John KuchtaJohn Kuchtab. 19 November 446
d. 30 January 469
467 - 469: Emperor of the Terran Empire
Eldest child of Empress Catherine Carroll and David Kuchta. When John was only days old, the Imperial Council designated him as Heir's Heir. From infancy, John was primarily raised by his father and the extreme members of the Hawk party, which favored all-out war with the Patalanian Union.
John's approval among the populace began with the TE 450 tour of the Empire conducted by James Carroll and including Catherine and the 4-year-old John. As he grew, John came more and more under the influence of the extreme Hawks. When his mother took the Throne in 459 (John was 12), his father and advisors began a concerted effort to convince the boy that his mother represented a growing danger to the Empire.
By the time of the Council of Euphrates in 460, John was openly hostile toward Catherine, and Catherine began making arrangements to replace John as Heir. While rival claimants to the Throne emerged, and the Provincial Dukes began to behave independently of the Imperial government, John's advisors kept up a constant refrain of Catherine's failures. Finally, on 27 March 467, when John was 20, Catherine died under the Memory Crown. Although suspicion immediately fell on John, later historians favor the theory that his younger brother Conrad, under the control of extreme Hawks, was actually responsible for her death.
John succeeded to the Throne immediately, and at once started to carry out an extreme Hawk agenda. He sent fleets to Borshall and New Sardinia, Provinces that were under control of the Chen Dynasty and which were acting friendly toward the Patalanian Union -- these fleets, under John's direct control, were instructed to treat as enemies any Borshall/New Sardinia ships that were trading with the Union.
Matters worsened, as conflict erupted throughout Borshall/New Sardinia and the Transgeled. The rest of 467 and early 468 were an unrelieved march to disaster, as virtual civil war flared across a quarter of the Galaxy. Patalanian and Chen war vessels had free run of the other Imperial Provinces, and several times hostile forces attacked Laxus, to be repelled with increasing difficulty.
Despite various attempts with several women, John was unable to produce a child to inherit -- a previously-undetected genetic defect made his offspring non-viable.
In late 468, Odonia (which had been semi-autnomous since 395) exercised its option to secede from the Empire. John was livid, but he simply did not have the forces to offer any resistance, so the secession entered the annals of history as peaceful.
In January 469, Elendan followed Odonia's lead, also announcing independence. Apparently this was the last straw for John's backers -- on 30 January 469 he was found dead under suspicious circumstances. He had reigned a total of one year, ten months, and three days.
John was succeeded by his sister, Margaret Kuchta.
The Later Kuchta Emperors
The Terran Emperors