More Kronos Musings: History

 So, quite some time ago, I announced a playtest, a heist; we did a poll, and Kronos won out.  I expect it did so because it's an interesting, alien world set in the midst of an otherwise human dominated part of space, and that's pretty much all we knew about it at the time.  I believe I've made some musings on it before, but let's do another iterative cycle on it, where I simply walk through some basic logic, and what I need to make it an interesting heist location.

I was originally going to post the whole thing at once, but it turned out to be way too big for me to handle, so here it is in the first chunk.

What is Kronos? Why is Kronos?

So, let's start with why Kronos even ended up in the Psi-Wars atlas.  One of the things that irritates me about a lot of space history is the timelessness of it.  Star Wars is the worst, of course, with Coruscant being a big, urban capital world for basically all of galactic history, at least as far back as the Old Republic.  This would be like deciding that Rome was the capital of the world for all time, when it wasn't even the capital of Rome for the entire history of the Roman empire! Things move, they change, and they get left behind.  I wanted to express that, and to acknowledge the slow shift in power from the alien empires that made up the early history of the Psi-Wars galaxy.  Once upon a time, the power of the galaxy lay centered more towards the "eastern" half of the galactic core, around Kronos, between the Umbral Rim of the Ranathim, and the Arkhaian Spiral of the Eldoth.  Then came the Alexian Crusades and the conquest of the galaxy by humanity, and the center of power shifted to the "West" of the galactic core, closer to the Glorian Rim of humanity, and Sovereign.  This makes Kronos "the old capital."

So, in a sense, Kronos has always been a historical world.  It's had a few name changes, from Chronos (time) to Cronus (the titan, the king of the bygone age) to Kronos (an aptly confusing blend of the two), all meant to represent this notion of Kronos as a world deeply embedded in the history of the setting.  Thus, it's most distinguishing feature is that it featured strongly in, and retains features of, previous eras, making it something of a time capsule world.

But I don't want to go too far in that direction.  We often freeze locations in history based on a preferred narrative perspective.  I think Egypt suffers the most from it: when we discuss Egypt, most people immediately think of the pyramids, mummies, great monuments to bygone eras, the nile, palm trees, etc.  But this was _but one moment in time_ and from a very long time ago, once that was trumpeted wildly in the early 20th century, a moment in time that has set a lot of the tone of pop culture. But Egypt has been many, many things since, from a seat of Greek power to the breadbasket of the Roman empire, to one of the most important regions for Christianity to a seat of power of the Muslim world, home to Saladin and the Ismaili sect that later spawned the Hashashin, to the home of the Mamluks, and I could go on and on. I wanted Kronos to feel like that: it was not some world frozen in a single era, but one that had accumulated history, like layers of dust, over the eons, and you could see all of them every day, such as being in Egypt, with the pyramids at your back, a coptic church before you, and hearing the Islamic call to prayer.

The History of Kronos

The polls quickly established the idea of an alien race defeated (mostly) exterminated by the Eldoth.  The community came up with the Menhiri, a race of stony giants with fantastic memory that used to keep the histories of the galaxy before their destruction.  With their death, much of the history of the so-called primordial era, the era that pre-dates the Eldoth, was lost.

When did the Eldoth take over? Well, we know the Menhiri were lost pretty early on, and the Eldoth were looking for a base of operation: they had fought a war against some great galactic menace, and were seeking to prevent its resurgence.  Controlling a world near the Galactic Heart would keep them near Azrael, and it would act as a staging ground for the rest of their wars on the galaxy.  We also know the Keleni interacted with the Menhiri, which suggests there was some overlap between the two races.

If we look at our Galactic History,  this took place sometime between 4400 and 3200 "BD." The Keleni colonizations took place between 3600 BD and 3200 BD.  This suggests that the earliest the Eldoth could have conquered Kronos, assuming the Keleni contacted the Menhiri on their homeworld, was 3600.  The Monolith War that kicked the Eldoth off of Kronos took place between 3100 and 3000 BD, which suggests the Eldoth had about 500 to 600 years at most, to perform their genocide and their transformation of the planet into a massive urbanscape.  A most likely scenario would be that the Eldoth and the Menhiri co-existed for quite some time, and the massive presence and threat was already building around Kronos when the first Keleni stepped foot on it, likely early scouts and explorers, before the Keleni colonizations took off in earnest.  We might give the Keleni a hundred years of contact before the conquest (setting the conquest at 3500), then less than 50 years to complete the extermination process (3450). Is 100 years enough time finish paving a world and building a Deep Engine on it? Well, it hardly matters, we could easily give them 200 years of construction on the planet to complete their fortification of the world (so, 3250, or just before they began to conquer the Keleni worlds).  That suggests the Keleni would have known their own destruction could have been imminent, so perhaps all of this took place slightly later than I'm speculating, but that means Eldothic control of the world wasn't that long.

The Eldoth fougth the Ranathim between 3100 BD and 3000 BD. My guess is Kronos would have held out for a good long time, but its fall would have precipitated the disintegration of Eldothic defenses.  So, Kronos probably fell by 3050 BD.

With the Eldoth gone, we shift to a new era for Kronos.  Now firmly in the hands of the Ranathim Tyranny, it becomes a place of prestige. The Sumerians had a title, the King of Kish, often used by Kings who ruled from someplace other than Kish; it spoke to the central importance of Kish. The Ranathim Tyrants might have seen Kronos as similarly prestigious: "the Ranathim Mystical Tyrant, Master of the Nine Races of the Umbral Rim and King of Kronos."

