Update 20
Rapidly regrouping after the chaotic battle over Garv’n, the Zan Kena brought the Dirge of Eternity to bear against the Devouring One. Drawn towards the massive energy source, the all-consuming biomechanical monstrosity at last met a bigger mouth than its own. The sphere of existence around the Devourer was ripped entirely out of the dimension. This time, there would be no return from the brink. Kena may have taken the moment to enjoy a victory, of sorts- the ‘Galactic’ Republic was shattered, still clinging on to life only by the grace of the meddling Wera, the Devouring One was annihilated, and the last major obstacle to Zan control of the inner edge of the local galactic arm was gone. However, to the shock of many, Kena did not press the advantage. Indeed, the Zan was eerily quiet for a number of years following the last firing of the Dirge.
The causes of this consternation were many. The disturbing suggestion by Chee Nira Cha that Shamai was experimenting with the darkest and most blasphemous of things, while generally brushed, off, remained like an itch in Kena’s mind, ultimately prompting further investigation. However, some suspect that it was something entirely different that drew Kena’s attention away from known space, offering a small measure of relief to the enemies of the Zan throughout the period.
That is not to say that Kena’s enemies had it easy. Even when they didn’t have to deal with the direct attentions of the Zan, Kena remained deadly, and there were always more potential enemies waiting in the wings.
Such was the case for the inhabitants of the antispinward end of the former Galactic Republic. The old Lauki homeworlds, the worlds of Gau, Uex and Au’Kalua had previously survived unscathed through the war, but the disappearance and presumed fall of Garv’n at last brought the fight to their front doorstep. However, even as their fleets moved to face the expected approach vectors of Kena, a crippling strike hit the Lauki from a most unexpected tangent. A vessel, colossal beyond anything the Lauki had believed could be constructed by mortal hands, emerged over Au’kalua. Announcing itself as Au’tuc, the vessel revealed itself to be one of the scattered survivors of Ma’Autra, and the most powerful one to reveal itself yet. A worldship-scale dreadnought, filled with hordes of Lauki, including both the brutish Rax and countless billions of the original breed, undifferentiated from those who had served the Maus so many hundreds of years ago.
Even as Au’kalua fell and became Au once again as the descendents of the Kau and Jun’Lauki were exterminated, the forces of the Zan Kena crashed into the coreward frontier. Gau’s orbital garrison was destroyed at roughly equal cost to Kena, and the planet was slowly overtaken by the creeping Zan occupation. The icy planetoid that held the physical body of One fell shortly thereafter, a few bold Fudirunins and Lauki serving as the last line of defense for the Mother of the Galactic Republic. Suffering heavy losses, but inflicting similar losses on their enemies, the remaining denizens of the Republic retreated to their final base, the Planet Uex. Unaware of the continued survival of Garv’n, this collection of Lauki, Fudirunins, Ullau, and Verthommes are now fortifying their world, preparing to make what they believe to be the last stand of their grand democratic experiment.
Of course, this wasn’t quite the end, for Garv’n lived, albeit a great distance away. The ecumenopolis suffered quite badly from its sudden isolation, but managed to survive, supplying several exploratory missions to get a feel of their new surroundings, and to find potential worlds for habitation. A single nearby world named Nua has been colonized, forming a huge release valve for the population of Garv’n, whose teeming masses pour into the new nanofabricated cities on the alien surface. Still, the Galactic Republic around Garv’n continues to face a grave economic crisis, and mass starvation is still a reality for much of the population.
Elsewhere, the Utarites continued their furious war, even as Ra continued its ceaseless advance, annihilating all civilization on Kutar and tearing apart the planet for resources. More fleets have begun to do the same to Kudur, converting the world’s mineral mass into more vessels for the expanding Rama fleet. Many leaders of the Utarites, both Combine and Alliance, have declared that they would rather die to the alien Rama than live to see their enemies survive victorious. More and more die at the hands of their kin as the implacable and silent world-miners continue their glacial approach towards the Utarite home planets.
Laying low and pointedly avoiding the attention of the Zan, the Shu’Ghoo have been awakened by an outside power long forgotten by its children. In secrecy, they now begin to rearm themselves, preparing to make their return to the galaxy at large.
