GalaxyNES- No Horizons

Greetings, all True minds and those Few Cluster minds that are under none but their own. It has been but a decade since we started connecting to one another across the sea of stars.
we have argued, we have talked, and we have learned
I, Argin-12e, fifth True mind of Argin, hereby present this report, on the status of all the hives that have spoken.
As of now, 226 True minds, spread across 36 planets and 1 unknown, have spoken to the swarm mind, along with Cluster minds on 34 planets.
most of the planets holding the True minds are optimal worlds, possessing none but ourselves, with 9 exceptions in addition to the unknown.
of the exceptions, 3 have adapted to Methane worlds. 2 of them have had to build up their planets life from scratch, and most of their efforts are still going into maintaining and expanding it. the third world had an already present ecology, and has turned up some interesting "key" sequences which they are studying.
One exception seems to be a world based on silicon life. the "Key" seems to be having trouble adapting to it, and growth upon it has been limited to a single true mind. native life seems somewhat resistant to manipulations, and it is expected to take over a mullinum to fully spread out over the entire world.
the remaining 5 exceptions seem to be heavily inhabited world by other Species. 4 are the relatively benign species-2. they are not openly hostile towards us, and seem to like us, unless we move upon their crop-land. limits to our expansion and attempts to adapt to them seem to be working.. they also seem to possess some interesting adaptations that are not "Key " derived but tool derived. we have begun study, and hold hope to adapt these tools to our own use in the near future.
the last is shared by Species 5 and more recently species 8. 8 seems to have taken species 5 over, and is slowly killing them of. they have also recently begun to extend such efforts towards us. Preparations are being made to try and dislodge Species 8 without harming species 5, but might not be possible. we expect full elimination of them from the world within the decade, or should our attempt fail, us from that world by them.

the True mind upon the Unknown has proven reclusive and unwilling to talk to us for the most part. From what limited information we have gotten from it, it seems to live upon a great space beast that possesses a "greater Key". as such, we are reluctant to press them, as we do not want to anger such a god-like creature.

the cluster minds are still developing their worlds, and have little to contribute. most upon the optimal world. several with species 2,3,4,6,7 and 9 upon them. most often species 2, including what we believe to be their world of origin. 3 more cluster minds are on lifeless methane worlds, and in for long development towards a true mind.

Overall, we seem to be doing quite well. We have a few things we need done to firmly succure our survival. which will be discussed next week after this message has been distributed among all minds.

When he closed his many eyes and drifted off into blissful unconsciousness, the Kog’Vlad could still remember the cliffs of his youth, feel the gentle branches break under his mighty feet, and taste the blood of the freshly killed prey. When he dreamed of such things, he would forget that he was dead and leap through the fields filled with the joy of life.

Then he would wake up and find himself in the middle of a changed environment. The plants changed to fleshy things extending tendrils that burrowed deep into his own rotting flesh… or was the tendrils emerging from him? He could no longer tell the difference. The world seemed to change before his eyes to be something ludicrous, too complex. Or perhaps it was he that changed, his faculties leaking into the ether through the tendrils.

He would close his eyes and try to return to those cliffs once more, but it grew increasingly harder to do so. The rot, the fleshy things, and the dust would return, even in his fantasies, corrupting it into the same hellish lands of his realities. He sometimes wondered if all of his pain, misery, and visions were mere reflections of his ruined mind.

He would then wake up and move once more.

He had been young once. He emerged from the egg inside a carcass of his parent and drank from the rotting blood. He remembered one of his prey, a simple animal that fell from a cliff and broke its legs. He and his brothers squabbled over its dying body for an hour before tearing the creature apart. Did it understand? Could it feel? Did it know that it was dying and could no longer defend itself?

He could feel the little ones kicking, screaming within his own body. He desperately willed them into submission, as if this could convince them to stop. It was not their time yet, not their turn.

How had it come to this? Why was he dying? He searched for a memory that was gone. It came from space, the meteorite shower. But it was no meteorite, not a meteorite at all. He remembered that he drew close to it in curiosity, to add it to a collection of treasures in his own home. He remembered how the thing inside emerged, a mess of legs and writhing tentacles, and struck him. He crushed the being with his mighty body, but the damage had been done. Dozens of gashes covered his body, oozing with strange yellow slime that made his body feel so heavy…

He remembered hearing a voice, apologizing for something and telling him something. It seemed so important. It felt wrong to have forgotten about it now.

He opened his eyes to see that he had wandered now, even in his sleep. In the distance, he thought he saw one of his race, running in the opposite direction, screaming. Then he saw it. A metallic structure rising far into the sky, which had come from space just like the meteorite had, and from it a scent of prey.

Drool came thickly down his ravaged jaws as he remembered blood. Surely its inhabitants, swarming inside the ship like it’s a hornet’s nest, would destroy him before he could take his first bite. He didn’t care. He lacked the capacity to care. He could only move towards the vessel.

