Chiss Imperium

The Chiss Imperium, also known as the Solar Empire and the First Chiss Imperium, existed between 23,000 BBY and 22,225 BBY, in the Unknown Regions. Though formed later than other major states in the region, the Chiss Imperium was still very technologically advanced. Interstellar travel was facilitated, and limited, by the use of a technology called the mass drive, similar but more primitive than the hyperdrive. Mass drives were capable of propelling a starcraft between one to six parsecs. Regardless of the distance of teh jump, the duration required for the trip was approximately one week. Communications were limited to the speed of travel, as the Chiss had not yet developed any communications devices even remotely similar to the holonet. The restraint on the speed of information led to decentralization and the vestment of significant power in the hands of local officials.

The Solar Empire was the primary galactic government in the Unknown Regions between 23,000 BBY and 22,225 BBY. The Imperium was a vast, near-human dominated feudalistic union of over eleven thousand worlds ruled by several dynasties of emperors. Though the Chiss Imperium was the most powerful interstellar government, it was surrounded on all sides by potentially hostile neighbors. Local nobility, or members of the great houses, operated largely free from oversight, restricted by convention, feudal obligations, and the fear of being caught.

The Chiss Imperium had a tendency to seem monolithic and unchanging in its policies. People could work within its systems, but were considered too insignificant to affect matters on a galactic scale. However, a coalition of nobles formed to challenge the power of the Imperium, culminating in the assassination of Emperor Auel III, Mistha'uel'nuruodo, by Archduke Arhad'ix'ilani in a bid for the Imperial throne. The death of Mistha'uel'nuruodo touched off a terrible conflict, known as the First Chiss Civil War, involving imperial dynastic struggle, violent succession of large regions of the Imperium, and the advance of foreign powers into the empire's territory.

The Rebellion was finally ended, with the ascension of Emperor Soonde'cart'elli and his reformation of the Chiss Imperial Military, by the inadvertant release of the genophage, a chemical superweapon that invested any non-human or non-near human life form within the the Imperium's borders with a highly toxic poison and resulted in the deaths of millions of alien soldiers invading the Imperium. Unfortunately, this also reduced great numbers of worlds to a pre-habitation state, leaving the Imperium with many less subjects to rule. The next seventy years following the Rebellion during which the first attempts at reestablishing interstellar commerce were made, and failed, caused the Chiss Imperium to collapse from bankruptcy and infighting amongst the great houses.