Tressaurian Union

“The Tressaurians are ruthless, aggressive killers. They show no mercy and expect none. Trechery is their watchword and axiom. How do we beat them? By acting true to ourselves. They don't seem to understand that.”

Admiral John Quincy Garrovick, addressing a Task Force during the Border Wars, 2294.

History

The first event of note in the history of the Tressaurians is the destruction of their homeworld, approximately two thousand years ago. Federation historians do not know the cause of the destruction, but it is known that the Tressaurians were reduced to a handful of interplanetary settlements and a few small colonial outposts in nearby stars. This event is generally thought responsible for the xenophobia and territoriality of the Tressaurians; they grew accustomed to fighting for everything. One central tenet of their philosophy is that the universe owes them nothing, and they must fight for their mere survival.

Their colonies gradually reestablished themselves, formed under a totalitarian state out of sheer necessity, but it was hundreds of years before they were even close to the population reached before the destruction of their home planet, and they found it very difficult to find other, suitable worlds to inhabit. During the 'Dark Years', the Tressaurians came under frequent attack by alien raiders, such as the Orions and the Skorr; they learned to defend themselves quickly, and the military took over the remains of the civilian government.

Around two hundred years ago, the Tressaurians fought a small pocket state called the Gralyn Alliance, three worlds with three different sentient races; they conquered them, and created a slave caste in their society. It is believed that these races continue to resist at some level. The Union then found its natural expansion blocked by subspace anomalies preventing warp travel in one direction, and by the Gorn in the other; a constant cold war has been the result. There have been contacts with the Federation, mostly border skirmishes and raids, dating back to the 2260s, until Admiral Garrovick finally beat them off in the Tressaurian War of 2294.

Politics

A totalitarian state, run entirely by the military, which has come to encompass most aspects of civilian and scientific life as well. It would not be inaccurate to describe the Union as a Communist state in terms of collectivisation of wealth and the sources of wealth, but there is no pretence of serving the common man. There are some factions would have called for the restoration of civilian government, but these are being suppressed.

Military

The military is out-of-proportion powerful in comparison with the economic strength of the Union, and consists of two branches – the Defence Force, which mostly consists of slow, large vessels optimised for short-term campaigns, and the Strike Force, focused on the 'battlecruiser', designed for quick strike operations, aggressive reconnaissance, and conquest. There is a long-standing rivalry between these two branches of the military, and currently the Strike Force is in the ascendant.