Varinn Empire

"Luminant Realm"
General Info
Official Name	"Luminant Realm" (Luimyan Aiyn)
Common Name	Varinn Empire The Emprire Luminant Empire
Capital City	Neirnyvin
Capital World	Neirn
Demonym	Varinn/Varinnian
Politics
Government	Despotic Empire under a Indefinite Caretaker Oligarchy
Head of State	Matriarch Hirdai Neirn
Head of Government	The Four Devout (Acting) Thleimai Neirn Kholeyi Neirn Melyaini Neirn Sanyui Neirn
Legislature	Informal Assembly
Official Language(s)	Varinnic
State Religion	Secular
Currency	(None)
Demographics
Population	8,23 Trillion
Species	Colonies & Neirn Varinns (Majority) Reserve Worlds Delpuryans Dulinerans Getillans Iburikans Ilisenians Kelnasians Klyffahians Kodaians Nairilluans Neifyarians Rumalians Saiborians Syllians Theldians Uliyanans Valskans Wabbolans Yaianans Yastins Ynoivans
Major Languages	Short-Range Telepathy Varinnic
Assets
Spacefleet	9870 Spacecrafts
Geography/Astrography
Rim	Unknown Space Outer Rim
Quadrant	Gamma
Galaxy	Milky Way
Historical Info
Founded	1,095,302 BCE
Other
Created by	Hakced
Controlled by	Hakced

The "Varinn Empire" is an interstellar civilization consisting of numerous inhabited planets situated in the 'northwest' corner of the Milky Way Galaxy, occupying a large section of space between Unknown Space and the Outer Rim. The Empire is divided into several 'Facets' which act as its highest administrative divisions alongside multiple 'Reserve Worlds' home to various minority species under nominal 'protection', though they remain unaware of their position as 'Reserves' and are prevented from achieving interstellar travel. Administratively, the Varinn Empire functions as a hierarchical authoritarian one-party state under the rule of a collective of individuals known as 'The Four Devout' which rule on the behalf of Matriarch 'Hirdai Neirn', the 'de jure' leader whom is said to have 'created Varinn society' before entering a comatose state sometime in the past.

Societal Organization

Varinn Hierarchy

Varinn society is highly stratified, finding itself divided into a number of castes with the Devout and Matriarch at the top, the 'Luminants' responsible for administration and resource management and 'Graviants' responsible for leading armies/fleets and scientific management below them, the 'Quariants' which serve as soldiers and 'Praiants' who handle construction and engineering below them, and finally the 'Mariants' who act as servants at the bottom of the hierarchy. Despite how stratified Varinn Society is, collectivism is also widespread as moving between castes is impossible, thus individuals within castes are organized very communally and laterally despite as a whole being within a hierarchy. Social roles are incredibly strict within Varinn Society, with 'society' as a whole being organized akin to a 'machine' or 'system' where each individual has a specific function they are designed to do, with very little acceptance for deviation from assigned functions. "Caste tensions" are generally infrequent with most simply coming to believe that the way their society is organized is simply 'how it was meant to be', though of course some dissent exists mainly among certain higher-ranking technocrats (primarily Graviants) and rarely among disgruntled individuals from lower castes (primarily Praiants and Mariants).

As a quirk of their biology, Varinns have very varying levels of individuality from person to person, with most 'matured' Varinns indeed being 'individuals' who are able to be inducted into the Empire's social structure, though a number of Varinns including all 'non-matured' individuals (those which never underwent maturation for varying reasons) and those which regress into such a state are considered 'Coalescent'. Coalescent individuals tend to lack most physical and personality distinctions from one another and only tend to focus on tasks they deem urgent to tend to rather than being fully receptive to orders issued from their designated superordinates, completely forgoing the caste structure in return for acting as one collective (especially considering how they physically may also partially merge if proximate), though they still respect the caste placements of non-Coalescents and somewhat compliant to 'orders' if they do not conflict with their own objectives even if they often disregard issued 'orders' if they are quite unreceptive to actually following through most issued orders unless if they match up with their objectives. While Coalescent individuals may seem to be a significant issue, their high efficiency in completing their select tasks which usually tend to be be beneficial and a belief among the higher castes and especially the Devout that coalescent individuals are 'one with Hirdai Neirn' has allowed their deviance to be tolerated when other deviancy is not.

