Prologue: The Great Game
“Conquest is easy. Control is not.” – Captain James T. Kirk, apocryphal.
Resources always attract Empires.
The Klingon Empire had always been resource-poor. It had reached deep into the Beta Quadrant and out towards the Orion colonies, conquering and colonizing in search of a way to feed its war machine and its people. It had no choice; it needed the resources to maintain control of a hundred worlds, all of which were all hungry for resources and power. The United Federation of Planets, on the other hand, was not hungry. It was not big, either, but it was getting bigger, and by the 2220s and 30s, it was expanding a such a rate that Earth could barely keep track. Where a century earlier, three dozen independent worlds had been locked into a conflict between Andor and Vulcan, a new power stood, based on principles of individual liberty, autonomy, and democracy. It had survived trial by combat against the Romulan Star Empire and emerged stronger and more optimistic, led by a people who a mere century beforehand had been lurking in the gloom of a nuclear winter.
The Klingon Empire had gone from seeing humanity as the pawns of a distant Vulcan autocracy to the leaders of a vile expansionist demagogue state. They stripped way tributaries and vassals; turned trading partners into closed ports and infiltrated Klingon society with the evils of Democracy. Their territory and power and exploded overnight, reaching far beyond anyone could have imagined, their agents, merchants and officers appearing deep within the supposed boundaries of the Empire before anyone could do anything about it. They were not to be trusted.
For the Federation, the Klingons were the stranger on the other side of the hill. They were mysterious, dangerous and archaic. They could be tolerated and worked with, and many federation citizens did so, but others came foul of the bat’leth and the battlecruiser that lurked in the shadows.
The Archanis massacre of 2241 turned tensions into four years of general warfare that ended with the brutal showdown over Donatu With their best fleets fought to a standstill by Starfleet, the Klingon state folded in on itself. The border war fizzled out into a low rumble of raid, anti-piracy operation and scouting missions, various independent operatives on both sides trying to figure out what was happening on the other side of the curtain. The Klingons called it ‘The War of the Looking Glass’. Starfleet gave it a much less cryptic name: The Great Game.
It was a strange game. A game of chance, and risk, as Starfleet scouts and Starships tried to mark out the edge of their space as best, they could, while Klingon warriors and agents pushed back, threatening planetary leaders with violence while bribing others with power and glory. The Federation didn’t keep its hands clean either. It bought friends with defensive treaties, trade agreements and the “loaning” of antiquated Starships to bolster allied fleets, and happily encouraged miners, prospectors, and settlers to go forth into the great unknown, knowing the risks it posed, and the power such growth exerted on the Empire.
Nothing makes a game like the board it’s played on, and The Great Game had one of the best boards of them all. The region of space between the Federation and the Klingon Empire has several names. For most of the 20th, 21st and 22nd centuries, it was known as The Borderlands, a call back to its position at the edge of the long-gone Orion Empire. As Federation Colonisation expanded in the 2220s, 30s and 40s, it became the Klingon Fringe, a dark homage to the people who lurked the other side of the Azure Nebula. After the Battle of Donatu V it gained a new name, one that would haunt the halls of power on Earth for decades to come: The Disputed Area.
The Disputed Area has the notoriety of being perhaps the only natural border in the known galaxy. The formation of stellar bodies, in a wide, sprawling arc from the Azure Nebula created an area of space where travel is slowed by necessity. Subspace channels that enabled warp-capable ships to move at incredible speed falter, disappearing into Star nurseries like Hromi Cluster, dead zones like the Alshanai rift, or anomaly-filled regions like the Briar Patch. Communications are slow, and warp travel is even slower; it is no wonder that the region has always been home to pirates, scavengers’ thieves who are joined in equal numbers by refugees, idealists, and other fortune-seekers. Orion Slavers and Nausiccan pirate fleets roam star systems inhabited by Tellarite miners and Yridian smugglers. Klingon exiles and Human diaspora trade eagerly with Asparaxian merchants. Planetary societies of all size and scope thrive in this environment, thanks not just to seclusion but the wealth the region provides for them in abundance.
The same natural forces that filled the Disputed Area with dust clouds, nebulae and subspace rifts also lent their efforts to make some of the most valuable commodities in the galaxy. Xenite, rodinium, topaline, tritantium, trititanium, pergium, latinum, and countless other vital strategic and precious minerals laced planets and Asteroids from the Baker’s Dozen to the Taurus Reach. Many made fortunes overnight by mining glittering rocks from barren worlds. Many went home penniless. Some, the very lucky few, became “Dilithium Barons” rich beyond their wildest dreams thanks to the purple-pink ore that kept the galaxy running. Without those crystals – the vital, scarce regulator of matter-antimatter reactions – nothing would move faster than Warp 2. Without it, neither the Federation nor Klingon Empire could exist at all.
Even after the Empire collapsed in itself, the game continued on the same board, for the same prizes. It couldn’t stop – the Empire needed the goods. The Federation was comfortable with this, but it didn’t stop them from cementing their control, placing more and more outposts, filling the region with Starships of all shapes and sizes. Starfleet happily told itself that it had not had contact with the Klingon Empire since the days of Captain Archer while her vessels tussled with Klingon warships time after time. It was an unhappy, but acceptable settlement. The Federation had time on its side. The Great Game would continue to be played until the last Starbases were built, and the last marker buoy placed, and so the frontier would close for good.
Then T’Kuvma and his radicals turned the board over. The frontier rolled back- all the way back, beyond Archanis, beyond Rigel, beyond Regulus and Acamar and Sauria. By the time the war ended, it looked irreparable. But the Great Game would go on. The pieces would be picked up, and replaced, and repaired.
