The Pentagon Protectorate is a human empire located in the Pentagon System in the Orion Nebula. It is a technologically advanced empire, spanning three of the five planets in the Pentagon system of wich the second closest to the star (named Savarrah) is the capital.
History[]
The Beginning[]
History of the Pentagon Protectorate goes back into the age when the means of interdimensional travel were first introduced. People were very enthusiasist and looked into the bright future of Earth bathing in wealth brought in from hundreds of space colonies. Project Antarctic was the first project of such a space colony. Eleven massive Genesis-class colony ships were built, each of them dwarfing any ship built in the era as they were made to carry everything necessary to jumpstart a society with working export economy on Gliese 581g, their destination planet.
The project was finally launched after twelve years of preparations, being rushed in some areas. The ships had a flaw in their navigation systems causing a memory reset after the dimensional jump, wich made them stranded as they could find neither their home nor the goal planet, forcing them to send drones blindly in hopes of finding a solar system where they could settle. This eventually lead them to the Pentagon System.
Founding the Protectorate[]
The colonists were quick to find that one planet had two percent of oxygen in the atmosphere despite the lack of any life. All eleven colony ships landed on the planet and soon enough human cities appeared on the surface and primitive plantlife took the task of producing enough oxygen to allow a whole ecosystem to be inserted in. Later the colonists released a gas into the atmosphere to speed up evolution, wich resulted in the planet being populated with various reptilian creatures.
With their survival secured, the colonists started to worry of their safety. At that time, it seemed very likely Earth would see the events as a revolt and try to forcefully regain control of the colonies. A rigid caste social system was laid down and both technological and economical development skyrocketed as the goverment manipulated the masses by subtle changes to history and a new educational systems to raise their determination by making them believe they were in grave danger. This union was later called the Pentagon Protectorate to forever mark it's purpose.
Current time[]
By 2600, the humans expanded over the planet and even spread to other two of the four planets in the system. Technology and economy advanced far and the empire finally felt it was ready to search for other civilisations to secretely research them and, if necessary, carry a surprise strike to decimate any possible threat.
Society[]
The Protectorate society is divided into castes. While all castes have mostly similar rights and duties, each caste has strictly defined jobs they can carry out and it is forbidden to marry or generally have any relationship for members of two different castes. The castes are Operators, wich manage physical labour ranging from maintaining and crewing to commanding all operations concerning such labour, Developers, who take care of technological advancement, Enforcers, who maintain the law and act as a defensive force, and the Controllers who take care of all important things not in the competence of the other castes.
The goverment is rotated every ten years in a way that each caste always has control of a certain part of the goverment. Every rotation there is a "lead caste" wich has 40% of the positions and the leader's post, the remaining castes have 20% of the seats.
Caste members are often genetically enhanced and raised specifically for their jobs. In the Developers caste the average IQ is around 135, while the Enforcer caste members have almost twice as fast reflexes as ordinary humans. The downside to this is the birth rate is somewhat slowed down and the people have trouble doing anything their caste is not supposed to do.
One thing common to all castes is their short statures - 140 centimeters, a significant departure from the human average height of 1.8 meters. This is another effect of the genetical engineering, aiming to make the subterranean life easier for them as well as sitting in the cramped cockpits of vehicles.
The people of the Protectorate live in underground cities to avoid problems on the surface of the recently terraformed planets, like high or low temperatures and lack of rivers and subsequent extreme erosion. As a side effect this forces everyone to live in large cities as only those are able to fully sustain their citizens.
The official language of the Protectorate is English, although many of the words got malformed by the flow of time. It is most apparent on the location names, most of wich still resemble the original names (the planet Weslant used to be Wasteland), but the parentage of some has already been lost to time (like planet Ptelar).
The people of the Pentagon System have no religion. The closest thing to one is the deep respect of the inhabitants of the capital Savarrah to reptiles due to their great ability to adapt. This respect reflects in many areas of the Protectorate, starting with naming creations after them and ending with adopting the Savarrah Dragon species as the symbol of the entire Protectorate.
Technology[]
Due to its stance since its foundation, the Protectorate has made many technological advances both on the fields of civilian and military science. Some of the departments, like metallurgy or genetic engineering advanced beyond what was even imagined. While this may seem impressive, advanced technology comes with it's own disadvantages, of wich the most notable is the great material and time cost of their manufacture.
However, some developments common in other civilisations are completely unkown, such as artificial intelligence constructs, despite massive computer efficiency improvements.
Military[]
Military of the Protectorate consist entirely of the Enforcers caste, wich is the least populous of the castes. This is due to the Protectorate being incapable of building and maintaining high numbers of their hightech machines. Unlike other civilizations, the Protectorate still prefers
The Navy Fleet of the protectorate consists of barely more than a dozen of warships and is dedicated to offensive operations. Each planet has a defensive fleet of it's own small craft based on it's surface as well as satellite defensive turrets.
Offensive operations are carried out by many heavily armored dropships carrying troops and vehicles to the surface of an hostile planet. At this point the highly mobile ground units spread over as much area as they can and try to encircle enemy centers of resistance.
Ships and vehicles of the Protectorate are painted green with darker and brighter stripes, both to make their affiliation clear and to frighten their opponents.