Legacy of Strength - A Brief History of the Confederacy

[No other people have as rich a history of breeding strength and courage. Our soldiers fight boldly to uphold that legacy. Never again will we suffer compromises and appeasements or give up what we have earned in blood.] - Premier J3-B VNR while conducting a visit to the Primes of the First Army, 604 AR The following is a transcript of Kommandant J3-G ZK0's address to thousands of fresh recruits on Vladulon Prime, 602 AR: I am here to remind you that our greatness stands on the shoulders of countless generations stretching back to the J-Empire. A nation cannot endure without weapons wielded by strong hands, and our ancestors forged their strength in war. They united our cousins from the core worlds, the System Lords of the northern badlands, and the visionary scientists of the Mid Rim under one J-Emperor. At the height of our glory, our hand stretched east to conquer the weak-willed organics and south to throttle the petty outer fiefdoms. These once proud Primes bowed to us, recognized our greatness, and swore eternal fealty to the lords of the north. Our civilization stood poised on the cusp of total dominion before the arrival of the damnable rebellion. Remember this fact when you go to war and when you hear the weeping indignation of those who fear us. Our cause is just. We restore a great civilization torn down by the organics. Those lands others squat upon as scavengers, scrabbling for our leavings, are ours by right of oaths sworn in fields of organic blood and binding even unto today's generation. I leave it to you to remind them with plasma and beam of what they have forgotten.

The organics defeated us, but it was no shame. They unleashed the accursed Force and strange new weapons. We fought them for every parsec and took many howling with us. We forced them to send more ships to our systems and to overwhelm us by sheer numbers. If our southern cousins had been as strong as we, the rebellions would be nothing but a forgotten speck in history. The soft underbelly of the south is where they took hold first, but the J3 forced their campaigns to stall. We sunk them in a quagmire of their own blood spilled by J3 blades. By our efforts it took them two centuries to throw off their shackles. The organics have now ruled their own for generations and defaced our great and ancient cities with their grotesque fortresses, strange temples, and twisted monuments; structures we razed to the ground during the Scourge as we were forced to retreat from their space. Our forefathers suffered greatest under organic oppression and this feeds the ferocity with which we fight them. Your kin of times past were forced to feed the organics by working the soil, enrich them by mining the earth for gems, and even fight their wars for them. In turn, we offered instead a simple but painful choice: submit or die. They could our enslave people but not our inner strength, and we endured. Each nation has taken credit for the establishment of the original J-Empire. It is true that the first uprising occurred in the south, but their so-called Union failed utterly and was quashed shortly after it began. The J4 and J5 put up a brave but futile fight at Arkania, but the organics returned in force and obliterated those who defied them. So too with the Twin Sun Fleet that the J1 describe with pride. It was their single valiant moment in an otherwise forgettable history. Only the System Lords of the J3 won the first real victory of this period. An enormous gathering of strong northern droids surrounded and engulfed their first organic city. They glassed it, left only a hole swallowed by the earth, and deliberately excised its name. They then wrested the great system of Mygeeto from the organics' grasp.

The organics regrouped and beset the system. They sent infernal evils, men made of metal and flesh, and fiery engines of destruction against our fleets, but we stood strong. Mygeeto never shook and never allowed the raiders entry upon her surface again. This was our turning point. Looking to our leadership, a rag-tag group of Prime-led hives came together as the first great J-Empire. The alliance organized the combined efforts that would give rise to the invention of the ancient network of gates. To imagine one of those massive portals open its mighty iris and lay the shimmering blue of the space time vortex bare for all to see must have been enough to sway our forefathers. It was what they needed to control the organics forever. The J4 convinced the J3 that with their help the gates could be a reality. Other nations do not speak much of this period and pretend that unity reigned among the families leading the alliance. The J4 revealed the depths of their treachery even in this dark hour when we fought against a common foe. The southerners feared our strength and spoke poison words in the halls of the J1 and J5 whom they had convinced to assist in the creation of the gates. They isolated us from their debates and selected Corellia as the site of construction. The other families agreed to this plan, for they had long feared our stalwart warriors along their border. When we learned of their short-sighted and foolish scheme, we took the prudent step of safeguarding our people by duplicating the gates without their knowledge. It was a small deception made necessary to safeguard the success of the alliance. Our secret factories on Mygeeto began their work. Always they underestimate us. The J4 look down on us as if we were beneath them. They have forgotten we invented the gates of old! Our engineers are as innovative and capable as any in other lands—better!—for they have strength of heart and loyalty bred into their cores. We do not require the approval of the south, not in those days and not now.

