Capellan Hegemony

Formation
The origins of the Capellan Hegemony lie in two separate but linked interstellar groupings - the nation known as the Capellan Republic and the defense and trade pact known as the Capellan Co-Prosperity Sphere. By the late 23rd century, the Capellan Republic and Capella in particular were recognized as being a "Teacher Of Worlds", the home of hundreds of the brightest minds of the day; this continuing growth in intellectual and artistic talent provided a constant boost to the Capellan economy and with it commercial prosperity. Capella was soon a commercial hub to rival Chesterton or Sarna, and other worlds increasingly worked to develop goodwill from and good faith towards Capella, subtly shifting the flow of goods and barter away from older, more established worlds in favor of Capellan goods.

This came to a climax in 2270 when the ruling senate of Capella, the Capellan Agoropolis, declared to be a fact what was already a de facto truth in the region - the formation of the Capellan Hegemony, a new nation which included every inhabited world within twelve light years of Capella as well as all of the founding members of the Capellan Co-Prosperity Sphere. While this was well received by the Capellan people, it antagonized the nearby Sarna Supremacy, who implemented a full-scale economic blockade of the Hegemony that would last twelve years.

Early Wars
It also triggered an actively expansionist attitude from the Agoropolis and it's leader, Nicopolo Aris. In addition to acts of goodwill, such as the combined Capellan-Sian task force that freed Highspire from a pirate blockade in 2288, the Capellan Agoropolis also ordered brief conflicts with other states. These conflicts saw Capella attack both the St. Ives Mercantile League and the Ingersoll Concordium; the Concordium was annexed in 2272 with little difficulty, leading directly to the attack on the St. Ives Mercantile League in 2273, another success that allowed the Hegemony to secure economic dominance over several League worlds, before completely annexing those worlds by 2292.

The Capellan Renaissance
Despite the two wars prosecuted by the Hegemony in the 2270s, the period between 2270 and 2314 became commonly known as the Capellan Renaissance. The Hegemony was born out of genuinely democratic values, and during these years the Hegemony was the most progressive interstellar government of the era, establishing a unified and orderly society out of the chaotic factionalism that typified the Second Exodus. The Hegemony not only guaranteed the rights of individuals, it directly contributed to the preservation and expansion of human knowledge throughout it's worlds, building more than 300 schools throughout the nation - both public and specialized - reducing illiteracy levels for the first time in more than a century. Just as the Capellan Republic had directly supported both academia and the arts, the Hegemony continued to support hundreds of painters, composers, poets and other artists, and formed such entities as the Capellan Ballet Interstellar to preserve the classics and advance the avant-garde.

Political Structure and Internal Corruption
The first Prime Magnate of the Hegemony, Nicopolo Aris, was an aristocrat at heart, just like his father; he believed that while Capellans everywhere should have a stake in public affairs, he also believed that those who undertook civic responsibilities should be rewarded with handsome salaries and other forms of remuneration, encouraging them to continue to act responsibly in their roles and reducing the temptation to engage in corrupt, under-the-table practices. This view failed to take into account the increasing economic prosperity of the Hegemony, which gave many the opportunity to explore other options for the life's work. This led to fewer and fewer individuals turning to Capellan politics as a calling, but those individuals who did actively worked to ensure that wealth continued to be concentrated in their hands, moving the Hegemony away from it's democratic founding principles.

