THE EMPERORS (to DATE)
To understand the Age of Secession, it is necessary to understand a little of the background about the Emperors and the Empire they ruled. The Red Empire of Mars, also referred to as the Red Imperium or the Red Imperium of Mars, came to an end with the death of the False Emperor. Many argue it was the ascent of the False Emperor that heralded the end of the Empire. But in many ways, the story of the Red Empire begins a lot earlier than even the ascent of the First, True Emperor, and begins with the father of all the Emperors.
When the colonised galaxy was quite small, not even a sixth of its size today, the father of the Emperors was fighting for supremacy.The Dictator Perepolous, reviled for many of the humanist, anti-borgite policies he pursued so ardently – whilst also in secret promoting and making use of many of the borgite ways of life he persecuted – ruled a fairly large part of the core as it was then. It was within this territory of his that the True Emperor’s father rose up in rebellion, following the execution of much of his family, but also horrified at some of the excesses and travesties promoted by the Dictator Perepolous.
Fighting against Perepolous, the True Emperor’s father – Anakeris Constantin - was ultimately successful, but at great personal cost. Ailing and facing his own slow descent towards his mortal end, the father of the Emperors revealed a man he claimed to be his son. To this day, very few question that statement as the father of the Emperors supported that position as it was made to people of the colonised galaxy.
The truth was perhaps something very different.
The True Emperor’s father met an end that was not expected, cut brutally short by a humanist assassination. The True Emperor, also referred to in his early days as the Red Emperor, established his base upon Mars on his father’s throne and the throne of Perepolous before him. The True Emperor then set about extending the kingdom his father had fought for, widening his power base, taking more and more landholdings. In his early days, the Red Emperor or the True Emperor eventually widened his highly effective tactics of combined naval professional military and starship-mounted soldiery in the form of planet-invading Marines, all genhanced and super-modded, into a force which conquered every part of the Colonised Galaxy as it was then.
It was over a century and a half after assuming the throne – nearly one hundred and seventy years - that the True Emperor as he was shortly to be exclusively referred to was deposed by his successor. This second Emperor, thought by some to be his son or possibly a brother, was undoubtedly of the Imperial House of Constantin but was as equally hated by borgites fanatically loyal to the True Emperor as by oppressed humanists (themselves suffering under the True Emperor’s persecutions). The False Emperor took control over the dead body of the True Emperor.
This second, False Emperor himself was to be deposed violently and in a bloody end at the Battle of Mars (one of many such battles in Sol in reality, but the only to obtain this honorific). It was this which led to the start of the Age of Secession and the Dissolution of the Empire and of the Praetorian Guard.
For a short period of time, there were no Emperors, or at least none that were recognised as such.
After a year or two however, Julius Constantin emerged as the Third Emperor, also referred to as the Shadow Emperor. He led a surprise assault, bringing his Third Empire in a shockingly effective blitzkrieg of attacks deep into the Colonised Galaxy from outside the Frontier. Eventually, the Third Emperor was also to appoint two Regents – Emperor Regent Jared Towers and Empress Regent Edrisa Constantin, one of his many sisters – and the triumvirate ruled the Third Empire as it sought to drive ever onwards in its conquests to re-united the shattered colonised galaxy.
All was not to be as they planned, however, as nothing in the Age of Secession is that simple. The Rise of the Diadochi is often referred to as the time when the First and Second Emperor’s true successors rose to power, and began fighing each other for the ultimate prize – a united Colonised Galaxy.
The Diadochi led to the rise of the Fourth Emperor, and also the Fifth Emperor. In concert with the Third Emperor, these three Emperors – also referred to as the Diadochi, or the Successors in much later years – began to fight against each viciously, each determined to win.