Wolatarian (Civilization)

Overview
The Wolatarian civilization was built among the stars of a globular cluster high above the mid rim, 160 light-years above the Antar System. Their voyages into space began only around 800 BBY, following an apocalyptic world war.

Early History
In the pre-Space age Wolatarian world of Woltar, several world wars lead to a unifying of the planet under one government ruled by a Imperial monarch. The monarchy held together for twenty years before splittwo competing factions. Both sides launched a ten year war that ended in a nuclear holocausts killing millions. Wolatarian Civilization slowly rebuilt over the next forty years.

Space Age
Sixty years post the end of the War, the Imperial House formed as the ruling Wolatarian Government and committed the future of the Wolatarians to space exploration based on science. The first satellite was placed in orbit twelve years after the forming of the Imperial House (Imperial Year 12 or 789 BBY). A manned crew was put into orbit three years later. Fifteen years later the Imperial House established a base on the lunar companion to Woltar.

Va'na Separatist
A growing religious sect in Wolatarian society were the Va'na, who strongly promoted the formation of a theocracy and the overthrow of the Imperial House. As a large segment of the population of began to follow the Va'na teachings, Imperial Forces moved into the stop the growth of the separatist group. With the killing of several leaders of the group, planet wide rebellion began starting a brief, yet violent civil war. A year after it started, a peace agreement was signed in IY45, turning over the control of a southern continent of Woltar to the group. During this time the jump drive was invented (a precursor to the hyperdrive) allowing interstellar travel in a matter of years. The Va'na began construction a fleet of colony ships to depart the Wolatarian system. In IY96 the Va'na Colony fleet departed Woltar with 890,000 souls to the star system they worshiped Vandar.

Imperial Expansion
Over the next three hundred years, the Wolatarians colonized thirty-eight local star systems on the edge of the globular cluster. The Va'na who had traveled to the Vandar system in hopes of finding a Utopia like planet, had made landfall on a desolate, arid world. When Imperial spacecraft landed on the world in IY138, they found less than 20,000 Wolatarians left alive, all children of the generation who had departed Woltar. The Imperials took the planet as theirs, and reintegrated the Va'na colonist into their society. During this time the Imperial House became more and more focused on industrial and military build up, and less on tradition and artistic heritage.

In IY421 a damaged vessel was found in the Grando system, its markings and design not of Wolatarian origin. The biped like creatures on board were killed and the vessel captured and ravaged in laboratories. It contained a new type of propulsion system, allowing for rapid voyages across space, the hyperdrive. The technology was copied by Wolatarian engineers and then implemented in ships. This gave the Imperial House greater control over the new colonies and cemented the future of the Wolatarian species. It also, combined with their sublight jump drives, created a new technology for Wolatarian military vessels. Using inertial dampers and their jump drives, engineers built a system that allowed highly accurate sublight jumps between two nearby points. The jumps were usually less than a few million kilometers, and could be as short as a few hundred kilometers.

Rise of the Three Parties
The Imperial House began to breakdown about IY601 (200BBY) with growing opposition from two factions. One was in the form of the daughter of the current Imperial President, Helene, who spoke and campaigned for a more open Wolatarian government with democratic elections of governors and a return to culture and art as a focus of society. With popular support, she instigated a bloodless coup on the planet of Brocan and supporters in nine other systems joined her. Declaring herself Queen, and starting a systems of elected officials, the Brocan House successfully broke away from the Imperial House without military incident.

Fearful that more systems might break away, the Imperial House began implementing democratic changes as well, managing to prevent the succession of further systems. Over the next thirty years there were no major incidents and diplomatic and economic negotiations took place between the two houses. During this time the Wolatarians made contact with fringe traders from the rest of the galaxy and began to share resources with these freelance traders.

On the planet of Spika, a world of mostly military and industrial complexes, a third house began to take shape. In IY637 a violent revolt of military leaders took the power of the planet away from the elected governor and secured a portion of the planet's fleet. Leaders inside the Imperial House who were members of the party, took parts of their fleet and retreated to Spika claiming the system theirs. A military response by the Imperial house was initiated, however most of the commanders of the Imperial House's battle fleets were part of the rebellion. With a few minor skirmishes, and the threat of nuclear bombardment of Woltar, the Imperial house relented and the Spika became the third Wolatarian house.

