, the Morality Police heightened its persecution and surveillance of potential LGBTQ+ people following the IQRM as the Ministry of Truth and other propaganda departments spread paranoia regarding the LGBTQ+ community.
The anti-LGBTQ+ actions of both the KIMP and the KINT led to the rise of the Podensis Scare (named after the Podensis, a Uingffhian plant used as a symbol by the IQRM), a decades-long period of irrational fear of the LGBTQ+ community. Similar to the Earth's United States' "lavender scare", the Podensis Scare involved the rapid spread of notions that gay men, lesbians, transgender people, and other LGBTQ+ people posed a national security threat to Kaywell. Both the government and businesses acted accordingly, increasing the harshness of their treatment of LGBTQ+ people and encouraging others to participate in their homophobic and transphobic endeavors.
What separated the Podensis Scare from Kaywell's usual treatment of the LGBTQ+ community was its effects on cisgender heterosexuals. During the scare, LGBTQ+ paranoia reached a point where even those perceived as "too soft" on opposing LGBTQ+ rights were harshly punished by both the government and society. This damaged the careers and lives of millions of citizens, including celebrities and respected figures, across the nation and its stellar colonies; by the beginning of 2110, an estimated 2.64 billion tabulons had lost their jobs due to allegations of colluding with the LGBTQ+ community. A substantial portion of this number faced long, excruciating days in re-education camps, where the Morality Police only harshened their treatment in response to their clients' repeated testification of innocence.
Non-tabulons faced even harsher treatment under the Podensis Scare. Tabulon masters and overseers often resorted to simple execution whenever they suspected LGBTQ+ collusion in one of their servants/slaves. On occasion, the Morality Police would publicly execute suspected LGBTQ+ or LGBTQ+-supportive non-tabulons using cruel and unusual methods as a way to further intimidate the Kaywellian LGBTQ+ community (which by then had become virtually nonexistent) into submission. Kaywell had killed an estimated 1.96 billion non-tabulons by the beginning of 2110 on account of suspected activity with the LGBTQ+ community.
Kaywellian Conquest of the Aelatarium/Tani System and the Krybolartarium Empire (2102-2110)[]
Simplified diagram of the Aelatarian/Tanian planetary system. Distances not to scale
With the Proma and Tinara Systems conquered, Kaywell began preparing to conquer the next-nearest star system to Ingffhaestia: the Tani System (known to humans as 107 Piscium), located 7.86 light-years from Ingffhaestia. Prior to beginning its actual conquest campaign, Kaywell sent a small vanguard fleet to determine the environment of the Tani System.
Flag of the Krybolartarium Empire
This led to the discovery of the system's native inhabitants: a species known as the Krybolartarian Lizards, who had organized into the Krybolartarium Empire centered on their homeworld of Krybolartarium. Krybolartarium controlled the entirety of the Tani System (which they called the Aelatarium System), but did not possess any wormhole devices like Kaywell did. Though their government wielded near-absolute power and a powerful military, Krybolartarium did not resort to oppressive policies and advocated for equal rights as well as inclusion.
The vanguard fleet also discovered three planets in the system: a close-orbiting super-Earth known to the Lizards as Teranat, Krybolartarium itself, and (most notably) a gas giant the Lizards called Tios. Tios had an unusually large and extensive ring system large enough to be visible to the naked eye in Krybolartarian skies. The existence of Tios only motivated the Ingffhaestian Star Empire to invade Krybolartarium even more, as they saw its rings as valuable natural resources to manufacture spaceships.
Due to the Krybolartarium Empire's status as a more technologically-advanced spacefaring nation, the High Imperial Parliament and the royal family decided to first attempt to use diplomacy. On March 13, 2102, Kaywell sent a relatively large fleet of 59 ships to Krybolartarium and requested a peaceful diplomatic meeting with the Krybolartarian government, with Prince Sarnus Robau Kaywell being the Kaywellian representative. The Krybolartarian Lizards, elated by their first contact with an alien race in their history, accepted the proposal and allowed Prince Sarnus to travel down to the Krybolartarian surface, where he met with Krybolartarian representative Yivia Nuuros.
During the meeting, Sarnus explained Kaywell's culture and requested that the Lizards join the Kingdom voluntarily, promising them a high spot in the Nerus Korndelia caste system if they complied. After deliberating with the rest of the government, however, Nuuros refused the offer and accused the Kingdom of speciesism, natural rights abuses, and exploitation. As a result, the Kingdom of Kaywell officially declared total war against the Krybolartarium Empire on March 20, 2102.
Initial Losses and Discovery of the Tayah Artifact[]
Immediately after Kaywell's war declaration, the fleet of 59 Kaywellian ships above Krybolartarium began opening fire upon both Krybolartarian space stations and the Krybolartarian surface. However, the Krybolartarium Empire's defense forces quickly dispatched Kaywell's forces, destroying 40 out of the 59 ships before forcing them to flee.
In response, the Imperial Star Navy, whose ship number was fast approaching the 10,000 ship mark thanks to new manufacturing facilities in Proma and Tinara, began to send larger fleets nearing 100 ships in number. However, Krybolartarium's own powerful and extensive space force efficiently countered Kaywell's war efforts. For instance, during the Fifth Battle of Tios on August 28, 2104, a small Krybolartarian fleet of 15 defeated a much larger Kaywellian fleet of 104 by using bombs and mines to propel chunks of Tios' rings into the Kaywellian fleet.
The Tayah artifact
The war began to sway towards Krybolartarium's favor during the Battle of Kodesa Station of July 14, 2106 which began with a fleet including a Polyhex-class defeating a Krybolartarian fleet stationed at Kodesa Station, a Krybolartarium-controlled civilian space station located in the outskirts of the Aelatarium System. Before the Kaywellian fleet could proceed to sunder Kodesa, however, a powerful laser from an unknown source destroyed the Polyhex along with 54 of its escort ships. The source of the beam was then revealed to be Tayah, an Izlondian artifact with a powerful energy core within a Bishop ring 1600 km in diameter; During the Battle of Kodesa Station, Krybolartarium forces had employed the strategy of weaponizing the Tayah's energy core to create a beam powerful enough to defeat a Polyhex.
Throughout the rest of 2106, Krybolartarium continued to push Kaywellian forces out of the Aelatarium System by weaponizing the Tayah Station. By then, the Kingdom had lost an estimated 1.6 million troops while Krybolartarium had lost roughly 982,000. When Princess Urlum was deployed into the war, Krybolartarium had its own skilled strategists work together to devise countermeasures against Urlum's tactics. As Kaywell continued to experience losses against the Krybolartarium Empire, the Kingdom of Kaywell made many attempts to gain an advantage, most notably a vigorous nationalist propaganda campaign intended to increase public support and resources for the war. However, Krybolartarium, being an empire in its own right, also pursued its own potent propaganda program that achieved similar results.
Creation of the Ulaenopsis-Class Reflective Satellites[]
A critical turning point in the war occurred in February 2107, when Prince Sarnus, Princess Urlum, prominent tabulon military engineer Gigrus Griegus, and various sheepilly engineers devised a new possible strategy: the use of large reflective mirrors or panels to deflect and/or redirect laser shots from enemy ships. Desperate for ways to counter its losses in the Krybolartarium war, the High Imperial Parliament and other government officials accepted this proposal, handing over responsibility of the project to Griegus and his sheepilly subordinates.
By December 2108, Griegus and his team had finalized the reflective mirror project as the Ulaenopsis-class reflective satellite, a small, mobile satellite capable of quickly positioning a reflective panel with high precision and accuracy. These satellites also contained their own laser cannons for defending against non-laser-based threats. After undergoing numerous successful tests using Krybolartarian laser cannons salvaged from destroyed enemy ships, the reflective satellites were approved for mass production in April 2109, shortly after which they began seeing deployment onto the battlefield.
The Ulaenopsis satellites saw immediate success in subsequent space battles, deflecting Krybolartarian lasers away from Kaywellian forces. In some battles, they deflected lasers into Krybolartarian fleets, leading to the destruction of enemy ships; for instance, during the July 9, 2109 Battle of Konova Point, Ulaenopsis-class reflective satellites deflected Krybolartarian fire back onto not only the fleet of 25 Krybolartarian ships involved, but also the nearby Krybolartarium-controlled Konova Point Station, leading to the destruction of both and the deaths of an estimated 528,000 Lizards.
Then, beginning on December 18, 2109, the Ulaenopsis satellites scored Kaywell a crucial victory during the decisive Great Battle of Tios, where multiple Kaywellian fleets led by the Order of Scentrilla used the satellites against the Krybolartarian fleets defending the important planet. During the climax of the battle, a Kaywellian fleet of 159 faced off against a Krybolartarian fleet of 162 that included the Tayah. A precise arrangement of Ulaenopsis satellites deflected Tayah's beam into the Lizards' fleet, leading to the destruction of 124 of the fleet's ships as well as a nearby space station containing 15,450 civilian Lizards, killing them all. The remaining Krybolartarian ships and the Tayah then proceeded to attack the Kaywellian fleet with not only non-laser weaponry, but also asteroids taken from Tios' rings - both of which were quickly dispatched by the satellites' and the ships' own weaponry. Crippled, the Krybolartarian fleet fled, as did most of the other Tios defense fleets encountering similar problems with Ulaenopsis-equipped Kaywellian fleets. By December 25, the Order of Scentrilla had successfully destroyed or chased away all Krybolartarian military forces in the vicinity of Tios, marking Kaywell's annexation of the planet and all of its associated moons, space stations, and rings.
The conquest of Tios cut Krybolartarium off of its primary source of military and industrial resources, significantly lowering military production and damaging a wide variety of Krybolartarian industries. In addition, the deaths of nearly a million Lizards during the Great Battle and the enslavement of the ~15.2 million non-combatant Krybolartarian Lizards inhabiting the Tios System at the time of Kaywell's attack tremendously damaged Krybolartarian morale. Both of these factors hindered the Krybolartarian Empire's military efforts, paving the way for the Kingdom to mount an invasion of the Krybolartarium homeworld itself.
Invasion of Krybolartarium[]
In February of 2110, all of Kaywell's Krybolartarian invasion fleets converged into a single massive armada of nearly 1,500 star naval ships, with five Polyhex-class world breakers and dozens of Ulaenopsis-class reflective satellites among their ranks. Not long afterwards, Prince Jool, who had recently underwent intensive naval education due to his developing interest in space combat, joined the fleet in his flagship, the Graxgow-class battle cruiser Orderus. The huge fleet then began moving towards the Krybolartarian homeworld, preparing to mount a full-scale invasion of the Empire's capital.
Krybolartarium's defense forces detected this fleet early, mobilizing what remained of their space military into a large defense fleet. By the Kaywellian armada's arrival on February 20, the Krybolartarium fleet was prepared to engage them in combat. All of the ships along with the Tayah Station fired their laser cannons at the Kaywell fleet in unison, their laserfire seemingly converging into one massive laser.
However, the Highmost Admiral, Prince Jool, and Grandmaster Surrealia rei Scentrilla had not only foreseen, but also desired this action; when the Krybolartarian laserfire reached the Uingffhian fleet, the Ulaenopsis satellites positioned themselves in a fashion that would deflect any laserfire towards the Motherland, a massive 2,000 kilometer-diameter Bishop ring space station orbiting Krybolartarium that housed roughly 331.9 million Lizard civilians. This resulted in the surge of laserfire hitting the Motherland station instead, instantly killing around 1.4 million of its inhabitants.
