Azuriach Imperium

Overview

On the surface, the Azuriachs are a standard, albeit powerful and successful, fascist, totalitarian regime. What sets them apart from the many other powers of the galaxy is that beneath their oppressive shell sits a strict meritocracy. The strong caste system seems to work because no matter where or to whom you are born, if you fail to produce results, you will be dealt with ruthlessly. See also Galactic Crusade.

Politics

The Imperium is in a constant state of war with many of its conquered 'member' planets. They are also nearly always mobilized against one or both of the Terran Union or the GPR.

Ideology

The concept of Master Race is not unique to the Azuriach Imperium. Many races have found the opportunity at some time in their histories to give expression to the notion of racial superiority. Such ideas are invariably shrouded in a mystical belief in the intrinsic superiority of one group or another. Usually, such "superiority" is not born out in practice because it is supported by nothing except an ethnocentric arrogance that denies the possibility that others might equal or surpass the competence and accomplishments of one's own race or nation.

What is unique about the Imperium is that it has succeeded in becoming one of the two most powerful nations in the Terran Quadrant. It has done so because the Imperium has concentrated upon the establishment of a genuine meritocracy of leadership. The Imperials are not the arrogantly vain, goose-stepping robots that some wishful thinkers have made them out to be. The Imperial Leader Class is anything except stupid. High rank in the Imperium is based upon actual ability and the quality of performance evidenced by the individual. The Imperial leadership possesses high intelligence, an extensive general education, an excellent specialist education, Spartan discipline, unswerving loyalty to the Imperial State, and driving personal ambition and utter ruthlessness that will not admit of failure. Further, the Imperia? Leaders can cal! upon a well trained and highly disciplined body of committed followers to carry out their plans and projects with dedicated efficiency.

Some commentators have seriously erred in comparing the Imperial State to the ancient regime of Nazi Germany on Terra in the 20th century. Nowhere does there exist a better refutation of this simplistic notion than in the words of Richard Ower's grandson, Jonathan Ower, who succeeded to the First Leadership of the Imperium in 2259:

To those who liken Supremacists philosophy and practices to those of Nazi Germany on Terra I can only answer with derisive contempt. We bear no resemblance to that pack of bumbling losers! Hitler was a drug-soaked megalomaniac, an egotistical incompetent surrounded by a crew of corrupt, self-serving syncophants. There wasn't a Leader in the whole rotten lot! The Nazis never understood Power. They lusted for dominion over all of Terra, but where were their programs for the reorganization of Humanity into a true Race of Masters? They spoke effusively of racial purity, but they sank to the worst depths of depravity by granting rank and privilege to weaklings who talked a fine game and proved themselves to be intellectually and morally bankrupt when it came down to the Test by Fire and Iron. They made mere accident of birth the sole measure of superiority or inferiority. They ignored the real strength of their enemies and inflated the magnitude of their own powers and abilities. We of the Azuriach spit on such delusions of "superiority. ' The fools deserved to fail, and fail they did!

We Supremacists, on the other hand, believe that Good Blood must prove and prove and prove again its superior quality in the ultimate and only test of the Master- -superior performance. No one in authority should count himself safe by virtue of his own rank. Those Leaders who fail the test of performance should be cast down. Even the First Leader is not exempt from this most fundamental of Supremacist commandments, and should he show any weakness of the Will, any serious flaw in character or judgement, he must be torn from the seat of Supreme Power before he can infect the nation with his failure.

The First Leader is the embodiment of the divine strength of the Azuriach nation, from whom all True Men draw strength and purpose.

That sacred office cannot be held by any man who is not the greatest among us.

Nor will the sons and daughters of undoubted Leaders be allowed to bask in the light of their illustrious parents. They stand alone, to be judge alone on their own merits. If they fail in the tests of Leadership, they will be allowed to sink into the faceless oblivion of the masses. In like manner, the citizen who fails to demonstrate his worthiness to stand in the tanks of the Master Race will be consigned to the Halfcast as one of questionable value to the Imperial State, useful perhaps as a tool but never to be given any real responsibility and authority. As for the subject who fails in his total obedience or performs his duties carelessly, he shall be cast down and punished for his derelection. So it shall be from the highest to the lowest in the Imperium State. None shall escape the inexorable and unremitting test of performance.

