Name: Citadel
Universe: Earth-1
First Appearance: Green Lantern #136

History:
The fascist empire known throughout the Vegan star-system as the Citadel was begun thousands of cycles ago by the first son of the goddess X'Hal, brother of Auron. Raised on Okaara, the First Citadelian (his true name has been forgotten) rejected his family's love, exhibiting a charismatic personality full of hate and a genius for aggression and the arts of combat. He taught the previously peaceful Okaarans to develop war-like skills and tools, eventually leading to nuclear war, for which he was banished from Okaara.

Fleeing to the now-shattered moon of the planet closest to Vega, the first Citadelian repaired the Psion laboratory where he had been born with the help of one renegade faction of Psions. In time, the broken fragments of the moon were joined together into an orbiting Fortress Ring of formidable military and scientific strength. On the planet below, known as Citadel Homeworld, colonies of Branx Warriors and Gordanian Slavers grew, brought from their respective homeworlds, protected and encouraged by the First Citadelian. They provided him with the slave labor and armies needed to build his empire. With the technology in place, the First Citadelian forcibly ejected his Psion allies (making war even on them) and used their machines to clone himself, creating the Citadel race – but the clones were imperfect and retarded. The First Citadelian directed them in concert with his other armies, and so the Citadel Empire grew, overtaking world after world, and terrorizing those they could not conquer. Nearing the end of a very long life, the First Citadelian created a computer network called Complex-Complex, and programmed it with his own personality, giving him a kind of immortality.

Complex-Complex continued to run the empire from behind the scenes, while a series of figurehead Citadelian dictators nominally ruled. In recent times these rulers wer Lord Damyn (killed by Komand'r), Komand'r (briefly), a renegade Psion, and a Citadelian known only as the Chief. The latter was in control when the Omega Men, led by Tigorr ended the centuries-long Citadel War by destroying the Fortress Ring, and with it Complex-Complex, most of the Citadelians, and their clone machinery, making the few survivors the last of that race.

Though the back of the empire was broken, many of the weapons, machines, and warriors remained, and the Chief set up a new base of power on the Citadel's Prison Planet. After his murder by the bounty hunter called Lobo, power was seized by Harry Hokum, a scheming, unscrupulous Earthman – one of the Chief's advisors. Harry regrouped some of the Citadel's former allies under the name the New Citadel Empire, and changed the Prison Planet's name to New Alliance, making it his permanent base, abandoning the former Citadel Homeworld. Less powerful than the old empire, Harry Hokum's alliance is still a danger to freedom in the Vegan system. The Branx Warriors and Gordanians continue to terrorize the weaker planets under his direction, and even the Spider Guild, Vega's latest invading military power, has not put to rest the name of Citadel.