What would you like to know? Nightmare asked. As you are aware, the Empire is a rather broad subject and my own knowledge is rather limited, but every military vessel had a summary of human history in its database, as well with a slightly more detailed one regarding the military. My knowledge of the inner workings of the Empire on the civil side, or when it comes to the admiralty of the military, is lacking.

'Start at the beginning. Human history. How was the Empire formed?'

A small projector sprang to life and a map appeared on the nearby wall, showing earth along with its first few colonies on the Moon, Mars and Europa. She went over to the bed and sat down against it, feeling Mentuc's eyes on her.

In the early twenty-fourth century a disease nicknamed Mercury's Grip spread across the human race. It wasn't the most lethal of diseases, with a mortality rate of only six percent, but it did put anyone who contracted it with in bed for three to five weeks. Wide spread panic was a result and coupled with an incredibly corrupt government, this led to a total economic collapse.

Red swathes of fire rapidly spread across the map, leaving little to the imagination what it represented.

Within five years any government had been reduced to a shell of its former self and most nations had descended into pure anarchy. For the next four decades humanity had to rebuilt itself from the ashes. For most of humanity this time of struggle meant death, disease and starvation. In those times the military forces of most nations had abandoned their creed of protecting civilians when they realised they could no longer handle the task in front of them, and had instead decided to safeguard themselves. From these groups new governments sprung up.

Small encampments, each with their own colour, dotted the map as Nightmare brought the various new 'nations' to life.

A massive cold war broke out over resources, fought through proxies, and technology surged upwards as morals fell by the wayside. This led to the creation of the FTL theory, which was finalised in the first functioning FTL engine at the beginning of the twenty-fifth century., just as the world grew more stable once again, largely due to its reduced population and the surviving military groups entering ceasefires. As soon as the first FTL ship successfully transitioned back into the solar system, every nation signed the treaty of Columbus, formally putting a stop to all wars and forming into the Human Alliance.

'I heard of them,' Onoelle mused. 'Very vaguely though.'

That does not surprise me, Nightmare said as the colours on the map shifted until they covered the entire span of Earth and its colonies with a light blue colour. Then the map rapidly expanded. Vastly expanded. The Human Alliance predated the Empire and they immediately realised a major issue. Most planets were inhospitable. So they poured together their resources and came up with what was, and is, seen as the most ambitious project to be ever undertaken by any species as we know so far. The Galactic Terraforming Project. With the advancement in propulsion technology humanity focused all of its resources into the creation of mining bases in the Solar system and research began in how one could possible terraform a planet. Smaller, military colonies were formed far from Earth and these rapidly grew, but the ties amongst humanity remained strong, despite the distance, thanks to the GTP.

Then, in the midst of the twenty-fifth century the research was completed, large scale testing had been a success and the second stage of the project was greenlit. One thousand seven hundred and eighty three terraformers began construction. The council of the Human Alliance would spread to as many worlds as possible. It took a century and a half for the last terraformer to finish construction, and by the time the final ships left the yards the first planets had already been modified to possess an earth-like climate and ecosphere, including human settlements that were rapidly prospering.

Over the next five centuries this was the general behaviour for humanity. More terraformers were built and sent out, their exact number lost to time and thousands of planets were colonised and the human race grew explosively. Many groups in the military had retained part of their old, national identity and this led to a mixture of cultures native to Earth being transplanted to those colonies. This also lead to old rivalries resurfacing, as some swathes of the galaxy were populated by the same ethnic groups. Alien races were also discovered during this period and some groups were more amiable to them than others, further causing divide between the colonies. This led to, at the start of the third millennia, what was known as the Fall of the Alliance. It started as an inner dispute in the council which quickly started affecting the lesser, political entities. What originally started as a trade disagreement turned into the second most gruesome conflict this galaxy had seen.

'The War being the most gruesome?' Onoelle asked.

Yes. The Fall of the Alliance is where the Empire was born. Within the military there was more unison than most people had assumed. Even though the Human Alliance had largely demilitarised itself, the need for combat capable vessels had never gone away. Pirates, hostile incursions from aliens and humans alike, slavery and another myriad of reasons had kept a relatively small number of men and women armed. As anarchy once again threatened to consume the human race, a small core of hardliners stepped forward and pulled together. These men and women were the forerunners of what would be the Empire. They consisted of idealists and realists alike, but the one trait they shared was that they were soldiers first and foremost, and loyal to their tenets. They were sick of corruption, nepotism and the other diseases that plagued the Alliance and had gotten so many of their number killed, and under the leadership of the man who would later become the Emperor, they established a set of rules to govern themselves with, which quickly grew into a doctrine. They would fight to protect one another at the cost of everything else. They believed humanity, left to its own devices, was always doomed to fail and believed that only strict discipline and brotherhood could keep the race from its self destructive tendencies. And so the Empire was born.

Dark blue dots appeared on the map as Nightmare added the Empire to the map.

Spurned on by the promises of safety, of food, of certainty, billions flocked to their banner. Under the Emperor's lead a new Council was formed and the small army, in comparison to the total human populace, slowly grew in size, taking the time to thoroughly train any who wished to join. They would only accept the people with the same mindset and took great care to keep corruption out of their ranks. The remnants of the Human Alliance saw this rising new threat and declared war on them. The as of yet small Empire was forced to run, but enacted a fighting retreat that destroyed enough of the Alliance's forces that they unable to continue pursuit, as more and more rebellions broke out and entire systems declared their independence.