Out of those which possess permanent residences on individual worlds rather than carrying out duties which require moving between them, a vast majority of Varinns reside within urban areas, with each of their worlds generally being covered with vast cities capable of dedicating themselves to all needed societal functions surrounded by Nurseries (places where new Varinns are 'born') and resource-extraction sites in order to maintain and expand the planet's own development. 'matured' Varinns tend to live in pod-like apartments in vast 'residence districts' separated by 'working districts' where their jobs and duties are preformed, while 'coalescent' Varinns tend to live completely communally within various shared spaces, or simply wherever their 'tasks' end up taking them. Natural life is very uncommon on Varinn worlds thanks to the careless exploitation of their resources due to both development and Varinn production, thus after the 'completion' of the initial colonization phase of a new Varinn world little remains aside from the structures that were assembled there as landmarks. While some Varinn colony-worlds resemble vast ecumenopolises covered with colourful geometric cities and structures maintaining the Empire's brilliance, most Varinn colonies simply function as specialized locations that either function as small outposts or as places specifically designated as nurseries, rendering them lifeless and full of massive sprawling chasms where Varinns once emerged from. In order to create the most viable Varinns, Nurseries are nearly always placed on planets capable of sustaining organic life in order to utilise their resources to create the best possible 'offspring', nearly always wiping out all life on said planets over time due to the depletion of said resources. Once Nursery worlds are no longer able to produce new Varinns, they are generally abandoned aside from occasionally being used as outposts or manufacturing sites.

Varinn Culture

Varinn culture, much like how their social divisions operate, is divided into a number of smaller in-groups such as their caste, court, and generation as communication outside of assigned work (which by necessity places many Varinns near one another) or organized events is fairly infrequent, though despite this the unifying drive behind Varinn culture is the need for 'purpose'. Unlike more common biological lifeforms, Varinns' bodies are nearly completely self-sufficient, requiring no external resources or actions to preserve their existence as only one specific form of damage (damage to their nuclei) is capable of bringing them any 'actual harm', leaving them to live essentially forever without any innate needs or functions they have to do in order to sustain themselves. The only thing they innately lack is purpose, thus their culture heavily centres around the need to have a reason to exist and keep moving on, which is why their 'society' functions akin to a machine where everyone has a function to contribute to as they are born to contribute to a specific function of the machine, be it a Luminant administrator, a Graviant leader, a Quariant soldier, a Praiant engineer, or a Mariant servant, all have a place to maintain the Four Devout's design.

Despite Varinn culture's origin as a simple way of providing them with a purpose, over time it has gradually 'corrupted' into less of a common goal providing the Varinns with purpose into a common goal the Varinns must serve out of a deep-rooted psychological necessity to maintain their purpose by continuing to expand, pushing out those which fail to accommodate its functions. Out of those which manage to meet the needs of Varinn culture, a sense of superiority in comparison to other life and 'defective Varinns' is incredibly common, citing the limitations other beings possess which they lack as a justification for why they are made to expand across the stars, treating most other intelligent life as 'not actually intelligent' in the same way they are as they are more-so treated as 'infestations' which are driven back to their home-worlds, allowing Varinn nurseries to make use of the life-sustaining resources on the colony-worlds of other species as another way of expanding rather than searching for such worlds themselves. Coalescents of course, tend not to participate in this need to exist, although their own 'functions' are remarkably similar to the needs of Matured culture, devoting themselves to the continued expansion of the Varinn Empire, as well as being 'originators' for many Varinn traditions which are sourced from observations of their task-driven behaviours as the 'natural state' which everyone should aspire to emulate.

In the more visible 'caste divide' side of Varinn culture, differences can mainly be seen via a combination of the need to conform to one's own caste's functions, and a sense of prestige (as such, Varinn society is quite aristocratic) that comes from having a 'higher' caste than another, with the Luminants and Graviants often looking down upon those below them for their less prestigious functions, maintaining fairly strict standards for the lower castes to conform to. While some dissidence exists among the lower castes, a sense of pride in serving the Empire that the Quariants feel renders them nearly completely compliant to the social structure, the Praiants are easily pacified despite often finding the demands of their superiors as inefficient or irrational via the 'perfection' of the system of Varinn society as a whole, and the Mariants are simply too powerless to ever meaningfully resist despite such feelings often circulating amongst them the most.

