Shadow Empire

The Shadow Empire (Also called Bhrorr Empire, Darkling Empire, The Monsters, and Those Who Fade) is a huge space-faring union between 5 main sentient species and thousands of minor species that is renowned for its vast array of colonized planets and diverse languages.

Size
The Shadow Empire is gigantic. It has colonies on 74 different planets (as of June 1st 75600) and counting to this very hour. Many of these planets are habitable thanks to terraforming technology.

Population
The 5 main species within the Shadow Empire include the Shadow, Ph'trok, Gyventula, Arae, and Krogg'nark, in which the Shadows make up for 58% of the total population, Ph'trok make up 21%, Arae make up 12%, Gyventula make up 4%, Krogg'nark make up 2%, and all the other thousands of species the remaining 3%. There is no definite number of the total population of all members, but the estimation is 4,330,000,000,000.

Cultures
There are many cultures within the Shadow Empire, but many of its members are diplomatic peacemakers that believe in universal order and equality. Of course, many others would oppose this belief, but a majority of the Shadow Empire's leading species hold up this.

Religion
Religions within the Shadow Empire are very diverse. The highest is Spodism, which is at 65%.

Governments
Government forms are very diverse as well, though many of the colonization space pilots have been Shadows that particularly are diplomatic, which lead to the Shadow Empire having many states with counsil-based governments. Some states scattered across colonized planets are owned by different species, such as the Arae-owned metroplex on Gaeo-3, that has a democratic government system similar to the USA's.

Age
The first Shadows, widely assumed to have been created by God since there is no fossil evidence of evolution, appeared on Fhrorr in March 14th, 52300, whom spread around into large groups and quickly becoming the dominant species of their homeworld. The actual Shadow Empire didn't officially band together until 71009, where Fhrorr City was first established and named under the announcement of "a new union forming".

When doing the math (75670 - 71009), the Shadow Empire is approx. 4,661 years old, which is often rounded up to 5,000. The second dominant species, Ph'trok, didn't immigrate to the Shadow Empire until the Shadow Empire was at least a thousand years old.

History
The Shadow Empire's new forming initially went without much notice. In 71007, A'rao MacKurnel suggested to his peers that an empire should be formed so that they could go beyond Fhrorr. This was turned down at first, but two years later, the High Counsil of his area took it under consideration and agreed to band together in such a way.

In 71009, the High Counsil ordered that their town be remodeled to be "of higher advancement" and named Bhrorrtown. Many astronomers began popping up to see if MacKurnel's suggestion of going beyond Fhrorr was feasible, and in time, they proved that there was places to go to other than Fhrorr. The High Counsil chose Bhrorrtown as a name because bhrorr in the Shadonian language meant "traveler" - and MacKurnel suggested that they travel beyond their home.

The Shadow Empire was not called "Shadow Empire" at the time - it was called "Bhrorr Arrha" at its formation (which meant "traveler union"). After Bhrorrtown was founded, scientists began to research on how they could possibly ever leave Fhrorr's thick atmosphere. This took roughly 15 years. By 71019, the very first prototype of a spacecraft was designed, which was called Shadow I.

When Shadow I was launched, however, it exploded a mile up in the air. This failure caused distraught in Bhrorr Arrha, and the engineers strove to find what went wrong. It turned out that the kind of fuel they used wasn't very stable and it overheated in the middle of the launch sequence, resulting in the explosion. Fhrorr was not known to have very good fuel, and thus the space program was stopped.

However, the son of a Shadow scientist went missing. When the boy returned, he had strange 2nd-degree burns on his face and feet. Upon investigation the Valley of Oblivion was discovered - more importantly, the radioactive energy that constantly flew out of it. The father scientist later carefully found a way to reap the radioactive energy safely.

The son suggested they use the radioactive energy for fuel. This was immediately put to test in Shadow II prototypes, and they worked, much to everyone's surprise. Shadow II was launched in 71026 close to Fhrorr City, and it was a success. It was self-piloted and did not contain any cosmonauts, however, but it did have cameras that could zoom in somewhat. Pictures were taken of Fhrorr's atmosphere and amazing catches of stars and a supernova. Shadow II was shut off manually a year after its launch, which was when production on Shadow III was starting.

