PELADINE HISTORY                                           

        Little is known of the Peladine in the Federation. Most of what has been learned has come from tantalizing pieces of information gleaned from the wreckage of Lyran ships. In a few cases, information has been incorporated from data files provided by Orion Pirates at exorbitant prices. Some data is contradictory, raising questions of possible fabrication.

        The Peladine Republic developed as an alliance between two sentient races that evolved simultaneously on the same planet. Exobiologists speculate that both evolved from the same distant semi-intelligent progenitor. Whether the land-dwelling Ranel emerged from the sea, or whether the sea-dwelling Phelan returned to it, is unknown. Others speculate that the two species are related only distantly and each achieved sentience independently. Still others speculate that one species may be a transplant from some other planet. A DNA scan could probably shed some light on the question, but no samples are available in the Federation for study.

        At some point in the distant past the two species began trading with each other. While both had fought horrific wars with their own kind, they had no need for (or ability to use) each other's territory and there were few if any conflicts in that period. The Phelan were already exploiting the seas, so the Ranel were largely prevented from developing that resource and were limited to a few trading vessels. The Phelan had no way to move about on land in any numbers without Ranel help. The Ranel had acquired a taste for fish but could only obtain these from rivers or lakes (or trade with the Phelan).

        The rapid growth of Ranel populations soon changed this relative state of bliss. The Ranel found themselves in need of increasing food supplies for their burgeoning populations, and increased their exploitation of their water systems both for food and power production, as well as waste elimination. This triggered conflicts with the previously friendly Phalanx. Ranel wastes brought ruin to some Phelan agricultural preserves that needed the nutrients brought down the rivers to the sea. Ranel farming caused silt flows that also damaged the Phelan preserves, and Ranel dams sometimes totally choked off the flow of rivers to the sea.

        The Phelan were forced to develop their own technologies to discover what was happening. They had no concepts for what the Ranel were doing, or why, and did not initially realize the Ranel were involved. (They had not learned much about the Ranel beyond the limited knowledge that they lived on land and had interesting things to trade.) The first clumsy Phelan exploration vehicles that appeared in the rivers were seen by the Ranel as monsters. When one of these machines destroyed a dam, the Ranel took the threat seriously, and began looking for a means of defeating them. The Ranel contacted the Phelan to learn what they could about these new monsters, only to learn that the monsters were Phelan machines.

        Negotiations between the two races (complicated by the fact that neither had a single government at that time) soon broke down. No Ranel nation would give up the advances that the new industry and farming technology produced, and the Phelan were unwilling to accept a reduction in their quality of life. War (or rather, many local wars) soon became inevitable, although the Ranel were slow to see it coming.

        The first inkling the Ranel had was when heavily modified Phelan

exploration vehicles trundled ashore in large numbers near many of their factories, dams, and sewage plants and began to attack them. Initially, the Ranel were unable to cope with the Phelan attacks, and suffered great losses as a result. Phelan ships and submarines swept the sea of Ranel ships. Eventually, the various Ranel nation states came to realize that the Phelan had formed themselves into a single government to prosecute their war aims, and to defend themselves. The Ranel were forced to do the same.

        Fortunately for both species, the technology available to prosecute the war was little better than that found on Terra at the start of World War I. The Ranel managed to capture some of the Phelan "tanks" and reverse engineered them, first to produce land vehicles that could defend key installations, and then to produce submersibles that could carry the war into Phelan territory.

        The war raged for nearly a generation with both sides advancing their technologies as best they could, but neither side was able to touch the "core" areas of the other. Ranel aircraft were able to fly over the seas, but with no knowledge of where the Phelan underwater cities were, could not attack them. The Phelan lacked the technology to create their own aircraft. After the Ranel blocked Phelan access to the major rivers, the war was fought almost entirely along the beaches.

        Exhaustion finally set in, and the two unified governments negotiated an end to the war. The ravages of the conflict had left both sides depleted and, surprising both, the peace talks quickly expanded into trade negotiations. It is probable that the lack of any serious "civilian casualties" on the two sides (due to the inaccessibility of their respective rear areas) helped prevent any long-term animosity despite 19 years of conflict.