At a hidden and often mobile lab within Sanathi Territory, the captured Zan embryo was intensively studied and allowed to grow. Successfully birthing the creature from the machine in which it had been interned, the greatest biologists of the Collectivity worked to keep the creature alive, and ultimately, to raise it. This daunting role was taken by the Kasekral Nahka Rashtala, who overcame an initial intolerance of the Zan creature to ultimately become something of an adoptive mother to the being, which came to be named ‘Kara’Tash’. The future of this organism is likely to be of great interest to a great many factions throughout the galaxy.
The Collectivity, while working to win a war against corruption by raising a non-evil Zan, also made sure to not neglect weaponry development. In a counter to recent defeats, most attributable to superior Zan technology, a highly experimental weapon by the name of SYSTEM was installed on several of the Collectivity’s worldships. SYSTEM would experience its first uses across the Zan front, in the rapidly-evolving conflict between the rogue Shamai and the Collectivity. The newly-christened worldships Dakar Tash’kral, N-Dimensional Construct and Naellae all were outfitted this weapon this weapon, as were a few of the older vessels, although many engineers questioned the wisdom of further taxing their aging chassis, given that most of the original worldships had been constructed centuries ago, with the purpose of holding civilians.
Following an affirmative vote by the population of New Braniga, the Warmaster formally joined the Collectivity of Sanath, merging his command structure into the highest echelons of Collectivity Government. The merger started off with a series of rather awkward missteps and conflicts as command reorganized itself, but none of this affected the most critical front, where Warmaster Mirugo personally commanded the forces over the recently liberated world of Koraft.
The New Branigan Corps ships had undergone several significant retrofits, in order to deal with the altered variety of Zan weapons that could now be arrayed against them- Interceptors, Shredder Fields, the Dirge of Eternity and other dire implements. The classic Frigate design has been overhauled to include a larger number of fast tracking light turrets, replacing many, but not all of the heavy weapons platforms equipped on each of these ships. Reinforcing the world heavily, the full force of the Branigan, Kurkrav and Navartines prepared to face off against an arm of Shamai’s force. Long range sensors watched Shamai assemble his force, now containing more small fighters than ever, before moving out. Mirugo prepared his forces, shifting them directly into Shamai’s path in order to prevent a battle from taking place near the vulnerable planet. Much to his well-hidden surprise, a Sanathi force arrived, bearing one of the SYSTEM-equipped City Ship, named for the recently-deceased Kasekral Admiral Dakar Tash’kral.
Shamai arrived and struck with ficious force. Once again, Shredder Fields limited the use of fightercraft, forcing the Warmaster to once again rely on his mid-sized capital ships. However, Mirugo quickly came to realize that the new, fighter-heavy force deployed by Shamai lacked the same firepower possessed by larger vessels- while they hit much harder than their small size would suggest, they were still noticeably more straightforward to deal with, especially given the recent focus on anti-fighter weaponry on Branigan ships. With a much more effective array of forces, and the lack of a Zan superweapon to back up his force, Shamai’s coreward fleet was annihilated. SYSTEM, it turned out, had been entirely unnecessary for achieving victory, and it thus remained an unplayed card in the Collectivity’s hand. The Second Battle of Koraft was a clear victory for the Collectivity of Sanath, serving both as an excellent morale booster, and as an opportunity for the Warmaster to lead the survivors of the battle in a probing move towards Wairt, the old homeworld of the former Zaff Dominion.
Of course, none of this would have been possible had the Zan Kena chosen to advance against the lightly protected flank of the Collectivity force, or simply join up with Shamai in the Battle. However, for reasons still unclear, Kena declined to join in, her intentions evidently directed elsewhere.
On the rimward front, Admiral Dashtek Savarash prepared the defences at Kurilate. While some might have privately questioned the wisdom of granting this critical position to someone tainted by association to the recent scandals on Nakir’kral, the fiery will of the Kasekral to redeem his family’s name, coupled with the warrior’s great charisma, did much to help maintain calm in Kurilate, and order in the planet’s defences.
