Old Republic...? I don't know of any 'Republic'. I come from the Ethereal Empire, which has stood for many centuries and shall stand for many more.
—Talen Antarus, after being awoken from long-term carbon-freeze
The Ethereal Empire was an ancient interstellar government established long before the rise of the Old Republic, during the era when the Celestials were still prevalent in the galaxy, and later reestablished during the Galactic Civil War. It was located almost entirely within the region of space known as the Ethereal Demesnes, an astrographical area which was demarcated by the hyperspace barrier which separated the Unknown Regions from the rest of the galaxy and which surrounded and penetrated the Demesnes, providing a natural boundary against either foreign powers encroaching upon the region or the region's inhabitants expanding outwards.
History[]
Foundation[]
The founders and original leaders of the Ethereal Empire were the Ethereal Family, a family of four Celestials, who desired to help the peoples of a number of worlds, predominantly those inhabited by the early Ethereal Humans. Once, these worlds had been among the early galaxy's leading worlds of the Outer Rim, but had become subject to frequent raids by a common enemy, lacking the capacity to defend themselves even when allied. Thus, the Ethereal Family stepped in, becoming the Ethereal Emperor, Ethereal Empress, Ethereal Prince and Ethereal Princess. They promptly led the peoples of the newly-created Ethereal Empire to victory against their attackers, and began leading them towards a unified, communal society.
Over time, more peoples came to join the Ethereal Empire of their own choice, including the K'Sar, the Adrexi and the Nok'Van, however these peoples lived some distance away from the Empire's roots, and so it was decided that continuing to run the Empire from whichever world the Ethereal Family was currently located at was simply no longer feasible. This led them to use their abilities as Celestials to construct the Elysian City, a location set on a separate plane of reality from the galaxy at large and accessible by a monolith that they constructed near the worlds of their newer subjects, though the new Ethereal capital would eventually become accessible by specially-constructed buildings on each of the Ethereal Humans' respective homeworlds.
Rise and Fall[]
In the south-west of the galaxy, in what would one day become known as the Unknown Regions and the Outer Rim Territories, the Ethereal Empire rose to prominence as one of the few interstellar governments anywhere in the galaxy. The raiders that had once plagued their founding members, the Klastrons, eventually joined the Empire themselves as one of the Empire's protectorate worlds. Following their protectorate membership were other races in the future Unknown Regions, such as the Derz-a, the Felodar, and the P'Atren. For millennia, the Empire remained a peaceful, cooperative union of peoples, working together to protect and help one another, and guiding each new protectorate race to new heights. But they failed to see storm clouds on the horizon; the rise of the Infinite Empire.
Over the thousands of years since the Ethereal Empire's foundation, the Celestials and the Rakata had slowly grown less and less far apart technologically and militarily. When the Rakata at last began the Celestial-Rakata War, the Ethereal Empire proudly sided with the Celestials. The conflict seemed endless, but in the end, the Rakata were victorious against the powerful forces arrayed against them. The Ethereal Empire followed the example of the Celestials, largely retreating from galactic affairs, beginning a slow decline and suffering a continuing inability to project galactic power, particularly as a result of the Ethereal-Rakata Continuation Wars.
Increasing Isolation[]
Over time, the once-great Ethereal Empire decayed. Its golden era fading into history, the Ethereal Empire's member worlds and protectorates drifted away from its central government over the millennia leading up to the foundation of the first Galactic Republic, the Klastrons even experiencing an uprising. Eventually, the metaphorical nail in the coffin came. The Ethereal Family moved to arbitrate between two non-member races who were at war, seeking to end the conflict. The negotiations were going well, until one of the two races' governments underwent a sudden, violent coup, and their new administration organized assassinating all of the family save for the Ethereal Emperor himself.
Henceforth, Ethereal military forces were pulled back deeper and deeper into the Empire's core territories, more and more member worlds withdrew from the Ethereal Senate and the Rakata and other warlike races pressed more and more on the Empire's ever-thinning garrisons and blockades at the borders of the Ethereal Demesnes. Then, the Emperor made a fateful decision; he would suspend the Senate, create Force-imbued, mind-controlling artifactual devices to ensure the loyalty of the several divisions of the military, and, then, he would withdraw the Empire totally from galactic affairs, bringing all those needed into the dimension of the capital city before sealing it off from the outside galaxy, until the right time came to return.
Infighting[]
At first, the Emperor's plans seemed to be working. The Imperial Guard were absolutely loyal to him, the Astral Defenders and Ebon Warriors did not learn of the artifacts created for them until too late, all he had to do was to craft and implement the remaining three artifacts, and subsequently leave the galaxy be for a few millennia. But this was not to be. The device made for the Grey Knights was successfully created, but when he gave the one intended for the Colored Paladins to their reigning Champion, the Champion of the Animus Templars, Talen Antarus, discovered his plan. He rallied the Templars for rebellion, planning to prevent the plan from being executed.
