Bgnd: The Calunian War

World of Vina Historical Note

Three thousand years before the Vinorin Alliance was formed there rained a massive empire called the Calunian Star Empire. This empire spanned hundreds of star systems. Its military was the uncontested and its citizens lived in prosperity under the just rule of the council. Minor wars and skirmishes were put down quickly by the ambassadors and the military saw to it that every one wanted to talk their conflicts out. It was rare that the military had to use violence to bring an end to a conflict. Trade was good and the universe was a piece.

Until that’s is, the Great Horde descended upon the empire. The horde hit the empire like a sledgehammer splitting the empires already spread out military to pieces. They were brilliant in the way they divided the military, isolated planets, and cut off supply lines. The horde was just as technologically advanced as the empire, but had devoted their science and way of life to war and conquest. The empire was ripped asunder in less than a year, the military nearly decimated. It did not take long for the empire to recover however. The military had its pried and was not going to let itself be beaten so easily. Reorganizing faster than any one could have guessed possible they launched a new counter offensive and showed the horde why no one messed with the empire, and thus started a long drawn out struggle for survival. Despite their best efforts the best the military could do was sustain a holding action against the horde, halting their advance. The council worked franticly to reestablish communications lines and organize the military. Bunks were set up within the council chambers. The horde lost vast numbers of ships but they seamed to just keep coming. Though the empire had managed to stay the horde’s hands, the war was not going all that well. The citizens suffered the most with supply and communications lines cut off between worlds. The horde was still managing to make slow but steady progress into the heart of the empire. It seamed that although the horde struck light lighting at first, once the empire regrouped for the offensive, they were content to take their time.

The council had put into place several new military projects, which would, if successful, bring victory to the empire. For the first time hundreds of years, the vast majority of  Calunian  science was being directed toward military applications and weapons. Unfortunately the horde made a drastic assault on Calunar, the heart of the empire before any of these projects could be completed. The horde was after a Calunian artifact known as the Heart Of The Galaxy, a powerful reactor that powered everything in the empire from ships to distant colonies. As the hordes were landing their troops on the planet’s surface the council came to a grave decision. None of their supper weapons were yet ready to counter the horde. Their attack had come to soon. The council ordered the Council Guardian, the queen among guardians, to prevent the horde from acquiring The Heart of the Galaxy at all costs. Sitting in her guardian pod at the back of the council chambers, she thought furiously for a way to stop the horde. Then came the bangs on the council chamber doors. The security bars came down. The horde was at the doorstep to the council. She decided to relocate the Heart. The first prototype of the Temporal Reactor was located on the planets surface, or more precisely under it. It was directly linked to the Heart. She started it up and began the calculations necessary to teleport the Heart and the reactor to some distant location. Never had such a large and complicated teleportation effort been tried before. She would not disclose the destination to the council. With the horde on the doorstep the council was lost. They could torture the council members but would learn nothing, and as a guardian, she could not give up the information to an enemy, no mater what the torture.

With the counsel lost she transmitted a quick set of instructions to every guardian within the empire using a special link provided by the Heart, which the horde could not interrupt. Her instructions were for every remaining guardian to hide, and go into stasis until they are awakened at a later date when the crisis was over. The reactor seamed to take forever to come up and build its charge. Time lost all meaning as she put her entire mind to work on the complex calculations needed to move an object the size of the Heart threw dimensional subspace. Alarms blared, the counsel waited, display screens showed the progress of the reactor and the dimensional shift.

The main doors blew open, the horde flooded into the chambers. Over half the counsel was killed instantly. A soldier of the horde saw the Counsel Guardian, her pod glowing brightly as she worked. With her attention diverted to the calculations she could not react to the horde’s presence. The soldier hefted his plasma spear and neatly chucked it into the guardian’s heart. Her eyes went wide in shock as she lost her concentration, and the numbers seamed to fly away from her grasp and darkness replaced them. Her pod stopped glowing as her life fled and she sagged against the spear pinning her to her pad. There was a moment of shocked silence form the remaining council members as they stared up at the lifeless guardian, the bio fluid draining from her pod where the spear had pierced it. The reactor continued to power up waiting for the signal to shift, or its power to maximize. Unguided the reactor went wiled, the display screens flashing red warnings. The silence was broken as new alarm klaxons went off proclaiming the new emergency.

The horde had brought its main force, its top leaders. Its King led the charge into the counsel chambers himself. He was furious to see the red warning screens and new the counsel had been up to something to prevent them from their victory. He grabbed the leader of the empire, slamming him into the wall and demanded that the counsel leader terminate whatever it was they were doing. The counsel leader only smiled, stating that only the Counsel Guardian could stop the Heart and Reactor once started. Silence filled the room, as this statement was understood by all, and all eyes went to the location of the Counsel Guardian, a spear threw her heart, stream of blood running down her belly. One look at the resigned and defeated look on the face of the council leader and the rest of the council members, and he knew the man he held was telling the truth. In a fit of rage the leader of the Great Horde drew his blaster and blew the head off the soldier who had thrown that spear, fore he could read the screens clearly, and could understand that they system was out dangerously of control with no time to stop it and that something disastrous was about to happen. In a brilliant flash, The Heart of the Galaxy, The Central City, Calunar, and the whole solar system vanished.

Not even a speck of debris was left behind in the after math, just a great void in space where a star system once was. With the top leaders of both the empire and the horde gone, both civilizations collapsed. The war had ended in a brilliant flash, and no one was the victor. The horde, leaderless fell into in-fighting and bickering among themselves for control of ships and resources. Over time they retreated back the way the came taking all traces of thier existence with them. The various colonies and territories of the empire fell on hard times. Without the Heart, ships, stations and cities were suddenly without power. Ships and stations were abandoned. The colonies that survived were thrown back into the dark ages. The Heart of the Galaxy was never found, it location in time, space, and dimension were not recorded.