The Historian casts his eyes back over the rich history of the DDS Universe.
How did the Dino Republic become one of the pre-eminent powers in the galaxy, in this two part article i will briefly describe the interesting history of the modern Dino state. In part 1 i will describe events up until the time the Dinos achieved faster than light space travel...
The Lost Civilisation
The current Dino civilisation is not the first that headed out to the stars though the previous civilisation, which reached its height around 5000 years ago, is now little known even the name has been lost. It is thought their level of technology was similar to that of mankind in the early 21st century and sub-light space ships were sent out to explore and colonise various worlds. Then the Dino homeland was engulfed by some kind of catastrophe, geological analysis and background radiation indicates it was probably a nuclear conflict which almost totally wiped out any traces of the old civilisation.
Cut off from the homeland the fragile space colonies were forced to fend for themselves, and either died off or were reduced to the same kind of savagery as emerged from the irradiated ruins on Dino-Land. It is a possibility whatever conflict destroyed Dino-Land also raged on the interstellar colonies reducing them to a pre-technological state too. Those which survived later became the Bolitic Confederacy, Sirikwan, Yeng and a couple of other Saurian civilisations now scattered across space.
Recovering From Disaster
On Dino-Land the surviving Dinos took centuries to recover from the nuclear onslaught, finally around 230 CE (Terran dates will be used in this article for the convenience of readers) civilisation resumed with the appearance of the Krotawati Empire. This brief flowering of civilisation lasted a few hundred years before falling to barbarian attack but the foundations of a new Dino technological civilisation were laid including an early version of the Dino writing system used today, the Krotawaki have been called the "Dino Greeks" by Dino historians though not a huge amount is known about them to be honest however the writing system was adopted by the barbarian tribes who conquered them.
The true roots to the current Dino state however came around 1020 CE when the Telrinson tribe rose to prominence following decades of inter-tribal warfare and began to unify the scattered tribes of Dino-Land into one cohesive empire. Finally in 1302 "all" of Dino-Land (all inhabited lands by a certain group of Dino species anyway) were united by Ecto who proclaimed himself Emperor of the Dinos, all subsequent Dino Emperors followed on from him.
The New Empire
The early history of the Dino Empire (which was known as simply "The Empire" by the Dinos at the time) was fraught however. Ecto died in battle against primitive tribesmen and his successor Nintoson died a few days into his reign from illness. His son was made Emperor Ecto II however it is thought he suffered from mental instability. Some years into his reign he went missing forcing the Dinos to appoint a cousin Nintoson II as Emperor. Ecto II returned from his self-imposed exile later and the Dinos had 2 Emperors for awhile (which gave precedent to the later dual Emperor system in the latter days of empire) until Ecto II was forced to stand down after he tried to eat his own daughter in the royal court. Ecto II rose an army and tried to seize the crown for himself, in the ensuing battle Ecto II and Nintoson II were both killed. The Dinos appointed Velis, a minister in Nintoson's government, as the new emperor.
A period of stability then followed and a great flowering of technological development took place under the wise reign of Velis the Great. Nintoson III succeeded Velis on his death in 1401, the great man being able to see the flight of an early Dino aeroplane (in reality not much more than a powered blimp) in the final days before his death. Nintoson III was another long lived and stable emperor who ruled for 181 years. In that time the Dinos developed computing and early space flight, Ronald was also born during Nintoson III's reign.
Dark Days
Wen Dobla succeeded Nintoson III in 1582 and here things began to go downhill. After two stable emperors Web Dobla harked back to the earlier brutal days of the empire, after 16 fraught years he was assassinated and replaced by Renesoka who is notable for forming the ISU which later became the SS and the foundation of the modern fascist underpining of the Dino state.
Dino technological development was halted by decades of internal strife and civil war, Ecto III rose to power in 1710 (Renesoka, despite his vicious reign of conflict died bizarrely in a shower room accident when he slipped on a soap and hit his head on a wash basin, the bar of soap was memorably "tortured to death" by ISU stormtroopers). Ecto III restored the empire to stability during a 120 year reign though much of it was spent repairing the damage of the previous two emperors. In 1802 the Dinos were contacted by the Starbotians who later helped the Dinos develop their first hyperspace drive equipped ship. In 1806 the first Dinomark went faster than light, Ronald (then called Takola and a Decurion in the army) is known to have been considered for the crew of the first flight, his chance for glory came later however...
