Settlement
It is generally acknowledged that the Kharkosanth Empire was conceived of and brought about in Archaic times by Cyarkos Rhulson, the original "Black Admiral" of the Kharkosanth fleet and "Trash Admiral" or "Tramp Admiral" to his Bjaki detractors. He believed the Bjaki Federation was weak and ineffectual, mired in impractical governmental traditions driven by influence, not personal merit. He used his not inconsiderable influence to put together a small fleet of four ultramodern ships, each with a hand-picked crew comprised of the greatest minds and skill sets the Bjaki Federation had to offer, all of whom believed the Bjaki Federation was weak and ineffectual. He took the first three of his Little Fleet, as it would become known, into simulated wargames: the Lady Sophia, his Command Cruiser, the Sculpture, an Arsenal ship, and the Extrigent, a troop transport. During the wargames, he maneuvered his ships away from the main forces, quietly engaged the new Skip Warp drives, and disappeared in the reaches of space.

A week later, Rhulson's Little Fleet reappeared at Whinakai. Since news only traveled as fast as the fastest ship and Rhulson now owned three of the fastest ships around, the Whinakai system was unaware of their daring exploit. They quietly refueled and dropped off shuttles full of anyone that didn't want to join their new settlement on a distant world. They rendezvoused with the supply and settlement ship Atlac and one again Skipped out of sight.

One of Rhulson's greatest contributions to the Kharkosanth legacy began with a simple conflict in deep space on the way to their chosen settlement site. A chance encounter with a small Makkuth scouting party would begin defining the Kharkosanth policy of absorbing and incorporating the enemy. Having driven off the Makkuth scouting party and crippled two of their ships, Rhulson declared that the Makkuth prisoners had the option to leave in lifeboats or join his Little Fleet. While most chose to take their chance in the lifeboats, those who stayed would prove invaluable not only in running and reverse engineering the technology aboard the captured Makkuth ships but also later in maintaining the safety of the colony. When the Bjaki Recovery Force showed up looking to annihilate Rhulson and his secessionists, the Makkuth convinced them they were all under the direct protection of the Makkuth Dynasty Warfleet, buying the colony years of freedom from Bjaki intervention. Similar tactics would be used in the assimilation of the population of local life, the Olawasi, into their new society on their chosen settlement world. The assimilation of other cultures into the Kharkosanth Empire would become a pattern of behaviour practiced throughout Kharkosanth history.

Rhulson and his closest advisors had chosen NK1901 as the site of their new settlement and empire. It was a harsh, remote world with an active and dangerous ecosystem but it was fully capable of providing a settlement site for those with the stomach for it. 

When the Little Fleet arrived at NK1901, Rhulson immediately ceded his command over to a Provisional Government devised and organized by those he had chosen to bring on his settlement mission. They immediately requested that Rhulson himself should lead the settlement effort but he declined, accepting only a consulting position and the command of the Little Fleet's military ships. The new Provisional Government would lay out a harsh but effective settlement plan, the nano-factory onboard the Supply and Settlement ship Atlac immediately began producing ground-based factories to build a modern, progressive society.

The Great Expansion
After the formation of the Expansionist Movement, the Kharkosanth began placing a high value on expansion and the formation of a true empire. Exploration ships were sent in all directions looking for life and colonizable planets. Kharkosanth ships quickly encountered the harsh, backwater planet of Stewart with its stout, determined population. Audron Skaliu, the Kharkosanth Emperor-Elect, promptly declared that Stewart would be annexed into the Kharkosanth Empire, assuming that the small, technologically inferior planet would fall quietly into rank. The following conflict, the Kharkosanths' first foray into invasionist expansion would be brief and bloody. With superior numbers and technology, the Kharkos quickly seized the major cities of Stewart and positioned a small containment force of ships in the system. The Stewart response was anything but quiet. Fiercely independent, the Stewarts fought the Kharkos in the streets and in space at every opportunity. Saboteurs somehow infiltrated both land and space forces, causing damage at every turn. Rather than react with anger or out of vengeance, Skaliu was impressed with the passion, determination, and resourcefulness of the Stewarts and personally flew to the system to meet their leader. Both sides signed would sign trade and non-aggression pacts and a long-standing friendship would begin between Cyarkos and Stewart.

Creeping cautiously toward Makkuth space, Kharkosanth ships would next discover the planet of Agizozein.

As the colonization of Agizozein is underway, scout ships discover the planet of Jebeladon. The planet is even closer to the believed location of Makkuth space, and even rockier and harsher than Agizozein. But, given that the planet was theoretically inhabitable, the Kharkos were determined to settle it. Even as colonization ships were being dispatched from Cyarkos, survey ships were discovering massive mineral wealth on Jebeladon.

Limited War with the Bjaki Federation
In the early years of Antiquity, Bjaki exploration ships stumbled upon the settlement on Agizozein. The Bjaki government would assume the small, growing colony was the main settlement founded by Rhulson and decided that any systems settled by the upstart should be annexed by the Federation as compensation for lost ships, technology, and pride. A Bjaki invasion force was launched against the Agizozein system. The Kharkosanth maintained only a perfunctory defense force in the system, as it was still a newer colony. Military and trade ships alike threw themselves at the larger invading force with abandon and delivered considerable damage to the invaders, though in the long run they were unable to drive them off. The Bjaki were able to land occupation troops in the capital city on Agizozein and set up the remainder of their invasion fleet in the system.

When news of the invasion reached Cyarkos, the Emperor-Elect reacted with cold, swift fury. He sent a fleet to respond to the occupation. In the Agizozein system, the battle was furious and resulted in the Kharkosanth driving off the Federation forces. The Bjaki were forced to abandon much of their occupation force still on the planet. The Kharkosanth fleet chased the Bjaki back to the Whinakai system and basically ran amok there, destroying or driving all the military craft out of the system. They captured a number of military, trade, and scientific vessels and looted the system before heading back to Kharkosanth space.

From the captured ships, the Kharkosanth acquired several recently developed Bjaki technologies, including the Fly-By-Neuron system. There were several smaller exchanges that followed before Kharkosanth and Bjaki reached an uneasy peace.

String Drive and the Imperial Design Corps
Before early antiquity, official scientific development for the Kharkosanth Empire was conducted through a typically haphazard collection of sources. Individuals, corporations, and departments of the Empire all worked independently. Working for the governmental Tributary of Starship Technology, scientist Hal Nargorest developed a series of revolutionary theories that would lead to the development of the String Drive. Nargorest developed ideas and supporting formulas suggesting that, using modern String Theory, particles could be manipulated in such a way that, rather than moving through the normal 3 dimensions that we perceive, they could be moved through the other dimensions that are normally imperceptible to us. Work immediately began work on developing practical applications.  Several prototypes and a large amount of developmental information disappeared.

Emperor-Elect Anton Merin intervened personally. The investigative teams he commissioned could determine no more than that "industrial interests in the Core Commonwealth" were responsible. Emperor Merin formed the Imperial Design Corps as a way to monitor, control, and protect Imperial interests in the development of technology. An independently functioning organization directly under the Tribunal of Scientific Development, the IDC was given sweeping powers to develop and protect science technology without the danger of espionage, sabotage, or tampering. The String Drive was the first technology brought to fruition by the IDC.

War With Makkuth, Imperial Fury

San Jorge