Here's something I wrote for a campaign several years ago (going on a decade, now). You might find it helpful as a hand out for players new to
Traveller.
You can find this article and some others like it here, on
Freelance Traveller: http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/advents/index.html
The year is 1105, by the calendar established at the dawn of humaniti's third attempt at an interstellar empire.
For over a thousand standard years, man has pushed out into the galactic arm, conqueror of all in his path, dominator of planets and solar systems alike, stretching his reach over 200 parsecs from Terra.
Aliens refer to this region of the galaxy as Humani Space.
Humans call it
The Third Imperium
Known space is but a fraction of the entire galaxy, but the Third Imperium is one of the largest empires in known space - the largest interstellar empire in existence. It is one of three human-dominated empires, and together, these three human dominated regions account for over a fourth of every solar system that has ever been explored.
Humans are the most numerous beings known to exist.
A blue planet, lying far out in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way, is the birthworld of the Humani. Some refer to this world by its ancient name, Earth, but most beings today call it Terra.
Humans from this world are no longer referred to as Terrans or Earthlings. They are known as Solomani - meaning "Men of Sol" ("Sol" being the name of Earth's sun). And, if you count the current year by the ancient Solomani calendar, the year is 5623 AD - the 57th century, in ancient Earth terms.
For an age, the Solomani believed themselves to be the only intelligent life in existence. They experienced a rude change in their culture when they discovered otherwise. As they took to the stars, the Solomani, like so many species before them, began to colonize other worlds. At first, they settled their solar system, and then, as their technology developed, allowing them to push out into the void, they set foot on worlds in other star systems.
They discovered other intelligent life - alien life.
And, they discovered that some of the aliens were human!
The Solomani year was 2096 AD. Terran explorers - men from the small, fledgling grouping of Solomani planets - made contact with another race of humans, humans calling themselves Vilani.
But that shock - carrying with it ramifications in religion and eons of scientific theory that the Terran society and culture would barely overcome - was reflected as a simple Solomani facial tic when compared to the discovery that the Vilani already controlled an interstellar empire.
The Vilani called their empire the Ziru Sirka, meaning "Grand Empire of Stars", and it was so vast and awe-inspiring that it took years to travel across, even in the fastest jump-capable starships of the time.
The Ziru Sirka - what history refers to as the First Imperium - predated the Solomani jump out from Terra by some 1500 standard years.
"When the Solomani were just beginning to explore the use of iron, the Vilani were exploring the galaxy."
The Vilani empire had existed since 473 AD on the Solomani calendar, and the Grand Empire of Stars stood poised to swallow the pitiful number of systems the Solomani had settled as a river swallowing a few pebbles that fall in its path.
The Interstellar Wars
The Solomani and the Vilani became co-habitants in the space around Earth. The Vilani made initiatives to draw the Solomani into the Ziru Sirka, and the Solomani resisted.
War broke out. Fiercely independent, the Solomani defied efforts to have their culture swallowed by the humans-not-from-Earth. But, the Vilani leaders on Vland, the Ziru Sirka capital, looked at the Terrans with little more than mild curiosity. The pitiful number of Terran systems were but just one more client state of the great, star-spanning empire of the Vilani.
For close to two centuries, the relations between the Vilani and the Terran Confederation (as Solomani Space had come to be known), were typified by a number wars fought along the Ziru Sirka's rimward border.
Communication within the Grand Empire of Stars was slow, and Vilani culture emphasized decision by committee - a stark contrast to the culture of the Solomani, where individual initiative is lauded and communication distances within the much smaller Terran Confederation were extremely shorter.
The Solomani fought a guerilla war, on many different fronts, followed by peace, then war, then peace, then war again. The Vilani leaders regarded the Interstellar Wars as little more than a regional problem - where issues in other parts of the enormous empire drew priority.
And over this 189 year period, the people of the Solomani and the Vilani mingled. A great diaspora from Earth ensued, and Terrans, like the Chosen People, spread out from Earth, planting themselves on distant planets.
The Rule of Man
218 standard years after first contact between the Solomani and the Vilani, one of the most confounding hiccups in history occurred.
The Solomani had saturated the rimward systems of the Ziru Sirka. Many of them came to power on Vilani held worlds. The two cultures blended. Solomani influence soared, and the Vilani were hampered by the slow, meticulous decision process characteristic of their culture.
In a blink of an eye, just 15 years after the end of the last Interstellar War between the two peoples, the Solomani came to power. The Ziru Sirka fell.
A Solomani empire referred to the Rule of Man was born. It was the same empire - just under new leadership, even though Solomani rule is referred to, in history, as the Second Imperium.
The men of Earth, from the tiny collection of stars, had defeated the might of the Grand Empire of Stars.
David slew Goliath.
The Long Night
The Rule of Man was characterized by rebirth but little growth of the Second Imperium. Under Vilani rule, the First Imperium had floundered, stagnated, in both growth and technological development. The Solomani fought to change that characteristic of the empire, but it was a difficult battle. The Vilani system had been entrenched for close to 2000 years. The Solomani experience with governing an interstellar government was under 200 years - and never had the Terrans ruled an empire as vast as the Imperium.
It was a miracle the Solomani became governors of the largest star-empire in existence. And, it was inevitable they would loose it.
Nobody foresaw just how bad the new rulers would be for the Second Imperium. Where the Vilani were stagnant and rigid, the Solomani were inexperienced and naive.
The first indication of the inability of the Solomani came when it was apparent the new nobility would be unable to persuade their own brethren to accept membership within the Second Imperium. Solomani and Vilani people merged during the 428 year period known as the Rule of Man. Over the generations, Solomani/Vilani culture became one - to the point where a distinction between the two races of Humaniti was no longer made on some worlds of the Imperium.
The Solomani of the Terran region of space despised what some of their people had become - losing themselves in an alien culture, and the Terran Confederation remained independent (albeit sympathetic) of their cousins of the Second Imperium.
But the men of the Terran Confederation could not prevent what would befall all of Humaniti at the hands of the new inexperienced Imperial rulers.
Over the four centuries of Solomani rule, technology subsided. Regions of the Imperium gradually lost touch with the rest of the whole. Border wars were dealt with by persons inexperienced with interstellar government.
The Second Imperium fell apart.
The Rule of Man was over.
And, the Long Night had begun.
(cont.)
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