Shamai struck quickly, even as reinforcements were still arriving, in an unsteady flow, from the more central regions of the Collectivity. Much of the fleet which had previously defeated Chee Nira Cha had made its way through Mechaniform-infested space to join in with the main rimward Zan force. While this dealt some amount of attrition damage to the fleet, it still emerged more or less unscathed near Kurilate, with the Erratum Effacer undamaged. Due to taking this unexpected shortcut, Kurilate was exposed to danger far earlier than Admiral Savarash had expected. Quickly deploying small forces to harass and delay the inbound fleet, the Admiral played for time, continuing his preparations for the greatest battle he would ever fight.
Efforts to delay Shamai paid off, at the cost of a not-insignificant portion of his defensive forces. Several more Ullau Heavy Cruisers and the City-Ship ‘N-Dimensional Construct’ arrived, reinforcing the already-present assortment of repurposed exploration vessels, various semi-obsolete ships of the line and a partly-constructed City Ship that yet to be christened. Only a short while thereafter, Shamai arrived in force. Quickly engaging in his defensive measures, Dashtek Savarash directed a massive amount of waste data across a wide range of channels, in an effort to jam or otherwise interfere with the robotic communications and control systems within the vessels of the Zan. The efforts seemed to have some sort of effect, disorienting several larger vessels and visibly disturbing the elabourate fighter screens, causing the complex formations to break apart in chaotic and frequently destructive manners.
Erratum Effacer fired next, taking out a crowd of Heavy Cruisers. Savarash continued to direct much of his firepower against the Zan Superweapon, dealing visible damage to the vessel’s superstructure, which no longer possessed its protective fighter screen. Despite this advantage, however, the superior numbers of the Zan, even with their coordination disrupted, proved to be more than powerful enough to bring down the Collectivity’s ships at a great rate.
Realizing that the tide of battle was shifting against him, Savarash gave the order to deploy the SYSTEM. N-Dimensional Construct, which until this point had been hanging back at the rear of the Sanathi formation whilst taking potshots at distant Zan vessels, began to advance. SYSTEM was deployed. At the heart of Shamai’s fleet, a huge gravitational disturbance began to rip apart the Zan Warmachines. The field, however, quickly dissipated, after having taken out a sizeable chunk of Shamai’s forces. Suspecting the failure of this new Collectivity weapons system, the Zan pressed his attack, only to be caught in the field again, suffering a vicious blow to his tightly-packed ships. Unwilling to sacrifice more of his fleet or his precious weapon, and perhaps still disoriented by the Sanathi jamming, Shamai withdrew his forces, leaving the Collectivity’s forces very brutally battered, but still alive. For now, Kurilate was safe. However, SYSTEM was no longer a secret. Admiral Savarash, while accepting his victory, noted with regret that Shamai would never be surprised by the new weapon again.
Even as the war raged at one frontier, the opposite edge of the nation continued to open up, as exploratory vessels bridged the void between their home arm and the next arm out. One Ullau-built exploratory vessel encountered a hellish world containing a scattering of colossal, spire-like trees, while the other came across a strange entity named ‘Self’. While limited exploration has occurred thusfar in the former, the latter has proven to be of great interest. A small and pleasant green world, Self seemed to compose the entirety of the ecosystem, a single, colossal photosynthetic encompassing the surface, apparently organized under a single neural network. Collectivity scouts have now landed on the planet’s surface and are attempting to understand the nature of this superorganism, and if it is intelligent enough to communicate. While much attention has been focused on Self by the Sanathi xenobiologists, attention is just beginning to be drawn away by what appear to be clear signals coming from some sort of technological civilization in the area.
The titanic trees, though the Collectivity has yet to realize it, are entirely sentient Feral Dendros. Known as the Root of Barat, these creatures have grown massive in the scorching environment of their homeworld, although they have lost much of the intelligence and communal behaviour common to their smaller relatives. Having spread through space over a very long period of time, the Root of Barat spans a vast regio, its star-seeds still hurtling through the void, waiting to release their passengers onto new habitable worlds. In one case, they have landed on a world named Falcate, populated by Dendro who are isolated from the Star-Forest. While almost no one would be able to recognize it, a terrible war is being waged between its shady boughs, a slow-motion war of domination between the native Dendro and the invasive Ferals, as the newcomers work to establish their dominance over the mental root-systems of this new world.
