Zahamana Commonwealth (A1-0)

Zahamana Commonwealth Collowe Zahaman Zahamana
Emblem of the Zahamana Commonwealth.
Zahamana
Motto	"By the People's Will, it is done."
Founded	723 BBT
Capital	Tiranhold
Key worlds	Tiranhold Nova Gaia Zehiraka
Population	10.2 Trillion
Head of state	King Zolahan III
Head of government	Prime Minister
Major species	Humans Zehans
Language	Zehkran Zomaran Human languages (English and latin as lingua franca)
Military	Zahamana Conglomerated Forces
Intelligence service	Zahamana Special Services

The Zahamana Commonwealth Is a star nation located in the rough center of A1-0, bordering the Tiyanki Territories. It was founded by a union between Humans and the Zehans native to the area after the War of the Hunters. It is most famous for its lush worlds, democratic attitudes, and resilient nature, as well as its role in gaining widespread access to the Tiyanki Territories.

History

Primitive Zehiraka

The first sapient species within the territories of the modern day Zahamana Commonwealth were the Zehans on their planet. They were a purple, bipedal species that had extremely flexible and strong tentacles, which allowed them to achieve similar tool use to humans. They faced little challenge rapidly dominating their planet.

Information Age and beyond

Zehiraka as a planet had relied mainly on static infrastructure for energy, with solar panels being common, but energy from geothermal vents which were very common on the planet was the primary source of energy. With the advent of submarines, the Zomar Empire sought to damage the critical infrastructure of several weaker states, attempting to force them to submit, starting the war known as the Fool's War. Zomari forces clashed with forces from Zehka and their allies, and eventually, the Zomari empire was defeated and assimilated with the help of several internal rebellions, as the populace had little to gain from the war.

The Zomari had taken up a large portion of both the population and landmass of the planet, and their assimilation into the global system put the world of Zekiraka in a perfect place for planetary unification. This is how the first iteration of a Zehan state, the Council of Zehiraka, was born.

First Steps into Space

The Council of Zehiraka made one of its primary goals the exploration and colonization of space. Advancements to make up for resources lost during the war had included widespread asteroid mining, and profiling of neighboring star systems told them that there was a potentially habitable planet in a star system only 10 lightyears away from them, a momentous find. Many Zehirakans were eager to be able to explore and populate an entirely new star system and planet, and scientists pushed for this, hoping to gain knowledge from the colonization effort. However, at current speeds, 10 lightyears would have taken several hundred years, and there was no way to facilitate FTL communication between Zehiraka and this new system.

FTL discoveries and first colonies

Scientists in Zehiraka were able to develop two FTL technologies that enabled the colonization of that planet. Scientists were able to discover that, by bending space, they could circumvent causality and the speed of light, and use it to propel an object "faster than light" in terms of distance traveled. This shortened the time to the planet to mere weeks. However, having weeks between communications could have proved disastrous for the new colony if a resource shortage happened; for this reason, scientists developed a gateway technology. This allowed them to essentially create a controlled wormhole that allowed for near instant travel once the two gates were set up. With this technology, they could ensure the success of this colony.

Around 850 BBT, the first colony, Zelarasta, was founded on the planet of the same name. The new technologies helped the colony thrive, and once the gateway technology was created Zehans were able to move freely to safely populate the planet after the initial wave of colonists. All of the work flooded the market with millions of new jobs in farming, terraforming, managing robots and mining operations and ferrying goods between the worlds, and the waves of resources led to a flourishing economy that paved the way for new expansion in the decades following. By 780 BBT, the Zehans had around 15 planetary colonies, and many of those planets had started developing regional cultures already, and thus the Council of Zehiraka reorganized, renaming themselves the Grand Consortium and restyling the nation as Zeha-na-Maka, or Zehans Among the Stars, and consolidating in law that all of the colonies were equal and not subordinates of Zehiraka. With little to no military power as ships of those designs had not been created yet, this served as a unifying factor that prevented any powerful colonies becoming breakaway states.