Antarus failed, and the Animus Templars were disbanded. He was placed in carbon-freeze in a long-forgotten world at the opposite corner of the galaxy, later known as Aurum, while his Templars were variously killed or placed in other branches of the military. Then, finally, the Ethereal Empire simply vanished from the galaxy. It was as if it were there one day, and gone the next, its members and protectorates left to fend for themselves. Initially, the Astral Defenders, Ebon Warriors, Grey Knights and Colored Paladins continued to uphold the Ethereal ways on their respective worlds, but as the centuries went on, and as the first Galactic Republic was founded in the Core, the seeds of civil war were planted.
The Astral Defenders accused the Ebon Warriors of drifting to too close to the Dark, the Ebon Warriors in turn accused them of being too self-righteous and moralizing, while, at the same time, the Colored Paladins demanded that the Grey Knights be more compassionate, and less focused on strict, overzealous adherence to 'justice' and 'law', while the Grey Knights in turn demanded that they be less emotionally-guided and objective. Over time, these seeds sprouted fruit, and war between former comrades broke out. The Defenders and Warriors fought savagely, tearing each other to pieces at every engagement, while the Paladins and Knights waged proxy wars, leading some less advanced societies towards more spiritual views and others towards more logic and reason-based politics.
Years of war became decades, decades became centuries, centuries became millennia. Over time, the four forgot all about their ancient history, forming and breaking alliances, constructing terrible weapons of great power, waging wars across entire sectors, on and on it went. Over time, the factions fought so much, they finally were managing to wipe each other away. The Paladins were utterly destroyed by the time of the Great Hyperspace War, and within another millennium, the Knights followed. The Warriors and Defenders became so focused on destroying one another, they started intermingling with the Jedi and Sith orders, though they kept their true origins largely secret. While the Warriors became ever-more drawn to darkness and evil, the Defenders likewise drew ever closer to the light, to morality, to compassion and righteousness. All the while, the peoples of all four became less and less like what they had once been, becoming new states and cultures unrecognizable to their ancestors.
Return[]
By the time of the Invasion of Naboo, the two remaining factions were all but spent. The Astral Defenders no longer knew their true identity, nor even their old name, and the last heir of the line of their Champions, Arius Valdayn, wasn't even born Force-sensitive. The Ebon Warriors, similarly, no longer had a concept of being the Ebon Warriors as such, seeking only power and conquest akin to some twisted, nightmarish offshoot of the Sith, whose heir, Tharan Attix, understood just as little of his family's old history as his counterpart Valdayn. Their two peoples no longer even knew the other existed as their old allies turned enemies, nor had even the faintest idea that they had once been a part of a great, peaceful Empire spanning over much of the galactic south-west, now seeing each other merely as rival dynasties of interstellar kingdoms and their respective followers.
Nevertheless, following the Clone Wars, the Ebon Warriors began slowly but steadily building up their power once more, even going so far as to ally with the False Shadows and Never Daemons. The modern Force-sensitive Astral Defenders, composed of just a handful of individuals scattered around the galaxy who barely knew of each others' existence, struggled to do the same. After Arius Valdayn was artificially made Force-sensitive, he began efforts to gather the other remaining Astral Defenders, with the intention of opposing the Ebon Warriors. Over the years, the two sides clashed intermittently throughout the Imperial Period, until a final confrontation at Luctanem in 5 ABY led the two sides to begin working together due to rediscovering, by degrees, their shared history.
Eventually, they located their counterparts from the other orders of Force-Users which their peoples once coexisted with; Althea Saerlys of the Grey Knights, Kara Keldrick of the Colored Paladins and, finally, Talen Antarus of the Animus Templars. With the five rightful Champions gathered together in 10 ABY, shortly following the conclusion of the Thrawn campaign, they gathered together the artifacts made for their respective peoples, and activated them. This led to the Ethereal Emperor believing all five were under their influence, and so brought the Ethereal Empire out of obscurity and back into the galaxy. However, Champion Antarus shortly thereafter destroyed his counterparts' artifacts, and the five traveled to the Elysian City to confront the Ethereal Emperor. After a lengthy duel between them, the Emperor was killed, and the newly-reborn Empire's new period of reforms, reconstruction and re-expansion began, starting with former member worlds such as K'Sal, Luncaris, Adrex and Nok'Var being welcomed back into the fold. In time, Valdayn's twin sister, Atheria Valdayn, would similarly come out of the galactic shadows, joining the Champions and becoming the Empire's new official monarch.