#### Emperor Tarkeen (3467-3540) Darth Doctrus began the true founding period of the modern empire. Under Vader, the duties of state, the role of government and the Senate, had fallen to the wayside. The goal of survival and conquest had predominated for good reason. But once territorty was claimed, Darth Doctrus began building a new empire. In terms of political background, Emperor Tarkeen was a loyalist of Vaders. The two had become friends when fighting against the Versian empire in the Baron-Boarder Wars (3345-3353), where Tarkeen was a bright but young man and Vader his ambitious young senior office appointed by the Governor under the command of Admiral Tarkin and then Governor Palpatine. Tarkeen was a comptant captain who gained hte respect of both Vader and Tarkin. Subsequent to the death of Emperor Palaptine, Tarkin remained behind in the crumbling Empire to cover Vaders' retreat. Prior to that time, when Palpatine ruled as Emperor in mortal form, Tarkin as Grand-Moff[^1] of the Empire promoted Tarkeen to Moff of Courasant - the Emperor. Vader. and Tarkin's homeland - a deep sign of his respect and competence. Once Tarkin was left behind, Vader made Tarkeen his Grand-Moff. Vader passed during a time of crisis. There was the war he died in, against Creepick. Concurrently there were wars against Bajling, an ally of Creepick just to the latters south western side. For the Empire these two wars pressed into the Imperial Eastern-central border. Along their north-East the expansive but low-tech power of Twi-wook stood. Vader had three districts within this territory, governed by Moffs Niever, Sculda, and Daliwan. In these lands, at the insistence of the original Imperial citizens, they and their fellow Imperial state-workers ruled as masters, the native inhabitants of the worlds they conquered worked as serfs. Vader had also raised three Moffs, Comindus, Rolian, and Ishlar, to command his war fleets. This group he granted extra military resources and made senior, naming them his Woffs (short for War Military Offices), he named those he made the standard his Hoffs (Home Military Offices), and the junior rank he left simply as Moff (Military Office), a posotioin to which Vader predominadntly appointed his Syth appretetces, but the Grand-Moff, the Woffs, and the Hoffs, also were able to create and install various Moffs to subordinate positions to their creators. In the case of Woffs, Moffs were an in-between the Woff and admirals.[^2] For the Hoffs the Moffs were those who would administer and govern various regions within the Hoffs' district. During both Vaders period of engineering and his period conquest Tarkeen predominately focused on the 'political' ends for Vader. Tarkeen handled the Meetings of the Moffs, and advised Vader that it was his prerogative as Emperor to open or close the Imperial Senate, and in what form the Senate would take when reopened. Based on this advice, Vader declared his intention that the Imperial Senate would remain closed until the Empire had been re-established. Until then, the Empire was in a state of survival crisis, and would thus need the dynamism of working directly by his command, the command of those authorized by him. Tarkeen as Emperor had a different opinion. When Vader died, Tarkeen was far away, on the newly established Capital of the Empire, Shim City, on Mos Eisley, in the tattoowind system, of the rim Region, in the Founding District (formally under Hoff Niever, the district of the Interlands was under Hoff Sculda, and the Borderlands distict was under Hoff Daliwan). However, in the Tattoowind system, and especially on Mos Eisley, GrandMoff Tarkeen had been the ultimate power. When word arrived of Vaders death - and a few days later the Emperors body, it could not be delivered by Vaders Woff Comindus (Rolian had the north against Twi-wook, while Ishlar was focused on fighting Bajling) as he was still focused on fighting the Creepick threat. But it did have to travel through all three Hoffs' system, and each of them, along with a half dozen of Vaders' apprentices were vying for his throne now that it was vacant. Tarkeen was in many ways the last to hear that the Emperor had died. he wasted no time, in calling a Meeting of the Moffs, but the Woffs refused to join owning to their present military situation, and the Hoffs refused to hold a meeting unless all were present (self servingly hoping to prevent the instillation of the Grand-Moff as emperor for as long as possible). Tarkeen organized a state address, and a state funeral. Shortly after learning of Vaders death, and that the Senior and Medium Moffs would not Meet, Tarkeen arranged his address. In his address he declared the state funeral for the former Emperor would happen two weeks after the body was returned to the capital. Tarkeen then declared that the Empire would not fall, and would not be without Emperor, as he stated