Union of Sur'Kesh
From FABT
The Salarian Union at its greatest extent in 11 CE and prior to the Second Rachni War. | |
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Political information | |
Type of government: |
Matrilineal feudal semi-hereditary aristocracy |
Founding document: |
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Constitution: |
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Head of State: |
1st Dalatracy (first) |
Head of government: |
1st Dalatracy (first) |
Commander-in-chief: |
Dalatrass Buporth Dalben (first) |
Executive: |
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Legislative: |
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Judicial: |
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Military: |
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Societal information | |
Capital: |
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Official language: |
Eredraean (official) |
Currency: |
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Official religion: |
No state religion: several salarian religions, such as Mosavism and Jrleeism, are practiced to varying degrees |
Holidays: |
Charter Day |
Anthem: |
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Historical information | |
Formed from: |
Necry of Talat |
Dates: |
12 February 600 BCE - 10 November 2215 CE
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Succeeded by: |
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- "One Union under stars."
- — Motto of the Salarian Union.
The Union of Sur'Kesh, simply known as the Union, also known as the Salarian Union, was the representative body of Sur'Kesh, its nations and salarian colonies from 600 BCE to 2215 CE. The origins of the Salarian Union can be traced back to the Haemnore Economic Union, a powerful political and economic union of sixteen of Sur'Kesh's then-twenty-one nations that would set the foundation for the salarian world government that would later eventuate on the galactic stage. As its name would suggest, the union was founded in the salarian city of Haemnore, which at the time had only just become fully independent after centuries of being contested between its two larger neighbours, Dou and Parstoln, both holding strong cultural connections to the city that were finally set aside with Haemnore's independence and the birth of the Economic Union, who they subsequently helped to found. Five years before the Economic Union was founded, Sur'Kesh reached the end of a dark period in its history that saw the rise and fall of hundreds of nations, with several of the most powerful nations only uniting five times to beat back what is known as the Lystheni Wars. The Lystheni, a subspecies of the salarians, are hated by their more well known brethren for these invasions, which saw them attempt to conquer the known salarian world to enforce their religion and culture upon them: when the last of their invasions was finally broken and beaten, the salarian victors divided up the conquered Lystheni and enslaved them before returning to their constant warring. As technology advanced and enlightenment progressed, salarian society slowly crawled its way out of this period, and finally achieved an unofficial peace once the Haemnore Economic Union was established, with sixteen of the surviving twenty-one nations joining it, with those sixteen nations united through common goals, effectively bringing an end to any wars between them. The five nations that didn't join the Haemnore Union either enforced strict isolationist policies, refusing to participate in the globalist agenda that salarian society was heading towards, or they wished to continue operating independently of the union, whilst maintaining friendly relations with those nations that were part of it. In 607 BCE, the Necry of Talat, one of the four most powerful salarian kingdoms on Sur'Kesh at the time and one of the founding fathers of the Haemnore Union, put forth the motion to reshape it into the "Union of Sur'Kesh", with an official document (named the "Monarchy of Sur'Kesh"): the document was received with some degree of criticism and was initially rejected, but Talat would return in 605 BCE with a heavily revised version of the document, renamed the "Charter for the Union of all Salarians", which was met with greater approval and would be discussed for years, although the section detailing the reduction of power at the national level in favour of granting more power to a single salarian government on a global level was met with fierce resistance by many governments and would eventually be amended in order to get their acceptance: by this time, two more nations had joined the Haemnore Union, leaving only three left that were independent. Finally, in 600 BCE, the Salarian Union was officially born, and would be the dominant force in salarian politics from that point forward, on Sur'Kesh and soon to be beyond.
