Approved Lore Humanist People's Party

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Expand on Tephrike and codify some truly horrible, utterly evil people for Elpsis and friends to shoot.
Image Credit: Here. Here.
Canon: N/A
Permissions: N/A
Links: Tephrike, Prosperity Quarter, Hope Falls, The Valkyrie's Diary, Adlerberg, Dominion of Light, Republican Guard, Into Darkness, After Darkness, COMPNOR, Glorious Conflict, Fortress Vader, Kyriaki, Castle Maysaf, Yuuzhan Vong, Castle Maysaf, Academy of the Scions of the Vader, Sentinel's Rest.

"This example shows what astonishing parallels can be drawn between rats, as the parasites of the animal world, and the Twi'lek, the bloodsuckers of mankind. We see how the rat migrates throughout the entire world, the rat as the symbol of cunning, greed, and destruction, as the carrier of deadly diseases. And likewise we see how the Twi'leks spread everywhere, living all over the world as parasites who do nothing but exploit and destroy, who are carriers of pestilence that sooner or later bring their host worlds to their knees, both physically and morally. All this came to pass with the Great Plague."
- Extract from a Humanity's Voice article.

"Who asks to speak? No one. Who makes ideas circulate? No one. Who criticises? No one. And precisely because there is little one is allowed to criticise."
- A dissident writer describing a typical meeting of a local Party cell.

"It is thus necessary that the individual should come to realise that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of the nation."
"People can be made to see paradise as hell, and to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise."
"Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live."
- Darth Malitia. The irony of his first quote is staggering.

GENERAL INFORMATION
Organization Name: Humanist People's Party.
Classification: Political Party.
Affiliation: Disciples of the Vader, Darth Eisen, KEC, Tephrike, KEC Stormtrooper Corps.
Organization Symbol: A fist pointed up at the sky, symbolising humanity's strength.
Description: The Humanist People's Party is the ultranationalist, totalitarian and human supremacist state party of the Greater Sith Imperium. It is controlled by the Disciples of the Vader, a totalitarian cult that worships Darth Vader as a deity and is located on the war-torn world of Tephrike. The Party answers to the Supreme Leader, who rules the nation and is also the leader of the Disciples. It promotes an ideology called Humanism, whose tenets are laid out in a book called Glorious Conflict. It was written by Darth Malitia, the first Supreme Leader and a fallen Jedi. Malitia used to be called Cade Seward and serve the Dominion of Light, a Jedi theocracy, as a commander. However, the horrors of war to go him and after falling sick, he had fever dreams where an entity that claimed to be Vader handed him a sword and instructed him to eclipse the light.

The full name of the book is Tome of the Glorious Conflict Against the Inhuman Threat. The Party postulates that an alien conspiracy was responsible for unleashing the Gulag Virus as part of a bid to achieve galactic domination by decimating the human species. It holds a conspiracy of Twi'leks, Mon Calamari and Yuuzhan Vong responsible for this. The Party's revisionist historical narrative is characterised by an obsession with a 'galactic xenos Jedi conspiracy'.

It blames this conspiracy for the downfall of the Galactic Empire and attributes Tephrike's woes to the planet's old democratic government, the aliens, the Jedi, the liberals and the banks. It depicts humans as victims of a system dominated by alien interests, Jedi, high finance and an alien-controlled media that spread fake news. Even though both the Dominion of Light and the Republican Guard are fiercely opposed to one another and have diametrically opposed socio-political systems, the Party posits that they are secretly controlled by the same malevolent power, namely the xenos-Jedi-Yuuzhan Vong conspiracy.

The Party rejects the idea of equality between the different species, asserting that it is beneficial for other species to be subjugated by humans. Intermarriage with members of other species is treated as a sin that was responsible for the downfall of the first, pure human civilisation. It glorifies warfare and the ideology of Social Darwinism. Life is seen as an eternal struggle between superior and inferior species. Since humans are seen as a superior species, they are entitled to use force to acquire more land for themselves. For this reason, humanists hold democracy in contempt, regarding it as a decadent alien Jedi invention designed to chain mankind.

The Humanists promote 'Humanisation', which refers to the expropriation of aliens and their expulsion from economic life. In short, it is organised theft. By now, Tephrike is a deeply impoverished planet and so the idea of aliens having any control over economic life in the Imperium is absurd. Indeed, the average Tephriki is poor, regardless of their species. However, it is still a drum the Humanists like to beat, as it is a useful way to distract their own citizens from the fact that their living standards are poor.

The Party has no consistent economic policy. It rails against 'financial parasites', but this is generally just code for its racism. It claims to have broken the 'shackles of xenos finance capitalism', but extolls the 'productive capitalism' of 'honest human businessowners'. In contrast to the Dominion, which has a socialist command economy, the Party supports private property and has not carried out large-scale nationalisation.

The movement claims to have created a 'socially just community'...by forcing all trade unions to be assimilated into the Imperial Labour Front, a powerless group that uses social programmes to distract the workers from the fact that workers' rights have been replaced with authoritarian discipline straight out of a military barracks. Ironically, it is cheaper for large businessowners to utilise alien slaves rather than free human workers. However, when the government says 'jump', the corporate boardroom asks 'how high?'.

With the blessings of the Disciples, the Party has extended its tentacles to every sphere of society - law enforcement, the fine arts, science, education, administration and the military. While formally Party membership is not required, it is de facto mandatory for anyone who wants to have a career. It has purged science of 'xenos science' and carried out a cultural revolution to eliminate 'xenos influence' in the cultural sphere.

Non-Humans are banned from joining the Party. Indeed, the Party teaches that aliens, who are called xenos, are savage yet diabolical beings that are only fit to be enslaved or exterminated. The more 'moderate' wings of the Party promote segregation, ghettoisation and serfdom for xenos deemed 'controllable'. When the Imperial military occupies a town, the Party organises the forced eviction of aliens from their homes in conjunction with the security forces. The best land is to be colonised by human settlers, while non-humans are forced into sealed ghettos, detention centres, reservations or eliminated outright.

In the place of a 'xenos slave state', the Party promotes the vision of an ostensibly egalitarian People's Community that will unite all 'pure' humans...as long as they show no sign of 'deviance'. The Party has a rather extensive, ever-shifting definition of what constitutes deviation from Humanist orthodoxy. This has been used to justify and execute all manners of horrific atrocities. The Party has an elaborate bureaucratric structure. It deliberately seeks to ape the structure of the state and usurp duties normally associated with it. Indeed, the Party's Moffs often have more power than their government counterparts. It has a lot of sway in culture, education, law enforcement and racial policy. However, the Party is still beholden to the Disciples of the Vader. All pure humans are equal, but the Disciples are superior because the divine spark of the Force has manifested inside them.

While the Party seeks to present an image of uniformity and cohesiveness, this is to a large degree a facade. Power struggles between Party grandees are common. For one, spheres of responsibility are often ill-defined, especially in relation to state institutions. Moreover, the Vaderites' Social Darwinist ideology promotes strife, as it is seen as vital for national renewal. After all, it is based on the 'rule of the strong'.

Furthermore, recently Firemane bombarded the Vaderites' headquarters, Castle Maysaf, from orbit, killing the Supreme Leader and most of his inner circle. The new Supreme Leader Darth Eisen is personally popular and an old grandee, but his claim to the throne has been contested and he has had to fight a series of battles against rivals. This has undermined morale and left many local Party organisations in disarray, as they found themselves declaring for this or that claimant.

GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Headquarters: The Party headquarters, called Skywalker House, is located just outside Adlerberg. It has been modelled on what the Party's founders thought Vader's palace looked like. Of course, it is not only a tiny scale version but also wrong.
Domain: The Party is present throughout the society of the Imperium and the Disciples on Tephrike. From education to the bureaucracy to labour to youth organisations, its influence is felt. Within the realm of the Vaderites, human citizens are raised on the Party's dogma. It exercises total control over the media in this area, bombarding the people with pro-Humanist propaganda. When the Vaderites conquer an area, the administration they set up is typically composed of Party officials.

The Party has assumed responsibility for setting up air raid shelters to protect humans - and only the humans - from Dominion air strikes. It also runs camps for children who have been evacuated from cities in order to protect them against air raids. The Party shows a more benevolent side to the human masses, while fiercely persecuting anyone who does not meets its criteria for ideological and racial purity. Its treatment of non-humans is characterised by brutality, cruelty, terror and exploitation.

Notable Assets: Individual Party bigwigs may possess assets such as factories, villas, farms and so on. Corruption is endemic in the Party, and bigwigs in gubernatorial positions tend to conflate the state purse with the private one. The Party has offices, Vader shrines, schools, academies and meeting halls throughout most of the land under the sway of the Vaderites. It maintains its own network of elite boarding schools that exist parallel to the school system run by the government's education ministry.

SOCIAL INFORMATION
Hierarchy: In theory, the Humanist People's Party has a well-organised, top-down structure. In keeping with the leadership principle promoted by the Party, absolute power is vested in the hands of the Supreme Leader, who governs as a dictator. He is also the leader of the Greater Sith Imperium and the Disciples of the Vader. The Leader is always a Force-User. He is assisted by a Grand Council of Humanism, whose members are all appointed by him. How often this body is convened depends on the power of whoever happens to be Supreme Leader. It serves as an electoral college and advisory body for the Supreme Leader, being composed of the most important officials of Party, State and Order. Elevation is by personal appointment, but some members are essentially ex officio members.

In theory, there is the position of the Deputy of the Supreme Leader. However, it is presently vacant. The last Deputy Leader was declared insane after he personally flew his TIE fighter to the Dominion under the mistaken belief that he would be received by a cabal of pro-Humanist Jedi Masters who were about to overthrow the government. The Supreme Leader at the time declared his Deputy had gone insane and left the title vacant. The next-highest rank in the Party is that of National Leader. These are prominent Party figures who have been given a broad remit to oversee, such as the propaganda apparatus, agrarian policy, the treasury, the publishing house of the Party, the youth movement, cultural policy, or the youth movement. However, the power of the National Leaders varies. Some are grandees, others are nonentities who have been pacified with irrelevant sinecures.