The dark blue colours moved to the 'south-east' of the galaxy, where the colour rapidly grew darker.

In the meantime the Empire had retreated to a far off corner of human territory and rapidly began to rearm and rebuild. Spurred on by discipline, national pride and the desire to never be threatened again, they ballooned in size. They experimented without abandon on any who did not belong to them and their technology surged ahead, even as they constantly clashed with other human forces and the Alliance in particular. Within the span of a few decades they had become a small nation with a massive fleet. Then they took to the stars again. The Alliance had fractured at this point, barely capable of sustaining itself, but still large enough to be a threat. Unable to thwart the assault, Imperial ships reached Earth within the year, forcing the Alliance to the negotiating table, threatening them with planetary destruction should they refuse.

An agreement was struck there. The Empire was tired of fighting, even if they could win, for war itself was never their goal. They simply wanted to be left alone and that would not happen as long as intergalactic war raged on this scale. The Alliance, large, weak and an easy prey, knew they could not defeat the young Empire and was fearful of the other fledgling nations, who were busy conquering their way across many other worlds. The negotiations lasted for the better part of a month, but in the end the remnants of the Human Alliance were incorporated into the Empire. Some other nations originally chose to ignore this change of leadership and were met with annihilation.

'Annihilation? Why? I thought they didn't want anymore war?' she asked as Nightmare altered the map once again, the vast space of Alliance territory changing colour, with the occasional pinprick of another colour chipping pieces of it as other nations invaded.

I can answer that from personal experience as well as from what the database tells me. The Empire did not want war, but neither did they believe in holding back. They were without mercy in that aspect. Warnings were sent to leave Imperial space alone or face the consequences. Their reputation had not yet been established as the ruthless force the galaxy would come to fear them for. Over the next century, as the Empire established solid control and its fleets and military exponentially grew in size, the galaxy learned. Some nations were destroyed to a man, others lived, but all knew that the Empire was there to stay. With the borders secured, the Imperial military turned inwards. There was a strict division between the military, which had been the original Empire, and the civilian population, which consisted out of the annexed Human Alliance. As the years went by, that division grew rather than lessened. Politicians were sidelined by the military and instead Merchant Houses rose up, supplying the Imperial military with what they needed, for the military had grown too fast, too quickly. While they had not lessened the strictness of their training, their logistical and economical base could not keep up. There was simply too much terrain to cover, too many supplies they needed.

Still, the Empire was at peace. They did not reach out on their own, but when the surrounding nations, alien and human alike, reached out for them, they were treated fairly and before long trade agreements were struck, soon followed by alliances. The galaxy prospered and the Empire grew. They did not expand outwardly, but were content to consolidate what they had. There was a lot of empty space within their borders left to use, after all. Then, at the beginning of the thirty-eight century, the Kra'lagh were discovered.

A small speck of red appeared on the map, before rapidly ballooning in size.

I have no information on how they were discovered or on how the war began, all I know was that the alien race struck the Empire with a vengeance and the Empire rallied its full might to strike back. Nearly every alliance was broken as the Empire was betrayed on all sides. Civil war erupted as the military's increasing demand for more goods to fight a war of survival was met with lust for power from the side of the Merchant Houses.

The colours on the map danced back and forth, simple pictures depicting wars of a scale that went far beyond her imagination.

The rest... Is history. The Empire fought, bled, beat the Kra'lagh back and... died, Nightmare sighed, sadness and anger dripping from her voice.

Why? Onoelle wondered. Because it had been her task to protect it?

That is a brief summary of how the Empire came to be and of how it ceased to be and roughly the extent of my in depth knowledge. The only reason I know about the corruption within the Merchant Houses is because the military was aware of it and we were sent to accompany the negotiators. Otherwise I would not have known.

'How come you fought in the war yet know so little of it?'

She felt Nightmare grin. Do you know everything about your current government? About who holds what position of power? Their interplanetary trade routes? Current debt? Diplomatic stance towards the surrounding sectors?

Onoelle shook her head, realising what the AI meant. They couldn't have known. The Empire was so astronomically large that not a single creature could have kept tabs on it all.

If I had been who I am now... the AI suddenly mused aloud. Onoelle ran along with that train of thought for a while, before very quickly deciding that she did not want to jump down that rabbit hole. A functional AI with the power of the Empire behind it? That was just stuff of... well... Nightmares.

'What shall we do with Jane?' Mentuc asked, bluntly redirecting the conversation and pulling her out of the hole she was digging herself into.

She took a few moments to recollect her thoughts. 'There's no way around it. No scars, no faking it. Bring her back and let her wake up. I'll deal with it the way it comes.'

'And I will be here with you', Mentuc said, his eyes homing in on her, his lenses swirling around one another.

She looked at him. Somehow, after that little history lesson where thousands of planets fought with one another, dealing with a single, brainwashed Historian and an ex-supersoldier didn't seem so bad anymore.

'Yes,' she smiled. 'You will.'