Part 1: Tate Arrives
In 2 AR, the entire garrison of Aurea was withdrawn to Awal Kabab to defeat the massive army that Tate had assembled there on Aurea's doorstep. This was a ruse, however, as it allowed Tate himself to land on Aurea with no army to oppose him. Thinking quickly, he disguised himself as a random Ishga immigrant named Burt Mecklenburg and used Shadow Water to summon a massive thunderstorm over the Tangolian Plain, an important agricultural region that had been suffering from a years-long drought. He soon passed out from overexerting himself. With Weasel and his friends still on Awal Kabab, blissfully unaware that Tate was on the planet, Tate made his move as soon as he was released from the hospital he was brought to by a local farmer who found his unconscious body: he hijacked the planet's communications tower, using Astral Magic to kill any who stood up to him. Once at the communications tower, he gave a planetwide broadcast, giving a stirring speech about how Weasel and his friends had apparently taken their war against Tate and his Shadow Magic too far, and that Tate should be respected and not feared. He revealed that his Shadow Magic was what brought rain to the parched region of Tangolia, and summoned a small rainstorm in his surroundings as a demonstration. He then played audio clips he had Ali Baboon steal from an Ishga intelligence agency. These clips showed the Aureans and Ishgas doing things that looked like atrocities out-of-context, further swaying the citizens and most importantly, the military away from Weasel and towards his cause. General Brett Commodus, who already disliked Weasel to begin with (Weasel only gave him his job because of his skill with bureaucracy), was the first to switch sides, ordering all of his troops to join Tate's cause. The rest of the Aurean Generals soon followed. The governments of all of Aurea's territories either openly agreed with Tate or realized that resistance was futile, giving Tate full control of Aurea. Tate now only had one thing left to do: take Weasel and his friends out of the picture. He declared that Weasel and his friends had committed crimes against the Aurean people and the galaxy as a whole, and ordered the armies that he now controlled to seek them out and kill them on sight. Garrett, Felipe de Buenhombre, Drew of Crider, and many others succumbed to these soldiers, while everyone else went into hiding. Weasel, deciding he would rather die than give up his kingdom without a fight, stowed away on a small cargo ship and returned to Aurea. Here, he fought his way past some guards and entered the throne room, where he found Tate getting high on heroin. Ordinarily, Tate would barely have had to lift a finger to win, but Tate's disorientation from the heroin made the fight almost even. Eventually, however, Tate gradually regained control of himself, and Weasel was forced to retreat. He tried to reach for his crown on his way out, but Tate's attacks made that impossible. Once Weasel had left the room, Tate crowned himself as King of Aurea and Emperor of the South Galaxy. Weasel would go into hiding on the planet of Arturia, outside Tatian control, for the next 19 years.
Part 2: Tate Cements His Power
Almost as soon as he became King of Aurea, Tate moved his capital from Caput Tatiium to Aurea. Since Brett Commodus was the first general to switch sides, Tate appointed him as the first Tatian Governor of Aurea. Tate then began implementing his communism-inspired economic system on the planet, making all farms, factories, property, and businesses government-owned. He created a propaganda radio station called Revolution Radio and made a decree declaring all citizens of his empire would be forced to listen to it every night from 5 PM to 6 PM. Anyone in noncompliance would be arrested by the People's Police, a group of secret police Tate created, and either killed on the spot or fired into the sun in cheaply-built pods. The disappearances would be explained with Tate saying that those who disappeared were at work camps "working for the good of the galaxy". Before long, almost all citizens who remained unconvinced by Tate's speech at the beginning of his takeover were eventually deceived into accepting Tate by being forced to listen to Revolution Radio every night and being cut off from all outside news sources. Tate also continued modernizing the infrastructure of Aurea, which had only recently taken an interest in technology and was still largely medieval. The old feudal system was replaced by a communist system in which everything was essentially free. The peasants, who were once unfree serfs, were now on equal footing with the rich (who were now no longer rich), causing the peasants to become overjoyed with Tate's policies, allowing Tate to use Revolution Radio to foster increasing hatred and resentment towards Weasel and all that he represented (Unbeknownst to them, Weasel had planned to free the serfs but never had the time to actually do this).
Part 3: The Tatian Administration At Its Peak
Although what was once Aurea's upper class despised Tate, the former peasants loved him. All dissent was brutally repressed, with the Tatian Administration allowing and sometimes even being implicated in lynchings of former nobles. Governor Brett Commodus, though beginning to grow bored with governing Aurea, enjoyed the support of nearly all the people and helped modernize the planet and bolster its economy with several successful 3-year plans. Popular administration figures such as Brett Commodus were given celebrity status, and even the armies on the planet gradually became more loyal to Brett Commodus than to Tate, though they would never admit this except amongst themselves.
Part 4: The Downward Spiral
In 12 AR, things started to go south. Although Commodus's 3-year plans had been going well up until then, the current 3-year plan was a disaster that resulted in almost the entire population losing access to food, electricity, and wi-fi. Although the people believed Commodus when he said that this 3-year plan was a fluke and the next one would be better, there was scarcely any improvement by 15 AR, except that electricity and wi-fi were back on for most of the planet. However, a severe drought in Wanatolia, Chersónegt, and Izwes had caused an extreme shortage of food, and Tate was too preoccupied with the nascent Aurean Alliance to intervene. Although the internet and radio were back, it began to cause even more problems for the Tatian government: The Tatian internet censorship programs would take some time to get back up and running, and some Aureans were able to gain access to Ishga-provided counter-propaganda. Also, many independent music stations started forming on the radio, many of which started playing politically-charged songs (such as Purple Day's Tatian Idiot). Eventually, this became such a problem that Tate had to intervene directly. He sent everyone who he accused of making such music or circumnavigating his censorship software into the sun pods. Since Tate did this to such a large number of people at once, many began to privately speculate that these disappearances were not simply to work camps and that they were actually executions. Meanwhile, Governor Commodus started withdrawing to private life at his mansion since he no longer enjoyed the popular support of basically everyone. He developed a severe drinking problem and began hiring prostitutes daily. The soldiers, who were still more loyal to him than the Tatians, slowly began to shift their loyalties back to Tate as the governor's decadent lifestyle became obvious. In order to win them back, Commodus promised them women, riches, and food from the countryside. These soldiers plundered and pillaged the countryside for these resources, which made the citizens grow increasingly angry.