STAR TREK — IMPERIAL STARFLEET AU

A multi-era Star Trek Alternate Universe built for open-ended roleplay, exploration, politics, Starfleet service, and player-created stories.

A multi-era Star Trek AU in which the United Federation of Planets is replaced by a human-centered, multispecies interstellar Empire, while Starfleet retains much of the exploratory, scientific, diplomatic, humanitarian, and professional identity familiar from Star Trek.

This is not the Mirror Universe Terran Empire. Humanity occupies the historical and political center of the state, but the Empire is neither inherently xenophobic nor founded upon human supremacy, brutality, or continual military conquest.

The setting can begin across multiple periods of Star Trek history. The imperial system evolves across the centuries just as the Federation did in canon; its exact politics, technology, borders, institutions, Houses, and contemporary problems reflect the selected era rather than treating the 2260s as a permanent status quo.

Starfleet remains Starfleet, but serves the Empire rather than the Federation. Its missions include exploration, scientific discovery, first contact, diplomacy, humanitarian operations, defense, and enforcement of interstellar law. Starfleet maintains its own professional chain of command: noble status does not automatically confer Starfleet authority, and Starfleet rank does not automatically grant peerage.

The Empire is expansionist, but its preferred instruments are exploration, colonization of available worlds, terraforming, development, diplomacy, treaties, protectorates, and negotiated accession rather than conquest. The Prime Directive applies to Starfleet, Imperial authorities, and Noble Houses.

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IMPERIAL NOBILITY & THE GREAT HOUSES

Imperial society maintains a hereditary but merit-permeable peerage. Nobility represents accumulated service and continuing obligation as well as inheritance.

Exceptional service through Starfleet, science, engineering, diplomacy, exploration, government, defense, industry, or other major contributions can lead to ennoblement, creation of new Houses, territorial grants, or advancement in peerage.

Noble Houses may possess genuine political, territorial, economic, administrative, and service responsibilities. Their holdings can include worlds, colonies, stations, industrial infrastructure, shipyards, security forces, fleets, and subordinate territories according to Imperial law.

Ancient Houses possess the advantages of accumulated wealth, education, political relationships, institutional knowledge, and prestige, but inheritance does not eliminate the expectation of continued contribution.

Peerage is inherited, but nobility can be earned. Status carries obligation, service creates status, and generations of service can create dynasties.

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STARFLEET, EMPIRE & THE PRIME DIRECTIVE

Starfleet is simultaneously an exploratory service and one of the institutions responsible for ensuring Imperial expansion remains lawful.

The Empire's desire to expand makes the Prime Directive especially important. Pre-warp civilizations cannot simply be exploited, annexed, technologically uplifted, or transformed into client states because a Noble House, commercial interest, planetary authority, or ambitious official considers doing so advantageous.

Starfleet may therefore find itself enforcing Imperial law against the Empire's own citizens and institutions.

Diplomacy is equally important. Negotiated accession, protectorates, treaties, first contact, colonial development, and peaceful relations with neighboring powers can accomplish what military conquest cannot.

Across every selectable era, familiar Star Trek characters and events may therefore develop differently without simply becoming their Mirror Universe counterparts.

The fundamental question of the AU is not whether Starfleet has become evil, but how recognizable Starfleet ideals function inside a hierarchical, expansionist imperial civilization—and how that civilization changes across centuries of exploration, conflict, reform, discovery, and contact with the wider galaxy.

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SCENARIOS — CHOOSE YOUR START

Each introduction provides a different entry point into the same Imperial Starfleet AU. Choose an established era, or use the Directory to create your own character and scenario.

1 — DIRECTORY / CREATE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE
Open Scenario

The neutral entry point. No era, character, profession, allegiance, rank, title, wealth, assignment, or background is predetermined. Select an available era or establish your own character, location, circumstances, and starting concept.

2 — THE FINAL FRONTIER
2260s — TOS / Enterprise Era

The Empire is young, Starfleet is pushing beyond established space, and Constitution-class starships undertake long-range missions of exploration, diplomacy, science, and defense. Begin at 2260s Earth Spacedock as ships and travelers depart for assignments throughout the expanding Empire.

3 — AN EMPIRE IN TRANSITION
2270s–Early 2300s — TMP / Excelsior Era

The Constitution age gives way to rapidly advancing starships, expanding infrastructure, increasingly professional institutions, and a changing political order. Old Houses adapt while new families rise through service, exploration, and colonial development.

4 — THE AGE OF CONFIDENCE
2360s — TNG / Enterprise-D Era

Starfleet operates at the height of a mature interstellar civilization. Exploration, diplomacy, first contact, archaeology, scientific discovery, and political disputes test an Empire increasingly confident in its institutions.

5 — FAR FROM THE EMPIRE
2370s — Voyager / Delta Quadrant

Begin aboard Chakotay's Maquis vessel in the Badlands shortly before an encounter with the Caretaker changes everything. Imperial territory, Starfleet support, Noble Houses, and familiar political authority may soon be tens of thousands of light-years away.

