Bellato

Hero: Bo Hammer

Special Weapon: Massive Armored Unit - AKA. "MAU"

Area: Solus Settlement, Anacaade Settlement, Bellato HQ, Sette Union Port, Ether Bellato Wharf, Crag Union Port

Government: Federation, Union

Life Expectancy: 150 years

Procreation: 1 Year

Time taken to reach Adulthood: 22 years

Introduction

Hailing initially from a heavy-gravity world, the Bellato are physically rather short and somewhat stout in build, possessing heightened physical strength and stamina, tapering ears and almost universally child-like features. An extremely inventive race, their technology combines scientific apparatus and physical weapons along with the "light" form of universal magic. It is this racial ingenuity, more than any other trait, that has allowed them to successfully stand against races that may outstrip them in other areas.

Their present nation, the Bellato Federation, was preceded by an earlier structure known as the Bellato Empire, an aggressive regime which moved to seize control after the Cora Civil War but afterwards were beaten back by the Accretians. Under sustained attacks from their relentless cybernetic foes they rapidly fell from power. However, given the Bellatos' energetic nature and endless desire for profit, many members of the rival races have long feared that the Federation's increasingly expansionist policies may yet engulf the galaxy in flames.

Bellato Society

The Bellato people decided early in their history that the most efficient method of producing technological innovations and economic profits was to inculcate feelings of happiness and contentment: a happy person is a productive person. Holding the cultural belief that a wide range of freedoms encourages creative and efficient thinking, Bellato culture provides many personal liberties. As a result citizens exercise a great deal of freedom of expression and individualism. That being said, most if not all of the more prominent citizens are members of Houses: congregations of individuals who share the same bloodline (family ties being take very seriously by the Bellato) and/or interests (wealth and power being taken even more seriously).

Bellato culture has long held as an axiom that success breeds success, and while their society promotes individual achievement, over the years a select group of House families have harvested most of the available wealth and power. These influential groups lend money or offer goods and services to lesser citizens for the conducting of their business (or other matters). This practice has led to strong alliances developing between Houses and a system of brokering that has birthed a vast network of cartels, at the core of each one a powerful and socially prominent family that strictly enforces the House's interests among its constituent members.

The Union

The Bellato Union is the name given to the Federation's military and colonization arm.

Union forces make heavy use of mechanization in their combat units. Though they were initially produced for use in scientific work and heavy construction, the military potential of these devices was quickly realized and seized upon as the Bellato witnessed the increasing hostility directed at them by the Cora and Accretians. As frenetic research brought about rapid improvements, diverse types of armored equipment were mass-produced, finally leading to mechanization being firmly incoporated into Bellato military doctrine. It was not long afterward that heavy armored units were deployed in large numbers into active combat zones.

These early battles featuring the new armoured "mechs" saw some impressive victories for the Federation. This led to a substantial increase in defence spending, allowing the army to procure an increasing number of mobile armored units. At the same time, mechanized companies were allowed a greater and greater amount of leeway in determining tactical objectives. However, in the course of the Novus War, a series of disastrous defeats at the hands of Accretian "launcher" units (attributed largely to the Bellato designs failing to take Novus' environmental conditions into account), resulted in rapidly diminishing combat effectiveness. In an effort to bolster the mechanized arm, all manufacturing rights were handed over to civilian contractors, who rapidly reengineered the armored mechs to suit the landscape of Novus, dividing the chassis designs into two basic types: the "Field" unit, a rapid-response chassis, and the "Siege" unit, a heavy support design.

Despite these innovations, the efficiency of armored squads continued to decline due to the immense operational costs involved. Unwilling to completely abandon the concept of mechanized warfare however, the Federation's "Peace Committee" eventually decided to compromise and scale back production of Siege units, which were very complicated to produce and an economic strain in large numbers, requiring vast amounts of consumable resources to maintain their motive and weapon systems. The "Field" unit was seen by contrast to be better suited to mass production and thus became more widely available.

Unsure of how to dispose of surplus mechs, the Committee eventually decided to provide a set of regulations and economic incentives that would allow individuals to dispose of and trade the war machines at a relatively low retail price. However a law was simultaneously passed to only allow the use of armored units by the official military due to the quite real danger of their formidable firepower falling into the wrong hands.

It is interesting to note that since the Bellato Union recognizes the utility of magic in their combat doctrine, some citizens took advantage of their government's treaty with the Holy Alliance of Cora during the Accretian Expansion to interbreed with Corite mages, thus providing the Federation with increasing arcane firepower (retaining however the power of "light" magic which was phased out by the Corites after the "War of Colors").