Terran arrival

Around 790 BBT, Humans arrived on 10 surviving sleeper ships to a planet they named as Nova Gaia, New Earth. They were remnants of a human nation apparently beyond Sector A1-0's territory, and thus already had some basic terraforming technology that was able to give them a jump-start in development. Using the sleeper ships as industrial hubs and home bases, they quickly spread across the planet, and the last sleeper ship was left in the atmosphere with unmanned vehicles that mined asteroids. After gaining a population of roughly 2 billion, the humans traveled to neighboring systems, beginning to colonize and spread out around 750 BBT.

Unrest in Zeha-na-Maka

Zehan expansion was continuing at a steady pace, and by 770 BBT it had picked up rapidly, with a new system explored every few months, and Zeha-na-Maka had around 600 inhabited planets under its control and a growing number of uninhabited mining systems. However, due to the almost nonexistent military presence and the aging FTL technology, the Zehan planets became increasingly disgruntled with the inefficient governance. In response, the close systems, which held the greatest proportion of the population and thus the biggest numbers in the Grand Consortium enacted trade laws to attempt to force the outlying colonies to become economically dependent and thus unable to fight against the Consortium. In response, the colonies ignored the laws and halted exports to the central planets, cutting them off from their trade network. The tensions made Zeha-na-Makan freighter ships and asteroid mining ships enter rebellious space and use their weapons on ships transporting goods in a massive surprise attack. This sparked similar attacks from the rebels, who organized and formed a unified front, calling themselves the Outer Front.

The Grand War of Oppression

The Grand War of Oppression was a particularly scrappy and bloody conflict as neither side had sophisticated military technology at the beginning of the war. Freighters and asteroid mining ships used their weapons meant to destroy asteroids and debris on ships, and the crews had little to no military training or doctrine, leading to haphazard battles near systems with ad-hoc tactics and formations. The planets loyal to Zeha-na-Maka had significantly more mass in merchant ships to conscript and thus made significant early leads.

Batlle of Mekala

The Battle of Mekala was where the Outer Front revealed a new ship-type made specifically for military use, with stronger guns, less crew due to less cargo space, and better shields. Revolutionary at the time, a contingent of 100 of these ships was able to defeat 500 of the ad-hoc ships of Zeha-na-Maka. This marked a turning point in the war, and this early technological win proved vital for the Outer Front to gain momentum.

Siege of Zehiraka

By 750 BBT, the Outer Front had surrounded Zehiraka with a contingent of 2000 ships. They prevented any resources from getting to the planet, and after 2 months of sieging, the Grand Consortium surrendered and the Outer Front gained control of the government.

Greater centralization in Zehan space

After the Grand War of Oppression, the Outer Front took control of all of the Zehan planets and established a new system of governance stemming from Zehiraka. Seeing the decentralized nature of Zehan space as the principle cause of war, the Outer Front restyled the nation as the Zehan Union of Planets, and enacted several policies to centralize the nation. These policies included trade regulations forcing certain planets to allocate resources to others, eliminating a planet's ability to have the sole claim on a mining system or world, and the two most radical and controversial reforms- They began taking a small tax from all of the planets. This money would be held in case of emergency and would be used to fund the second reform- a national military. Utilizing the new designs they had created, the Zehan created a fighting force whose main purpose was to keep order and enforce the law. These reforms greatly angered the first colonies who could no longer horde resources for themselves, but these colonies had significantly reduced influence after the War of Grand Oppression, and thus grew used to the changes.

Human issues and the rise of piracy

The humans from Nova Gaia had expanded massively due to their already expansive spacefaring knowledge, and controlled roughly 2,000 inhabited planets by 550 BBT. However, due to inefficient administration, Nova Gaian society failed to create a cohesive government. Without explicitly defining the relation of newer colonies to Nova Gaia, many of these states became effective breakaway states and some opportunistic ones turned their ships on each other's goods, getting tributary planets and raiding others. These planets became a scourge on humanity and eventually started colonizing space of their own. These states became known as pirate states or warlord states.

The Conqueror of Worlds

Bemoaning the rise of warlord and pirate states that made trade extremely dangerous, the humans nearest to Nova Gaia took matters into their own hands and put their faith in one man called Xoraias. He led fleets of ships in an effort to conquer all of the warlord states, and his military genius defeated even the largest warlords- thus, piracy was reduced to small groups hiding out on fringe worlds and in deep space by 745 BBT. Xoraias refused to become an emperor and instead created a system of governance that relied on representation from codified districts of similar systems. He was still revered by his people and gained the title "Conqueror of worlds," and he led several military reforms that strengthened the new human nation against a pirate resurgence.