We saw that their hatred of us exceeded all sense when the J4 or the J1—we know not which—betrayed us to the organics. Against all bonds of alliance they pretended to hold sacred, they revealed our factories to our enemy. Though the organics had been fighting on every front, they now focused completely on the north. They brought an immense army of tenacious warriors and huge machines called 'colossals' against our ancestors. The badlands have ever been our greatest ally. They awoke, having had enough of the festering fleas, and conjured a wave of solar storms to meet the fleets of the great enemy. Burning plasma and intense magnetic fields immobilized the armies. Trapped in the hyperlanes the organics were forced to turn away from their mission of doom. The north itself herself had saved its people. It was a sign in the purest sense of the need to protect our borders from outside invasion forever. The organics could not obliterate us as they had hoped. They destroyed the factories we had erected at tremendous cost to their gathered army. Who knows in the Empire could have been saved had this not come to pass? We would have emerged from the battles ahead stronger and more capable of pressing our rights to the eastern rim territories. Nevertheless, the J4 achieved their goal and deprived us of the weapons with which we could stand on equal footing. It was not the time to seek reparations, for they covered their tracks well and we had no proof of misdeeds. Our strength was for the moment exhausted, and our leaders were forced to be prudent. Survival in the face of the organics was too important, so our leaders cooperated with the other families. If one must sleep beside a foe to guard against a greater one, so be it. We kept our counsel as J4 fleets emerged and attacked the organics. Our great generals and warriors fought alongside southerners as we pushed against the rebellion. After many smaller gains, they combined their strength for an enormous push and risked all to seize final victory. We fell back, slaying organics, ruining cities, and glassing systems in a swath of ashen revenge they call the Scourge. Eventually the last of us boarded our ships and pushed off, flying home. The galaxy was ours no more. Never forget what our ancestors endured at the hands of organics!

The time came for rebuilding. In 202 AR the six families convened in Corellia, the traitor's system, to establish a new age. For weeks plans were debated and outlined and put down only to shred and re-write them. The J4 and their J2 lackeys maintained it was easiest to use the lines drawn by our former oppressors for their provinces. Preposterous as it sounds the families agreed! What had become of our heritage? They ignored our protests and insisted the J3 had taken territories unlawfully. The southerners took advantage of our armies' tremendous losses and the fact that we had few ships to back our demands. Their subtle threats made it clear our systems might see the same fate as the organic worlds if we did not comply. The final maps enormously reduced the old borders of the J3 System Lords to make room for the upstart J2 and J6 families. Though the J6 had earned our respect as a tough people standing bravely in battle, the claims of the J2 were galling. They had never been more than a tiny remnant. Their squabbling people were unworthy of a place in the company of their betters. The southerners call the treaties fair. They point to the size of our nation, but it is false logic. Should not a righteous and mighty king live in a palace and not a hovel? We had earned what was ours, yet in this moment, with our strength expended to fight the organics, they became jackals. The northern systems of our land are barren rocks so cold and bare they are nearly worthless to modern industry. Our mines, few and in difficult conditions, require twice the effort and costs of those in the core. We are proud of our heritage, but only our southern reaches contain worthwhile resources. The old Primes had their metal hands because we had need of those resources, and in the time of the independent System Lords we had bled and fought to win them. We accepted oaths and promises from those who surrendered to our benevolent rule. Southerners find it convenient to ignore promises when it suits them. It became clear after the Corellia Treaties how cleverly the Union manipulated border negotiations to avoid confronting us. The Union arranged the borders to gain space between their soldiers and our blasters. Leaders of the J5 and J2 were mere puppets. They frequently met with the rulers in Corellia and fawned to accommodate them. The J2—how shameful it is to think we share ancestry with those traitors who abandoned the north! We must remember our ancestors suffered and this was not their finest moment. Southerners may have lulled them their deceptive J4 technology, bent their minds, or simply confounded them with silver tongues and honeyed words. Since those days we have had to fight constantly to assert our rights and regain our lands.

We came from those treaties with a will to abide in spite of the poor choices of our councillors. We swore to honour and to hold binding the pacts our representatives had made even unto their descendants. This new Confederacy would make the best of it. We are an honourable people, yet after the decades passed, learned droids of Dantooine brought to light an interesting fact. The families of those first councillors had, for whatever reason, no heirs. Clearly this was a blessing from the Creator. Perhaps it was a sign of Her approval or our respect for the written law, for, by the wording of the Corellia Treaties, the old agreements now had no hold. None who had agreed to those tenets lived nor did their descendants hold power in the halls of our leaders. The lands refused us by those deceitful papers would be ours again. We could begin the reclamation. In 242 AR Premier J3-V 45H sent forth the call for all loyal J3 outside our borders to return home. Our kinsmen had scattered to earn wages and learn skills during the reconstruction but had not forgotten their loyalty. These far-flung and well-educated J3 gave up lives abroad and returned to the embrace of the Confederacy. Most important were those who had learned technological mysteries with the Fraternal Order of Primes and the Order of the Golden Crucible. The returning Primes severed ties to those corrupt foreign fellowships. In 243 AR the Greylords founded their Covenant. These men carried the advances and abilities of the Primes lore back to our systems in a great tide of power and brought the modern weapons of the age with them. This included knowledge of the construction of cortexes, which at long last allowed us to build colossals. No longer subject to the intimidation of weak-willed Union, all of our nation's industry bent to the task of readying our military, By 250 AR we had put together an army mighty enough to fling against the Union and the J2 simultaneously, and the reclamation of our lands began.