as a matter of fact that the Moffs had agreed that given the present military crisis, and the need for stability at home, it would be best if for the time being the Grand Moff assumed the position of Emperor, even though he had a limited capacity to draw on the void. This last act outraged the Syth, while the former offened the Hoffs. After the speech he ordered the Hoffs to send ships and troops to the Syth temples. He then ordered all Syth serving in the Imperial state to swear and oath of allegence to the state, requiring all who take the oath to immediately report and if necessary execute anyone who breaks their vow of absolute and total allegiance to the empire, and that anyone who failed to uphold this oath was agreeing to punishment by the Empire (The oath was also required by all military personnel, and by the end of Tarkeens' reign was a requirement of all new initatates to the Imperial machine). When the Hoffs refused to take the actions he required, Tarkeen dismissed them from their posts and appointed new loyalists (Chillham to the Founding District, Zakik to the Interlands, and Smoter to the Borderlands). The day his dismissed htem, he sent Imperial storm troopers inot the the Hoffs offices' on their District Capitals. The troops arrested the Hoffs, to little popular protest, though must protest from the various regional administors and the like. Once brought back to militiary locations under the Emperors control the Hoffs were interrogated for names and locations of loyalists throughout the whole of their districts, and then the Hoffs were executed. Over the subsequent days those people named were tracked down by storm troopers, taken and killed. ![[palpatinious Map circa 3467.png]] The Woffs' were not happy with the violence at home. In a flurry of military victories the small fleet of Woff Ishlar defeated Bajling, adding it to the Imperium as the Bajling District in 3469. Once under Imperial control, Ishlar returned to Mos Eisley, to discover a new ring of Hoffs, the former Grand Moff now ruling as Emperor, and a new Grand Moff, some low ranking puppet of Tarkeen named Kanyis Blazush who's held no previous office of note. Upon landing the Woff was rushed to the Imperial Palace to meet with the Emperor while getting a barrage of news. The Emperor assured Ishlar that so long as he was on the throne, the Woffs would have their free reign (the quote which came out was "I am Tarkeen, not Tarkin. Similar, but different. He a brilliant tactician, I a brilliant politician"). Initially unsure of the Emperor, Tarkeen offered the Woff the ability to retain his position of Woff, but that he would also be granted the positon of Hoff of Bajling as his personal fiefdom. Ishlar countered that he needed assurances that the Emperor would keep Ishlar in his position. The Emperor rejected Ishlar, but refused to allow the Woff to leave Mos Eisley, instead requiring him to govern Bajling from Imperial capital. ![[palpatinious Map circa 3473.png]] Three years later in 3472 Creepick was finally brought to heel by Comindus. Woff Comindus decided, rather than return to Mos Eisley, he would take his fleet and troops north to Twi-wook to aid Woff Rolian. In truth the two quickly battled for the glory of ending the war. So that by 3473 which only went to its rightful holder, Rolian, by a last moment twitch of luck. Rolian convinced the President of Twi-wook to meet for terms, but ensured that word spread that the location of the meeting had changed at the last minute. Comindus took the bate and went to the new location, where nothing was happening. This gave Rolian the time necessary to negotiate his position as effective Hoff of Twi-Wook, leaving the President in place to govern as Moff until Rolian returned. The Emperor ordered Comindus to return to Mos Eisley, while Rolian was to stay in the newly conquered area and govern the three new district as Overseer until they were pacified. Comindus returned with his fleet, and led a triumph procession through Shim city, honouring his troops, officers, and starmen for their aid in conquering "The Emperors Killer; The Slayers of Vader." It was in front of this triumph which Comindus first met the new Emperor, Tarkeen, and was once again reacquainted with his old college Ishlar. The group went within the Imperial palace and began negotiations. The end conclusion was that War would be declared on Zabcan. The Interlands, Borderlands, and Founding districts would be merged into one new district, still called the Founding district. Creepick and Twi-Wook would merge into one district now named the Northlands Border District. Bajling would merge would Zabcan once conquered to form the new Southlands Border District. The Grand-Moff would continue to be supreme master of the Moffs under the Emperor, but now the Founding District would be directly under the command of the Grand-Moff rather than a