On September 16th, 2448, 100 members of the Sunda Commissariat’s Guard of Honor silently
assembled in Victory Square in the center of Jakarta.
In lieu of their ceremonial weaponry, each held a single torch.
The statue they encircled was nearly as old as the Greater Terran Union itself, constructed
even as ash still fell across the Earth, and the survival of humanity remained tenuous.
Nobody ever discovered who first tossed their black ribbon of mourning on the monument,
but it was soon joined by tens of thousands of others in a mass outpouring of grief.
The impromptu act grew to become tradition and through the centuries, the statue was
slowly buried beneath a black cloak of mourning until entire generations passed by without
ever seeing what lay beneath.
But on the night mankind unleashed its greatest weapon, and the suffering brought to Earth
was finally repaid, 100 torches were cast at the statue’s base.
In an instant, centuries of grief were burned away and the figure of a woman, sword raised
to the starlit sky emerged.
Engraved on her shield in every language was a single phrase, that until now had been lost
to history.
“Whoever shall come to us with a sword, by the sword shall perish”.
Even before the shattered pieces of the Tyrum’s homeworld had begun to stabilize, the response
from across the galaxy flooded in.
On every alien world in which the Greater Terran Union maintained an embassy or consulate,
spontaneous, mass demonstrations broke out.
Within a span of days, half a dozen diplomatic compounds had been hastily evacuated before
they were overrun by protestors, other embassies were simply closed or expelled at the request
of their host nation.
The Sword of Terra and its accompanying escort fleet managed to return to Terran space before
the Star Concord closed their borders, an act that would be copied by nearly every other
major government or alliance.
Even nations that had traditionally been friendly or impartial towards the Greater Terran Union
were now belligerent.
Terran diplomats had of course expected such a reaction, but the consequences and uproar
had far surpassed even their most pessimistic expectations.
In rare attempt to appease interstellar opinion, the GTU announced it would adopt a partial,
qualified no first use policy, stating that the Sword of Terra would only be used against
states possessing a similar type of weapon.
The damage however, had already been done.
The destruction of their homeworld had thrown the Tyrum into a chaotic frenzy.
Their Hive Mind, either crippled or destroyed outright, seemed no longer able to control
its population of drones.
On every world they occupied, they tore into each other in terrible displays of senseless
viciousness, while their remaining ships and stations sat motionless, their crews either
dead or dying.
Within a few months, entire continents vanished under a tide of corpses as the death throes
of the Tyrum race accelerated.
Terran state media, while not boastful, had also not shied away from broadcasting images
of the slaughter, but as the death toll grew higher and higher, even its most bellicose
anchors became somber.
While scattered pockets of their society had remained relatively intact, there could be
no mistaking the reality of the situation, the Tyrum were now a dying race.
With the completion of the Sword of Terra, the resources, funding, and personnel behind
its development were moved elsewhere.
In 2469 a project that for centuries had been largely underfunded and overlooked was completed.
In a remote system captured from the Algan Republic in one of the earliest conflicts
against the Compact, Terran scientists had seized a derelict interstellar gateway.
While such objects were not common, a scattered few had been discovered across the galaxy,
reactivated, and most famously used as a launching site for the strike against the Tyrum.
This Gateway however, while remarkably similar to those previously encountered, was subtly
different and seemed linked into its own separate network.
The first ships to pass through it once it had been reactivated, emerged in a previously
unknown extra-galactic cluster.
To the delight of these initial pioneers, the cluster was of tremendous scientific value.
Many of its worlds were coated in long since deactivated nanites, and their discovery catapulted
the Union’s understanding of nanotechnology by perhaps centuries.
Even more astonishing was the presence of a still intact artificial intelligence, capable
of exerting control over trillions of nanites.
While initially wary of its potential, after an exhaustive analysis it was authorized to
supplement Terran military and civilian networks, rapidly improving their efficiency and capabilities.
With the enormous wealth and insights of the extra-galactic cluster seized by the Greater
Terran Union, the nation’s Marshalls, Generals, and Admirals began advocating for a pre-emptive
strike on what remained of the Compact.
While no longer a serious threat, their surprise declaration of war during preparations for
the campaign against the Tyrum had infuriated the Terran military.
In 2488, the Greater Terran Union declared war on the members of the Compact, the Rixian
Galactic Directorate, the Faraxian Union, and what remained of the Algan Republic.
War Plan Blue, constantly updated and refined across centuries, was immediately put into
action.
Where once they had been formidable powers capable of meeting the Greater Terran Union
in open battle, the Compact was now a shadow of its former self.
New generations of Terran warships dwarfed even the largest battleships sent against
them, and in every encounter, Terran Fleet Command achieved stunning, lopsided victories.
Even the fortress system of Raltek, which for centuries had been considered unconquerable
by even the largest powers in the galaxy, was broken.
Affectionately known to Terran soldiers as “Lady Gray”, the vast swarm of nanites
and their guiding intelligence discovered in the extra galactic cluster were unleashed.
Even the genetically engineered soldiers of the Faraxian Union were powerless against
it, and system after system after system fell to the Terran advance.
In 2495, the seventh and final war between the Greater Terran Union and the Compact came
to an end as the Algan Republic, Faraxian Union, and Rixian Galactic Directorate surrendered
unconditionally.
On Earth, flags and banners of the defeated, symbols that had defied the GTU for centuries,
were marched down the Avenue of Triumph before being thrown at the feet of the assembled
Marshalls.
Across the former worlds of the Compact, occupation forces swept across ruined cities as new regimes,
governments, and puppet states were established.
In orbit of the shattered Tyrum homeworld, a single station was completed, a type of
shrine that would become the site of pilgrimages from every human colony.
And in the capitals of the Peronisti Union, the Sophox Garden of Worlds, the Vol Hive,
the Florian Matriarchy, the Star Compact, and hundreds of other alien nations, the same
realization had been made.
With the annihilation of the Tyrum, one threat to the galaxy had simply been replaced by
another.
A power equally implacable, intelligent and perhaps, far more dangerous.
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.