Starlit Court History: Difference between revisions

==The Lutrian War (800-799)==

While traveling through space the Court encountered a world in turmoil. Its atmosphere was polluted, disease was rampant, and it was caught in the throws of a bloody civil war. The people were oppressed, enslaved by extraplanetary ruling class of slavers who lived in luxury. The Lutrian people had risen up shortly after we made contact with the planet, there is some debate if this was a simple coincidence or if our arrival was seen as an opportunity to cast off their oppressors.

The Court initially remained neutral in the face of this conflict, refusing to get involved. As the war raged, Court observers saw the courage and fighting spirit of the Lutrain people; standing up to vastly technologically superior masters despite the odds. Members of the court began to admire the Lutrians. At the same time, demands and general friction with the slave masters had strained the Court's diplomats patience, and prodded the Grand Masters last nerve.

In a unanimous vote by the Council of Elders and Grand Masters, the Startlit Court declared war on the Slave masters, siting numerous insults and slights toward the court, and the liberation of an oppressed people. It is to be noted, that several Grand Masters all but publicly urged Council of Elders to engage in the war to alleviate a growing sense of discontent or even boredom among court knights. With the Starlit Court joining entering the conflict, the revolution came to a sudden and abrupt end. The slave masters had grown used to slaughtering poorly armed and organized rebels, and in turn were crushed under the full mechanized might of the Knightly Orders.

The Court's intervention brought an end to three months of war, and for the remainder of the year the Court remained near the planet to negotiate peace. Impressed by their deeds on the battlefield, the Court's leadership offered the Lutrians a place aboard Sihi as full citizens and equals. Seeking a future and world that had not been destroyed by their former masters. By the end of 799 the Lutrians had either migrated aboard Sihi or constructed numerous ships to join the flotilla, joining the Starlit Court and embracing the Starlit Path.

==The Najan Adoption (635-632)==

The court had entered a sector containing the planet Najaran, home to the Najan people, in 643. Najaran was an ecologically unstable world, and the situation had only been growing worse in recent history. The Najan faced constant floods and rising sea levels as Najaran's ice caps had begun to melt. Worse yet, the Najan had devolved into a state of strife and infighting. Two major factions had come to power, some seeking to wreap what they could from the flooding world and endure, the others wishing to flee to the stars and start anew in full fledged space colonies rather than the limited resource colonies the Najan were used to building.

Members of the court who saw kindred spirits within the Najan urged Court's Leadership to intervene and help the Najan just as they had the Lutrians some century and a half earlier. Many people of the Court believed there was a kinship between the Najan and the Court, both were primarily warrior cultures, and the primarily faith of the Najan resembled the Starlit Path in many ways. The Courts leadership was split on the subject for some time, some were hesitant that Najan religious beliefs, particularly the worship of the war gods Hydros, Jormanger, and Dracos (representing Deception, Victory, and Savagery respectively) would seep into practices of the Starlit path and corrupt it. Others sited that while the Najan had an extensive warrior class, that the were far more aggressive and undisciplined compared to the warrior culture of the Court.

Ultimately, the Court's leadership decided to intervene, following the argument that the High King himself had intervened to turn the bitter hardened warriors of the dead world Elentar to create the Starlit court in the first place. Initially the Court simply offered to evacuate those who sought a future off world onto Sihi and grant them asylum, and an operation of evacuation and relocation was launched. However, the relief forces deployed to Najaran were met with violence, and the Court was left with no recourse but to deploy the Knightly Orders. Over the next few years the court successfully defeated the opposition to evacuation, and extricated countless Najan before leaving Najaran to its ultimate fate.

==Encountering the Light (581)==

In 581 a Bright light is seen off in the distance of space, many on Sihi believe that it could be a sign from the High King that there was the location of Grail. After much debate, Sihi's heading is changed to persue the origon of The Light.

==The Soul Schism (580-574)==

After the decision to change heading toward The Light, there was a major split among Court polotics on the subject of the spirtual and secular. Ever since the departure of the High King, there was a lingering argument among the Court as to the nature of the High King and the Starlit path. Some belived that the High King was a divine figure and that the Starlit path was a set of religous commandments. These people eventually grew into the Spritualist movement, and argued most feircly for the change in course after encountering the Light. On the other end of things, there were those who belived that the High King was just a person and both the path and the court were at most philosophical and political constructs. These people became known as the seculatists.

Tensions between the Secularists and Spirutalists had built up over hundreds of years of small squabbles, and rivalries, growing and growing into full blown factiaonism. The split ran through all levels of society and species across the Court, from the highest halls of govornment, to the smallest bars and tarverns on Sihi. Everyone on Sihi had some stake in the split, perfering one side to the other in small ways if not outright picking a side.

