History

Back in the mid 21st century (Terran reckoning) when the European Space Agency was hollowing out asteroids for the sub-light colony transports destined to settle the Island Clusters in the Great Rift, the North American Space Agency with Canadian, Australian, Japanese and Russian partners constructed a fleet of much smaller, more conventional vessels using bussard rams. A group of these left Earth in 2048 AD (-2450 Imperial) and headed out into the unknown. Many vessels from this armada sadly failed to reach their planned for destinations.

In 3428 AD (-1090 Imperial) a number of vessels which did succeed in their missions decelerated from their maximum cruising velocity of around 0.25c into the Alston starsystem.

It was lucky for the colonists that at the time the Terran colony ships were entering the region that the Aslan Border Wars were in full flame, and that the Aslan's attention was turned away from the sparsely populated worlds of the Banners sector.

What the colonists found on Alston was a planet with a breathable atmosphere, plenty of water and very Earth-like conditions, though the temperature variation was somewhat more than on Earth. In addition the world had an abundance of native life forms but no sentience had developed. Development proceeded apace.

The initial settlements centered around a bay south of the present city of Jana and as the colony adapted to the world and grew the population spilt out over the rest of the planet. The tech level of the world continued to slowly decline, finally stabilising at TL5.

The tech level decline led to a shift in the political climate of the colony. By 3650 AD (-868 Imperial) the original equipment after two centuries of use was worn out, only the descendants of the original technicians knew anything about how to repair the high tech equipment and spare parts were virtually non existent. A typical Feudal Technocracy became the worlds principal government.

By this time the population had grown to over three million. Not all the worlds inhabitants fell in-line with the Feudal Technocracy these people left the original settlement areas and moved west, establishing the city of Calston.

The Feudal Technocracy collapsed eighty years later. The collapse came about as a result of the failure of the colonies fusion reactor. Alston had begun with four fusion reactors, one from each colony transport. Over the years three of these had been cannibalised to keep the fourth running. When the last one developed a fault no parts could be found to repair it and the reactor shut down never to be restarted. The loss of the reactor caused only minor inconvenience, alternative power sources had long been used. But it showed the bulk of the people, now numbering around twenty one million, that the Technocrats no longer knew what they were doing. The people rose up in the areas controlled by the Technocracy and lynched any technocrat that could be found.

As chaos rose in the east Calston to the west proved more stable. The few technocrats who escaped the lynch mob, sort and were granted sanctuary at Calston. Calston itself, had since its founding, grown into a city of over fifty thousand and new settlements were springing up and down the coast. Technologically Calston has begun to advance again, and by 3800 AD (-718 Imperial) had climbed back to TL6.

The turbulent east had finally settled again, and by 3900 AD (-618 Imperial), an absolute monarch, the "Emperor of Alston" ruled. The Emperor, Halden Vandemere, was ruthlessly efficient, and established a spy network whose agents infiltrated every aspect of society in the East and numerous research facilities in Calston.

By 3920 AD (-598 Imperial) Calston had recovered TL7 and thanks to its spies "The Empire" under Halden Vandemere was only a decade behind in military technology. The worlds population had grown to over one billion, two thirds of them in the empire. The "Emperor" made his move. War came to Alston.

Both Calston and the Empire had extensive wet navies, air forces with jet propulsion and limited satellite coverage. The war ran for six years. Calston was outnumbered but had some technological superiority, while the Empire had numbers and a leader history reports as both ruthless and totally insane. In 3926 AD (-592 Imperial) emperor Vandemere unleashed his terror weapons. Bio-warfare agents were released against population centers, killing millions. Then the emperor used his store of secretly constructed nuclear weapons. Too late emperor Vandemere discovered that Calston also had a supply. With the bio-agents, radiation and millions of unburied bodies, plagues flared across the planet. Both nations vanished in the chaos that followed. The empires capital vanished in a flash of nuclear fire, never to be rebuilt.