The dead came dripping down the hill.

I'm going to be updating this on the weekend, just so everyone knows.

From: Emperor Helgi, on the behalf of the hamme of Destination
To: Fehan ships

We seek to establish peaceful contact.

We request your information on the Invaders that previously tried to colonise our planet. They are a polymorphous, undiplomatic, naturally collectivistic species that appears to have arrived through eggs hidden on spacefaring rocks.

The Emissary of the Zan

Nee Firi Pra liked data. It was a beautiful, ethereal matter, soothing to work with and satisfying to put together. In her active mind, had the unique taste of the divine. Thus, work in one of the Collectivity of Sanath’s massive data hubs on the living laboratory world of Kurilate was uniquely well-suited for the young Nitha.

While the vast majority of the Collectivity’s vast communications network traveled through entirely automated relays, a tiny fraction- still an unreasonably large number- wind up ‘orphaned’. Nee’s office handled a small number of these ‘misfires’ traveling through the Collectivity Research Council’s networks on Kurilate.

The Nitha was just getting into her daily working rhythm when a priority alert caught her attention. A friendly, computerized voice spoke

“Point the Line, Organizer Nee, anomalous external transmission.”

External transmission. That alone was enough to draw her attention. Rapidly bringing up the tightly-compacted and encrypted message, Nee skimmed through the data, extracting an address within a few seconds. The intended destination was a lab that had been consolidated, restaffed, reorganized, temporarily erased due to a computer glitch and later reconstituted in an entirely different organization before being formally closed and redistributed, all over the course of the last few centuries. The archaic address was very interesting- either there was a mistake somewhere along the line, or something had transmitted this from very far away using primitive tools. Or, potentially, they had been away so long that they were not up to date on the latest streamlining of the Collectivity’s bureaucracy, and were neglecting standard data packaging procedures. Regardless of the source, it was now the Nitha’s job to study the message, and distribute it as was appropriate.

With a few deft movements, the message decrypted, and Nee let the knowledge wash over her.


Hello, this is Kara’Tash, agent of the Collectivity of Sanath. I remain with Kena, and I have transmitted this message with important updates on the Zan war. Kena’s forces have engaged the forces of the Zan Turquan, winning a victory over his expeditionary force with relatively few losses. However, Turquan, as far as I can tell, is a relatively minor Zan. There are at least 4 major Zan Lords inbound towards Kena’s space, and I still cannot predict what collateral damage may be suffered by those unfortunate enough to exist nearby, such as ourselves. I will provide a breakdown of what intelligence I have gathered, and what I have been told by Kena herself, at the end of this transmission.

In less military matters, Kena has replicated some of the Zan Shamai’s cloning systems, and has successfully generated an intact duplicate of herself, much as I am a duplicate of Shamai. That knowledge still bothers me deeply, but not as much as it did in the past. Shamai was mad, and monstrous... but he was a product of the trials endured by all Zan, and his actions which killed billions may, should our gambit pay off, end up saving the lives of trillions. This successful experiment has at last confirmed to us that it is possible to redeem Zan civilization, and recreate my people in the organic bodies we possessed prior to the Cataclysm, of which Kena implies so much and speaks so little.

The theological implications of such a turnaround are stunning, but that is not my area of expertise, so I shall leave it to some enlightened Qii to say just what it means to draw goodness out of what was once believed to be pure evil.

At any rate, Kena and I have christened our ersatz daughter ‘Anaa’, which appears to be a name of some significance to Kena. She has not yet explained to me precisely what this significance is, though I suspect I shall learn in time. Anaa’s development, both mental and physical, is proceeding at a normal rate, according to Kena’s information about Zan physiology. The fact that I was raised with absolutely no foreknowledge of my own physiology is, frankly, miraculous, and I must express again my tremendous gratefulness to my parents on Kurilate, and as always send my love and kindest thoughts to the House of Rashtala.

Now, to matters of intelligence. I have transmitted all that I can in a separate burst, but here contains the core information regarding the relevant Zan in this conflict.

At present, there are in the range of 300 Zan organisms, each one encased within a mechanical shell. Years of attrition have worn down Zan numbers to this, and I am to understand that the only survivors are those who were strong-willed enough, or insane enough to tolerate an eternity of cold isolation. Apparently, all those Zan who were of softer and more sensitive dispositions committed suicide fairly early on after their encasement.

The Zan are led by three figures: Kiros, Tellos and Ma.

Kiros is Lord-Hegemon of the Zan. He is regarded as being very wise, and Kena believes that he supports her cause, but has his hands tied by the prospect of revolt at the hands of some of the powerful, dogmatic reactionaries within the Zan Hegemony- most notably Qurman, Debolis and Jadu. Kena maintains that Kiros hopes to use her revolt against the hegemony to weaken the reactionary trio, so that he will then be able to push through Kena’s plan with less resistance, but I am dubious. I fear that Kena may recognize the desperation of her situation, and be scrabbling at any possibility of salvation.

