RE the above posts - as much as I think players should let off mods for not updating and providing their free content on time, I also think mods should show gratitude when players spend hours contributing their own free content...
That's nice Daft, but when I think something is dumb/vetoed I'll call it dumb/vetoed; fairly, bluntly, and directly to its face. When you have a completely created game world you need to do that - unlike a historical NES, the NESers have no other source of information than me. As people who've played SysNES can attest, when I send orders back with "That's dumb, change it" I always give the time and opportunity to rework, and am eternally patient.
Plus I said the thrust of the idea is fine - that's high praise
.
I won't try and contort the game I'm running to allow the impossible (in my view) to occur just because someones written a story or really really wants something in their orders.
More backstory:
Datha of the Hundred Moons had been this sector of spaces premier cultural centre since the first glimmers of light in the post Tumult Dark Age. A delightful Gaian world attended by dozens of Ceres-sized world-housed satellites (most moved artificially, an expensive aesthetic choice to move such large bodies into position, but one which pays off in maintenance in the problem ages), by the time of its ending over a trillion individuals living within a bubble a few light seconds across. Its services, scenery and lifestyle made it an important stop on the Worldship routes (some even staying and adding a new moon to the sky). Hundreds of minor systems saw Dathic resource extraction operations and most of the other developed worlds of the sector had strong links with the system (indeed seeing much migration out). When sector wide coordination was needed, like halting the X|! Migration or putting down the pirate fleet of Krall the Magnificent it was inevitably orchestrated from a conference on Datha.
But in time Datha grew proud, though perfectly democratic and kind within itself, the sheer splendour of their home made it hard for the Dathics to conceive of those beyond its moons having a valid opinion. The resources volunteered by other high technology systems for the common defence were expropriated for Dathas ends and other systems grew resentful.
One such system was the
Apeilic Iris home to the sectors most important military asset, the Iris itself. An annular plasma array a hundred light hours across, its multi-coloured aurora stripped the natural antimatter of a windy blue supergiants flow into its white dwarf partner. Founded by a consortium of corporations from many worlds (including Datha) its inhabitants had revolted and become independent some six hundred years ago, selling antimatter and their energy expertise to every planet in the sector competent enough to take advantage of it. The shining halo of wealthy habitats had but a few hundred million persons to stand against the Dathic billions.
The war, as every war did, began over a disagreement; a Dathic fleets tactless commander trying to get an Antimatter shipment for far below the market price leading to several veiled threats being offered, threats that panicking captains carried despite the commanders intent when the power of the Iris field itself was turned against their ships to drive them off, destroying a habitat, and seeing the fleet smashed in turn. Outrage in Datha lead to another fleet being dispatched and barely defeated (the Dathics however still taking care to avoid civilian causalities at this point), the Apeilic counterattack to destroy one of the Dathic battlemoons as a warning show of force failing to completely atomise it as they intended and the resultant fragments killing three hundred billion on the other moons, inevitably causing the declaration of Total War.
Every other high technology system in the sector lined up behind either Datha or the Iris, with the lower technology societies and world ship traders running for cover or being annihilated. After a long conflict the war ended with the incineration of Datha by a Apeilic induced solar flare, a crime that still has the Iris conflicted to this day, and domination of the sector by the Apeilics and their client worlds (which they have to rely on rather more than Datha did, and the need to keep them on side informs the Apeilic light but firm law and order approach).
Rewriting Thlaylis (because Im like that):
Elric Standard was an adventurer, military leader, freebooter, homesteader, and all-around antihero that came
during the death of the Datha Commonwealth. Insofar as a dying nation which had outlived its purpose could have had a symbol, he was one.
He was born on the planet Standard,
a marginal biosphere close to Datha itself. Being so close saw decades of mismanagement and utter neglect, the elites always planning their careers in the capital and leaving as soon as possible, which managed to instill a hatred of central authority in the minds of the
bitter leftover people. Effective resistance was impossible for generations until the terraforming work progressed far enough to allow the colonists to spread into the hinterlands.
Elric Standard started his career as a guerilla caudillo-cum-philosopher
-cum-arsehole-Randian-Castro, writing impassioned tracts on the imperative of human freedom from the oppressive oligarchies that all centralized states inevitably become, while bombing government convoys. The critical failing of the Central Committee of Standard was considering Elric as a lawbreaker rather than a revolutionary. The rural colonist homesteads of the planet were the first to flock to Elric's standard, (
Thlayli's submission was built around this joke) which gave Elric's Standard Confederacy its subsequent freebooting, agriculturalist, libertarian aesthetic.
The only place where the libertarian philosophy had to be dispensed with was the formation of an army, which began with parties of well-armed homesteaders turning their weapons from hunting local megafauna to hunting the toadies of the Central Committee. Elric's genius as a tactician became clear, driving government forces out of all but the few spaceport cities on the planet after a few years of fighting.
Capturing the ideals of some of Dathas sophisticates gave him out-system supporters and the Commonwealth had bigger things to think about than a government change on an unimportant world. And so, the Standard Revolution reached its inevitable completion. Besides a few targeted purges of socialist ideologues, the changeover was relatively orderly.
Because of Standard's
tiny population, most of which was swept up in the romance of Elric's cause, the change in society was swift. Government was reduced to a planetary defense council (headed by Elric, who retained his revolutionary title of Commodore,) a small domestic anti-corruption organization to prevent private monopolies, and little else. The oppressively high number of environmental and business regulations,
ironically instituted by the same bleeding heart factions in Datha that now supported Elrics romanticism, were abolished. Elric, unwilling to risk his revolution, renegotiated the arrangement with Datha and Standard remained a client world.
Elric did a bunch of nonsensical and stupid economic policies, including an abolishing of currency that he had to speedily step back from, but the removal of the old restrictions more than compensated for the damage done. A large number of smugglers often called at Standard for repairs in the back hills and the Standard towns soon became very adept at jury rigging things together. The outbreak of the war saw a brief renaissance in the Standard economy as millions fled Datha and stopped on the way, often having to leave behind all manner of equipment and buying lots of foodstuffs. Eventually even several Dathic operations were launched out of Standard, bringing along Standard mercenaries as prize irregular ground troops.
This unfortunately raised Standards profile sufficiently that the Iris felt they needed to seize it, and dispatched a Salamander Battleship and its attendant fleet to control the system. It is here that Elrics most famous act came into the universe, though having little sympathy for the Dathics, his ego could hardly allow some foreign power to occupy Standard. A rag-tag fleet of smugglers ships and military surplus managed via stealth and trickery to bring down the Salamander, an accolade shared only with a Dathic Battlemoon, and brought Standard a few more years of freedom.
The Apeilics didnt forget however, and after Datha burned Standard found itself host to another party of uninvited guests. After swatting away the space fleet a long ground campaign ensued, the Apeilics perhaps afraid of their own destructive powers after Datha. The ground campaign was made frustrating for the Apeilic commanders by the crazy and resourceful Standard frontiersmen but ultimately they succeeded.
Commodore Elric himself was captured and tried for war crimes (
ironically charged as a General-Rank Dathic Commander) and was executed, still making revolutionary speeches from the gallows. Making the Commodore a martyr of course ensured that his cause would transcend his own lifetime. And so, the ragged remnants of the Commodore's old fleet and a crop of refugees from Standard, embittered Confederacy warriors passed beyond the pale to build a shining beacon of real freedom, not simply its illusion, that they hope will one day eclipse the Iris and oppressive autarky everywhere...and get revenge.
No one takes them seriously as they go 
