The Fascists
The fearsome warriors

The Fascists are a race of very powerful and hostile humanoids. They usually have dark complexions and have an "armored" cranium. They are much stronger than the average human when it comes to hand-to-hand combat. The entire Fascist race adheres to a very strict and violent code of honor. Even the Fascists ideas of death and war are intertwined with their honor code. The only good way to die, from the Fascists point of view, is to die in battle. It is by this code that the Fascists even have two kamikaze-like shipdesigns.

The Fascists code of honor almost led to the downfall of the Fascist empire in its ancient history, when during a long period of peace in the galaxy the Fascist people overthrew their royal family for having no honor, for they had never seen battle. During the riots that followed upon the king's assassination, most of the Fascist homeworld was turned into ruins - the Fascists had effectively pillaged their own homeworld. At that time, the Fascists military seized control of the government. It was decided that for the Fascists to be glorious again, they needed times of war. All this peace had bored and weakened the Fascists society, and had made them vulnerable to alien attacks. Surely, such a strong and honorable race was not meant to sit in peace; it should strengthen itself through warfare, where the glory of battle and the rewards of plundering enemy planets would help the Fascist empire rise to the top of the galaxy once again.

New territory needed to be conquered and new enemies should be slain. The Fascists started full scale research and development of even newer and more powerful starships than they already possessed, and started looking for a suitable place to wage war in. Within a year, the Fascist military government had developed several powerful warship designs, equipped with torpedo launchers and many beam weapons. Not much later, Fascist astronomers had found the perfect place to expand into: the Echo Cluster.

Race advantages
Due to their violent nature and long history of warfare, the Fascists are stronger than average humans. When attacking in groundcombat, one Fascist clan will kill up to 15 defending clans. When the Fascists themselves are attacked, one Fascist clan will normally take out five attacking clans. The Fascists are also able to support a small outpost of 60 clans on desert planets.

Race disadvantages
The Fascists have no real disadvantages, other than perhaps their shiplist. Their strongest battleship, the Victorious Class, is no match for many of the large carriers. The Fascists have no worthy carrier design of their own, and thus need multiple ships to take out large enemy ships. Proper usage of Glory Devices can help them here.

Special mission
Any Fascist starship that has beam weapons can use the "Pillage" mission to plunder a planet it is orbiting. Pillaging steals supplies and money from the planet, kills a part of the native population and a part of the colonist population on the planet. It also brings down the happiness of both the colonists and the natives on the planet. Pillaging is a fearsome offensive weapon, as planets can not attack Fascist ships to defend themselves.

Main battleships
The Fascists have a very wide range of battleships, ranging from small ships with a lot of beam weapons to cloaking ships to large battleships. The Fascists will handle most of their battles with Ill Winds and especially Victorious Class Battleships, but they'll use their special glory device ships as well to damage enemy ships before the battle begins. Cloaking ships like the D7 Coldpain are used to pick on weaker targets, plunder enemy planets or drop clans on unsuspecting enemy planets.

Special ships
Next to a number of ships with a cloaking device, the Fascists have two very special ships: the D19B Nefarious Class Destroyer and the Saber Class Frigate. Both these ship designs come equipped with a Glory Device. The Glory Device can be used to detect alien cloakers, but can also be used to purposely self destruct the ship. Upon destruction, the ship will cause one mine-hit worth of damage to enemy ships while Fascist ships only suffer a reduced amount of damage. This device can also be used to get rid of Amorphous worms on planets.

Gameplay in short
The Fascists are not a very easy race to play, but if played well they can be a lot of fun and hard to stop. A few cloakers pillaging enemy planets and taking enemy planets by ground combat, plus the benefit of their cheap battleships, can often make life very hard on one of the Fascists' neighbors in the early stage of the game, giving the Fascists more room to expand. In later stages of the game the Fascists will need many of their Victorious Class battleships, and perhaps even more ships with Glory devices to stand up to more powerful enemy ships.