Turf wars are common, as their spheres of responsibility are often ill-defined. A Moff leads a provincial branch of the Party. Here it is pertinent to note that, though inferior in rank, the Moffs do not answer to the National Leaders. Some National Leaders are very powerful and thus can protect the local branches of their spheres from the regional bigwigs. Indeed, the latter might be their clients. But others are weak and have little control. Typically, a Moff will also be in charge of the local government, blurring the lines between Party and state authority. Thus a Moff might be the Imperial governor. However, the administrative jurisdictions do not always overlap.

Some Moffs are also National Leaders and/or government ministers. All Moffs and National Leaders are supposed to be appointed by the Supreme Leader. In practice, there is a lot of wheeling and dealing involved behind the scenes. A District Leader runs a district beneath a Moff. Block Wardens are responsible for supervising a small Party cell in a neighbourhood. However, their duties extend beyond organising Party members. They are also supposed to ensure that Humanist ideology is spread to the entire population in the block, and report those whose faith is found wanting. For this reason, they are often called Block Snoops. Beneath this level one has the rank and file members.

Though the Party claims to be a meritocracy, promotion in its ranks has a lot more to do with connections than with ability. Corruption is endemic, as is always the case in a totalitarian regime. Some Moffs or National Leaders are also Government ministers, which gives them ample opportunity to enrich themselves through blackmail and embezzlement of government funds. At each level of the hierarchy, one official alone is in charge. No person in the chain of command possesses any authority other than what has been granted to him from above. Low-level Party members have no input on Party policy, but are expected to obey without question.

Party grandees are in constant competition with each other, as they vie for the favour of the Leader. This has led to a proliferation of departments that have often been founded on an ad hoc basis and clash with each other and institutions of the government or the Disciples. This fuels the radicalisation of the regime, as officials operate on the basis that they will be rewarded if they 'work towards the Leader'. As a result, the national party machinery is in a state of confusion, disorganisation and constant movement. A bureau called the Party Chancellery acts as a conduit between state and Party. It reviews civil service appointments and court decisions and has nominated many Moffs and lower-ranking Party officials. The Party Chancellery seeks to act as the central administrative authority of the Party, but powerful Party bigwigs are able to bypass it and appeal to the Leader directly.

The Party maintains a variety of organisations. Many of them correspond to government ministries and organisations. Indeed, there are few government responsibilities that are not duplicated by the Party in some way. Of course, the government bureaucracy is staffed with Party members, but the Party official running a government department may not be identical to the Party official who is in charge of a Party organisation that duplicates the functions of the former. Aside from squandering manpower, this system of dual government has the disadvantage that one side passes the responsibility for a newly issued decree to another.

Membership: Must be a 'pure' human and a follower of the Humanist ideology. The applicant must provide proof of pure human ancestry. To this end they need to obtain a certificate from the Department of Racial Health, which certifies racial pedigrees. They must also provide a certificate showing that they have no 'genetic or mental defects'. Near-humans are not allowed to join. Those among them who look 'human' - and are able to grease the right paws - can sometimes obtain a status akin to second-class citizens, but this can always be withdrawn and they suffer from discrimination. An established Party member must vouch for a new applicant. The process can be sped up through various ways, such as military or labour service, making a charitable donation to the Humanist cause or having several pure human children.

Being a Party member in good standing is essential for a career in many spheres of society. For instance, the Party Chancellery vets all applications for senior civil service positions. The Humanist Party has often vacillated between wanting a broad mass movement and a more elite cadre party. The former is often pushed by Sith and State officials who just want the Party to be an instrument for placating, pacifying and indoctrinating the masses instead of a body that influences policy. A clique of Party bureaucrats is pushing the latter line. All Disciples of the Vader automatically become members of the Party after graduating from the Academy. They are Sith, and thus regarded as higher beings, which means they skip the usual admission process because they have already been put through the ringer during their training.

Climate:

The Party tries to present a civilised, even friendly face - to its human constituents. It organises festivals and rallies with torch-lit parades, grand light-shows and other spectacles that are supposed to present the movement as young, vibrant and dynamic. It carries out social programmes to help 'comrades' in need, organises 'wholesome' activities for the human youth, sets up soup kitchens and air raid shelters. It also claims that 'Humanisising'' alien businesses has redistributed the nation's wealth among humans. However, scratch the surface and one finds a nest of poisonous vipers.

The Party is built on hatred - against the 'xenos', the Jedi, the pacifists, the liberals, the 'work-shy', democrats, socialists, 'deviants' and in general anyone who does not conform to its asinine ideology. To maintain power, it whips the population into a hate-filled frenzy against perceived internal and external enemies. Its enemies are vilified as parasites, microbes, and beasts. Party members are often under pressure to prove their quasi-religious devotion to the cause. The Party has no tolerance of nonconformism or independent thought. Its monitoring activities extend beyond Party members to society as a whole. It depicts everything beyond the land of the Vaderites as corrupt, tainted and disorderly. The pervasive system of spying and informing created by the Party has created an environment where no one trusts anyone any more. For instance, parents fear being denounced by their children and workers by their colleagues.

Moreover, for all its pretensions of representing order, the movement is defined by near-constant intrigue and power struggles at its upper levels. This, in turn, fuels the radicalisation of the movement, as fraction tries to prove it represents true Humanism. This has been the cause of many atrocities, such as deportations, mass killings and xenocide. In many ways, the Party is less a political movement in the conventional sense and more a cult. Vader is its god, and Humanist leaders such as Wilhuff Tarkin, Alaric Karvalst, Darth Malitia are its saints. All good citizens of the Imperium have hung pictures of the Supreme Leader in their homes and in their workplaces. Within the Vaderite realm, the Party exercises a near-total control over cultural life. Books viewed as subsersive are destroyed; 'decadent art' is banned. Families of 'undesirables' are shipped off into ghettos or forced labour camps.

Internal party democracy is nonexistent in the Party. Party officials and representatives are appointed from above, not elected. This is in keeping with the Vaderist Leadership Principle, which holds that certain individuals have been chosen by destiny to lead the herd. Even those humans who live in the Vaderite lands, but do not belong to the Party are still governed by its rules. Schools must follow a Party-approved curriculum that emphasies the importance of racial biology and population policy.

Pupils often watch propaganda movies in the classroom, and their teachers integrate racial politics into every subject. For instance, a physics teacher whose lectures are believed to not be in line with 'Humanist Physics' will be dismissed and lose his teaching license. He may be pressured to make a confession where he retracts his deviant beliefs. Depending on how radical the regime is feeling, he may be sent to a concentration camp. It goes without saying that this has had a devastating effect on the education system. Humanism Studies is a mandatory subject at schools and universities. Pupils must study 'Glorious Conflict' and will be tested on their knowledge of it. The Party organises activities such as camping trips, marches and singing for human youths - and indoctrinates them into blindly following the tenets of Humanism. It raises them in the belief that nothing is more glorious than to die for the cause.

A human couple that intends to marry requires a health certificate the marriage will produce healthy, 'pure' human children. The prospective husband and wife - for same-sex relationships are prohibited because they do not produce offsprings - must submit to a medical examination to determine their ability to have children. In certain cases, the Leader may take the liberty of 'arranging' a marriage. It is a bad idea for the lucky couple to say no. After all, the Supreme Leader knows best. The Party also organises naming ceremonies for new-born human infants. The Party embraces natalist policies. Indeed, a couple that has remained childless for an extended duration of time is looked upon poorly and might be pressured to separate or submit to a medical examination. According to the Party, humans have an obligation to procreate in order to ensure the survival and supremacy of mankind.

The Humanist Party's treatment of women is two-faced. On the one hand, women have not been barred from the labour force or the military. Indeed, there are women who occupy leading positions in Party, State and the Disciples. At the same time, the Party exhorts couples to have as many children as possible and idealises the nuclear family, which is seen as a microcosm of the 'Father State'. Here again there is a divide in the treatment of Force-Users and Non-Force-Users, as one can hardly order a Sith Lady to stay in the kitchen. Abortion has been criminalised. Leading Party bosses have proclaimed that monogamy was a xenos Jedi conspiracy to curtail the growth of the human race, and argued that 'healthy' human males who have distinguished themselves in the service of the cause should be allowed to wed more than one woman. For some reason, no one has proposed that it should be the other way round, too.

The Party maintains its own militia, which acts as an auxiliary to the police. At the same time, it suppresses associations that exist outside of it. For instance, all students must join the Humanist Party's student union; all doctors must belong to its doctors' league; all teachers to its teachers' league; and all youth groups outside of the Party's youth movement have been banned. Like the Party itself, these associations have a strict top-down hierarchy and must promote Humanist values. Membership in the Imperial Labour Front, the Party's trade union, is mandatory for all workers. This means leaders appointed by the Humanist Party 'represent' the workers in collective bargaining. The sham union exists to give workers the feeling that the Party loves them. Following the principle that since it controls the workers on the job, it should also supervise their private life, the Labour Front has assumed control of leisure time organisations. One of its programmes is to provide good Humanist workers with an affordable vehicle, the People's Groundcar or the People's Speeder. But few civilians have ever got one. They are encouraged to buy vouchers for the vehicle, but it almost never arrives. Sometimes it can be picked up ten years later and then construction errors mean that you rarely get to enjoy it for long.

The money goes to building new tanks, palaces or yachts for the elite. Indeed, corruption is a systemic issue in the Party. Party bigwigs are rewarded with bribes such as medals, slaves, cash, estates, and tax exemptions in return for their fealty to the Leader. It is not uncommon for a corporation in Imperial territory to grant a local Party grandee a lucrative directorship in order to be awarded a prestigious contract. The descendants of influential Party bosses often use their 'pure bloodline' to get promoted into top jobs they have no qualification for.

Pyramid schemes, extortions, rackets, systematic robbery, cartels, price fixing, sham unions, drug dealing and sweatshops represent the true economic and fiscal policy of Humanism. The Party is neither socialist nor capitalist, but a criminal gang. Its policy is growth through conquest and plunder. But to carry out this conquest, it must achieve growth that requires conquest and plunder. The Party is essentially organised as a crime syndicate that is meant to enrich the Humanist party bosses and their capos. Party grandees enrich themselves by stealing businesses and property for themselves, and expropriating goods and resources. On the local level, Party functionaries extort, blackmail and steal land, houses, assets etc. as they please. At the same time, criminals from outside the Party are punished harshly.