Though the Motherland itself was not completely destroyed, the deflected laser surge did severely damage or destroy both its reactor cores and its engines while also disrupting its orbit, resulting in the massive space station entering a new trajectory that would lead it to collide with the Krybolartarian surface.
Realizing that such a collision would have extinction-level results, the Krybolartarian fleet scrambled to halt or delay the collision through all means possible, including shooting at the Motherland, sending thruster probes, etc. However, the Kaywell fleet stopped all of these attempts before shooting indiscriminately at the Krybolartarian ships, who ineffectively defended themselves due to the disarray caused by the Motherland's fall; within less than an hour, they had destroyed 90% of Krybolartarium's defense fleet.
Afterwards, Prince Jool proposed a new offer to the Krybolartarian Empire on the behalf of the Ring: If Krybolartarium surrendered, Kaywell would use their advanced technology to alter the Motherland's course and prevent the station from colliding with Krybolartarium; if they chose not to surrender, Kaywell would allow the Motherland to collide with the planet unimpeded.
Within less than an hour, the leader of Krybolartarium, Empress Silenia tyr Reene broadcasted her response to the offer: she and her nation would not surrender, for the Krybolartarian Lizards believed not only that slavery under the tabulons would constitute an equally bad, if not worse fate than death, but also that dying on their own terms carried more dignity and honor than submitting to the enemy. Thus, Prince Jool and the rest of the Kaywell fleet allowed the Motherland to continue on its course towards Krybolartarium's surface.
During the opening hours of February 21, the Motherland impacted the Krybolartarium surface in what became known as the Break Motherland event. Due to the Motherland's hollow, artificial nature and relatively low speed, the impact only generated as much explosive energy as a natural impact from a 20 kilometer-wide asteroid; nonetheless, this proved more than enough to cause significant destruction on Krybolartarium. In addition to generating a blast that burned all structures and lifeforms within several hundred kilometers from the impact point, the impact also released significant amounts of ash and debris into the Krybolartarian atmosphere, significantly harming its climate and environment and beginning a mass extinction event.
After the Krybolartarian governmental building was destroyed by the impact's shockwave during the middle of the 21st, Kaywell declared Krybolartarium and the Aelatarium System annexed. The Aelatarium System was officially renamed to the Tani System and reorganized into the Imperial Dominion of Tani, with Gigrus Griegus rising up as its duke for his efforts in creating the Ulaenopsis satellites. Kaywell also renamed Teranat, Krybolartarium, and Tios to Citho, Sarus, and Yorgos - the names the tabulons had assigned to them prior.
Other outcomes of the war included the Apollyonic Foundation's acquisition of the Tayah artifact and the Krybolartarian Lizard species' integration into the Nerus Korndelia System. The federal government chose to assign the Lizards the role of creating and conceptualizing pro-Kaywellian propaganda due to the species' proficiency in creating pro-Krybolartarian propaganda during the war; to this end, Kaywellian dropships captured millions of Lizards from the surface before the explosion could kill them. In addition, Kaywell chose to rank the Lizards below all of the other castes for originating outside of the Ingffhaestian System.
Colonization of the Esernium System[]
Simplified diagram of the Hernean planetary system. Distances not to scale
Simplified diagram of the Thiroan planetary system. Distances not to scale
Simplified diagram of the Gallentian planetary system. Distances not to scale
Simplified diagram of the Bellantian planetary system. Distances not to scale
Aside from Krybolartarium, the Esernium System also saw conquest by Kaywell. Esernium, which was located roughly 9 light-years away from Ingffhaestia, was a unique quadruple star system consisting of four red dwarfs - Hernes, Thiro, Gallentis, and Bellantis - each with their own large planetary systems. Esernium had no human-assigned name, as the system's stars' dimness rendered it undetectable by human eyes and technology.
The first tabulon ships entered Esernium on April 12, 2102, with colonization of the system beginning soon after. Surveys of the system and its planets revealed that neither Izlondian artifacts nor native lifeforms inhabited Esernium, reducing the conquest's notability compared to the Krybolartarium war. Esernium's colonization consisted of the steady construction of settlements, cities, factories, power plants, ports, and other parts of a colony under the guidance of the government and corporations.
Despite the colonization's relative uneventfulness, Esernium proved to be a highly appealing destination to interstellar colonists. As a result, the Esernium System experienced rapid population growth, with the system's total inhabitants numbering over two billion by 2105. By 2110, Esernium was well on its way to becoming one of the most prosperous non-violently-acquired colonies in the Kingdom's domain.
Kaywellian colonization analysts attributed the Esernium colony's success to the wide variety of worlds the system offered; together, the system's four stars harbored ten habitable worlds - Trifacc, Bifacc, Agra, Thelis, Citria, Gagris, Ghorbani, Ralis, Jela, and Frostia - along with dozens of other planets and moons ripe with resources and outposts. In addition, the fact that the system's plentiful worlds were contained within a relatively compact multiple star system meant an easy commute for Esernian workers. Because of this, the Kingdom would seek out more multistellar systems to colonize, most notably the Yahya Keshmiri System, in the future in the hopes of replicating Esernium's success, but these efforts would come to bear only mixed results at best.
Cortezia Protests[]
Several protests arose back in the Ingffhaestian System and its closer neighbors in response to the mass extinction on Krybolartarium, with the event drawing criticism from both imperialists and anti-imperialists. Proponents of Kaywellian imperialism criticized the Break Motherland operation as a waste of resources, claiming that the Imperial Kingdom had the ability to colonize the planet without resorting to mass destruction. Anti-imperialist activists, meanwhile, denounced the act as a senseless act of genocide. Protests over other aspects of the war, such as the sheepilly worker exploitation involved in the creation of the Ulaenopsis-class satellites, also erupted. Like most protests, however, the anti-Krybolartarian war protests saw suppression from the Morality Police and other law enforcement organizations.
The most significant of these protests were the Cortezia Protests, a peaceful protest movement organized by progressive politician Ardatia Ocasia-Cortezia. Cortezia, though still supportive of the Nerus Korndelia System and Kaywellian imperialism, argued for better treatment of the Lizards in Kaywellian society, detesting the fact that Kaywell ranked the species low for not originating in Ingffhaestia. Though Cortezia's approach was a moderate one, her cause recruited millions of members - both tabulons and non-tabulons - across Kaywell. As time went on, Cortezia and her protest movement only deviated even more from Kaywellian norms, adopting even more radical beliefs such as species equality.
Predictably, the Kaywellian government heeded none of the Cortezia protestors' requests, instead ordering the Imperial Morality Police to detain any and all protestors on November 15, 2104 amid outcry from the conservative Kaywellian populace. At the behest of Third Princess Urlum, Highmost Ring Shol, and Highmost Minister rei Iphelia, the government also placed a bounty of $125 million on Cortezia's capture, motivating even private corporations to participate in the protests' suppression.
Over the next few months, the KIMP and the Kaywellian military carried out the harsh and brutal suppression of the Cortezia Protests as more specialized military and law enforcement squadrons carried out a nationwide manhunt for Ardatia Ocasia-Cortezia herself. Morality Police officers marching into protest-occupied streets and arresting anyone and everyone in the area became a common sight. Kaywellian forces even employed extreme methods such as arresting innocents to intimidate actual protestors and throwing deadly explosives into even peaceful demonstrations. By mid-2105, Kaywell had arrested an estimated 25.15 million protesters and killed an estimated 324,000 people.
Kaywell also employed powerful anti-Cortezia propaganda, portraying even the moderate protests as an affront to fundamental Kaywellian principles. The Imperial Ministry of Truth carried out a smear campaign against Cortezia and her supporters, concocting false allegations including an accusation that Cortezia engaged in child sexual abuse as a teenager. In addition, the Kingdom's propagandists spread notions that the protests were too violent (an irony considering the equally, if not more violent methods employed by anti-protest Morality Police offers) and sometimes even employed undercover pro-Kaywellian officers to sneak into Cortezia protests and incite violence. Both actual government suppression and ferocious propaganda campaigns plummeted public opinion of the Cortezia Protests.
By November 21, 2105, KIMP forces had captured Ardatia Ocasia-Cortezia herself, who was soon taken into a re-education center for temporary imprisonment. There, she confessed to conspiring against not only Kaywellian authority, but also Kelios firself; most historians consider this confession coerced due to the torturous methods employed by re-education camps. Cortezia was then denied the right to a trial due to the severity of her crimes and was immediately sentenced to 20,000 lashes from a special 24-strip zeruel strips then execution via firing squad. This punishment was carried out in public and nationally televised on November 25; however, Cortezia died from severe skin wounds and blood loss not long after the 100th lash.
With Cortezia dead, the remaining protesters either were arrested by the Morality Police with ease or abandoned their cause on their own accord. The Kingdom's brutal suppression of the Cortezia Protests would become a symbol of both Kaywell's military/police might and the Kingdom's authoritarianism. Cortezia was touted as "the last progressive" of Kaywell, with her death also marking Kaywellian politics' further shift towards the right wing, the continual erosion of Kaywellian democracy, and the growth of the two dominant right-wing parties' political power.
Passage of the Podensis Act and the First LGBTQ+ Genocide[]
The Cortezia Protests' suppression, as mentioned before, led to a noticeable increase in the Kingdom's social conservatism. While propagandists increased their demonization and suppression of progressive, liberal, and left-wing values, the rest of the imperial populace began to adopt more right-wing views towards social issues. This included increased hostility towards non-tabulons, the mentally and physically disabled, and the LGBTQ+ community.
This eventually led to the passage of the Podensis Act on June 28, 2108. This act, named after the Podensis Scare of a few years prior, officially rendered not only same-sex marriage, but same-sex romantic and sexual relationships as a whole a capital crime punishable by death; specifically, the High Imperial Parliament added homosexuality as part of the "waging war against Kelios" charge (the same charge handed out to Ardatia Ocasia-Cortezia), which mandated a punishment of 20,000 lashes from a zeruel strips followed by execution via firing squad. However, the parliament gave the Morality Police authorization to carry out the executions of homosexuals as quickly, directly, and cruelly as they saw fit.
The Podensis Act's passage led to the First LGBTQ+ Genocide of 2108-2110, where the Kaywellian Empire drastically increased its persecution of LGBTQ+ individuals in response. The Morality Police and the four orders rounded up billions of gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc. individuals sent them to re-education camps, where they suffered brutal torture, experimentation, conversion therapy, and execution under violently homophobic officers. One of the most notorious camps was the prison world Demurloth (moon of the gas giant Igris of the Hernes System), where Kaywell troops sent hundreds of millions of gay men, women, and zomen to be executed by firing squads. The KIMP also carried out the public flogging of LGBTQ+ individuals (or, in extreme cases, groups of dozens of LGBTQ+ people) using zeruel strips. All across the Imperial Kingdom, televisions and news stations broadcasted the indiscriminate killings of LGBTQ+ people as young as 11 along with public torturing of gay men in an attempt to convert them into heterosexuals. By the end of 2110, an estimated 4.85 billion LGBTQ+ individuals had died to Kaywell's hands. Afterwards, believing the "homosexual menace" to have ended, Kaywell began to relax its persecution of LGBTQ+ individuals and focus on other national matters such as the development of the Esernium and Tani colonies.
