Volkar Revolution

The Volkar Revolution, also called the Revolution in the Volkar Stellar Imperium and the Volkar Stellar Commonwealth, and contemporaneously the Kavalk Uprising, the Kavalk Rebellion, and often simply the Uprising, was a political and social revolution that began on the Volkar homeworld of Kavalk and spread throughout the Volkar Stellar Imperium from 2328 until 2337. The Revolution is considered one of the most consequential events in Volkar history and resulted in the collapse of the Volkar political system and the Great Houses, the public execution of the members of the Imperial House Rhych, the most destructive series of Sunderings in Volkar history; the Volkar Revolutionary Wars and the Second Volkar Civil War, and the independence of several Volkar subject species.

Beginning on Kavalk in 2328, the causes of the Revolution are generally held to be increasing cultural influence from the Gorf People's Republic and the Emorian Union, whose ideals of equality and freedom were starkly different from the traditional values and style of rulership of the Imperial House Rhych, and the increased oppression of the Imperial House Rhych following the death of Tharch. The most symbolic of these forms of oppression was the Great Blockade, but the sheer violence of the destruction of Varkhat Province in 2326 is held up as a flashpoint of widespread revolutionary sentiment among the Volkar populace, particularly on Kavalk. Some small and unorganized instances of unrest had been brutally suppressed by the Imperial House Rhych over several years from 2322 until 2326, when revolutionaries succeeded in taking control of Varkhat Province. The province's destruction ended open resistance to Imperial authority for nearly two years, though minor unrest eventually arose again, culminating in 2328, when a small group of Volkara infiltrated the Imperial Palace complex, took the Imperator and most of his family hostage, and then executed them on a live feed broadcast to the rest of the planet.

The executions were a sudden shock to the Imperium and large-scale chaos broke out shortly afterwards, with local governing officials and minor houses across the planet being stormed by the common people and Imperial military infrastructure being destroyed by unknown forces. Similar uprisings followed on many other Volkar worlds, though only that on Hakh had any success.

A further shock to the Imperium came when a fleet sent by House Siplim to put down the Revolution and restore order was destroyed in the Battle of Kavalk. There were suspicions at the time that the Siplim defeat and the Revolution itself were orchestrated by the Emorian Union, though the accuracy of these suspicions remains in doubt.

The political and social situation on Kavalk was chaotic in the weeks following the Battle of Kavalk, but a semblance of order was reestablished in most major cities within months by groups that would eventually coalesce into the Commonwealth of Kavalk later in 2328. Skirmishes between revolutionary forces and loyalist and Imperialist factions across the planet continued into 2330.