Cultic worship of Vader and the 'saints' and 'martyrs' of the Humanist movement is an important part of the Party's ceremonies. The Party, however, rejects the idea that this constitutes a religion. Instead it refers to it as a 'science'. Events such as Malitia's Arduous March, the Battle of Palmyra or Anakin's rebirth as Vader are commemorated with grand spectacles. It is extremely intolerant of other belief systems, for enlightenment can only be found in the Humanist gospel.

The Supreme Party Court is responsible for settling disputes and judging disciplinary issues. Many of its cases involve expulsion. Dismissal from the Party means certain political death, and is often followed by imprisonment and persecution. As already mentioned, the Party is obsessed with racial purity. Accusing a rival of having 'impure blood' is a popular way to discredit someone. As with everything else, there are two sets of laws for senior officials and the rank and the file. Injustices committed by the former are rarely investigated by the Party Court or the state's judicial organs, especially if the perpetrator is also a Disciple. The main exception is when the perpetrator has fallen into disgrace and become politically inconvenient.

Relics, traditions and Anthems: The Party has constructed Vader shrines across the country, encouraging citizens to worship Vader, Malitia and the Humanist Revolution. One of the most well-known is the Altar of the Sith'ari in Adlerberg, which is shaped like a massive Vader helmet. Symbols such as the 'Blood Banner', which was supposedly carried by Malitia's herald and splattered with the blood of martyrs, have been branded as sacred. Some of these shrines contain relics that were supposedly associated with Vader or prominent 'saints' of the movement. For instance, the Vaderites claim to have found Vader's glove. This is ridiculous. It is extremely unlikely that the Dark Lord ever visited Tephrike since it was an incredibly peripheral planet.

Party members are expected to greet each other with the Humanist Salute. This is accompanied by the words 'Praise Vader'. In certain circumstances, this is also followed by the words 'Praise [insert name of the incumbent Supreme Leader]'. One of the Party's mottos is 'One People, one Imperium, one Leader'. Others are 'Believe, obey, fight' and 'Everything in the Imperium, nothing outside the Imperium, nothing against the Imperium.' The term 'Party Comrade' is used to refer to a fellow Party member.

The movement has also appropriated various pro-Imperial songs such as Defending Your Freedom, Supremacy and The New Order. These are often sung at parades and marches. The Adras Kasidiaris Song is the anthem of the Party. It is named after and was supposedly written by a Party stormtrooper called Adras Kasidiaris, who was killed by Dominion militia. In life Adras was a petty thug, but Party propaganda turned him into a saint whose 'sacrificial death passionately inflamed millions who followed'. He is one of the most well-known Humanist 'martyrs' and has his own cult of personality. The Vaderites have named an army division, city districts and a Party school after him.

Reputation: The Party is banned by and hated in the Dominion of Light and the Republican Guard, the Vaderites' main rivals. They regard it as a stooge of the Vaderites and its ideology as barbaric. Within the sphere of the Vaderites, it is the only legal party. The Party is absolutely hated by the Imperium's non-human subjects. Every human citizen is not required to be a Party member, but it is essentially mandatory for anyone who wants to pursue a career in business, the civil service or the military. The Party has managed to entrench itself in virtually every sphere of society. It is pertine to note that most humans in the Vaderite realm agree with Humanism and are very racist.

However, this does not make the Party's senior officials popular. Indeed, the term 'Peacock' is often used to pejoratively refer to Party grandees due to their ostentatious uniforms and decorations. Many are seen as corrupt. The Supreme Leader, however, is personally popular, which is ironic since he is an obvious crook. The Disciples of the Vader have a mixed view of the Party. It is an important tool to organise and subjugate the Non-Force-Sensitive population of their realm and they, of course, follow its ideology. But at times there has also been tension with Force-blind Party officials trying to accumulate more influence and give (human) Non-Force-Sensitives a greater say in things. The most extreme Disciples believe that all Force-Sensitives, regardless of whether they are humans or aliens, are only fit for servitude.

Curios: Party members receive a membership card and a copy of Glorious Conflict. The book is treated as holy writ. Through vigorous application of its tenets, a good Party comrade is supposed to be able to live his entire life without ever thinking for himself. This ignores the fact that Malitia's rantings have been reinterpreted by successive Leaders to suit their personal agendas. Indeed, some have made additions to the sacred text.

Party uniforms are limited to officials who belong to the Party's political leadership corps. By contrast, the average Party member will wear normal clothes, but add an armband with the Party symbol to it. The Party has a set of elaborate insignia that denotes the rank of an official within the hierarchy. It also has its own system of medals and decorations that are separate from those of the military ad the state. They are awarded to Party members who have distinguished themselves in one way or another. Party members who are also Disciples often wear Sith apparel with a Party armband, though some will don the Party uniform and add Sith insignia to it.

Rules:

• Unconditional obedience to the Supreme Leader, as the chosen one who was sent by Providence to lead mankind to salvation. The Leader is always right.
• Unrelenting struggle against 'alien' influences in society and in the human gene pool. Interspecies marriage and sexual relationships are bannd. Blood mixture is the sole cause for the downfall of civilisations.
• Loyalty to the People's Community. All pure humans are children of the fatherland and must come together to achieve the destiny of the Imperium, overcoming class barriers. All differences between bourgeoisie and proletariat, between urban and rural, rich and poor, Force-User and Non-Force-User, are obsolete...insofar as it applies to humans. Class struggle is a tool devised by the xenos to divide mankind and make it easier to enslave it. All loyal humans comrades share the same racial soul and must be treated with respect.
• Constant struggle is the law of the nature. Only the strong are fit to rule. That is why the Supreme Leader must be the strongest Disciple.
• Every child is a new soldier and worker for the cause. All human children must be enrolled in the Imperial youth movement.
• Fight the Jedi, the mutant and the xenos.
• All anti-Humanist activity must be reported. Failure to do so is treason against the nation and humankind.
• Spread Humanist ideology wherever you go - in your home, in your neighbourhood, at your workplace.
• All humans Force-Sensitives must join the Disciples of the Vader. Xenos Force-Sensitives are thieves who harness the divine spark by interbreeding with humans. The Light is a lie created by xenos Jedi to manipulate the descendants of the original god-men. The Disciples have preserved the divine spark of the primordial god-men, and are thus deserving of the utmost respect and reverence.
• Marriage is a sacred, indivisible union of man and woman. The human species must grow and give birth to as many racially pure, healthy sons and daughters as possible. Party members must contribute to this. The impure must be weeded out.
• To sacrifice yourself for mankind is the most virtuous death.
• Emperor Vader is the one true Sith'ari, and Malitia is the prophet of the Great One. Do not worship false idols.

Goals:

• Achieve total 'coordination' of society and build the 'People's Community' by imbuing every sphere with Humanist ideology. Achieve total unity of within human society. Eliminate all forms of 'deviance'.
• Support the 'inevitable' unification of Tephrike under the banner of the Disciples and the Imperium. 'Xenos' must be removed from human society.
• Serve the Supreme Leader and the Disciples, but also expand the influence of the Party in society and government.

MEMBERS
Lord Alesandro Skaer (NPC) - Skaer is not a Humanist. He wasn't involved in war crimes or crimes against sentience, though he will say he is sorry for what his colleagues did, even though he did not know anything about it. He is a respectable architect from an upper middle class family who just happened to work for an evil government. He had no choice; the Imperium's war economy would've ground to a halt without his expertise. For some reason, prolonging a horrible regime is something to brag about. But he is an apolitical technician and an artistic soul who only wants the best for his people. He has never instigated the forced eviction of alien tenants from their homes or the construction of forced labour camps. The alien workers who toil in his factories and construction sites are not slaves; they are merely being given 'vocational training'. He has 'sabotaged' criminal orders.

That is what he will tell a judge if he is captured and put on trial. He is a silver-tongued, remorseless liar and just as brutal as his colleagues. Skaer is an architect, construction supremo and one of the most powerful figures in the Imperium's economy. He heads the Armament Ministry and is on the board of directors of Destiny Engineering, a construction parastatal. Many government public works' projects are contracted to this company, and material firms are required to cooperate with its requests. This gives him incredible influence over materials, transport, armaments production, and forced labour. Skaer has made himself a name for building grandiose - and often impractical - monuments for successive Supreme Leaders. One time he had his designers build a walker so huge it could not walk and became a large statue essentially. The Supreme Leader could give a speech standing on top of it.

Skaer has grown rich through kickbacks from material and munitions suppliers. He is just as corrupt as his peers, but better at hiding it. He projects an appearance of bourgeois respectability. But he is incredibly ambitious, vain and power-hungry. His position has allowed him to build a close relationship with the military-industrial complex and a cadre of young Party officials who desire a more efficient, streamlined government that still abides by Humanist principles. At the same time, he has built a close relationship with the KEC. He works hand in glove with the order's slave-industrial complex. Skaer has a talent for organisation that matches his knack for self-promotion. He has managed to improve productivity, but his endeavours are built on the blood of slave labourers. He is utterly indifferent to their suffering.

Skaer has actively encouraged the myth of himself as an industrial miracle worker who can achieve the impossible through sheer force of will. His rise to power is the product of ambition, sycophancy and the ability to delegate to more talented minions. He treats Tephrike as a massive engineering project that he can tweak and modify as he pleases in order to 'perfect the Humanist dream'. If the alien population of an entire city must be deported and said city demolished to to transform it into a 'model city', then so be it.

Chysanthos Xenelis (NPC) - For millennia, a cabal of xenos Jedi and bankers has conspired to bring about a 'great replacement' - flooding the peaceful world of Tephrike with alien hordes through mass immigration, demographic growth and human drop in birth rate. It has been nothing less than an alien invasion of an originally human world. They have encouraged interspecies relationships, homosexuality and abortion in order to cause the human birth rate to plummet, undermine the moral health of mankind and encourage 'degeneracy'. Under alien influence, mankind was on the brink of 'birth controlling itself into extinction'. When loyal patriots fought back against the 'coming human genocide', the cabal unleashed the Gulag Virus to cull mankind.