The converse is always true. Those of the lower orders of Humanity shall rise in the Imperial State by virtue of their demonstrable superiority and worthiness and their unquestioning loyalty to the Imperium and the great principles of Human Supremacy. For it is always possible that, in the course of human evolution, one may cast off the remnants of his bestial origins to conquer the Beast Within, rising purified as one destined to be a Master. We aim at the perfection of all Mankind and welcome into out midst all who evidence the mark of the Master Race. (THE WI LL TO SUPREMACY, Jonathan Ower, p.12)

Imperial notions of Master Race are at once mystical and yet appreciative of the inescapable fact that superiority must be hard won and then ruthlessly maintained, It is not enough to believe that one is the best. One must truly be superior in order to justify the claim to total dominion over all planets and peoples everywhere. The sole justification for dominion is the ability to impose and maintain it. Superiority is evidenced only in the degree of success achieved. Such superiority, the Imperials believe, is the product of a savage and merciless process of competitive selection waged between races and individuals within races. It is never assured by mere accident of birth into some "chosen race."

The philosophy of Human Supremacy is starkly enunciated in Richard Ower's most influential and seminal work OF HUMAN DESTINY: MANKIND'S WILL TO POWER, the "Bible" of the Imperial State:

True superiority is the perfection of the individual and the species in the naturally ordained arena of violent and mortal competition for supremacy. In its primaeval beginnings, out race was numbered among the Beasts, Mankind was weak, mere half-men and half-apes who were the prey of other beasts strong in fang and claw and sinew. Our bestial forebearers were little more than scavangers . But among the Man-Beasts were born those strong in the Will to Power. Leaders arose ...... to overawe their inferior, beastial fellows. These Leaders were ...the great civilizers.

Strong in Mind and Will, they conquered their own Beast Within and knew themselves to be Masters. Then they turned their unquenchable Wills to the task of shackling the Beast Within their inferior companions. This was a long and bitter struggle, requiring many millenia ....... Thus it was that Man eventually arose from the foul Pit of the Beast to stand erect as Lords of Terra, conquering their environment under the firm guidance of Leaders able to dominate their followers, Leaders supremely strong in Will to enforce their dreams and plans and projects upon the inferior masses ........

All the accomplishments of Mankind began with the emergence of the superior Mind and Will of the Leader, and it has been so ever since the dawn of time. The greatest of out primeaval forebears recognized the profound truth underlying all existence: The strong in Will must always come to dominate the weak, and the weak must always submit to the strong or perish at the Will of the strong! This is the highest and the most uncompromising of all the laws of nature ....So it was that even the earliest Leaders caused their half-beast followers to make war on others of their kind to bring them under guidence of the Leaders Will. Out of war, the most enduring, the most ruthless and inventive, the strongest, the very best emerged as the purist and fittest specimens of the Race of Man .......

By violent competition and by violent competition alone did the Race perfect itself, rising to dominate all animals and then, in turn, all lesser breeds of mankind still infected by the Mark of the Beast Within. Violence also established the superior men among all other men. Not only in the Holy Crucible of War did Mankind find its most perfect specimens, but also in .... the daily struggle for power and status which each member of the tribe or nation must wage against his fellows. It is in the natural order of things .... that those superior in Mind and Will must rise above those who are less perfectly endowed Leadership cannot be shared with inferiors. Only those refined and tempered in ..... the fires of mortal struggle for dominance .....will know the secrets of true Power and be able to apply them. ( OF HUMAN DESTINY, Chapter I.)

The Supremacist view of evolution holds that all life forms are locked in unending combat between species to determine which is fittest to dominate all others in the environment. This is true at the levels of the beasts, and no less true at the level of sentient races. One race must be superior over all others, and among intelligent races this means one must be a Master Race, and all the others slaves to the Masters. An equally savage contest is waged within every species to decide who are fittest to dominate as leaders, and who shall follow. Violence in all forms is seen as essential to the process of "refining" and "tempering" the Masters to perfection. For the violence of unrestrained competition for dominance is believed to teach the Leader to stifle all qualities of mercy and compassion, tolerence, and love, and other virtues which the Imperials hold to be fatal flaws in the character of a true Leader. In Richard Ower's own words:

The indomitable Will to Power is absolute. It admits of no compromise, no half-measures. It demands ruthless competition for supremacy against all rivals. It demands total obedience from all inferiors. The true Leader ....can be known only in the Times of Testing, only by his ability to prevail, to dominate those around him ...to bring his plans to full friction. This alone singles out the Leaders destined to rule his fellows .... This alone singles out the Masters who shall rule the many slave races of the universe.