Tellos is the master of the Mind Networks, the systems through which the Zan are able to remotely exert control over their mechanical empires, and communicate with each other. I recognize the potential applications of bringing this knowledge to the Collectivity, but Kena regrettably denies knowledge of how her own Mind Network functions. At any rate, we are unsure of the allegiances of Tellos, but Kena is wary- he may very well be able to snoop on her actions, passing on valuable intelligence to Kena’s enemies.

Ma is the master of the Living Shell, the engineer and designer behind the mechanical bodies of today’s Zan. He seems to side with the reactionaries, although this could simply be because of the powerful influence he wields due to the present incapacitation of the Zan- he has little motivation to alter the status quo.

Three significant Zan stand actively against Kena: Jadu, Qurman and Debolis. These Zan are

Jadu is ‘The Master of a Thousand Suns’. This boast is odd, as 1000 suns is not a terribly large empire, and Kena refers to his as the largest. Perhaps it refers to 1000 systems with habitable planets, which would be significantly more impressive. Or maybe it is simply a colourful title, the likes of which the Zan seem to be quite inordinately fond of. He is biologically the son of Kiros, which would make him some sort of Zan Prince, but I am not entirely sure if Zan society is structured that way. Regardless, Zan Jadu is a terrible threat, whose forces have already arrived at the edges of Kena’s space.

Qurman is proud to call himself the annihilator of Turamak Katzil. We are well aware of the Turamak Civilization which preceded the Collectivity. Our xenoarchaeologists are well familiar with their ruins and artifacts, and their beacon system remains partially activated throughout known space, giving us a rough outline of the extent of their civilization. Qurman is the Zan who destroyed this civilization in retaliation for the Turamak execution of the Zan Yamal, indirectly paving the way for our own ascension to prominence. At any rate, this is just background information, and I do not doubt that you already have access to it. Qurman is our nearest neighbour, existing one arm out from ourselves, and his forces could very possibly end up traversing Collectivity Space.

Debolis is fortunately quite distant, and Kena estimates that, if she can defeat Jadu quickly, then Debolis will arrive too late to fight alongside his ally. This is a very major if, one that I find quite alarming. I am fearful of death, and Kena’s hopes here seem alarmingly slim.

Kena has discussed three other Zan by name, who I will discuss now.

First comes Turquan, who is relevant only in that his fleets have been torn asunder by those of Kena. I have learned relatively little of this individual. Kena describes him as the Guardian of the Homeworld, the Gatekeeper- this seems to be a symbolic role, as the Zan Homeworld (apparently somewhere on the galactic fringes, rather than the core as previously hypothesized) has been described to me as a dead planet, and a shrine.

Next is Malwai. Kena speaks of him in odd terms which I do not understand. After a long period of miscommunication, she said that I could refer to him as ‘The Prophet of the Zan’. I do not know what this entails, but Kena tells me that he is sympathetic to our cause.

Finally, Kena has mentioned Zan Meori, but only in the context of having some fervent opposition to Shamai and his technologies. He may prove to be an enemy because of Kena’s use of Shamai’s cast-offs alone.

Beyond these figures, there are many minor Zan, but these individuals do not rule Empires. There was a time when Zan machine gods would strike out to carve empires of their own, but some lethargy (or maybe the extinction of these foolhardy adventurous types) has overcome the remainder, who are content to remain in a region of space around the burnt-out Zan homeworld. There is much ideological diversity in here, and the genetic hope of our species lies in these individuals- however, any military aid they can offer will be pitifully small.

Thus, we have the leadership of the hegemony by a pragmatist, who must deal with a cartel of powerful ideologues. Kena forms an opposition to these ideologues, but almost all of her potential allies are dreadfully weak and unready to fight.

We must, at this point, consider the possibility of fighting alongside Kena, depending on how we wish for this long operation, this quest... this gamble to turn out.

I anxiously anticipate your response.


Nee blinked twice, and pursed her lips in thought. Within a split second, her decision was made.

“Point the line computer, transmit this on high-priority to the Collectivity Management Council immediately.”

das said:

From: Emperor Helgi, on the behalf of the hamme of Destination
To: Fehan ships

We seek to establish peaceful contact.

We request your information on the Invaders that previously tried to colonise our planet. They are a polymorphous, undiplomatic, naturally collectivistic species that appears to have arrived through eggs hidden on spacefaring rocks.

Click to expand...

To: Helhi of the Hami
From: Fleet Command

We are pleased to find yet another species in the universe; peaceful contact is most welcome. We will happily transmit our information on those who ruined Surihihao, who seem to match your description, and would quite willingly ally with your people to eradicate them from our section of the galaxy.


