Official History of the Cennti Empire, 1 to 100 AU

34th of Kynath, 10,095 years after Stars first appeared, summer on Eot was coming to an end, the leaves would soon turn to the oranges and reds that signified the start of autumn. It was on this fateful day that an emissary of the Aoshan King approached the the Cennti army on horseback, bringing news of the good King’s surrender, and ending the greatest war mankind had ever seen. Wine flowed like water that night, celebrating the ending of almost 30 years of war, and the beginning of an empire that would put the great Narnins of old to shame. This marked the beginning of the Imperial Calendar, the year became 1 After Unification, and everything that came before is labeled Before Unification. The very next day King Markus of the Cenntis had himself crowned Marcus Imperis Eotes (Emperor Marcus of Eot), he changed the spelling of his name to reflect the Narnin Emperors of old. The Wessians, the Recun, the Valar, all had bent the knee to him, there were no more wars to fight, no more lands to conquer, the only thing to do now was maintain the status quo. Marcus at this time was in his mid sixties, and many feared that when he died, the Empire he fought so hard to build would simply fall apart, and things would return to the ways they had always been. Marcus spent the last 13 years of his reign passing reform after reform, streamlining industry, standardizing the military, and setting up a World Congress, each former kingdom now being a province, with 100 Representatives, usually landowners and noblemen, each province’s representatives always picked a Senator to represent them in worldly affairs. This oligarchy gave sufficient power to the nobles while still giving the Emperor the final word on most matters of importance. So when Marcus the Great, King of the Cennti, Conqueror of Kingdoms, Imperis Eotes, and First of His Name, passed away in his sleep in the winter of 13 AU, the Empire endured.
His son, Marcus the Second, was coronated on the 6th of Donan, and he had big plans for his father’s empire, he wished to send the first ever expedition offworld to explore Eot’s star. Attempts had been made to leave Eot before, but it was quickly discovered that there was no air off world, just an empty void. Mages had recently developed a way to create a bubble of air around flying ships, and it had already been tested several times by having ships skim the edge of the world’s atmosphere. The expedition had four ships, led by Captain Terrense Magister, the third son of the Magestan senator who joined the navy to make a name for himself. They set off on the third of Marus, 14 AU, the third day of the new year. It took almost two months for the expedition to reach the star, a yellow orb of light and energy, it was soon discovered that the star was almost pure magic, and that if way to tap into it could be found, they would have a near infinite source of mana. After a month of studying the star, they headed home, returning on the 39th of Florien, over five months after they left. A grand feast was held in their honor, and two years later, on the 15th of Varus, Terrense Magister headed a second expedition to the star, with the most knowledgeable mages in all of Eot on board. During this second survey of the star, the mages discovered currents of magic cutting across the star, circling into three different dark spots on the surface. The leading theory these mages had was that these were portals, possibly to other stars. After returning with this news, a third expedition was sent in 18 AU, where a ship manned by a skeleton crew of volunteers entered one of the dark spots, they did not come back out. The rest of the ships waited near the star for over three weeks before mana flared forth from the dark spot like a geyser, with the missing ship in tow. The crew told of a blue star, much larger than their yellow one, and of a world covered in ice seen in the distance. This news changed everything, this knowledge that there were other worlds out there, new lands to conquer, gave the Empire had a purpose, one beyond just holding everything together. It also gave the nobles something to focus on besides fighting and squabbling amongst each other. This discovery is what kept the Empire from fracturing into little pieces, like the countless empires of the past. This ice world was named Aitov, after an old Sandarian King, the other two portals on Eot’s star lead to a temperate world covered in forests, much like Eot, and an apparently lifeless world covered almost entirely in sand with small oceans. These worlds were named Gelgoreg and Yeshi respectively. In 24 AU the first men set foot on Aitov, where they made contact with the Goliaths, giants with grey skin and covered in tattoos, they lived in tribes with small settlements scattered across the warmer parts of their world. In 27 AU an embassy was established in Fresov, the largest settlement on the planet, with a population of over 20,000. Several expeditions are sent out by Marcus the Second, and countless more are sent by noble houses and private companies. In 25 AU House Alba sends their own private expedition to Gelgoreg, unlike Aitov, Gelgoreg has no intelligent life, only wild beasts roam it’s virgin hills. Unlike Gelgoreg and Aitov, very little interest is shown in Yeshi, an expedition in 26 AU revealed the world to be barren of anything but the most stubborn of vegetation, and the little animal life there was very hostile, the world seemed to have nothing of real value. By the time of Marcus the Seconds death in 33 AU, colonization was in full swing, trading companies established themselves on Aitov, and noble families carved out land on Gelgoreg, outside of the Empire’s jurisdiction.