The Capella-centric viewpoint of the Hegemony's rulers in the Agoropolis also had a corrosive effect on internal freedoms; as Capella retained the primary role within the Hegemony and had the greatest decision-making authority, the Hegemony began to devolve into being an organ for the export of Capellan politics, politics that were enforced by control of the internal planetary affairs of the various Hegemony client states and worlds. While each member of the Hegemony retained representation within the Agoropolis based on relative population, government control increasingly relied on the services of the Deimosis. Originally a government agency originally created to co-ordinate the internal census and other such matters between the various client states, the Deimosis evolved to become an internal secret police organization, one charged with the protection of Hegemony policy against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Internally, these two factors worked together, resulting in the Hegemony evolving from a democratically-inspired representative state into a greedy plutocracy. These weren't the only problems affecting the Hegemony though; external factors also beleaguered the Hegemony. The greatest of these was interstellar geography; unlike the majority of other states formed or forming during this era, the Hegemony didn't have a contiguous border. The core of the Hegemony remained densely packed around Capella, just beyond the borders of the Sarna Supremacy and the Sian Supremacy, but numerous client states joined the Hegemony during the 2280s and 2290s that lay outside this region. Three members, Asuncion, Zion and Arboris were halfway between Capella and Terra; other states, such as Homestead, Nihal, St. Andre and Highspire had other nations between them and the core of the Hegemony. While Homestead and Nihal could be reached via special transit arrangements agreed between the governments on Capella, Sian and St. Ives, worlds like St. Andre and Highspire were close to the borders of the Sarna Supremacy and the Tikonov Grand Union, states which considered them to be uncomfortably close. Other worlds located heavily spinward of the Hegemony core such as Anaheim, Brusett and Wernke were not only a long way from the Hegemony core but were also increasingly contested diplomatically by various mercantile interests backed by the Davion family. The wide dispersal of Hegemony member worlds and client states threw up the same problem over and over again; how could the Hegemony defend and control such widely dispersed worlds?

The Capellan Hegemony/Sarna Supremacy War
The combined flaws of the Capellan Hegemony were brought into sharp focus by the Capellan-Supremacy War. In 2304 the star systems of Palos and Wei declared themselves to be independent. The news prompted days of debate within the Capellan Agoropolis, but the general consensus was that while war was inevitable at some point between the Hegemony and the Supremacy, prudence dictated that the Hegemony bide its time and work towards a negotiated solution. An impatient ruler, Prime Magnate Paula Aris instead pushed for military opposition.

The invasion of Sarna was repulsed by unexpectedly heavy defenses, and the Capellan forces struggled to make headway. In 2306, the Hegemony entered into an agreement with the Free Worlds League that had been negotiated in secret, promising Capellan support for League territorial claims in exchange for troops to assist in the Hegemony campaign. The secret agreement, named the Ryerson Conventions, backfired badly on the Hegemony—the troops provided by the League turned out to be little more than newly-trained militia, and when the combined Capellan-Free Worlds troops "liberated" a world, they found themselves instead hated as invaders, with civilian population rising up to kill hundreds of Capellan soldiers.

In December 2308, after Arboris seceded from the Hegemony, Prime Magnate Aris dispatched Admiral Ishidai and the 2nd Andurien Reserve Fleet to pacify Arboris, seize key installations on the planet and levy the most recent tax demands by any means necessary. Ishidai's route took him through the Liao system, where he discovered a flotilla of hastily-armed merchant vessels awaiting him. The fleet belonged to President Emile Falkner Liao of the Liao Republic, who stated that Arboris had applied for, and been granted, the status of a protectorate under the neutrality laws of the Liao Republic, and that any move against Arboris would be considered an act of war. Ishidai immediately attacked the Liao vessels, only to be ambushed by a second hidden flotilla of Liao ships.

The defeat at Liao signaled the end of the war and the end of the Hegemony in short order. The Free Worlds League withdrew it's support when it learned of Ishidai's defeat; anti-government protests were breaking out on a daily basis, and the cost of continuing to prosecute a war against the Supremacy would be economically crippling for the Hegemony. Prime Magnate Aris seized on a Capellan Navy victory near Sakhalin in April 2309 to conclude an armistice in May 2309, and in December a representative from the Tikonov Grand Union handed both sides an arbitrated peace agreement. Signed in silence, the agreement ended the war.

The Commonality
A week after the peace agreement was signed, Paula Aris committed suicide. The terms of the agreement mandated the disbandment of the Capellan Hegemony in favor of a more representative, republican state to replace the plutocratic realm the Hegemony had become. Aris' death led to a bloodless revolution and the creation of a new realm, the Capellan Commonality, in which anyone, even non-nativeborn Capellan candidates, could seek public office.