Propaganda against the LGBTQ+ community also markedly increased, giving birth to a "second Podensis scare". Propagandists across the Kingdom, including the Ministry of Truth, began releasing films, literary works, etc. demonizing queer identities as sinful and unnatural. They perpetuated harmful, warped stereotypes of LGBTQ+ identities such as same-sex parents being abusive and converting their children into homosexuals, homosexuals promoting communism and socialism, bisexual people cheating, pansexuality and other multisexual identities being bisexual erasure, and a plethora of other misleading myths. Kaywellian tabulon citizens began publicly ridiculing LGBTQ+ individuals both online and in reality, creating numerous humorous works satirizing LGBTQ+ identities while beating people suspected of being LGBTQ+ in schools, work, the streets, and more; in fact, a number of new slurs against LGBTQ+ people were invented during the First LGBTQ+ Genocide. Propagandists also began upholding the "purity" and "holiness" of heterosexuality and cisgenderism, consdering them a superior form of sexuality and gender much like how Kaywell considered tabulons a genetically superior species.
Notably, the First LGBTQ+ Genocide focused largely on LGBTQ+ tabulons, as the first Podensis Scare had already eliminated practically all openly-LGBTQ+ non-tabulons.
Kaywellian Conquest of the Xystal/Oirator System and the Xymidication Empire (2110-2116)[]
Simplified diagram of the Xystalline/Oiratorian planetary system. Distances not to scale
After conquering Krybolartarium and the Tani System, the Kingdom of Kaywell immediately began planning its next conquests. Naturally, the next-nearest star system to Ingffhaestia, the Oirator System (known to Earth as Kappa Ceti), formed its next target for colonization. Preliminary planetary surveys had already confirmed the existence of six planets in the system, among them plenty of habitable worlds.
Flag of the Xymidication Empire
However, like the Tani System, the Oirator System already harbored a native stellar nation: the Xymidication Empire, which knew the Oirator System as the Xystal System. The Xymethystas, which according to pre-war intel reports had Ophisian-like floating gem-shaped bodies, formed Xymidication's dominant species. But most notable was Xymeidicatian society's uncanny similarities to Kaywellian society; like Kaywell's member species, the Xymethystas organized themselves into several castes predetermined at birth, with members of different castes having their bodies genetically modified to fit the tasks mandated by their castes. Xymidication was ruled by an oligarchy known as the Diamondite Authority consisting of the nine members of the ruling caste, the Diamondites. The most powerful member of the Diamondite Authority was an individual by the name of White Diamondite.
In light of Xymidication's similarities to Kaywell, some Kaywellian citizens proposed pursuing peaceful diplomatic relationships with the Empire. However, the majority of the populace, royal family and parliament included, saw Xymidication's similarities to their own society as a threat to their power and desired to declare war immediately.
Ultimately, these hawk politicians won out; Kaywell officially declared war on the Xymidication Empire on January 15, 2110. Like with Krybolartarium, the Kingdom began its attack on Xymidication by deploying ships to dwarf planets in the outer Xystalline System; this time, however, Urlum and the other leading strategists meant for these ships to be destroyed and used them as decoys to gauge the Xymethystans' naval power (Notably, she did not inform the military personnel involved of their true role as sacrificial pawns, drawing some minor controversy during the later parts of the war which Kaywell quickly suppressed using the Morality Police).
In the ensuing space battles, the Xymidication ships utilized beams of xymphorite, an exotic mineral with destructive properties that the tabulons believed were linked to Izlondian technology. Xymidication fleets dispatched dozens of Kaywellian ships within minutes via xymphorite lasers; during the Battle of the Jungle Moon of May 21, 2111, a small fleet of 40 Xymidication ships (led by one of the members of the Diamondite Authority, Yellow Diamondite) defeated a substantially larger Kaywellian fleet of 205 ships when they attempted to attack the Xymidication-controlled moon of Zyrical (nicknamed the "Jungle Moon" due to its vast rainforest-like regions of native plant life).
Xymidication matched Kaywell not only in military strength, but also willpower. Like the tabulons, the Xymethystas believed in their own genetic superiority and subjected any captured tabulons to conditions even worse than those Kaywell subjected the lowest-ranking of non-tabulons to. Tabulon prisoners of war found themselves becoming enslaved under Xymethstan masters, experimented upon unethically by Xymidicatian scientists, or executed in public as a show of Xymidication's might. Xymidication also matched Kaywell in its propaganda, demonizing the Kingdom while strongly encouraging the Empire's citizens to contribute to the war effort.
Construction of the Polyhex variants[]
The Kingdom of Kaywell and its military responded to Xymidication's formidable xymphorite weapons by initiating the construction of four new world breaker classes based off the design of the Polyhex: the Alexandru (2.8 km), Gherghescu (3.3 km), Kostlan (4.1 km), and Garrahan (also 4.1 km)-class heavy battle cruisers. Thanks to not only the further increase of worker exploitation and new advancements in Kaywellian construction technology, but also the massive new slave force composed of captured Krybolartarian Lizards, the new Polyhex variants reached completion by just January 21, 2112 and were sent into battle not long after.
The new ships proved to be exceptionally effective in the war against Xymidication. The tide of the war quickly turned to Kaywell's favor as the new world breakers proved not just equal, but at times superior to Xymidication's xymphorite weapons; by the end of 2112, Garmageddon had captured most of the outer Kappa Ceti System along with the ice giant Hecarius, the habitable zone gas giant Nisitha (host planet of Zyrical), and the Venusian world Hilda, leaving only the hot Jupiter Plovos, the large warm gas giant Selemas, and the Xymidication Homeworld itself unconquered.
The new world breakers also allowed for the capture of a significant amount of Xymethystas. Kaywell sentenced any Xymethysta captees to forced labor in corporate plantations or re-education camps, with an unlucky few facing unethical experimentation under the Order of Apollyon. It was also not uncommon for KIAF firing squads to carry out publicly-televised mass executions of Xymidicatian POWs as nationalist propaganda.
Study of Xymethystan Biology and the Creation of the Kristallnacht[]
Experiments done on Xymethystan prisoners revealed crucial information about their biology. As demonstrated by these studies, Xymethystans, like Ophisians, possessed limited shapeshifting abilities and could modify the shapes of their bodies to a certain extent. In addition, they showed that though the Xymethystas' biology differed greatly from those of known sentient species, they still shared a common ancestry with the Drori and possessed the basic building blocks of life such as cells and DNA. They also revealed that the Xymidication biosphere as a whole was much younger and less diversified than Uingffh's, likely due to their yet-undiscovered Drori artifact seeding it late; this wa consistent with the age of the Xystal/Oirator/Kappa Ceti System itself, which was only a few hundred million years old.
Most notably, during one experiment involving enslaved Xymethystas, tabulon scientist Neprus Nerugol discovered that Xymethystas had the ability to fuse into a larger, more powerful, but less intelligent entity. They also discovered the Xymethystas' ability to survive in the vacuum of space for extended periods of time. The KIAF's strategists quickly realized the immense potential benefits of this: the Kaywellian Kingdom could create powerful war machines out of Xymethystas by fusing them without worrying about any revolts due to their lessened intelligence. Furthermore, since the weapons created would be composed of Xymethystas, the Xymidication Empire would have less incentive to fire upon them due to the act of doing so constituting as the murder of their own kind.
The Kristallnacht on April 19, 2116. At the time, the ship was roughly 20 km in length.
The Kingdom of Kaywell was quick to make ample use of this Xymethystan feature, initiating the Kristallnacht Project, on March 27, 2115. The project involved the forced fusion of billions of captured Xymethystas into biologically-based starships, the largest of which being the Kristallnacht; these new bioships far oversized and overpowered conventional Kaywellian ships. The KIAF placed a tabulon by the name of Candidus rei Adamas as overseer of the forced fusions. These forced fusions caused horrendous pain to the Xymethystas involved and were seen as extremely unethical by both Xymidication and Kaywell citizens, but the Kaywellian government and corporations broke up any and all protests related to the Kristallnacht Project through the armed intervention of the Imperial Morality Police.
Both the new world breaker classes and the Xymethystan bioships allowed the Kingdom of Kaywell to rapidly conquer Xymidication-controlled worlds. With Xymidication's ships hesitant to fire upon Kristallnacht Project bioships due to their composition of innocent Xymethysta civilians, Candidus rei Adamas invaded the remaining worlds and stations, including Plovos and Selemas, with extreme ease. The Imperial Kingdom subjugated billions of Xymethystas and forcibly fused them into the bioship fleet as hundreds of dissident worlds formerly under Xymidication control found their surfaces burnt and destroyed by Alexandrus, Gherghescus, Kostlans, and Garrahans.
Battle at the Xymidication Homeworld[]
On July 15, 2116, a Kaywellian fleet of 810 ships (including the Kristallnacht itself, which had since grown to a size of 100 kilometers) led by rei Adamas entered the orbit of the Xymidication Homeworld itself, now the only world under Xymidication control. Facing little opposition from the Diamondite Authority and its military due to their reluctance to kill captured Xymethystas, the Kristallnacht moved in to successfully destroy the fleet of 496 Xymidication ships guarding the Homeworld. The Diamondite Authority surrendered to Kaywell hours later.
Gatlorimtis
Colonizing Xymidication gave the Kingdom of Kaywell control of a new Izlondian artifact: Gatlorimtis, an immense 122 km spacecraft consisting of a large city built within a partially-excavated asteroid. Gatlorimtis not only carried dozens of guns with planet-destroying capabilities matching a world breaker's, but also had the ability to disguise itself as a comet by erecting an artificial gas tail. This ability's strategic and tactical potential would prove to be useful during subsequent invasions of planets. When questioned by Kaywellians, captured Xymethystas reported that they did not use the Gatlorimtis in battle due to Xymethysta society perceiving it as a mythical danger and a sacred artifact not to be meddled with.
As per the Dominion System, the Xystal/Kappa Ceti System was renamed to the Oirator System and converted into the Imperial Dominion of Oirator. The royal family appointed Candidus rei Adamas as the sector's duchess for her leadership in the forced fusions of captured Xymethystas and the conquest of the Xymidication Homeworld. Unlike Tani's planets, the Oirator System's planets were not renamed, as the tabulons had not known of its planets long enough for them to assign names to them prior to the war.
Following the annexation of Oirator into Kaywell, the High Imperial Parliament voted to place the Xymethystas into the very bottom of the Nerus Korndelia System, below even the status of slaves. Noting the Xymethystan species' high malleability while simultaneously feeling threatened by their society's former power, Parliament assigned the species the role of materials. The Kingdom began to use Xymethystas as walls, furniture, and decorations by having them morph into the shape of said objects before having tabulons shoot them dead, or at least paralyze them. The Imperial Kingdom integrated particularly strong Xymethystas, meanwhile, into the massive bioship fleet erected during the Kristallnacht project.
Beginning of the Construction of the Soul of Uingffh[]
The years marking the war with Xymidication also marked the beginning of the secret construction of a new Kaywellian megastructure: the Soul of Uingffh.
For most of Kaywell's history, the Soul of Uingffh was believed to have been built as a relatively typical superweapon designed to combine the special technological capabilities of the Izlondian artifacts the Kingdom encountered. However, after the downfall of Kaywell in 2199, the Soul's true motives behind its construction were revealed to the public.
The Soul of Uingffh's conception began in August 20, 2121 with the discovery of a total of twelve bodies of unusual lifeforms by an Order of Apollyon task force surveying the Izlondian ruins; these bodies, which all had varying forms (some even had gaseous, non-solid forms), were taken into the custody of the Apollyonic Order. There, the tabulons failed to find a scientific explanation for the lifeforms' exotic qualities, leading them to deem them as the first true anomalies contained by Apollyon. As such, their existence was kept a secret from anyone outside of the Apollyonic Order and the royal family.