Hoff. Otherwise, the Woffs would retain their special position under the Emperor, they gained a protection that they could not be ejected without the consent of a majority of other Woffs, and new Woffs could only be created with the consent of the Woffs, and that to raise either question a meeting of the Moffs must be called, and held a time when a quorum of more than half of the existing Senior and Medium Moffs are able to join (at that time it was at least 4). The Emperor agreed to this, but required that he retained the right to appoint Hoffs, to which the Woffs agreed. This has become the established precedent that while the Emperor has the prerogative to enact whatever reform they want, it is best that they limit where they are making changes to only one area at a time, and that officials could extract protections from the Emperor to construct an agreement of how that govern with that specific Emperor. In this case the Emperor came to power by removing the civil leaders who failed to rally their own limited resources to oppose the Grand-Moff. But the now Emperor did not have the power necessary to secure control of the military arm and so had to negotiate this settlement. ![[palpatinious Map circa 3475.png]] With this agreement reached, the Woffs rallied their fleets and went to war with Zabcan in 3475, and an assurance that once the war was over they would have free reign of the border provinces, until Comindus could manufacture a reason to go to war against whatever power the Woffs' chose to focus on next. To the Southlands District the Emperor appointed his close loyalist Smoter as Hoff, and to the Northerlands District the Emperor appointed Zakik. He then rotated Blazush out of the position of Grand Moff, and former Hoff Chillham into the post which some Imperial Court watchers were coming to call "the pathway to the Emperorship". Fearing getting axed in the back by his Grand-Moff, Tarkeen took an extreme move relative to Vader, and declared that he would be opening the Imperial Senate, though he did not offer any more specifics beyond stating that it would happen by 3480. Over the next five years, the war for Zabcan turned into a brutal slog when in 3477 the Mirairai joined, and in 3479 Rodled joined the war. Meanwhile in 3476 the Vookdiam declared war on the Empire, and in 3478 Creepick and Bajling rose in revolution. Forced by conditions, the Emperor opened up military recruitment to all within Imperial territories, removing the status of subject stating: "The status of 'Imperial Citizen' is an oxymoronic. One is either an Imperial or a Citizen of the Empire. This, my Empire, does not have subjects. Those people who have once identified as this status are to choose: are they Imperials - and if so they ought to join the state if they are not already a part of it, or are they simply layabout citizens. In the latter case they are no better than those our empire has subjugated. Now the Empire needs bodies and bombs, weapons and warships. Work in our factories to produce what the Empire needs, or if you are not a human, join the Imperial Military and show your Emperor that you are worthy of the status of Imperial." ![[palpatinious Map circa 3480.png]] These changes led to a massive increase in military enrollment, with the first batch coming online as a sextupling of the size of the imperial military in 2480. That moment was one of absolute darkness for the Empire. Twi-wook had falen to Vookdiam, Mirirari had taken what was once Bajling, whiel Creepick's revolution had become so violant that Humirilian had been dragged into the war, supressing the revolution but now facing Imperial opposition. Zabcan was threatening the original founding district, with an enemy ship even briefly reaching the Tattoowind system, destroying by the Capital Defense Force. ![[palpatinious Map circa 3489.png]] With these new forces two new Woffs were brought into being: Classus and Pompash. Those two joined Comindus in pushig the Zabcan back, and then defeating them in 3483. After which Pompash broke off to suppress Bajling (3485) while Classu and Comindus destroyed the Miriari (3487). Meanwile, with reinforcements and improved weapons, Ishlar and Rolian were able to rally their troops, liberating Twi-wook in 3482, and the brutally subjegating Vookdiam in revenge, including public burnings of all military and state oficals of Vookdian who could be found by the Woffs, so that by 3489 the region was under Imperial control. Comindus, reunited with Pompash and Classus in reconquering Creepick, something which Comindus was particularly brutal in doing, engaging in public acts of tortue for information, allowing his troops to pillage and loot, and generally disregarding any rules on attempting to minimize civilian causalities so as to punish the locals for revolting. With their united forced, Creepick was liberated in 3489 and the Humirilian were