As the Greater Terran Union entered the latter half of the 24th century, the era was marked
by a dramatic expansion of the nation’s wealth and prosperity.
Terraforming techniques pioneered throughout the core systems were brought to the outer
rim, part of a great new colonization initiative that developed the last remnants of the old
frontier.
The oldest core worlds, Triumph, Acadia, Elysium, and Yggdrasil, which for centuries had been
the most prominent colonies in the Union, were now matched or even surpassed by those
in the Outer Rim or other Border Territories.
Even Earth itself was now merely the first among equals.
The Vaikuntha System, once home to a scattered collection of settlements sponsored by the
Greater Indian Commissariat, had grown to become an economic powerhouse and the single
busiest port in the Union.
Tens of thousands of interstellar transport ships, cargo haulers, tankers and other civilian
craft transited through Vaikuntha each day, the sole link between the Union’s core and
its possessions in the outer rim.
The system’s capital city, Karma, was quickly favored by analysts and science fiction writers
alike as a candidate for the Greater Terran Union’s first ecumenopolis, perhaps even
within the next few centuries.
On the Outer Rim, the terraforming of Scorpio III from a desolate, arctic wasteland into
verdant world of lush plains and great oceans, set the stage for one of the greatest migrations
in human history.
Spearheaded by the Eurasian Commissariat, hundreds of millions of settlers departed
for the newly renamed Volga colony in the Rodina System.
In a matter of decades, it grew rapidly to become a beacon of civilization in what had
once been considered a backwater territory of the GTU.
The glittering cityscape of Novaya Moskva, home to some of the Union’s greatest universities
and skyscrapers, quickly became a symbol of Terran power.
In 2358, it was named the capital of the newly established Aurora Commissariat, jewel of
the Outer Rim.
Even the fortified Thermopylae Commissariat, named for the enormous battle station that
once guarded against the Faraxian Union and Rixian Galactic Directorate, was transformed
into a thriving center of industry and commerce.
But progress here had come at a cost.
In 2362, the National Council and Assembly authorized the Faraxian Protection Act.
It’s goal was primarily to remove the remaining Faraxian population living on worlds conquered
and annexed by the Greater Terran Union.
While many had hoped the Faraxians might become productive and loyal citizens as the Wessari
had done, former Faraxian worlds had been marked by constant civil unrest and bombing
campaigns, likely funded by the Faraxian Union.
Forced from their homes to make way for human colonists, Faraxian refugee convoys departed
for the Republican of Polenian States before attempting to return to their own nation.
Even as the situation with the Faraxians threatened the prosperity of the border Commissariats,
disturbing reports emerged from the world of Tlalocan in the Aztlan System.
The site of an ecological disaster early in the Greater Terran Union’s colonization
history, the population had been forced to endure a harsh desert environment not suited
to large scale settlement.
In 2363 it was discovered that elements of Tlalocan’s population had been experimenting
with illegal genetic modification technologies, modifying their DNA and in essence, creating
a new subspecies of humanity.
These changes were often unpredictable and affected individuals could suffer debilitating
side effects or heightened physical abilities.
The forced sterilization of the so called “Human Clarus” was briefly considered,
but few supported such an extreme action against a population that was still, for all intents
and purposes, human.
In 2365, Terran reconnaissance ships deployed to monitor the Peronisti Union on the other
side of Terran space began reporting strange fleet movements.
The Terran-Peronisti border had been heavily patrolled by both sides since the end of the
war in 2304, but now, Peronisti warships had been redeployed elsewhere.
The Tel-Akkur, a scattered race of marauders who for centuries had terrorized the Peronisti
and others in their region of the galaxy, had seemingly united under a “Great Khan”
and embarked on a period of expansion unprecedented in their history.
Unprepared to meet this new threat, the Peronisti Union attempted to normalize diplomatic relations
with the GTU.
Borders were briefly opened and embassies and consulates founded, but as the Peronisti
lost system after system to the advance of the Great Khan, waves of refugees sought protection
within the Greater Terran Union.
The borders were again closed, and the Peronisti were left to oppose the Great Khan alone.
By 2381, the Greater Terran Union’s peacetime complacency was shattered.
The Republican Polenian States, a puppet government intended to serve as a buffer state between
the GTU and the Algan Republic, finally collapsed.