Fehan exploration goes on, as fleets and single-vessel expeditions push back the shroud of the unknown, adding ever more space and potential new colonies to the vast knowledge base of their species. Near the extreme rimward edge of expansion, the recently-discovered world of Surihihao has been settled, potentially to serve as a base for more future explorations into the unknown. At the other end of Fehan space, several ships came into contact with the exploratory vessels of Zan Kena, neither force opting to open communications with the other. Development continued, in both the expansion of the newer colony worlds and the slow reconstruction and salvaging of the pulverized worlds of Catifah and Sathan. Rogue factions of Karronic survivalists still emerge from deep bunkers to raid for supplies and strike against Fehan bases in the area, but these events, while worthy of some interest, are extremely minor in the greater scheme of things, as the world, by and large, remains dead.
The Mejani, somewhat inexplicably, have ceased to transmit signals to their neighbours. Perplexed and concerned, the Kadanoff have begun to prepare an expedition to investigate the strange silence of their neighbours and trading partners.
Even as some of Shamai’s clones directed the fight against the Collectivity, other Shamais continued to delve into the hidden history of their species. As the group mind that was the new Shamai reached deeper and deeper, secrets that have remained hidden for eons have at last begun to reveal themselves. The source of the cataclysm was detected within Zan genetics, and it was even isolated. Powered on by raw and unconstrained curiosity, Shamai searched further and further into the mystery, until everything came crashing down.
Consumed by doubt after the message from Chee Nira Cha, Kena had increased surveillance on Shamai, and discovered his fellow Zan’s work- it was terrifying beyond the very worst of expectations. Furious, Kena delivered Shamai an ultimatum to cease his lunacy immediately, moving forces into position for a strike against Shamai as a demonstration of the severe nature of this order. Around the same time, Shamai detected a force of Yplein, dragging the corpse of their fallen Yjogl steed, racing at an unheard-of speed- for the Yplein, at least- towards his eponymous base. Faced now with potential enemies on all fronts, Shamai, the prodigal Zan, faces perhaps his greatest challenge yet. The Galaxy’s breath is held.
Map
Rapidly regrouping after the chaotic battle over Garv’n, the Zan Kena brought the Dirge of Eternity to bear against the Devouring One. Drawn towards the massive energy source, the all-consuming biomechanical monstrosity at last met a bigger mouth than its own. The sphere of existence around the Devourer was ripped entirely out of the dimension. This time, there would be no return from the brink. Kena may have taken the moment to enjoy a victory, of sorts- the ‘Galactic’ Republic was shattered, still clinging on to life only by the grace of the meddling Wera, the Devouring One was annihilated, and the last major obstacle to Zan control of the inner edge of the local galactic arm was gone. However, to the shock of many, Kena did not press the advantage. Indeed, the Zan was eerily quiet for a number of years following the last firing of the Dirge.
The causes of this consternation were many. The disturbing suggestion by Chee Nira Cha that Shamai was experimenting with the darkest and most blasphemous of things, while generally brushed, off, remained like an itch in Kena’s mind, ultimately prompting further investigation. However, some suspect that it was something entirely different that drew Kena’s attention away from known space, offering a small measure of relief to the enemies of the Zan throughout the period.
That is not to say that Kena’s enemies had it easy. Even when they didn’t have to deal with the direct attentions of the Zan, Kena remained deadly, and there were always more potential enemies waiting in the wings.
Such was the case for the inhabitants of the antispinward end of the former Galactic Republic. The old Lauki homeworlds, the worlds of Gau, Uex and Au’Kalua had previously survived unscathed through the war, but the disappearance and presumed fall of Garv’n at last brought the fight to their front doorstep. However, even as their fleets moved to face the expected approach vectors of Kena, a crippling strike hit the Lauki from a most unexpected tangent. A vessel, colossal beyond anything the Lauki had believed could be constructed by mortal hands, emerged over Au’kalua. Announcing itself as Au’tuc, the vessel revealed itself to be one of the scattered survivors of Ma’Autra, and the most powerful one to reveal itself yet. A worldship-scale dreadnought, filled with hordes of Lauki, including both the brutish Rax and countless billions of the original breed, undifferentiated from those who had served the Maus so many hundreds of years ago.