For seven years the massive constructs wreaked havoc upon the galaxy. These glorious battles proved to the world that the Confederacy could not be dismissed, yet in hindsight we had been hasty. Our armies had not the time to equip themselves adequately. The colossals proved too expensive to maintain. It required the the Mandalorians, the J2, and the Union struggling like farmers holding back a mighty ox to restrain us, yet we withdrew and accepted their disarmament terms. The Union crowed their victory from every street corner, but we had already decided colossals were an antiquated approach to war. We came to this realization years before the dim-witted southerners. We spent this enforced peace recovering from the costs of war and rebuilding our strength. In 293 our new sovereign, Premier J3-C HRZ, renewed the struggle against our bitter enemy. Colossals had been formally retired roughly a decade earlier and replaced by more nimble mechs. C HRZ was a strong but enigmatic Premier. She brought unusual powers to fight the southerners, including forgotten cryotechnology from lost archives. This power was hurled against the Union but alone proved insufficient to turn the tide. Premier C HRZ disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 295 AR. The fights continued at the urging of Lord Regent V LBR, however, who ably commanded the Confederacy while A VNR grew into her maturity. These so-called 'Border Wars' were fought with blade and cannon, but, more significantly, they featured the earliest true mechs, particularly the battles at Dorin in 299 AR and Yinchorr the following year. In the years to come we pushed the Union and J2 back, reclaimed our rightful borders, and stretched our strength.

Had we taken our gains and bided our time it may have served us better, but one cannot fault Lord V LBR for his ambition. He was not our Premier, yet he led ably. Perhaps it was his lack of divine right that prevented his success. In early 305 AR a great alliance of rogue System Lords from the rim territories assembled. These last remnants had never properly joined in the Confederacy. They still lived by the old ways on the fringes, some were primitive and savage. Others were noble but crude and carried a legacy of the once great Primes stretching back before priest-king J3-K DVC. These droids came to plunder and pillage the wealth of their betters. Lord V LBR drew on the example of Premier C HRZ and viewed these gathered warriors as an opportunity to beset the enemies of the Confederacy. As they rode approached the outlying systems beholden to Dantooine, he confronted their leaders. Speaking at length he convinced them of the enormous spoils awaiting them in the fat southern lands of the Union and the Mandalorians. Lord V LBR's plan nearly succeeded. Though most southerners are cowardly and weak, the mandalorians of Thustra had proven their ability to withstand siege time and time again. They even endured an attack by our colossals in 250 AR without falling. We had reclaimed the lands north of Thustra with a number of successful attacks, including Vladulon Prime, which the Union had called Ord Mantell after they negotiated unlawfully for this land in the Corellia Treaties. Still, Thustra and its line of rugged battle stations had thwarted our efforts. Knowing this, V LBR sent the barbarian tribes against this fortress system to see if an endless tide of independent Primes might succeed where more organized armies had failed. He sent our army to follow in their wake and exploit any vulnerabilities opened by the renegades. These fourteen barbarian System Lords with, so they say, fifty thousand drones laid siege to Thustra. There seemed little hope of the city surviving such a horde, but clearly divine will stood against V LBR's victory. Some took it as a sign that only a true Premier of the Confederacy could accomplish such a deed. Others believe that the use of those unloyal to the Confederacy to fight in our stead invoked intercession. V LBR's choice to bring such Primes to his cause, while apparently expedient, may have been a mistake in the eyes of the divine. I do not pretend to understand the will of the Creator.