OOC: Still thinking how to tackle this next arc. It's weird.

Part 1

I think the true danger comes when a species starts to construct its own wonders, – when they surpass what the world has placed before them with their own monuments. For then, what the universe has placed before them no longer holds any awe for them. They begin to believe they are gods; and they are not – yet.

Of course, what is truly amusing (or perhaps truly terrifying) about this is the simple fact that the Fehan had no word for gods until they traveled to other worlds. Then, they met new peoples, and they needed a term to translate what those others were saying. It is enough to make any species believe they are the center of the universe – to learn the word “god” from your worshipers...

– Essays on the End Days, by Anarai Hulao

She was a Fleet baby. Not that that was all that unusual these days, but she had never really known a life outside the fleet – nowadays, when they gave her time off, she was never really sure what to do with herself, and usually just ended up wandering around wherever she had left off.

Her name was Mora, a word which meant “Lucky” in some barely-remembered language of old Helan. They told her that the marine who had picked her up from the wreckage of her hometown named her that, simply because she was lucky to be alive – that, and the fact that her parents had been roasted by incendiaries, and that she had been too young to tag with the neural chip. Barely born, as it happened, and that alone made her unusual, even for a Fleet baby. She had a chip now, of course – who didn't? – and she had a name, but Lucky couldn't help but wonder what life might have been like if her childhood had been marginally more normal.

She wandered, lost in thought. Her planetside leave was in the Sathan system – the city had been built in the atmosphere of a gas giant – a magnificent hanging gardens in the midst of an oxygen belt, only a few million miles away from Sathan itself. The architects had created a series of vast waterfalls that went from the upper levels of the city through every layer, splashing against rock, tree, and glass plate before finally plunging though the lowest observational platforms into the abyss, the endless atmosphere below. Foolhardy birds flew there, as if daring each other to approach the spray of water that would mean certain doom for them all. Wherever the Fehan went, it seemed, they preferred to build a forest.

A message appeared in her vision (their neural chips projected messages directly onto their retinas these days), summoning her to one of the briefing rooms in the city. She smiled. Leave never really meant leave; her superiors knew that she had barely any use for the time off.

A few minutes later, Lucky found herself in one of the quiet little pods in the very top of the city. It could have been anywhere in the Empire, really; only the red-orange tint of the clouds below reminded them that they were in an otherworldly place. Another Fehan stood there, waiting for her: Lucky couldn't recognize her, and the neural chip was giving her absolutely nothing.

“Nice to meet you, Lucky.”

“And you, sir.”

“Call me Hili.” Hili hadn't even looked at Lucky; staring out the windows at the swirling clouds below. Lucky stepped closer, to try and get a look at her face.

“You're probably wondering what the next emergency is.”

“I tried not to make any assumptions.”

The other Fehan's snout curled, a gesture of amusement. “But you wondered.” Lucky didn't bother to answer, waiting for Hili to continue. After a moment, she did. “Our problem's really quite simple. Fleet Command's disappeared.”

It took a moment for Lucky to process the statement. “Wait, what?”

“Our last transmission from them took place nearly a day ago. We sent a couple ships to poke around, but that only made it worse. It's not just Fleet Command. It's Anlu.”

“What do you mean?”

“Anlu – the whole planet – has just up and vanished. Not a single trace of it. We swept the area for hours... we still have ships sweeping the area, but there's nothing there. Not even a single asteroid. It wasn't cratered, it wasn't obliterated, it wasn't atomized. It just... vanished.”

“Was it some kind of enemy?”

“Well, we sure don't know any enemy who would be able to do that. Maybe we're just learning about them. Then again, maybe this is some kinda weird natural disaster. All the same, I'm not wagering on that. I'd like to find out what did it.”

“All right. So you want me to investigate what happened.” Then Lucky stopped short. “Why me? I'm not really an expert on making planets disappear.”

“You're not. So we're sending you to find someone who is.”

“Wait. But I'm not an expert on finding people, either.”

“That's all right. We can give you plenty of help with that part.”

“So... why me?”

Hili turned to face her, finally, and her snout curled downwards in what looked like a sardonic sort of smile. “Because. She's the one who found you in the rubble in the first place.”

Update Music

Update 28
JPS and Hooves: Maya and Black Sun Empire: Arrakis

Update 28

The Xona Ssolors continue to wage on and off wars with their neighbours, establishing forces of various strength on the homeworlds of all of their neighbours. A general trend of large ssolors descending into regular periods of infighting has worked against goals of outright conquest, but the offworld Xona remain able to carve out comfortable existences by predating upon other civilizations.

The Phaska refugees, perhaps offput by the aggressive tone of the Galactic Republic, have altered their course, coming across a new, unclaimed planet upon which they may begin to rebuild their civilization.

