Six Societies, Obviously...

[Iron Coyote]

The following are introductions to the statuses of several species. The only one anyone's required to read is the one for their character. This’s a very structured setting, if you don’t already see that…

Short Summary
Humans: Aggressively protect themselves and expand
Arkeni: Claim more territory and exterminate unneeded species
Utalic: Make money and subjugate others
Secare: Find a new home and seek revenge
Amall: Win the civil war and make allies
Parak: Find a way to continue their species and guide other species
Neokhronos: Find out about the Arkhaios

First Contact
The dim light of the sun in the west cast an otherworldly glow on a most magnificent form. In the breezy green meadow, it stood out more than anything, being at least a kilometer of muted gray metal. In the twilight, one could make out her form just barely if they hadn’t mistaken her glory for the sky itself. Her main body was a single straight spine, fitted with countless windows and the ribs around the midsection took up a much larger volume, packed with turrets, a few thousand light-mounted railguns. Her engines whas been upgraded from the sublight propulsion her predecessors had used. She was outfitted with a single large ring, slightly smaller than the ribs. Inside of the ring, her dimensional-drive was housed, hence the missile silos integrated into any and all free space on the ring. Her anterior marked where the spine extended into her cranium, the bridge tucked in the center of the head. Several decks winded around her body, and busy parasites scampered across her thick skin. One of them looked out over the crowd, her voice projected through the loudspeakers below.

“Telluria!” She cried from the deck, a kilometer high, “How’s she look to you? Tonight we’ll unfurl our sails and finally reach the depths. And when we’ve outpaced the radiant sun, we’ll return to tell the story!” A thunderous roar erupted beneath as Cassandra strode into the bridge. The deck shook beneath her, and she wasn’t sure it would even hold for the short duration of lift-off. After a few leaders gave speeches of their own, far more important than an engineer’s enthusiastic remarks, a few guards corralled the mobs of eager watchers to a safe distance from the mechanical beast. Her sublight engines had warmed up for a few hours prior, and her nose lay obscured by a stray stratus cloud. The countdown began, and Cassandra assumed her position at one of the feedback displays. Ten years and now the mighty Liberator would finally feel the harsh, black void on her hull.

The vessel shook with vigor as the hundreds onboard held onto their seats. Cassandra could remember the hour they’d discovered the dimensional-drive. It was a tragic incident certainly, resulting in the disappearance of a several-billion-dollar particle accelerator. Later calculations with the information obtained prior to the disaster revealed that the structure had been transported to a position deep within the continental crust. With the knowledge acquired from the last moments of operation, several more tests were carried out, culminating in the Cantabile-006 dimensional-drive. A few more moments and the Liberator had parked itself in low orbit. Many other ships were being sent into the skies, to supply materials for an orbital dry-dock. The Liberator was going to pass all the activity, and she drifted in the direction of Alpha Centauri, the first site of exploration. Sublight engines roared one last time as the Liberator’s dimensional-drive charged.

Without warning, a small fighter appeared nearby. It shot at her engines a couple times before the multitude of turrets finally locked on and blasted the enemy ship to bits. That wasn’t the last of them either. From just within sensor range, a blocky vessel about an eighth of her size appeared with a ring ten times its size strapped to its chassis. A few shots managed to disable the vehicle after it’d deployed its payload. “There’re more of them…” one of the engineers lamented at a second glance to his sensory display.” Several hundred more fighter craft had approached, along with a single massive carrier, nearly twice her girth. The fighters were taken out for the most part, but she couldn’t take much more abuse. The carrier had managed to finish the fighters’ job by decimating the thick backbone that held the engines to the body. The liberator’s small guns were incapable of effectively damaging the opposing vessel, and her hopeful fight was in vain. But as the engine drifted away towards a likely incineration above the Pacific, the crew still present decided to pull one last maneuver with what they had. The engine was more than capable of riding its dimensional-drive through the Earth to save the crew, but they had bigger plans.

The alien carrier backed off from the bleeding Liberator, slowly scooting away from the detached engine. It wasn’t nearly swift enough to evade the weapon. As the engine overheated and detonated, the carrier took full brunt of the shrapnel, the Liberator took advantage of the carrier’s wound, blasting the weakened frame to pieces before a secondary explosion finally caused the enemy to end its life as a rain of metal over the calm blue ocean. A single message relayed from the ship before its destruction, a structured yet unintelligible flurry of angrily-hissed syllables. The massive ring left behind was later taken apart to provide materials for the orbital dry-dock.

Another more familiar transmission came from below, “Liberator, we’ve detected the incident from home, and rescues shuttles will be arriving momentarily. We’ll never be caught off-guard so blatantly again. These creatures will taste bitter lead, when we find them.”

