Solar Reach
The Solar Reach was, at one time, the unified governing body that exerted authority over all of human-settled space. Founded in 2500 HE, its influence spread hundreds of lightyears in all directions for over two thousand years. Unfortunately, however, the rise of younger, more ambitious powers in human space combined with the economic stagnation of the core worlds led the Reach to fade away over the last millennium to a shadow of its former glory.
Astrography
The Solar Reach at its peak spanned a vast swathe of known space, claiming over twelve million suns under its banner -the largest single astropolitical entity in known history. Centered on the human home system of Sol, Reach space is bordered on the coreward side by the Scorpius Main and Aquila Rift –a region of recent contention between Vayenir and the Kreth Imperium– while on the fadeward side lies its strongest ally: the Qaimaur'e Federation of the Pleiades region. Spinward of the Reach is the Cygnus Rift, once home to the prosperous Aeryne Confederation, and the antispinward face of the Reach borders another defunct empire: the Enure Azora, in the Great Vela Sea. The farthest fadeward-antispinward border lies on the edge of the vast Orion Arc, still very much a wild-space frontier.Society
Culture
Attempting to describe the culture of the Solar Reach in monolithic terms is, frankly, outright impossible. The Reach is, or at least was, so vast and contained so many integrated cultural groups that even a list would occupy pages upon pages of any encyclopedia. Even discounting the various non-human species that joined the Reach over the course of its expansion, Solar culture groups number in the hundreds of thousands across the human diaspora, all descended in some way from nearly four thousand ancestral culture groups on ancient Earth alone. Most of the human-descended societies found across space do share some common heritage in the time-honored ideals of the Reach -freedom, peace, and the pursuit of knowledge- and a uniting reverence for the human homeworld of Earth.History
The Solar Reach was founded during the very earliest era of interstellar human spaceflight, shortly after the discovery of hyperspace travel opened up the stars for humanity, to promote peace and cooperation among Earth's myriad freshly-established colonies. It rapidly expanded as wanderlust blazed within the children of Sol, even subsuming several non-human civilizations encountered during the exponential spread of humanity through the stars –first as allies, then as autonomous protectorates, and finally as member entities. When the wave of expansion reached the Hyades Cluster, the Solar Reach made contact with the Qaimaur'e Federation, the first interstellar civilization they had encountered which was both older and larger than the Reach itself. The Federation, concerned over the Reach's rampant expansionist tendencies, began to fortify their claims in the Hyades region, raising tensions on the border to a boiling point before cooler heads prevailed. The Hyades War, a series of out-system skirmishes fuelled by paranoia on both sides, lasted a few years before diplomatic agreements brought the conflict to an end -thankfully before things escalated to planetfall tactics. The two civilizations forged a strong alliance that has lasted even through the decline of the Solar Reach, and the Federation maintains good relations with the neighboring Solar Legacy factions. The decline of the Reach came, as that of many historical civilizations, largely from being stretched too thin. With a span from the edge of the Orion Nebula all the way to the border with the Aeryne Confederation at the Cygnus Rift, tens of millions of constituent star systems proved too much for the political framework of the Reach to comfortably organize and efficiently serve. Leaving its golden age behind, the Reach coasted through its thousandth anniversary with cracks in the foundation of its formidable bureaucracy. Small numbers of star systems, the ambitious ones who saw the stagnating republic for what it was, began to secede from the union in a tiny, but steady, trickle. Most did this quietly, but on the two thousandth anniversary of the Reach's founding, a handful of the larger secessionist factions caused a notable uproar by forming the Solar Legacy Pact among themselves; an agreement to uphold the cultural and political ideals of the once-mighty Solar Reach as independent-but-allied star-states. Most of the Reach rightfully regarded this bold move in the same way one would react to hearing oneself pronounced dead by a coroner: angry denial with a healthy side of indignant frustration. Tensions rose on the newly-formed borders, and several conflicts flared up, but every secession was legal and the Reach had not the coagulated manpower nor willpower to violate the independence of its former members. Thus, a Solar Civil War was avoided through pure apathy -in retrospect, an obvious sign of the decaying unity of the Reach. Its territory shrank dramatically over the coming centuries, first causing and then driven by a collapse of the central economy. As it stands today, the Solar Reach and surrounding Solar Legacy powers are carried on partially by sheer cultural inertia, partially by misplaced aspiration, and partially by residual tax fraud. The Reach proper, ironically enough, only spans a few hundred light-years in diameter as of present, and its influence in the outer regions of what was once its claim has been superseded by its descendants, like the United Realms of Yggdrasil and Pantheon Republic.
Natum Terrae, Unitum Stamus
Born of the Earth, We Stand United
Founding Date
2500 HE
Type
Geopolitical, Republic
Capital
Demonym
Solar
Government System
Democracy, Representative
Power Structure
Federation
Economic System
Mixed economy
Currency
Solar Credit
Official Languages
Neighboring Nations
Comments