Government and Politics

While the Varinn Empire recognizes Matriarch Hirdai Neirn as its true ruler, in practice the Empire is an authoritarian oligarchy under the collective leadership of 'The Four Devout' positioned at the top of a rigid hierarchical caste system where moving between castes is not possible, with the members of each caste exhibiting clear physiological differences. Most inhabited Varinn worlds are governed by Luminants on the behalf of the devout (or by Graviants in the case of places which moreso serve as outposts rather than permanent settlements), where they are generally given unsupervised control of their colony most of the time (with exceptions including visits by higher-ups). While theoretically able to be autonomous in many ways, loyalty (especially of key Luminants) is ensured by the 'Neirn Security Patrol', a fleet under the direct loyalty of the central government on Neirn that moves from planet-to-planet to ensure both their governments' and citizens' loyalty to the Devout alongside the cultural conditioning each Varinn undergoes. While Varinns already tend to be fairly wired into being loyal to their society, the active enforcement of loyalty is still seen as a necessity by the Devout and other higher-ups to 'maintain order' so that each Varinn world can attain the same quality of life and same protection from external threats under continued stability rather than devolving under instability.

Coordination between Varinn worlds is quite infrequent as no legislative body holds legal authority over the entire Empire, with the 'Informal Assembly' acting as the sole body 'representing' each Varinn world even if it is unable to pass legislation. Several other 'legislative' bodies exist, with the collective leadership of The Four Devout (arguably), the Neirn Council of Seven, and the Facet-J5 Council of Ten being the most influential of such bodies despite either not representing each world, or only representing a small area.

Economically, the Varinn Empire is effectively a decentralized command economy where local planetary Luminant or Graviant plan all investments, production quotas, and resource distribution alongside their Mariant and Praiant advisors. Planets often undergo mutual trade which are handled by various couriers sponsored by each party, allowing for 'shipping corporations' of some sort dedicated to resource exchanges. Despite being very interconnected with a vast FTL transit network made possible via Infinity-Drives that were reverse-engineered hundreds of thousands of years ago, communication between worlds is generally limited to higher-ups for official purposes and military forces rather than being available to civilians, thus the more limited number of needed FTL Communication stations has allowed the Varinn Empire to develop an extensive QET network which efficiently translates information into spoken or EM-wave Varinnic. Thanks to information being limited like this, censoring the press from other worlds is done regularly with ease.

External Policy

While hundreds of inhabited worlds exist within the Empire, the government's official policy is very exclusionary of other species as very few are seen as their equals in intelligence and capability, though fully wiping out 'other types of lifeforms' is still uncommon as instead most worlds (or groups of worlds in the case of case of particularly defiant societies or powerful) that have developed 'intelligent enough' life are preserved thanks to the Coalescents, which have over time managed to instill a culture of following the 'path of least resistance', as coming in with the intention of 'wiping everyone out' would only create a war of attrition as local insurgents would sabotage all efforts to develop new colonies, thus newly conquered societies are relocated to the 'reserve worlds' in return for protection and an end to any attacks. Following a 'conquest', Coalescents taking the form of the natives implant themselves into the conquered societies and engage a period of social engineering to convince them of their independence and lack of need to expand into space while sabotaging certain technoscientific advancements which would cause them to move out of the status quo in a 'disadvantageous manner', often using 'divide and conquer' strategies to keep them distracted and passive while many of the resources the natives themselves exploit are siphoned away to bolster the Empire. In the past prior to the adoption of the 'social engineering policy', the Varinn Empire presented itself as more of a 'confederacy' allowing other species to benefit from their advancements in return for projection, though once the Coalescents devised their new 'policy' any need to have their presence known to the natives was deemed unnecessary any such projects were quickly shut down.

As may be expected from such an exclusionary society, the Varinn Empire is quite isolationist and avoids engaging with other interstellar civilizations when it doesn't advance their own interests, instead dedicating itself to self-sufficiency, internal perfection, continued development of Varinn worlds and continued expansion into new worlds. The primary targets of Varinn expansion are resource-rich worlds lacking intelligent life (due to not requiring 'an invasion'), though when such worlds are either resource-rich or strategic enough they are also incorporated into the Empire, just with more precision due to the requirement of an invasion.

Astrography

There are thousands of known star-systems and hundreds of inhabited worlds located within the Varinn-ruled western reaches of the Milky Way's Gamma Quadrant, with most being within 'Unknown Space' alongside many areas within the Outer Rim where significant amounts of recent expansion has occurred. The Varinn Empire is the third largest civilization in the Milky Way by territorial extent, only being outmatched by the Galactic Confederation and the Imperium of Kings, as Varinn space spans roughly ~36900 lightyears vertically along the Galactic Disk and ~16870 lightyears horizontally towards the Galactic Halo.

Each inhabited world is situated within one of the many 'Facets', which are larger regions of space which primarily exist to coordinate region-wide efforts for easier governance, with one 'Planetary Executive' also serving as a 'Facet Executive' responsible for coordinating them.