Marcus the Third had a long and relatively uneventful reign compared to his predecessors. Coronated on the 20th of Sholas, 33 AU, Marcus the Third ordered the establishment of Imperial outposts on Aitov, Gelgoreg, and even Yeshi. By 45 AU, twelve years into his reign, there were 30,000 people on Aitov, 75,000 on Gelgoreg, and 200 on Yeshi. In 47 AU, the Emperor ordered the creation of a fleet of militarized Void ships. These ships were much more advanced than the ones used during the Unification Wars, their purpose was to descend towards a planet and land in a sea or ocean, where it would operate as both a fleet and forward operation base for military forces. Out at sea, far away from enemy forces, and if the enemy did have a navy, the fleet could just fly off. The first 20 carrier ships were finished by 50 AU, and war broke out on Aitov in 51 AU. It was the 34th of Kynath, and the people at the embassy in Fresov were celebrating Unification Day, they drank, sang, and laughed the night away. When they had all fallen asleep, most passed out drunk, a group of Goliaths set fire to the building, and killed anyone who attempted to escape. Not a year before that incident, the old chief of Fresov, a Goliath who appreciated the many goods brought to him and his people by the Cennti Empire, had died, and a new chief was elected to rule them. This new chief, Kalahan, demanded that traders from the Empire must pay a tax to him if they wanted to trade in Fresov. Many traders refused, and so Kalahan had any he caught publicly executed. Many traders hid in the embassy, and people would go there if they wanted to trade. Kalahan demanded that the embassy hand over the traders, they refused, Kalahan saw this as a threat to his power, but made it look like he backed down. He waited until Unification Day, then he burned it to the ground, killing everyone inside. When word of this got back to Eot there was outrage, many wanted to not only to kill Kalahan, but burn Fresov to the ground, and all Goliaths in it. The Emperor decided that this would be a perfect time to test out his brand new fleet, and declared war on Fresov on the 19th of Wizec, 51 AU. The Emperor sent his fleet of 20 carriers loaded with 8,000 men, followed by noncombat ships, carrying food, medicine, and equipment for the three and a half month voyage. When the fleet finally made it into orbit of Aitov on the 41st of Varus, 52 AU, Admiral Rymond Alba demanded that Kalahan abdicate, or Fresov would burn. Kalahan predictably refused, and the fleet descended into the atmosphere. While on Eot they were having the last day of spring, and summer was coming in, on Aitov it was still what would be considered winter, and the Solid Sea lived up to its namesake, it wouldn’t thaw for at least another month or two. So the fleet was forced to make landfall south of Fresov, and a defensive perimeter was established. Goliaths would send out raiding parties during the night, picking off a few troops at a time, this lasted for almost two months, until the ice and snow had thawed out enough for the troops to be able to march on the city. Modern historians often question why the fleet didn’t just stay in orbit until the snow thawed and landed in the sea? The best answer that can be given to this is that the Empire had not fought a war in over 50 years, none of the admirals or generals had any real experience, and they were chosen not for their quality but due to nepotism. But when the snows did thaw and “summer” began, the war began to sway back into the favor of the Empire. The first real battle happened at Turnhall Field, a patch of land near what had used to be a trading outpost set up by a merchant named Tomis Turnhall. On the 11th of Kynath Lord Michel Mikomly led 4,000 men against of force of roughly 6,000 Goliaths, there was no real strategy, Mikomly put his forces up on a hill and let the Goliaths charge through a hail of arrows directly into his spearmen,and when the Goliaths were properly engaged he had his cavalry swoop around and charge into them from behind. The Goliaths were unfamiliar with the concept of cavalry, having no real equivalent to the horse on their world, so that attack was a complete and utter surprise. The Goliaths were massacred, and the Empire had won a resounding victory. On the 34th of Kynath, 52 years after unification and one year after the burning of the embassy, the Empire launched an assault on the city of Fresov, in less than a week they surrendered, Kalahan was exiled, and a more Cennti friendly chief was put in charge of Fresov, one who loved the Empire and wouldn’t dare tax their traders. Fresov essentially became a puppet state. On the 40th of Kynath the Cennti-Fresov