Ever since 640-630 BCE, salarian space programs had taken off across Sur'Kesh, and by 610 BCE, the science behind extrasolar travel and colonization was deemed solid enough to put into action. In 606 BCE, the Yudril Space Administration located three suitable planets outside the Pranas system that could sustain salarian life, and they were within the realistic predicted range of their first-stage colonization teams. While these plans were initially shelved whilst the future of Sur'Kesh was decided by the Haemnore Union, they were immediately approved under the Salarian Union's first-stage colonization initiative upon its formation, with every member nation pitching in their own resources. Within two months of the Salarian Union being established, the first colony ships took off from Sur'Kesh, and due to the rapid advancements in technology, time had sufficiently passed that Zemucy of Yudril's scientists were able to significantly improve their FTL designs, cutting down travel time to these new colonies by several months. Two months after their departure, the first colony ships reached their respective targets, the three planets that would go on to be called Aegohr, Mannovai and Jaeto: however, it would be the landing on Aegohr that would forever shape salarian history forever, as it was there that the salarian science team that accompanied the colony unearthed the ruins of a prothean research facility. Whilst it would take just over a month for a working transmitter to be built just to inform Sur'Kesh that they had arrived safely, let alone reveal their discovery, the news of the ruins was enough to convince the remaining three independent salarian nations to join the Union of Sur'Kesh, largely out of fear of foreign invasion. As more and more information was gleaned from the ruins, and knowledge of who the protheans were and that they had vanished was established, this fear quieted down and colonial expansion ramped up again, with more and more knowledge extracted and sent back home to be dissected by scientists to improve their own technology, leading to a technological renaissance unparalleled by any other in salarian history up until that point. By 585 BCE, several more colonies were discovered and settled, but it would be the discovery of a prothean beacon on Rannadril that would be the Salarian Union's first real test as a nation. Upon securing the artifact, the salarian expedition was attacked by the Lystheni terrorist group Lysthen Vengeful, who managed to breach the facility it was being held at and stole the artifact, taking it to an undisclosed location: the Lystheni terrorists took responsibility for the attack within hours, claiming it was to be the beginning of a Lystheni insurgency against their salarian oppressors and that they were taking possession of the beacon for the Lystheni people. Slavery had been largely eradicated in salarian society by 621 BCE, with only the Repracy of Zaeks holding onto the institution for a couple more years before it too banned it, emancipating the the last of the Lystheni that had been enslaved. Despite this, the Lystheni were still treated as outcasts by salarian society, who despite short lifespans, held a long and unforgiving memory of the Lystheni Wars, and while they were glad to be rid of the institution of slavery, they held little to no sympathy for the Lystheni themselves, and the Lystheni were left to fend for themselves, treated to handouts by salarians who pitied them: when a petition was made to carve out a Lystheni nation in their ancestral homeland of Lysthen, which had been under the control of Talat ever since the last Lystheni war, they were immediately denied and the Lystheni in the area expelled out of fear of a revolution. The Lystheni next attempted to lay claim to a planet in order for all Lystheni to live on free of salarian society, and this was actually approved by the Salarian Union who gave them Aelon, although this was largely only because the planet held little value to the Union and was considered a backwater. Despite this, the Lystheni had begun to settle the world in 591 BCE, and they were largely forgotten by salarian society shortly afterwards as the Union continued its rapid expansion. The Lystheni government on Aelon defied Union expectations however, and while they didn't thrive economically, they soon established a somewhat thriving colony on the planet, but despite all of this, many felt a deep need to avenge their enslavement by the salarians and felt that by being cut out of any share of the prothean technology being discovered, they were being deliberately ostracized and that soon enough, the salarians would come back to enforce their laws on them again. Privately funded by the Lystheni government through a salarian shell corporation that sympathized with their plight, the Lysthen Vengeful was born with the mandate to watch over the interests of the Lystheni, dedicated to ensuring the salarians never held dominion over them ever again (it's due to this that many parallels are drawn between them and Cerberus, as they served a similar role for humanity).
