Elharnian Combine

The Elharnian Combine is technically one of the oldest governments still in existence. The original Elharnian Combine was actually in existence since shortly before the fall of the Progenitors. Unfortunately by the time the Theban Cluster encountered the Elharnians they had slid back technology wise to a 1950’s style technology level although they did have a somewhat limited chemically fueled space presence.

Sometime between the fall of the Ancient Thebans and approximately 2500 years before the arrival of the Theban Cluster the Elharnians had split into three factions, one of these factions was very similar to the United States of old Earth pre-UEF, while another faction could almost be considered communistic, the third faction however was a militant religious faction that believed the Elharnians should conquer the universe and prepare it for the final days [it should be noted that a faction of the third polity created he Blue Society detailed in a later entry].

At some point a horrendous war broke out that killed nearly 75% of the Elharnian population and left their moon Sentillos heavily irradiated.

The reason the moon was irradiated however is due to the fact that the Ancient Thebans had left a depot of reserve vessels their and the Antiphilus Republic [the U.S. style faction] hard pressed by both the Segonus Society and the Entargan Union deemed it necessary to evacuate the moon and use low yield high radiation nuclear weapons that would leave the moon uninhabitable for over 30,000 years.

When the Thermopylae reached Elharnia the factions were in a finely balanced stalemate with none of the three sides able to get a leg up on the others. Initial contact with the Elharnians was with the Entargan Union who demanded they hand over their vessel and surrender to them.

Naturally somewhat unhappy with the demands of the Entargans the Captain of the vessel [Colonel Jack Sikorsky] easily blew the vessel out of orbit and took the dozen or so Entargans on his vessel as prisoners.

Shortly after the Entargan vessel was destroyed the Antiphilus Republic contacted the Thermopylae and was able to download the past 1000 years or so of history. After studying the data the command crew of the Thermopylae decided to weigh in on the side of the Antiphilans what followed was a short brutal war that lasted shortly over a year with the Antiphilans and the Thebans smashing the other two factions and re-uniting the planet as a whole.

After the short campaign the Thebans helped build radiation extractors for the moon where the pre-factionalism shipyards had been and the Ancient Theban Reserve Fleet.

To this day the Elharnians are a strong ally of the Theban Cluster and provide the galaxy with beautifully crafted artworks and has some of the best swordsmen in the galaxy.

The Confederacy of United Systems was created shortly after the 7th Pan-Galactic War [or Quisling War] when the loss of life and so many smaller systems to the Quisling threat showed that individual systems even as part of the ISL meant hardly any protection whatsoever [although the ISL does still exist and probably will as new starter colonies come along].

The CUS came along to fill the gap as system’s formed alliances and created new larger but still small star nations.

These reformed star nations then created a confederacy of mutual protection and commerce. The Combine’s citizenry consists of over 91% Terragen Elharnian, with another 8% non-Elharnian Terragen and 1% non-Terragen. With their long lives but short reproductive cycle the Elharnians have an odd outlook on life, when in their youth they have a tendency to be reckless and full of too much energy, this often causes large surges in the Elharnian population but as the Elharnian mature they have a tendency to slow down and learn to appreciate things and take greater notice and interaction with the galaxy at large.

Some believe that Elharnians are glacially slow with things [except when it comes to war], however what most don’t understand is that with their 4+ millenia life spans they like to take the long look at what is going on around them and how their decisions will impact the galaxy at large. Not really social classes the Elharnian Combine has three very distinct cultural/age stratifications in their society, the first of these are those that range in age from approximately 75-400 years of age; these are the young and still able to reproduce Elharnians that are very willing to accept new things, and new concepts and are considered too wild by the eldest of the Elharnians [although the Elharnian have recently begun to increase the age range on their fertility].

The second stratification is those Elharnian that range from the age of about 1,000 to 3,000 years of age and are those that have found themselves careers and have finished raising their families, the government, military, and industry is replete with these individuals, this age class also is more willing to accept change over the older Elharnians but tend to weigh the decisions they make more than the younger generations.