This is, of course, an absurd conspiracy theory with no basis in reality. But it is what every human child in the Imperium grows up learning. Chysantos Xenelis is the man responsible for hammering home the message. He heads the propaganda ministry and hosts the nightly talk show 'Daily Truth'. His ministry holds dominion over the press, theatre, art, cinema and broadcasting. Moreover, it organises the grand Party rallies. Meanwhile, he uses his talk show as his bully pulpit to blast 'degeneracy'. Xenelis is a virulent speciesist.

He has a knack for appropriating rhetoric from the political left to present the Humanist regime as the one that truly cares about the common human worker. He describes himself as the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness, and groupthink, while in fact embodying all these traits. He has a luxurious residence filled with valuable rugs, furniture and artworks acquired at the expense of the government. He also loves sports cars. Xenelis seldom gives public speeches himself, but has a talent for using imagery, media, and the pen to get the message across. He publishes literary and cultural essays on the side.

As a teenager, Xenelis was a group leader in the Imperial Youth Corps. His superiors praised his impeccable Humanist behaviour. He served in a flak unit of the Skyhammer Fleet. For a while he performed the duties of a political officer at a military school. There Xenelis discovered his propagandistic talent as a writer and editor for a military magazine published by the Skyhammer Fleet. He is an honorary general of the Freedom Squads, an all-volunteer militia that serves the Humanist Party, and a captain of the reserve in the Imperial military.

Constantine Dragoumis (NPC) - one of the little 'princelings' of the regime, Constantine Dragoumis is a younger relative of none other than Supreme Leader Eisen. Being the closest thing the Imperium has to royalty has its privileges. While corrupt, Eisen is not purely nepotistic, so Constantine still had to demonstrate some talent. Still, the lad has caught the Supreme Leader's eye. Newly graduated from the Academy, he has been fast-tracked for promotion and put in charge of the Humanist Party's youth movement. Their credo is that youth should be led by youth and become the next generation of warriors for the Imperium. Constantine has taken this dictum to heart, and clashed with the ministry of education and the Party Chancellery over control of youth education. He has gathered around him a clique of young Corps leaders who hope to rise to the top on his coattails. He is still in the training wheels stage, but is already learning how to best utilise his powers of patronage and navigate the corridors of power.

For a while he worked in Eisen's military bodyguard unit. Taking the rank of major, he bickered frequently with its commander, who accused him of trying to undermine his authority. Having grown up privileged, Constantine is accustomed to luxurious living. As a child, he would don military garb, and bark orders at people. He is a fan of sports, carousing, cigarras and movies. He is said to own a massive collection of films, including some that have been banned by the Imperial State. Constantine likes to force guests to drink large quantities of alcohol at parties. However, he has cunningly recognised his powerful relative's desire for self-aggrandisement and is eager to capitalise on it. Constantine lived through the 'disruptions' caused by the Netherworld Event. It has imprinted its mark upon him. He has a vicious streak that his patriarch lacks.

A passionate movie buff, he has taken an interest in filmmaking and procured his own studio. The little princeling exhorts writers and directors to 'grasp the seed' of a work. That is to say, choose a clear theme that can be expressed in just a few words and stick to it. Moreover, they should stick to the facts if fabrications could be easily detected - but if a lie would serve the perpetuation of the regime, they should tell the lie and overcome the audience's incredulity through dramatic force and constant repetition. It is the Big Lie in a nutshell. He has been credited as the producer, director and screenplay writer of his own movie. Not content with merely telling the staff what to do, he personally supervised the shooting. At one stage, he worked late in the night, scissors in hand, to edit the movie after determining that the director had not truly grasped the seed of the work. Naturally, the director was 'deeply moved, overcome by a surge of emotion.'

Constantine has founded his own sports club and been rather aggressive in getting good players to sign up for it in order to corner the market. He isn't the type to work behind a desk all the time. He wants to be someone who always engages with the common people - or be seen as that, at any rate. He visits government offices, steel mills, farms, barracks, youth camps and so on to talk to people, carry out inspections and deliver on-the-spot guidance. Quite what the people make of a young man barging in to lecture them and throw his weight around is another question. But his hagiographers depict it as a sign of his boundless energy, attention to detail and concern for the common man. In the pattern of 'noblesse oblige', it has become a habit of his to present gifts - sometimes wildly extravagant - to somewhat less fortunate people who happen to be his friends, supporters or underlings, or are otherwise known to him. Constantine is married, and his glamorous wife has recently given birth to a son.

Ironically, Constantine's father Mathios is despises Humanism and all it stands for. He helps Twi'leks and others persecuted by the evil regime whenever he can. Eisen is a bit annoyed by his brother, but overlooks his activities and bails him out when he gets into trouble because he still feels a familial bond. For his part, Constantine is disgusted by his father. Mathios is a bon vivant and a womaniser with a string of affairs and a chaotic private life. Constantine is illegitimate, which has given him an inferiority complex and a trigger for his rage. Eisen took notice of the boy and allowed him to take the family name. After all, he has the Force, so he is worthy.

Doctor Nikos Zaroulia (NPC) - Zaroulia has a background in medicine, starting his career as a physician. He holds the rank of National Leader, heading the Racial Health Department. This department is charged with maintaing the 'purity' and health of the human race. It ensures access to healthcare to veterans and other 'needy, deserving' humans. At the same time, it provides certification of 'pure human' pedigree. That is the, on first sight, more benevolent side of its activities. Moreover, it is part of the Imperium's eugenics programme. Zaourlia takes his duties as guardian of the 'racial corpus' seriously. He has a private interest in herbal medicine, homeopathy and Force phenomena. His personality has been described as pedantic, officious and professorial. He is considered one of the intellectuals of the Party. He holds an honorary rank in the KEC. His pride and joy are extensive geneanological charts to keep track of prominent human bloodlines in the Imperium.

This is of particular importance because the Disciples frown on Force-wielders marrying 'squibs'. They adhere to the dubious theory that they can create stronger Force-Users by having their Forceful sons and daughters marry into other bloodlines with a history of Force-Sensitivity. The Department keeps track of this absurd breeding programme, and even makes recommendations for matches. A 'fortuitous combination of genes' is supposed to produce 'supermen' and elevate humanity as a whole. Zaroulia has written a ten-point guide to marriage to educate young people. His paper urges them to pay close attention to the ancestry of a potential 'life-mate'. Readers are admonished that the fit and healthy must not remain single, and that a marriage unlikely to produce children should be dissolved.

Zaroulia has a deeply perverse sense of ethics. He likens society to an organism that must be 'cured of ills'. These are defined as 'weak, invalid or incurable elements'. He has written papers defending the Vaderites' sterilisation laws as a humane measure to prevent the spread of hereditary diseases. Moreover, his office creates travelling exhibitions that promote the 'Humanist ideal'. Publications produced by his office are used to 'educate' medical school students. Despite his unobtrusive - one might say banal - demeanour, Zaroulia is deeply complicit in many medical atrocities committed by the Disciples, including inhumane medical experiments and the murder of the mentally or physically disabled. While climbing the ladder, he was one of the 'experts' called upon to decide whether individuals reported by the health authorities for being 'unworthy of life' should be murdered.

Skaer and Zaroulia are good friends. Both are alike in their immorality and coldness. To Zaroulia, murdering the 'superfluous' is a matter of public health. Likewise, Skaer regards slave labourers as production ingredients to be exploited for his grandiose construction and armaments programmes until they have been used up. He has ties to the Wilhuff Tarkin Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics and the Imperial Museum of Natural History and Sentientology. Zaroulia publishes articles on his studies in academic journals. While he has ruined the lives of many innocent people, Zaroulia is not a major power player. He tends to follow the party line.

Pausanias Kasadares (NPC) - Pausanias is a former Republican Guard officer. However, he defected to the Vaderites after witnessing the atomic bombing of Malagdan. When faced with the choice between continuing the struggle and joining the Humanist regime, he chose the latter. In the process, he abandoned one of his former comrades in arms - an alien - to execution. He aligned himself with what he considered the winning side for safety, comfort and a bit of power. At first, he was used as propaganda symbol to demonstrate the 'degeneracy' of the Imperium's enemies. However, he wanted more. He made himself a name during 'bandit suppression campaigns', committing numerous atrocities such as wiping out entire villages.

His new-found commitment to Humanism allowed him to rise through the ranks very quickly. At first he led a collaborationist 'volunteer force' mostly composed of former prisoners of war, but then he became a senior officer in the KEC, the praetorian guard of the Party. At home, he was a family man who had proper breakfast with his three kids and homemaker wife each morning. At work, he was a brutal enforcer. Charismatic and articulate, he was the ideal poster boy for the regime.

However, there was one thing that marred his 'redemption arc'. His son was a dedicated member of the Humanist youth movement who strove to make his father proud. However, he was afflicted with a congenital disease. Having taken his father's lessons to heart, Jason reported himself to the authorities, knowing he would be killed. Publicly, Jason was praised for his devotion to the Humanist ideal and was even the subject of a propaganda film, which also glorified Pausanias. Ironically, he had tried to keep his son's medical condition a secret. Privately, his son's suicide drove a wedge between Pausanias and his wife. But he remained an obedient soldier of the Party.

However, Pausanias had gained the enmity of Furcht. The Supreme Leader had decided to purge him, but was unable to give the order because Firemane bombed Castle Maysaf. Despite his membership in the KEC, Pausanias made the opportunistic move of swearing fealty to Darth Eisen and 'delivering' Adlerberg to him. This gave Eisen an advantage in the power struggle that followed Furcht's demise, and he rewarded his new ally handsomely. Now Pausanias occupies a high-ranking position in the Party's paramilitary forces. He has continued to pitilessly uphold the Vaderite's laws. The Republican Guard has put a bounty on his head.

Marshal Andronikos Nikator (NPC) - Marshal Nikator is an honourable man. They are all honourable, these honourable men. So honourable that when a KEC death squad massacred forty thousand civilians, he sent a complaint to the commander. It was not a protest against the massacre, for it had been carried out with his consent. Instead he demanded that the commander hand over the wristwatches of the murdered Twi'leks and Mon Calamari. Nikator believed that his men had earned the watches, since the KEC would not have been able to do its job without their help. In that regard, he was correct. The understaffed death squads would have been unable to murder innocents on the scale their masters demanded without the active assistance of the army. His troops have also used slave labour to further the war effort. Whether a thousand slaves die while digging anti-tank ditches or serving as sentient minesweepers does not matter, just that the task is complete.