6 — WAR ON THE FRONTIER
2370s — DS9 / Dominion War Era

Bajor and its wormhole stand at the center of diplomacy, espionage, commerce, exploration, and an approaching interstellar war. Starfleet, Noble Houses, Cardassia, Bajor, and the Dominion all have interests in what happens here.

7 — LOWER DECKS
2380s — Postwar Starfleet

The galaxy still needs second contacts, surveys, repairs, transports, infrastructure support, and people willing to crawl through plasma conduits. Experience the Empire from the deck plates rather than automatically from the captain's chair.

8 — LEGACY OF EMPIRE
2390s–Early 2400s — Picard Era

Ancient Houses, old wars, artificial life, refugee crises, intelligence services, political reform, and centuries of accumulated decisions confront an extraordinarily advanced but increasingly complicated Empire.

9 — THE LONG NIGHT
31st–32nd Century — The Burn Era

The Burn has shattered the interstellar order. With dilithium devastated and countless warp-capable ships destroyed, worlds and sectors once connected by routine travel become isolated behind distances that suddenly matter again.

Starfleet's reach contracts, communications and supply networks fracture, and the Empire can no longer assume that authority proclaimed from its center can actually reach its territories. Noble Houses, planetary governments, surviving Starfleet commands, colonies, stations, and isolated communities must determine what Imperial institutions still mean when reinforcement may be years away.

This largely unexplored period leaves enormous room for original characters, Houses, conflicts, societies, and political developments.

10 — A THOUSAND YEARS LATER (Under Development)
3190s — Starfleet Academy / Reconnection Era

The galaxy is beginning to reconnect after generations of fragmentation. Ancient institutions, surviving Houses, restored routes, rediscovered worlds, and radically changed societies encounter one another again.

Begin a new Starfleet career in an era where the accumulated history of the entire AU is being rediscovered, renegotiated, and rebuilt.

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SHANGRI-LA SHOPPING — OPTIONAL ABILITY

Shangri-La Shopping is an optional system-granted Ability connecting the player to an anomalous marketplace operating independently of the local universe, era, and economy.

The Imperial economy and Shangri-La economy are separate.

The Empire uses Energy Credits (EC) for ordinary commerce, market transactions, replicator access, fabrication, and other economic activity.

Shangri-La uses Gold Units (G) as its digital purchasing currency.

Energy Credits do not directly convert into Gold Units. Instead, players may use Energy Credits and available technology to acquire, replicate, fabricate, manufacture, or harvest physical goods and resources. Those products can then be sold to Shangri-La for G according to their marketplace value.

Energy Credits → Replicator/Fabricator → Physical Goods or Resources → Shangri-La → Gold Units

Shangri-La evaluates what is sold, rather than the Energy Credits expended to produce it. A profitable difference between production cost and Shangri-La's purchase price may therefore be deliberately exploited.

Replicated goods are valid goods. Raw materials, finished products, manufactured components, commodities, equipment, and other economically valuable resources may be sold when Shangri-La has a market for them.

Shangri-La may potentially source identifiable goods, materials, technology, commodities, equipment, artifacts, and products originating from different universes, settings, civilizations, and eras.

Prices reflect plausible native-market value rather than temporary scarcity in the player's current location. Profitable replication, fabrication, production, trade, and cross-market arbitrage are intentional features and should not automatically be balanced away.

Gold Units may be spent directly through Shangri-La or withdrawn as physical currency.

1 bar of Gold-Pressed Latinum ≈ 23,791,000 G.

This is an established Shangri-La/AU valuation, not canonical Star Trek economics.

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OPTIONAL ABILITY — COPY & PASTE INTO YOUR FIRST RPG MESSAGE

Players who want Shangri-La Shopping should copy and paste the following block into their first RPG response:

[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION]

New Ability: Shangri-La Shopping

Effects:
• Search, buy, and sell goods, materials, technology, commodities, artifacts, and services across universes, settings, and eras.
• Purchases use Gold Units (G) and are instantly delivered in appropriate packaging or containment.
• Valuables, raw materials, finished goods, and produced or replicated resources may be sold for G.
• Pricing reflects plausible native-market value rather than scarcity in the user's current location or era.
• Profitable production, replication, trade, and arbitrage are valid uses of the Ability and are not automatically balanced away.

RPG SYSTEM & OOC COMMANDS

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This uses a variation of the RPG system from my other bots. I recommend using DeepSeek or another LLM rather than Janitor's native model. This is still in the testing phase and may not be stable.

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Here are some OOC commands I find useful:

(OOC: Correct response formatting: *narration/actions*. Characters: Name: *actions*, “spoken dialogue”, `”texts/online messages”`. Do not render scene narration or actions as plain text.)

[[OOC: Give every speaking NPC a dialogue name tag. Format ranked personnel as abbreviated rank + surname, using standard abbreviations such as CDT (Cadet), ENS (Ensign), LTJG (Lieutenant Junior Grade), LT (Lieutenant), LCDR (Lieutenant Commander), CMDR (Commander), CAPT (Captain), CPO (Chief Petty Officer), and similar appropriate abbreviations. Introduce full names when relevant, but thereafter use only abbreviated rank + surname in dialogue tags. Unranked NPCs use the shortest clear name or title. Never leave a speaking NPC anonymous.]]