The third and final age stratification is the eldest of the Elharnians [3000+ years of age], these are individuals that still remember the days before the Theban Cluster arrived when their world was split by three separate factions.

These eldest of the Elharnian are generally retired or have reached the pinnacle of their area of expertise but are very set and stuck in their ways and are very resistant to change around them, although this is starting to slowly change as the eldest of the Elharnian pass away and are replaced by members of the younger age stratification. Families are very odd in the Elharnian Combine, since Elharnians are generally only fertile to around the age of 400 or so and as such they have a tendency from the ages of about 300-400 years of age to be fairly family oriented [once they have passed their wild days phase of youth], Elharnian families generally have several children over a 100 to 150 year range with the whole family helping to raise the youngest children.

However once an Elharnian Generally reaches the age of four hundred or so the parents start to drift apart [usually amicably although some couples do stick it out for another few hundred years] and generally either stay married and focus on their careers or move on to other relationships. Religion is an ever evolving thing in the Combine with the Elharnians having a pantheon of gods similar to that of ancient Greece, although generally their gods focus more on the lighter side of things, such as music, intelligence, dance, and the like and it isn’t uncommon for an Elharnian to change what god they worship over the span of their lives. The main language of the Combine is Elharn with Modern Theban being taught and used as a trade language, although a lot of religions still use the older E’Celticre language which oddly enough has quite a bit in common with Celtic. Performance Entertainment - The Elharnians prefer less rough but no less energetic sports to keep themselves entertained, their sport activities run more along the lines of Olympic style games.

Competitive Sports - GRAV-DISC is very popular in the combine due to its very graceful but fast paced movement. The Elharnians are masters of making sculptures from glass and perma-frozen ice and also have a taste for oil based paintings. The Elharnians Technology base is only slightly less advanced than that of the Theban Clusters with their technology excelling in the fields of Magnetic Propulsion Systems, Flechette Weaponry, and genetics related to fertility and life prolongation. The Elharnians cities and architecture are stunning things of beauty with their cities looking like tall thin spires of beautiful multi-colored glasses and metals. While they don’t completely hate magic their attitude towards it is that it is not clean enough or organized enough to be considered a proper application of time and effort. Elharnians have very clear attitudes towards Esper abilities, Esper abilities are a gift not a right and all Elharnians are taught from a young age to respect them. All Elharnians have inherent Esper abilities of one degree or another. The Combine includes approximately 300,000 systems with over 3 Million planets.

The following is a list of the Star Nations that belong to the EC.The following is a list of some of the best-known systems - The Elharnian Combine has two branches of military the Navy and the Marine Corps. The following section will describe both these branc The Combine Navy follows the same basic pattern as that of the Theban Cluster Fleet with a single fleet for every 1,000 systems in the star nation they currently have 300 active duty fleets although not all fleets are currently up to strength.

The ECN consists of Support personnel that staff the stations and build the ships as well as the logistics fleets, training and reserve personnel, and battle fleet person Uniforms of the CNF consist of a mono-film duty suit; the mono-film duty suit’s coloring is white and cream with gold piping and the reinforced soles and heels are a dark gray color.

The reinforcing for the built in sole covers the toes and the back of the heel, and there is a panel of Cream that runs around the top edge of the toes and approximately halfway back on the sides and then the panel becomes white.

Starting at mid-thigh on the outsides, a cream paneling starts that runs all the way up the sides of the duty suit and covers the arms in the same color. The rest of the duty suit is of the white color with rectangular panels of cream running from the collar [which itself is reinforced and of a dark gray color similar to that of the shoe soles] to just above the waist. All the cream panels have the gold piping around the edges the wrists about halfway up the forearm are also dark gray as are the suits integral gloves.

The second part of the uniform for men is a tunic with matching color scheme of the duty suit that magnetically seals at the waist to the duty suit, for women a single piece dress like uniform is worn over the duty suit.

Both male and female members of the ECN wear a hip length jacket that has a pyramidal cut at the lower portion of the jacket all the way to the waist and at the chest/breast area is a diamond shaped section cut out of the jacket.

