>>5191620I was thinking more along the lines of "Pau'an/Grand Inquisitor at home", but I hate that I can't dispute "porn parody character".
>>5191699Quite unfortunate, that. I've been to Amsterdam, and barring the smell, it's a lovely city.
>>5191731They're there because they've been forced to. Not necessarily because it's the best place.
The Terran Union was one of the first powers to emerge in the Flooded World. While the uber-rich were able to board spaceships and escape before the Scouring hit the planet, the less fortunate opted to ride out the apocalypse in bunkers scattered across the world.
But when things started warming up, the sons/daughters of politicians who hid in the bunkers emerged and decided to try and rebuild civilization. They built settlements, reconciled their differences with the "landers", confederated neighboring powers, and created the Terran Union. Functionally, it would've resembled a hybrid between the U.S./EU, complete with a representative democracy, established human rights, law and order, and promises for a brighter future. "First the seas, then the stars!" claimed Richard Kendell, the first president of the Terran Union.
Prosperity that followed, but it didn't last. Corruption became endemic. Politicians took bribes, and military officers fell in bed with raiders. Fringe territories were ruthlessly exploited for resources and shipped back to the core at the expense of the natives. Which isn't to say that the citizens at large suffered, but many foreign/external polities, wary of joining the Union, only saw them repeating the mistakes of the Old World.
This would set the stage for Temujin Toghril, a fleet admiral who had won acclaim and admiration for his anti-piracy campaigns. A hero both adept in propaganda and in tactical acumen. Fed up with the corruption and weakness of clinging to "Old World Values", he strongly believed that mankind had to evolve both physically and ideologically to survive the Flooded World. He toed the line and fought against the enemies of the Union, but cynically came to the realization that the politicians gave him the furthest assignments away from the capital to prevent him from entering politics.
He reached a breaking point, however, when it became apparent that the pension funds for veterans was being embezzled by the president's office. Temujin brought his fleet back through the Taklamakan Gulf, an unprecedented act. During a snap election brought on by an impeachment, Temujin stormed the halls of parliament, and exploited a loophole in the constitution to declare a vote of no confidence in the elected government, dissolve Congress/Parliament and proclaim himself as emergency dictator to fight "corruption and weakness". Eventually, he crowned himself Khan, and rechristened the Terran Union to be the Toghril Khanate: the most bellicose and aggressive polity in the Flooded World.
The Remnant fled to Europe after they lost a brutal civil war that purged 250,000 loyalists.