Awakening
“What’s happened?” A lone wolfish creature hung his head in dismay, “Who? Did I?” He’d been reborn into the world, having no recollection of his past lives. One moment he’d not been there, and another, he was racking his mind for an answer, anything to justify this cold. “Where? Why am I? What was I doing here?” Perhaps the only thing that he did know was that he was filled with an unexplainable anger. Without anywhere to place his riled emotions he bit into his arm, his clenched teeth clinking against the shiny metal cuff around his wrist.

“Let me out of here!” he bellowed in pain and anguish. He fell onto his back, legs scrambling to regain their poise. He couldn’t let revenge escape him. His target for such vengeance was nowhere to be seen right now. Had he seen it, he would’ve known. Instead, he wandered through the dull sable corridors, lights flickering on as he approached. He didn’t know better to think anything of it. There was another one on the floor. This equally deranged pile of sleeping and growling anger was a female of his species. She even smelt familiar to him, despite the lack of a name.

“Wake up, dreamer,” he prodded her, glancing around the uniform that loosely draped over her body, just like his with its bright sulfur dyes. “It’s alright now. Has something equally loathsome wrapped its teeth at your neck?” Her legs slowly paced in the air while she lay on her side, but her nose somewhat consciously twitched at his barking voice. Her jaws craned upwards to stretch before two wide citrine disks leered at a familiar face, her waking voice.

“I’ve had the most awful dream, Waking Voice,” the young lady rose to all four legs and instinctively caressed her remembered friend’s cranium. “I killed many of them. I don’t know why. What was I doing? I couldn’t be doing that. Waking Voice, why have we been born into these bodies which can’t be ours? What’s this labyrinth we’ve been placed in?”

“How can you and I be certain this isn’t all there is, dreamer?”

“Behind you, Waking Voice,” the dreamer held her forelimb out to the blackness. The two disoriented, disnatured beasts paced over to the window’s side to look at the many specks of light in the distance. They were certainly lucky creatures, all of this given to them. The glass seemed like a barrier to Waking Voice, at the time. He wanted to see what was outside. He wanted to claim to himself that he’d been to the furthest reaches of his domain, their domain, Waking Voice and Dreamer’s.

Without a spoken word, Waking Voice brought his mitt up on his partner’s neck, convincing her to avert her gaze. Looming large and dorsal to the metal labyrinth, a crystalline world glimmered, bright-blue. Both of them hissed under their breath. “This has to be our enemy, Waking Voice, the untouchable horizon.” Her nose pressed against the glass, her snout in a snarl, she clawed the pane, receiving nothing but a mocking squeak in reply. Backing up, she threw all of her weight onto the glass. “Where’s its neck, Waking Voice!? I’ll sever it. My teeth are still sharp.”

“Be calm. We can’t be irrational. There must be another way to leave the Metal Labyrinth, which we’ve been given by whatever placed us here. The spirits who put us here must have something in mind. If they’ve given us the great gift of the speckled view, than we must be special to them.” Waking Voice slowly strode to a bright yellow ring marked in the floor, “Something seems familiar about this.” Dreamer trotted to his side and gazed upward in wonder. The inner-blue of a metal ring descended upon them, after a bright flash of white light had briefly filled its interior.

All around them, the dull grey labyrinth, their home, was replaced by piercing blue. Neither Waking Voice nor Dreamer liked the blue. The Untouchable Horizon was blue. Blue was clearly a bad color. Dreamer watched Waking Voice with sympathy as he shut his eyes in anger, but curiosity and impudence cocked her head up. A yellow disk, yellow like the uniforms they wore. Even though it hurt them, they couldn’t help themselves from staring into the round. It was painful, but it was such a wonderfully fulfilling pain.

Waking Voice understood what it was they were meant to do now. They were meant to go where pain was. They’d been given anger to drive them forward, and it was their mission. The disk was something sacred. Dreamer’s wide orange disks had allowed them to share their agony. The disk in the Metal Labyrinth had transported them to the unnatural blue. The great disk of the sun had entranced them with its pain. “Dreamer, I understand.”

The others rejoined in their agony, one by one until they were strong again. Some chose to disobey, but they were cast into the blue. Then, when the moment was upon them, Waking Voice ordered their Metal Labyrinths to claim the deepest reaches of the Great Gift. The Arkeni had awoken.

Cloak and Dagger
Sorul never gave any reasoning for the choice of her targets. As long as Rema got what she needed, there’d be no need to get irate over such petty things as reasoning. Sorul had plenty of luxury to hand out for a little dirty work. Given the location of her target, she’d be able to erase her. It was nothing new to Iralok or the Utalics. This was life—and death. Rema was an excellent player in the game too.