themselves subjegated though not very brutally in 3497. Meanwhile, Ishlar and Rolian having finished their barbarous acations against the Vookdian, moved on to destroying what was led of the Rodled fleet, and then quickly conquered the region so that by 3495 the whole of the north had been secured. ![[palpatinious Map circa 3495.png]] Finally with the wars over and uprisings suppressed, the Emperor called the Woffs home for a month long series of celebratory games, events, and triumphal parades, which were to be replicated throughout the Empire. In terms of territorial scale, the Empire was now technically greater than the Federation/First Terran Empire had been, though the overall coherence, integration, or centralization of this remnant of that once great Empire was far from the peeks it had once stood at, and Tarkeen was aware of this. The Emperor did not call a halt to all campaigning, partially because though he would never admit it such a call had been negotiated to fallen outside his prerogative, and for a greater part because he sought to reorganize and lay down some institutional forms to this new fledgling empire. In less than one hundred years, the empire which had collapsed in the Milky Way left their birthplace, found a new galaxy wherein they conquered a new homeland and then aggressively expanded out until they controlled some 40% of their new galaxy, which was itself larger than the Milky Way. The first seeds of this remnant had been preserved by Vader, but it was truly under Tarkeen that the Empire reached this zenith, thanks in large part to his own skill, and the competency of the Woffs and Hoffs he had appointed and chosen not to kill. Now with war over, and for the rest of his reign, Tarkeen would take every action to only allow border skirmishes and small battles, no major international campaigns, much to his Woffs initial chagrin. ![[palpatinious Map circa 3500.png]] This establishment chagrin changed when in 3500 Emperor Tarkeen unveiled his far reaching plan for establishing a proper Imperial state. He declared that the conquered territories would be reformed, so that the Empire would be made of five districts, each governed by a Hoff, except the Founding District which the Grand-Moff would retain control over. These would be: Grand-Moff Chillham of the Founding District, Central District would go to Zakik, Smoter would be given rulership of the Southlands, long time loyalist Blazush would get the far away Northlands while the Emperor ordained that the Midlands would serve as the private domain of of the Woffs. The Emperor had worked with the Woffs, agreeing to a temporary cessessation of expansion while the threat of revolt was still great. With threats to his position as Emperor again secured, Tarkeen turned his attention to rebuilding the Empire. He again announced he would be opening the Imperial Senate. This time he laid out a date, 3505 and a program of how it will open. Each Woff and Hoff would appoint a relevant super-senator to form a rules committee, while each regional moff and military equivalent would be granted permission to send a senator to the meeting to have their concerns raised. The emperor specified that the senate would serve as an advisory council on upcoming decisions, and that the Emperor had the power to choose from among the body of Senators to select one to act as his chancellor. However, the Emperor conceded that the Senate would operate along the lines described in Palpatines old Unwritten Constitution. The effect was that the most cut-throat future senators began researching old Federation senate procedure, perceiving that the form, conventions, and precedents of that venerable old institution would form the foundation for what the Senate could appeal to as their 'traditional rights'. Initiatially Woffs and Hoffs rushed to create new Moffs, but quickly the rules committee required one sitting in the Senate to be the representative sent of either an adminastartive region recongized by the Empereor, or the admiral of a fleet recognized by the Emperor, so that fleets of a single ship or one system regions would not be established. This created a total of 38 Hoff's+Moffs, and 27 Woffs+Moffs. The overbalance to the Military was balanced out by a reform granting Moffs with generals of equivalent rank to Admirals under them the right to sit, and commission a few extra to bring the balance to 38 State Senators and 28 Military Senators, between them the Grand-Moff could offer a tie breaking vote. The Emperor then dispensed with the previously acclaimed requirement that the chancellor be chosen from the ranks of the Senate. He instead chose Barbal Guzo as Chancellor of the First Senate of Tarkeen's Restored Empire. With this he made apparent, mere weeks before the Senate was set to open, that he would have the final say on how the Senate would operate, and that expecting