It took another one hundred and seventy years for the world to pull itself back together. The tech level as a result of the war had fallen to around TL4 for the bulk of the population with occasional enclaves at higher levels. It was from these surviving enclaves that a technological revival began. The surviving population for the first time since the original colony were united under a single world government. The government though again a Feudal Technocracy was a much more open one, and with schools and universities being built as fast as possible bit by bit the government evolved into an Oligarchic form, to which entry though difficult, was not impossible. This government styled itself as the Alston Renewers. The renewers encouraged technological growth and slowly the tech level of Alston began to climb.

By around 4276 AD (-242 Imperial) Alston had climbed to TL8 and was establishing bases throughout the star system. This in turn led to the crisis of 4350 AD (-168 Imperial) when the colonies of Collins, Una and the Inner Belt demanded representation on the Council of Alston Renewers. The Renewers resisted the demands, and Alston again stood on the brink of war, this time system wide.

The tense stand-off between the Renewers and the "rebels" lasted for six months. Both sides hastily refitting small in-system merchants with missile launchers and short range energy weapons. What finally ended the crises began with a demonstration outside the Council Chambers of the Alston Renewers. An estimated fifty thousand demonstrators led by the charismatic leader of the Collins Colony, Helene Vidal, marched on the chambers with a petition containing over ten million signatures. The petition calling on the government to stand down over the crisis and call for democratic elections throughout Alston space. The Council responded by turning the Council guard loose on the crowd. What followed is recorded as the battle of Calston Square which is still commemorated as the worlds "national day."

Three thousand died in the battle of Calston Square including Helene Vidal, after whom the innermost gas giant is named. The council chambers were burnt to the ground and an interim government took its place. Unlike many "governments" installed following revolutions, this one kept to its word and one year after the battle Alston had its democracy. Each colony also had representation in the new government.

Two years after the democracy was installed, 4354 AD (-165 Imperial). Alston had its first visit by a starship. A TL9 trade pioneering/exploration vessel from the nearby system of Virian. Unlike many such ventures this contact ran smoothly, and diplomatic relations were rapidly established. In Alston, Virian had found a ready source of materials for her expanding industry, while Alston began to receive new technology and new ideas. The Virian cluster contained nine systems which could all be reached by jump-1. Trade amongst the worlds of the cluster began to grow. The beginnings of a trade confederation were laid down.

The history of the other members of the cluster was such that Virian and Alston were the dominant members, with both the highest technology and highest populations. A "friendly" rivalry emerged between Virian and Alston which sometimes caused problems for the other trading members. Alston however, with a much lower level of industrialisation tended to lag Virian technologically.

Over the next few centuries the small confederation continued to trade amongst its member worlds and send trading missions deeper into the sector. The introduction of jump-2 drives hastened this process, and also brought about contact with the Aoiftu Roakh.

The Aoiftu Roakh was an empire of Aslan spanning the Hiyakhyes and Khealakh (Chaldea) subsectors. Culturally they were not true Aslan (according to the definition of such given by the Aslan Hierate) and they did not have any direct ties with the Aslan Hierate. Confederation Traders, primarily from Virian and Alston carried the bulk of the trade between the Confederation and the Aoiftu Roakh. Aslan from Aoiftu Roakh began to settle on some of the Confederation worlds many offering military service in exchange for land. With traders bringing backs reports of the war in the coreward subsectors between another Aslan state and human settlers the Confederation accepted the new settlers with enthusiasm.

Relations between the Confederation and the Aoiftu Roakh ebbed and flowed over the succeeding centuries, occasional hostilities did erupt between the two, but generally relations were cordial.. Elsewhere the Third Imperium was growing. The Woal Warliyir were attempting to expand into the Grange (Hope) subsector and were running into the fleets of the planet Nakajima.

The Confederations biggest test to date began in 4710 AD (192 Imperial) when a Confederation merchant "Lyonesse" was seized by a warship of the Delsun Comagistrant. This was followed six week later by an orbital strike using nuclear weapons on the planet Marchon, part of the Confederation.

The Confederation was ill prepared for an interstellar war, though armed most of the Confederations starships were merchants. Crash building programs to build dedicated warships commenced. Many bulk carriers were converted into fighter and system defence boat carriers. Aslan mercenaries were raised in large numbers from the Aoiftu Roakh and together with the Confederations own Aslan carried the war to the Delsun Comagistrant.