For a few months, the unusual bodies continued to be stored in a classified Apollyonic Order facility as Apollyonic researchers led by Third Princess Urlum continued to study them. By then, the Order had given the twelve bodies ("apollyons") formal designations (first apollyon to twelfth apollyon) along with informal nicknames (Azrael, Zaphkiel, Za'afiel, Othniel, Sariel, Uriel, Barakiel, Chakel, Verchiel, Daniel, Harel, and Imriel) derived from minor deities in Keliosity. Through DNA samples and radiocarbon dating, the xenobiologists did find that despite the apollyons' anomalous properties, they shared a significant amount of DNA with tabulons as well as that the twelve apollyons all had an age of roughly three billion years. This drove Urlum and the other xenobiologists to the revolutionary conclusion that the twelve bodies were ancient Izlondians supernaturally altered by the First Apocalix's wormhole.
As a highly devout Izlondo-Keliostic, Urlum Eudae Kaywell desired to develop a method to restore the twelve Izlondian bodies/apollyons back to life. Though many agreed with her proposal, there also existed a sizeable faction that opposed attempting to reanimate the Izlondians. Arguments varied, but the most prominent arguments against attempted revival included the notion that such a proposal would constitute disrespect and sacrilege against what they viewed as a sacred race.
Ultimately, the Order of Apollyon's twelve highest-ranking members, the Twelve Archons, chose to hold a vote on the matter on February 2, 2122; By a nearly-unanimous vote of 11-1, the Twelve Archons agreed to pursue research into the possible revival of the apollyons. It is frequently speculated that Third Princess Urlum had influenced the Archons in some fashion.
The first experiments consisted of attempts to utilize bursts of energy, such as electric shocks, on the apollyons in an attempt to revive them. These trials yielded no reaction from the inanimate Izlondians, so the Order of Apollyon utilized both methods that outputted more energy and alternative methods that attempted to reanimate the apollyons using means aside from energy. The latter method yielded no results, but the former method saw limited success; on March 14, 2122, an attempt to utilize low-power lasers on the First Apollyon Azrael caused the apollyon to briefly change into a form resembling a larva of some sort before reverting back to its original, lifeless form.
Succeeding experiments utilizing more powerful lasers allowed the apollyons to maintain these larval forms for longer periods of time, leading the Order of Apollyon to conclude that using higher amounts of energy would eventually allow for the revitalization of the Izlondians. However, calculations made by Apollyonic mathematicians revealed that an enormous amount of energy would be needed to fully "reanimate" the apollyons.
This drove Urlum, the Tharsis Siblings, and their followers to design the Soul of Uingffh, a moon-sized megastructure designed to provide said enormous amount of energy, throughout the rest of 2122 to 2125. The Soul, in addition to acting as a star system-destroying superweapon in cases of emergency, would also combine Izlondian technology with recently-developed Kaywellian technology (e.g. Thegasia drives) in order to supply the energy needed to revive the Izlondians/apollyons. The Tharsis Siblings and the Third Princess presented their plans to the rest of the Apollyonic Foundation along with other high-ranking Kaywellian officials sometime near the beginning of 2126, using the cover-up of combining Izlondian artifacts to create a more powerful weapon. The other nine Archons (the Tharsis Siblings constituted three of the nin Archons) voted in favor of constructing the Soul of Uingffh, with construction officially beginning around Yorgos on April 3, 2126.
Colonization of the Yahya Keshmiri System[]
Simplified diagram of the Asilomarian planetary system. Distances not to scale
Simplified diagram of the Korantian planetary system. Distances not to scale
Simplified diagram of the Nerenian planetary system. Distances not to scale
In addition to Xystal/Oirator/Kappa Ceti System, the Kingdom also colonized one other star system: the Yahya Keshmiri System, consisting of three red dwarfs each with their own planetary systems: Asilomar, Korantius, and Nerenius. It was known to humans as LTT 1445.
Yahya Keshmiri presented a promising location for large civilian settlements due to its status as a multiple red dwarf system to the Esernium System, which enjoyed notable success and prosperity as a colony. As such, when the Imperial Kingdom first began sending ships to the star system in April 2111, hundreds of thousands of colonists flocked to the system to set up settlements and other ventures.
However, its colonial supervisors notably showed incompetence in developing the Yahya Keshmiri colony, with its rate of development consistently remaining lower than those of other colonies throughout succeeding months. They also showed incompence in crushing dissent, with a number of left-wing political dissident groups and non-tabulon refugees taking shelter in the system. In the end, this incompetence resulted in the Yahya Keshmiri System being completely annihilated by the Highmost Admiral during the Second LGBTQ+ Genocide; afterwards, Kaywell abstained from attempting to re-colonize the system on the basis of it being permanently stained by sin.
Kaywellian Conquest of the Finoleum/Tydantium System and the People's Republic of Imperatiya (2116-2118)[]
Simplified diagram of the Finolean/Tydantian planetary system. Distances not to scale
After conquering Xymidication, the Kingdom of Kaywell began planning an invasion of the next-nearest solar system: the K-type star Tydantium (Gliese 33), located approximately 11 light-years from Ingffhaestia. Scout probes sent into the system discovered a previously-undiscovered system of 9 planets - 5 terrestrials and 4 giant planets - around Tydantium.
Flag of the People's Republic of Imperatiya
However, they also discovered the presence of an indigenous civilization in the system: the Imperatiyans, a sentient species of starfish-like organisms. The Imperatiyans had organized themselves into the authoritarian People's Democratic Republic of Imperatiya, a communist nation which controlled the entire system (which they knew as Finoleum) from the Imperatiyans' homeworld, the habitable moon Imperatiya.
Kaywell refused to attempt diplomacy with Imperatiya much like with Xymidication. Like the Xymidication Empire, the Imperatiyan Peoples' Republic was dictatorial and militant in nature - traits Kaywellian diplomats found both threatening and undeserving of "tabulon enlightenment." Moreover, Imperatiya's ideology almost completely opposed Kaywell's - while Kaywell practiced laissez-faire capitalism and significant social conservatism, Imperatiya upheld a communist total command economy and other left-wing policies.
Despite their significant ideological conflict, however, the Kingdom of Kaywell refrained from immediately engaging in direct warfare with Imperatiya; the KIAF was still in the process of rebuilding its forces after the Krybolartarian and Xymidicatian wars. Instead, the Imperial Kingdom resorted to weakening Imperatiya and destroying it from within by deliberately initiating civil unrest within the People's Republic - specifically, they decided to take advantage of the Imperatiya citizenry's lack of education (including knowledge of Kaywell itself) due to government censorship and propaganda. In addition, Kaywell decided to boost military manufacturing to match the power of Imperatiya by even further overworking its low-class wage workers and low-ranking species as well as by speeding up the development of the Esernium colony in order to turn it into an arms manufacturing powerhouse.
To spread unrest, beginning in 2116, the Highmost Admiral and other high-ranking military officials had the Order of Uris seed pro-capitalist sentiment amongst Imperatiyans in order to artificially manufacture a revolt against the communist government. As part of this plan, Uris sent several disguised ships carrying Keliostic missionaries and Kaywellian propagandists (both tabulons and Krybolartarian Lizards) into various Finoleum worlds including the planets Yultim, Akshay, and Rylvia and the moons Terrator and Ciliamte.
Though the Imperatiyan military persecuted or shot down many of these missionary ships, the few fleets that survived successfully converted millions of locals to Keliosity and revealed the true, oppressive nature behind the Imperatiyan government. They also promoted ideals such as capitalism and libertarianism, garnering strong opposition to socialism among Finoleum citizens. Though the tabulons put forth many factual criticisms of the Imperatiyan government, culture, and economy, they also gave many lies regarding their own, arguably equally oppressive home country of Kaywell and covered up its many flaws such as the Nerus Korndelia caste system. They portrayed the Kingdom as a utopia of freedom, liberty, and individualism, promising the Imperatiyan citizens an equal place in Kaywellian society if they overthrew the People's Democratic Republic of Imperatiya.
The plan proved itself effective when the converted Macbethists and capitalists launched what they called the Sarvin Rebellion (named after one of the leaders of the missionaries and a member of the Order of Uris, Sarvin Kerborigin) on May 9, 2117, around a week after the missionaries had left due to their suppression under the Imperatiya government reaching a breaking point. This civil war greatly weakened the Imperatiyan military as the rebels stole approximately $75.37 billion worth of military equipment including guns, warships, and tanks. Furthermore, the rebellion forced the government to focus its remaining military on safeguarding loyal planets against the capitalist rebels.
The Sarvin Rebellion allowed Kaywell to eventually declare formal war against Imperatiya on June 12 that year. Working together with Sarvin rebels, the Sovereignty rapidly conquered the Finoleum System and captured any Imperatiya-allied government officials present on the claimed planets, dwarf planets, and moons. From there, the tabulons left the fates of the captured government officials to the Sarvin Rebels, who usually utilized them as forced laborers as a form of karma surrounding the fact that the Imperatiyan government used the same punishment on dissenting civilians.
Though the Imperatiya government fought back with its two owned Drori artifacts, the combined force of the Sarvin Rebellion and the Kaywellian Imperial Star Navy quickly overpowered any fleets - some Imperatiya ship crews even announced their allegiance to the Sarvin Rebellion mid-battle and committed mutiny.
Acutain
Within just four months, the People's Democratic Republic of Imperatiya had lost control of all of its outer dwarf planets, the outer terrestrial world of Rylvia, and the outer gas giants of Jovana, Fronia, and Sima along with their moons. By December, Kaywell had claimed not only the inner terrestrial worlds of Verenus, Yultim, and Chor; but also the aforementioned Drori artifacts: the Acutain, a space station containing vast amounts of terraforming resources; and the Silisko, a large battle station with tentacle-like mechanical appendages which could capture enemy ships and integrate them into itself.
Silisko
After Kaywell gained control of the habitable super-Earth Akshay on March 29, a combined KISN-Sarvin Rebellion fleet of 980 entered orbit around Imperion, Imperatiya's parent planet, on April 3, 2118. They quickly overpowered the local Imperatiya defense fleet and took control of the moon itself along with its neighboring moon Terrator within a week, marking the final annexation of the People's Democratic Republic.
The Finoleum System was officially annexed on April 22, 2118, after the Order of Uris suppressed a handful of persistent Imperatiyan fleets. In accordance with the Dominion system, Imperatiya saw the conversion of all of its former territory into an imperial province: the Imperial Dominion of Tydantium. Sarvin Kerborigin rose up as its duke for his efforts in seeding anti-Imperatiyan dissent amongst the Imperatiyan citizenry. The Finoleum/Gliese 33 system saw its legal renaming to the Tydantium System in the process, but like Oirator, Tydantium's planets held on to their original names due to no previously-assigned tabulon names existing.
As for the Imperatiyans themselves, the Nerus Korndelia System placed the species right above the Xymethystas and assigned them the role of unpaid factory workers, which came about due to two main factors. For one, the tabulons deemed the Imperatiyan species particularly inferior and primitive due to the Imperatiyans' socialist government on top of their extra-Ingffhaestian origins. In addition, like Ophisians and Earth sea stars, Imperatiyans could regenerate their limbs as long as their centers remained intact - a trait that would minimize the cost and aftereffects of workplace injuries, a common occurrence in dangerous factory environments. Imperatiyan forced laborers came to fill factories of all kinds in Kaywell.
