In 2618 reports began filtering back from deep range scouts along the border between the Talosian Imperium and its long-time rival the so-called Dark Imperium. (the title drawn from some documents acquired where it was found that they referred to themselves as "The Empire in Darkness") The reports indicated that after close to 40 years of relative peace the Dark Imperium was massing several fleets in systems just beyond the jump range of most starships.
Our response was swift and effective. The fleets of the 3 sectors on the border supplemented by taskforces from 7 other fleets staged a massive system hopping campaign where they would travel to the fortress systems, devastate the fleets found there and facilities to produce more then leaving a task force in place to hold down the fort head to the next series of systems to repeat the process.
What was underestimated going in was how much of the Dark Imperium's forces had been committed to their eventual invasion. After the initial fleet engagements, the Imperial forces found only a skeleton coverage that was quickly dealt with before driving deeper/ At no point was any attempt made to occupy the captured planets only to secure their ability to leave their atmospheres.
By the time Central Command realized what was happening the effective border had moved close to 100 parsecs outward from where it had started. Orders were sent out to hold in place and to advance no further while the Emperor decided our next step.
That step came from the Dark Imperium in the form of an ambassador sent to sue for peace. While that was not totally unexpected what was unforeseen was the fact that the ambassador was one of the gold-skinned warriors known as the Immortals. While we knew about them and had found their corpses in the aftermath of battles no living member of the race had ever been captured. All we had ever been certain of was the fact that every one of them encountered had been in a position of command over the forces engaged.
The ambassador presented papers indicating he had the authority to negotiate peace and subsequent treaties to maintain that peace. While he would negotiate a cease-fire with the ranking military authorities he insisted that the formal binding treaties be negotiated with the Emperor himself. The request was granted and two standard months later the Imperium found itself in possession of over a hundred new systems most with existing populations who had yet to learn their new status. A new frontier had just come into existence.
Now up to this point, the task of evaluating new systems and first contact procedures had been the purview of the Bureau of Cultural Affairs, which had come about after unwise decisions made by a number of traders resulted in an entire world declaring a jihad on offworlders and the need of the Imperial fleet to interdict the world. What had originally started as a part of the Imperial Diplomatic Corps eventually became a bureau of its own and the sole evaluators of newly encountered worlds occupied or not.
The cultural evaluation teams were lead by a lead evaluator who most often ran his team as if he was nobility bestowing favors and making decrees. As may be expected the people who were given the authority to designate new lead evaluators were the existing leads themselves who were cautious about who they qualified since they saw such people as infringing on their exalted status.
There has been pressure from the throne for the Bureau to increase the number of teams since the last war due to the constant backlog of systems waiting to be processed and passed on to either the Ministries of Trade or Colonization.
At the same time, the Free traders League has commissioned a number of scout teams that are capable of performing the planetary evaluations of uninhabited worlds and submitting them to the League for subsequent sale to the Ministry of Colonization, this has raised protests from the Bureau and requests to the fleet to arrest these teams for prosecution. Oddly the fleet has been told in most cases to not get involved unless there is evidence of actual illegal activity.
With the recent opening of the frontier regions, the need for evaluation teams has become critical and the pressure on the Bureau to produce said teams has risen to a boiling point.
Rumors have been circulating that the Emperor may have exhausted his patience and may step in to correct matters himself, which never bodes well for a ministry or bureau that is at the center of such attention.
On a possibly related note, a number of individuals who had left the scout service after being passed over for lead evaluator certification have started to disappear from their jobs and homes with no explanation.
More than one individual has voiced concerns that the fleets are being spread too thin providing coverage for all these new holdings and new treaty or no that puts us in a position ripe for mischief from utside interests. We won the war but is the peace going to break us?
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