For several years, the Lysthen Vengeful operated as a shadow organization, its existence denied by the Lystheni government on Aelon, especially by the nation's Baron (the leader of the Lystheni state), watching over Lystheni society and sabotaging salarian efforts to subvert the Lystheni state and its progress as a nation. While the Salarian Union attempted to put forward the view that the Crown of Aelon was a failed state, these efforts were repeatedly exposed by Lysthen Vengeful, who put forward their own propaganda campaign that gave birth to the "Aelon prosperity myth", creating the narrative of a powerful Lystheni state that scared the salarians enough to sabotage their prosperity and harmony as a nation: a giant bully trying to squash the successful innocence of Aelon. Finally, in 584 BCE, the Lysthen Vengeful was approved to steal the prothean beacon on Rannadril, announcing it to be claimed by all Lystheni and now the property of their people: this was condemned by every major salarian nation back on Sur'Kesh, and their initial hesitance on how to react to the situation gave birth to the belief the Union was a toothless tiger that lacked the backbone to protect salarian interests, a claim that was only encouraged by Lysthen Vengeful, who had everything to gain from a weakened and disunified salarian state. This emboldened Aelon even further, with the Baron going the next step further to land Lystheni colonists on a recently discovered garden world and lay claim to it on behalf of Aelon, and when the Salarian Union demanded they leave and threatened military action, the Lystheni called their bluff and the salarians backed down: half a year later, prothean ruins were discovered on Maemarf, giving the Lystheni access to more prothean technology, and allowing them to quickly catch up with the salarians. This only fueled the clamour for action within the salarian government, but unbeknownst to them, the Union's top military brass and intelligence operatives had already begun work on a solution: Project Invisible was formed to create a clandestine intelligence organization that would protect the salarian state and act in much the same way as the Lysthen Vengeful, but as an intelligence apparatus that could act in place of the military to de-escalate a crisis before it breaks out into war. While all of Sur'Kesh was demanding military action, the Salarian Union's intelligence analysts knew this would only result in a costly and bloody war, and their solution offered a way to stop such a war from ever happening whilst simultaneously neutralizing the Lystheni. This organization would become the League of One, and its resulting shadow war with the Lysthen Vengeful would establish salarian dominance over Sur'Kesh and its territory for centuries to come, and permanently neuter Lystheni ascendance. Its first operation saw the League of One successfully recapture the stolen prothean beacon from their dedicated research facility, whilst a second team performed a torch-and-burn op on the rest of the facility, destroying years of research into prothean technology and setting back their advancement by years. When the Lysthen Vengeful retaliated by attempting the same on Aegohr's research facility, the League of One were waiting for them and inflicted heavy casualties on the Lystheni. Next, the League of One discovered the salarian shell corporation that funded the Lysthen Vengeful, and used their resources to perform corporate espionage and expose the company, leading to the Union seizing its assets and liquidating the company, which heavily impacted the Vengeful's finances. This shadow war continued for six years, with the Lystheni rapidly losing ground. By the end, Aelon was financially crippled, and after significant pressure from corporations and the Union alike, they were forced to sell the rights to Maemarf, using the freed up resources to stabilize their own economy and successfully managing to preserve their nation for the next ten years: by 578 BCE, having lost the shadow war, the Lysthen Vengeful was quietly dissolved, but this did not stop the League of One from continuing their war, proving unforgiving and merciless in their campaign to eliminate any and all threats to the Salarian Union. In 577 BCE, the Baron of Aelon assessed the survivability of the Lystheni state, and a plan put into place: all contact and activity from Aelon ceased, and when the League of One dispatched operatives to investigate, they found Aelon abandoned, with every single Lystheni gone. It was concluded that the Baron had taken his people on a great exodus out from salarian space, venturing deep out into the galaxy where they could settle a new home far from the reaches of the Union where they could live in peace, and hopefully build their strength up for when they inevitably cross paths again. Those Lystheni who never lived on Aelon and remained within salarian society retained their outcast status, and were held in contempt for centuries afterwards.