But he is a man of honour and if the Leader were to follow his advice, the war would be won. Born into a family with a long history of service, he has the demeanour of an aristocrat. Nikator is a gifted general, but egotistical and haughty. He is a believer in the 'The Protocols of the Masters of Tython', a piece of rubbish that purports to 'unmask' a conspiracy between alien Jedi and Yuuzhan Vong. Nikator is not uncritical towards the Sith and the Party, but his criticism is solely based on disagreements on military strategy. He does not complains about the regime's racist policies or its totalitarian nature. He resents certain Sith for being military dilettantes who owe their position to their strength in the Force. However, he has never objected to their atrocities. His objections are limited to meddling in military affairs.

Once when he had a disagreement with the Leader, he shut up after receiving a massive estate, which was tax-free for his entire lifetime. Naturally it used to belong to aliens, but he acquired it 'legally'. Since he is a man of honour, he has allowed the former owners to live and work on the land. He is a 'benevolent, firm but fair' master who treats his serfs 'well'. They better be grateful to him. Later he acquired even more land to expand his estate. Like many senior generals, he receives monthly, tax-free payments from a secret slush fund. This is in addition to his official salary, a special, tax-free payment to cover wartime living expenses and a lifetime exemption from paying income tax. When a group of officers tried to recruit him for a coup, he told them: 'Imperial marshals do not mutiny.' In public, Nikator behaves as if he is just an 'apolitical, honourable soldier doing his duty to the Imperium'. This is, of course, nonsense.

Darth Eisen - The Supreme Leader of the movement and of the Disciples. He is an extremely ruthless political operator, completely devoid of moral scruples. In his younger days he was a daring fighter pilot. At times his sybaritic excesses and jovial, gregarious attitude have given rise to a misleading picture of him being an amicable 'moderate'. While obese and morbidly unhealthy in terms of appetites, he is an intelligent, dangerous man.

Eisen has an immense drive for self-gratification. He wears flamboyant uniforms of his own design that are bedecked with medals. The lurid picture of his person clad in fine togas and jewel-encrusted sandals with pet Akk Dogs by his side, owning a vast mansion filled with stolen art works and hunting trophies, is completely accurate. He is the most self-indulgent and corrupt of all the Vaderites. Eisen is a Sith, a Humanist and a reflexive racist. But he is no zealot. Zealotry requires too much work that could be best spent elsewhere. In spite, or perhaps because of his eccentricities, he is personally popular among his human subjects.

Eisen pays lip service to Vaderite ideology, but cares little for it when it gets in his way. When it was brought to his attention that one of his top minions might have some alien blood in him, he is said to have declared: "I decide who is a xenos." He treats his personal slaves somewhat better than the typical Disciple. However, he is also responsible for innumerable war crimes. He is a bombastic public speaker with a talent for managing the crowd and prone to bluster. He is a superficially charming sociopath with a distaste for heavy lifting. Darth Eisen is vain and greedy, but a powerful Master of the Force and popular with the people.

Thekla Florakis (NPC) - Thekla is a famous propagandist, filmmaker and actress in the Party. As a child of the Well of Life Foundation, she is a product of the Imperium's eugenics programme. She was part of a nascent subculture of young students who experimented with drugs and other extracurricular activities. But when some of her friends questioned orthodoxy and were arrested, she remained loyal to Humanist ideology. Thekla started her career as an actress. She appeared in and directed plays at the Odeon of the Triumphant Will, a theatre in Adlerberg. A very racist minstrel show produced by her was particularly popular. While accompanying Imperial troops in the field, she witnessed innocent Yuuzhan Vong civilians being massacred in 'retaliation' for a partisan attack. She was visibly shocked by this, but did nothing. She later compelled concentration camp inmates to serve as extras in one of her movies. They were promised better conditions, but sent back to the camps to be murdered after filming was complete. Darth Hyperion was mesmerised by her talent when he saw her appear in one of her early movies, where she served as director, writer and lead actress. She fit his ideal of human 'womanhood'. For her part, she was infatuated with him.

Thekla is well-known for several propaganda movies, such as 'Triumph of the Vader', and 'Ascent of the Sith'ari'. One of her movies depicts what supposedly happened after the destruction of the Second Death Star. In this version of events, the New Republic is established, but its weak government is a front for a cabal of Neimoidian bankers. Coruscant's proud police - the last bastion of law and order - is dismantled to give Wookiee thugs free reign. The Jedi abduct Force-Sensitive human infants to brainwash them. However, with the guidance Vader's spirit, Ben Skywalker sees through the Jedi's lies. Calling himself Kylo Ren, he convinces many of his fellow Padawans to rebel. Thekla has extensively covered Party rallies. One of her propaganda films had to be retroactively edited because a Vaderite leader that appeared prominently in it was purged after filming was complete. She made a documentary about Hope Falls, which showed a peaceful town and happy alien labourers toiling in blooming fields. When a resident deviated from the script during an interview, he was brutally whipped.

Procopius Spykios (NPC) - Spykios is a creature of the Party. He has been shaped by it, moulded by it - and now he tries to dominate it. He started his career as a functionary in the Humanist youth movement, serving as its staff leader for many years. With a keen eye for what the Leader wanted, he proved adept at 'working towards the Leader' while navigating the mine field that is Vaderite politics. During his tenure, he emphasised the paramilitary functions of the movement. Members received basic weapons' training from early on and served in auxiliary roles such as anti-aircraft crews, and clearing away rubble in cities bombed by Dominion aircraft. He also set up the Krypteia, a group of youths that was supposed to catch fugitive slaves who had escaped during air raids. Of course, aliens were excluded from air raid shelters. He treated the group as a rite of passage. It became a way to get youths accustomed to carrying out brutal acts of violence without question. In addition to murdering slaves, the Krypteia also persecuted youths who belonged to an anti-Humanist, liberal counterculture, refused to participate in Youth Corps activities and listened to 'degenerate' music.

Spykios eventually became a Moff, then National Leader and Chief of the Party Chancellery. He uses his powers of patronage to place cadres who owe their careet to him in important positions in the Party apparatus and state bureaucracy. Unfortunately for Procopius, many Moffs refuse to treat him as their boss, though he is plotting to fix that by pushing out the old-times in favour of younger cadres who started their career in his bailiwick. His relations with the Youth Corps are, ironically, tense. Spykios thinks their present leader is an arrogant showoff who was promoted on the basis of nepotism. The so-called 'Spykios Memorandum' is named after him. It envisages far-reaching changes for the Party and the Imperium. According to it the Party should be transformed from a mass organisation into an elite group of cadres that will serve as a pool of future leaders for the Imperium. To this end it should be non-violently purged of its vast membership to make it more exclusive again. Moreover, the borders of state administrative territorial units should perfectly match of party administrative territorial units, with the position of state governor and that of regional Party boss being held in personal union.

The future membership of the Party should come entirely from the Youth Corps. In keeping with this, the Youth Corps should come under the authority of the Party, with territorial youth leaders integrated into the staff of local Party bosses instead of standing apart from it. Party cadres should undergo a cursus honorum overseen by the Party Chancellery. Much of this remains utopian, but the Party Chancellery's state affairs department has developed a system for evaluating candidates for the senior civil service and young jurists. Spykios is a supporter of polygamy...but only for men. His first wife is the daughter of the chairman of the Supreme Party Court. In addition, he has taken a film actress as his second wife to 'spread his genes'. Naturally he would not allow either of his wives to have lovers. He has a large brood of children.

Nektarios Martoulis (NPC) – Martoulis is a creature of the Humanist People's Party and he has accomplished much in service to it. Now he stands at the top of the pyramid of a tyrannical political machine. The Party has many Moffs – petty dictators who act as miniaturised versions of the Supreme Leader. But few seats are as prestigious as Adlerberg, the jewel in the crown. Site of the Party's great rallies, home to an enormous temple shaped like Vader's helmet and to the Party headquarters. Just ignore the damage caused by Dominion bombings, the fact that some areas are without electricity and just a few years ago, Humanist rule almost collapsed due to a massive slave revolt. It is not a city like any other; it is a monument to all Humanism can accomplish.

Who better to sell it than charming Martoulis? He is the devoted patriarch any child would want as a father. Indeed, he has become the godfather to many children orphaned by the rapture, Dominion airstrikes or the 'infantile' slave revolt. He understands that it is the duty of the Imperium to protect Tephriki culture from those who would subvert it – the xenos Jedi, the Twi'leks, the Light Sith, the Xenos Guard. To achieve this Martoulis stresses brutality. He is an ardent speciesist and an arrogant, conceited man. Martoulis himself states his beliefs: "If, in past times, other peoples enjoyed their century-long history by living well, and doing so by getting foreign peoples to work for them without compensating them accordingly and without meting out justice to them, then we too, as Tephriki want to learn from this history. No longer must we stand in the wings; on the contrary, we must altogether become a species of masters."

His authority is far-reaching. The local city government answers to him. As Imperial Defence Commissioner of the local military district, he is responsible for civil defence and evacuation measures, along with the administration of rationing and suppression of black market activities. He is an honorary senator of the University of Adlerberg. He is a big city boss who dispenses patronage, rewards the loyal, punishes the disobedient and negotiates deals. Martoulis knows whose palms to grease and how to make the best deals for the benefit of Adlerberg – or the parts of it that matter, at any rate. He has used his power to assemble his own militia. With him at the helm, the good citizens of Adlerberg can almost forget the dark days of anarchy. There will never be another revolt on his watch. Never again.

There is one thing that vexes Martoulis though: the Prosperity Quarter ghetto. Why do all these xenos need to be clustered in a massive, overcrowded, unsanitary ghetto right next to his city? It is an eyesore that drags his city's reputation down, and has kept it from being declared the Imperium's capital even though it is the only one deserving of the honour. He is haunted by the spectre of another revolt. It drives his cruelty towards the non-human population. Would it not be possible to send them somewhere far, far away? He has been lobbying for a solution to this conundrum.