The Sarvin Rebels, however, were an exception; for their efforts in scoring a Kaywellian victory, the Sarvin Rebels were awarded Honorary Kaywellian status, with Highmost Ring Shol granting them the same legal and societal privileges as tabulons. However, this formed the extent of the tabulons' generosity towards their allies; though they granted the Imperatiyans citizenship, they otherwise provided them with little to no means to integrate themselves into Kaywellian society. Because of this, a sizeable portion of them either failed to find a career and fell into poverty, or ended up in low-paying, low-benefit jobs under exploitative employers. A few of them also lost their lives to violent hate crimes and lynchings performed by tabulon supremacists. The luckiest of the Sarvin Rebels ended up as servants of Duke Kerborigin living comparatively opulent and easygoing lifestyles under a mostly-benevolent master.
As a side effect of the Imperatiyans' addition into the Nerus Korndelia System, the Krybolartarian Lizards and the Ophisians found themselves gaining slightly more footing in Ingffhaestian imperial society. Members of both species began looking down upon Imperatiyans and taking out their anger on them as species in upper castes, such as the tabulons, began treating them with comparatively more respect. This effect was most discernable in the Ophisians, whose role was slowly shifting away from hard manual labor and towards the more dignified task of acting as special agents; with species like the Imperatiyans and Xymethystas handing the hard labor tasks, the tabulons began utilizing the Ophisians' capabilities for more sophisticated tasks like spying and generally serving tabulon government officials.
Workers' Rights Movements and the Interstellar Red Scare[]
Though Kaywell had succeeded in seeding capitalist dissent within the socialist Imperatiyan People's Republic, the Imperatiyans also seeded pro-socialist dissent within Kaywellian territory both directly through secretive operations and indirectly through televised propaganda.
Though the success of the Imperatiyans' efforts to create anticapitalist sentiment within Kaywell was comparatively limited, it still proved sufficient in inciting several large-scaled workers' rights movements across Kaywellian territory. Inspired by Imperatiyan-sponsored socialist and leftist messages, lower-class tabulon laborers and even a few non-tabulons held protests demanding the legalization of labor unions, the passage of legislation against big businesses and exploitation, and the offering of higher quality employment benefits.
Ultimately, it only took the words of a single Kaywellian official to unravel the workers' rights movements; on February 1, 2117, Kaywell First parliamentarian Macca Carthia delivered a speech warning against the threat of communist spies from the Imperatiyan Republic. This led to the High Imperial Parliament's swift passage of the February 2 Carthia Act, which granted the KIAF and the KIMP permission to send communists and socialists to re-education camps and use any means necessary to find and arrest leftists. The act also established a new federal organization, the Imperial Un-Kaywellian Investigative Committee (IUKIC), specifically for investigating and detaining leftists. All across Kaywell's territory, IUKIC employees scoured government buildings, private workplaces, and homes for leftists and sent any leftists they found into the Morality Police custody. Meanwhile, other Morality Police officers conducted the swift, but brutal suppression and breakup of worker's rights protests, using lethal force to detain protestors. By the end of 2117 alone, an estimated 125 million leftists had seen arrest by the IUKIC. In addition, the Imperial Ministry of Truth partnered with various private propaganda corporations in pushing out hundreds of anticommunist propaganda works, many of which also wove in themes of racism against the Imperatiyan species.
Interstellar Lavender Scare and the beginning of the Second LGBTQ+ Genocide[]
Much like how the Second Red Scare of the United States led to an anti-LGBTQ+ "Lavender Scare", the Interstellar Red Scare inevitably led the virulently-homophobic Kaywell to associate the LGBTQ+ community with communism and national security threats. This gave birth to what became known as the Interstellar Lavender Scare in mid-2117.
Beginning in June 2117, the Imperial Ministry of Truth began publishing works attaching immorality to Imperatiyans, communists, socialists, and their sympathizers; given Kaywell's vehement anti-LGBTQ+ stances, this immorality naturally came to prominently include homosexuals, transgender people, and other LGBTQ+ individuals. The KIMT and other propaganda organizations caused the Kaywellian populace to develop a heightened fear of homosexuals and other LGBTQ+ people just as, if not even more potent than their fear of Imperatiyan socialist spies and insurgents; specifically, Kaywellian tabulons began to adopt notions that LGBTQ+ people had "weaker moral fiber" and were more susceptible to manipulation from Imperatiyan socialists, thus making them a national security threat.
In addition, after Kaywell concluded the First LGBTQ+ Genocide in 2110 with nearly 5 billion dead and partially relaxed its anti-LGBTQ+ policies to focus on other imperial matters, the Kaywellian LGBTQ+ population had begun to increase. This greatly angered the rest of the Kaywellian populace, who accused Galabede vir Carthonia, the Highmost Minister at the time, and the royal family of being "too soft" on the "queer menace" plaguing Kaywellian society.
In response to this criticism, the imperial government sharply increased the austerity of its policies against the LGBTQ+ community, resulting in a nationwide manhunt and smear campaign against the LGBTQ+ community similar to the Interstellar Red Scare's manhunt against leftists and socialists. Through a series of acts and policies nicknamed the Heterosexual Codes passed throughout August and September of 2117, the High Imperial Parliament bestowed the Morality Police and the Kaywellian army with the freedom to persecute LGBTQ+ individuals with as much brutality as they felt necessary. Both organizations conducted raids on homes, businesses, and a variety of other settings in search of queer individuals, whom upon finding them they forcefully dragged out and arrested. From there, Kaywell either publicly executed them or deported them to a re-education camp, where Morality Police officers utilized torture and abuse in an effort to convert them back into cisgender heterosexuals.
Meanwhile, Kaywellian propaganda agencies strengthened the anti-LGBTQ+ messages in their propaganda, demonizing those "soft on homosexuality and transgenderism" and labelling a number of normal feminine behaviors, activities, and mannerisms as well as minute deviations from Kaywellian gender norms as indicative of homosexual and/or transgender tendencies. This fostered a culture of mass hysteria amongst the public as citizens led devoted, sometimes obsessive efforts to uncover LGBTQ+ individuals in their community. In some cases, people took advantage of the Interstellar Lavender Scare to settle personal grudges by accusing rivals of displaying LGBTQ+ tendencies - an act that alone would cost the accused their jobs, careers, and livelihoods. The hysteria created by Kaywellian propagandists cost millions across the Kingdom higher-level jobs on the grounds of being LGBTQ+ or being soft on LGBTQ+; in fact, some corporations intentionally fostered such a culture in order to increase their supply of low-ranking, low-paid laborers, who had become low in number after the workers' rights movements.
On February 14, 2118, the High Imperial Parliament resumed enforcement of the Podensis Act, causing the Interstellar Lavender Scare to evolve into the Second LGBTQ+ Genocide. The Morality Police and the Kaywellian military continued their persecution of LGBTQ+ individuals, but now with the intent of killing them outright. Instead of siphoning them to KIMP re-education camps, Kaywell had any LGBTQ+ individuals it found executed in public on the grounds of the "waging war against Kelios" charge. These executions were often carried out summarily; for instance, during the Morthawui Stadium Massacre of June 1, 2118, Morality Police officers interrupted a peaceful pro-LGBTQ+ demonstration in a stadium on Morthawui, habitable moon of Asilomar's second planet Meander, by shooting indiscriminately at the crowd, leading to the deaths of over 40,000 civilians.
A distinguishing trait of the Second LGBTQ+ Genocide was its involvement of innocent, non-LGBTQ+ citizens; unlike the First LGBTQ+ Genocide, the Second LGBTQ+ Genocide saw the executions of a number of straight, cisgender Kaywellians as a byproduct of the Interstellar Lavender Scare's culture of mass hysteria. Out of the 3.12 billion people slaughtered during the genocide, an estimated 521 million of them are now suspected to not have been LGBTQ+, but were executed anyway due to deviating from Kaywellian gender norms, being perceived as "too soft" on LGBTQ+ issues, or falling victim to personal rivalries. In addition, the Second LGBTQ+ Genocide's harm extended outside of direct killings, with countless other individuals losing their careers and/or being shunned by society after accusations of collusion with the LGBTQ+ community regardless of the accusations' actual merit and credibility.
By the end of 2118, the Second LGBTQ+ Genocide's death toll had reached 3.12 billion tabulons - quite lower than that of the First LGBTQ+ Genocide. However, 2117 and 2118 only marked the beginning of Second LGBTQ+ Genocide; Kaywell would continue to conduct mass killings of LGBTQ+ individuals until 2122.
Colonizations of the Olus and Uontis Systems[]
Aside from the Tydantium System, two other systems saw conquest from the Kingdom of Kaywell. These two star systems were the Olus and Uontis Systems, both located roughly 12 light-years from the Ingffhaestian Systems. Neither of these systems were multiple star systems, ending Kaywell's brief trend of focusing on the colonization of systems featuring multiple stellar components. In addition, neither of these systems harbored native life, limiting their conquests to relatively uneventful economic and infrastructural development.
Simplified diagram of the Olan planetary system. Distances not to scale
One was the Olus System (Delta Eridani/Rana), a K0IV-class subgiant star located 12.34 light-years from Ingffhaestia. During exploration of the system in late 2116, tabulon conquerators discovered five planets in the system. Though all of them were giant planets with no solid surfaces of their own, the second and third planets - Tannus and Naga - harbored habitable moons suitable for tabulon colonization. Both the government and private corporations set about colonizing these moons as settlers began migrating there; nonetheless, neither of the two moons became substantial population centers due to their somewhat less hospitable environments - an aftereffect of the system's advanced age.
However, another motivation existed behind Olus' colonization. Being the closest giant/subgiant star to Ingffhaestia, Olus presented a promising opportunity for astronomers to study the later stages of a star's life as well as the effects of such stages on their planetary systems. Thus, Olus predominantly became a destination for astronomers, researchers, and scientists seeking to learn more about stellar evolution, with a substatial portion of the rest of the system's population consisting of these scientists' families.
Simplified diagram of the Uontian planetary system. Distances not to scale
The other system was the Uontis System (Van Maanen's Star), a white dwarf located 12.57 light-years from Ingffhaestia. There, Kaywell's conquerators discovered three planets; though none of them held habitable conditions, they possessed an abundance of valuable materials and chemicals. This led to the system's growth into a mining and resource extraction colony. Habitats for the families of laborers rose in the form of sealed domes located on the surface of Para as well as space stations orbiting Ahra and Inmus.
In addition, Kaywellian astronomers, like with Olus, took interest in the Uontis System due to the research opportunities it presented. Colonizing Uontis allowed astronomers to further study stellar life cycles by looking into the white dwarf stage of a star's life. Uontis' planets also formed a point of interest, as astronomers assumed that the red giant and asymptotic giant branch stages of a star's life cycle would destroy most orbiting planets and moons. The prevailing theory is that Uontis' three planets once orbited much farther and escaped destruction thanks to their high orbits, but then migrated inward as Uontis shed its outer layers and its gravity decreased. Some tabulons also theorize that the planets formed during Uontis' stellar shedding from stellar materials released from Uontis, but this explanation is unpopular.
Kaywellian Conquest of the Solunirea/Exirium System and the Zanthe Republic (2118-2121)[]
Simplified diagram of the Solunirean/Exirian planetary system. Distances not to scale
Following the colonization of Gliese 33/Finoleum/Tydantium, the Kingdom of Kaywell began making plans to colonize the Exirium System, a system centered around an M7V-class red dwarf located a little over 11 light-years away from Ingffhaestia. Exirium, known to humans as Teegarden's Star, posed an appealing colonization target for Urlum due to the presence of two Earth-sized exoplanets in the star's habitable zone.