 

It certainly is not the capital of the Tyranny; that would remain on Styx, the Ranathim homeworld.  However, this newly conquered world is very central to the trade of the galactic center and sits adjacent to the Trader Band; the very reasons the Eldoth chose it remain valid, and thus it remains important. Plus it is a "conquered capital" and thus a prestigious location.  The Ranathim Tyranny would want to remind every ship passing through the region of the greatness of the Tyranny. This implies great, monumental architecture, magnificent temples and glory to the Ranathim Empire, all funded by the wealth of taxes and tolls from the flood of trade flowing through its ports.

But Kronos offers the Ranathim something else intriguing.  It is the largest infrastructural contribution to the Eldothic Deep Engine this close to the Ranathim strongholds of the Umbral Rim.  This makes it an ideal location to study the technology of the Eldoth and to learn their "occult practices." If the "magpie tradition" of Zathare sorcery began anywhere, it would be on Kronos.

The Ranathim Tyranny would have held Kronos for about 2000 years. The first Tyranny likely would have taken it as a place of prestige, and then suspicion as the first heretical scholars of the Deep Engine began to explore the technologies of the Eldoth, which likely would have led to inquistorial purges, but the collapse of the first Tyranny would have led to greater acceptance and experimentation with the technology.  Zathare would almost certainly have its origins here, as would the psuedo-House of Mithna Zatharos.

Then the second Tyranny fell, and we move into a murky epoch, the so-called Third Tyranny.  This was a splintered era, with rival warlords vying for control and legitimacy.  With its central location, extensive infrastructure and occult potency, Kronos would have been the capital of one of these mini-Tyrannies.  I mentioned "the Witch-King of Kronos" before.  That was certainly a thing, and these Witch Kings would have belonged to Mithna Zatharos.

This era also sees the first furtive steps of humanity into the stars.  The Westerly would have made their way here, but I think the Shinjurai played a greater role on Kronos (they do have more of an affinity for urban worlds, after all).  The Traders and the Shinjurai merchant princes would have controlled trade along the Trader Band, which would have been the lifeblood of Kronos, and thus this little stellar empire.  This suggests a delicate arrangement of power, with the occult power balanced against the technological prowess and trading acumen of the Shinjurai and the Traders to create a potent central state.

Then came the Alexian Crusades.  I imagine Kronos would have put up a hell of a fight.  It was likely one of the strongest Ranathim enclaves outside of the Umbral Rim, thanks to their occult power and considerable wealth.I tend to see its conquest as the last major conquest that sealed the fate of the galactic core.  After its defeat, only then would Alexus Rex be crowned by the Akashic Order to be Emperor of the Galaxy on Sovereign.

During the Dynasty, Kronos and its alien heritage would need to be kept under tight control.  It's also a very central world, so it would need to be held by a great house, a Ducal house.  Also, given the fact that it's so deep in the Galactic Core, whatever house that ruled there would have certainly been destroyed today by the Emperor.  I have a name for that House, as I've been using it to reference "some extinct ducal house" for awhile: House Mistral.  What are they like? I dunno, it's not important.  I have some musings on them being very fit, athletic, attractive and with a focus on TK (Aerokinesis, Tactile TK, Super Jump and PK Shield, perhaps), but nothing that's important; I often see Mistral as one of those names I sling around with no real details so someone else can fit in the details themselves, if they want.

I suspect over the course of the Dynasty, it would have remained low key.  The Dynasty would not want it overshadow the new galactic capital of Sovereign, so its impact on the galaxy would be intentionally diminished, with policies meant to impoverish or weaken it. This would also serve to "time capsule" it somewhat: if you're already on the world, you'll be hard pressed to scrape together the money to meaningfully move offworld, and if you're not on Kronos, you wouldn't want to go.  So it would languish, its culture more-or-less developing in isolation based on what had already come before, with little cultural input from the Dynasty, other than what it gained from the osmosis of cultural bombardment.  It's still well-placed for trade, so we likely see a flourishing black market at this time.

Once the Dynasty fell, however, house Mistral would have been well-placed to seize control, making it one of the major contenders of the interregnum.  This would certainly launch Kronos back into interstellar prominence, and free trade along the Trader Band, unbridled by antagonistic policies, would restore its reputation for wealth and prestige.  This would almost certainly have remained during the Federation, where liberal and open-handed policies would see more and more aliens return and its unique version of a Shinjurai culture flourishing. It would return to one of the gems of the Crown constellation. It would likely see a flood of immigration too, and gentrification. Given its central location and its reputation for alien communities, aliens likely would rush in.  I suspect this is the era that we start to see a lot of Asrathi communities forming on Kronos.

 

Then, finally, the Empire.  Kronos poses problems to the Empire: it generates a lot of money, but it has a strong alien tradition and has picked up some occult and criminal traditions. This puts the Empire in a bind: on the one hand, left to its own devices, Kronos generates huge revenue, but is also a source of chaotic, criminal alien ideas that threaten to destabilize imperial ideology.  The Empire wants to control that trade while also taming its alien population, pushing them underground (perhaps literally).  It also faces a world likely unpersuaded by its ideology.  The aliens of Kronos see no appeal in an empire biased towards humanity and away from them, and they've been doing things their own way for literally thousands of years.  Their baked in criminality and diverse ways makes a total crackdown difficult, so the Empire would likely seek to control traffic to and from the world, and then otherwise interface with local power structures to see that the Emperor's edicts are enforced on the population.

So, based on history, what is Kronos?

• A once mighty library of galactic history, destroyed
• A planetary fortress from which a dark and foreboding empire once exerted control over the galactic core.
• A once prestigious location filled with the monuments of an ancient, alien empire
• A center for a growing academic tradition of psychic sorcery and the mastery of ancient alien technology
• A center for commerce and trade in the "eastern" half of the galaxy.
• A cultural isolate in a sea of human culture.
• A festering pool of crime and poverty thanks to literal centuries of neglect by elites.