The Ceasefire Conclave upon Pluto.
4th Day of July, Space Era Years106
Within the Plutonian Conclave Hall - once the proud bastion of Earth's command but now claimed and repurposed by the might of Centory - delegations from the two warring civilizations sat opposed in frigid silence.Only the low hum of the atmospheric regulators stirred the air, whispering above the tension that weighed like stone.
Though Earth retained the strength for further battle, its supply routes lay severed, its outer bastions shattered by fire, and its fleets battered from the retreat through the distant orbits.Thus the Republic's High Chancellor was compelled, under the shadow of calamity, to seek negotiation rather than annihilation.
At the long, obsidian table of parley… Centory alone held dominion.
Their terms were declared with a clarity colder than the soil beneath Pluto's frozen crust.
Terms of the Centory Empire
I. Solar Singer belongs to Centory - absolutely and eternally.
The world once named Proxima Centaury, claimed in fire and renamed Solar Singer, was to be surrendered without condition.Every citizen of Earth residing there would withdraw within the mandated span,and in their place, the people of Centory would take root, forming dominion everlasting.
No Earth-born authority would ever again hold claim over that star-born frontier.
This decree shook the Earth delegation to their core;Solar Singer was no mere outpost—it was a keystone of their outer defenses.Yet cornered and crippled, they possessed no power to refuse.
II. Centory shall reserve the right to void all prior accords with New Hope and Earth.
Treaties, trade agreements, shared science, and decades of diplomatic laborwould, at Centory's choosing, be dissolved like dust in solar wind.
A proclamation of supremacy - undeniable and absolute.
III. No war reparations shall be demanded.
Earth's emissaries had expected a mountain of reparations,as had been tradition among victors since ages long past.But Aelyzabeth von Thors spoke only:
"War reparations are a folly—a relic that once birthed the calamities of the twentieth century."
The hall fell into murmurs.Mercy from Centory's sovereign was bewildering… even to Centorians themselves.
Outcome of the Conclave.
Though not a total conquest, Centory emerged sovereign in all but name:
A new world claimed into their dominion
The military spine of Earth's outer system broken
The influence of Neo-Hope extinguished
Their own casualties and expenditures minimal
When the armies of Centory returned,they were greeted as conquering heroes beneath banners of gold.And Aelyzabeth von Thors stood as the most beloved sovereign in her empire's chronicles.
The era that followed was called—
(Gloria Centoria)
The Golden Rise of the Empire
The economy ascended with meteoric vigor—industries expanding, new settlements forged upon Solar Singer,and great investments poured forth in the wake of war.
The empire soared toward brilliance unchallenged.
Until the first shadow appeared.
The Decline of Aelyzabeth Thors—
The Birth of the Empire's Aberration
Not long after the war's end,Aelyzabeth Thors began to waver—mind, heart, and spirit alike.Physicians tended her, advisors circled anxiously,but her condition worsened as though unseen forces gnawed at her very soul.
Her decrees grew erratic—volatile—etched with a brilliance that warped into madness:
Captured soldiers of Earth seized for medical and biological experiments
Forbidden research into the alteration of the human genome
And the creation of unnatural lifeforms, crafted from the edge of reason itself
From those experiments emerged the creature known as—
(Quenphius)
A monstrous titan—mammoth in form, yet predatory in spirit,ferocious and breeding at a pace beyond reckoning.
For reasons none could divine,Aelyzabeth ordered these abominations released upon Solar Singer.
Within months they ravaged the native biosphere,turning a world hard-won into a cradle of ecological ruin.
The Shadow of Dissent.
Within the courts of Centory, nobles, generals, and statesmenwhispered warnings of a sovereign unmoored from sanity—a ruler whose brilliance now threatened the empire she had forged.
Thus was born the clandestine Opposition,a circle that sought to depose Aelyzabeth for the empire's salvation.
But they understood nothing of the storms she bore within—the scars of war, the torment of illness,and the secret burdens she never shared.
Conflict ignited in the unseen corridors of power.
In the end…the Loyalists of Aelyzabeth Thors crushed the dissenters utterly.Peace returned to the imperial court or so it appeared.
But the first fracture in Centory's radiant empire had already formed.And from that fracture, destiny would one day split the cosmos.
Thus Ends Chapter D-II.