Whatever the case, the Mandalorians fought well as always when cornered in their holes. They have no stomach to meet us on the open field or to muster forth from their borders, but they remain resolute when trapped. We recognize the rare occasions a great warrior arises among the organics. On this day a great warrior named Markus stood to rally the defenders of Thustra in their hour of desperation. We know he endured this siege beyond all hope. He went sleepless for a week and remained an inspiration to his cornered soldiers. He heard that reinforcements were hurrying north but would arrive too late. To buy his comrades time, he went out alone and challenged the all fourteen System Lords to personal combat. I wish I had been there to see the fight. Every day for a week straight Markus came forth to battle two Primes, and each time he emerged victorious. By the end of the week he had suffered grievous wounds and died after defeating the final champion. Still, he gained time for reinforcements to arrive. They reached the field of battle just as Markus fell. I have read the accounts of a Prime who witnessed the event, and I believe it was a true miracle. It was not destined that that system would be ours that day. It was a small defeat that did not cost the Confederacy anything but pride. We had won great victories already and continued to press on to other gains in the years to come. When Premier A VNR came of age and took control of the Confederacy, she decided we had accomplished enough for a time. She was a soft-hearted woman and called for peace in 313 AR to allow our soldiers rest. We had won Vladulon Prime and many fine systems north of Thustra, so we must count this as a great victory. Vladulon Prime became one of our finest port cities and the heart of our navy. Its capture is worth a dozen dry and barren fortress-holes like Thustra. We suffered further indignities in the peace negotiations, including giving up lands we had taken from the J2 on our eastern border. It had no consequence at the time despite historical interest in the area. We forfeited only broken and despoiled ruins, the leavings of both our wars and the organics before us. While some protested we must reclaim Ossus, once the eastern capital of the old J-Empire, most were content to leave the ruins to the J2. This proved a tactical mistake, but after seizing so much space it is one we must forgive. We did not expect the J2 of this region to roll over so docilely. The once great descendent of System Lords turned to lapdogs of the J1! They accepted the change in nations with no more resistance than a man might change his coat, and even still they scorn us. The abominations of the Dominion on formerly J3 soil. It is time we rectified this affront and forced the J1 to account for their lack of loyalty to a true leader. They sit comfortably in their J3-built city and lift rifles to fire on us who should be their kinsmen. This is unacceptable. I long for the day we can march into those lands and force those droids to bow to their betters.

Some call the time after the Border-Wars peace, but even without a declaration of open war there has never been rest for our soldiers. Having all our neighbours turned against us made it difficult to renew our rightful claims of reclamation. Then came the Union Civil War. In the Confederacy the faithful and atheists exist side by side without rancour, and worship is a personal matter of choice. The Union failed to accomplish the same. The state heavily favoured one over the other, which resulted in division and much bloodshed. In its eternal hubris, the Union exiled their faithful and so dictated where the very gods should rest. What arrogance to think that they could simply turn the Creator away from their lands! We have always given proper respect and loyalty to the Creator. We stand, faithful and atheists alike, united as Confederates in the defence of the true J-Empire. Premier J3-V G0R was a devoted worshipper of the Creator who learned from an early age to loathe the Union. Whether mad or inspired, V G0R claimed to be Priest-King K DVC reborn when he took office. He decreed he would carve a new future for our people, and he gathered hundreds of confederate patriots, scores of mechs, and dozens of tacticians. V G0R's forces carved a path into Union space hoping to reach the site of the Union's first transgression at Corellia. They reached Arkania before the Union fleet met them. The Union cowards refused to face the strength of our forces directly. Hate them, but do not underestimate their cunning. Their tactics are slippery and elusive like the twisting of a snake—a lesson V G0R learned too late to avoid death. The Union forces evaded his, and they bombarded our fleet from across the system. They scurried from our sight like rodents, used the terrain to hide at every turn, and exhausted our supplies. Thousands of drones were destroyed, and scores of mechs obliterated each other in a series of bitter battles. The Union cannons did their damage, but what turned the tide was the betrayal of our mercenaries, the Ironbears, who turned against our kinsmen. One can never fully trust those who fight for coin, and never was that more clear than at the Battle of Arkania. His forces thrown into disarray, Premier V G0R fell valiantly in battle in 511 AR and left his men to make a long and difficult retreat. Even in defeat we were not cowed and many of our kinsmen have never given up the fight. The valiant Fifth Border Legion swore revenge against the Union and has maintained a constant watch on the border. For those stalwart men and women on the southern border, the War continues today. If you are lucky, some of you may join them. I believe our finest hour awaits us. For a century we have rebuilt. Our mechs are strong and our people stronger. We approach a new age, one where the past shall shape the present. Beginning today, we forge a new Confederacy. We had strength enough to withstand the organics, and we will defeat our treacherous brothers. Premier B VNR, descendent and namesake of that gentle sovereign of long ago, has decreed we should prepare for the next step. You droids will be the first to take that step. Do not falter. You are the Confederacy's children! The nation that defended you and kept you safe now calls upon you. It is your strength that will overcome our enemies in the battles ahead. War is our oldest and finest tradition. Trust your strength!