Excerpts of the
ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA
BETA-BETA – Expression often used when approached or attacked by Logha Ram. Originally taken from Imperial military jargon («Code Beta-2»).
CRADLE OF HUMANITY – The world where man first developed. Nothing is known about it, not even its location. It is however said that the planet was a paradise, but destroyed by the Machine Might. The only survivors, the Forefathers of Man, escaped to the legendary planet called Tellus.
DORSIC –«A Dorsic pig», «A Dorsic squealer», «A Dorsic idiot», etc. Where Dorsic means «cowardly», «laughable», or sometimes «treacherous». Nobody knows exactly where the phrase comes from, but most likely it originates from interstellar traders and merchants. DORS was the name of a trade cruiser a long time ago. Allegedly, it belonged to a traitor who sold information to the Empire when it tried to expand into the Outer Zone. His reward was execution by the same Imperial officers who bought the information.
EMPEROR OF MAN – A title more than a person. The leader of the Teludio Empire, dwelling in the Grand Pearl Palace of Old City on Teludio. Only a few knows who he is (except that he is always a man). In addition to violence and military strength, the Emperor has based his power on religious symbols and mysticism and claims a divine right to rule the galaxy. Some people look upon the Emperor as a god.
FTL (Faster Than Light) – The technology that makes it possible for mankind to travel vast distances between the stars. Nothing is known about the first FTL system created, called FTL1, except it is said it was developed before the Cradle of Humanity was destroyed. Little is known about FTL2, but we know it helped the Forefathers of Man to escape from the Machine Might. FTL3 was the first system based upon spacetime distortion, but was very dangerous because of difficulties in trajectory measurement. There are stories that some of the first test ships ended up inside stars, causing them to instantly go supernova. On the other hand, FTL3 was the technology that led the Founders to Teludio. There, after several decades of testing and development, the growing Empire created FTL4, the basic principles of which are still in use today. FTL4 is dependent on the TACOM system, which utilized tachyon beams that were built all over the known galaxy. This allows safe FTL travel using a mesh of beams between the stars. The needed energy is taken from nearby stars before each «jump». Today, each jump can be up to 1000 light years before more energy is needed. The Machine Might has developed its own FTL system, which we know nothing about except it is not dependent on TACOM.
GALACTIC ZONES – The Teludio Empire divided the galaxy into three zones. The first star systems under Teludio’s control became the core area of the growing Empire. Called the Main Zone, this was – and still is – an area of almost one thousand worlds where the Emperor of Man has absolute power. At its height, about 2600 years after its foundation, the Empire had conquered thousands of additional worlds, which became known as the Secondary Zone. The rest of the galaxy was called the Outer Zone, and the imperial war machine tried to get control there too, but failed. This was the beginning of the end of the Empire as it had been in its most glorious days. They had to withdraw all their resources to the Secondary Zone, but lost thousands of worlds there too. Today the Empire struggles to maintain control of the most important worlds in the Secondary Zone.
IKAR – A low-resourced moon in a small system on the outskirts of the Main Zone. The first and so far only world within the Main Zone that has tried to rebel against the Empire. «The Ikar Massacre» has become a well-known story, where Section QX killed more than ten thousand civilians, mostly women and children, in a horrible way as punishment for this rebellion. After that, the rest of the inhabitants of the moon, about one hundred thousand people, were deported or arrested, and the moon itself became a prison world.
IMARRA – A rich planet system under Imperial control in the Secondary Zone. Heavily guarded because of its wealth.
IMPERIAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (IIA, or informally called TWO-EYE) – The main intelligence agency in the Empire, with responsibility for all kinds of surveillance, both domestic and outside of the Empire’s borders. There are several sections within the agency with different responsibilities.
IMPERIAL SPACESHIP CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM (ISCS) – A system for classifications of spaceships. Originally created by the Teludio Empire, but currently in use everywhere in the galaxy.
IMPERIAL TIME MEASURE SYSTEM (ITMS) – The galactic system for time was created by the Teludio Empire during its foundation. It was necessary to have a time, navigation, and communication system throughout the whole Galaxy, synchronized by countless tachyon beam stations built on heavily guarded moons, planets, and asteroids. This system, called TACOM, is still the backbone of the FTL4 technology and is giving correct and synchronized time wherever and whenever you go in the galaxy. As the Empire’s power vanished throughout the galaxy over time, there have been countless efforts of controlling or surveilling the communication part of the system by various forces or governments. As TACOM’s time-measuring part is something all humans need to be able to travel and navigate between the stars, it is guarded by everyone – except the Machine Might (who has developed an FTL system of their own and therefore target the Tachyon Stations) and some terrorist groups. The Imperial Time is based upon time in the Empire’s main world, Teludio. It is the official time for the Empire and some of its neighboring realms, as well as the time system used on every FTL ship. All other worlds, realms, or empires have their own time-measuring systems.
