Gazarian Dominion

The Gazarian Dominion is a faction located in the Beta Quadrant, bordering the Galactic Abyssal Federation and Democratic Cobaltian Empire to the north and west, as well as the Starkonian Empire and Zaxxoid Hive to the east.

Its government structure consists of a clan-based stratocracy where the head of the most powerful clan is, in turn, the supreme leader of Gazarian society, at least until they are otherwise challenged and forcibly removed by another warlord. Whoever the supreme leader happens to be also has the sole right to use the Japhnean Crest as their personal battle standard for their clan's soldiers, which is the highest honor one can achieve, as it is the official emblem for the Dominion itself.

As of the 29th century, that right belongs to Iparius Krekk - the current patriarch of the Krekka clan, and commander of all Gazarian armies.

The Legend of Japhneus:

Due to their civilization's warrior ethos, the Gazarian people do not maintain extensive records of their history as a collective group; individual clans are largely expected to be responsible for chronicling their own past leaders, pivotal events, and victories in battle, thus making historical scholarship within Dominion territory is a very incomplete and fragmented discipline that is hugely subjective by design, as the narrative may change depending on who you ask. There is, however, one tale of the past that is very much agreed upon by every currently existing clan as factual, namely the written accounts of Japhneus and his story:

A mere few centuries after the Starkonian Empire's debut, a nameless warlord on the Gazarian homeworld of Diriana Prime managed to become the most powerful clan leader on the entire planet, unifying his massive realm through the promise of space travel after having unlocked the key to the stars through salvaged technology. He carried a red and black flag into battle, and chose to refer to himself simply as Japhneus - a modest title that roughly translates to "herald" or "messenger."

When he at last defeated all of his rivals globally and became the undisputed ruler of all claimable territory, he then declared the birth of the Dominion, built a vast armada of FTL-capable ships, and passed them out to all of his vassals across the globe, but demanded that the Gazarians wait to venture into the stars until he returned from his first expedition so he could ensure they were ready.

He left in his personal craft with his most trusted followers, but never returned, making his fate unknown, and leaving in his wake a near-perpetual civil war as to who was his legitimate successor. Thousands of years later, and having long forsaken his wishes to hold fast for the crucial homecoming, it is a war still being waged.

Society:

Life in the Dominion is cruel and unforgiving, its rationale having been shaped entirely by the conditions of its birthplace. Constantly baking from the heat of three suns, Diriana Prime is a rocky, dry ball covered near-entirely in desert landscapes, with the vast majority of its flora and fauna having evolved to withstand the brutal heatwaves and sandstorms that blast its sprawling dunes, mesas, and valleys.

Most greenery is forced to cluster around a handful of scattered oases for survival, and before Gazarian civilization gained access to space flight, clans would frequently wage vicious wars over exclusive rights to settle near them, with the strongest contenders ultimately prevailing, and the vanquished often being condemned to witness the death of their bloodlines. As such, the roughly 300 clans that exist across Dominion space today are not just current government establishments, but rather surviving groups of warriors who have since managed to endure across millennia of cyclical, systemic violence.

Furthermore, despite no longer being plagued by the resource scarcity of their homeworld, the nature of Diriana Prime's environmental harshness nevertheless persists in its natives and their social structure today, as those who possess the greatest degree of martial prowess in their communities invariably control the positions of authority, while those only strong enough to survive are simply made out to do as they're told by those above them. Additionally, weakness is considered dishonorable, and being a victim of abuse or bullying will get you no sympathy; your value is measured in how well you can defend yourself.

Oftentimes, the only ways one can progress through the ranks of a clan are through challenges to single combat against your superior, or by taking advantage of the convenient death of someone who has no obvious replacement. Opting out of the system is also not an option, as having no clan makes you both a pariah and target, as no one will be obligated to come to your aid for anything.

International Interaction:

While fractured and constantly fighting each other for dominance most of the time, the Dominion's clans will set aside their differences and form a unified geopolitical front when they believe outside forces are a threat to them or their way of life.

Over the few thousand years they have been FTL-capable, they have encountered and waged war on several other high-profile factions, including the Zaxxoids (of whom they are the primary combatant against), Cobaltians, Starkonians, and, in recent decades, even the Abyssalites, where they surprisingly agreed to work with the then-current Starkonian Imperator - Avigus XI of house Kastor - against the G.A.F. and D.C.E. during the Southern Galactic War (2767 - 2775 CE), viewing the supposed "weakness" of their shared democratic adversaries as an ideological danger to Gazarian culture and traditions.

Moreover, although their own shared history is fraught with violence, a mutual animosity for governments such as those out of Earth and Cobaltia also led to an uneasy alliance between the Starkonian Empire and Dominion that persists in the war's aftermath, making them a semi-unified political bloc that stands vehemently against democracy and its practitioners across the galaxy.

Main Story Importance:

• Emily Lawhead - The Artificial Human who serves as the S.G.A. Washington's Chief of Security - fought directly against the Gazarians during the Southern Galactic War, and describes them as absolutely brutal opponents, with their warriors averaging 10 feet in height, possessing superhuman strength, and clad in battle armor on top of their already tough scales/carapaces that can reasonably shrug off most small arms fire. The G.A.F. had to regularly deploy synthetic citizens against them because regular humans and other biologicals would frequently get decimated in close-quarters combat.

• After the Originator assault on Elysium, Captain Eric Crossman and the S.G.A. Washington visit a Gazarian research station that was destroyed in a near-identical manner to recover data that might provide some explanation as to why both places were attacked by the mysterious precursors. The data they find ends up confirming the true purpose of the Aeonstones scattered throughout the galaxy; they are fragments of a destroyed temporal shard. The crew completes the mission, but barely escapes with their lives.