Yaskoydri Technocracy
The Yaskoydri Technocracy is a hegemony located primarily located in Datsatl Sector, beyond the farthest reaches of Zhodani Space.
- It is at the very edge of Charted Space, and by some definitions extends beyond.
Allegiance Codes[edit]
| Polity | Survey | Code | Type | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yaskoydri Technocracy | Pre-Imperial | YaskTec YasT |
No standard code | None |
| Yaskoydri Technocracy | 1st Survey (300) | YT | 2-ltr code | None |
| Yaskoydri Technocracy | 2nd Survey (1065) | YaTe | 4-ltr code | None |
NOTES: The Technocracy was unknown to the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service until 1104, but following standard practice, the above codes were retroactively added upon the Technocracy's discovery.
Description (Specifications)[edit]
A human minor race polity unknown to Charted Space until 1104. They claim to be Yaskoydri, but this claim is impossible to prove (except insofar as that is the name they call themselves). All worlds save their capital are somewhat exclusionary even of other human races (though marriage and interbreeding has softened this over time), as they are taught they have a collective mission (to recontact Grandfather) handed down from their ancestors for thousands of years, and it is their or their descendants' burden to someday finish it. Then again, as Yaskoyloyt is home to over 99% of the Technocracy's population, travellers are among the few who notice this difference between the capital and the rest.
While the exact degree of central control has waxed and waned over time, for the most part, governance of the Technocracy has been governance of Yaskoyloyt, which treats the rest of the Technocracy (...even the other worlds in its own system) as essentially a single outlying province. It is widely believed that the Third Doctrinal War was largely in response to this, but the outcome of the war merely reformed and loosened control, rather than shaking it entirely. As of 1105 (and for a long time prior), this is formalized: the Technocracy's government is Yaskoyloyt's government, which comprises a federal government with eight "states" (translated from Oynprith): seven that represent portions of Yaskoyloyt and an eighth that represents the rest of the Technocracy.
In practice this means individual planets are given a fairly loose rein so long as they pay their taxes and obey Technocracy-wide laws. "Federal" starports are explicitly property of the Technocracy, the result working much as it does in the Third Imperium: a standard and simplified set of laws on starport grounds to encourage trade, but planetary law taking over once one sets foot outside the starport.
Culture & Society (Ethnology)[edit]
Childhood aptitude testing at around 14 years old, including for psionic potential (which they demonstrate an increased aptitude for relative to most human races), is extremely common. Children are strongly encouraged to follow their initial talents, to the point that there are informal castes, traditionally listed in this order:
- Trainer (child-raisers, educators, and coaches)
- Leader (normally reserved for those with at least 20 years experience in other castes - thus, at least 34 years old for a Technocracy native)
- Technical (engineers, technicians, and the like)
- Creative (artists of most stripes)
- Social (mostly counselors and salespeople)
- Laborer (none of the above)
Some blurring of caste lines is allowed. The traditional examples are doctors (Social and Technical), tinkerers (Technical and Creative), and performers (Creative and Social). Transitioning from caste to caste (or inter-caste) is allowed, but is recognized as a transition. A problem commonly noted by outside observers is that scientists do not fit the normal caste boundaries or inter-caste examples; this is often cited as the reason there are less scientists per capita in the Technocracy than in its neighboring polities. Psionic potential is not viewed as any more caste-worthy than muscle mass: it is merely another natural tool, to be used in different ways by the different castes. (This has not always been the case, but it has been consistently the case since well before 1.) Even on Yaskoyloyt where there are a significant number of aliens, the expectation to caste is applied more rigidly to Yaskoydri than to other races, though any long-term adult resident will be at least pressured to identify with a caste.
It is recognized that most people can touch on other castes during their lives. For instance, most parents naturally become at least a little bit of a Trainer, but someone in the Trainer caste is specialized in developmental psychology, nutrition, and other things to make sure children grow up optimally, and will typically be the primary caretaker of a young child. (It is joked that new parents in neighboring polities often turn to Trainer manuals for guides to parenting. The humor is because of the high degree of truth.) Further, castes change over time. Notably, the Warrior caste has come and gone over the years; as of 1105, military duties are broken up among the Leader, Technical, and Laborer castes, while police duties are mostly Social caste.
History & Background (Dossier)[edit]
The Yaskoydri claim to be humans whose ancestors lived near the galactic core, gifted by Grandfather with jump drive and many other technological wonders - but prohibited from seeking out Charted Space and the origin world of humaniti. According to their claim, Grandfather abandoned them, then the core erupted and became unable to support life; the survivors scattered like dandelion seeds.
The specific branch that would become the Technocracy chose to nearly violate Grandfather's orders in order to contact Grandfather. They stopped in Datsatl Sector (their best estimate of the edge of the area Grandfather did not wish them to breach) and made contact with the nearby Droyne, who promised to relay their message to Grandfather. The refugees settled on Yaskoyloyt and waited - and waited, and waited.