Mere accident of birth will not make a Master. No guarantee exists that the Beast Within all of us will not break its bonds to emerge and weaken the Will to Power. Thus I say to you .... Be vigilant. Find and cull out all inferiors among you. Isolate them from the Pure in Blood. Destroy them if they threaten to pollute the Master Race with their beast tainted blood, for the Lords of Creation would otherwise be fatally infected with beastial weakness and shall degenerate into the servile brothers of the beasts from which they rose with so much sacrifice .... Cast out all thoughts of pity and mercy to wards inferiors. These encourage weakness of the Will...hesitation to grasp and weild power... Know that to hesitate to use the full force of one's Power is inexcusable failure of Will, the mark of one who is himself of the inferior slave breed, an instinctive recognition of... kinship with the fell Beast. (OF HUMAN DESTINY, Chapter III.)

These are the precepts of which the whole of Azuriach culture rests. The Leaders emerge by force of "Will," their driving desire and preeminent ability to gain and weild power in all its forms. Power can be shared with inferiors. Anyone who harbors egalitarian notions is branded as a degenerate. As Richard Ower once thundered at a Party rally in 2217:

All the democrats are polluted by slave-blood! They are Half-Men, throw-backs to the servile Man-Beasts out illustrious ancestors had to drag down from the trees and teach to be proper Men! Democracy is corrupted to the core by the Beast's fear of the Master. Like all Beast's, the democrats fear the true Leader and will try to pull him down and destroy him by submerging him in the inferior masses of the slave-mob.

Those who would lead in the democracies fear the real competition of true Leaders. They know their inferiority for what it is, and so they understand that they cannot hold the obedience of the slavery-breed by sheer force of Supreme Will. No, these in feriors3these failed leaders prefer to pander to the beastial appetites and animal lusts and perversions of the slave-mob to win their momentary approval. These nonleaders yeild to the chaotic mindlessness and undisciplined sloth and unrestrained greed of the salve-breed. They even go so far as to flatter the slave-masses by telling them that they are all 'equal" to their clearly demostrable betters! And the slaves believe it and demand it,

What colossal folly! What damnable evil! To share Power with slaves! As if the divine Will to Power could be comprehended by the lower breeds or the lofty visions of greatness could be dreamed by the scum in a cesspool! Democracy is the antithesis of true Leadership, a degenerate slide back into the chaos of the Jungle and the moronic wanderings of the easily distracted "will" of the stupid and the ignorant who do not know their own minds and are ruled only by the passions of the Beast Within. I spit on the democrats and mark them down for extinction.

The Beast is everywhere. Thus the Master must always be on guard. Remember that not all men are perfected in Will. This the democrats forget.. There are many who wear the form of Man but who are hopelessly corrupted by the brutish blood of out Beast-ancestors. These Half-Men are fit only to be the servants and slaves of Masters, but never, never, never can they be allowed to aspire to stand equal to the Race of Masters!

Beware the many slave breeds of Mankind, for the Beast Within is strong and ever conspires to resist the Will of the Master with cunning animal stealth and treachery... Trust the slave breed at your peril! Learn to crush all fellow-feeling for the lesser breeds, for your concern for those who only wear the apperaence of Humanity but are not fully human will surely weaken your resolve to be pitiless in the face of their inevitable insubordination and rebellious envy. (OF HUMAN DESTINY, Chapter VII.)

The unreasoning fear and hatred of the Imperials for democracy is scarcely surpassed by its loathing of all non-human independent of Imperial control. The concept of the "Galactic Beast Conspiracy" dominates a good portion of Imperial thought and policy. The uninformed regard this idea as a form of mass xenophobia or perhaps paranoia. To the contrary, the Imperials have much more than an irrational fear of sentient non-humans. Their feelings arise from a largely philosophic concept which is at the heart of the doctrine of Human Supremacy. This becomes clear in Ower's account of human evolution:

Our ancestors fought and tamed and enslaved the Beasts among us, for they needed followers. Merely living with and obeying the Leaders taught the Half-Men to become more Human and outwardly to resemble the Leaders in attitude and conduct. But deep within the mass of the slave breeds still lurks the Beast. it rages in the chains placed upon it by the civilizing influence of the Leaders. Always the Beast lusts to break free to destroy the works of the Masters, to corrupt and befoul the Master Race with its stinking inferior seed to return the Race of Man to the jungles of beastiality. ( OF HUMAN DESTINY, Chapter I.)

