Introduction
The Ptanj are a species that have been starfaring for over 18,000 Terran years and spacefaring for almost 20,000 years.
During that time this was a prosperous civilization with many ebbs and flows.
The largest and most destructive event was the Dark Realmer War. This war against a hostile A.I. civilization almost caused the extinction of the Ptanj. Only the intervention of the Worldborne Oley and desperate measures by the Ptanj avoided this extreme.
Now after centuries of collapse and decay, the Ptanj have rebuilt up to 3 new stellar civilizations: The Starworlders, Ptanj Union, and Ptanj Association.
[Ptanj Renaissance, Ptanj Wandering, The Ptanj Association]
This would be the start of a major awakening of the Dark Realmers across a broad stretch of the galaxy rimward of Ptanj space. That would be aChapter One–History
The Ptanj ventured into space with no outside alien contact. They built their first space faring civilization in their home system over 2000 years. During that time, interstellar probes were sent out, and technology was advanced.
After all that time they developed their first superluminal system. They developed a primitive hyperspace drive system. They used that technology to send out early explorations proves and expeditions to all of the stars in their local stellar environment.
They found many systems which they were able to planet engineer and establish colonies over thousands of years. Throughout that era the Ptanj advanced their technology and made their first contact with a wide ranging exploration team from the Malanthekar. This lead to long range merchant trade expeditions. This set up a trade route that lasted centuries and was cultivated by both sides.
During this era the Ptanj pushed outward on all fronts, constantly exploring. During those explorations they stumbled upona barren world that showed indications of ancient works and habitation. The expedition moved in eagerly. But they discovered that the ancient works were the result of an AI mining operation. The Ptanj attempted to examine the technology, but awoke the intelligence that ran the base world. This ‘Dark Realmer’ began with a horrid capture and examination of the Ptanj explorers. The AI of the mining colony would send out signals to awaken other Dark Realmer AI’s scattered all along a vast region of the galaxy located toward the galaxy’s rim from Ptanj space. This would set off a chain of events which would devastate the Ptanj Civilization.
Chapter Two-Dark Realmer War
Raiding forces of the Dark REalmers fleet lashed deep into Ptanj space at Ptanj worlds in a drive toward the Ptanj core worlds.
Each world hit was exterminated with violent intensity. The Dark Realmers sought to destroy all capacity of the Ptanj. Their strategy was simply one of total destruction.
The war’s first period saw numerous attempts by the Ptanj to stop the Realmer fleets. The Realmers had superior superluminal travel, which allowed them to gather forces and strike at Ptanj worlds. These led to numerous battles, which the Ptanj lost.
Eventually the war entered a second phase where the Ptanj could put sufficient forces in remaining systems to defect Realmer raids.
The Realmer technology was more advanced, but the Ptanj had adequate capacities to attack and hold against the Realmers.
Chapter Three: Star Worlders
After several years the Ptanj were worn down and more systems began to fall and be destroyed. This caused great concern on the Ptanj core worlds. The ptanj felt they needed a new strategy to assure the survival of the species.
The ideas developed led to the Starworlders. The concept was to build large self contained generation ships which had self-sustaining capacity, a quiet FTL, and a large capacity of the Ptanj culture.
As each starworld was constructed it was launched deep into the galaxy away from the warzone. The idea was to use a transit FTL jump to displace the starworld outward to a random point in space-time of the galaxy.
Each starworld was built to one of three patterns. Each of the patterns was design to have an initial start of 30,000 Ptanj. All of the patterns had the concept of existing for centuries.
Pattern One: This pattern was designed to support up to 250,000 populations, with the concept of lasting thousands of years. And could travel much further distances.
Pattern Two: This pattern was designed to be more modular than the other two the idea was to allow the star world to grow as large as necessary to support a growing, open ended population.
Pattern Three: Designed to build a rapidly growing colony once a distant, ut suitable world had been found.
Each pattern represented a different population preservation strategy.
The first pattern was to run as far and as fast as possible. The second pattern was to sustain a growing population indefinitely. The third pattern was to establish a remote and hidden colony.
The starworlds put a challenge upon the Ptanj construction, since the starworlds construction was displacing warship building.
