The Terran Directorate

The Terran Directorate is a high-density, high-technology hegemonic empire centered around the human homeworld of Earth. It was the first truly interstellar state, and endured the Flame by means of its vast stores of alien technology. Though all human states are known for politicking and fighting for power, it is Terra's propensity for Realpolitik that gives humanity its reputation for trickery and aggression.

The beginning.
The early to mid 21st Century was a time of burgeoning regional conflict as the post-Cold War era of peace between great powers lost its sheen. Smaller states scrabbled for what they could get, chafing under the influence of more powerful nations, and corporate entities rose to great prominence in their command of wealth, technology and human resources. Earth's great powers found a new contender for their position; were it not for the infighting and sabotage many corporate entities engaged in, they would have been a quasi-power in their own right. As it was, they exhibited great power within their host countries, and many corporations began to control surrounding economic areas around their property almost like fiefdoms. The stage was set for a short and brutal age of fracturing and war, and as pressure for resources and political power mounted, all the human race needed was a catalyst.

That catalyst was a virulent and incredibly powerful virus. There is little concrete data on how it developed; everything from a new strain of the bubonic plague, to a government or corp-researched biowar weapon, to even something carried by an extraterrestrial object had and occasionally still have been posited. What the authorities of the time did not realize it was a multi-vector virus, a civilization-killer. With human population having ratcheted up precipitously high, it swept through many areas of dense population; outbreaks in China and India shaved off many millions from their vast populations, while pinprick outbreaks across upper Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas often wiped affected areas clean of human life. Those who survived were invariably young; some say the virus had changed their brains and caused profound restructuring. Many were driven incurably insane, but others learned to cope over time.

Meanwhile, the stress of a worldwide plague fractured the peace that had held among great powers with only tenuous strength. Lesser powers pointed fingers at the industrialized world, blaming variously their desire to destroy lesser states, their willingness to delve into forbidden or 'unclean' technologies, or their lust for resources. Great powers pointed fingers at one another, and at corps, who in turn pointed fingers at one another. Skirmishes turned to fights turned to battles turned to conflagration on front-scale, and the network of weapon satellites Earth powers had slowly pieced together began suffering apparent fatal targeting errors; some went offline, but nefariously some bombarded terrestrial targets seemingly of their own accord. In a desperate attempt to escape what was in all likelihood to be a nuclear conflict, all manner of primitive but servicable vessel was launched and sent barreling into space, and it was under this cover that a mega-corporation, Stahltech, launched three experimental cruisers. These ships were loaded not for colonizing, but armed for war, and when the nuclear exchange broke out, its batteries of pinpoint laser weapons made short work of most ICBMs; damage to human population centers was minimal, with only a handful of heads breaking through.

Stahltech had previously been a military supplier and industrial building contractor; its attached PMC provided security and occasional resource exploitation operations when locals refused to accede to legal turnover. It had existed for decades, and many observers believed it would remain in this capacity, operating as it did primarily in the Americas and Europe. After the nuclear exchange, a second shocking revelation came to light as military personnel across the Western world began to revolt against their commanders; Stahltech had spent that time gaining not only mineral resources and perfecting its technology, but gaining key contacts and implanting memes of pan-human governance within the soldiers, both those of government armies and within its own small, elite and highly motivated guard force.

Naval forces of the U.S. Navy and Peoples' Liberation Star Navy were promptly defeated; the latter, which refused to assent to the control of a corporation, were destroyed with all hands, and some were force to flee past the inner system.

The ground war that followed was shocking in its brevity. Europe and the Americas- first North, then South- fell very quickly and formed a provisional alliance with new military and civil leaders. The push into Eastern Europe, Asia and the Pacific Islands proved to be rougher. Russia similarly refused to surrender; had China and Russia cooperated better, their resistance might have concluded the war on more favorable terms despite their lack of orbital control. As it was, the new multinational coalition was able to not only fight together more effectively, but to partition and destroy pieces of the enemy; the bitter Russian winter and the tangled choke of Chinese cities were overcome by a new breed of corporate soldier, augmented with cybernetics and experimental genetic modification. Once the last two great powers had been forced into surrender and stragglers had been pinched off or destroyed, the rest of the war was a formality, and the Terran Directorate was declared even before Africa was fully conquered.

The rise of Man
Those who dissented forcibly were forced into hiding. The orbital defense network was repaired, and offensives across the surface of the Earth became effectively impossible to execute against those who held its keys. Stahltech had held two shocking surprises. One was that the corporation itself- and indeed, all military, industrial and food/water service corporations- dissolved itself, choosing instead to invest confiscated wealth into a new global treasury. Democracy was pared down to the local level, while the overall workings of the new empire were executed by a monarch called the Director, advised and assisted by a council of regional governors and Highcomm, the Terran military "joint chiefs" equivalent.

For the next three hundred years, humanity expanded. The first and second centuries were spent destroying rebel armies and establishing control over a span that stretched from Terra coreward to a distance of nine-hundred-plus lightyears. Expansion halted at contact with the Askari, but after some early setbacks, the Directorate pushed the aliens out of their territory and invaded the enemy empire, driving straight to the enemy homeworld and threatening to destroy it. With alien surrender guaranteed and little in the way of resistance in the shocked galactic community, the Directorate moved to establish colonies and outposts, some as far as the far-coreward Morningstar.

The period of peace that came was short but saw a buildup of both military and civilian spheres; the calm that descended upon the galaxy looked much like the post-Cold War period on Earth, and perhaps it would have erupted in another war itself had another entity not intervened.

Unlike the Unification of Terra, however, this entity was not friendly to humanity, or any other carbon sapient. See Operation Ragnarok.

The new age.
For Terra, only a couple of centuries passed inside of its closed bubble. Safe as it was, it found a number of problems had accompanied it to safety. One was, of course, the extreme trauma experienced by soldiers and refugees who had fought the Scourge. Being cut off from its outer colonies meant that fresh resources would have to be taken from the space taken with the Core; since many of these worlds were populated, Highcomm found itself forced to carefully control industrial resources to prevent overuse as the Directorate prioritized rebuilding shattered fleets and providing habitation for billions of refugees who had fled the Scourge and the destruction following.

Later, these problems combined, and as the trauma faded, it transmuted to a sense of need. Humanity could not be allowed to come to the brink of destruction again. Though many of the core worlds had escaped the violence, the dulled sense of danger and memory of near-destruction drew Terrans to make unofficial preparations for a renewed land-grab. Somewhat outdated fleets were gathered, and mercenary units registered for the coming bubble collapse. Meanwhile, the population exploded, putting pressure on the Directorate to find new living space even as certain elements of civilian society clamored for a new imposition of order.

With things proceeding faster than anticipated and a wavering in the spacetime curve's generators signaling imminent collapse, the Directorate moved to drastic measures. A vast armada of colony vessels were built and stored; those on overpopulated worlds or crammed within the many orbital habitats over such worlds were given incentive to leave and colonize new star systems. The mercenary units and fleets were drafted in the legitimate Army and Navy to prevent a potentially deleterious conflict, as were many billions of fresh soldiers eager to see the galaxy.

Yet when the bubble dropped, the Directorate did not charge free of its cage. It sent forces out to spy on the state of the galaxy, to learn what had changed...and as ever, to search for any sign of the Scourge, their most hated foe. The time of reawakening is now upon the galaxy; a new age of war approaches, and Terra has greater resources prepared than any other state, if it would but use them.