With terrible purpose, the forces of the Zan Qurman poured into Republic space, vastly overshadowing the interest in the Phaska. First engagements resulted in the annihilation of several tiny detachments of the Galactic Republic, forced into hopeless fights at the insistence of Mother One. The Galactic Republic held its collective breath as Zan forces surged forwards. However, it soon became clear to the Republic’s intelligence corps that Qurman was almost entirely disinterested in their polity, apparently merely ‘passing through’, paying them little more interest than one would grant to the various insects inhabiting an unkempt lawn. However, this did not stop the aggressive stance held by Mother, the artifician intelligence who commanded much of the Galactic Republic’s state infrastructure.

For an extended period of time leading up to Qurman’s arrival, tensions had been growing in the Galactic Republic regarding Mother’s role in their government. The state, theoretically a democracy, had been growing more and more autocratic over time, a trend that had not gone unnoticed by the Republic’s denizens. While this had been tolerated in the difficult years after Garv’n’s relocation, a more prosperous age led inevitably to agitation for more democratic government. Mother’s aggressive stance in a matter that could lead to the Republic’s wholesale destruction was the breaking point between those who were loyal to the progenitor AI, and those who had put up with altogether too much difficulty from the inscrutable machine. Widespread defections in the navy, led by several disaffected, high-ranking officers representing each of the Republic’s major species, moved on Garv’n and demanded for Mother to relinquish her power. The AI responded by attempting to remotely detonate each of the rogue vessels, a possibility that had been foreseen by the defectors. Several ships who were entirely unaffiliated with the rebellion were detonated, but the rest of the rebels, having already severed their connections to central authority on Garv’n, immediately began to proceed with their war plans. Propaganda blared across the Galactic Republic, as the rebel fleet applied a ‘join us or die’ approach to the remainder of the Republic’s vessels.

Battles raged in space as urban warfare broke out over the ecumenopolis of Garv’n. Rebel marines, hoping to capture the core hardware of Mother, moved quickly, but not fast enough, as Mother had already fled, to shore up her forces in the periphery of the Republic. A secondary war was fought for public support. The first major victory of this campaign was when the Fudirunin Gestalt of Nidkubra declared for the Rebellion, bringing with them every Fudirunin-crewed Combat Armature in the fleet, plus a vast portion of the Galactic Republic’s manpower. The rest of the Republic would have to declare its loyalties soon thereafter, and in the end, only a relatively small, Lauki-dominated portion of the population would side with Mother.

Presently, the Rebellion has established itself in the core worlds of Garv’n and Nua, as well as the half-tamed world of Falcate. Ongoing battles contest the agri-worlds of Cordate and Orbicular. Enterprising Fudirunin have broken old dictates by Mother, sending landing forces down onto the worlds of Barat and Zzndkn. The fiery former world has proven to be highly challenging, due to the rather aggressive and difficult to kill native population of Feral Dendro, while the latter has proven to be exceedingly easy. The native population was not particularly threatening, being a bunch of small, black jelly-like balls who apparently spent most of their time making music and incinerating those who lost the beat. Nidkubra surmised that the any threat posed by the locals was merely in the minds of superstitious Lauki, and colonization has thusfar proceeded apace.

Mother maintains uncontested control of Palmate and Pinnatisect, and continues to fight for turf on Cordate and Orbicular. Her forces, however, a very widely spread, with a great many of them a vast distance away, on the Ma’Autran campaign. When news of the civil war broke out, the loyalist ships immediately annihilated the rebellious Fudirunin and Verthommes in their fleet, and began a full-scale retreat back towards the core of the Republic.

Only a few days after the abandonment of the Republic’s newly constructed base over Zarr, the Skriv rose once again from the planetary surface, ransacking the station and re-establishing their presence in space.

Ma’Autra may well have pursued the fleeing Lauki, had it not been for their habitual eavesdropping over the Turamak beacons, which gave them early awareness of the threat posed by the Zan Qurman. Thus, Ma’Autra opted to content itself with standing back and watching the Rebels tear down the Maus’ age-old enemy, Mother, from afar. Meanwhile, Ma’Autra has begun preparing for potential Zan invasions. The threat posed by the inbound Rama, by comparison, seems minor.

The Collectivity of Sanath remains on heightened alert against the Zan, following troubling intelligence received from both the Galactic Republic and its own agent, Kara’Tash. Zem, the enigmatic ‘Zan Elimination Machine’, quickly broke out of his long vigil over the former homeworld of the now long-deceased Zan Shamai, skipping at stupendous speed across space, on an intercept path towards Qurman’s incoming fleet. The Collectivity finds this sudden reactivation of a previously neutralized ‘rogue actor’ to be just one of many issues requiring attention. However, all of the Zan-caused distractions have not prevented Sanath from involving itself, octopus-like, in the affairs of basically every one of its neighbours.

