In the beginning…….

…………..there was the Terran Federation. An interstellar monument to the stupidity, ignorance, self indulgence and gullibility of the greater proportion of previous humanity. A shining example of the fascist, repressive, dictatorial, corrupt and greedy regimes past generations had assured their children could never happen again, or could never happen to them….. and then always had ( probably because of those assurances and always with the best of intentions). This particular example was at the height of its power and was proving conclusively that most of humanity never learns and that just as it couldn’t be trusted with one planet so it couldn’t be trusted with part of a galaxy.

This one was fast reaching its point of no return; but, like all the empires that had gone before, it didn’t know it. For the trouble for such empires is that security is only ever an illusion. The unspoken reality is that if you are a predator eventually you meet a bigger one, and that a repressive or exploitative power tends to attract a lot of attention that it would have been better off avoiding.

Unknown enemies certainly stood in the wings. Few realised this yet. Those who did kept quiet and looked for somewhere to run to.

Then…….

There was Blake. There is always a Blake… eventually.

Another unspoken reality of empire is that there will always be those who, for one reason or another, generally not the ones they admit to, will fight for an ideal. Whatever the odds, whatever the costs. To the death. Often other people's. And in the end there are always enough people who will follow them. For however powerful you are, however strong your control, eventually there will be someone who can lead others into amazing and incomprehensible actions, and who isn't on YOUR side.

Those who want freedom and power see them as freedom fighters, those who have it see them as terrorists; none of which changes anything. For every such empire there is the paradox that they can only hold total power by total fear, and in the end that fear undermines them. Eventually people fear living more than they fear dying and then you lose control, no matter what you do to them.

At this point there is always a Blake, that individual capable of persuading enough others to fight the odds. Such individuals have a knack of attracting to themselves those who can advance their cause, and events often conspire to provide them with those resources they cannot attract.

So there was Blake.

Then there was Liberator, what is commonly called Luck. It happens more often than the sceptics might expect. The strange operation of this commodity called luck and the force called chance are probably the single greatest indicators that an intelligence with a long view and an unorthodox sense of humour is lurking somewhere behind the universe. The problem for humanity is that it doesn’t see things the way we do, after all how could it?

Then there were the six, and a computer who may or may not have been sentient. Only it knew and it wasn’t telling. So there were seven. A power number. A magic number. Chance again. Or maybe not. Legends are built around the number seven and have been since the dawn of time. There is probably a good reason for that, we just don’t know what it is. Superstition maybe, or maybe not. Every generation shares the illusion that their ancestors were less than they are, while the reality is that if this were the case they wouldn’t be standing there speculating about it. Maybe there is indeed something about seven, maybe it is related to chance and luck.

So the mix was complete, but that was no reason for things to be easy or straightforward, few things in this universe ever are. When humanity is involved they never are.

Finally...

there was the war. Where there is humanity there all too often is, and where there is an ambitious human empire there always is….. eventually. Chance and luck kept humanity from being annihilated, and chance and luck weakened the empire. Luck gave chances that even humanity couldn’t quite throw away.

The war scattered the seven, but power numbers and their allies don’t give up that easily. The power of seven continues even when the elements are separated by space, and possibly even death, whatever that is. Legends are more powerful than human fact.

Sometimes the dice of fate will fall for better rather than worse. But even then the reality is that freedom has to be fought for, and those who control or withhold it, or want to take it away, will fight back with everything they have. Sometimes the only weapon luck and chance have is a single individual.

Pray to whatever Gods’ you believe in that, when this happens, it isn't you.