Champions of the Empire

Subject

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Pacification Campaigns, The (5545-5689) - A series of economic, diplomatic, and military operations directed at forcing membership in the Imperium upon those worlds which resisted the initial efforts to annex them.

Although the campaigns were predominantly economic and diplomatic in nature, the Imperium was not adverse to using force when peaceful methods failed. Imperial battlefleets and ground forces rarely failed when brought to bear.

By 5689, the pacification campaigns ended, and the initial phase of the Imperium's growth came to a close.

Four specific Pacification Campaigns were undertaken, each by a Grand Duke of the Imperium. The Vilani Pacification Campaign was targeted at portions of Dagudashaag and Gushemege sectors. The Ilelish Pacification Campaign was aimed at the Darmine region. The Antarean Pacification Campaign hit much of Lishun sector. The Sylean Pacification Campaign operated in Delphi and Fornast sectors.

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Phoenix Project - Reported plot by Solomani guerrillas on Terra to destroy Imperial forces occupying Terra. Imperial intelligence reported penetration of the project command in 1045 *[hey steve, this date has got to be wrong, but i don't know what you want to use.] *, with subsequent compromise of its basic plans and dismantling of its structure.

The Phoenix Project was supposedly born in the final years of the Solomani Rim War (6459-6471) as Solomani leaders saw the possibility of their defeat and the loss of the homeworld to the invading Imperials. The project was said to have consisted of two distinct parts: prepositioned caches of military goods to supply the coming uprising and a continuing program for the training of guerrillas.

The caches were concealed in many different places on Terra in areas calculated to preclude accidental discovery over the years. Each cache contained large quantities of munitions, weapons, vehicles, and medical supplies, all of varying technological levels so as to be of use regardless of the technical knowledge of the users. Each cache was hidden with its location entrusted to a single local family. These families were to form the core of the guerrilla forces when the rising was to take place.

A massive Imperial counter-guerrilla effort in 6503 to 6508 was directed at the discovery and destruction of the caches and the arrest of the families entrusted to with their secrets.

Persistent rumors of two additional aspects of the project - Lambda (a codeword to trigger the uprising) and Omega (the reinforcement of the uprising by offworld Solomani) - have been dismissed as baseless by Imperial officials.

Many historians believe that the extent of the plot was greatly exaggerated by Imperial authorities, and hold that it was little more than an extreme example of wishful thinking on the part of the Solomani leadership. At any rate, the Phoenix Project no longer threatens the security of the Imperium, if indeed it ever did.

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Psionic Suppressions (6279-6305) - Between 6241 and 6267, a series of financial, ethical, and moral scandals within the Psionics Institutes of the Imperium shifted public opinion against the Institutes. At the same time, it became clear that a good number of the Institutes were under the control of the Zhodani Consulate. In 6269, the Imperium moved against the institutes by canceling their charters, jailing their leaders, and passing laws restricting the teaching or practice of psionics. Many institute figures went underground to espouse their cause in a type of guerrilla war.

The Psionic Suppressions had a profound influence on Imperial opinion. Over the course of 26 years, the Suppressions equated psionics with the Zhodani and established in the average Imperial citizen a distaste for both that continues in the present day. The average citizen will admit to a general dislike of psionics, and if pressed, will usually state that psionics violates a person's right of mental privacy.

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Psionics Institute - Any clandestine organization devoted to the illegal training of individuals in the use of psionic talents. Active Imperial campaigns to eradicate the institutes have been pursued for over 200 years.

Organizations of this nature have existed since before the advent of space travel, but they attained prominence only during the Long Night, when reproducible scientific discoveries made psionics a teachable, learnable science.

In the Imperial antebellum period, psionics institutes were rare, and they were formed only on a few scattered worlds which, for one reason or another, had an unusually high rate of psionic talents appearing, or which encouraged psionics for social, political, or commercial reasons. In the years after the Civil War, institutes were organized on most high population worlds within the Imperium.

Psionics institute is a generic name; each such institution was independently organized and maintained. Institutes were generally supported by that portion of the population which had psionic talents; since that portion was small, they were viable only on high population worlds (approximately one billion or more).

During the psionics suppressions, the institutes' charters were revoked, and talented individuals were persecuted. In some cases, the individuals fled to assume new identities on other worlds; in others, whole families emigrated to the Zhodani Consulate or to other places beyond the frontiers of the Imperium.

Following the psionics suppressions, there were theoretically no psionics institutes remaining. In practice, however, illegal underground institutes are rumored to still remain on many worlds.

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Psionics - The criminal use of mental powers for the manipulation of matter and energy and for communication. It has been demonstrated that minds (human or nonhuman, conscious or unconscious, intelligent or unintelligent) contain some capacity to operate without apparent use of physical facilities. For an individual to seek out such training is a criminal act.

Until circa 5350, psionics was little studied in most regions except on a disorganized level (parapsychology, the occult, spiritualism, and so on). It was known and practiced among the Zhodani and by some minor races, but it was by no means widespread.

However, during the Long Night, many races, (human and others) turned introspective. As a result, many finally began to engage in serious research in psionics, which revealed much about the empirical nature of the phenomenon, although the principles involved were, and remain, little understood.

However, even though it assumed scientific validity, psionics remained a backwater science until about 6100, when it underwent a tremendous burst of popularity. Psionics within the Imperium reached its peak in the latter half of the 61st century. In the 6260s, however, the crest of popular opinion broke with the revelation of scandals within the Psionics Institutes; the result was the psionics suppressions (6269-6295 and beyond), which shifted public opinion away from support of psionics.

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Psychohistory - The science of historical prediction and macrosocial manipulation. The main thesis of psychohistory is that the actions of trillions of individuals take on a fluidity and predictability which can be compared to that of molecules in a gas. The very size of the population being dealt with factors out individual peculiarities and allows the prediction of its behavior. With the ability to predict the reaction of a population to a particular stimulus comes the ability to manipulate that population, psychohistorians reason.

Psychohistory began as a combination of public relations/advertising techniques and behaviorial science, and although its techniques have been put on a more rigorous footing, the basic principles are still not well understood. A number of minor experiments have confirmed the general validity of the science, but it was also shown to be too expensive to be of any practical utility. Research continues at a small number of Imperial universities.

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