Federation political concepts such as the Two-Consul system (treating the Grand-Moff as President and Chancellor as Vice-President) would only provide one with a false understanding of Imperial Politics. When the Emperor finally opened the Senate in 3505 he did so to great applause, even when he declared: "This is not an Empire of Laws but an Empire of Power. The Senate is not an institution for the creation of laws. It is an institution which I am resursecting for the purpose of resolving power disputes. There are no settlements which it has the power to create which *must* be binding. They are only binding so long as they accurately reflect reality; for they cannot bind that which is not really there. ... Unlike in that Federation from which this great Empire cna trace its roots, the rulings of the Senate do not purport to bind all for all eternity. The bind the signatories for as long as the agreement is seen as valid. ... That is all to say, the purpose of this Senate is not for the creation of law but for the settling of disagreement, its declarations will not bind future generations unless they choose to be bound by them or the Emperor chooses to enforce them. But so long as the Senate stands, than the powerholders of the Empire will have a forum to raise and settle their disagreements without having to turn to pointless intra-Imperial violence." For the next 35 years the Emperor worked with the Senate to outline the function and operate of the Empire. Rather the Senate did not pass legislation, it provided a place for the regions of the Empire to listen to the emperor, and voice their issues. All things still flowed from the Emperor, but disagreements could be settled there. The emperor encouraged people to align everything before bringing it to the Senate, and then offering a brutal destruction of one enemies in public. During this period, factories were brought on line, universities and research outposts constructed, schools and public services developed. The Imperial-Trader began to develop as a profession. Those who had been part of the Imperial state, had hte status of Imperial, but had fallen out of service, bought and ship or took up a position in local industry and used their connections to get lucrative government contracst to supply whatever was necessary. The whole of this period saw a successfully attempt to integrate the newly conquered region, drill into the newly subjegated peoples the Imperial culture, the greatness of Sythism, service to the Emperor and the Imperial state, etc.. Woff Comindus died in 3513 at 201, the then oldest man to have ever lived in the Empire. He had an imposing and powerufl presense and had effectively been a second Emperor in his life, serving as a key advisor to Vader and Tarkeen, but never challenging their power directly. Both men took care to negotiate with and treat Comindus with great respect. Neither Ishlar nor Rolian could cut a presence near that of Comindus. However, Classus and Pompash were popular figures, beloved by the masses and most Imperials for their work in ending the Second Expansionary War with comindus. They were aided by bombastic, forceful personalities, Classus gaining fame for publically insulting Ishlar's work during the Second Expansionary War at the 3515 Military Offices' Gala, while Rolian spited Popmash in 3522 at a Meeting of the Supreme Military Officers, when the Popmash had worked with Rolian to create an inter-woff agreement against poatching senior officials, only for Rolian to pull out. Rolian than attempted to lead a putsch against Emperor Tarkeen, launching a 'Conservative Restoration', wanting to 'Vaunt Vaders' Values'. The Emperor, who had assumed personal command of Comindus' fleet, in a moment of military populism asked his troops if they believed he embodied vaders vaunted values or not? The troops under his command, specifically Comindus Core Century - the group of 100 troops whom Comindus had hand chosen as his elite guard - swore undying feality to the Emperor and declared his wisdom in focusing on domestic issues for the time being, as the rise of powerful blocs of international allies threatened the Empire unless it could develop a strong enough domestic supply base to so that it could out-produce its rivals and enemies. As Tarkeen reached into his senior years, the question of who would replace the venerable Emperor became more popular. None of the Hoffs save Chillham stood a chance at becoming Emperor. They may have been beloved by their Imperial suboridates, numerous as they were, but it became popular conjecture that an Emperor was made with the consent of the Military. Within the military it was agreed that of Comindus' generation, none were equal to the that great Woff himself. Of the subsequent generation, it was not clear between Classus and Popmash who would be the dominant force in the question of who would be emperor.