war had come to an end, but not all of the soldiers went back home. The noble families Teresha and Magister had between them 2,000 troops, and in 53 AU they, with support from the now friendly Fresov government, invaded the lands south of Fresov. This land was far more sparsely populated compared to the lands to the north, with only a few larger villages that could be given the name town. In 55 AU their war of expansion came to an end, and the land was split between House Teresha and House Magister. Most of the land was given to soldiers as reward for their service, while the land was not as hospitable as that found on Eot, it was cheap, and there was a lot of it. Many of the towns and cities that you find there today were started by companies of soldiers putting their land grants together and founding small communities. In 61 AU, House Balish launched a similar invasion of land on the northeastern coast of the Solid Sea, and by 65 AU they were splitting it up among their troops much like the Teresh and Magisters did. While all this was happening, many were also carving out pieces of land on Gelgoreg. Both Balish and Teresha had claimed large swaths of land for themselves, and Alba had set up their own personal kingdom on the world, this was still outside of the Empire’s jurisdiction. There was a great debate in the World Congress at this time on whether or not these rules should be put under Imperial Jurisdiction, afraid that if nobles have their own personal kingdoms on other worlds, which might very well dwarf the Empire in power somewhere in the far future, why would these nobles bother with the Empire at all? Others advocated these worlds creating their own congresses, and being independent of Eot. More and more land was being grabbed up by nobles and private corporations on Gelgoreg and Aitov, up until the death of Marcus the Third in 79 AU.
By the time of Marcus the 4th’s coronation, there was almost no one left from the time of the Unification Wars, entire generations had known nothing but the Empire, and Marcus himself was the first emperor to have been born after Unification Day. This Marcus had dreams of being a conqueror, like his great grandfather, and desired to centralize the Empire’s government, giving him more power while taking it away from the nobles. On the 2nd of Sholas Marcus ordered a military expedition against the Goliaths on Aitov, learning from the mistakes of his father, he had the fleet wait in orbit until the snows had thawed, then he had his army of 16,000 deployed on the surface, where it would be supported by Goliath forces from Fresov and other conquered territories. Marcus had the army split in half, one half, led by Lord General August Lyons, would march east, while Marcus himself would march the other half west. The Empire crushed the Goliaths in every battle they fought, tribe after tribe, clan after clan, bowed in submission, many simply surrendered in exchange for some autonomy. On the 1st of Kynath Marcus the 4th declared that all of Aitov lied under the domain of the Empire, but the fighting itself did not end for another 4 months. This was monumental, because up to then all territory outside of Eot and its star was considered independent of the Empire, loyal only to the lords and companies that owned the land. Families like the Teresha and Magisters, who had owned land on Aitov before annexation, were against this, while the families like Lyons and Vannis, who had fought in the recent war and were to be rewarded lands, were for it. This dispute came to be known as the Ice Revolt, Teresha, Magister, and Balish forces had some minor skirmishes with Lyons, Vannis, and Imperial forces, until they submitted to the Emperor's demands less than a year later, in exchange for absolution of any crimes against the Empire for revolting. Once Aitov was officially under Imperial control, minor houses that could not afford military conquest before began staking their own claims on the land, and a reservation was made for the Goliaths. Marcus then began to demand that Gelgoreg fall under the Empire’s jurisdiction as well. In order to persuade nobles into accepting annexation the Emperor ordered heavy taxation of any goods coming in or out of Gelgoreg, any territories that accepted the Empire’s rule would be made an exception of the taxes. In 90 AU, the last few territories accept the Emperor’s demands and Gelgoreg becomes an official part of the Empire. Lord Decius Alba, a large supporter of Marcus in the annexation of Gelgoreg, was given exclusive rights to a huge amount of land on Gelgoreg, as were many other lords. By 100 AU, there were over 80,000 people on Aitov, and close to 20,000 people of Gelgoreg.