Albion Stellar Kingdom

First Kingdom

The First Kingdom of Albion had its origins in a collection of disparate human groups from across the southern regions of the galaxy, including a Terran faction that fled the British Isles on Earth for political, economic and religious reasons during the Terran Global Economic Disaster of 2459. They settled in the orbit of a gas giant rich in resources. From the giant’s rings, they harvested water in copious amounts, so much so that subsequent settlers to the system were obliged to do commerce with the Albion Extraction Cooperative (AEC), the only formal organization that tied the settlers together.

As time wore on, and galactic and local conflicts took their toll, the AEC grew in its power. By the early 2600s, AEC controlled all commerce in the system and the myriad surrounding systems. But with great wealth comes the great temptation to steal such wealth. Pirate activity at the fringes of AEC systems increased dramatically over the decades, coming to a head with the destruction of the Port York Station in 2698. This galvanized the AEC into action. It was not the action the populace expected.

The settlers and citizens wanted a strong leader. AEC’s corporate board appointed Leon Seamus Gola to the crown of the First Kingdom of Albion. Titles of nobility were given to planetary governors, and Albion's many worlds and space habitats were assigned to fiefs under these nobles. The AEC’s defensive fleets were reorganized into strike forces that hunted down the pirate bands, systematically destroying them in space and on the ground. This campaign lasted for three years, culminating in the mass driver annihilation of the Urtan pirates’ trio of planetary bases.

This brutal suppression campaign spilled over into Albion society, with the nobles crushing any dissent. When protests erupted a decade after the pirates’ destruction, the First Kingdom responded with increasingly draconian measures--suspension of free speech and the right to assemble, arrests, torture, detention by secret police, and finally, the massacre of protestors at a major arts and science university on Albion Prime.

What had been a burgeoning civil rights movement blossomed into full-fledged civil war. Several military units, including Special Forces companies tasked with rooting out the protest movement, instead joined with them and provided weaponry, tactics training, and military intelligence. The movement spread across First Kingdom space, encompassing all worlds and settlements of the Albionites. For six years the Kingdom was locked in a bitter struggle with its own citizens who refused to bow to a new era of royal oppression.

It was not until James and Ara Yost-Kirana betrayed the leadership for the promise of safety for their own colony that the Kingdom made significant inroads toward the defeat of the rebels. Within eight months, their organization was infiltrated, poisoned, and torn apart. There was no final grand battle between opposing forces; rather, the rebellion died with a whimper as its leaders turned on each other, tricked into assassination and blackmail by the secret police of the Kingdom.

Second Kingdom

In the aftermath, the Second Kingdom of King Faraday II rebuilt from the devastation of the war, and he was wise in not only prosecuting his own military leaders for war crimes but also showing leniency to a wide swath of rebels. He pushed for reconciliation between the parties, appointing rebels and old guard AEC descendants into positions of importance. Together, they expanded the Second Kingdom even further, seeking trade routes to distant empires and pushing their borders with grand exploratory fleets.

It was this expansion that drew the attention of the Cybers.

Next...Albion and the Cybernetic Rebellion

Author Steve Rzasa

Steve Rzasa is a member of the Takamo Universe writers gang. He has written two Takamo Universe novels including Empire's Rift. He has written numerous novels of speculative fiction and was first published in 2009. His work includes four space opera and two steampunk tales through Enclave Publishing, including The Word Endangered, and a sci-fi murder mystery set with Castalia House. He has self-published a fantasy novel, The Bloodheart, and a science-fiction tale, For Us Humans. 

His debut novel, The Word Reclaimed, was a finalist for the American Christian Fiction Writers award for Best Speculative Fiction in 2010. His third novel, Broken Sight, won this award in 2012. His short story In the Bag, set in the world of his steampunk novels Crosswind and Sandstorm, won the 2012 flash fiction contest for the Denver Chapter of ACFW. 

Steve received his bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University and worked for eight years at newspapers in Maine and Wyoming. He’s been a librarian since 2008, and received his Library Support Staff Certification from the American Library Association in 2014—one of only 100 graduates nationwide and four in Wyoming.

He is the technical services librarian in Buffalo, Wyoming, where he lives with his wife and two boys. Steve’s a fan of all things science-fiction and is a student of history.

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By Steve Rzasa

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