The war dragged on for ten years, and was characterised by hit and run raids on each others population centers. Losses were immense on both sides, both in terms of loss of people and in the monetary losses. Finally the war came to an end, no armistice or cease fire, both sides had simply run out of combatants. The Delsun Comagistrant had been reduced to four systems, none with any capacity to build new starships, while the Confederation collapsed and its member worlds went their separate ways. The Aoiftu Roakh was unable to fill the void. Coreward the Woal Warliyir had just taken part in the pyrrhic battle of the Banners, so that war was over, but the Woal Warliyir were still in an expansive mood and were placing pressure on the Aoiftu Roakh

Occasional Alston and Virian freighters still ploughed the spaceways, but on a much lower scale than before. It would be a number of centuries before either systems economy would return to where it was pre-war. Exploration vessels from the Third Imperium entered the Virian (League) subsector and made contact with Alston in 5108 AD (590 Imperial). It is believed that earlier missions may have entered the sector, both Imperial and Terran in origin, but no firm evidence has been found.

The former worlds of the Confederation, including Alston continued to rebuild, rumours of problems within the Third Imperium started to reach Alston. Rumours later confirmed when vessels of the new Solomani Confederation began visiting Alston from around 5393 AD (875 Imperial). These were followed later, 5509 AD (991 Imperial), by ships carrying refugees from the Solomani Rim War. Vessels of the Third Imperiums Interstellar Scout service also arrived, a scout service cruiser almost precipitating a battle between Solomani Confederation and Imperial forces in the Alston system. This was narrowly averted by the actions of Alston's admiral D'Lacy who interposed an Alston squadron between the two forces , threatening to destroy both groups if either opened fire. Whether the admiral could have carried out this threat is unlikely, but neither the Solomani or Imperials called his bluff. A consequence of this action was that Alston would allow ships from either faction to berth under strict conditions, and Alston managed to acquire a good deal of both Solomani and Imperial technology.

In 5538 AD (1020 Imperial) Alston had another run in with vessels from the Delsun Comagistrant. The Alston vessel, an Alston TL13 state of the art destroyer, the ANS Guardian, succeeded in driving off a Delsun squadron of four vessels a third her size. Delsun pre-virus, never again posed a threat to Alston.

News of the assassination of emperor Strephon,the Imperial Civil War and the second Rim War, took a long time to reach Alston. It had little practical effect on Alston. Visits by imperial and Solomani ships slowed, then stopped as the two groups, Solomani and Imperial slugged it out with each other. The came virus. Alston had a small amount of warning regarding the virus, and was able to implement some measures to protect herself. But Alston's first contact with virus was unexpected. In 5649 AD (1131 Imperial) a battlecruiser, Imperic Star, operated by the Imperiums Interstellar Scout Service jumped into the Alston system. It is a testament to the bravery of the scouts on board, this vessel that its virus infestation had been largely contained. As a result the consequences for Alston would have been much worse than they were.

The battlecruiser had entered the Alston system within 100 diameters of Alston, the battlecruiser had once been to Alston on a show the flag visit, with a non functioning maneuver drive and much of her armament disabled by the Imperial scouts who were still fighting the virus.

The virus on Imperic Star managed to launch a small number of heavy anti-ship missiles towards Alston and its energy weapons decimated Alston's shipyards and orbital facilities. Three missiles penetrated Alston's defences and detonated on the planet causing much loss of life. The battlecruiser was boarded with heavy losses by Alston forces, who joined with the surviving scouts in an effort to shut the ships power down. In the end the combined forces were successful and the vessels power plant was disabled. Fighting on the ship continued for days as the Alston and surviving Imperials cut the computer from its systems one by one. In the end the virus was isolated and both it and any suspect systems were destroyed.

Thus began the series of battles fought by Alston against the virus which had entered the sector from many sources. So far Alston has survived all incursions when its neighbours fell. In recent times Alston has begun to look beyond its systems borders and has established the Alston League. Alston herself has a sustainable tech level of 11 and is again building starships, some of which are being sent beyond the League borders to find out what is now there.