The Salarian Union continued its expansion, the brief conflict with the Lystheni forgotten (and Aelon claimed by the Union, with a colony established in place of the former Lystheni one), and any further threats to its ascendancy or national security were quickly and ruthlessly deconstructed by the League of One, none more infamous than the merciless suppression of a rebellion on Maemarf in 546 BCE that resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties and the execution of the political conspirators who supported it. In 520 BCE, the Salarian Union discovered the Citadel, where they made first contact with the Thessian Republics: a brief standoff ensued between an asari and salarian fleet, the tension finally cut when first contact was made with the asari by salarian diplomats, and friendly relations established. This shook the core of salarian society, with many debates as to whether the asari could be trusted, as salarians were suspicious by nature. In the end, it was decided to continue relations with the asari, who were incredibly advanced and powerful, possessing political, economic and military power that humbled the Salarian Union, who had for so long enjoyed uncontested dominance as it expanded its empire across the stars. The Fulcrum Contingency was drawn up by the salarian military detailing contingencies and failsafes in place for a scenario where the Union went to war with the asari, and hundreds of wargame simulations were run, all of which ultimately helped them conclude the salarians would lose the war, but at heavy cost for the asari. The Fulcrum contingency would ultimately be shelved when the Asari-Salarian Pact was ratified, establishing a strong political, economic and military partnership between the two species, establishing a friendship and galactic community that would last for millenia: in the interest of total transparency with their new allies, the Union declassified all the information they had on the League of One and its agents, compromising their assets and their identities, endangering their lives: the League and its members went AWOL, and realizing the threat posed by having black operatives with access to the knowledge they had, the STG was born, with assassination teams dispatched to hunt down and eliminate the League of One: the STG ultimately failed, with the League's training and knowledge of Union intelligence and military protocols allowing it to ghost the Union until they eventually vanished altogether, never to be found, and the STG eventually gave up the search, taking the League's place as the Union's primary military intelligence organization. The members of the League fell out of contact with each other in order to throw off their hunters, and were forced to live out the rest of their lives on uncharted worlds as hermits, separated from society and betrayed by the country they were sworn to protect. Some lived out the rest of their lives, but at least two committed suicide not long after beginning their new life, driven insane by the isolation, the lack of social contact and the full weight of having to live separated from society to survive. Many League bodies wouldn't be discovered until millenia later, and most of those weren't properly confirmed as League operatives until years after that. The rest of the Salarian Union moved on without them, the STG now taking the League's place and defending the Salarian Union against all threats, external and internal.
The Salarian Union is a labyrinthine web of matrilineal bloodlines, a vast network of political alliances maintained between the ruling royal families and constantly subject to interfamilial feuds over breeding contracts and veiled insults said with hushed words. As a result of this, the Union is an everchanging, evershifting political battlefield between competing families looking to increase their own prestige and renown as they fight to climb the ladder that is salarian politics, fighting to survive amongst a bloodthirsty and often unforgiving landscape where the ambitious thrive and intellect is prized above all else. Powerful families, such as the Linron dynasty, had mastered this merciless erudite society, maintaining power for centuries whilst carefully keeping their enemies neutralized through manipulation and deceit. The lack of a sex drive has made salarians indifferent and dispassionate towards breeding, with breeding contracts being a common political tool used to gain further power and prestige: their high metabolism and focus on valuing intellect above strength only makes this society all the more cutthroat, with the intellectually challenged being often marginalized by society or unable to compete, and even breeding contracts are subject to these ruthless conventions, with the fate of an entire family based entirely on a salarian's ability to prove their intellect to salarian society. The salarian government itself is a hierarchy, with each of the seven levels representing the seven levels of administrative authority within the Salarian Union. Netrasi are at the bottom, representing those administering the shires ("Netrays") within each individual county that makes up a salarian nation or a planetary colony. Next up are the Celmar, viscounts of the administrative divisions known as counties ("Celmi") that make up each salarian nation or planetary colony. Next are the Zemut, the barons who serve as the heads of state for a salarian nation ("Zemucy") or the main governor of a city/colony on a planet, and in salarian history, were formerly the highest position in salarian society. Then there is the Reprat, the dukes who