Yiorgos Birotis (NPC) - The Humanist People's Party purports to be a party for the workers. The human workers, that is. The others don't count. Sure, independent trade unions have been replaced by a sham trade union called the Imperial Labour Front with compulsory membership, strikes are illegal and workers have lost the right to negotiate wage increases and improvements in working conditions. They no longer need collective bargaining, when the government-appointed trustees of labour are there to ensure harmony between labour and capital. And the Imperial Labour Front is there to provide them with various perks and leisure activities, even if only a few select workers will ever visit its holiday resorts. Even fewer have received a People's Car.

But Birotis is a man of the people. He has taken bribes, demanding protection money from small buisnesses and the like if they want to avoid say being shut down by the 'health department'. On top of his considerable salaries as head of the Imperial Labour Front, Special Commissioner for Social Housing and National Leader of the Humanist People's Party, he freely embezzles ILF and government funds. He owns a luxurious estate, a string of villas, a fleet of cars, a private railway carriage and a large collection of mostly stolen art. Moreover, he is a notorious drunkard. He gets very indiscreet when he's drunk. Much of his time is devoted to drinking and womanising. His second wife committed suicide after a drunken brawl. He has promised to provide affordable, dignified housing to every human worker.

Corruption is not really a sin in the Humanist State, but his erratic behaviour has become so blatant that it is a bit of an embarrassment for the State. Birotis has deeply buried socialist tendencies that occasionally come to the forefront when he believes he can score points against the megacorps. He likes to rant about the shortsightedness, malevolence and greed of the business class. This absolutely applies to big business in the Vaderite Imperium...but it also accurately describes him. Birotis is no revolutionary, and has in fact actively suppressed syndicalist or socialist elements in the ILF while aiding and abetting the exploitation of labour by capital. He is also a vulgar, virulent speciesist.

Dionysus Laskaris (NPC) - a leading Imperial banker and advisor to the Imperial government on economic and financial matters. He is a member of the board of directors of the Laskaris and Tzikes Bank of the Imperium, as well as of over forty other companies. This includes a chemical and pharmaceutical corporation that manufactures poison gas, which, the Vaderites use to murder 'undesirables', and profits from forced labour. He has been a major beneficiary of the organised theft of businesses, assets and property owned by non-humans. This is what the Vaderites call 'Humanisation'. A massive factory complex in the Camp Progress concentration camp receives funding from him.

There the inmates labour under appalling conditions until they collapsed. He was known in the Vaderite corporate world as a model executive. Laskaris has convinced himself that he is only producing the tools of death through lending, not pulling the trigger himself. However, he makes a special effort to ensure that government forced 'gifts' from xenos worthies are repaid on time. Or else examples are made. But that is all just accounting, numbers did not hurt people. Laskaris has had very discreet, peripheral contacts with oppositionists in the Vaderite civil service and military, but not because he has suddenly developed a conscience. He is a greedy, unscrupulous profiteer who just wants to offer himself an out if there is a regime change. Laskaris finds Vader worship silly and is not ideologically invested in Humanism because it has 'plebeian roots'. But he is still a human supremacist, sexist bigot.

Unfortunately for Laskaris, his family life is messy. True, he has a wife and several children. His wife Hermione is a socialite from an influential family. Laskaris is a notorious philanderer and his blatant cheating has taken a toll on Hermione. She takes tranquilisers to relieve nervous tension or stress. She also takes medication to relieve her nervous stomach. However, outwardly she allows nothing to upset the image of them as the perfect Humanist family. His son Georgios is being groomed to take over the family business, his eldest daughter Chryssa has been married off to an older colleague for political gain. However, his other daughters have become...problematic. Angela had aspirations to study at university and pursue a career in academia. She chafed under the restrictions placed on her on account of her sex.

Moreover, she had affairs with near-humans. Even 'making them disappear' did not keep her from 'acting out'. Laskaris had her lobotomised and locked away for 'hysteria'. However, she was rescued by his youngest daughter Sibylla - the only Force-Sensitive among his children. Sibylla was injured in a bombing, and had to be rebuilt with cybernetic implants. Forced to permanently wear a mask and the breathing apparatus, she is not considered a 'catch' for the marriage market...and is thus ironically free to pursue her goals. She has sworn to kill him one day. She cannot make good on this threat because he is too important to the regime, but he cannot retrieve his wayward daughter and 'teach Sibylla respect' because she is the protege of Lord Lachesis.

Darth Lachesis (NPC) - KEC Lord Commander, Minister of Reclamation and member of the Grand Council of Humanism. Lachesis is one of the few women in the senior leadership of the Party, State and KEC - and particularly feared. Born into an impoverished junker family with little prestige, she was its first Force-Sensitives in generations. This earned her a spot in the Sith academy, where she got a reputation for deceit. Upon graduation, she was put in charge of managing the estates of a more successful branch of the sprawling clan. When alien slaves rebelled, she brutally crushed the uprising. So vicious was her suppression that it unnerved her clan, but it gained the attention of the KEC's stormtrooper corps.

Joining their ranks, she became a daring and popular commander. After helping her cousin Darth Hyperion seize power, she spearheaded the extermination of the alien population of Chios, her home island. In their place, she settled discharged veterans and poor humans. To them she is 'Auntie Lachesis', and they have built a cult of personality around her. She favours natives of her home and is effectively a general and a governor on the move. Lachesis is a Humanist fanatic, but not afraid to disobey orders she considers irrational. When Hyperion ordered her to hold a city at all cost against a Dominion army, she recognised this was a futile waste of human lives personally led a breakout.

Lachesis has allied herself with Eisen, though she views him as a corrupt sloth. But one Supreme Leader was better than chaos. She finds the Imperium stagnant and has cultivated a following among the regime's war hawks and social populists. Unlike many Disciples, she does not look down on Non-Force-Users, provided they are loyal, capable and 'racially pure'. The warlord draws much of her support from the Imperium's militarists and social populists. She is positioning herself to eventually take over, either directly or through a puppet.

Eva Politeas (NPC) - the leader of the Padme Vader Feminine League, the women's section of the Humanist Party, and wife of the Minister of Education. She has taken his name, as 'any good Humanist wife' would. Eva is an author and political activist with extremely conservative views. She is anti-liberal, speciecist, opposed to women's emancipation and, to be frank, a female misognyist. Eva is a strong proponent of traditional gender roles. She once told a Humanist magazine, "I have cancelled speeches whenever my husband thought I had been away from home too much." She claims a wife should be subservient to her husband. Eva greatly admires Padmé Amidala - or at least the way the Vaderites interpret her. According to her, Senator Amidala was a Humanist before Humanism existed. She did not reject Anakin when he fell to the dark side, but willingly sacrificed herself so he could fulfil his destiny.

According to her, "men and women are inherently different, and those differences prove key to fulfillment as a woman." The female body," she claims, "was designed by the Divine Architect of the human species to bear children and take care of home and hearth. Females are uniquely suited for their domestic duties of home maintenance and child care, and conversely the domination of the public sphere by males is justified by their inherently superior aggressive, analytical, and logical abilities. The mission of woman is to minister in the home and in her profession to the needs of life from the first to last moment of man's existence."

Eva concedes that it might be necessary for women to work outside of home. With so many men serving in the military, women have been drafted in increasing numbers to labour in factories. Many are also tied up in agricultural work. But she is scornful of women who strive to be a man's equal in professional life or even have political aspirations. To her, this would mean "becoming like men and shaming their sex." Ironically, she has a degree in law, but criticises women for studying it. She has bickered with female functionaries from the Amidala Corps, an all-female labour corps and auxiliary support organisation for the military. She makes frequent trips to visit concentration camps and 'morale decency centres' for women accused of 'moral crimes', such as abortion or having a relationship with a non-human.

Eva also serves as head of the women's bureau of the Imperial Labour Front. She argues that human women must work hard and renounce luxury and pleasure, but herself lives in considerable comfort. Unsurprisingly for a deeply patriarchal society, Eva is usually not invitied to the important meetings of Party and State organs. She is considered a figurehead used for propaganda purposes. Although she officially answers to the Supreme Leader, her organisation does not have its own budget and needs to get the approval of the Party Treasury, which is run by a man. She does, however, have influence over women's affairs. Lachesis loathes her.

HISTORICAL INFORMATION

Though a product of the Four Hundred Year Dark Age, the Humanist People's Party can trace its roots back to the Galactic Empire's short-lived reign over Tephrike. After Palpatine's Declaration of the New Order, Tephrike came under the control of the fledgling Galactic Empire. Moff Alaric Karvalst was a strong believer in the principles of the New Order - and in his own personal aggrandisement. Unfortunately for him, he had been put in charge of what was, to all intents and purposes, an underveloped backwater planet on the far rim. W

However, Tephrike's obscurity had its advantages. As long as the governor remained loyal to the Empire and paid tribute, he could rule as he saw fit. Karvalst imposed a humanocentric regime on the planet. This inevitably led to resistance from the planet's alien population. Karvalst brought in COMPNOR to boost his regime and spread the New Order's ideology among the humans of the planet. He also encouraged the settlement of loyal humans. His propaganda mouthpiece depicted Tephrike as a new frontier. It was a wild, untamed land populated by barbaric aliens that needed to be civilised.

Gungans and Mon Calamari were among the groups that resisted his regime. They were joined by the few Jedi who had managed to escape the destruction of their enclave. After the Battle of Endor, his colonial government lost contact with the Imperial Centre. This cut him off from external support. Like many Imperial leaders, Karvalst became a warlord. Initially, he tried to suppress news of the Emperor's death. Tephriki Imperial broadcasts continued to depict Palpatine as alive and well. In truth, the footage was old. But the truth came out. The native rebels were backed by the nascent New Republic, which dispatched a task force.

Getting desperate, the Moff used his Star Destroyer to cow dissent, bombing civilian population centres from orbit. But these brutal policies spurred on resistance, and led to defections from Imperial ranks. In the end, his warship was destroyed. With the backing of the New Republic, Tephrike became a democratic federation. Surviving members of Karvalst's cabinet were put on trial for war crimes. However, a number of them managed to escape justice by proclaiming their ignorance of his crimes. The warlord's ideology did not die with him. For a while Tephrike entered a period of stability and peace, managing to weather calamities such as the Yuuzhan Vong War.

However, over time the party system became extremely fractured. Many of the factions with seats in parliament were single-issue parties or saw themselves as the representatives of a specific species or class. Coalition governments were common, and increasingly lacked stability. A power block of aquatic alien species demanded greater autonomy, claiming that the post-Imperial compact had been broken, even though many influential politicians had been drawn from their ranks.