Even as Au’kalua fell and became Au once again as the descendents of the Kau and Jun’Lauki were exterminated, the forces of the Zan Kena crashed into the coreward frontier. Gau’s orbital garrison was destroyed at roughly equal cost to Kena, and the planet was slowly overtaken by the creeping Zan occupation. The icy planetoid that held the physical body of One fell shortly thereafter, a few bold Fudirunins and Lauki serving as the last line of defense for the Mother of the Galactic Republic. Suffering heavy losses, but inflicting similar losses on their enemies, the remaining denizens of the Republic retreated to their final base, the Planet Uex. Unaware of the continued survival of Garv’n, this collection of Lauki, Fudirunins, Ullau, and Verthommes are now fortifying their world, preparing to make what they believe to be the last stand of their grand democratic experiment.
Of course, this wasn’t quite the end, for Garv’n lived, albeit a great distance away. The ecumenopolis suffered quite badly from its sudden isolation, but managed to survive, supplying several exploratory missions to get a feel of their new surroundings, and to find potential worlds for habitation. A single nearby world named Nua has been colonized, forming a huge release valve for the population of Garv’n, whose teeming masses pour into the new nanofabricated cities on the alien surface. Still, the Galactic Republic around Garv’n continues to face a grave economic crisis, and mass starvation is still a reality for much of the population.
Elsewhere, the Utarites continued their furious war, even as Ra continued its ceaseless advance, annihilating all civilization on Kutar and tearing apart the planet for resources. More fleets have begun to do the same to Kudur, converting the world’s mineral mass into more vessels for the expanding Rama fleet. Many leaders of the Utarites, both Combine and Alliance, have declared that they would rather die to the alien Rama than live to see their enemies survive victorious. More and more die at the hands of their kin as the implacable and silent world-miners continue their glacial approach towards the Utarite home planets.
Laying low and pointedly avoiding the attention of the Zan, the Shu’Ghoo have been awakened by an outside power long forgotten by its children. In secrecy, they now begin to rearm themselves, preparing to make their return to the galaxy at large.
At a hidden and often mobile lab within Sanathi Territory, the captured Zan embryo was intensively studied and allowed to grow. Successfully birthing the creature from the machine in which it had been interned, the greatest biologists of the Collectivity worked to keep the creature alive, and ultimately, to raise it. This daunting role was taken by the Kasekral Nahka Rashtala, who overcame an initial intolerance of the Zan creature to ultimately become something of an adoptive mother to the being, which came to be named ‘Kara’Tash’. The future of this organism is likely to be of great interest to a great many factions throughout the galaxy.
The Collectivity, while working to win a war against corruption by raising a non-evil Zan, also made sure to not neglect weaponry development. In a counter to recent defeats, most attributable to superior Zan technology, a highly experimental weapon by the name of SYSTEM was installed on several of the Collectivity’s worldships. SYSTEM would experience its first uses across the Zan front, in the rapidly-evolving conflict between the rogue Shamai and the Collectivity. The newly-christened worldships Dakar Tash’kral, N-Dimensional Construct and Naellae all were outfitted this weapon this weapon, as were a few of the older vessels, although many engineers questioned the wisdom of further taxing their aging chassis, given that most of the original worldships had been constructed centuries ago, with the purpose of holding civilians.
Following an affirmative vote by the population of New Braniga, the Warmaster formally joined the Collectivity of Sanath, merging his command structure into the highest echelons of Collectivity Government. The merger started off with a series of rather awkward missteps and conflicts as command reorganized itself, but none of this affected the most critical front, where Warmaster Mirugo personally commanded the forces over the recently liberated world of Koraft.
The New Branigan Corps ships had undergone several significant retrofits, in order to deal with the altered variety of Zan weapons that could now be arrayed against them- Interceptors, Shredder Fields, the Dirge of Eternity and other dire implements. The classic Frigate design has been overhauled to include a larger number of fast tracking light turrets, replacing many, but not all of the heavy weapons platforms equipped on each of these ships. Reinforcing the world heavily, the full force of the Branigan, Kurkrav and Navartines prepared to face off against an arm of Shamai’s force. Long range sensors watched Shamai assemble his force, now containing more small fighters than ever, before moving out. Mirugo prepared his forces, shifting them directly into Shamai’s path in order to prevent a battle from taking place near the vulnerable planet. Much to his well-hidden surprise, a Sanathi force arrived, bearing one of the SYSTEM-equipped City Ship, named for the recently-deceased Kasekral Admiral Dakar Tash’kral.