Flag of the Republic of Zanthe
Scout probes sent to Teegarden's Star discovered several additional undiscovered planets in the system, increasing its appeal to Kaywell even more. However, they also discovered the Zanthe Republic, a native civilization controlling the entire Exirium System (which they knew as the Solunirea System). Unlike the previous civilizations, the native anthropomorphic bird-like Zanthens existed under a fair democracy rather than an empire (like Krybolartarium or Zymidication) or a pseudo-democratic dictatorship (like Imperatiya).
Interestingly, Kaywell had actually discovered both Exirium/Solunirea's planets and the Zanthe Republic during the war with Imperatiya. However, the Kingdom refrained from immediately pursuing a colonization of Zanthe due to the significant toll dealing with two advanced native alien civilizations simultaneously would have on both the economy and the military. Eventually, the Imperatiyan Republic's fall in spring 2118 gave Kaywell the opportunity to mount a Solunirea colonization campaign later that year.
On June 12, 2118, Prince Sarnus and a team of other high-ranking Kaywellian diplomats made contact with Zanthen politicians, marking Kaywell's first attempt at diplomacy since the Krybolartarian conflict roughly 16 Earth years prior; fittingly, this diplomacy would end up going similarly to that attempted with Krybolartarium. Initially, the Zanthen ambassador, Ari Jaiide, invited Sarnus to a peaceful meeting on Zyzor, the Zanthen homeworld, as an expression of Zanthen society's excitement towards encountering another sentient species. However, after Sarnus asked the Zanthens to voluntarily submit to the Kaywellian Empire and integrate themselves into the imperial caste system, the tabulons' imperialist intentions became clear to the Republic, and relations quickly soured. On July 8, Zanthe officially rejected Kaywell's request, which incurred Kaywell to declare war on Zanthe immediately after.
Initial Gains[]
During the opening stages of the Kaywell-Zanthe war, Kaywell held a significant advantage. At the time, Kaywell appeared to have a vastly superior military as well as stronger morale, with the Zanthens acting on the defense.
The war's first battle was the Battle of the Binary Moons on July 10, 2118. That day, a Kaywellian fleet of 912 encountered a Zanthen fleet of 480 near Chack and Jarlize, a pair of binary asteroid moons orbiting Solunirae's eighth planet, the large ice giant Corelan. With their vastly superior numbers, the Kaywell fleet initiated a pincer attack against the much smaller Zanthen fleet. This initially proved successful until a new Zanthen fleet of 501 suddenly warped behind the KISN's fleet and assumed a wedge formation; this wedge then split the Kaywell fleet into two, allowing the Zanthens to attack the imperial fleet more easily. However, this still left the Zanthen fleet surrounded by Kaywellian ships, allowing the cruisers among them to turn their cannons sideways and engage the Zanthen fleet in another pincer attack. This led to the destruction of 492 Zanthen ships, with the remaining ships fleeing; the Battle of the Binary Moons was declared a Kaywellian victory, with Kaywell laying claim to the Corelan System.
Despite its victory during the Battle of the Binary Moons, Kaywell's military still showed concern over Zanthe's use of warp drives during the battle; no other civilization had utilized them in the past, and the KIAF worried that the Republic might use them to mount interstellar attacks on Kaywell's own territory. However, further examination of Zanthe's warp drives revealed that they had a significantly lower range than even the most rudimentary Thegasia drives, being only feasible for interplanetary use; this quelled the military's fears, but still forced the Highmost Admiral and other high-ranking KIAF officials to revise their strategies to work around this new discovery.
The Litia Feint and the Battle of Geass occurred from August 29 to September 2 and involved the Orders of Uris and Scentrilla, beginning when a Uris fleet of 595 arrived in orbit of the seventh planet and ice giant Litia. There, they engaged a Zanthen fleet of 540 in combat for much of July 29. As combat dragged on, more Zanthen ships arrived to assist the Litian defense fleet. Though the Uris fleet was seemingly aiming to claim the space stations located around Litia, its true objective was actually to distract from Kaywell's true plan of attacking the much more valuable sixth planet, the gas giant Geass (and its habitable moon, Robux); on July 30, the Order of Scentrilla seized the opportunity created by Uris to attack Geass with a fleet of 889. Because most of the ships defending Geass had left for Litia, the Scentrilla Order quickly took out Geass' defenses and claimed the Geass System, including Robux and all of its citizens, for itself. Grandmaster Soria rei Scentrilla's flaship, the Garrahan-class world breaker Gestilas, conducted an orbital bombardment of Robux that killed a total of 71 million Zanthens after the Robuxians attempted to revolt against Kaywell.
Eventually, Kaywell decided to actually conquer Litia in November 2118, leading to the Second Battle of Litia on November 5. During this battle, 1,000 ships from both the Order of Uris and the Order of Scentrilla engaged in combat against a trio of Zanthen fleets each numbering roughly 1,000. Unlike other battles, this battle featured a battle strategy drafted by Highmost Admiral Urlum; the battle began with the Kaywellian fleet attacking one of the three Zanthen fleets, succeeding in defeating it. Afterwards, the two other Zanthen fleets merged and proceeded to lock Kaywell's fleet in a pincer attack; the Highmost Admiral, however, had predicted this maneuver and had two of the Kaywell fleet's Polyhexes fire at two of the pincer attack's sides. The shots not only destroyed a significant amount of the Zanthen ships, but also split the Zanthen fleet into three smaller fleets which the Kingdom's fleet defeated with ease. The conquered Litia System was then presented as a gift to the royal family to celebrate Kaywell's formation.
Introduction of the Calystonia, the Daybreak Cannon, and the Zuinn Cannons[]
Kaywell's swift conquests of Corelan, Litia, and Geass alarmed the Zanthen citizenry. Subsequent massive protests incurred the Zanthen government to take the threat of Ingffhaestia more seriously and vastly strengthen their military response to the war. This allowed the tide of the war to shift towards the Zanthe Republic's favor in late 2118 and 2119.
Calystonia
On December 13, 2118, the Reclamation of Geass commenced with a Zanthen fleet of 73 engaging a Kaywellian defense fleet of 410. The battle initially strongly favored Kaywell due to its vastly superior numbers until the Zanthen fleet unexpected deployed a large, moon-sized anomalous artificial object: the Izlondian artifact Calystonia. The Calystonia then proceeded to fire its principal weapon - its black hole cannon - at the Kaywell fleet, leading to the generation of a micro-sized black hole in the middle of the fleet. This black hole's gravity greatly disturbed the fleet, destroying 89 of its ships; shortly afterwards, the black hole collapsed, generating a massive explosion that took out another 272 ships. Almost completely annihilated, the imperial fleet retreated and warned the other ships stationed at Geass; after the Zanthens repeated their usage of the Calystonia against a few more imperial fleets, Kaywell retreated from the orange ring gas giant planet completely, allowing the Zanthens to reclaim it on December 17.
Following the disastrous battle at Geass, the forces at Litia and Corelan developed a strategy to evade the Calystonia's attacks: grounding themselves on nearby moons and planetoids. Ships around both ice giant planets anchored themselves onto the planets' moons, preventing the Zanthens from using black holes to disrupt their formations; in addition, the tabulons surmised that Zanthe would refrain from firing black holes directly at moons due to the amount of Zanthen citizens still trapped on their surfaces.
Daybreak Cannon
Though the tabulons succeeded in avoiding attacks from the Calystonia, they failed to avoid other methods of attacks from the Zanthens. At Litia, the Zanthens utilized their other Izlondian artifact, the Daybreak Cannon, against the tabulons. The Daybreak Cannon contained a potent artificial parasitic organism known as the S.D. Locke Hyperparasite, which the Zanthens proceeded to fire upon the moons harboring Kaywellian ships on January 7, 2118. The hyperparasite then spread throughout the moons' thin atmospheres while multiplying rapidly, eventually resulting in a red haze of hyperparasites covering the entire planet/moon and filtering the light of its parent star to only allow red light to pass through. Afterwards, the hyperparasite proceeded to trap the Kaywellian ships onto their moons and infect any personnel trapped inside, altering their biology and turning them into gelatinous zombie-like organisms driven by an instinct to infect more tabulons with the hyperparasite. Meanwhile, the Zanthens themselves remained unharmed, as their role as the Daybreak Cannon's activators granted them immunity from the hyperparasite. A little over half of the Kaywellian ships stationed at Litia were lost, and the ice giant planet was reclaimed by the Zanthe Republic; the battle also resulted in the Order of Uris fleeing from the Solunirean System entirely.
Meanwhile at Corelan, the Zanthe Republic defeated the Order of Scentrilla's forces there through the use of Zuinn Cannons - small, downscaled, mass-produced versions of the Calystonia's black hole cannon. During the January 30 Reclamation of Corelan, several unusually large Zanthen ships fired their Zuinn Cannons at Scentrillan forces stationed on Corelan's moons; there, they generated black holes which, due to their small size, quickly generated massive explosions that either vaporized or severely damaged any Kaywellian ships caught in their wake. Like the Daybreak Cannon's firing, the Zuinn Cannons' firing destroyed slightly over half of the Scentrilla Order's ships and caused the remaining half to flee, allowing the Republic to liberate Corelan.
Thanks to the Zanthe Republic's sweeping action against the Kingdom of Kaywell, the entire Solunirean planetary system was liberated from Kaywellian control by the beginning of February 2119. In addition, the battles led to a significant shift in morale; Zanthen morale skyrocketed as the Zanthens felt elation at their recent victories, while Kaywellian morale plummeted at the prospect of the Kingdom possibly experiencing its first failed war. Throughout the rest of the first half of 2119, Kaywell continued to attempt attacks on the outer Solunirean System, but all of them failed after meeting significant Zanthe Republic resistance.
Development of the Zwops[]
With the Zanthe Republic making use of its powerful Izlondian artifacts, Kaywell struggled to lead conventional offensives into the Solunirean System. This motivated Highmost Admiral Urlum to consider alternative methods of combat, such as chemical weapons, bioweapons or the artificial seeding of unrest within Zanthen society. She ultimately deemed bioweapons as the best option for future combat; she viewed Zanthen society as too stable and secure in its beliefs to manipulate into conflict and chemical weapons as impractical for the situation.
In particular, the Highmost Admiral desired to target the Zanthe Republic's agricultural sector, which was rather large and strong; she believed that crippling the agriculture industry would cause a chain reaction that would ultimately destabilize Zanthe enough for Kaywell to regain its advantage. To this end, she commissioned an imperial biologist by the name of Troodon Georgakas to develop a bioweapon designed to disrupt the Zanthen agricultural sector.
Georgakas looked to the Zwops, insect-like Uingffhian organisms that parasitized plants (particularly the tree-like Zwei plant, hence the insect's name) by burrowing into their leaves, sucking on their contents, and laying their eggs there. After receiving approval from the imperial government for his ventures, Georgakas began to develop artificial strains of Zwops targeting Zyzorian flora. Because the Orders of Scentrilla and Uris were continuing to fight Zanthe directly as a diversion to prevent the Republic from finding out about the Zwops, the two orders were able to supply Georgakas with samples of Zanthen crops and plant life to use for his endeavors.
By March 12, 2120, Georgakas had completed his artificial Zwop strain. After a few rounds of testing and review, the KIAF released the Zwops onto various Zanthen worlds on April 22 of the same year.