A breakthrough has been made in the slow process of converting the Choon to the Collectivity’s mindset. The Collectivity-affiliated Choon ‘Diplomat’, the spawn of Dancer, has long engaged in a slow, largely fruitless effort to bring his species into the Sanathi fold. Given that, for this species, eating, breeding and talking are all done by consuming one another, this is understandably difficult. However, the invention of small, engineered Choon filled with all sorts of carefully-generated thoughts (which should, theoretically, take root in the minds of their larger counterparts after predation), has begun to show observable effects in the behaviour of Choon across their area of space. Heartened by this, some Collectivity engineers on Iau have suggested going a step further, developing ‘surgical tactical squads’ to drill deep into the interiors of larger choon to insert neural material directly- however, Diplomat has expressed strong reservations about this proposal, seeing such an action as being akin to mass-lobotomy and genocide.

Contact with the Jubblera remains frustratingly out of reach, even as more and more Sanathi settlers descend onto the two primary worlds of the Jubblera swarm, a pair of thriving colonies that the new settlers have named Marallae and Ekt. The Yplein of the Association of Fplinmy have stated, with some exasperation, that these garden worlds have ancient and beautiful names that far predate the Collectivity, but it is becoming increasingly clear that no one in the Collectivity Management Bureaux pays much more than the most cursory of attentions to the strange affiliation of non-terrestrial aliens that is Fplinmy.

The hotspot in recent years has been on the Kog’Vlad homeworld. Shortly after the first Sanathi agents descended onto the world, prepared to extol the virtues of intragalactic unity and cooperation to a population that had yet to master superluminal transit, bioships belonging the Thachugi Waglafar Thialexiu Xatchrli (quickly condensed to ‘Thuthix’, by the Sanathis who tired of saying his name after the second or third attempt) arrived, offering the planet a formal induction into the Galactic Socialist Democratic Union (a similarly burdensome name which the Sanathis were quick to bemoan as ‘not Rou at all’). An awkward and highly frustrating first contact proceeded, in orbit on the Collectivity’s Heavy Cruiser Manifold Flexor. Sanathi diplomats rapidly advanced through their escalating first contact ‘Arbitration Protocols’, growing increasingly irritated with their new acquaintance’s obnoxious mannerisms. However, the conflict did not boil over until the Collectivity received word that Thuthix had begun some sort of bizarre biological attack on the planetary surface, heavily disrupting both Kog’Vlad and Collectivity operations.

Around this point, just as the Collectivity was organizing a swift, armed response, the entire area abruptly fell out of contact. Collectivity battlefleets, anchored by the City Ships Doctrine, Archangel and Elegant Flow, have begun to muster, preparing for a swift conclusion of the Arbitration. The mobilization, it seems, cannot be fast enough- scattered reports of horrific fungal infestations amongst the Kog’Vlad grow more desperate by the day. More troubling still is intelligence reporting Collectivity vessels, including the Manifold Flexor itself, moving in formation with Waglafar’s bioships.

In the rarefied edges of the local galactic arm, Hess’peh has come across a cold, dead husk of a world, its mantle solidified and the pitiful remnants of its crust interlaced with strange matter of an organic nature. With characteristic morbidity, the Nurm of Hess’peh determined that this lifeless, miserable, blasted planet would be a fine place for their new planetary base, christening it Hon-Tok and establishing a settlement in one of the planet’s more stable lava plains.

The Amur continue to struggle to establish themselves on Amur-sa, maintaining a wary eye on the native mechanical lifeforms, who watch the actions of the settlers in an unsettling silence.

On Destination, the Great Hamme continues to distribute more and more of its resources back into space, reclaiming their racial legacy that had been lost to them since the sundering of the Ysir between the Migrant and Habitant factions, over half a millennium in the past. Great fleets, armed to the teeth with both exploratory equipment and military hardware, have set out into the void, hunting for the origin of the invading swarm which nearly exterminated their civilization. Their most promising hope for information had been to contact the strange, yet still mighty Fehan. While the Fehan expressed interest at cooperation against the Surikahi, as they called the aliens, the mighty Fehan Fleet was soon thrown into a most unexpected state of disarray, dashing hopes of a combined offensive against the insectile menace.

For well over a thousand cycles, the Fehan ‘Empire’, for lack of a better word for the strange, hierarchical meritocracy that was the Fehan Fleet, had been one of the most dominant and powerful forces native to known space. While it had only needed to flex its military muscle a scant few times, each conflict was characterized by the swift application of overwhelming force, followed by pragmatically brutal subjugation. Some conquered species came to play valuable roles in service to the Fehan, such as the Akari, who ultimately came to form a diverse merchant caste operating a healthy free market under the aegis of the fleet. Others, such as the Tunului and Vintorez, are seen as being of limited value and are heavily marginalized as a result, losing almost all recognizable features of their cultures, becoming minorities on their own homeworlds and having next to no presence off of them. Still, this may be preferable to the sorry state of the Sadhilim and the Karronics, who forged an ill-fated alliance during the Fehan-Karronic war. Both species now eke out a troglodyte existence under the ruined biospheres of their homeworlds, their surviving populations still locked in an ineffectual state of warfare with against their dominant opponents.

