Lore and Legends of the Dezzyverse

The Solomani Confederation’s Propaganda Machine

After the Solomani Rim War, the Solomani Confederation spiraled into infighting and chaos. Terra had fallen to the Third Imperium in 1002 and the Confederation lacked a capital. The High Command of the Solomani Confederation was operating from the Home system in Aldebaran Sector since the Imperium pushed into the Solomani Rim sector in 998, towards the end of the war.

The Solomani Party shifted it’s leadership to Home in 1001 when the 3rd Imperium liberated the Vegan Autonomous District. The Confederation harbored few illusions that the Imperium would overrun Terra. When Terra did fall and the war ended in armistice, the Solomani Confederation suffered a political crisis that nearly fractured it into a hundred pocket empires.

The Solomani Cause also suffered a crisis of confidence in the first few years following the armistice. After all, how could the Solomani Humans be the the greatest branch of the greatest species in the galaxy if they couldn’t protect their own cradle? The Party, Movement, Confederation and Cause could only try desperately to hole itself together for the following decade or so.

SolSec Turns Inward

Solomani Security shifted it’s principal effort from enforcing the Party’s agenda outword to maintaining Party control within the Confederation itself. Because the Confederation Navy and Ground Forces had been crippled in the last year of the Rim War, using force to bring any disobedience back into line was impractical. However, even though the conventional military was rebuilding, SolSec had a well-developed and relatively lightly used resource. Propaganda.

As the Confederation and the Solomani Party recovered from the Rim War, SolSec used the news and media apparatus of the State to mend the divisions that started to develop. The Subsectors and systems which the Imperium had subdued became “the Occupation”. Terra didn’t fall, it was “Under Occupation by Imperial Invaders. Interstellar History classes in Primary and Secondary Schools and State-sponsored Universities placed an emphasis on the rise of the Rule of Man, and the Interstellar Wars period, where Terran forces overcame a technologically and territorially superior Vilani Empire. Patriotic lesiure media was supported and promoted. The Solomani Hypothosis was pushed forward in educational cirriculum. Solomani Security used the tools of influence to minimalize the effect of losing Terra to the Imperium.

“State Media” is well known and crude as the sole means of Propaganda. Instead, SolSec provided capital and material support to media corporations, local, regional, and Confederation-Wide. Simultaneously, they suppressed dissenting media outlets. SolSec stopped short of a full-blown crackdown on dissent. But a crackdown was not necessarily, the strategy of capital support was wildly successful. The Armistice was re-characterized from being a defeat, to being a story of heroic survival against an overwhelming enemy. The fractures in the Confederation was healed, and the Party was able to recover.

Attention Returned to the Occupied Region

In the years between 1014 and 1116 3i (5534 and 5636 AD) the Solomani Confederation Armed Forces were not nearly strong enough to challenge the Imperium’s occupation. However, after the Confederation’s political situation had stabilized, SolSec turned its attention to the Occupied Region. The strategies employed to indoctrinate the population of the Confederation were proven successful and revised for use in the Occupied Region.

SolSec was able to, through several shell companies and investment firms, engineer control of a sector-wide media corporation in Diaspora Sector. The corporation, Neo Londra Media (LIC), was reorganized and registered under the name Alithea (LIC). Alithea spent several years improving it’s journalistic reputation to be comparative to the Imperial Interstellar News Service (IINS) and the Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society (JTAS). Though not nearly as old, nor accomplished as the IINS or JTAS, Alithea gathered a lot of popularity and social momentum as “new” media, rebellious, popular and hungry. Especially in contrast to the “stodgy conservatism” of the older media corporations.

With indirect support from SolSec, Alithea went through a rapid expansion towards the Rim over it’s first 25 years. Either by expanding it’s own network of companies, or by acquiring new assets. By the end of the 1050s 3i, Alithea was present throughout the old Solomani Sphere, covering the Solomani Rim, Old Expanses and Diabei sectors with the occupied systems in Alpha Crucis and Magyar sectors.

The Solomani Sphere

The Solomani Sphere, the region within 50 parsecs of Sol has, for centuries, been “culturally Solomani”. For centuries, the Imperium allowed a large amount of self-rule for the systems in the “Solomani Autonomous Region”. Until the Rim War, the Autonomous Region paid governmental lip service to the Emperor and the Third Imperium. Paying Imperial Taxes and permitting routine Imperial operations without hassle.