The Ptanj launched roughly 10 starworlds per year from the core worlds. The Ptanj records from the war were flaw in preservation, but over 2,000 were known to be launched over 2 centuries.
The starworlders made no attempt to remain in contact with their parent civilization or each other.
Chapter Four–End of War
The end of the Dark Realmer War came in a quiet dwindling of activity. But by the time it ended, the Ptanj civilization was collapsing with over 2/3rds of their former habitated systems devastated and depopulated.
There was a chance encounter between a new Ptanj starworld and a wandering Spacebourne Oley ship. The exchange led to a first contact between the Ptanj and a Deiwos child race in the Oley. One result was recognition by the Oley that the Realmers are a leftover force from the Deiwas Civil War.
From this the Ptanj learned of codes and command features that allow the machines and AI’s to be directed.
It took several ‘months’ to get that information back to the Ptanj core worlds. The Ptanj defense forces used the information to win some major battles against the Dark Realmers. The Realmers withdraw from the war.
Chapter 5: Core Worlds after the War (Ptanj Union)
There were 15 heavily populated core worlds of the Ptanj civilization. Only 11 survived the war, the other four were depopulated by Realmer attacks.
Those eleven worlds that survived lost starfaring, but they began to rebuild for centuries after the war. Many of the core worlds reestablished connect through radio communication.
Several of the core worlds developed sublight starfaring and reestablished a stellar, multi-world polity. These worlds could not easily aid each other in rebuilding beyond moral support and information exchanges.
Eventually a successful breakthrough at the old Ptanj colony discovered new FTL technology. The older hyperspace access technology who still know, there were even preserved hyperspace ships, but the technology was not trusted. The dark Realmers had proven capable of tracking and engage ships traveling in such methods.
The Ptanj built upon knowledge gained from the Malanthekar allowed Ptanj scientist to develop the singularity tunnel and gravity wave rocketry. Once developed this technology quickly allowed the 11 old core worlds to develop the Ptanj Union.
Chapter 6–Ptanj Association
Most of the Ptanj worlds were destroyed during the Dark Realmer War. On the far side of of Ptanj space from the Realmer strategic attack vector over 200 Ptanj systems survived the war.
These systems had developed along the trade route toward the Malanthekar Expanses. When the Dark Realmers sweep be the core worlds they annihilated dozens of systems on the far side of Ptanj space but were unable to be through before they retreated and ended the war.
Those 200 plus systems were able to keep their population and their starfaring capacity. Over the centuries of silence these worlds and systems built the Ptanj Association.
Unlike the older Ptanj civilization, the Association is a much more open politically system. Each system stands equal to the others in the Association. A whole new civilization was built.
Chapter 7 Tensions between Ptanj Polity
After all of the Ptanj redeveloped and reestablished contact with each other there were increasing tensions.
The Ptanj homeworlds still felt that their old right to rule the Ptanj species still stood. Over 2,000 terran years had passed. To the Starworlders the old space was half legend, and had little bearing on the Starworlds future. Each world was a community, with their own take in history.
To the Association worlds, the old Ptanj ruling polity which had developed from the homeworld were considered to blame for the Realmer War. Such matters of ancient history were considered established academic fact among the general culture and society of the Association.
The old core worlds had looked at restoring Ptanj unity as an almost religious tenet. But also no Ptanj had every waged war upon another after the Ptanj first became starfaring, so military action was considered anathema for the Union. But warfare of limited types had occurred between worlds in the early days of the Association. And the starworlders still occasionally battled.
So all the proclamations of racial unity by the Union was meet with skepticism. The Union proved frustrated at the attitudes of the other Ptanj, but had to face several strategic realities.
1 The 11, old core worlds of the Ptanj Union had to rebuild everything from start. Their total population was only 5 billion across 11 star systems.
2 The star worlders had settled diverse new worlds or stayed space based for the last 2,000 years. They were scattered across over a quarter of the galaxy.
3 The new technologies developed by the Union may allow rapid travel at galactic ranges, there were limits to how many ships and weapons the Union could produce and upkeep.
4 There were almost a trillion ptanj in the Association and their ships were still capable of striking at the old core worlds.