First contact between humans and Zehans

The first contact between humans and Zehans was in 735 BBT when a pirate fleet entered Zehan space and was discovered by a Zehan fleet. The pirates did not attack as they did not know whether there was anything profitable to steal from the ships and they didn't know how powerful this fleet was. After a few exchanges of communication the pirate fleet used its FTL drives to warp away from the area. The Zehans followed the signatures of the ships and were encountered by a main human battlefleet which was en route to attack the pirates. The humans and Zehans entered a peaceful dialogue and transferred communications to avoid border conflicts as they inched closer to each other.

The Eaters

The first sightings of the Eaters was in early 734 BBT whben a Zehan fleet spotted a strange ship that didn't correspond to human or Zehan readings. After trying to investigate, the Zehan ships were attacked by "aircraft" and nearly the entire fleet was destroyed and brought to the mothership. Only 2 ships came back, both severly damaged. The second sighting was just outside of human space, with a human fleet being actively attacked by a similar mothership. The humans were able to defeat the ship after heavy casualties, and discovered massive biological signs encapsulating the entirety of the interior of the ship. Both humans and Zehans reported these findings to each other in a hope to mitigate further issues.

In late 734 BBT, both states reported a large influx of similar readings to the motherships. In 733 BBT, a massive invasion consisting of 100,000 motherships entered Human and Zehani space and started attacking Zehan and human settlements and fleets, taking all biological matter they could, seemingly to feed the motherships.

Early push-back

in 733 BBT, the Zehan annd humans alike were unable to put up an effective defense against the motherships. Due to the natures of previous wars, neither had effective counters for the swarming actions from the creatures released from the motherships and therefore took heavy losses. Zehans in particular had not been fighting constant pirate wars and therefore lacked both mass and quality in the opening years of the war. The Eaters were known to invade planets and consume all biological life on them and then return to the motherships, and these losses combined with ship personnel losses made the war very hard on both humans and Zehans.

Zehan-human cooperation

Around late 733 BBT, humans and Zehans opened up cooperation in terms of intel sharing about theories on the origin of the Eaters and better technologies, tactics to beat them, as well as locations and status of all known eater Motherships. As the collective technology of the two grew, the war eventually turned into a stalemate until early 730 BBT when humans and Zehan started actively working together with fleet actions to destroy Eater motherships, at which point the Eaters were being slowly pushed back.

Glassing of Alamada

In 729 BBT, the Zehan-Human coalition had located the home planet of the Eaters, code-named Alamadia. Motherships seemed to be going there to drop off biological matter for their "queen" who took up the entirety of the planet to consume. A massive Zehan-human fleet dislodged the motherships defending it and for 30 days straight bombarded the planet until no biological matter survived. After this event, remaining motherships either self-destructed or remained completely still, unable to function properly without the queen.

Conference of Tiranhold

In 727 BBT, 2 years after the Eaters were defeated, the Zehans and humans came together to create a formal alliance on the then-neutral planet of Trianhold. Many threw around the idea of a unified state, as the Zehans and humans had grown very close over 7 years of cooperation during the war against the Eaters. These talks came to a head and on the 50th day of the Conference they were able to, with assent from the human Emperor and the Zehan Senate, create a unified government.

Codification of Zehan-human union

The Zehan-human union took some time to reorganize existing structures. The biggest change was the Senate and Emperor, who restyled himself as King, having to share power. The Zehans and Humans came up with the assent system; the King and Senate had to agree on certain things, and if neither agreed it would go to public vote. The Zehans also established a royal line, and at the end of one's reign the royal power went to the opposite species. Humans were then let into the senate after an election soon after the union was created.

Finding of a wormhole

In 0 BBT, Zahamanan ships outside of a newly colonized world located a stable wormhole. This wormhole was the first of its kind found, and intense research went into it and around it. They discovered that it did in fact connect to another point of Realspace, in a seemingly uncharted bit of territory. In mid 0 BBT, the Zehans ventured into the wormhole, and found the Tiyanki Territories, discovering it for the rest of the Sector.

Astrography

Besides the wormhole Gate, there are no special astronomical phenomena, although to the "north" of the territory there are some dense nebulae.