GALACTIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: ARCEAN EMPIRE

The Arcean Empire

The Arceans are who we know the most about so far. Assuming of course that they’ve told us the truth.

Let’s recap what we know.  68 years ago (2202) an Arcean discovery probe entered our star system and as it neared Saturn it came into range of one of the satellites orbiting that planet.

As it continued on towards Earth, we sent out the USS (United Star Ship) Ambassador, a fusion powered ship to intercept and retrieve it.  The probe contained a great deal of information about the Arcean culture.  Much of it was obviously propaganda but it did contain a lot of useful information including how to construct a star gate.

The Arceans are a proud warrior culture. They have a long military tradition that continues to this day. They are always ready for war despite the fact that there has never been an interstellar war (that we know of anyway).

Many tens of thousands of years ago, their world was splintered into about 41 factions based on their continental positions. Their world, unlike ours, has very little water and no great oceans. So their continents are based on the position of numerous “super-rivers”.

In their final world war (of which there were reportedly nearly a dozen) a hyper militaristic regime called the Xinth nearly overran the world. The Ilion Monarchy fought the Xinth to a stand still when an ally of the Xinth attacked the Empire of the Arcea. The Arceans mobilized and defeated the Xinth and became the predominate power on the planet (which was called “World” in their language in those days). 

After several centuries of peace, the smaller nation states joined with the Empire of the Arcea until the world was eventually united peacefully.  This is relatively similar to what happened on Earth as more and more nations joined with the European Union, the United States, and Asian Union until there were just 3 major powers which eventually integrated together over a hundred years ago.

Of course, the Arceans united their world while the humans were still not quite sure if the whole leaving the trees thing was a good idea or not.

And when humans constructed the pyramids, the Arceans had long since had space travel and sent out probes throughout the galaxy to find other life forms. In time they came into contact with all of the other races (except the Yor who arguably discovered them).

Of what else they know about the galaxy they will not say. They have hinted that there may have once been another race called the “Precursors” but they’ve said they know very little about it other than bits of their language. They do believe that the very distinct races of the Drengin and Altarians were influenced by the Precursors but they admit the only evidence they have of this is that Drengi and Altaria both happen to have direct translations into the Precursor’s language.

With hyperdrive technology, we now can explore first hand and try to unravel that particular mystery.

Overall, our impression of the Arceans is that they at least chose not to conquer earth when they had the opportunity. We don’t know whether they didn’t because they are inherently good or whether it’s because they had other reasons not to.

But they are certainly a proud race whose civilization vastly outstrips ours in duration. Whatever else can be said of them, they’ve been around a very long time by our standards.