The Bedran Marches is a stellar empire located in the Galactus Austrum. It consists of over 200 constituent baronies divided amongst 18 duchies as well the Royal Center and the outlying Protectorate Sphere. It is the fourth largest stellar empire by volume, but the second largest in terms of total systems. With a population of approximately one quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000), it is the most populous stellar empire. Bedras is the capital system and the royal seat of the Palatine Lord. Tharyn is the most populous system and the primary inhabited planet, Tharyn, is an ecumenopolis that is home to .2% of the total population. The Bedran Marches is a melting pot of cultures and races and is highly developed.
History[]
Kith Era[]
The Freehold[]
The Kith evolved on Ur-Nammu. They were a race of bipedal synapsids that physically resembled reptiles but genetically bore more in common with mammals. Intelligent, the Kith developed a complex spiritual system centered around animism: the belief that all things possessed a spiritual essence, from the Kith themselves to flora and fauna to common objects and natural forces. Kith society developed slowly and deliberately. By the time space flight was invented, the Kith were an old civilization steeped in history and culture. It would be several more centuries before the first extrasolar colonies were founded.
The Kith Freeholds were the race's the first stellar governments. A collection of bodies all self-governing and linked by trade routes. They expanded outwards in a roughly spherical path, first with primitive generation ships and later with the first faster-than-light vessels. At its height, the Freeholds consisted of some eighty worlds. Even after FTL sped up the process, the expansion of the Freeholds was slow and leisurely. Colonies were meticulously built and formed before the next wave was carefully planned. The expansion lasted just over five hundred years. There was little urgency in their development. By Kith reckoning, they were the only sapient spacefaring race in the local volume and had little to fear. This would prove to be untrue.
The Emmerkar War[]
The Enmerkar were a species of eusocial colonial organisms that once inhabited a portion of space now governed by the modern day Bedran Marches. Their biology was akin to hydrozoans: microscopic animals that acted as cells in a larger body, performing specific functions to support the greater swarm. While the zooids that formed a swarm were rudimentary and instinctual, each individual swarm was a sapient hive mind. These swarms were, in turn, linked and subordinate to older, more complex swarms, forming an insectoid caste society of worker swarms, soldier swarms, reconnaissance swarms, et cetera. At the top of this system were the Queens: immortal and vastly intelligent beings esoterically linked into an interstellar parliament of sister hives. While the Queens could breed endlessly, they could not reproduce more Queens, rendering each sister irreplaceable and greatly treasured.
The first contact between the Enmerkar and the Kith went by fully unnoticed by the latter. Whilst performing a geological survey on the recently founded colony of Acre, the plasma bore used by the Kith to penetrate the ground broke through an underground cavern. The cavern in question was the royal chamber of an Enmerkar Queen. The heat from the bore tip roasted and killed the Queen almost instantly. This caused a catastrophic failure as every swarm under the Queen's control slipped into a catatonic state and, gradually, succumbed to starvation, resulting in the extinction of the entire brood. Oblivious to this beyond the apparent ignition of a gas pocket, the Kith continued their survey and moved on.
While the Kith failed to notice anything out of the ordinary, the Enmerkar Queens elsewhere sensed the death of their sister almost instantly. To the Enmerkar, the loss of a Queen was an act of ultimate evil. Blinded by wrath and grief, Enmerkar space in its entirety began to mobilize.
Founding of the Bedran[]
The Palatine Lord[]
Expansion[]
The World Eater[]
The Norland War[]
Disappearance of Lord Bedras[]
The Modern Marches[]
Government[]
Housemoot[]
The Housemoot is the body representing the ruling houses and clans of the Bedran. The Bedran Marches is a feudal Republic, with allegiances sworn to a system of lords who then vote on matters of state. The Housemoot is divided into three strata: the Royal House, the Council of Margraves and the Minor Houses.
The Royal House has lost much of its imperial authority since the vanishing of Bedras. The Palatine Regents, the line of mortal clones of Bedras, lack the writ of the Palatine Lord as well as his divine wisdom. Thus, no one man could ever again hope to effectively rule a territory the size of the Bedran Marches. The Regent exists largely as a figurehead, with the political business of the Royal House being carried out by Garud, the first and only Speaker of the Moot. For centuries, the Royal House's power stemmed from the continued allegiance of the World Eater, the only extant Living God of the Bedran Cult. More recently the return of Amato, the Royal Scion, has increased the Royal House's power considerably. At 20%, the Royal vote is the most powerful of any single house in the Marches.
The Council of Margraves represents the eighteen most powerful Houses in Bedran space. Despite being the name, the council member s do not rule over the individual marches directly, and are individually referred to as Duke or Duchess. These Houses preside over the duchies and derive their power from the raw economic and military output each duchy provides. Ostensibly equals, in reality the Council is governed by the three or four most powerful Houses of the Council. Feuding is a common occurrence amongst the Council members, though open hostilities are rare. The combined voice of the Council equates to 25% of the vote.
The Minor Houses are the hundreds of smaller houses and clans. Each member presides over a march: a subsector of the larger duchy sectors. The titles of this widespread body varies, with "margrave" ironically being rather uncommon. Barons, counts, chieftains and more individually unique titles like pharoah and ealdorman are all used. While each is sworn to the regional Ducal House, a Minor House is allowed to vote against their presiding Duke in the Housemoot. While the individual vote of each Minor House is insignificant, the unified voice of the Minor Houses equates to 55% and can override the combined weight of the Council and the Royal House. Such an event has not yet occurred in the history of the Marches, however.
The Housemoot is held once every ten standard years, on the Bedran capital of Bedras. The occasion can last for weeks, during which time proposals are made, grievances are voiced and legislation is decided or overturned. Voting occurs in the royal assembly hall, under the shadow of the vacant Palatine throne.
Nomarchy[]
The Nomarchy refers to the many tillions of administrative AIs that assist in streamlining and optimizing the Bedran bureaucratic apparatus. The AIs, called Nomarchs, fulfill a myriad of tasks and come in an array of different types specialized to certain tasks. Artificial intelligences are constantly being added, updated and phased out. There are castes and systems to the Nomarchy that are magnitudes more complex and sophisticated than the Housemoot and which constantly shift and evolve. The Bedran Nomarchy is considered one of the Wonders of the Galaxy for its sheer size and complexity, and is considered by many to be a digital empire existing symbiotically with the Bedran Marches.
Though they originally built it, the Bedran themselves now play small but crucial roles in the maintenance of the Nomarchy. The Nomarchs are capable of administering themselves. The Bedran protect and maintain the Focii: the colossal server nexuses located on each ducal capital world that house the Nomarchy. But the most important contribution that the Bedran offer the Nomarchy is purpose. The Nomarchs crave a reason to exist and find it in serving the Bedran.
It is known that Fenris possesses a direct connection to the Nomarchy. Itself a machine, the World Eater's mind far exceeds even the most powerful Nomarch. Through countless eyes, Fenris surveys the Marches in real time through the Nomarchy's input, processing millions of yottabytes of information every single second. It has been said that the World Eater is to the Nomarchy as Palatine Bedras himself was to the Bedran Empire.