rule over an entire planet ("Repracy"), with the Archreprat being the governor of Sur'Kesh itself, holding special power amongst the other Reprats. A "repracy", historically, used to refer to a form of salarian nation governed by reprats, and the term "reprat" itself was a special word used by rulers to legitimize their rule and grant it supranational importance, and the term was repurposed within the Salarian Union. Next are the Turban, the governors of a star system ("Turbancy") within the Union's control, holding power over every planet, ship, space station and facility within their appointed system. Second to the top are the Necres, who govern entire clusters ("Necry") under Union control, with every star system contained within falling under their jurisdiction, granting them enormous political power within the Union's government. Finally, at the very top of the government, are the Dalatrasi, with twelve Dalatrasi representing the twelve most influential families within the Union and acting as the heads of state. As is the case with every tier of government, every member is appointed by their stature within the society they reside in, the influence their dynasty holds, and how much power they hold: the more powerful the family, the higher up the hierarchy they climb, and they hold onto their positions for as long as their power is maintained. In order to maintain political stability, the balance of power usually doesn't shift often, with every person involved having it in their best interests to ensure the power balance isn't disturbed, and many of the families held onto power for centuries. Each member of government holds near absolute authority over their administrative district, commanding total fealty from those under them and who only answered to those above their station: for instance, a Necres commands fealty from every star system within their cluster, including the authority to marshal and demobilize their own military forces. However, the Dalatrasi hold the power to mobilize the entire salarian military, whereas a Necres can only assemble the forces localized to their cluster. This gives every segment of the Union it's own autonomy, and this feudal system, at least to outsiders, seems outdated to the rest of a civilized galaxy that has largely embraced modern ideals of democracy and republics. Despite this, the Salarian Union was a dominant power in the galaxy, making up for its lack of sheer military brawn with a sophisticated intelligence apparatus and technological supremacy that was unmatched by even its partners. Even after the Salarian Union went through its first interstellar war with the Rachni Wars, the Salarian Union recovered quickly and retained its position as a respected galactic power, and as the galactic community grew, so did its number of potential trade partners and allies. However, this period of political hegemony wasn't to last forever, and while the Union remained for centuries a dominant power on the galactic stage, that would begin to change with the outbreak of the Reaper War in 2186 CE.
Much like the Asari Republics, the Salarian Union was largely ignored by the Reapers early in the war, who chose to focus on the other species, believing that destroying the nations around them, and tying down the most powerful military power in the galaxy (the Turian Hierarchy), would weaken the Union and Republics enough to leave them offguard for when they do invade. Despite this, the focus was still on the Asari Republics, with the Reapers placing a larger emphasis on preparing to invade the Asari Republics with a smaller offensive planned for the salarians. For the majority of the war, the Salarian Union was heavily internalized and isolationist, ignoring pleas to provide military assistance upon orders from the Dalatrasi, while focusing heavily on preparing for the inevitable Reaper assault: despite this however, there were many rifts that developed between the government and the military, and eventually many reprats, turbans and necres took it upon themselves to independently declare for the United Galactic Confederacy, and this continued until after the Citadel Siege, when the Dalatrasi finally caved under political pressure, external and internal, and the Salarian Union formally joined the UGC, ending their passivity. The salarians continued their preparations for the Reaper invasion until 28 August, when the day finally came. Despite this, the focus was still on asari space, and the Reaper invasion of salarian space was much smaller scale, which proved to be a Reaper blunder when the Union was able to inflict heavy losses on Reaper ground troops when they made landfall on salarian worlds, with the salarians having abandoned their outer worlds and turning them into death traps to wipe out millions of Reaper troops: regardless, this only made the Reapers more aggressive, and they very quickly overwhelmed the salarian defenses and began to push them back: by mid September, the Reapers had besieged every salarian system, getting as far as Aegohr and very close to Sur'Kesh: the only reason their offensive stalled was because the Reapers pulled back a large portion of their forces to Earth to participate in the final battle, and this exists the only reason why Sur'Kesh didn't suffer the same fate the other homeworlds of major races had. Being the only Council homeworld to be untouched by the war, salarian government and infrastructure remained intact where others were virtually decimated, giving them the ability to recover far more quickly than the other races could: this did not mean that the Salarian Union did not