Despite the presence of Terran advisors, a violent uprising supported by members of the
Polenian military overthrew the civil government, and its worlds rejoined the Algan Republic.
This revolution, clearly sponsored by the Compact, was believed by Terran High Command
to be the precursor to a renewed offensive, and once more, fleets and armies were mobilized
in anticipation of war against the Algan Republic, Rixian Galactic Directorate, and the Faraxian Union.
On the far side of the GTU, the situation was no less dire.
The Peronisti, not yet fully recovered from their previous defeat and unable to stop the
advance of the Tel-Akkur, formally surrendered.
With an invasion of the GTU by the Great Khan seemingly imminent, the nation prepared for
a war on two fronts.
In 2384, hoping to secure a swift victory through a preemptive strike, the Greater Terran
Union declared war on the Compact and advanced into the territories of the Algan Republic.
Dozens of systems were seized but the campaign was frustrated by the same hit and run tactics
that had plagued Terran Fleet Command throughout the previous war.
After two years of war against the Compact and the lingering threat of invasion by the
Tel-Akkur, miraculous news reached the GTU that the Great Khan had been seemingly murdered
by one his chief lieutenants.
The Khanate survived his death and the Peronisti remained their subjects, but as the new Khan
focused his attention on consolidating power and their existing territory, this threat
to the Greater Terran Union was ended for the foreseeable future.
The death of the Khan freed up resources that were badly needed on the front, and by 2392,
the Greater Terran Union had pushed into the central territories of the Beneficial Compact.
Even the homeworld of the former United Clans of Skiron had been liberated, and hope prevailed
across the Union that the power of the Compact had finally been destroyed for good.
In the largest planetary invasion ever attempted, hundreds of divisions took part in the Battle
of Nimerium, a brutal but decisive campaign that seized one of the Algan Republic’s
greatest remaining strongholds.
In 2399, the Algan capital system had been taken, and the Compact surrendered.
In the wake of the Greater Terran Union’s victory, former Algan and Skiron systems and
territories were granted independence under the authority of a new nation, the Union of Nimerium.
A puppet state under the control of the GTU much in the same way as the failed Republican
Polenian States, the Union of Nimerium was far more heavily centralized, and GTU advisors
were present in every facet of the government’s operation.
The Algan Republic, reduced to a scattered few systems, had finally been broken beyond repair.
If the Compact was to ever pose a threat to the GTU again, it would be dependent on the
will of the Faraxian Union and the Rixian Galactic Directorate.
While the war had unleashed a level of nationalistic zeal unprecedented in the history of the Greater
Terran Union, it had also emboldened the increasingly violent Human Clarus.
On Tlalocan, members of Human Clarus supremacy groups and GTU loyalists battled openly in
the streets.
When Clarus extremists conducted a massacre within a popular shopping complex, High Command
was forced to act.
Tlalocan’s moon, Mictlan, was established as a planet wide penal colony and every member
of the Human Clarus forcibly relocated there.
Until a means of reversing their genetic abnormalities was discovered, the entire Human Clarus population
would be detained and monitored.
The collapse of the Republican Polenian State, the rise of the Great Khan and the latest
great war against the Compact had dominated the affairs of the Greater Terran Union, but
it was in the Kasserine System that the future of the nation had been forever altered.
In a remote area of the star system, one restricted to civilian traffic since the earliest days
of colonization, the derelict that had captivated the GTU’s greatest scientific minds for
nearly two centuries had quietly been re-activated.
In doing so, the prevailing theory that had guided the development of the entire nation
was confirmed.
The device was some sort of Gateway, constructed by an unknown race millenia ago, that allowed
for near instantaneous travel across the galaxy.
If this device was indeed used by the Tyrum to invade the Earth, then the way to their
homeworld was now open.
In Stellaris Invicta, the Templin Institute guides the Greater Terran Union into an uncertain
future, one you can influence.
Every Saturday we’ll live stream our progress on our Twitch channel, and viewers and patrons
will have the opportunity to vote on decisions, help name planets, ships, leaders and more.
If you miss the livestream, you can catch up on what happened when the stream is published
the next day to the Templin Archives channel.
Then, once a month we’ll produce a video like this one, detailing everything that’s
progressed in the Greater Terran Union’s struggle to achieve galactic supremacy.
The next livestream of Stellaris Invicta begins one hour after this video has gone live, we
hope to see you among the stars.