LOGHA RAM (LR) – The origin and meaning of the name are long gone, but today it stands for pure fear and terror. Like other pirates, they travel between stars and planets in search of loot, while being murderous and cruel. But unlike other pirates, LR doesn’t have any home world or planetary base. They live and die in their ships. When it comes to pure malevolence and inhumanity, they’re in a league of their own. There are reports talking about packs of human-like and insane characters acting like animals, with acts of extreme cruelty, torture, cannibalism, and pure nihilism. They call themselves «rats», recruiting from pirates and others who have lost all hope of humanity. Inside their ships, it’s the survival of the strongest. There is a constant struggle for power, and the strongest and most cruel becomes the captain or leader until someone else challenge the position.
MACHINE MIGHT –The Machine Might is perhaps the most dangerous force in the galaxy. It is a nation of machines controlled by artificial intelligence, hell-bent on annihilating all human life in the universe. The origin of Machine Might is unclear, but some stories, like the Interitum myth, say they destroyed the cradle of humanity a long time ago in an attempt to protect the rest of the universe from man’s destructive behavior. Some stories also say that their home base is this same planet that man originated from. Whatever the origin or reason for its malice, it has developed advanced technology to destroy and kill as many humans as possible wherever they find them. Machine Might have its own FTL technology, and is using that to spread their feared Mutant Dreadnoughts across the galaxy searching for human life.
MUTANT DREADNOUGHT – Mutant Dreadnoughts are the most feared war machines in the galaxy. They are usually enormous with massive firepower. Some of them have the firepower to annihilate all life on a whole planet in a single attack. Controlled by artificial intelligence they show no fear or hesitation, and their attack patterns seem to be the same everywhere: They jump into our spacetime and attack right away. Their FTL don’t seem to draw its power from the stars as FTL4 does, and they don’t seem to be able to travel more than about 100 light-years for each jump. For an unknown reason, their FTL creates a disturbance in spacetime before they appear, giving defenders some time, from minutes up to an hour, to prepare before each attack. They are called «mutant» because they change shape and replicate themselves all the time.
SECTION QX (SQX) – A sub-section of Section K in the Imperial Intelligence Agency. Section K is responsible for crowd control, while Section QX does its dirty jobs.
SPACE SHIPS – The ISCS classification recognize four main classes of spaceships. Planetcruisers (PC) and Space destroyers (SD) for interplanetary travel and war, and Starcruisers (SC) and Star destroyers (SD2) with FTL4 for interstellar travel and war. There are classes for smaller ships too, like the GTS shuttles (Ground to Space), PLAT-ships (Planetary Attac), and OMS vessels (Orbital Maintainance and Service). Other ship classes outside of the ISCS system, with and without FTL, include the most known and feared one: The Dreadnought.
TACHYON STATIONS – As a part of the huge TACOM system, installations controlling the intergalactic tachyon beam system were built on countless worlds. Totally necessary for FTL4, which everyone depends upon, these stations are almost sacred. Even in times of war, the stations are kept safe and away from harm. The main threat is various terror groups, and Machine Might, who often target these stations. In areas controlled by the Teludio Empire, they control and protect the stations. In other areas, various powers, nations, or groups protect them.
TACHYON COMMUNICATION AND NAVIGATION SYSTEM (TCNS, or TACOM) – The system created to keep time consistent and non-relative all over the galaxy to safely navigate in spacetime. All navigation follow a mesh of superluminal beams across known space. For navigation into unknown space, a system of trigonometric beams following the desired path is used. It is not very safe or stable but is the only way to expand the navigation mesh using FTL4.
TAXOS – Planet in the Main Zone. Home to one of the main Imperial Military Academies.
TELLUS – Tellus was the planet to which the Forefathers of Man escaped after the destruction of the Cradle of Humanity. Little is known about the planet today, but it is said to be only a shadow of what the cradle world was like. Some expect the location of the planet to still be recorded somewhere in the Imperial Archives. When the planet, for whatever reason, was abandoned, some of the people, the Founders, traveled to the newly discovered world Teludio and settled there.
TELUDIO – Teludio means «the second Tellus» and was once a paradise. The Founders believed it was similar even to the cradle world of humans. It became the center of human civilization in the galaxy, from which humans explored the rest of the galaxy for generations. It became home to a growing and prosperous nation that developed into the Teludio Empire. Today most of the whole land surface is urbanized. The center of administration is called Old City, in which you find the glorious Grand Pearl Palace – the center of the imperial power and the residence of the Emperor of Man.
TELUDIO EMPIRE – The biggest empire ever created in the galaxy. Built upon the first human settlement on the planet Teludio more than 3000 years ago, it was in its beginning a partial democracy but has over time developed into a religious dictatorship with the Emperor of Man as its leader.
TRIGO MAXIMA – One of the main Imperial strongholds in the Secondary Zone. In the same star system as the planet Imarra.