The Great Desert Rift

THE RIFT

   The Great Desert Rift is a vast region in the galactic disk on the northeastern frontier of the Terran Empire. Its central position in the Rimward Reaches made it the crossroads of empires. Countless battle sites on planets and in space are woven into the fabric of the wilderness where the dead outnumber the living.

WILDERNESS

   It is bordered on the south by the Rutak Empire, on the west by Audria and the Kitanai realms, on the north by the United Consortium and by the Union of Planets to the east. It is a place much akin to the Badlands of the Dakota's in the 19th century. There are millions of starsystems here but just thousands that are inhabited. This magnificent wilderness is home to pioneers, refugees, and outlaws. 

REBELS AND RETAIL

   The Rift was infamous as the refuge of Rutak dissidents and Kitanai rebels along the southwestern frontier. From the west, a few hardy Audrian merchants venture deep into the region to trade their wares and return with exotic goods. 

COLONISTS

   Terran Humans make up the majority of the population. They came in successive waves from the east. First, as illegal colonists, Ammanians mostly, violating the Terran Mandates' Chartered Colony laws that restricted the right to colonize to a few conglomerates, but then, as refugees from the Distan and Reittian conflicts, after that as pioneers seeking to build a new home, and finally as Northern Alliance refugees from the Consular Wars. 

CONFLICT

   During the Emperor's War, the Great Desert Rift was an obstacle to be overcome as the Naplian Admiral Daviont made a desperate three-year lunge from Audria to the Terran-occupied Baedecker starfields. It was then a theater of operations as squadrons of Audrian and Terran warships clashed with the Naplian invasion fleets that occupied the region and tried to subjugate its colonies. Uprisings like Par's Rebellion and other famous revolutions plagued the Naplians and their allies throughout the war.

RETREAT

   At the turning of the tide of the Emperor's War, the Naplians conducted a massive delaying action across the Great Desert Rift as the Grand Alliance, and their cybernetic hordes relentlessly pushed them back.

BETRAYAL

   And when the cyber rebellion began, it was the scene of horrific slaughter as the cyborgs ended every living thing they found.

ALL THAT REMAINS

   In the end, it was the final refuge and hiding place of every "biological" empire in Estra as the light of every civilization in the galaxy one by one, went out.

Next...The Merchetti

END TRANSMISSION

Artwork by Dmitri Borodin, BA Sparks, Julian Schlottman, Camilo Aldana, David Snodgrass

Copyright 2018 Kgruppe LLC