Tale of Diep:The Panzer Era

The Panzer Era goes back to the earliest recorded archives of all tank history. No dates come before it. The Panzer Era begins when Panzer himself creates the realm and all its inhabitants, and ends when the tank slaves escape and conquer the city-state of Arena, ultimately becoming an independent society. For almost the entire Panzer Era, tanks were a slave species to the creatures Panzer considered superior to them. No Era precedes the Panzer Era, and The Old Era succeeds it. The Panzer Era begins in the 1st millennium, and ends in the 15th millennium.

Events
In the beginning, from the blackness, Panzer created The Realm, which encompasses the entire everything, including all sub-realms, dimensions, and worlds beyond the visible plane. Shortly after, Panzer, through his influence on the realm and spiritual connection to it, birthed living entities from the ethereal force to experience the world he had created. These were the Sons of Panzer. There weren't as many of them as there are now, as quite a few Sons nowadays are actually mechanical creations of Dr. Lacus (who was not alive at this point), with help of Panzer's force.

After he allowed his Sons to dominate and claim portions of his massive realm, he created other species to be subservient to them. First were the Drones. They were, needless to say, a lot more powerful than they are now. One type of them were even massive dragons, of which only one survives currently. Following Drones, was the creation of the Polygon Mother, a powerful entity even beyond the might of his many Sons. From there, she filled the realm with Polygons of various types. Intelligent as they are, in their current forms they actually remain pretty helpless, but back in this time, like Drones, Polygons had all the fixings of a Tank. This is because, when Tanks became the dominant species at the beginning of The Middle Era, they either bred a species to dependence on their kind (like Drones), or just killed off all members of their species, extincting them. This happened to many forgotten creatures who used to be a critical part of Panzer's world.

Not long after Polygons filled the realm, Panzer created the Tanks, a race of small and feeble slaves who were to work as the unpaid labor force of the various city-states controlled by the Sons. Most of the Sons created pacts that they would rotate their power in a circle, moving and controlling each other's city-states on intervals. This ultimately lead to their downfall, as the Tank's escaped the largest city-state (which had the highest Tank population), while it was under control of a Son with little skill in leadership. He was better when it came to the art of war... We'll cover these details later when we get to the Great Revolution.

For thousands of years, tank-kind waited and bode their time, for the cycle of ten of the Sons to finally land on The Prince. This is when they decided the Great Revolution would strike Panzer's reign. A few hundred years in the The Prince's rule of Imperium, one night, now known as the Night of the Splintered Mask, all the Tank's rose up and burned the city, before finally escaping the outer walls and fleeing to the East. They chose this direction because of the city-state and Son most of it ruled... This city-state was Arena.

A long ten year battle ensued between the soon to be Tank Empire, and the garrison of Arena, which was under the lead of The Veil. He had not partaken in a cycle rotation with many of the other Sons, and stayed Arena's permanent dictator until the end of his life, which was taken well into The Old Era, when he came back for revenge resulting in a millennium long war. And because of how stupid he was (and the tank's knew this), he never called for assistance on his brothers or father in holding back this rebel army. Instead, he managed to hold off their siege for a few days, before losing control of the city. Then The Veil played as the city raiders for a while, but couldn't reclaim it. And even still, instead of seeking help from his brethren, he gave up and regrouped his forces in the leaderless sovereign territory known as Fourteam, where four clans were warring against each other. The Veil eventually tries to take back Arena by unifying the four clans in Fourteam and attacking the city during The Old Era. He fails and dies permanently, as Panzer refused to revive him because of his incompetence.

Soon after The Veil leaves and regroups in Fourteam, Arena is established as the capital of the Tank Empire, and with the Tank Empire's creation... thus ends the Panzer Era, and the world moves forever on, into The Old Era.