Shadow III was designed to hold one cosmonaut, but was still self-piloted and was equipped with powerful telescopes. The goal of Shadow III was to find a planet to visit for future missions, but the closest one was discovered to be too far away from Fhrorr. The cosmonaut, Arrhr Rhonda, said that flying in Shadow III felt "very dark, very cold, and pretty darn beautiful".

Shadow IV was launched in 71032 and was much bigger, had much more fuel, and could hold up to five cosmonauts. The crew of Shadow IV found the planet they were looking for, as well as its moons and star. This planet was later named Phaerrhghorr - "first rock" - and its moons were named Rha, Phrro, and Shrehrr. At the time, though, the word "moon" was not in the Shadonian language and Rha, Phrro, and Shrehrr were called rhshrrens - which meant "small orb" in the Shadonian language.

The first spacecraft that had a module to land on planets was Shadow V. At this time, some Shadows were calling Bhrorr Arrha the "shadow empire" since every spacecraft they sent was called Shadow (Number). Shadow V contained wide space for 5 cosmonauts and some plants. However, in 71045 - the year Shadow V was launched - the spacecraft's engines got damaged halfway to Phaerrhghorr due to an overheating of the radioactive energy. The cosmonauts were forced to shut off the engines, which caused Shadow V to drift for a long time.

Eventually, Shadow V made it to Phaerrhghorr and they had a successful landing. Three of the five cosmonauts walked on the surface of Phaerrhghorr, which happened to be a dead planet with no life. One of the cosmonauts placed the Bhrorr Arrha flag on the surface, and successfully returned home.

The space program was stalled for a long time since the Shadow scientists were researching how to make a planet have life so they could colonize Phaerrhghorr. This study was initially called florafiltering, but slang language eventually turned this term to terraforming. The Shadow VI was being built to support basic terraforming tools that would slowly change the landscape over time, but this was the only terraforming tool there was availible - it was still impossible to make a dead planet have life.

In 71095, Shadow VI was launched to Phaerrhghorr to flatten out a bumpy area that looked able to support life with the right handling. However, a spark ignited in Shadow VI midway to the trip due to a broken wire being exposed in a tank of liquid oxygen, and the spacecraft burned to bits - this, of course, killed the twenty cosmonauts that were on the ship. This greatly devastated the engineers of Shadow VI. Production on the spaceships again was haulted.

For 100 years, the Bhrorr Arrha stayed grounded on their homeworld, Fhrorr. Outer-planet colonization simply seemed too far away. Other sciences, however, were being developed in the meantime, such as advanced weaponary and defensive systems, and more cities and towns were being built in other places on Fhrorr. So, thankfully, not all hope was lost.

In 71194, however, the most unexpected thing happened - a spaceship not of any Shadow design came to Fhrorr. It hovered like a plane yet could freely travel around the atmosphere and deep space. The pilot of this ship was of another age-old space-faring empire. The Shadows of Bhrorr Arrha were stunned as they watched this pilot freely fly around before landing it near a laboratory in Fhrorr City. The pilot was friendly and said to the scientists there, "Need a little help?"

The High Counsil of Fhrorr City took the pilot - whom had revealed his name to be Iranus Xavier - into their domain and questioned him greatly. When they figured out that Iranus was from a whole 'nother empire, they started to ask him more personal questions. What they found out: Iranus was from the Araj Empire, which was highly diplomatic, and they had access to advanced colonization ships and terraforming.

The High Counsil president requested that they start a trade route - bits of their terraforming tools for loads and loads of spice and spucks. Iranus quickly agreed but noted that "the Counsil's union" had no access to advanced spaceships, and that his empire would send those over as well for them to build off of. When asked about what spaceships they had made, the president started talking about Shadow I, II, III, IV, V, and VI. Iranus made a joke about so that they sounded like a Shadow Empire, which was the spark that started the storm later on.

The trade route began immediately, and both sides were quickly building up a strong bond. Upon examining the advanced spaceships and terraforming tools, the scientists were blown beyond belief what they missed. The technology wasn't all that advanced and could've been made much sooner. They started to work off of the empty spaceships they were given to make their own model, but using the radioactive energy as before.