Shamai arrived and struck with ficious force. Once again, Shredder Fields limited the use of fightercraft, forcing the Warmaster to once again rely on his mid-sized capital ships. However, Mirugo quickly came to realize that the new, fighter-heavy force deployed by Shamai lacked the same firepower possessed by larger vessels- while they hit much harder than their small size would suggest, they were still noticeably more straightforward to deal with, especially given the recent focus on anti-fighter weaponry on Branigan ships. With a much more effective array of forces, and the lack of a Zan superweapon to back up his force, Shamai’s coreward fleet was annihilated. SYSTEM, it turned out, had been entirely unnecessary for achieving victory, and it thus remained an unplayed card in the Collectivity’s hand. The Second Battle of Koraft was a clear victory for the Collectivity of Sanath, serving both as an excellent morale booster, and as an opportunity for the Warmaster to lead the survivors of the battle in a probing move towards Wairt, the old homeworld of the former Zaff Dominion.
Of course, none of this would have been possible had the Zan Kena chosen to advance against the lightly protected flank of the Collectivity force, or simply join up with Shamai in the Battle. However, for reasons still unclear, Kena declined to join in, her intentions evidently directed elsewhere.
On the rimward front, Admiral Dashtek Savarash prepared the defences at Kurilate. While some might have privately questioned the wisdom of granting this critical position to someone tainted by association to the recent scandals on Nakir’kral, the fiery will of the Kasekral to redeem his family’s name, coupled with the warrior’s great charisma, did much to help maintain calm in Kurilate, and order in the planet’s defences.
Shamai struck quickly, even as reinforcements were still arriving, in an unsteady flow, from the more central regions of the Collectivity. Much of the fleet which had previously defeated Chee Nira Cha had made its way through Mechaniform-infested space to join in with the main rimward Zan force. While this dealt some amount of attrition damage to the fleet, it still emerged more or less unscathed near Kurilate, with the Erratum Effacer undamaged. Due to taking this unexpected shortcut, Kurilate was exposed to danger far earlier than Admiral Savarash had expected. Quickly deploying small forces to harass and delay the inbound fleet, the Admiral played for time, continuing his preparations for the greatest battle he would ever fight.
Efforts to delay Shamai paid off, at the cost of a not-insignificant portion of his defensive forces. Several more Ullau Heavy Cruisers and the City-Ship ‘N-Dimensional Construct’ arrived, reinforcing the already-present assortment of repurposed exploration vessels, various semi-obsolete ships of the line and a partly-constructed City Ship that yet to be christened. Only a short while thereafter, Shamai arrived in force. Quickly engaging in his defensive measures, Dashtek Savarash directed a massive amount of waste data across a wide range of channels, in an effort to jam or otherwise interfere with the robotic communications and control systems within the vessels of the Zan. The efforts seemed to have some sort of effect, disorienting several larger vessels and visibly disturbing the elabourate fighter screens, causing the complex formations to break apart in chaotic and frequently destructive manners.
Erratum Effacer fired next, taking out a crowd of Heavy Cruisers. Savarash continued to direct much of his firepower against the Zan Superweapon, dealing visible damage to the vessel’s superstructure, which no longer possessed its protective fighter screen. Despite this advantage, however, the superior numbers of the Zan, even with their coordination disrupted, proved to be more than powerful enough to bring down the Collectivity’s ships at a great rate.
