The Imperial War on Backpacks

During the Unification Wars

Since its emergence from the Unification Wars on Limmea, the Empire has learned to primarily rely on its formidable naval forces. Unification Wars raged across Limmea from 701 to 715 AE. They were initiated by the Great Oligarchy from the continent of Pangea. A man who won those wars was Unmesh Khan, a brilliant Pangean military strategist.

Under his command a gigantic fleet of Pangean ships has successfully conquered all of the Limmean continents. Khan’s fleet was not merely a devastating naval armada; it also included gigantic Landships, heavily armored mobile military bases that could disembark troops directly onto enemy shores.

These Landships were instrumental in Khan’s daring and innovative military strategies. Despite their immense cost, Khan regarded Landships as expendable assets, a testament to his ruthless and pragmatic approach to warfare. When destroyers were done with bombarding the shoreline, each Landship would deploy thousands of troops to conquer those burning lands. If the initial assault failed to break the enemy’s defenses, Khan would order a tactical retreat to the troops.

Once the enemy was momentarily relaxed by achieving a false victory, fresh reinforcements from another Landship would launch a second wave of attack following the same blitzkrieg tactics. Given that there were always multiple landships that were deploying troops on different shores of the continent, the defending forces became sooner or later overwhelmed by the never ending ways of marines.

This tactic, while securing fast victories for Khan, was very demanding towards the fresh manpower. After conquering a few of Limmean nations, new troops were desperately needed in order to finish the Wars. This led Unmesh Khan towards recruiting men from defeated populations into his Navy. While the risk of mutiny was relatively low, fresh recruits had a tendency to desert during every subsequent assault.

In order to decrease incentives for deserters, Unmesh chose to increase his troops dependance from the landships. The easiest way to achieve this was a total ban on backpacks among the majority of marines. Basically, no soldier was allowed to have more than supplies then what was necessary to carry out one attack and return to the base in 24 hours after the deployment.

This decision proved to be not only effective in combating desertion, but also improved a sense of comradery among the forces. So, as banning backpacks showed to be part Unmesh Khan’s winning strategy during the Unification Wars. As he defeated the Great Oligarchy and became the first Imperial Monarch, Imperial naval commanders began to see a ban on backpacks as a dogmatic and indisputable truth.

During the age of Space Expansion

This ban on backpacks among marines continued further through the history of the Imperial Navy. First it was challenged by multiple commanders when the age of interstellar expansion began around the year 847 AE. While troops were still dropped in masses to overwhelm the enemy forces, lack of the Landships in space have put the whole Imperial military doctrine into a crisis.

As a consequence of this inability to wage fast blitzkriegs and retreat to safety, the Imperial Navy suffered extreme losses and failed to conquer a few planets. Even when the High Admiral Iyla Shaya secured a lift of the ban on backpacks, Imperial marines still could not take them to the field operations because small imperial spaceships did not have enough space for luggage.

This crisis led Grand Admiral Shaya to a risky decision to deny the Imperial Monarch the continuation of conquest until necessary advancements to the equipment were made. The honored admiral was soon executed by poisoning, but the Imperial Monarch has followed her advice and stopped the conquest of the neighboring systems.

Instead of waging war, all imperial forces were thrown on construction of the orbital shipyards around Limmea that would support the development of an interstellar alternative to the Landships from the old times of Unification Wars. The Imperial Monarch has also issued a special decree. It read that any inventor who would supply the Imperial Navy with a technology or item that would make it possible to wage a successful Unification War in space, had a chance to secure a status of a Noble for themselves.

This decree caused a positive turmoil among all classes of citizens in the Empire of Limmea. Almost every Imperial family had someone who was working hard in order to become that great inventor. The University of Capitol has tripled in size over the coming decade. As a consequence of this space race against themselves, Imperials have achieved multiple great scientific and technological breakthroughs which have strengthened their military and jump-started their interstellar expansion.

Sources

Imperial Informatorium