Precise historical records that could later be verified were not a priority at all. Estimates of their arrival range from -6,000 to -7,500. Neither was maintaining the technological infrastructure; it is estimated they slowly slid down to TL-11 or 12 before instituting formal education in -5,895 and essentially rediscovering science, having to slowly climb the technological ladder like any race that had never achieved higher technology.
Multiple waves of refugees arrived over thousands of years (each one having stopped short, then spurred on by what would later be revealed to be the Empress Wave, causing them to flee rather than go insane). The first, an all-Yaskoydri fleet, left small colonies on a few worlds before reaching Yaskoyloyt in -5,743; these were politically absorbed, formally turning the Technocracy into a multi-world polity. Not all of these waves were purely Yaskoydri; other sophonts likewise fleeing the Empress Wave sometimes traveled with or followed the Yaskoydri, while others arrived at Datsatl Sector apparently independently. The most severe refugee waves caused wars (named "Doctrinal Wars" in official Technocracy history, as each one resulted in a major rethink of how the Technocracy conducted itself) before finally being assimilated or stopped. Each of these wars clawed back population (in particular on Yaskoyloyt) and effective technology levels across the Technocracy, which would grow again until the next war, keeping the Technocracy in a cycle (which would have been very familiar to the First Imperium had they heard of the Technocracy) that would not be broken until the Empress Wave finally arrived and passed by.
- First Doctrinal War (-4013--3999), "The Overrun War". While there had been prior migrants from coreward, this was the first large and severely antagonistic group, which began conquering or destroying colony after colony upon arrival, faster than the Technocracy could respond at first. Eventually the Technocracy won by retooling industry to build warships, up to a few thousand tons each, that could catch up to and halt the conquerors (which would suffice to handle any hostilities from the next several waves of migrants, and set the standard for Technocracy battle fleets until they proved inadequate in the Fourth Doctrinal War), but by then the damage was done, especially by aggressors which had bypassed Yaskoyloyt to harass the rimward part of the Technocracy. This war and its aftermath caused the Technocracy to not encounter a lateral offshoot of the First Core Expedition that entered Datsatl Sector, found the Ognar Worlds and abandoned Technocracy worlds (colonists recalled to fight the war or annihilated by the invaders) in and around what would later be named Praytsirv Subsector, and believed the sector contained nothing but death and destruction, best avoided forever.
- Second Doctrinal War (-2301--2268), "The Hopeless War". This featured pillaging Yaskoydri: blood kin who had taken a much slower route to arrive at Datsatl Sector and long since abandoned any semblance of following Grandfather's teachings. Their typical pattern was to arrive at a world en masse unannounced, destroy any local defenses, bombard the world to oblivion, sort through the wreckage for loot and supplies, and be gone within 2 weeks before any escaping ships could jump to the nearest star, summon help, and jump back with said help. En route to Datsatl Sector, they had completely exterminated at least 3 pre-jump civilizations they knew of (sticking to the 2 week schedule just in case they were being monitored), and likely more they had not bothered to remember. Although victory was declared in -2268 when the last pillaging fleet was finally caught and destroyed, there no longer seemed reason to believe that Grandfather was still waiting for them. The pillagers believed this meant everything was theirs to take; the Technocracy would not go that far, but after news media broadcast the pillagers' dying defiant screed, consensus soon formed that all evidence suggested Grandfather was indeed no longer present. With no guiding purpose, Technocracy society turned on itself, in some ways continuing to fight the war (though with no more orbital bombardment) until -2001, when the newly risen Pirians' light speed signal finally reached Technocracy worlds, reigniting purpose: to take care of what Grandfather had left behind.
- Third Doctrinal War (-998--937), "The False Flag Wars". A far more brutal war than had been seen before (theoretically a series of independent actions, but almost all historians believe they were coordinated by a single hostile agency, that either gave up or died in the collateral damage when their last scheme was foiled in -937), which spilled over into Pirian space (which had been governed by the Technocracy ever since the Pirians were granted jump drive in -2001) and ravaged them too. Afterward, the Pirian Domain split off and blamed the Technocracy for the damage, until proof of the Technocracy's innocence could be presented almost a century later. Even after that, the Technocracy had to confront the new reality of politically separate neighbors, after having dominated local space all alone since its founding. Historical tales of this era focus especially on the actions of individuals that swayed the fates of millions; while fiction exaggerates the frequency of this, there were several instances of such action. Once enough time had passed (generally, after the -850s when the Technoracy was finally proved innocent), the standard joke among students of history is that no serious threat had come from coreward for long enough that elements of the Technocracy decided to enact a doctrinal war upon themselves.
- Fourth Doctrinal War (249-255), "The Allies' Victory". A larger invasion fleet than had previously been seen by the Technocracy, quickly dealt with once joint task forces from the Pirian Domain and Solomani Preserve were constructed and mobilized. Although other large fleets would be encountered at increasing frequency until the Empress Wave arrived (rather than opportunistic raiders at worst, the Technocracy now faced driven and desperate entire civilizations on the move), the task forces (updated over the years, and largely crewed by the Technocracy once the Preserve shared its designs, in particular for Spinal Weapons Mounts) prevented anything approaching another war.