The Spika Wars
In IY706 (95BBY) the Spika House launched a full scale attack on the other two houses. In a few weeks, most of the Imperial and Brocan fleets were decimated. A retaliatory nuclear strike was executed on the Spika Capital and the first Spika War began. The Brocan and Imperial fleets joined under the command of Admiral Exli of the Brocan House and fought back against the Spika. After two years of fierce fighting and an estimated eight hundred and fifty billion dead, the Spika forces retreated to worlds unknown.

The next few years saw a rapid build up or military forces in both the Brocan and Imperial House, along with war games in the event the Spika returned or a new invader emerged. After the Spika had retreated at the end of the first war, they had move into a new set of worlds they had colonized and began exploiting for resources. In IY721 the Spika returned with an immense fleet larger than both the other houses combined. The war raged on for years, battering and destroying dozens of worlds in nuclear and chemical attacks from both sides. The Spika had been creating genetically modified warriors for their ground forces, and managed to take the Imperial capital world of Woltar. Eventually, with insurgent forces on the ground and combined efforts of the Imperial and Brocan fleets, the Spika were beaten back to their capital of Vindobona. The planet was subjected to an intense nuclear bombardment and finally the last remaining Spika surrendered, effectively ending the war.

Post-Spika Wars
After the Spika Wars, in order to rebuild the systems, a central government was formed between the Brocan and Imperial house. Signing deals with the Trade Federation and other Galactic entities, the Wolatarians slowly began to venture out from their cluster into the rest of the Galaxy. When the Clone Wars broke out, the Wolatarians began to pull back a little, eventually closing back to themselves during the time of the Galactic Empire.

The First Great War
In IY816 (15 ABY), the Wolatarian Houses began to make new moves to reestablish contact with the Galaxy. Making contact with the New Republic, the bartered two trade agreements and a move over to Republic Credits as a medium of exchange in the Wolatarian worlds. However, a rouge Imperial fleet, interested in drawing the New Republic into a conflict with them invaded the Wolatarian worlds.

Wolatarian military technology had not been used against outsiders on this scale before. Though their weapons were capable of causing critical damage to the Imperial II-class Star Destroyers, most of their combat ships were unshielded, with very little armor. In less than three weeks the Imperial and Brocan houses were laid to waste. Estimates were that nearly five trillion beings died. Tied up with other issues the Republic did not offfer any assistance to the houses and the survivors of the war fled to the former Spika world of Vindobona.

The Colonial Era
A hundred and fifty thousand survivors of the Great War landed on Vindobona, which had spent a century recovering from the nuclear holocaust it had experienced during the Spika Wars. No central government was designated, just thousands of small colonies under a military confederation known as the Free World Alliance. During the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, the Wolatarians hid away, avoid the war completely. After the war, with loans from the Galactic Alliance, the began another military build up and the rebuilding of their worlds. By 100 ABY they had twenty worlds and boosted a population of nearly two trillion. Vindobona had been renamed New Woltar and was put in place as the capital and hey had built a powerful naval force.

They remained isolationist, and chose only to trade with individual corporations from mid and outer rim planets. However, in 126 ABY the Wolatarian Navy caught an Imperial Dreadnought in their space, which refused to answer to hails. The Forth Colonial Fleet engaged and destroyed the much older Imperial vessel. Figuring it to belong to a pirate group, the incident was considered minor. However, it was a scout vessel belonging to Grand Admiral Morlish Veed.

The Second Great War
Grand Admiral Veed's response was merciless. Without the permission of the Emperor, he bore the brunt of his fleet down on the Wolatarians. At first he tried to enslave the population, but incited a deadly insurgency that resulted in the Imperial Forces pulling back and turning the planet's the glass. Less than sixty thousand Wolatarians survived.

The Nomadic Fleet
Striped of their homeworlds, the surviving Wolatarian military and civilian vessels fled the cluster and entered Hutt Space. Bogged down by political troubles, the fleet broke up after a year, most of the vessels fleeing to Alliance Space as traders. The remaining fleet was focused around three Battlecruisers, the Neo'vana, Sorceress' Poison and the Queen Helene. Under the Duchess Ajam Ilossa, a surviving member of the Brocan Royal Family, the fleet formed a charter to continue the Wolatarian State and bring vengeance to the Empire for what they did.

Behind the scenes
Wolatarian creator GenOochy stated that many of his ideas for post-colonial Wolataria came from the reimagining of the TV series, Battlestar: Galactica