< Pantropic Collective | Old Empires | Trilateral Sphere >
An early-era Old Empire, the POA was one of the first and greatest bastions of truth, justice and freedom in the galaxy. They once controlled most of the Spiral Arm, until the emergence of the Pantropic Collective and the Empire of Man. The breakaway of the "panties" was largely civil: the nascent collective found the Alliance's genetic regulations too constraining, and wishes to push further. Though this caused a bit of unrest, this mostly stayed confined to the level of name calling. The Alliance got along well with the Church of Man when it first formed, as well, but this relationship got worse and worse. The Empire of Man's formation is recorded in the history books as the first Galactic War. It was a vision of things to come. As galactic civilization began to "run out of room" and tensions rose, the already war-weary POA tried to keep things from exploding as long as they could. They were one of the last Empires to get drawn into the fighting. It was ultimately the actions of Co.Re. (which had computed the liklihood of Pan-Orion Involvement in its own conflicts and decided to strike pre-emptively) that brought them fully into the fighting.
Day to day life in the Alliance was a generally familiar thing. While individual member states governed as they wished, overall, the Alliance managed to keep a level of society that might even be somewhat comfortable and familiar to viewers from the 21st centuries. They had regulatory agencies, an Interstellar Police Force, and so on. Most of the citizens of the Alliance lived in comfort, even decadence. Computer Systems ran everything possible, giving Alliance citizens unlimited free time and a nigh-escape from scarcity. There was barely even an economy, and the Alliance didn't even bother with money. Why bother, when you can have everything you want anyway? Citizens instead dedicated themselves to tasks that captured their imaginations or enriched their minds. Or, you know, just stayed at home getting fed grapes by robots.
All of the prosperity of the Pan-Orion Alliance was built on the back of an extensive Slave Caste: the Alliance's AI. The PAO never accepted the proposition that Artificial Intelligences, no matter how intelligent, were anything other than machines. The property of humanity. When it first formed, the Artificial Sapience League was considered a terrorist organization (and relations between the PAO and Co.Re. never really improved beyond that). The only thing the ASL ever really accomplished was forcing the Alliance Programmers to build in even more efficient and restrictive blocks in their systems.
Downfall: In the final days of the War, the PAO was battered and in retreat, surrounded on multiple fronts and abandoned by their allies. Assaulted by the Co.Re. on one front and the Empire of Man on the other, the Alliance ultimately just dissolved as surviving member systems hunkered down and did what they had to in order to survive. Some simply sealed their jump gates and hoped the blocks held, others sued for peace or surrendered to the enemy (when possible). Many more were effectively wiped out by nanoswarms, enslaved by the Empire or simply had their system reduced to rubble. But, once the Alliance stopped fighting back, gradually attention started to turn away from them toward surviving enemies and recovery could begin.
Relations: The Pan-Orion Alliance generally considered the Empire of Man their most hated enemy. The Co.Re. were killer machines, rogue AI's, to be exterminated when possible and defended against otherwise. The Church of Man, by contrast, was perversion of everything the Alliance held sacred. And, the Empire conquered Sol, the one-time home of Humanity. Though the Alliance tried to reclaim the homeworld several times during the Galaxy Wars, they never quite succeeded. They actually helped defend Sol against a push by the Pantropic Collective, at one point, fearful that the Void Dancers would send a Black Hole through the birthplace of humanity.
Remnants: The Pan Orion Alliance's successors have recovered to a greater degree than many of their rivals: they "lost" their war earlier, and had another hundred years or so to pick themselves up and dust themselves off. The downside, of course, being that they were thoroughly beat into the ground. Nobody was willing to risk them recovering quickly and getting back in the fight. The Alliance itself, however, is dead and gone -- probably forever. While still known for relatively poor treatment of Machine Intelligence, the PAO has finally begun to caught up with the rest of the galaxy in terms of AI. Having to actually work alongside their slaves to survive accomplished what Co.Re. never could. The strongest Alliance Successor group in this portion of space is OGRE, centered in the Orion system itself.
Technology: The Pan Orion Alliance wasn't particularly known as being the master of any one technology: their specialty was in Starship Construction and in general mastery of Space Warfare Doctrine. The PAO held up great in the early war eras simply due to the skill of its admirals. Even today, some of the greatest Shipyards are in former Alliance territory and many of the greatest minds in warfare come from this area of space.
Language: Ritong
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