Chapter III

The Messer Era

2523, 2792 · UEE Calendar

Dictatorship, and the wars that forged a citizenry.

◢ Timeline

2523

Ivar Messer seizes power

Using a manufactured Tevarin invasion scare, General Ivar Messer dissolves the UPE Senate and crowns himself First Citizen. The empire has a dictator for the first time. The Messer dynasty will hold the throne for twenty-five generations.

2530

The Xi'An Cold War begins

Messer propaganda paints the Xi'An as an existential threat. Both sides militarize the shared border. No shots are fired for four centuries.

2541

First Tevarin War

The Tevarin Prime Empire invades the Elysium system. The UEE fleet is unprepared, loses early engagements, then rallies under a young Commodore Corsen. Twenty-two years of open war follow.

2546

The fall of Garron II

A Vanduul warband, a species humanity had not yet named, destroys the Garron II colony in a single orbital pass. First recorded Vanduul aggression. The pattern will repeat.

2563

Kaleeth taken, Tevarin defeated

The First Tevarin War ends in UEE victory. The Messer regime announces the homeworld of Kaleeth will be terraformed into a human colony, over the surviving Tevarin population's objections.

2610

Tevarin homeworld renamed Elysium IV

Terraforming completes. Kaleeth becomes Elysium IV. The surviving Tevarin scatter across human space, refugees in a government that took their world.

2681

Second Tevarin War

The last Tevarin warlord, Corath'Thal, gathers the diaspora and retakes Kaleeth for a single desperate month. He is killed in orbit. The Tevarin never rise again as an independent people.

2789

Fair Chance Act signed

In response to the Tevarin genocide, the UEE passes legislation protecting any star system containing sapient life from colonization. Hard-won atonement. Still the law.

Panel 01

The Dictatorship Rises

2523, Ivar Messer dissolves the Senate. The empire has a face, and it is his.

Panel 02

Twenty-Five Generations

Ivar Messer's coup was supposed to last a generation. It lasted twenty-five. Under the Messers the UEE became the most powerful military force in known space, and the most oppressive government humans had ever built. State-controlled news. Disappeared dissidents. Mandatory patriotic service for every citizen.

The sacrifice of the few secures the future of the many. The sacrifice of the many secures the future of the empire.

, Messer doctrine, widely quoted

Panel 04

Garron II Burns

2546, first recorded Vanduul raid. Half a colony gone in ninety minutes.

Panel 05

The Vanduul Appear

The Vanduul don't have a homeworld, not one we've found. They raid in nomadic clan-fleets, strike without diplomacy, and vanish. The fall of Garron II in 2546 was the opening note of a war that has not stopped since.

Panel 06

The Tevarin Wars

2541–2610, two wars end with the Tevarin losing their homeworld to UEE terraforming.

Panel 07

Elysium IV, formerly Kaleeth

The Tevarin Wars left a permanent wound. The UEE won, yes; and then it took everything. The Tevarin are still among us, fully citizens now, serving in the Navy, sitting in the Senate, but their homeworld is a human paradise called Elysium IV. You can visit. It's beautiful. That's the problem.