Never troubled by the massive wars that regularly wrack spinwards space, and content with their current expansion, the Fehan were free to grow and develop. Power gradually shifted more and more into the hands of the Fleet, even as the homeworld of Helan gradually fell into decrepitude and intraspecies warfare from lack of resources. With access to the vast resources available in outer space, the Fleet came to eclipse the neglected homeworld, rising far above and beyond the technology of their contemporaries. While a lack of major threats led to a relative atrophy in military technology (even against the fearsome Surikahi, scouting intelligence was far more important than the relatively trivial matter of destroying the creatures), the Fehan surged ahead, gaining an extraordinarily detailed understanding of physics. Technological singularity was achieved in the hermetic confines of several Fleet-controlled research laboratories, although this tremendous advance remained confined to a handful of highly secretive environments. It was in these areas that the seeds of the Fleet’s undoing were sown- though to be accurate the Fleet was not undone so much as it… transitioned into a new paradigm of existence.

As observed from the periphery of the Fehan Empire, the whole world of Anlu, and all of the ships and material surrounding it, abruptly and without any signal, disappeared. Thrown into panic and disarray, the Fehan who remained scrambled to discover the source of this inexplicable rapture, so far without any clear result. However, the tribulations of the Fehan, it seems, are just beginning. From the galactic fringe, a task force of extremely advanced ships has appeared, and proceeded to brazenly trespass into the core of Fehan space. While a single shot has yet to be fired, the Fehan for the first time know the fear of an incoming Zan Armada.

Unity has been restored for the Kadanoff, following the last stand of the Rachem Ascendancy at the Battle of Barum. As has been the case throughout the whole latter portion of the war, superior engineering and numbers won the day for the Kadanoff, who have proven themselves, after generations of warfare, to be more than capable of dealing with a few psychically-adept genetic experiments gone wrong.

At the rimwardsmost edges of known space, the Samaynoch and Ksspopok continue their dangerous dance, as the Highclans begin to probe into Exile space, testing their bretheren for weakness.

Meanwhile, on the world of Gorod, a lightning-quick war broke out and resolved itself in a matter of days. Emerging victorious is a new, unifying planetary government, which has wholeheartedly thrown the resources of the Chorn homeworld into developing a formidable space program. The Fehan, who had in the past observed the Chorn with detached interest, currently have far greater concerns to deal with than watching a juvenile species conduct their first tentative forays into transcending the light barrier.

Map

Nice update Igglez.

Considering joining.

Where would people recommend I go, and what should I read before joining? (other than the first few posts, of course)

Well, one thing I love about this NES is that you can start just about anywhere, and it's IC to not know the background (as your species does yet know out of life outside its homeworld). I'll start you off somewhere on the fringes of known space, most likely.

You only need to know backstory if you want to take over an existing species, or make something that is somehow tied into this region's interstellar history.

Sirtis'e Convoy Company/Optical

Species: (Picture pending) T'kavit. Bat-like creatures with leathery wings, they stand on two bird-like clawish feet, about 2.1 m tall. Their wingspan is even larger, each wing measuring around 1.5 metres, but these can be folded back or around the front as each T'kavit wishes, fro convenience and warmth. They are warm-blooded. Their skin is leathery and bleached white, and their eyes are small and white, with tiny, almost indistinguishable pupils. This is due to their planet's proximity to its sun. Days are extremely hot, while nights are very cold.

History: The T'kavit, burrow-dwelling creatures with leathery skin and wings, live on Kaut’avel Vikka, a planet close to its orbiting sun, which the T'kavit call simply Light, or Canatlis in the T'kavitan language. According to T'kavit recorders, the bugs that are the other primary inhabitants of the planet - with crusty or leathery skins, with a form much like grasshoppers, dragonflies or praying mantises - are the distant ancestors of the T'kavit. For this reason, the T'kavit call then Tjakkis, or kin. Besides the T'kavit and Tjakkis, little inhabits Kaut'avel Vikka. It is for this reason that the T'kavit developed the way they did.

T'kavit have had written language for as long as they have had glass, an important and early development in T'kavit civilisation - perhaps due to the sandy planet they inhabit. Large glass plates or blocks on thin layers of sandstone serve as the base for scratchings, and from this an alphabet developed that forms the basis for T'kavit writing. Fabric was woven from the small, stunted grasses that grow on Kaut'avel Vikka, finding what sustenance they can in the earths deep beneath. It is these grasses that support the T'kavit population - and it is due to this that the population remained small, less than a hundred thousand, for such a long time.