        In order to avoid any renewed conflict, the two races entered into a mutual agreement that each would have to agree to any new development by the other. The Phelan proved adept at pointing out improvements to Ranel designs, and stressed the need to conserve the available resources and avoid polluting the environment. The Ranel, for their part, proved adept at both constructing their own designs, but also those of the Phelan, and soon learned to appreciate the insights the Phelan had into what was possible. The conjoining of the two races viewpoints soon led to a flowering of technological advancement in which both races benefited.

        As part of their newfound understanding of each other, and of the need to preserve their planet's biosphere, both races undertook plans to limit their populations, their use of resources, their waste of those resources, and their impact on each other. Despite their very different needs, the two governments soon managed to build a Confederation which, in a relatively short period, evolved into a Republic.

        The Peladine Republic began its movement into space within 100 years of its founding. The first space crews were composed entirely of Ranel volunteers, since the capacity to lift the amount of water needed to sustain a Phelan astronaut was too expensive to lift into space. It was not a lack of resources that drove the Republic into space (their recycling programs and population control made that unnecessary), but the simple desire to bring in resources from outside the biosphere to avoid using up their own resources.

        The Phelan were at a loss since they were not taking the risks involved in space flight, and concentrated as much as they could on the development of larger and better lift systems. This led to an early breakthrough into impulse drives for the Peladine, and the efficiency of their reactors and recycling systems allowed them to quickly establish colonies all through their system. Even the Phelan were able to participate in space flight as a result, and some of the established colonies were designed for Phelan occupation. The Peladine, however, had no real need to go any further, and for most of the next 100 years only slowly improved their technology. They achieved warp capability fifty years before the Founding of the United Federation of Planets, but used this for little more than increasing the efficiency of their in-system ships.

        Beginning in Y100, the Peladine began exploring nearby systems with the idea of expanding out into space. During these explorations they encountered fantastic things, and learned that some of these were hostile monsters. Using their scans of these events, the Peladine developed weapons so that, if they ever encountered any of them again, they would be able to fight them. Over the next 15 years (from Y115 to Y130) as they continued to send out exploration ships. The Peladine entered into an ambitious program to scrap all of their existing ships (with the exceptions of bulk cargo haulers and the like) and build a new series of armed ships. These were designed to protect their new colonies (when they were established).

        Construction of the new ships was slow (there was no sense of urgency) and not many were planned. Perhaps if the Peladine had been aware that a Lyran survey ship had tracked one of their exploration ships they might have turned their energies to building defenses faster; then again, perhaps not. The result is that when a Lyran fleet arrived in the system, the Peladine quickly found themselves not only outgunned, but outnumbered. Their few ships fought bravely to try to save their system, but the outcome was a foregone conclusion. The Lyran ships were crewed by veterans, and no Peladine had seen war in over two centuries. The Peladine were swept from space in a week, although it took more than a decade, until Y140, to fully subdue the population.

        The Lyrans kept the Peladine confined to their planet, with the exception of a few individuals displayed in zoos on Lyrantan and some other Lyran planets. Rumors that a very few serve the Lyrans as intelligence agents or on scientific exploration teams cannot be confirmed.

        With the destruction of their space capability, the Peladine might have remained an unknown factor. However, some Lyrans have, for a variety of reasons, joined the Orion Pirate Cartels. Some pirates conducted raids on the Peladine homeworld, while others established contacts there. And some Pirate ships have recruited a few Peladine, mostly Ranel, to serve on their crews. This small handful is the only contact most non-Lyrans have with the Peladine Republic.

PELADINE PSEUDO-HISTORY NOTE            

        With the exception of the CA, CL, DD, FF, Pol and a small handful of variant designs -- all of which were historical designs built within ten years prior to the Lyran conquest -- Peladine ship designs are conjectural, residing solely within Lyran simulators.  These ships are not idle speculation, however; a small number of Ranel naval architects are employed by the Lyran Star Service Academy to design and "build" these ships, keeping current with the state of naval architecture in the Alpha Quadrant, to maintain a challenge in the simulators.   They are, in fact, the designs the Peladine would have built, had they remained an independent power aware of hostile neighbors.  "History" presented is merely what would have occurred had the Peladine remained independent.

        In theory, all Peladine warships were destroyed within a few weeks of the initial Lyran invasion of the Peladine system; however, there are rumors of a single cruiser preserved by the Lyrans as a trophy...or perhaps still operating in Peladine hands beyond the fringes of the Lyran Far Stars exploration zone.  Any truth to these rumors has been unverified by Federation intelligence.