Almost immediately, Zanthe felt the burden of the Zwops, which very quickly spread throughout the Solunirean System. The Zwops decimated crops all over Solunirea, leading to food shortages and other resource shortages. The novelty of the pest left Zanthen farmers unable to quickly combat against it, forcing them to watch as Zwops ravaged their fields and devastated harvests. By July of 2120, the military had begun to see effects as the government struggled to supply food to troops; the military's situation only worsened in August, when Zanthe decided to curb funding away from the military in order to fund research into a cure for the Zwops.
With the Zanthen military, and Zanthen society as a whole, weakened, Kaywell seized the opportunity it created to resume offensives against the Zanthe Republic. Due to the significantly lessened strength of the Zanthen space navy, Kaywell very quickly conquered the Solunirea System. By December 2120, the KISN had secured control of Corelan, Litia, Geass, and the fifth planet Zeta. On January 14, 2121, Kaywell annexed the hot jupiter Gongulus before subjugating the second planet Pacif a month later. When Kaywellian ships approached the third planet Solur in March, Solur's inhabitants surrendered due to the extreme toll the Zwops had had on the planet's colonies. This left only Zyzor uncolonized and vulnerable for a pincer attack from the Kaywellian forces at Solur and Zeta.
Subjugation of Zyzor[]
March 1, 2120 was when the Zanthe Republic first detected a Kaywellian fleet of over 2,000 warping from Gongulus to low Zyzorian orbit. The high admiral leading this fleet, Forge rei Scentrilla, declared his intentions to invade the planet and gave the Zanthens a brief opportunity to surrender. Zanthen president Jadia Aria and her people refused to surrender, leading to the outbreak of the Subjugation of Zyzor.
Forge began by orbitally bombarding his side of Zanthe from orbit. However, his orbital bombardment had only gone on for less than an hour when Zanthen admiral Tofu Jaaide attacked Forge's fleet with all of Zanthe's remaining ships, which numbered 1,728. Despite her numerical advantage, Admiral Tofu succeeded in defending Zanthe from further orbital bombardment using quick and competent battle tactics, such as hurling a derelict space station at some of Forge's ships.
However, early on March 2, another Kaywellian fleet - a 2,500 ship fleet commanded by Order of Uris High Admiral Rigel rei Orionis - warped into the space on the other side of Zanthe, which Tofu had left undefended due to her focus on the Forge fleet. High Admiral Rigel then proceeded to have his fleet orbitally bombard the other side of Zanthe, leading to over 700,000 casualties within the first hour. Both Tofu Jaaide and the rest of the Zanthe Republic then realized the futility of their resistance; if Tofu spread out her forces to the other side of the planet, both of her fleets would be badly outnumbered by Kaywell, and if Tofu kept her forces near her and evenly matched Forge's fleet, Rigel would continue to orbitally bombard Zanthe.
Thus, Zanthe chose the option that would minimize casualties on their side: surrender, which they announced on March 3. That day, Kaywell officially annexed Zyzor, marking the stripping of the Zanthe Republic's sovereignty and the completion of the conquest of the Solunirea System. The Republic was promptly converted into the Imperial Dominion of Exirium, with Troodon Georgakas rising up as its duke.
The Zanthens themselves were assigned the role of jesters and entertainers following the annexation of Exirium. The tabulons made this decision due to pre-conquest Zanthen society having a strong entertainment industry and a rich culture. Though their rank was rather low on the Nerus Korndelian caste hierarchy, the Zanthens proved to be rather content with this role, as they could get away with criticizing the government and Kaywellian society by passing their critical comments off as jokes made as part of their assigned caste job. Nonetheless, the tabulons reserved the right to punish or even execute any zanthens they found offensive to themselves or the wider Kaywellian community, leading to an estimated 52,500 Zanthen deaths between the annexation of Zanthe and the end of 2121.
Colonizations of the Yuge and Arein Systems[]
Aside from the Solunirea/Exirium System, Kaywell conquered two other solar systems without native life within the timeframe of the Zanthe-Kaywell War.
Simplified diagram of the Areinian planetary system. Distances not to scale
One was the Arein System (human name: Pi3 Orionis), a system centered around an F6V-type white star around 14.5 light-years from Ingffhaestia. The system contained seven newly-discovered planets: three giant planets and four terrestrials; though most of the planets and their moons contained notoriously extreme and dangerous environments, the fourth planet - Echeveria - proved to be a very close match to Uingffh, and thus went on to become the second-most populated planet in the entire Kingdom of Kaywell. The other planets proved useful for other purposes, however, such as resource mining.
Simplified diagram of the Yugean planetary system. Distances not to scale
The other system, the Yuge System (human name: HD 17925), was located slightly closer to Ingffhaestia than Arein at 14.25 light-years and featured five newly-discovered planets around a K1V-type star. Compared to the Arein System, the Yuge System was a lot less notable; the only planet suitable for habitation, Crassula, was a rather swampy and humid world with an environment rather different from Uingffh's. Thus, Yuge went on to become a rather remote system with a low population; in the later years of the interstellar era, Yuge became a popular retirement destination, though this still granted Yuge a low population since the vast majority of Kaywellian tabulons worked until they died.
Development of the Star Crushers[]
Inspired by the Zanthe Republic's use of the Calystonia and the Zuinn Cannons, Highmost Admiral Urlum proposed to have Kaywell construct its own black hole-based weaponry shortly after Zanthe's annexation. The High Imperial Parliament, led by Highmost Minister Orania Unaut at the time, quickly approved the Third Princess' request, leading to the initiation of Project Star Crusher on April 22, 2121.
During the project, both esteemed tabulon military scientists and downtrodden sheepilly engineer slaves worked together to produce Kaywell's own black hole weapons. Though they relatively quickly succeeded in replicating the technology found in the Calystonia and the Zuinn Cannons, they found that any ship equipped with such technology would have to be exceptionally large in order to accommodate a reactor powerful enough to generate black holes of a practical size.
Noticing that Zanthe had accepted this hurdle by constructing large ships for its Zuinn cannons, the Imperial Star Navy did the same; however, to preserve resources and minimize cost, Urlum Eudae Kaywell reduced the number of ships for the project's crew to construct to only four for the initial wave of ships. In addition, she had the government and corporations handling the construction increase the workload on both the unpaid Imperatiyan laborers and the lowly-paid tabulon workers, as well as generate more funding by increasing taxes and diverting funding from education and healthcare.
By the end of 2121, the Kingdom had completed construction of these four black hole-armed ships, termed star crushers. The tabulons and sheepillies in the design team had designed four classes - the 7 km Kelnis-class, the 8 km Kirbani-class, the 10 km Kerilim-class, and the 12.5 km Kormin-class - and the four newly-constructed star crushers contained one ship of each class. Their completion was celebrated by the Kaywellian public, with Emperioso Shol and Highmost Minister Unaut making speeches on the importance of the military and expansionism; however, the four star crushers were ultimately sent into reserve, with the Highmost Admiral desiring to only use them in worst case scenarios due to their overwhelming power. An estimated 2.34 million Imperatiyans and tabulon workers died during the construction of all four star crushers.
Interstellar Autism Rights Movement and Suppression[]
At the same time as the invasion of Zanthe, Kaywell began to experience an uptick in autism rights advocacy. Throughout 2118 and early 2119, autistic people began publicly protesting about Kaywell's severe lack of accommodations for the mentally disabled as well as its hostile legislation and norms towards autistic people specifically. Autistic people and their supports argued against policies like the Mental Decency Act that criminalized common autistic behaviors as "anti-Kaywellian" and policies like the "No Special Treatment" and Autism Talks Act that dehumanized autistic people and denied them access to basic services like education.
By June 2119, these autism rights protests had coalesced into a national unified autism rights front: the Interstellar Autism Rights Movement (IARM). Throughout the Kingdom's star systems, autism rights supporters gathered in the thousands, staging peaceful but direct an assertive protests demanding the High Imperial Parliament and Emperioso Shol repeal its anti-autism legislation and introduce more neurodivergent-friendly policies that provided adequate accommodations for the mentally disabled.
Naturally, the Kaywellian government did not heed the IARM's demands and instead interpreted their protests as an act of treason against Kaywellian values. On July 4, 2119, the imperial government authorized Princess Urlum, the Star Navy, and the Morality Police to suppress the autism rights movement with extreme force. All across the Imperial Kingdom, Morality Police officers broke up IARM protests through tear gas, beatings, use of firearms, etc.; for instance, during the Zyrical Capital Massacre of July 28, 2119, Morality Police officers suppressed a peaceful autism rights demonstration in the Zyrican city of Zarzinol by firing paralyzing bullets at them, binding their hands, lashing them with zeruel strips, and finally shooting them until they died. The massacre killed a total of ~7,900 protestors. Meanwhile, the Star Navy conducted orbital bombardments of cities frequented by the IARM, such as during the Orbital Bombardment of Cyranica Station when a fleet of 254 ships led by Jove rei Kerbos destroyed the Cyranica space station around the Nerenian planet Darsis after IARM protestors overran it.
In addition to the physical suppression of the IARM, Kaywell also conducted a propaganda campaign and a smear campaign against the autism rights movement, albeit in more subtle ways compared to its past moves against civil justice movements. The Ministry of Truth soiled the autism rights movement's name not by directly lambasting it as an example of degeneracy (though many private citizens did so), but by releasing news articles contending that the "real world" would not conform to the needs and accommodations of autistic people and that autism was a disease to cure rather than a disability to accommodate. In addition, Morality Police officers acting undercover would infiltrate IARM protests and intentionally turn them violent in order to portray and publicize the group as riotous and dangerous. Out of the 2.4 billion recorded IARM protests, the KIMP succeeded in turning 168 million of them violent; though this number accounted for only 7% of all protests, the Kaywellian media widely publicized this 7%, focusing on and exaggerating their impact on the public. This effectively plummeted the approval ratings of the IARM to less than 12% by the beginning of 2120.
A combination of physical suppression and rigorous smear campaigns left the IARM all but nonexistent by the end of 2121. Now associated with the disorder of the IARM, autistic Kaywellians faced even more suppression and marginalization from Kaywellian society. With even the subtle display of autistic mannerisms and symptoms punishable by public flogging and extensive re-education, autistic people were forced to suppress their identities more than they did before, and would be forced to do so for decades to come thanks to the legacy of the IARM tarnished by the Kaywellian government.
Kaywellian Conquest of the Ictria/Iris System and the Kingdom of Sria (2122)[]
Simplified diagram of the Ictrian planetary system. Distances not to scale
Simplified diagram of the Faveystrian planetary system. Distances not to scale
Simplified diagram of the Yexystrian planetary system. Distances not to scale
Following the successful conquests of the Exirium, Arein, and Yuge System, Kaywell began making plans to colonize the triple star system of Iris (human name: 40 Eridani) located 12 light-years from Ingffhaestia. The Iris System formed an appealing colonization target for the Imperial Kingdom for similar reasons to Esernium and Yahya Keshmiri - the triple system featured an abundance of newly-discovered planets around all three of its stars; in total, the system contained 23 planets, among which existed some particularly exotic planets including a contact binary and some white dwarf planets.