The difference was now, the Klingons weren’t playing to survive. They were playing to win.
Resources always attract Empires.
The Klingon Empire had always been resource-poor. It had reached deep into the Beta Quadrant and out towards the Orion colonies, conquering and colonizing in search of a way to feed its war machine and its people. It had no choice; it needed the resources to maintain control of a hundred worlds, all of which were all hungry for resources and power. The United Federation of Planets, on the other hand, was not hungry. It was not big, either, but it was getting bigger, and by the 2220s and 30s, it was expanding a such a rate that Earth could barely keep track. Where a century earlier, three dozen independent worlds had been locked into a conflict between Andor and Vulcan, a new power stood, based on principles of individual liberty, autonomy, and democracy. It had survived trial by combat against the Romulan Star Empire and emerged stronger and more optimistic, led by a people who a mere century beforehand had been lurking in the gloom of a nuclear winter.
The Klingon Empire had gone from seeing humanity as the pawns of a distant Vulcan autocracy to the leaders of a vile expansionist demagogue state. They stripped way tributaries and vassals; turned trading partners into closed ports and infiltrated Klingon society with the evils of Democracy. Their territory and power and exploded overnight, reaching far beyond anyone could have imagined, their agents, merchants and officers appearing deep within the supposed boundaries of the Empire before anyone could do anything about it. They were not to be trusted.
For the Federation, the Klingons were the stranger on the other side of the hill. They were mysterious, dangerous and archaic. They could be tolerated and worked with, and many federation citizens did so, but others came foul of the bat’leth and the battlecruiser that lurked in the shadows.
The Archanis massacre of 2241 turned tensions into four years of general warfare that ended with the brutal showdown over Donatu With their best fleets fought to a standstill by Starfleet, the Klingon state folded in on itself. The border war fizzled out into a low rumble of raid, anti-piracy operation and scouting missions, various independent operatives on both sides trying to figure out what was happening on the other side of the curtain. The Klingons called it ‘The War of the Looking Glass’. Starfleet gave it a much less cryptic name: The Great Game.
It was a strange game. A game of chance, and risk, as Starfleet scouts and Starships tried to mark out the edge of their space as best, they could, while Klingon warriors and agents pushed back, threatening planetary leaders with violence while bribing others with power and glory. The Federation didn’t keep its hands clean either. It bought friends with defensive treaties, trade agreements and the “loaning” of antiquated Starships to bolster allied fleets, and happily encouraged miners, prospectors, and settlers to go forth into the great unknown, knowing the risks it posed, and the power such growth exerted on the Empire.
Nothing makes a game like the board it’s played on, and The Great Game had one of the best boards of them all. The region of space between the Federation and the Klingon Empire has several names. For most of the 20th, 21st and 22nd centuries, it was known as The Borderlands, a call back to its position at the edge of the long-gone Orion Empire. As Federation Colonisation expanded in the 2220s, 30s and 40s, it became the Klingon Fringe, a dark homage to the people who lurked the other side of the Azure Nebula. After the Battle of Donatu V it gained a new name, one that would haunt the halls of power on Earth for decades to come: The Disputed Area.
The Disputed Area has the notoriety of being perhaps the only natural border in the known galaxy. The formation of stellar bodies, in a wide, sprawling arc from the Azure Nebula created an area of space where travel is slowed by necessity. Subspace channels that enabled warp-capable ships to move at incredible speed falter, disappearing into Star nurseries like Hromi Cluster, dead zones like the Alshanai rift, or anomaly-filled regions like the Briar Patch. Communications are slow, and warp travel is even slower; it is no wonder that the region has always been home to pirates, scavengers’ thieves who are joined in equal numbers by refugees, idealists, and other fortune-seekers. Orion Slavers and Nausiccan pirate fleets roam star systems inhabited by Tellarite miners and Yridian smugglers. Klingon exiles and Human diaspora trade eagerly with Asparaxian merchants. Planetary societies of all size and scope thrive in this environment, thanks not just to seclusion but the wealth the region provides for them in abundance.
The same natural forces that filled the Disputed Area with dust clouds, nebulae and subspace rifts also lent their efforts to make some of the most valuable commodities in the galaxy. Xenite, rodinium, topaline, tritantium, trititanium, pergium, latinum, and countless other vital strategic and precious minerals laced planets and Asteroids from the Baker’s Dozen to the Taurus Reach. Many made fortunes overnight by mining glittering rocks from barren worlds. Many went home penniless. Some, the very lucky few, became “Dilithium Barons” rich beyond their wildest dreams thanks to the purple-pink ore that kept the galaxy running. Without those crystals – the vital, scarce regulator of matter-antimatter reactions – nothing would move faster than Warp 2. Without it, neither the Federation nor Klingon Empire could exist at all.
Even after the Empire collapsed in itself, the game continued on the same board, for the same prizes. It couldn’t stop – the Empire needed the goods. The Federation was comfortable with this, but it didn’t stop them from cementing their control, placing more and more outposts, filling the region with Starships of all shapes and sizes. Starfleet happily told itself that it had not had contact with the Klingon Empire since the days of Captain Archer while her vessels tussled with Klingon warships time after time. It was an unhappy, but acceptable settlement. The Federation had time on its side. The Great Game would continue to be played until the last Starbases were built, and the last marker buoy placed, and so the frontier would close for good.
Then T’Kuvma and his radicals turned the board over. The frontier rolled back- all the way back, beyond Archanis, beyond Rigel, beyond Regulus and Acamar and Sauria. By the time the war ended, it looked irreparable. But the Great Game would go on. The pieces would be picked up, and replaced, and repaired.
The difference was now, the Klingons weren’t playing to survive. They were playing to win.