By the year 2232, the malevolent Drengin Empire reigned supreme over this area of space. The once mighty Arcean Empire, that had long kept the Drengin Empire in check, was utterly defeated and their world left in ruin. The home world of the Torian Confederation was occupied with great cruelty. Even the rising Altarian Republic was brought low and forced to sign an armistice and took on a role known as the Altarian Resistance.
Earth was left untouched thanks to a Precursor technology that placed an energy shield around the planet. Designed to imprison the target planet, it also prevented outside forces - such as the Drengin III and V fleets - from invading. The Terran first fleet, after having utilized the planetary shield to protect Earth, then disappeared into the same pocket universe that the Dread Lords had originally escaped from.
For ten long years, the Drengin had their way and quickly established a brutal new order. Their allies, the synthetic beings known as the Yor, remained largely in the background during this time. The Terran second fleet along with remnants of the Torian, Arcean and Altarian fleet created enough chaos that prevented nearly discovered worlds, such as the Krynn and the Iridium Corporation to grow unmolested.
The enigmatic Thalan, the aliens who claimed to be from the future and had actively worked to prevent the humans from having Terror Stars and other weapon systems that might have changed the course of the war, remained neutral. When asked by a Terran Commander why they wouldn’t help liberate this sector of space, they merely replied “It will be the humans, and their crusade, the will be the end of all things.”
The Thalan prediction gained weight when the Terran first fleet suddenly reappeared from the pocket universe in 2242. Led by a new flag ship, called the Crusader, it quickly obliterated the Drengin VII fleet that was guarding the entrance to the pocket universe and swiftly made its way to Earth and freed it.
Contrary to what the Drengin believed, the humans were not cowering behind the planetary force shield. The humans were enraged by the events that had occurred. Any pretense of peaceful and diplomatic coexistence with the Drengin were extinguished and a blood lust had taken hold of the vast majority of humans. Thus, the First Fleet was met by the largest and most powerful fleet this area of space had ever known. The Terran first fleet and the Terran liberation fleets quickly merged into a massive force with the intention of exterminating the Drengin Empire.
In a couple short years, the Drengin Empire was brought to its knees and the Terran fleet of annihilation reached the Drengin home world. It was then that the Thalan intervened. Not with force, but with words and recordings of a future in which the destruction of the Drengin homeworld led to a nightmare in which humanity would soon discover a way to quickly reach the rest of the galaxy. A future in which its blood lust, unable to be quenched, would eventually lead to the destruction of every species. It was at this moment that the Thalan revealed that they were not just from the future but from a world on the other side of the galaxy that had reached this area of space using something called a Subspace stream. Before further inquiries could be made, the Thalan were gone.
The humans stopped their advance and spared the Drengin homeworld on the condition that the Drengin not be allowed to expand again in this area of space.
2245 would mark the beginning of the long peace.
A couple of years into the 24th century, unknown to anyone, the Drengin Empire came across a crashed ship in a nearby star system. The ship contained a species that they had never encountered before. The only survivor of this ship was interrogated in the typical Drengin way and the Drengin learned that this species, called the Navigators, were mapping out the ancient Precursor network of subspace streams that had allowed the ancient Arnor to easily travel across the entire Milky Way galaxy.
Having “persuaded” the surviving Navigator on where these subspace streams are, they quickly learned the location of one such stream, which led to a dead but rich sector of space. When the Drengin demanded to learn the secret of how to find more of these subspace streams, the Navigator tricked his captors into creating a beacon that would send out across this sector the knowledge that these subspace streams existed and the fundamental principles that would allow all species to eventually learn how to find and utilize them.
2307 sees the members of the Orion sector of the galaxy (our home sector) in a race to expand once again and find these subspace streams that will let them access other sectors of the galaxy where new and possibly even more dangerous galactic civilizations exist.
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Galactic Civilizations IV Dev Journals