The "Galactic Beast Conspiracy" is clearly regarded in the light of the above. The "Beast Conspiracy" is not seen by the Imperials as some vast and sinister alliance of the Imperium's many non-human foes. Rather, it is understood to be an intuitive recognition by all of the "slave breeds" that they will be forever subordinate to the "Masters" unless they can cast the dominate race down. In the Imperial view of things, this impulse exists within the human race and is characterized as the "Beast Within" the "lower orders" of humanity. It also exists in all other competing races, who instinctively recognize the "Master Race" as a threat to their own opportunities to achieve total dominance.

Ower and the Supremacists are concerned with the sources and nature of power. Nature is conceived as marked by unrestrained competition for dominance within species and between species. All intelligent nonhuman races are therefore seen to constitute an eternal danger to human supremacy in the universe. Therefore, the "Beasts of Space" cannot be trusted. The Leaders among them ...for ambition ...will inevitably seek to establish their own racial supremacy by casting down humanity and its Leaders.

The Azuriach concept of Supremacy assumes a mystical and religious tone. There is buried within each sentient creature a perverse weakness, the vestigal "Beast" level of one's racial origins. The "Beast Within" must be recognized and conquered by a Spartan regime of self--discipline and devotion to coldly rational pragmatism in one's unswerving pursuit of absolute power and the competence to wield it effectively. Dominance is acquired through a process of refining the "Will to Power" until all lesser beings must, as a matter of course, yield to their Masters. In Ower's words:

Eye to eye I have faced down the Beast, and the Beast ever fails in Will and cannot smite the death blow because I Willed it should not fail. The slave breeds always fail in the Time of Testing. Know, and never forget, that the Master Race must never place its faith and trust in weak men to lead them to victory and absolute power. Weakness in the highest authority will assuredly down the Master Race, and others will rise in its place to grasp the Power to themselves. Know the true Leader and follow only him! The strength of the Leader is the Strength of the Imperium, for the Warrior Spirit of Man is strongest in him and flows into the Race like an irresistable torrent. ( OF HUMAN DESTINY, Chapter X)

Every individual and every race is "tested" by the Universal Spirit which, the Imperials believe, is the very fabric of the universe itself, the ultimate expression of the purest form of Power. Those in whom the "Warrior Spirit" is strong will be "chosen" by the Universal Spirit to be masters of the universe, the living proxies of God, which is Pure Will, Mind, and Power. The First Leader of the Imperium is therefore seen as a messianic figure in whom the power of God resides in order to consciously direct His Chosen People as they govern the universe and all who are in it. So long as the Master Race continues to be strong and ruthless, it will continue to be infused with the Will to Power as manifested in the First Leader. Should the Master Race fail in its resolution, the mantle of Power will pass to another more worthy race. And this the Imperials are determined shall never happen.

History

The origins of the Azuriach Imperium, like those of many human inhabited worlds, can be traced bock to the complex situation existing on Terra in the last half of the 20th century and in the 21st century. Until unification under the United Planets Government, Terra was a world fragmented into more than 200 nations competing for economic. military, and ideological dominance. The "Wet FireCracker War" of 2008 brought an end to that chaos.

Universal peace and world government altered humanity's prospects overnight. Billions could be diverted from deference budgets and idling industries found full employment in the concerted drive to reorganize and rebuild the SovWorld and also to develop the poor nations of Terra. Immense prosperity followed in North America, Japan, and Europe--prosperity beyond anything known before.

By 2025, the benefits of space exploration and colonization became apparent to even the blindest men. In that year the EuroConfederacy was born, completing the economic and political union begun in the 20th century with the Common Market. The enormous cost and effort needed to undertake the vast terraforming projects underway on Terra, to construct L-5 cities, and to colonize the near planets were more than any one European nation could bear. Thus full union was brought about to prevent Europe from failing behind.

The success of the NorthAm PathFinder mission in 2056 caused European aspirations to turn to interstellar space. Colonization vessels were built and outfitted to carry European colonists to the OutWorlds discovered beyond the Solarian System. Though most of the European effort was concentrated within several hundred light years of Terra, one expedition explored the superb Terras-type worlds of the Azuriach cluster in the Deneb. So promising were these premium planets that the EuroConfederacy laid ambitions plans to develop them, despite their more thon 900 LY distance from Terra.