Bhrorr Arrha was quickly building up in advancement thanks to their ally. The first test model spaceships of the newer design were flown, and they worked like a charm. Terraforming was done on Fhrorr to a mountain, which caused it to immediately shrink. The first true Shadowship took off to the air with a crew of 12 cosmonauts with the Araj Empire's gifted terraforming tools. This ship worked much like a plane that could work in space. It easily reached the forgotten destination of Phaerrhghorr within a period of a few hours and entered very smoothly.

A terraform bomb (later called T-B) was dropped onto a rough surface, and within a couple minutes, it was instantly flattened evenly. The crew was shocked at this, but continued testing out all the terraforming equipment they had received. Two of them didn't work but wasn't much of a problem. Bhrorr Arrha was developing very quickly into what is known as a space-faring empire - but it wasn't called Bhrorr Arrha anymore, because now, it became known as the Shadow Empire.

A whole thousand years passed as many new terraforming tools were being developed, different ships for different purposes were being modeled, and the very first planet was colonized with help from the Araj Empire - but the colonized planet was not Phaerrhghorr. It was a planet that the Araj Empire picked out just for the Shadow Empire to colonize that already supported life called Raejia. A hundred people worked on building a sustainable city on this planet, and it was a success.

In 72145, however, a strange creature with a broken ship crash-landed in Category I of Fhrorr. It was soon located and brought to the nearest safe town. When questioned, the creature said she wasn't from a space-faring empire but her species was called ''Ph'trok. ​This was the start of immigration to the Shadow Empire'', which lead to the need of more outer planet colonies to make room for the new species that were going to come.

The Ph'trok said she didn't have a name, but was given a Shadonian name for the purpose of recognition. More Ph'trok started to gradually pour in. The Shadow Empire managed to colonize its second planet, Krouthor, via atmospheric terraforming tools that took a long time to work but worked well (Krouthor was a dead planet). Ships started to take in the Ph'trok immigrants to Krouthor and Raejia, which were quickly having more and more cities built on them. Eventually, the Insta-Colony was developed that had more space on the inside than it had on the outside. This Insta-Colony was partially automatic in the way of setting up a paremeter for a colony, but the buildings had to be built by hand.

More and more planets were getting colonized. The Shadow Empire continued to help the Araj Empire as how the Araj Empire continued to help the Shadow Empire. Both continued to grow bigger and stronger. In 73566, the Shadow Empire had over 40 planets in possession, and a second species first immigrated to the Shadow Empire. This species came in passively and was called Arae.

However, a new empire, the Ytren Empire, popped up nearby the Araj & Shadow Empires subtly, but without warning, a Ytren fleet arrived at one of the Shadow Empire's planets and threatened to bomb their cities if they did not give in. The Shadow Empire refused, and they sent their ships over to the fleet. However, the fleet started to attack the ships. This had never happened before, and the Shadow Empire was caught completely off-guard and with no defensive or offensive measures. 80 Shadows died from the attack, but thankfully, no cities were harmed. This enraged the empire and they were driven to develop some sort of advanced military weapon to combat this.

The Araj Empire was immediately alerted to the raid on Shadow Empire territory, and they placed their planets under full guard. The Shadow Empire invented weapons like proton missiles and super-hot lasers that could sear metal. When another Ytren Empire fleet returned, the Shadow Empire struck first. The fleet was caught by surprise but had no defensive measures since their ships were meant entirely for combat. They all ended up dying. '''

The Shadow Empire and Araj Empire sent a large fleet of mingled weaponized ships to the Ytren Empire's homeworld. They threatened to destroy the planet if they did not stop. The Ytren Empire, however, ignored this threat and started attacking the fleet. The Ytren Empire, however, was outnumbered, and they ended up losing all of their colonized areas. The survivors fled off in their ships to unknown parts of the galaxy.

After this threat, the Shadow Empire grew even more. By 74200, they had two more new immigrant species - Gyventula and ''Krogg'nark. They soon were at equal power with the Araj Empire''. Although everybody by now had forgotten that they were once called Bhrorr Arrha, every now and then, a pedustrian would crack a joke about how Bhrorr'd they were.

Within another thousand eventful years, the Shadow Empire became renowned for its sheer size and power. Everybody knew not to mess with them for fear of them messing with others. The word "bhrorr" simply ceased to be used. With all of its counsil governments and hardy partnership with the Araj Empire, it seemed as if, and still today, they would never be disbanded.