Realizing that the tide of battle was shifting against him, Savarash gave the order to deploy the SYSTEM. N-Dimensional Construct, which until this point had been hanging back at the rear of the Sanathi formation whilst taking potshots at distant Zan vessels, began to advance. SYSTEM was deployed. At the heart of Shamai’s fleet, a huge gravitational disturbance began to rip apart the Zan Warmachines. The field, however, quickly dissipated, after having taken out a sizeable chunk of Shamai’s forces. Suspecting the failure of this new Collectivity weapons system, the Zan pressed his attack, only to be caught in the field again, suffering a vicious blow to his tightly-packed ships. Unwilling to sacrifice more of his fleet or his precious weapon, and perhaps still disoriented by the Sanathi jamming, Shamai withdrew his forces, leaving the Collectivity’s forces very brutally battered, but still alive. For now, Kurilate was safe. However, SYSTEM was no longer a secret. Admiral Savarash, while accepting his victory, noted with regret that Shamai would never be surprised by the new weapon again.
Even as the war raged at one frontier, the opposite edge of the nation continued to open up, as exploratory vessels bridged the void between their home arm and the next arm out. One Ullau-built exploratory vessel encountered a hellish world containing a scattering of colossal, spire-like trees, while the other came across a strange entity named ‘Self’. While limited exploration has occurred thusfar in the former, the latter has proven to be of great interest. A small and pleasant green world, Self seemed to compose the entirety of the ecosystem, a single, colossal photosynthetic encompassing the surface, apparently organized under a single neural network. Collectivity scouts have now landed on the planet’s surface and are attempting to understand the nature of this superorganism, and if it is intelligent enough to communicate. While much attention has been focused on Self by the Sanathi xenobiologists, attention is just beginning to be drawn away by what appear to be clear signals coming from some sort of technological civilization in the area.
The titanic trees, though the Collectivity has yet to realize it, are entirely sentient Feral Dendros. Known as the Root of Barat, these creatures have grown massive in the scorching environment of their homeworld, although they have lost much of the intelligence and communal behaviour common to their smaller relatives. Having spread through space over a very long period of time, the Root of Barat spans a vast regio, its star-seeds still hurtling through the void, waiting to release their passengers onto new habitable worlds. In one case, they have landed on a world named Falcate, populated by Dendro who are isolated from the Star-Forest. While almost no one would be able to recognize it, a terrible war is being waged between its shady boughs, a slow-motion war of domination between the native Dendro and the invasive Ferals, as the newcomers work to establish their dominance over the mental root-systems of this new world.
Fehan exploration goes on, as fleets and single-vessel expeditions push back the shroud of the unknown, adding ever more space and potential new colonies to the vast knowledge base of their species. Near the extreme rimward edge of expansion, the recently-discovered world of Surihihao has been settled, potentially to serve as a base for more future explorations into the unknown. At the other end of Fehan space, several ships came into contact with the exploratory vessels of Zan Kena, neither force opting to open communications with the other. Development continued, in both the expansion of the newer colony worlds and the slow reconstruction and salvaging of the pulverized worlds of Catifah and Sathan. Rogue factions of Karronic survivalists still emerge from deep bunkers to raid for supplies and strike against Fehan bases in the area, but these events, while worthy of some interest, are extremely minor in the greater scheme of things, as the world, by and large, remains dead.
The Mejani, somewhat inexplicably, have ceased to transmit signals to their neighbours. Perplexed and concerned, the Kadanoff have begun to prepare an expedition to investigate the strange silence of their neighbours and trading partners.
Even as some of Shamai’s clones directed the fight against the Collectivity, other Shamais continued to delve into the hidden history of their species. As the group mind that was the new Shamai reached deeper and deeper, secrets that have remained hidden for eons have at last begun to reveal themselves. The source of the cataclysm was detected within Zan genetics, and it was even isolated. Powered on by raw and unconstrained curiosity, Shamai searched further and further into the mystery, until everything came crashing down.
Consumed by doubt after the message from Chee Nira Cha, Kena had increased surveillance on Shamai, and discovered his fellow Zan’s work- it was terrifying beyond the very worst of expectations. Furious, Kena delivered Shamai an ultimatum to cease his lunacy immediately, moving forces into position for a strike against Shamai as a demonstration of the severe nature of this order. Around the same time, Shamai detected a force of Yplein, dragging the corpse of their fallen Yjogl steed, racing at an unheard-of speed- for the Yplein, at least- towards his eponymous base. Faced now with potential enemies on all fronts, Shamai, the prodigal Zan, faces perhaps his greatest challenge yet. The Galaxy’s breath is held.
Map
and let Kena be the Zan of the area...