By the late 2060s, the economic and agricultural development of many of Terra’s poorer nations were beginning to fait as their burgeoning populations outstripped all efforts to keep pace with development of new farmlands and industry. The problem intensified dangerously despite the irrigation of millions of hectares of land in the Sahara and the opening up of other hitherto unproductive regions. The importation of food from the Solarian OutWorlds was also insufficient to meet the needs of the exploding population. The raw resources of the planet were being depleted at a frightening rate, and the best efforts of the OutWorlds to make up the huge shortages were falling behind demand. "Third World" demands for an even greater shore of Terra 's food and resources became bitter and strident. since many of these nations had undergone just enough development in the preceeding half-century to qualify for full voting status in the UP Assembly, and since they contained almost 85% of the Terras population, they had the political power to enforce many of their increasingly irrational demands.

This was, of course, the time of the detestible Pure Earth Movement. Some of the strongest opposition to Pure Earthianism was voiced in Europe. That the movement would soon gain global dominance was clear to the European leadership. The concensus was voiced by Konrad Hoeffner, Secretary of Space Exploration and Colonization, in a tense meeting of the European High Council in 2066:

It is clear that a new barbarism, a new Dark Age, is now descending upon us. There will soon be a time more terrible than humanity has seen at any period in its history. Here we are on a tint' world, its limited resources almost exhausted by 13 bit/ion people, and that rising steadily by more than 300 mil/ions per year. Yet the Pure Earthian maniocs would deprive us of the means to develop and exploit our vital offworld projects. They would divert our diminishing resources to purely immediate and short-term needs on this planet. They refuse to limit the population growth in the undeveloped nations, terming all our urgings to do so as a racist plot to commit genocide on non-White races. They blindly ignore the drain on our resources, refuse to slow the accelerating demand by limiting population, and scoff at the need for massive off-world support. This is a!! sheer lunacy!

We have no choice but to act now. We must send out our best young men and women to secure the New Europe in the OutWorlds. We cannot risk delay, because the Pure Earthians may soon be in position to deny entirely the possibility of future off-world development. If we succeed, perhaps one day the New Europe will save our Old Europe from the worst ravages of the darkness that is coming. !f not, well at least we will have the satisfaction of knowing that those barbarians have not destroyed everything we value.

This urgency was also felt in other developed nations, and over the remainder of the 21st century many ambitious programs of deep space colonization planted hundreds of colonies beyond the Solar System. In the last years, Pure Earthian opposition to the "criminal exportation of resources vital to the well being of Earths l3oor and needy" became so severe that Terran support to the distant OutWorlds dwindled to a trickle. Yet emigration was not halted, as the Pure Earth regime saw it as a convenient means of ridding itself of unwanted dissident and non-conformist elements.

Being among the farthest removed of all the OutWorlds, the European colonies of the Azuriach were virtually cut off from Terra by 2125. After that date, only a few starships plied the 900 LY between Terran and the Deneb. Colonists still arrive right up to the sociodynamic collapse of Terra, carried out in ColdSleep and bearing with them only a few personal belongings permitted off planet by the Pure Earth regime. Most of these colonists fled Terra with a deep bitterness toward the Pure Earthians who had oppressed Europe and bled away its hard won prosperity. This hatred was colored by racism born out of the simple fact that many officials of the UP Government were "Third World" citizens. This racism would smoulder beneath Azuriach society for a century, finding its final, explosively violent expression in the militarism of the Imperium and the doctrines of racial superiority preached by Richard Ower and his followers.

The Azuriach worlds were themselves quite fertile and also rich in natural resources. The first colonists were well equipped to develop the new planets, and by the 22nd century, the Azuriach Colonies had largely developed self-sufficiency. Indeed, they were well able to maintain technologies in no way inferior to that of Terra. By 2100 the first starships were being launched by the new yards on Beowulf, allbeit of modest size and in relatively few numbers. Within a generation, the Azuriach merchant marine was considerable, and the colonies even had a small but efficient navy.

The populations of the colonies expanded at a rapid rate, the colonies tending towards large families which they found easy to support with their abundant produce and rapidly expanding industries. In 2137, five years after the Great Rebellion and the founding of the Solarian High Republic, the independent colonies of the Azuriach combined into a loose confederation, the Azuriach Common Market of Worlds. The ACM renounced all allegiance and loyalty to Terra. except for a vestigal concern for the "Old Country" back in Europe. Contact with other human worlds became attenuated over the next few decades, finally ceasing entirely. Azuriach culture therefore took an increasingly divergent course, marked by insular attitudes and deep distrust of anyone or anything "unAzuriach."