Flag of the Kingdom of Sria
Reconnaissance missions into the Iris System, however, revealed the existence of an indigenous alien society known as the Kingdom of Sria, comprised of the native firefly-like Florania species. Like Kaywell, Sria existed as a parliamentary monarchy with a royal family existing alongside an elected government; unlike Kaywell, however, Sria was a highly peaceful and egalitarian nation that preached pacifism and nonviolence. According to some intel reports, Sria's pacifism came about as a response to a violent war that broke out in the system hundreds of years ago. The Floranias knew Iris' stars as Ictria, Faveystria, and Yexystria.
Due to the pacifist nature of the Floranias, Kaywell chose first to pursue diplomacy with Sria and reserved military action as a backup plan in case negotiations failed. On March 13, 2122, Kaywell dispatched Vael Nova Kirbani, Duchess Mirn's brother, to the Floranian homeworld of Hitria to meet with Srian ambassador Hyelorix Xriavastia. During the meeting, Vael informed Xriavastia of Kaywell's military power as well as information on what the Floranias might expect after being welcomed into the Nerus Korndelia System before requesting the Srian Kingdom to allow Kaywell to absorb it into its empire. The diplomatic meeting ended peacefully on the 15th, with the Srians promising to answer Kaywell's request within the next few days.
Iris Agreement and the Annexation of Ictria/Iris[]
After the meeting, the Kingdom of Sria shocked the entire Kaywellian Empire on March 21, 2122 when, in the Iris Agreement, formally gave Kaywell permission to annex the entire Ictrian triple star system and accept the Floranias into the Nerus Korndelia caste system. This marked the first instance in Kaywellian history of the Imperial Kingdom succeeding in gaining control of a star system and rival nation using only diplomacy and no military means.
The Srians supported Kaywellian annexation for three main reasons. For one, the Srian Kingdom was suffering from a deep economic crisis when Kaywell first made contact; the Floranias believed that Kaywell's unregulated capitalist economic system would significantly improve their economic situation. Secondly, the Srians, guided by their pacifist beliefs, desired to minimize bloodshed as much as possible; rejecting the proposal, in their view, would lead to widespread and needless death and destruction. The third reason was Kaywell's unparalleled military might; the Srian government and populace both recognized that Kaywell's military vastly outgunned their own, and that the Srians had absolutely no chance at defeating Kaywell in a war.
On March 25, Kaywell officially recognized the Srians' decision and annexed the Ictrian System, converting it into the Imperial Dominion of Iris under the leadership of Duke Vael Nova Kirbani. However, a new dilemma arose regarding the new conquest: the Floranias' placement in the Nerus Korndelia System. The Floranias' rather fragile and frail nature as firefly-like beings disqualified them from high-ranking positions in the caste system; however, the tabulons did not want to rank the Floranias extremely low due to the fact that they assimilated into the Kingdom out of their own voilition.
Ultimately, the tabulons compromised by giving the Floranian species a low-ranking, but very easy role: the role of recordkeepers and librarians. Floranias managing libraries and other recordkeeping and storage centers became a common sight in Kaywellian society following the peaceful annexation of Iris. Most of the Floranias felt content with this lifestyle and carried out their rather simple roles with enthusiasm; likewise, tabulon citizens came to think highly of the Floranias due to their very high compliance and low rebelliousness. Throughout succeeding years, Floranias consistently ranked the lowest in Morality Police arrests and rarely spoke out against Kaywellian rule.
Ganawil
The acquisition of the Iris System also granted the tabulons access to the Izlondian artifact Ganawil, which was originally located around the Yexystrian planet Mynovel. The Ganawil artifact was similar to Kiran in that it contained a powerful heat and light source similar to a star at the center of its hollow spheroid main structure; the tabulons would later use it to terraform cold planets.
Colonizations of the Irun, Vonor, and Graxton Systems[]
Aside from the Ictrian triple star system, the uninhabited systems of Irun, Vonor, and Graxton also saw colonization by the Imperial Kingdom and its ever-growing tabulon populace.
Simplified diagram of the Irunian planetary system. Distances not to scale
The Irun System (human name: 82 G. Eridani) saw its first Kaywellian ships on April 17 and was centered around a G6V-type star located 18.85 light-years from Ingffhaestia. Its newly discovered system of 7 planets (4 super-Earths and 3 giant planets) would be largely unnotable if not for the presence of the gas giant Darius, an exotic ringed purple gas giant with two habitable moons named Ghorbani and Ramos. Ghorbani and Ramos quickly became significant tourist destinations for those seeking to view the beauty of both the moons' landscapes and Darius in the sky. Eventually, Kaywell created artifical rings around both moons to serve the quadruple purpose of defense, residence, resources, and aesthetic beauty.
Simplified diagram of the Vonoran planetary system. Distances not to scale
The Vonor System (human name: DENIS 0255-4700), which saw its first Kaywellian ships arrive throughout May, formed the very first solitary brown dwarf conquered by the Imperial Kingdom, being an L-type dwarf. Its three newly-discovered planets became significant research centers for tabulon astronomers studying brown dwarfs and their mechanisms. Vonor would later also become a strategic military base.
Simplified diagram of the Graxtonian planetary system. Distances not to scale
The Graxton System (human name: Gliese 876), a system centered around an M4V-type red dwarf star, first saw Kaywellian exploration in August-September of 2122. Though the tabulons had discovered its planets - the terrestrial Ozen, and the three giant planets Matteo, Palacios, and Infante - long before then, Kaywell did discover the habitable moons of Haworthia and Gasteria around Matteo and Palacios; these later grew into healthily populated imperial colonies.
Yahya Keshmiri Massacre and the End of the Second LGBTQ+ Genocide[]
By 2122, the Second LGBTQ+ Genocide was reaching its end, with the LGBTQ+ population dwindling as the Morality Police and the Star Navy experienced high success in systematically eradicating them. The vast majority of LGBTQ+ survivors had since taken refuge in the Yahya Keshmiri System, where incompetent leadership and law enforcement allowed them to thrive.
The new high queer population at Yahya Keshmiri combined with the system's existing governmental incompetence motivated the Kingdom of Kaywell to conduct a military intervention at the system; specifically, due to the popular sentiment that Yahya Keshmiri was now a "lost cause" that could only see change through the total replacement of its local government, the Star Navy proposed testing the Star Crusher on the Yahya Keshmiri System's stars in order to eradicate the threat while also producing useful data. Ultimately, the High Imperial Parliament and Ring Shol greenlit the proposal on April 27, 2122 while authorizing more general intervention by the KISN and the KIMP in Yahya Keshmiri, tasking them to eliminate all lifeforms in the system regardless of their involvement with the LGBTQ+ community.
In the ensuing Yahya Keshmiri Massacre, Morality Police officers and KIAF troops descended down onto every inhabited planet and moon in the triple star system. They ruthlessly massacred and mutilated any and all living things on the worlds regardless of their alignment regarding the LGBTQ+ community, murdering individuals as young as infants. Other ground forces rounded up and surrounded entire families before shooting them, later burning down their towns and cities. Polyhex-class and Apollymi-class ships bombared planets from orbit and annihilated all settlements indiscriminately, paying no heed to whether or not they harbored LGBTQ+ individuals. They destroyed cities, devastated ecosystems, and generated blasts which in turn created tsunamis that caused even more devastation along coastlines. Severe climate disruptions and crises resulted from the bombardments, causing mass extinction events and humanitarian crises. Any refugee ships, including neutral medical ships, caught attempting to flee the system were destroyed, captured, or torn apart with no remorse from Kaywell's ships.
The Yahya Keshmiri Massacre concluded with three star crushers - the Kelnis, Kerilim, and Kirbani - entering the system on May 8 and firing upon the Yahya Keshmiri System's three stars as part of the promised test. Upon impact, the star crushers' beams generated black holes on Asilomar, Korantius, and Nerenius' systems. Within seconds, the black holes collapsed on themselves, generating massive explosions that significantly disrupted the three red dwarfs' upper layers. This resulted in the generation of countless superflares that engulfed nearby planets, inflicting extreme heat and lethal doses of radiation on countless helpless settlements and people still located on the system's planets and moons. Across Yahya Keshmiri, planets and moons found their surfaces ravaged by powerful firestorms and irradiation, killing millions of survivors, incapacitating escaping refugee ships, and laying waste to towns and cities.
By the time the Yahya Keshmiri Massacre concluded and the system's stellar activity returned to baseline levels, all 16.5 billion citizens of the Yahya Keshmiri System had perished, including all known LGBTQ+ refugees. This marked the conclusion of the Second LGBTQ+ Genocide as a whole. Due to the Yahya Keshmiri colony's low success alongside religious notions that the LGBTQ+ community had "permanently tainted the Yahya Keshmiri System with sin", Kaywell did not attempt to recolonize the star system. At most, some corporations mined the irradiated ruins of the system's planets for resources and raw materials, but even that occurred very rarely.
Interestingly, the Ministry of Truth and other propaganda organizations made no attempt to censor the destruction of the system. In fact, they did not hesistate to spread word and footage of its destruction as propaganda against not only LGBTQ+ rights, but also against general incompetence and failure. For the most part, their efforts succeeded in persuading hundreds of billions of tabulons across the Imperial Kingdom to view the Yahya Keshmiri Massacre as not just a necessary evil, but a positive good.
Kaywellian Conquest of the Derolon/Lanastea System and the Danulian Republic (2122)[]
Simplified diagram of the Derolonian/Lanastean planetary system. Distances not to scale
Kaywell's next target for conquest was the Lanastea System, or Tau Ceti as known by humans. The tabulons initially considered this G8V-type a low-priority colonization candidate due to its large debris disk that would hinder the habitability of any planets. However, the confirmation of a large gas giant in a far orbit reignited interest in the system, as it would allow debris to be deflected from any inner terrestrials and thus increase the chances of habitability.
Flag of the Federation of Danulia
A native civilization already inhabited the Lanastea System, however: the Danulian Federation, whose native Danulians called Lanastea the Derolon System. Aside from existing as a typical democracy, Danulia also practiced a unique religion called Giedrism, which based on data from scout probes involved the view of hurricanes and other tropical cyclones as the highest embodiments of evil; though Danulia did not practice a theocracy and install Giedrism as a state-sponsored religion, Giedrists still made up a significant portion of the Federation's population.
As per custom, Kaywell sent diplomatic representatives to Danulia on February 5, 2122 to attempt a peaceful annexation. Though Kaywell hoped for another Kingdom of Sria scenario, the Danulian Federation predictably rejected Kaywell's request for them to willingly hand overr their territory, citing Kaywell's theocratic nature; according to the Danulians, even if Danulia peacefully entered the Kingdom, Kaywell would most certainly suppress Giedrism and attempt to convert its followers into Keliostics.
Thus, war between Danulia and Kaywell was officially declared on February 28, 2122. Combat began in the form of intermittent battles taking place in the outer Derolon System, including within the massive debris disk and around the outer planets Senghor, Hester, and Korkurn; however, these battles served as decoy battles to buy Kaywell time to devise a proper invasion plan, as the Imperial Kingdom did not wish for a repeat of the losses the Star Navy suffered against the Zanthe Republic.
The Heatshot Operation[]
At the time of the Danulia war, Kaywellian citizens had begun complaining about increased tax rates used to fund previous conquests, so the Imperial Kingdom endeavored to utilize a strategy that would make use of what it already had; Ring Shol assigned the task of devising this strategy to Highmost Admiral Urlum Eudae Kaywell.
After several days of deliberation, Highmost Admiral Urlum submitted her proposed battle plan: the Heatshot Operation. The Heatshot Operation involved heating up the oceans of Danulia-controlled worlds to artificially induce the formation of tropical cyclones, which would spread chaos amongst Giedrists.
WIP