The Sims 2: Apartment Life Crack File. CODEX
Anastacia Iacono
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"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals!"
The popular image of the Empire is one of opulence, but while pomp and pageantry may be the norm in the core Imperial systems, elsewhere in Imperial space one can find myriad examples of deprivations and squalor. Indeed, the Empire encompasses many striking contrasts: sophisticated technology exists alongside and ancient Roman system of government, and the affluence of the core worlds depends on often unregulated slave labour in the wretched outer colonies.
Ruthless industrial efficiency and low taxation has made the Empire rich and mighty. The hierarchy of Imperial society is rigid, but a Citizen can always rise through the ranks if he or she becomes wealthy enough and makes the right connections. Even a slave could, in theory, become a Senator.
In the mid 23rd Century, wealthy entrepreneur Marlin Duval was so frustrated with the Federal government that she founded an independent colony of her own in the Achenar system, chosen for its remoteness. When Marlin was killed shortly afterwards in a flyer accident, her brother Henson Duval took over as ruler.
Duval immediately abolished the fledgling democracy that Marlin had set up, and in its place he established a system modelled on ancient Rome. He was now Emperor and his closest allies were his Senators. Any colonists who might have objected were forced into silent compliance with Duval's vision, such were his wealth and power. It was also widely believed that Marlin Duval, like Remus in ancient Rome, had been killed by her own brother. Nobody dared to speak out.
The colonists were aware that the planet they had settled, Achenar 6d, had indigenous life, but at first it wasn't appreciated that this included a sentient species, nicknamed the 'mudlarks' after they were observed digging through riverbank mud in search of food. Although the mudlarks were at a pre-agricultural stage of development, they appeared to have developed the beginnings of language. They also created crude forms in moulded clay with no obvious practical purpose, possibly indicating a nascent artistic culture. The mudlarks proved fatally vulnerable to the bacteria carried by the colonists, and within a few decades of the colony's founding the species was extinct. Rumours subsequently emerged that Henson Duval had purposefully removed all traces of the mudlarks, partly in fear of Federal reprisal, and partly to ensure that his development plans would not be hindered by ecological constraints.
The Federal forces eventually fell back and entrenched in the Beta Hydri system. Skirmishes with Imperial ships continued for the next fifty years, but these were unable to prevent Duval from expanding the Empire to many other worlds.
After hostilities with the Federation ceased, the Empire entered a century of growth, annexing many new systems and persuading others to join. It spent the following two centuries consolidating its new territory, appointing colonial administrators from among the noble houses of Achenar.
Groups of Patrons pledge their support to a given Senator, offering military service, tax revenue and the right to wield the Patrons' votes in the Senate on their behalf. In return the Patrons are granted a measure of protection and material security, as well as having their interests represented in the Imperial Senate.
The division between social classes formal, unambiguous and strict, but there is a clear path to advancement. A person can pay a fee and petition for admittance to the rank above. In this way, slaves can become Citizens, too.
Senators have a responsibility to enforce the law, and they must obey the Emperor's decree, but are otherwise above the law. A senator can even carry out executions personally with little, if any, fear of consequence.
Genetic engineering is not officially tolerated in the Empire, but it does sometimes take place. One notable example is the Emperor's Own, a group of genetically engineered super soldiers deployed during the shock invasion of Mansfield Colony in the Laedla system in 2959. They proved brutally efficient, overrunning the Federal defences in a mere two hours and inflicting a rare defeat upon a Federal Gurkha regiment.
This belief, once held with near-religious intensity, still forms the bedrock of the Empire's culture and morals. Genetic modification is frowned upon, but a degree of 'genetic correction' is known to take place, supposedly to correct defects such as vulnerability to certain diseases.
The belief in the sanctity of the human body originates with the first Emperor, Henson Duval. While he did not claim to be literally descended from the Gods in the manner of Roman Emperors of old, he declared that his won image was the paradigm to which others ought to aspire. Households across the Empire were required to display a statue or bust of the Emperor in a place of honour.
Imperial Citizens are therefore expected to shun habits that corrupt or defile the human body, such as excessive indulgence in narcotics. The ownership of slaves, by contrast, is tolerated in the same way that the ownership of any beautiful work of art is tolerated. Mistreatment of slaves is thus akin to vandalism. Keeping one's own body in peak condition and adorning it with jewels and expensive cloths is not vanity, but duty, and owning well-treated slaves is also considered a sign of good character.
The value placed on honour is a constant throughout all tiers of Imperial society. Honour can be lost through various means, including leaving debts unpaid, failing to respect a superior or provide for a dependent, breaking a solemn vow, conducting combat with cowardly weapons such as nerve gas, and defiling one's own body.
In the Empire, it is not uncommon for the poor and disenfranchised to sign up for a period of military service in exchange for a small sum of money. A similar logic applies to Imperial slavery, to the extent that someone might sell themselves into slavery to clear a debt and restore their honour. Selling oneself into slavery is a straightforward legal process and results in a guaranteed sum of money for one's family, so it is a popular option for the desperate. In practice, however, many find that it takes much longer than expected to clear their debts.
People are also forced into slavery against their will. Sometimes, a Senator will sentence a person of lower rank to be stripped of citizenship and designated as a slave, but it is more common to impose a fine of such magnitude that the Citizen has no recourse but to sell his or herself into slavery.
Slaves may also be taken prisoner following a conflict, abducted from their home, or even captured in a hijacking. While trading slaves is lawful everywhere in the Empire except on Emerald, taking new slaves outside of wartime is illegal without the blessing of a Senator.
Resentement of the Federation runs deep in the Empire. The superpower is remembered as an opporessive, interfering force that hypocritcally avoids inflicting the slightest harm on nonhuman life, but thinks nothing of forcibly imposing its values on its fellow humans, and lacking the freedoms and social customs that the Empire values so dearly.
While open hostility has frequently been the case in the past, the current situation is one of grudging coexistence beneath which mistrust simmers. Despite this antipathy, the Empire cooperated with the Federation in a series of joint initatives against the Thargoids in the early 3300s.
When the Alliance was founded in 3230 following a bitter conflict with the Empire and the Federation, multiple systems defected to it from both superpowers. To the surprise of many, the Empire took very little further retributive action, partly because of the ill health of the Emperor of the time, and partly due to a belief that the defecting systems would return to their 'natural home' sooner or later.
Unsurprisingly for a society so concerned with rank and influence, the Empire contains a multitude of feuding power blocs. In particular, there is a good deal of bad blood between the various noble houses, whose values range from hardcore traditionalist to staunch reformist.
The Imperial Senate is no longer as overshadowed by the Emperor as it once was, and has gained sufficient strength to act as a counterbalance to the Emperor's poltical will. The individual character of the Emperor still determines the Empire's overall direction, however, and the suggestion that the Empire should evolve out of its old ways has proven deeply divisive.
"For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales...
Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled
In Parliament of man, the Federation of the world."
"How, then, to attempt the impossible task of summining up the Federation? We are the ones who draw the lines. Our forefathers, who lived through the bitter anguish of global wars, drew a line under them and declares: no more. We enshrined the rights of all citizens in our Constitution, underlined them, and signed. WE plotted the lines that first linked the star systems, bringing humanity to the shores of new worlds, opening the way to interstellar trade. And when humanity itself, in the exuberence of youth, threatened the delicate balance of alien life, again we drew a line; thus far let us lawfully tread, and no further."
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