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Throughout much of its history, the Imperium's armed forces were a house divided. While ostensibly unified under the Ministry of Defense, the various branches of the military tended to overlap in function, and often were maintained simply as political favors to various paper generals and admirals.

IvanDabrian, that most dynamic of the later Emperors, saw this as not only as a long-standing historical problem, but as an opportunity at reforming the armed forces. He fostered close alliances with key members of the ImperialCongress and military leaders, and through them drafted a plan to properly unite the farflung branches of the Imperium's defensive and offensive forces under a single General Staff.

Key to the Ivan's plans was the Academy of the Imperial Fleet. Here the various smaller fleets that had been created since even before the foundation of the Imperium were to have a single training center. The hope was that, in a generation, graduates would form a strong working organization based not only on rank, but on joint experience.

The Academy was founded, but Ivan died before the greater goal of a single General Staff could be accomplished. Never the less, the Academy produced some of the best naval commanders that the High Imperium was to see. The Academy was certainly responsible for the Imperium's narrow victory in the ZenbrudiWar, but by the ImperialInterregnum, the general decay had seen the Academy itself turn into a den of aristocratic nepotism and ultimately into one of the major anti-Anthorph breeding grounds that would lead to the military commanders largely responsible for carrying out the atrocities of the HundredBloodyDays.

References

1. Anthorphs
2. HundredBloodyDays
3. ImperialCongress
4. ImperialInterregnum
5. IvanDabrian
6. ZenbrudiWar

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