Chapter 8–Ptanj Timeline
–Ptanj civilization is at its height, with strong dealings with the Malanthekar
–Ptanj exploration ship stumbles upon a Realmer base world and is destroyed
–Realmer War starts with heavy attacks falling upon the Ptanj outer colonies.
–ptanj halted the initial attacks by the Realmers to great cost
–The war raged for centuries with decade of stalemates. Across the Ptanj space, worlds were devastated, and Realmer bases were destroyed in return when found.
–Fearing the extinction of their species, the Ptanj developed the star worlder project. They designed 3 patterns.
–Initial encounters with the Oley eventually lead to aid in the form of Spaceborne Oley ships aiding Ptanj fleets. Also Oley transit and tensor field technologies were incorporated into the Starworld designs.
–Also with coding information gained from the Oley, the Ptanj were eventually able to push the Realmers back but not before their core worlds were devastated or destroyed.
–The Realmer war ends in silence as the Realmers withdraw from all space near Ptanj
–The Ptanj civilization was exhausted. The Ptanj lost 7/10 of their initial population.
–the 11 surviving core worlds collapsed into barbarism and low technology existence
–a third of the surviving Ptanj had scattered aboard the Star worlds and began to build new societies between the far flung worlds
–Over 200 of the surviving outer colonies in Ptanj space on the side away from the Realmer invasion survive and preserve starfaring, these go on to form the Association.
–the Association chose to avoid the old Ptanj core worlds since most had been sterilized, those at barbarism level are left untouched by choice and law
–each of the 3 populations went their own way for 2,000 terran years
–the surviving 11 cor worlds, eventually recover. Four of them enough to establish radio communication with each other. The first colony was the first to return to space. The 11 core worlds built a starfaring sublight society over 2 centuries.
–the Ptanj Association formed a slow expanding polity, technology, and new worlds are only added to a society that is based upon conservation, collectivism, and efficiency
–the Ptanj Association slowly expanded into new territory. Eventually this brought them up to the remnant worlds of the imperial melanthekar’s territory
–This brought both into conflict. The imperial Melanthekar at first held the strategic advantages, but the Ptanj eventually stabilized the situation and drove the Melanthekar back across their borders. This resulted in a cold war that went hot several times over the centuries.
–Starworlders interconnected and begin pushing their range further and further out from the old Ptanj space.
–the Ptanj core worlds began to slowly pull themselves out of their new stone age induced by the last Realmer campaign
–the First 1,000 years each civilization went their own way.
–The association build up to a 1,000 major systems. Sharing borders with the Imperial Melanthekar. Their technology and economy slowly grew. The Association adopted a conservative culture and approach to all things.
–The core worlds are aware of their past but had to rebuild an infrastructure, knowledge base, and educating their populace. Four worlds established radio contact, and 3 learn sublight starfaring.
–the starworlders had developed new star worlds and a tenuous far flung culture. They keep contact with the Oley and encounter others.
–by modern times, the first contacts between the 3 Ptanj cultures were renewed
–the attempts by the Union to claim leadership were rebuffed
–The Association keep its focus upon the Malanthekar and the Trade Area, but cautiously keep contact with the Union.
–The starworlders varied in their reaction to the Union. Some wanted to be left alone, others welcomed new, deep ties to the old homeworlds.
–each of the starworld patterns had led to different approaches to survival over the 2,000 years
–Many of the first patterns ranged far away and developed very solitary cultures. Three did renew their ties to the old home systems in alliance.
–Many of the second pattern keep expanding in population and size. These starworlds form the core of the Ptanj Starworld Concordant.
–the third patterns went out to form independent, remote colonies. Many failed, but others succeeded. Some stayed independent, but most joined the Concordant. Two allied with the Union.
Chapter 9–Structure of the Association
The 2,000 years gave the Association time to expand from 200 star systems to over 2,000 star systems. Not all of them were majorly settled but were each tied to a complex stellar economy.
Unlike the Ptanj prewar patterns, the Association Ptanj tried to tie in all star systems in a region into a functional system instead of only using the most optimal systems.