Similarly, alien races that had been left outside of the compact agitated, believing that they had not been given a fair share. Radical humanist agitators declared that they were the ones being exploited. Then Winston Stakes was elected as prime minister after an extremely bitter election. His Gungan rival Bolgara Zisk was discredited after inappropriate holonet transmissions were found on a personal datapad. She was accused of rigging the election where her party voted for its candidate, leading to a populist front runner being droppped in her favour. Stakes' brief term in office was characterised by an heavy increase in political divisiveness, civil unrest and racial tension, as well as being embroiled in numerous scandals.

He never completed his term in office due to a vote of no confidence following the meltdown of the Tephrike Golden Future Binary Fusion Plant, which turned hug swathes of land into a radioactive wasteland. While human supremacists did not officially form part of Stakes' government, he had been backed by them. When a rally of humanist and neo-Imperialist groups turned violent, as the the humanists clashed with counter-protesters, Stakes gave a speech that was widely seen as sympathetic to the humanists. One of the groups was the Pan-Human Front. It was a predecessor of the Humanist People's Party. When the Zero released the Gulag Virus, Tephrike was sent spiralling into chaos.

While the government struggled to contain the outbreak, strife became endemic. The Pan-Human Front was one of the groups that first dismissed the claim as a hoax, insisting that it was part of a conspiracy of the 'elites'. Indeed, they staged massive protests against safety measures. However, the increasingly oligarchic, grand coalition government was not up to the task of containing both the outbreak and the chaos that had engulfed Tephrike. The Jedi assumed a protective stance, but eventually concluded they needed to seize power after government troops violently suppressed a peaceful protest. The junta installed after the war was opposed to be a temporary regime, but soon became a permanent fixture. Eventually it was called the Dominion of Light. It was supposed to be a society guided by wise Jedi Masters, for they alone could hear the will of the Force. In truth, it became a nightmare.

Cade Seward was one of the Jedi who fought in the wars the coup sparked, fighting rebels who refused to acknowledge the new regime, which they denounced as tyrannical. Thrust into command at a young age, he fell to the dark side. A vision convinced him that Darth Vader had chosen him as his champion to eclipse the light. Vader was the true Sith'ari and had achieved apotheosis after his son and the treacherous Palpatine turned on him. Now it was Cade's duty to save mankind. He chose the name Darth Malitia and was able to assemble an army, the Disciples of the Vader. In the process, he allied himself with the remnants of the humanist movement. This laid the foundation for the HPP. However, at the time it was less a political movement and more of a cult. Malitia perceived the humanists as missionaries who were supposed to spread his new creed to the people. Obsessed with his supposed messianic destiny, he took little interest in state-building.

For their part, several of the established humanist leaders rejected his cultist beliefs and sorcerous ways. This led to a purge. Forcing disparate factions to amalgamate, he called his new movement the Union for the Salvation of Mankind. One of the early leaders of the Humanist movement was Xenophon Aratesis, a putschist and far-right terrorist from Synorostad. Prior to throwing in his lot with Malitia, he was the leader of the somewhat egotistically named Frikorps Aratesis, a terrorist militia. He formed a triumvirate with Tilemachos Remiadis and Venizelos Mavridis. Remiadis was a media 'influencer' and political commentator who hosted his own show to spread inflammatory far-right propaganda. Mavridis was a local politician associated with a network of far-right police officers who supported pogroms to 'bring back law and order, defend our rights against government overreach and rid us of the true plaguebearers in our midst'. Proclaiming that the 'galactic xenos Jedi' conspiracy and the 'liberal elites' were implementing a campaign of genocide against mankind, they declared the formation of the Tephriki Patriots' Movement. The coalition was unstable and riddled with factionalism. When Malitia came to him with an offer, Aratesis joined him, founding a corps of soldiers called the stormtroopers.

The Sith could rally disenchanted human Jedi to the cause and serve as a figurehead, while Aratesis imagined himself as the generalissimo of an army of 'political soldiers'. Aratesis was charismatic and object of his own personality cult, but rash, impulsive and not much of a thinker. He liked to release videos and holopics of his Stormtroopers beheading 'blood traitors' and 'xenos'. He boasted of offering his foes 'free gunship rides' (execution via drop from gunship; a wasteful form of execution used on Windian sympathisers, liberals and leftist militias). By his own admission, he quite deliberately viewed everything from a militarist standpoint. He idolised the Old Empire, but had little time for Malitia's mystical Vader worship. There was friction within the Humanist movement between the Vaderite cultists, the traditional Humanist grassroots organisations, the professional soldiers from local forces who'd joined due to far-right convictions and Aratesis' stormtroopers.

The laundry list of atrocities committed by the Vaderite cult is a long one. It perceived its war against its enemies not as a conventional conflict, but as a war of annihilation. The Vaderites deliberately starved millions of prisoners of war, massacred civilians and used chemical weapons. Millions were forcibly conscripted as forced labourers. Moreover, Humanist militias instigated pogroms, such as during a failed uprising in Vortanstad. The Sith scored a number of victories over the Dominion. Aratesis was killed when his troops staged a doomed revolt in Vortanstad, committing horrible atrocities before the uprising was crushed by the Dominion. The final confrontation took place in the ruins of Palmyra, Tephrike's old capital. It was a brutal fight, with atrocities being committed on both sides. It saw widespread use of chemical weapons and devastating Force techniques. When the Vaderites seemed to be gaining the upper hand and Malitia tried to open a portal into the otherworlds, the Dominion dropped a nuclear weapon on them.

The city was devastated and casualties were staggering, but the Sith crusade had failed. Forced to retreat into the jungle, Malitia led the remainder of his army on the Arduous March, performing scorched earth tactics on the way. Embittered and paranoid, his grip of reality weakened. During the retreat, he started composing an autobiographical manifesto, the Glorious Conflict. He dictated it to a loyal acolyte, who turned his master's frenzied and increasingly demented ramblings into something readable. The original title was even wordier, but he was persuaded to change it. Malitia was obsessed with his destiny and continued to plot revenge on the Jedi.

However, his minions had other ideas and so his apprentice Darth Vengeance killed him before he could order a renewed offensive against the 'enemies of the Sith'ari.' In a classic case of doublethink, Malitia's surviving lieutenants decided that the word of their dead master should remain gospel. Their new leader led the shattered remnants of the Vaderite movement to Castle Maysaf. The abandoned citadel became the capital of a new state. These changed had a significant effect on the Union, for it underwent a transformation.

Vengeance was a Vaderite, but less obsessed with fulfilling the supposed will of a long-dead dark lord than Malitia. He believed in the ideals of the movement, but was focused on the here and now. So the Union was renamed the Humanist People's Party. He saw the value Force-blind humans could have - as long as they were kept in their place. The reform was justified on the grounds that the Disciples of the Vader had managed to carve out their own state. It would be a state of humans for humans and be governed by the Party under the leadership of the Vaderites. All humans would be united by an overarching People's Community, excluding, of course, the 'community aliens' and 'blood traitors'. The Vaderites relied on the Party to build the new state apparatus. It became an important conduit between the Disciples and their subjects.

When they managed to conquer Almopia, the Vaderites renamed it Adlerberg and imposed a policy of racial segregation. After the Sith governor was assassinated, they forced all non-humans into a sealed quarter, which was effectively a ghetto. Meanwhile, those among the human population who embraced the new regime received preferential treatment. For a while the Party tolerated independent independent associations and even, to a very limited extent, parties that declared their allegiance to Humanism. However, these groups only received a grace period. The Party was given a mandate to 'coordinate' every aspect of the lives of human citizens. First, all local governments had to be Humanised, then every organised group, from chambers of commerce to trade unions, youth organisations, and music clubs etc.

The assets, property and businesses of aliens were expropriated. Non-humans were excluded from professional life and the economy. The Party staged rallies were books deemed heretical were burnt. Relationships between non-humans and humans were criminalised, so was Jedism. The Humanists claimed they were breaking the stranglehold aliens had supposedly held over human life. Tephrike was a human world and would belong to the humans again. At this point, after the pandemic and a long period of strife, Tephriki society had been extremely brutalised. In many ways, the breakdown of civil society had ushered in a warlord era. Moreover, the Party could tap into sentiments that had existed long before its foundation. As a result, in many ways society Humanised itself, rather than requiring police terror. The 'honourable' Imperial army was already knee-deep in innocent blood, so no opposition could be expected from it.

However, the Party cracked down on hard on perceived dissidents, establishing a network of forced labour camps and other detention centres. The Pius Dea cult, which had enjoyed a resurgence on the planet, aligned itself with the Humanists. Both groups had human supremacist views and the cult believed that collaboration would protect it. The Party also obtained support from certain corporations by promising to respect property rights, whereas the Dominion had instituted a command economy and the Republican Guard largely supported syndicalism.

However, the growth of the Party also led to internal strife. Gregorius Straso was a fairly unimpressive Force-Sensitive, but had managed to build a formidable power base in the Party. Hard-working and amibitious, he became the de facto general secretary. While a Vaderite, he was not very interested in the movement's cultist aspects. He stood for a centralised state with a clear hierarchy controlled by the Party apparatus and the Grand Council. This raised concerns that the Party and the bureaucracy could eclipse the Sith. The influence he had accumulated unnerved the oligarchs, as did his economic ideas, so he was purged.

There was also conflict with an faction within the Vaderite movement that argued that since, as Malitia had written, primordial humans had been a race of god-men who all wielded the Force, all Non-Force-Users, both human and alien, were only fit to be slaves. The Blood Purges disposed of both groups. In effect, rule of the strong became the rule of law. Power derived not from formal rank and title, but from one's closeness to the Leader. If one had the Leader's sanction one could do as one wanted, rank be damned. The jurisdictional friction between competing power centres fuelled the radicalisation of the regime. Vengeance proclaimed a 'return to Imperial values'. The Vaderites demolished several important landmarks and monuments that they identified as representing old Tephrike. The regime tried to put an end to poppy production, for the Leader regarded the sale of 'happy pills' with disdain. However, this was a total failure. The apparatus was simply too corrupt. Moreover, many peasants had become dependent on the practice and there were too many merchants and bureaucrats who could profit. To direct the energies of the movement towards an external foe – and thereby distract the populace – the Vaderites invaded the homelands of the Tephrike's Yuuzhan Vong communities. Regarding the Vong as abominations, the Leader ordered them to be put to the sword or enslaved. Their land would be settled by human colonists.

