This is my first attempt at an EV/EVO/EVN story, so I hope that it kinda works (but given that it was written from 1-2 am, probably not...).
Fall From Grace
The journal of the Lord-Admiral Dimitri Alexandrovich Aldreyachev, the Earl of Diskali, Duke of New Falkand, Viceroy of the South.
Day 6, Month 4, the Seventh Year of The Exile.
How did this happen?
We were so secure, so strong.
What caused our fall?
What went wrong?
I do not know the answer. Perhaps there is no answer. I am a very old man now, and all I may do is recount the events that led to our fall from power, and to this, The Exile, in the hope that those who follow take heed, and learn.
It began with the death of the Grand Duke of Valos, the Lord-Admiral Cade, Pillar of the Empire.
For many in the Empire, the Grand Duke was the man who turned the Voinian War, opened the North and the South, and brought the Strands together. He was also the hero and champion of the people, endlessly crusading for their rights in the Assembly.
But he was more; he was my friend.
I first met the Grand Duke in the Showdown of Vorik; our destroyer was crippled, and we watched helplessly as the Dreadnought annihilated our three companion destroyers. None of us will forget that day, wondering what was happening after the sensors died, the panic, then the joy, when the Grand Dukes crew opened a hatch to rescue the few survivors.
We met again a few years later, in the Battle of Avann, and again in the Pacification of Voinia itself.
From the day we first met; me, a young, inexperienced UE lieutenant, most senior survivor of a dying ship; him, a mercenary captain a year older; we have been friends and comrades.
On that fateful day, most people mourned the death of a god.
I mourned the death of a brother in all but name and blood.
I should have also wept for the Empire.
Alone of the human-dominated aristocracy, the Grand Duke was universally accepted by all the subject races; Emalgha, Hinwar, Voinian, Igadzra, Zidagar, Miranu, Azdgari, and more. If they did not love him, they at least respected him.
Some races we conquered by force, others by friendship.
But despite the claims of our Admiral-Emperor, the Empire was never truly at peace.
The Voinians despised their former subjects, the ex-subjects themselves bickered constantly, the strands loathed each other, the strandless resented the strands, everybody hated the Vionians, no one was content with the overwhelmingly human elite, and the renegade threat never truly left us.
But while he lived, the Empire held.
After he died, fear, steel, and the might of the Imperial Navy became the glue that held the Empire together.
The democratic civilian regime still had a voice while the Grand Duke lived. Once he died, they were sidelined in the name of security and stability.
I see now we should never have done that.
Perhaps the Empire could have held, if not for the death of the Emperor-Admiral dErlon less then a month later.
The succession went smoothly; the Admiral-Princess-Imperial, Duchess of Knox, succeeded to the Marshal Throne.
But she ruled for less than a year, before she was struck down by some mysterious ailment, ending in a coma.
The Regency was given to the Marquis of Luna, whose name shall not be repeated, to hold until the Empress-Admiral recovered or died.
If we had but known, we would have re-written the law that gave the Marquis the Regency without debate.
He held her on Earth, insisting that she was too unstable to move to the great medical centre of Himgro.
The Marquis than began to exert his power, just a small thing at first; replacing the Earl of Centauri with one of his supporters.
And so, little by little, the decay began.
South beyond the Proxima Nebula we did not feel the Marquiss hand, nor did we hear of its effects on the people of the Central Empire.
At least, not immediately.
But news came to me from a friend of mine, the Viscount of Huron.
She wrote to me that the Marquis had abolished civil rights, removed the new Grand Duke of Valos and abolished that position, and had replaced the Viceroy of the West.
At first I was sceptical; the Regent does not have the power to change any official above the rank of Earl, not without calling an Assembly, and the Viscount was fond of spinning tales for me in her letters.
But then an edict was delivered to me; I was to give my full support to the Special Investigatory Branch, who had the power to detain without arrest, imprison without a hearing, execute without trial, and would be arriving in the South shortly.
It was outrageous!
Of course, I named my own Marquis of New Falkland interim Viceroy, and left for Earth to question the legitimacy of this edict before the Supreme Courts-Martial.
The day I left was about seven and a half years since the death of my friend.
I did not know it then, but I was never to return the New Falkland.
(This message has been edited by Cicero (edited 11-24-2003).)
