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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. |