- The first phase of the war was a delaying action, involving the sacrifice of many smaller warships (including every armed jump-capable ship in the Spike Society), to buy time for the allies' capital ships to engage the invaders' at Yaskoyloyt in 250. It quickly became apparent that the invaders had a small technological superiority, but relied on highly automated capital ships, suggesting a shortage of sophont crew.
- 250-253 saw a series of engagements interspersed by repairs, resupply, and reassessment on both sides - and scouting, especially once the invaders were driven out of pre-war Technocracy territory. The invaders' original capital ships were slowly depleted, but something was still manufacturing and sending out a naval force.
- In 253 the allies finally discovered where the invaders' fleets were coming from: a massive starship that allied command deemed a "Mobile World". There was some debate as to whether the ship was large enough for the term, but it was judged too large for the allied fleet to safely engage. Efforts shifted to study and containment, the former via remote probes and daring scouts making strafing runs with sensors, and the latter via torpedo strikes focused on the exposed shipyards and mining drones.
- In 254 contact was made by an allied scout, hailing an invader scout out of habit in a system neither side had any other presence in, with no expectation of a response until the invader responded. The conversation was in broken Oynprith, the pilot of that particular invader scout having been reading documents taken from other Yaskoydri they had met and destroyed many sectors to coreward. It turned out the invaders' main ship had been carrying what remained of their civilization away from some threat to coreward that would reach this region of space in about 800 years. All efforts to negotiate were rebuffed: the invaders blamed the Yaskoydri for the Wave and the pilot did not know enough Oynprith to explain why, though did convey that they found the Technocracy by following maps to Datsatl Sector found among the documents that pilot subsequently studied, so they came here with the intent of killing any Yaskoydri they found "as a favor to the galaxy" and taking whatever shelter they had constructed. These maps matched historical documents from the founding of the Technocracy (a copy of which was in the ally scout's computers), allegedly given by Grandfather, and were far better preserved - until the invader scout destroyed them to taunt the ally scout, before terminating communication. Both sides returned to their fleets. No further attempts at communication were acknowledged.
- In 255 the invaders' "mobile world" passed close to a star, slowing to refuel at the innermost planet. The allies launched their strike. A boarding team - having been studying what information had been obtained over the past two years - breached the correctly estimated location of main engineering, and crudely rerouted engine control to send the ship into the sun. They then held their position, aided by "ortillery" strikes from capital ships holding position shortly outside the breach, until their escape shuttle was minutes from melting under the corona's heat.
- In the aftermath, what few scraps of the smaller invader ships remained were studied extensively. They were estimated to have been TL-17, though they did not have enough mastery of artificial intelligence to construct fully autonomous battle fleets. Most of this study was conducted in the Solomani Preserve and Pirian Domain, as the Technocracy was focused on rebuilding. The scout who contacted the aliens and participated in the boarding team that hijacked their ship, went on to found the Tijian Khaganate decades later, claiming he was doing it as self-inflicted penance for being the agent of so much death.
- Fifth Doctrinal War (circa 1043), "The Last Gift From Home". Not actually a war at all, this was just the Empress Wave and its immediate aftermath. There is debate as to whether it should be counted as a Doctrinal War, since the "enemy" was not a group of sophonts that could be fought against, but consensus is to give it the label given the amount of damage done (including the traditional damage to the capital Yaskoyloyt, even if this instance was largely self-inflicted). With the immigrants came word of what they were fleeing, so the Technocracy had some warning of the Empress Wave and was able to take some protective measures, even (eventually) to warn its neighbors and analyze the origin. Once the Wave had passed, it was truly a new era for the Technocracy, as the near-constant migration from coreward suddenly ceased. Further, around this time deeper contacts with Charted Space (what was left of it after the Collapse) were forged, giving the Technocracy new insight as to what Grandfather had left behind - while the Pirian Domain's revelation that they had unintentionally been enslaving the vargr gave the Technocracy pause to contemplate their intention to "take care" of Grandfather's legacy.
Language & Letters (Communication)[edit]
Oynprith is their official language, though after contact from the Solomani Preserve in 1, and especially following the Pirian cultural shift of the 20s and 30s, Anglic is increasingly spoken as a trade language.
Worlds & Sectors (Astrography)[edit]
This polity can be primarily found in the following areas:
Charted Space:
Beyond Charted Space:
- Coreward of Datsatl Sector
Capital/s: 1105[edit]
The capital/s of this polity is/are located in the following location/s:
World Listing: 1105[edit]
The following systems and worlds are a part of this polity:
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References & Contributors (Sources)[edit]
| This article has a secret. |
- Traveller Wiki Editorial Team
- Author & Contributor: Adrian Tymes
- Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science