The Varethis Advance
Late Conquest decree of Emperor Ashan'Kael Varethis
The Varethis Advance was a decree issued by Emperor Ashan'Kael Varethis during the Late Conquest, granting engineering and research entities direct access to imperial reserves. It was intended to reverse systemic collapse, and it went on to redefine Geba's economic structure, moving the empire from conquest-driven extraction to decentralized innovation and manufactorial productivity.
The decree enabled the formal rise of seven key manufactories: the Jeyrhan Bio-Engineering Consortium, Joxi Industrial Holdings, the Geban Foundation of Engineering, the Berinese Naval Engineering Guild, Solarn Legacy Engineering, Haavu Works and Weapons Systems, and the Zhikhan Manufacturing Collective.
The economic shift permanently restructured Geba's labor systems. It accelerated bioengineering, eventually enabling Prince Varethis'Daer Venar to create the Engineered, and laid the foundation for large-scale propulsion systems under Solarn Legacy Engineering. Decentralization also fueled unrest as it expanded. Provincial uprisings increased, the gender imbalance slowly began to correct, and elite military programs such as The Bare Hand were formalized to restore order in destabilized regions.
What began as an emergency restructuring led to the rise of long-lived imperial manufactories and genetically advanced castes. Modern Geba's bio-technical inheritance traces back to the Advance, which combined research, military ambition, and distributed autonomy into a new imperial framework.
