History of the Universe

While Sutekh’s history is of direct importance to players understanding it, the history of the Dominion at large may be useful information as well. While most of it is either forgotten or deemed irrelevant on Sutekh, fresh transplants and rather knowledgeable types will know at least some of this information. Please note that this is still a work in progress, and more information will be added later.

Current Leaders
The current chairman of the Dominion is Overlord Rymon. The Officer of Justice, Hayle Livingston, is his right hand man and supervises all plans involving corrections and sentencing of criminal offenders.

Timeline
PD = Pre-Dominion, PF = Post Formation (of the Dominion). Used when describing dates, it works just like the BC/AD system respectively. Just substitute PD/PF.

Pre-Dominion
3509 PD – Space travel on a normal basis becomes feasible. Efforts to begin colonizing and terraform planets start to take over many people’s concerns. While not entirely practical, the allure of mysterious new planets and forging life away from old governments attracts many.

3343 PD – Scientist Huron Ackerburg finishes the first Teleportal device, which allows for much quicker interplanetary travel. Mass production and deployment of these large space devices begins.

3325 PD – The First Galactic War begins, largely due to disputes over who owns Teleportal lanes and whether tolls and tariffs are acceptable.

3047 PD – The First Galactic War ends, with control of Teleportal lanes given to a newly created organization called The Teleportal Maintenance Commission. This proves to be useless at best, since their powers can be revoked by planets during times of war, thus limiting their ability to limit warfare. After the war, there is a large boom in starting new colonies and trade between planets.

1267 PD – The Intergalactic Trade Treaty is ratified by fifty planets, creating a new global currency called the Meteo.

616 PD – The Second Galactic War begins, to stop the Jien Empire from conquering the entire galaxy.

501 PD – The Second Galactic War ends, with the Jien Empire thwarted. It is dismantled, although the galaxy is wrecked.

501-420 PD – The Universal Depression period, a time where poverty and poorness were inescapable. Several restructuring and reconstruction efforts were made, few were successful. The Teleportal Expansion project proved most successful in re-stimulating the galactic economy.

306 PD – Scientists Kevin Boor and Francis Groensteen develop what is later called the Boorean Dimensional Shifter Device, an engine modification that allows large space craft to move at extremely high speeds in space without the aid of a Teleportal lane. Groensteen is largely forgotten after a dispute on the technology was ruled in favor of Boor.

129 PD – The Third Galactic War begins, as an up-and-coming planet ruled by Jules Gerihi conquers all the planets in a local cluster by utilizing a new tactic of using carrier ships with the Boorean Dimensional Shifter Device as a method of being able to move unpredictably and striking at any time from any place.

127 PD – The Third Galactic War ends quickly, since Gerihi neglected his diplomatic fronts and soon found the armies of 38 planets attacking his stretched out forces.

26 PD – The Fourth Galactic War begins, starting with lingering tensions between the Persei and Aningan clusters escalating after a failed diplomatic envoy. Persei calls its allies Brenck and Tulough, Aningan calls its allies Vistora, Zetora, Skell and Hengo.

6 PD – Jomen-Ka joins the war on Persei’s side.

5 PD – Shaluim joins the war on Aningan’s side.

1 PD – Aningan and the Persei planet clusters sign a truce, “The Persei-Aningan Ceasefire”, ending the Fourth Galactic War. Talks begin to form an interplanetary body that can prevent this kind of conflict in the future.

Post Formation
0 PF – The Dominion is formed, ratified in “The Dominion Charter” which is signed by 24 planets, chaired by Persei, Aningan, Brenck, and Zetora. Diplomatic efforts begin to get more planets involved in the treaty.

0 PF – of the 56 planets first contacted, only two join. Most planets objected that the founding planets are overly favored thanks to their status as permanent members of the Planetary Stability Council, which allow them the ability to appoint the leaders of departments in the Dominion, the ability to exercise ‘emergency powers’, and in limited situations, veto power. Some planetary leaders go further to say that like similar efforts before, this attempt is doomed to fail from being ineffective.

4 PF – The Dominion manages to curtail space piracy immensely among the 26 member planets, and 8 of the previously contacted planets join.

20 PF – Dominion publicity takes a massive hit when the Dominion Planetary Peacekeeping Force fails to resolve the Eunomonian Hostage Crisis, where 2,429 colonists on a colony ship were held hostage by Eunomonian radicals that opposed settlement by Dominion planets in their star cluster. After holding the hostages in planetary orbit around Eunomon II for 7 months and 12 days, they blew up the ship.

88 PF – The Dominion prevents the outbreak of what many historians believe would have been the Fifth Galactic War, and thirty planets join the Dominion.