Two thousand years since the invention of writing, it was discovered that if such grasses were uprooted and planted in the deep burrows that T'kavit use as cool shelter in the day and warm shelter at night, they flourished. Soon enough, the T'kavit were host to a population explosion as huge burrows were filled with the grasses, which had begun to grow to around half a metre tall. The smaller grasses were left for Tjakkis, although soon they, too, began to thrive as some found their way into the underground planting burrows.

All this meant that over time, a thriving merchant culture grew among the T'kavit. Soon, other discoveries began to be made, mining began in places, a monetary system was developed, based on carved limestone 'coins' - and the population continued to grow. Perhaps fortunately for the species, fascination with the depths of space developed around the same time that Kaut'avel Vikka began to fill out. It is now almost at the point at which it simply cannot sustain more T'kavit.

T'kavit ships soon took to the skies with their trading knowledge and lust for discovery. Colonies began to form on other planets, some cooler than Kaut'avel Vikka and with a liquid, clear and satisfying to consume. It has been coined tisqali by the exploring merchants, and has been declared free (and illegal to sell, perhaps fortunately).

Now, with the thriving two hundred million T'kavit on Kaut'avel Vikka and around the same number of T'kavit on other planets nearby, the T'kavit merchants - armed with their glass tablets, tisqali and a keen eye for a bargain - venture out into new, open space. Impulse buyers: beware the T'kavit and their Sirtis'e Convoys. They might have just the bargain you're looking for. All of them.
____________________

Glossary:
T'kavit - name of species
Canatlis - light
Kaut'avel Vikka - Endless Sand, literally
Sirtis'e - space/the cosmos
Tjakkis - kin
Tisqali - water

Awesome! Welcome to GalaxyNES!

I might get in on this. I'm working on a species, though I have a feeling its visually too similar to other stuff, specifically the Tyranids.

Also, I can't draw.

How do we do orders here? Do we just write stories detailing stuff happening and then it does?

I ate the last bunch of interstellar bugs.

Masada said:

I ate the last bunch of interstellar bugs.

Click to expand...

They're not really bugs. They're more like space Spartans or something.

They just look a lot like Tyranids, which annoys me a little. They're entire schtick is that they are a species which is evolved in a virulent jungle continent for nothing but combat, meaning that they were forced to enslave the other sentient species on their planet to do anything.

Their arms are basically vestigial T-rex arms, thats how unable to make tools they are.

The problem is that whenever I try to make a species with limbs for combat and vestigal chest arms, it always goes back to Tyranids.

Sanathi Council on Xenoarchaeology, outlining range of space occupied by artefacts relating to the extinct civilization known as 'Turamak Katzil'. Of special note are the Choon, Ma'Autra, Galactic Republic and the former Star-Forest. All of these factions possess some sort of connection to the Turamaks: The Choon received the 'frames' that allow them to engage in superluminal travel from a civilization known as 'The Gifters', theorized to be Turamak Katzil. Ma'Autra and the Star-Forest, whose species, the Maus and the Dendro, appear to have a distant genetic connection, with a divergence estimated to have occurred between five and twenty megacycles in in the past, have been described by the Zan Kena (according to the testimony of Kara'tash) as 'An Overgrown Turamak Garden'. Finally the Galactic Republic has long been influenced by a Turamak Artificial Intelligence known alternatively as 'Mother' and 'One'.

Grandkhan said:

I might get in on this. I'm working on a species, though I have a feeling its visually too similar to other stuff, specifically the Tyranids.

Also, I can't draw.

How do we do orders here? Do we just write stories detailing stuff happening and then it does?

Click to expand...

You just write stories detailing stuff happening, and I incorporate it into the updates.

Masada said:

I ate the last bunch of interstellar bugs.

Click to expand...

Only a significant percentage of them.

Grandkhan said:

They're not really bugs. They're more like space Spartans or something.

They just look a lot like Tyranids, which annoys me a little. They're entire schtick is that they are a species which is evolved in a virulent jungle continent for nothing but combat, meaning that they were forced to enslave the other sentient species on their planet to do anything.

Their arms are basically vestigial T-rex arms, thats how unable to make tools they are.

The problem is that whenever I try to make a species with limbs for combat and vestigal chest arms, it always goes back to Tyranids.

Click to expand...

If you give me a physical description, I'll draw out something as weird as I can while still keeping true to your words.

To: The Mighty Zan Overlord (Ones with large fleets coming our way!)
From: The Second Akari Republic

On behalf of the worlds of Zephyr, Dalkah, Katifah and their local environs, we humbly petition the Mighty Zan Overlord to spare our constituent worlds in Your Quest to smite your opponents. We offer whatever assistance our humble worlds can provide to Your Fleets. We have a good deal of contacts throughout the sector and we would serve You at Your Beck and call.