Instead each system was used to some capacity. To capitalize on this strategy, the Association built a large number of diverse ships to fit all the needed niches.
The goal was to use the whole resources available to the Association in a wise manner. But the idea is to plan for the future. The concept is to save for prosperity while refining it all. This has become a problem due to the Tranc Stealth Ops service pirating things from economic hub systems. The Association has a culture of planning long term and methodical execution. This leads to stockpiles and strategic reserves. With the close proximity of the Association to the Tranc’s home area made them an early target.
The Ptanj were aware that some alien force was pirating their frontier systems, but believed it was various independant alien sub-factions from the Expanse or a group of Malanthekar.
The Ptanj of the Association had developed a class system over 2,000 years. There was considerable vertical and horizontal mobility, but it was formal with official testing, rewards, and recognition.
This led to considerable stability with an outlet for innovation and creativity, while allowing considerable stability.
Sovereignty was at the star system level with an over-government that was responsible for multi-system tax at common defense, frontier development, crisis response, and long term development loans.
The armed/military services were divided into five services.
1 Frontier Navy- This was the most populous and largest service in facilities and numbers.
The service was responsible for patrolling and monitoring the edges and borders of Association space. Along uninhabited frontiers they were responsible for survey and exploration as well as patrol.
On border areas, the frontier force is responsible for patrolling, recon, and rapid defense response for systems that come under attack along the frontier regions.
2 Home Fleets- the most costly service is the defensive fleets stationed at the regional hub systems and the original colonies. These forces were originally built in response to the long running issues with the Malanthekar, especially during their Extinction Wars. The activity of the Tranc piracy has just made the fear external forces that more focused.
The sabre rattling of the Ptanj Union has forced the fleet to consider the need for an expeditionary mission. Such a force would be designed for operations beyond the Association’s space. This would be strikes on the Ptanj Union worlds with sufficient forces to devastate those worlds and overcome the superior technology of the Union Forces.
The defense/home fleets are built most and stationed at each region’s/sector’s assigned economic hubs and the main systems. The main systems were the closest toward the original Ptanj space; the original 200 colonies to survive the Realmer War.
The old deal worlds ‘behind’ the Association were left abandoned or only touched as for security or memorial purposes. There was ample survivors’ guilt for centuries. Out of respect for the first century they left the dead worlds alone. After that the economic and security needs forced occupation of those systems.
The security reasons were for fear of the Realmers return. The Realmers technology had never fully been understood especially their superluminal travel methods.
For economical reasons several of the planetary engineered worlds were resettled. The original Ptanj Civilization had ‘terra firma’ multiple worlds to fit the home world environment of the Ptanj.
3 System militias–each star system tries to afford the best military it can both in surface tactical, spatial troops, and system combat ships. Each system is expected to spend 25 annual to upkeep these forces.
4 Association Army-Most of these forces are stationed on the hub war systems and major worlds.
The Army is trained to deal with most surface combats including airless and toxic environments. Most of the units have some form of light contained combat armor. Heavy units do exist but most are tracked vehicles. Weapons for the units are modular, for various environments.
Most common types by Terran term heavy tank, light tank, battle transport, engineering vehicle.
Weapons modules are put on the vehicle to fit mission needs and operating environments.
5 Crisis response service-this service represents the central government across a wide range of missions that are not military: space patrol, law enforcement, space rescue, medical emergency, and major crisis/disaster response.
The Association has a mostly local manufacturing economy. Food and necessities are created in the local star system as much as possible, they rest will be shipped from the nearest economic hub systems. At this scale the economy is a planned matter with things being managed regional.
The economy has an individual as well. This is an open economy for the local free mortal availability and small individual production.
This approach ensures adequate supplies, personal freedom, and efficiency at the macroscopic scale. The key is the necessity of transparency and integrity at all levels. Several layers of oversight attempt to assure such matters. A respect of an equilibrium between the individual and society became general ethic for the Ptanj of the Association.
This leads to a methodic and stable, yet only moderately innovative society.
Chapter 10–Structure of the Union
The Union was built upon 11 surviving old worlds and the homeworld of the Ptanj. The Union feels tied to the long history of the old Ptanj civilization. Much of which survived, even during the long night. But the society also dealt with thousands of years of enforced stone age existence.