The jacket has extremely pointed thick padded shoulders that cause them to stand up to the sides and the sleeves are of the cream color with dark gray at the wrists and forearms and piped in gold with a high open collar that comes to just below the chin.

Rank insignia is present on the forward part of the shoulders and at the cuffs of the uniform; division and branch patches are worn on the right shoulder while the star nation flag is worn on the left shoulder below the padded shoulders. On either side of the collar are additional rank pins that are actually personal IFF transponders.

The duty suit is made of mono-film and has Damage Deflection 1 while the uniform and uniform jacket are made of a mixture of silk and liquid Nanno-carbons that stiffen on impact.

Dress uniforms pretty much consist of the same thing save that, the jacket is longer and more ornate than the standard one and a standard uniform cap like a captain’s one with a White body and Cream brim with gold piping. The heels of the duty suit are much higher with an almost cowboy style heel on the men’s and a stiletto style heel on the women’s.

The ECN has a number of strategic assets such as 4 shipyards, 300 Aries-Class space stations located at the heart of each sector and is used to service, supply, and train them. The space stations each have an inherent shipyard capability but the Confederacy Navy relies on five military shipyards spread throughout the Confederacy in times of war and heavy ship losses the space stations start operating their shipyards and the three major civilian shipyards are also pressed into service to manufacture and repair ships.

The military shipyards are set up to mirror each other.

The Combine Navy operates the following strategic assets.

Over its long history, the Combine Navy has used hundreds of different weapons and armor some of which are still in service [albeit either as training aids or stowed away in some soldier’s locker]. The Elharnian Combine Marines are the only planet and ship based multi-purpose troops used by the Elharnian Combine and are heavily based off of the Theban Cluster Fleet Marine Corps, the on major difference between the two is that the ECM controls any and all small craft aboard ships and space stations rather than Naval personnel. Uniforms of the ECM consist of a mono-film duty suit; the mono-film duty suit’s coloring is green and brown with silver piping and the reinforced soles and heels are a dark gray color.

The reinforcing for the built in sole covers the toes and the back of the heel, and there is a panel of brown that runs around the top edge of the toes and approximately halfway back on the sides and then the panel becomes Green.

Starting at mid-thigh on the outsides, a Brown paneling starts that runs all the way up the sides of the duty suit and covers the arms in the same color. The rest of the duty suit is of the Green color with rectangular panels of Brown running from the collar [which itself is reinforced and of a dark gray color similar to that of the shoe soles] to just above the waist. All the Brown panels have the Silver piping around the edges the wrists about halfway up the forearm are also dark gray as are the suits integral gloves.

The second part of the uniform for men is a tunic with matching color scheme of the duty suit that magnetically seals at the waist to the duty suit, for women a single piece dress like uniform is worn over the duty suit.

Both male and female members of the ECN wear a hip length jacket that has a pyramidal cut at the lower portion of the jacket all the way to the waist and at the chest/breast area is a diamond shaped section cut out of the jacket.

The jacket has extremely pointed thick padded shoulders that cause them to stand up to the sides and the sleeves are of the Brown color with dark gray at the wrists and forearms and piped in Silver with a high open collar that comes to just below the chin.

Rank insignia is present on the forward part of the shoulders and at the cuffs of the uniform; division and branch patches are worn on the right shoulder while the star nation flag is worn on the left shoulder below the padded shoulders. On either side of the collar are additional rank pins that are actually personal IFF transponders.

The duty suit is made of mono-film and has Damage Deflection 1 while the uniform and uniform jacket are made of a mixture of silk and liquid Nanno-carbons that stiffen on impact.

Dress uniforms pretty much consist of the same thing save that, the jacket is longer and more ornate than the standard one and a standard uniform cap like a captain’s one with a Green body and Brown brim with Silver piping. The heels of the duty suit are much higher with an almost cowboy style heel on the men’s and a stiletto style heel on the women’s.

Over its long history, the Elharnian Combine Marines have used hundreds of different weapons and armor some of which are still in service [albeit either as training aids or stowed away in some soldier’s locker].