suffer from the post-war aftermath however, and while Sur'Kesh itself was unscathed, their colonies had been devastated, and a large portion of their military depleted from the Battle of Sol alone, let alone the forces that participated in the defense of their territory. This did however give the salarians a larger chunk of interstellar power than they already had, especially following the exposure of the Asari Republics' conspiracy to keep and conceal prothean technology for their own benefit. The Salarian Union was able to rebuild its military quite rapidly over the succeeding years, due in large part to Sur'Kesh's many nations pitching in their own resources and shipbuilding facilities to quickly build the Union navy back up almost to full strength: the Union Army, already neglected by the Union in favour of the STG, suffered substantial losses in the Reaper War and recovered at a sixth of the rate the Navy and STG did, and it became quite clear the Union was more focused on rebuilding the STG, as they were the real backbone of the salarian military. As the Terminian Cold War ramped up, the Salarian Union was competing in a technological arms race with the Galactic Dominion, but more specifically with the Republic of Rannoch, as the quarians had once waged a similar tech war with the salarians hundreds of years earlier, prior to the First Morning War and the collapse of the first quarian state, as the quarians were the only species in the galaxy who rivalled them in technological propensity and enlightenment. When the Dominion began heavily investing in researching and reverse-engineering Reaper technology left over from the war, the Salarian Union began to do so as well, with both sides in direct violation of the London Accords that agreed to the salvage and destruction of any and all Reaper/Cerberus remnants. This gave the Salarian Union a significant technological edge when the Post-Apocalyptic War finally broke out, allowing them to catch up quite quickly to the Dominion, but not totally. This however made it a prime target of the Dominion, and due to it being the closest of the big three New Council powers to Dominion space, it was firmly in the crosshairs of their many offensives and much of the fighting throughout the war took place within and along the borders of salarian territory. During Operation Hoodwink, the Dominion operation to target New Council commercial shipping and severely strain their economy, was countered by the salarians utilizing their own stealth ships, but it wasn't long before the loss of so many shipbuilding facilities strained their ability to counter it, and eventually they had to call off such operations. In 2211 CE, the Dominion launched a renewed offensive along the salarian border and made steady gains, overwhelming the battered Union defenses and making steady advances towards Sur'Kesh itself: facing a similar situation to the Reaper War, only this time with no final battle to save them at the last minute, and with Dominion forces baring down on Pranas itself, the Union knew the war was lost and surrender was the only way to preserve Sur'Kesh. Many salarian government officials would be shipped out before Dominion occupation forces arrived to form a government in-exile with salarian councilor Esheel Pelise, and the Free Salarian forces would continue to fight on with the hope of one day liberating their homeworld. The Dominion would deploy a small occupation force of getho-quarian troops to Sur'Kesh and a small fleet would be left behind to patrol salarian territory to enforce the terms of the Union's surrender until such time as the war was over, and during this period the Union government was allowed to continue officially operating, albeit as a puppet government, and salarian territory temporarily designated as the "Salarian Occupation Zone": the salarian government in-exile was wiped out when Thessia was nuked, and what remained of the Free Salarian forces realized the fight was lost and finally surrendered on 25 October 2215 CE, two days after Thessia's destruction, but unlike the Union's original surrender, the Free Salarian forces were shown little to no compassion, and were almost immediately sent to Dominion forced labor camps where the vast majority of them wouldn't survive the harsh conditions, inhumane treatment and sadistic taskmasters.
On 10 November 2215 CE, the remains of the Union government and the captured military leaders of the Free Salarian forces signed the Salarian Instrument of Surrender, effecting the extinction of the Salarian Union and in its place establishing its successor state of the Feudatory State of Sur'Kesh, a client state to the Galactic Dominion but unique in that, unlike the other races, would not be occupied militarily by Dominion forces, with a relatively small salarian defense force being formed to serve the new salarian state: the Dominion Senate also organized with the salarian government to sign the Dominion Mandate for Lysthen, forcing the salarians to agree to ceding the planet of Aelon to the Lystheni, as well as grant them legal status as equal citizens: this act was more out of spite and to punish their former enemies rather than out of social justice for the Lystheni however, but this ultimately led to the cessation of Aelon to give birth to Mandatory Aelon, a Lystheni client state. While salarian independence would eventually be restored, the Union was finished and the salarians would never enjoy full unification ever again, with three new states (one Lystheni and two salarian) rising from the ashes of the Dominion Civil War and the Dominion's collapse.