SolSec was able to take advantage of this, promoting the Solomani Sphere as a ethnic and cultural state through the mechanism of Alithea. Of course, Alithea is careful not to cross over into treasonous rhetoric when promoting the Solomani Sphere as a region, nor endorse the Solomani Supremacy Movement in the Imperial Occupation. Still, the promise of a “Solomani Sphere” is very popular among the people in the Sectors of the former Autonomous Zone. Alithea’s support of this interpretation of history takes advantage of this popularity. In the sectors where Alithea is active, the Solomani Cause is very sympathetic among the citizens (at least the human citizens, it’s doubtful that Hivers subscribe to “Solomani Humaniti are the destined masters of the Galaxy”)

How Alithea Functions

With the speed of news limited to the speed of mail ships, it’s not possible to manage every system from the Alithea Headquarters in Iusea. Even communication between Alithea HQ and the Confederation Capital takes nearly 30 weeks. Alithea breaks down it’s editorial voice into broad strokes, allowing local stations broad control of the journalism and investigations they provide to their audience.

• Alithea Headquarters
  • The central HQ of the megacorporation in Iusea system, Iusea Subsector, Diaspora Sector. From here, Alithea sets it’s editorial agenda from secret instructions received from SolSec on Home.
• Sector Offices
  • Each of the Sectors that Alithea operates in have offices that manage editorial content for the sectors they cover
    • Diaspora – Iusea System
    • Solomani Rim – Jael System
      • The systems in Magyar Subsectors Voyage and Swan and the systems in Alpha Crucis Subsectors Orichalc and Denebola are under the direction of the Solomani Rim Sector Office
    • Diabei – Mgg System
      • The systems in Magyar Subsectors Clown and Anise are under the direction of the Diabei Sector Office
    • Old Expanses – Hindahl System
• Subsector Stations
  • These offices have a more direct editorial control over the local offices, assigning reporters to stories of interest, or commissioning editorial opinions and essays.
• Local Affiliates
  • In systems with a population of 6 or greater (millions of inhabitants) and a Tech Level of 5 Alithea maintains local affiliate stations.
    • Alithea supports it’s local affiliate stations to the limits of the systems ability to bear. For example, a TL 5 system can’t support a world-wide consumer computer or satellite network, but it can support AM band radio broadcasts so the Alithea affiliates enjoy the best broadcast equipment for transmission, and TL 14 infrastructure.
  • In systems with a Balkanized government Althea maintains a Local station in each of the balkanized states.

Stories that weren’t time sensitive are sent up the network to Headquarters and distributed out from there (after approval and possible spinning by SolSec.)

Alithea’s Editorial Voice

Alithea is active in the Occupation Region for a primary purpose. Prepare the region for “liberation” by the Solomani Confederation and thus restoring the Solomani Sphere. To this purpose, Alithea promotes stories that feature confirmation of the Solomani Hypothesis, and the Solomani Cause.

A more clandestine purpose is to foster the development and communication with sleeper cells of SolSec. This network of sleepers were preparing the civilian population to collaborate with Confederation forces in the event they take control of their system. In some cases, the network of sleepers would conduct sabotage, espionage, and guerilla operations in support of a Confederation invasion.

The propaganda spread works to normalize the Solomani Calendar (especially in historical documentaries, pre-third Imperium events are dated in A.D.). Furthermore, news stories featuring Noble decadence and corruption are enhanced and spread throughout the Occupied Region. Dates are sometimes “adjusted” or ignored to preserve the immediacy of scandals. In addition to scandals, Alithea also gives attention to a steady stream of conspiracy theories and stereotypes of non-Solomani humaniti.

Finally, Alithea affiliates advertised services and products that supported the propaganda and editorial direction. The products and services were presented to appeal to the target audiences. While still working within the boundaries of local system law levels, there was a definite “disaster preparation, personal defense, and ancestry exploration” (which almost always returned results heavily weighted toward Solomani ethnicity). Of course few of these products and services were lucrative advertisers, but the investment companies that laundered SolSec funds more than made up for any lack of operations budgets.

The Rebellion War

Emperor Strephon’s assassination in 1116 3i was the event that SolSec had been waiting for. Alithea had been very successful in it’s mission, which was evidenced by the Confederation’s rapid advances in the Solomani Rim, Old Expanses and Magyar, closing like a vice towards Diaspora. However, as the Rebellion War ground on, with multiple factions splintering off and pressing claims for territory, the early gains stagnated. By 1121 3i, the war had ground to a halt. Worse, the Confederation had exhausted nearly all of it’s resources in wars in the Occupation region.

As the Hard Times dawned in 1125, the collapse of Interstellar commerce and trade had all but bankrupted Alithea as a corporation. Without SolSec funding, Alithea was incapable of enduring the Imperial Collapse. At the same time, the media companies developed, were robust enough to reform into regional networks. However, without Alithea, or SolSec, these regional networks no longer present a coorinated propaganda message and many dissolved into the mouthpiece for warlords and pocket emperors.