===The Silence===

In an attempt to move the Secularist and Spirtualist split from the political scene, the Ruling Body of the court turned to the source of the strife; the Light. The Court's Leadership fed all data the Court had on the Light into La Fae, charging the Gestalt spirit with deciphering the information and putting an end to this Schism. However, when the data was transfered; La Fae went silent, and was presumed damaged or destroyed. Spiritualists saw this as an apocolyptic omen, and the Secularists an incalculable waste of an irreplacable treasure.

===The Emergence of the Sidhe (578)===

As political trumoil broke out following the Silence; a hithertoo unseen kind of Fae emurged from Castle Sihi and the Mounds inhabiting crude machines. These Fae called themselves the Sidhe, and urged the people of Sihi to remain calm, and not to come to blows. The emergence of the Sidhe had a notable calming effect, as most interpreted their arrival as a sign that La Fae and the Unseelie court had not been destored by the Silence, but ultimately their intevention only delayed the inevitable.

==The Civil War (574 - 572)==

Despite the best efforts of many, the chaos brought on by the Schism boiled over into full blown armed conflict and civil war. In the months leading up to the conflict, dozens of fights, duels, and small skirmishes between Knights, commoners, and even monks all across the court. The exact inciting incident is unknown, but most claim the war began when two Grandmasters who were in the midst of bidding for a contract struck each other in The West Wing. Despite being broken up quickly, word of the skirmish spread quickly around the court, causing a cascade of ever escalating brawls. Luckily, at the time many Grandmasters had bid their Orders services at lower than normal rates leading up to the civil war to claim greater honor for their chosen faction, often underbidding their rivals. This left the bulk of Knightly orders had been deployed on mercenary contracs, leaving few military assets on or near Sihi, limiting the intial intencity of the conflcit.

===The Battle at Hanger 38 (574)===

The secularists crew of a strike craft docked at Hanger 37 rallied behind their order’s knights and assaulted the crew of a mech carrier docked in neighboring hangar 38. What started as a skirmish and boarding action escalated into a full blown shoot out and dogfight in and above Sihi. While the winner of this engagement has been lost to history, this marked the first military action of the Civil War.

===The Race for Sihi===

As information reached the remote fleets on deployment a series of dozens of battles and skirmishes broke out between spiritualist and secularist aligned orders, ultimately resulting in a rush to return to sihi and establish control of its nearby orbital space. Dozens of contracts were defaulted on, or finished in sloppy rush jobs, harming the courts reputation as mercenaries for years to come. While numerous orders that had no interest in debates of the spiritual and secular were quickly drawn to one side of the conflict or another by bonds of honor to those who had already chosen a side. The majority of conflicts were brief hit and run skirmishes while the fleets massed and mustered at major travel hubs alongside faction allegiances.

===The Strife of Camlann===

The conflict quickly spread into Camlann and the four wards. The knightly orders that still had their mechs quickly retreated to more secure locations and fortresses within the Wards, while others rapidly assembled armed militias and fought bitter street to street warfare through the great city. Castle Sihi’ automated security systems awakened in response to the armed conflict taking place within its halls, turning weapons on all participants, driving both factions from its halls before initiating a full lockdown with only a small skeleton crew composed of those who had not taken up arms trapped inside.

===The Realm Sundering (573)===

Just over a year into the conflict spiritualist and secularist massed in The Golden Valley and The Nimuen, converging in the first battle to see full deployments of Court mechs on both sides in Sihi since the beginning of the conflict. The battle came to a sudden end when just outside of Realms Keep, Syr Dalion’s mech the ‘Gravewalker’ suffered a cataclysmic chain reaction when an autocannon round caused it’s ammunition racks to ignite, overheating it’s reactor. The Gravewalker exploded with enough force to tear a hole in Sihi’s bulkhead, tearign through enough armor and interrior decks to expose the interior of the station to the void of space.

Numerous combatants from both sides of the conflict drop arms and rush to plug the hole in the station, eventually piling mechs into the breach. Several combatants that fire on those attempting to seal the hole have their mechs suddenly shut down, the Fae revolting against the shameful practice of their knights. Numerous Sidhe emurged, risking the battlefeild to broadcast a message from Lae Fae demanding a ceace fire. After having witnessed the near destruction of their home, and urged on by the apparent demands of La Fae, the Grandmasters issued a general ceace fire order across the entirety of the Court. Several small battles were fought by forces outside of Sihi for two months after the Ceacefire was called due to lag in communications. Castle Sihi remained shut for another 4 months until all remaining orders had reported all clear signals.

Peace was officially established in a council mediated by La Fae and those who had been locked in Castle Sihi for the duration of the conflict. Numerous knights are sent off on pennitance quests: dangerous but high value missions meant to redeem the knights through victory despite extreme odds or honorable death. The Grand Tourney system was established as an official place for tensions to be resolved between knightly orders to help prevent another escalation of arms like this one.