This produce an odd dichotomy with the society. It had deep roots, which furnished a strong sense of identity and interconnection. Yet the urge to get back to the stars drove much of their development to give the Union a very dynamic core, and a sense of purpose.
The idea for their government is a federation. Each world keep considerable autonomy. While there was the historical ties, the rebuilding had proceeded at different paces at each world and unique cultures had developed. So in social matter and management of their own star system.
Technologies and Development
After rebuilding enough of an infrastructure for spacefaring, the next step was to send probes to all the old core worlds. The last campaign push by the Realmers had left the whole main region of Ptanj space devastated and then sweep past to push further into Ptanj space, all in one strategic push.
The forces that attempted to defend the Ptanj worlds fell or were driven back. The last force defeated the Realmers push but were forced to proceed to the colonies that would form the Association. These were the only worlds surviving know to the force.
[These factors would play up resentment in the Union years later. The force had been the one farthest from the war front, but was also devastated in the final campaign. It took decades before the Association could even visit the nearest worlds. They spent that time just trying to secure connects between each surviving world. None had been major colony worlds and the original Ptanj economy had been very interconnected. It was almost a century before they could even visit the nearer dead worlds]
Eventually the Ptanj Union was able to connect the 11 surviving worlds were connected by constant radio communication and regular transportation by sublight ships.
The first major step was to get probes to all the nearby systems, to find who had served and to what level.
The second major step was to build radio communication and try to set up a steady exchange between star systems that were able to communication.
The third major step was to get some sub-light capability to visit the nearby worlds that were in radio traffic.
The fourth major step was to get sublight ships to visit the star systems that were known to have surviving populations, but were primitive still in their surviving technical capacity.
The fifth major step was to set up regular routes of fast sublight ships between the technological systems. And also to send large slow boat ships with large amounts of equipment and population of experts to help the surviving primitive societies to rebuild.
The sixth major step was to set up, or as many worlds as possible a network of directed radio signal stations that beam constant updates from each world back to the primary world, and all the closer systems.
[The primary system was the first one to recover sufficiently to return to starfaring. It was the first ancient stellar settled from the homeworld. It would eventually become the capital of the Ptanj Union. The homeworld had been devastated but the homestar system had survived with numerous spatial habitats which had never been attacked. The home system was the first to establish the radio communication, using old radio telescopes from before the war.]
The seventh major step was to get a regular space faring packet circuit running between each star system.
The eighth was to funnel around the two most valuable assets on rebuilding civilization: skilled experts and knowledge. The first had to be sent by ship while the second could be transmitted by radio.
The ninth major step was to restore the capacity of superluminal travel. This created a complication. The rebuilders had both the theory and materials to redesign and develop hyperspace drives, much as the old Ptanj had used, but there was considerable concern about using this technology. The Dark Realmers had proven able to detect when a ship entered and exited hyperspace from great range, at least over a light month.
The fear that any attempt to reuse hyper space technology would draw the Realmers back to attack the surviving worlds. Even without that technology the Ptanj Union was attempting to practice silence as much as possible. Even their interstellar radio communication was very linear, minimum power and directional. Once the proper alignment was known and established lasers and maser communication was used instead.
Their need for a restoration of superluminal travel, but unable to use any of the known technology forced new consideration and research and development. Both the old home system and the primary/capital had the rebuilt technological basis and people to invest in the necessary research and experimentation.
Eventually research led to the ability to create tunneling singularities. The concept was to create a momentary wormhole. This was similar to the effort of the Malanthekar wormhole network, but did not create a permanent singularity.
Many methods had been examined. The technology data of the Realmer inversion technology was studied, but the negative effect on organic systems was discovered.
Several features of hyperspace technology was also discovered that had not been known by the Old Ptanj. The end result was a decision to develop the singularity tunneling effect.
The concept was lifted from old observed data from the Malanthekar civilization long ago bought by the Old Ptanj from Gaolyslu traders. This gave them a potential new field of technology and a new superluminal drive system.
[the homeworld Malanthekar would come to the same technological concepts.]