Paradoxically, relations with the non-human races in the Deneb were rather congenial at this time. There was brisk trade between the starfaring races of the sector, which included the canine Rau’aarlu who were also colonizing the region, the avian Kreeee of Sif, and the feline MekPurr of Iduna. Of these races, the Rau'aarlu were clearly the most powerful, with a number of well developed planets and a population of almost three billions. They were also a most friendly race, and the Azuriach Worlds benefited greatly from the association.

In the first years of human colonization in the Deneb, The Rau'aarlu provided much of the naval protection in the sector. Thus it was that the Rau'aarlu "discovered" the Azuriach colonists in 2079 through its routine patrols. A form of military alliance already existed in the Deneb to suppress space piracy and to guard against the "barbarian worlds" of the Korrak, just beyond the Deneb. The Azuriach colonists were invited to join, and Rau'aalu assistance was instrumental in the development of an Azuriach capacity naval and commercial starcraft of their own.

The first interstellar conflict in the Deneb since the arrival of the human colonists broke out in 2134 and lasted twenty-six years. The Korraki Worlds, some 18 planets inhabited by a humanoid race, were located at the periphery of the Deneb and had routinely preyed upon the shipping and colonial outposts of its neighbors. The threat was effectively contained until the Warlord Dorarl Kul united all of the Korraki worlds and directed their combined efforts to establish colonies and military bases in the Deneb. The result was all-out war. The Korraki Worlds were ultimately reduced to the stone age, and Azuriach Navy and ground forces emerged as a powerful and experienced fighting establishment.

The Imperial preference for extensive employment of high technology on the battlefield emerged during the Korraki Wars. Though the population of the Azuriach had expanded rapidly, manpower was always a problem. This the ACM compensated for by depending heavily upon mechanized forces and power armored troops. These were very effective against the Korraki, who were more lightly armed and depended upon weight of numbers to overwhelm their enemies. As the Azuriach forces savaged the Korraki in battle after battle, they confirmed the intrinsic "rightness" of reliance upon armored and mobile forces supported by powerful artillery.

A second and far more sinister trait emerged which would, again, find its ultimate expression in the policies of the Imperium . The Korraki humanoids closely resembled one of the non-White races of Terra which had especially "oppressed" the Europeans once Pure Earthianism had swept the planet. The racism of the Azuriach colonists erupted in an orgy of frightened atrocities against the civilian populations of defeated Korraki planets. The non-human allies were shocked at the punitive reprisals and genocidal savagery of the Azuriach occupation forces. Relations cooled perceptibly between them. Indeed, the highly honorable MekPurrs were scarcely restrained by the Rau'aarlu from declaring war on the ACM for its "lowborn disregard of all the noble rules of warfare." The Azuriach colonists were seen as a threat to them all, and at the conclusion of the Korraki War a new conflict was looming..

In 2266, the sudden appearence of the Bugs in the Deneb postponed the inevitable conflict. By the standards of the First Bug War (2215-2227) fought in the Terran sector and the Pleiades, the Bug "raid" on the Deneb was a minor affair. To the inhabitants of the Deneb, it was a massive invasion of gargantuan proportions.

It is to the credit of the Azuriach forces that they took the brunt of the initial onslaught, suffering a terrible mauling as they shattered the first scouting forces. But the plain fact is that the Rad’aarlu carried the main weight of the defense of the Deneb. Their naval establishment was larger than those of all their allies combined, and it is clear that more Rad’aarlu died in the direct defense of Azuriach worlds than did Azuriach fighting men.

These facts are mentioned because they put the lie to the later Imperial myth that the Azuriachs often fought alone and unsupported by their allies, that they were repeatedly abandoned to fend for themselves6 The Azuriach Worlds would certainly have been overwhelmed and their populations exterminated by the Bugs had not the Rad’adrlu sent massive support. In doing so, they often left their own worlds dangerously undefended. It should be remembered that the Azuriach Navy at this time was modern and powerful, but nonetheless tiny by true interstellar standards. It had only a few battle starships and fleet cruisers, depending upon lighter warships and converted merchant cruisers for the most part. Without a strong Rau'aarlu presence, the naval strength of the ACM could have been annihilated in several battles with the far more numerous Bugs.

With the withdrawal of the Bugs from the Deneb in 2186, the stage was set for a terrible trial of strength between the Azuriach colonists and the non-human races of the sector.