However, these xenocidal policies drove most Vong into the arms of the nascent Republican Guard. The secularist rebels would come to be a thorn in the Vaderites' side, carrying out several attacks on their bases and slave camps. Thus an uneasy stalemate developed. The Republican Guard, the Dominion and the Vaderites all vied for supremacy. Under subsequent Supreme Leaders, the slave economy would be expanded to all aspects of the Imperial economy. Its total control over the media enabled the Party to spread disinformation about conditions beyond the Imperium's borders. The Republican Guard waged a relentless partisan campaign against the Vaderites. Though the Vaderites were able to defeat and kill Sinya Kairn, the supreme commander of the rebels, at a battle in the ruins of the ghost city of Synorostad, the partisans did not relent. Indeed, they eventually constructed an underground base beneath the ruins of the abandoned city. Yun-Harla's Own, an assassin unit composed of Yuuzhan Vong priestesses from the Deception sect, carried out terrorist attacks against prominent Party leaders and Disciples. At the same time, the Imperium had to contend with the Dominion, though its enemies also warred amongst themselves.

While the Sith achieved their share of victories, the sheer size of the Dominion meant that it use its territory to suck up enemy offensives, even when it was hampered by its own leadership. Moreover, unlike the Vaderites, the Dominion was not xenocidal, though extremely conformist and tyrannical. This made it a far more attractive prospect for aliens who were forced to pick one side. Periods of all-out battles were followed by long durations of low-intensity warfare. These were accompanied by bombing raids and missile barrages. Moreover, the Imperium was repeatedly rocked by slave revolts. This gave the Vaderites an excuse to maintain their bloated internal security apparatus and further tighten their grip on society, but this caused a drain on resources and manpower. The wealth in their society was concentrated in the hands of a small elite of Party bosses, military officers, businessowners and Sith. Their policy of reducing the alien populations to the status of serfs - alongside with murdering non-human intellectuals, bourgeois elements and so on - was an economic disaster.

Perhaps the Vaderites' most 'ambitious' engineering projects was draining the Matagami Sea by building three enormous dams. Supported by the vocal faction of agrarians in the Party, the plan envisaged the construction of three gigantic dams. Each would be a superstructure. The Matagami would be cleaved in twain, with different water levels on each side. The Republican Guard, which had set up underwater bases in the sea, would be deprived of its havens. A central component of the plan was a hydroelectric dam, which would generate a tremendous amount of power. At the same time, draining large chunks of the sea would allow the Vaderites to reclaim vast tracts of farmland. That was the theory. First, it was difficult to get enough concrete. But the dams got built. Land was reclaimed, but much of it was desert. Moreover, the water from the Matagami was so salty that the uncovered land was just salt flats and useless for agriculture. The arid waste harmed other communities by the former coastlines.

Moreover, the designers had gone ahead with the plan without any regard for ecological repercussions. And so the increased salinity of what was left of the Matagami killed off much of the flora and fauna. Water from the remaining sea was redistributed among the planet's oceans. The Party celeberated when it learned that a Dominion city was underwater. Then the dam was wrecked by an earthquake. Managing this project became a poisoned chalice for Party bosses. Darth Eisen began his rise in the time when the core of the galaxy was awakening from the Dark Age after the Gulag Virus had been dormant for nearly a century. Prior to being discovered to be Force-Sensitive, he was called Alec Dragoumis and made himself a name as an ace pilot. However, then he joined the Disciples. Rising through the ranks of the secret police, he became a spymaster and an accomplished illusionist. After challenging and defeating his mentor Lord Acholus in a Kaggath, Alec joined the inner circle of power. The Supreme Leader conferred the title of Darth Eisen upon him.

The new Darth had a talent for scheming and ingratiating himself with the dictator. Soon he was supreme commander of the Legions of Dusk, a Moff and the economic supremo of the Imperium. His greed and lack of scruples made him one of the richest men of the Imperium. Much of his wealth was built on the backs of slaves. He cultivated the image of an affable dandy, which made him popular among the Imperium's human citizens. However, then his relationship with the Supreme Leader cooled. His forces suffered defeats at the frontlines and he was blamed for Dominion bombing raids against Sith-controlled cities. Eisen also considered it uneconomical to shoot 'undesirables' who could be used as slave labour. He lost ground to Darth Furcht, the dreaded leader of the KEC. Finding his authority curtailed, Eisen sought solace in hedony. Freight trains of stolen valuables were transported to his private trains. When he learned about a heretical cult of Light Sith, he neglected to inform his boss or Furcht. The Netherworld Crisis caused a schism among the Vaderites.

The Party itself was split. The worsening economic situation had caused strife. The common human citizen might have absorbed a lot of Humanist ideology, but he also found his livelihood being leeched by corporations, Sith and Party bosses. Lack of economic opportunities and the prospect of being conscripted and becoming a casualty in a pointless, increasingly unpopular war had sparked unrest among the students. The tired old slogans about 'final victory' were no longer met with enthusiasm. The Force being out of balance undermined Vaderite orthodoxy, which proclaimed that the Sith had the right to rule because they commanded the Force.

Two heretical movements reared their head. A group of the Light Sith cultists Eisen had tried to use had discovered what they believed to be 'a sacred text' from the Jedi. It was actually a 'Galactic Civil War for Dummies' sort of book, which told the story of Vader's redemption. Thus the schismatics proclaimed that since Vader had embraced the Light, it was their duty to do so as well as the true disciples of the Chosen One. In doing so, they would finish what he started by bringing balance to the Force. The other group claimed that since Vader had fallen to the light side, Palpatine was the true Dark Lord and it was their duty to destroy the false Sith. The result was civil war. The Light Sith promised to emancipate the slaves, though their sincerity varied. The Supreme Leader was slain and Darth Salus, leader of the Light Sith, took control. Eisen had to go into exile. The Party was purged and many slaves were set free.

However, many of the old Party bosses and bureaucrats managed to stay on their posts because the revolutionaries lacked the personnel to replace them and quite a few of them distrusted the aliens they had allied themselves with. Thus many old habits persisted. Moreover, Salus' regime ended up embroiled in an apocalyptic war with the Dominion. They became unofficial co-belligerents of the Republican Guard. The Dominion was pushed to the brink. But the Guard and the Vaderites despised each other. They were still hostile to one another, but tried to stay out of each other's way. Moreover, a number of Vaderites who had bent the knee to the new régime had not really changed their ways. This soured the accord even more, as did the Guard's policy of rounding up Force-users in communities it managed to liberate. Soon sporadic fighting had broken out. The chancellor who had supported the deal was toppled by the Guard after their failed attack on Fortress Purity, a major Dominion citadel.

This left Salus vulnerable and he was murdered. Eisen had used the chance to return from exile, but events overtook him. Radical Light Sith and freed aliens took over Prosperity Quarter and much of Adlerberg. Unfortunately, Furcht crushed the ghetto uprising with extreme brutality. Eisen's troops had helped defeat the Light Sith. Indeed, he had arranged for Salus' death. But his success was overshadowed by Furcht, who proceeded to blackmail him. Eisen ground his teeth and bent the knee to him. Some of the Light Sith survived, founding a schismatic sect called the Inheritors of the Light Father. Lacking strength of arms, they went underground. Subterfuge, espionage and infiltration became their weapons to undermine the regime.

The new Supreme Leader unleashed a wave of purges against so-called deviants and unbelievers. Then the space people arrived. The Vaderites could see the spaceships in orbit, but knew nothing about their intent or the nature of their crews. Some saw it as a sign from the Dark God, especially after the space people bombed Nexus City, the Dominion's capital. But then Firemane levelled Castle Maysaf, killing Furcht and most of his inner circle. Eisen had been smart enough to conceal himself in a White Current illusion and flee the moment the bombardment began.

He proclaimed himself Supreme Leader, but faced opposition from other claimants. One of them was Furcht's son Achilles. The boy-king was a mentally unbalanced psychopath, but elements in the Party and the security forces loyal to Furcht rallied to him because he made a convenient figurehead. Party militias fought each other in the streets. Soldiers from army units that had fought alongside each other in the war now had to turn their guns onto each other. Even members of the Humanist youth movement were drafted into combat. At the same time, the strife was a way for ambitious Vaderites to settle old scores. Eisen was able to form a coalition of old school Party apparatchiks, generals and industrialists. Darth Lachesis, despite being ideologically closer to the late Furcht, eventually aligned herself with him.

The Achilles loyalists happened to stumble upon the clone of Firemane officer Elpsis Kerrigan-Alcori during a raid on a Dominion base. Elpsis had been captured and brainwashed by the Dominion, but then managed to overcome her conditioning and destroy her captors. However, she did not know about her clone. The young, confused girl became Achilles' captive. However, she would outlive the boy-king. His troops were defeated by Eisen's army and Achilles got himself killed because he insisted on leading the vanguard. His captive, who had goaded him into doing so, survived him.

Eisen took a liking to her, much like how one likes a stray dog that needs a master, and named her Kyriaki. She was inducted into the Disciples and the Party. However, she secretly despised the regime, though she had to become part of it in order to survive. The Leader faces opposition though. A breakaway faction led by Darth Erlösung, an esoteric humanist, openly defies him. At the same time, a group of disaffected Party members have turned away from Sithism and plot to put a 'moderate', but still racist monarchy with an alleged Skywalker-Fel claimant as puppet emperor in power.

 

[Rach'ta]

Under Review

 

[Rach'ta]

Elpsis Kerrigan

The submission is solid. Good work. I would recommend further submissions for the numerous relics mentioned to captialize on the idea.

Approved!

 

[Srina Talon]

Submission Name: Humanist People's Party
Link to Submission: Here.
Reason for Moving to Codex Modification: update submission to fit new lore, add members.

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

Srina Talon

Completed edits. Submission is ready to be moved for judging.

Change log:

Added pic and corresponding image credit, updated members, history, rules, affiliation.

 

[Srina Talon]

Elpsis Kerrigan

[Re-Approved]