120 PF – The Dominion absorbs the Planetary Trade Commission via the Eichmann Commerce Act, giving it significant sway over financial policy of planets using the Meteo. Rogue planets, as they are now called, revoke the Meteo as their currency and institute their own, criticizing the Dominion for exercising extra-territorial power.

122 PF – Oppressive financial policies cause widespread trade blockades in rogue planets, damaging the Dominion’s economic power.

122-132 PF – The sudden and drastic cut in trade damages the galactic economy, causing a period known as ‘The Decade of Empty Teleportals’.

133 PF – 53 rogue planets unite to challenge Dominion supremacy in what would become known as the Rogue Offensive. The Dominion responds by forming a coalition, combining the member planets armies into the Allied Dominion Military.

136 PF – The Rogue Offensive ends, the Renegade Front defeated by the Allied Dominion Military. Fearing future assaults on their supremacy, the Dominion decides to make the coalition permanent, forming the more simply named Dominion Military. Six planets resign from the Dominion charter, complaining that they cannot afford to maintain such a large military and that by becoming a militaristic force the Dominion had lost sight of its original purpose.

344 PF – The Dominion is threatened to be torn apart by infighting amongst the member planets. This is narrowly avoided by the Dominion founders invoking their ‘emergency powers’.

365 PF – The Dominion focuses on expansion, subsidizing new colonization efforts on planets previously considered too dangerous or expensive to terraform.

399 PF – Rogue planets protest the increase in colonization, threatening military reprisal if the Dominion continues expanding.

406 PF – The Dominion ignores these threats and continues expanding. Token efforts are made to stop the Dominion, but ultimately fail. The Dominion uses this as grounds to pass the Rogue Planet Act, allowing them the power to subjugate rogue planets that threaten Dominion security.

406-1020 PF – A long period of warring between the Dominion and the free rogue planets. Eventually, all planets have been subjugated to Dominion rule, willingly or not.

775 PF – Sutekh becomes a location of interest to investors of resort and garden planets, and Meso Jensott is placed in charge of constructing a viable tourist resort on Sutekh.

790 PF – Sutekh is opened to the public as a resort colony.

860 PF – Sutekh fails, and the resort colony is abandoned.

867 PF – The Dominion appoints Ma Shun Ming as chairman.

872 PF – There is a surge in privateers utilized by rogue states to harass Dominion trading vessels.

823 PF – Ma Shun Ming exercises ‘emergency powers’ to expand the Dominion Military.

881 PF – Ma Shun Ming pushes through the Penal Colony Expansion Act by utilizing ‘emergency powers’, which allocates a significant amount of funds towards the construction of prisons on Dominion planets and training of a new security force to man the prisons.

891 PF – The Criminal Responsibility Act increases the number of criminal offenses that can be charged to a person, and makes sentencing a harsher affair. Misdemeanors now carry some amount of time in prison.

930 PF – Prison riots become increasingly common, and further legislation is passed to expand the existing prison system.

935 PF – The Galactic Bureau of Criminal Examination (GBCE) is formed, which gives Dominion appointed officials power to control legal proceedings on any member planet.

957 PF – Prisons have become extremely overcrowded. The GBCE begins investigating alternatives and potential solutions to fix the problem.

960 PF – Sutekh is repurposed into a prison colony. Overcrowded prisons are eased by the prison planet.

961 PF – Deeming that shuttle flights for massive amounts of prisoners is too costly, the GBCE rewrites the penal code so that only crimes with sentences longer than a year can be sent to Sutekh.

1059 PF – Prisoners on Sutekh, subjected to harsh and demeaning labor with no chance to return to their home planets begin rioting and rebelling. A few manage to break away and learn to survive in the wastes, forming the first tribes.

1084 PF – Dominion crime levels increase dramatically as reactionaries protest the changes, and the GBCE rewrites the penal code again so that any offense with 6 months of incarceration minimum is now effectively a life sentence to Sutekh.

1110 PF – Sutekh is all but abandoned by the Dominion, which grants the prisoners freedom but forces them to survive on their own. The Dominion maintains a single base, the Cosmos Space Port, in what is now called Shantytown. The Dominion continues to drop off prisoners on a regular basis.

1170 PF – A massive uprising in Aningan results in the death of the planetary governor, the first of what would soon become many instances of civil discontent and disobedience.

1176 PF – Overlord Rymon becomes leader of the Dominion.

1186 PF – A terrorist bombing in Persei prompts Rymon into taking extreme measures, passing legislation that allows the Dominion to punish any expression of dissent with exile to Sutekh.

1190 PF – The current year in game.