Iralok was the closest thing that Utalico had to a central government. Space industry, colonization, and military was completely controlled by Iralok. Other than the metal skull of Iralok, on Utalico, the largest nation was Korigano. Everyone knew about them. They were imperialists to many other nations, and a republic at home. Amrisa was their figure head, but even that nation’s power was unable to compete with Iralok’s political power. After all, it was Iralok that profited from the imperial colonies within Korigano’s domain. Sorul was rather skilled in keeping Amrisa’s taxation in check. One false move from her and Sorul had assured his associates he would make sure Amrisa was caste into the ugliest rung of society.

A temporary residence was present at the supplied coordinates. Understandable, since it was usually Surol’s most wealthy rivals that warranted the most extreme losses. It was easy to hide in a crowd in such a large city. Rema, the veteran hired coercer of Executive Sorul, didn’t stand out much in a crowd. Everyone carried a railgun close to their free hand, and everyone wore plates of metal under their casual garments. Rema’s only notable difference from the masses was her directive, experience, and possibly the quality of the tools she used. Rema wasn’t a poor girl with all her expensive weapons, but she had to do what she had to do to make a living. Taking out her customers’ enemies was the only reason she, herself, wasn’t dead yet.

Five shots came from behind her. She deduced them to be of comparatively large caliber, around a centimeter or so, and they’d been partially deflected by a common chest plate. It was nothing to worry about. Citizens shot at each other an awful lot, even if they weren’t firing to harm or kill. A few of them snickering to themselves, they shot at Rema’s back. She whipped her tail behind her to tell them off, once she’d heard the round deflect against her back.

Rema entered the ornate dwelling. Several of the executives making temporary residence recognized her for who she was. They were all with Iralok and spoke nothing about it. They did throw a few suspicious glances around. A couple of them silently placed wagers on who Surol was planning to snuff out. Rema merely remembered the numbers she needed to. A lift ride later, a few steps after that, she had seen her target. Four guards knocked out and Amrisa dead. Surol had found a better woman for the job.

Later that night, an exploratory fleet had been scheduled to return. All they’d received were a few harsh staccato voices. Another species had put their fleet down. It’d been few decades or so since the fleet had been sent to this world far away. Another passing fleet had picked up the message on sublight. The Utalics had an enemy in this society of staccato talkers, such a pity that these aliens couldn’t stand to work under Iralok. Sorul instructed her underlings “Show this world no mercy if it ever got in their way. All worlds are Iralok’s, highest aspirations with us.”

Exodus
“Who are you!” he clicked into the communication line. “Why are you attacking our noble Queen Halmah? This is our mother’s rightful property!” The Secare, Rachork, did his best to negotiate with these blasphemous aliens. They’d come out of nowhere to attack the queen’s world. They were relentless at it, and reinforcements couldn’t’ve arrived fats enough. Even after bombarding the world with hard radiation, these aliens seemed to be fighting the Clan of Halmah with the mere goal of extermination. “This world is worth nothing to you! It’s our home!”

“The Untouchable Horizon must fall. You’ve brought this upon yourselves, taking claim to the Praeti’s Great Gift. You’re not even Arkeni. What are you worth to us?” The aliens barked with distaste. Rachork knew these were Arkeni. They’d translated the common language of the species when they’d first encountered each other. He was aware of the multiple packs, always at war with each other, or other species. The pack to which Queen Halmah was closest, referred to themselves as the Vaigi.

The massive Arkeni vessels appeared, slipping into existence with bright flashes in prelude. “Queen Halmah, the Arkeni Praeti have made it very clear that they aren’t going to leave us alone,” the Queen had been carried aboard the dreadnought, and Praeti awaited her order to leave their home behind. While he did so, he’d received several reports from other Secare queens. The Arkeni were attempting to bring down the ancient and mighty Secare Empire. “Queen Halmah, many of your sisters have encountered similar assault fleets to this one. I believe the best choice may be to run.”

From the armored innards of the dreadnought, his mother’s melodic voice clicked, “A new home must be found amongst the stars. My children must join us before we start our search. The Arkeni will find their worlds and mothers caught in death. For now, I must ensure that we escape.” Halmah gave her directions with conviction. Rachork and his brothers didn’t pause.

A dozen more dreadnoughts joined Halmah’s caravan, and the Arkeni Core Carriers pursued, along with their entourage of buzzing fighters. They couldn’t escape the zealous Arkeni at this rate. Half of the fleet looped back to hold off the much larger Arkeni fleet. “For the queen!” they cheered in the face of their foes. The ships were short work for the Arkeni Praeti, but they’d given the queen and her fleet the time she needed to escape through the burrow-drive. Their queens would be exterminated and their worlds turned to wasteland for what they’d done. The Secare didn’t like their worlds being taken, and the Arkeni hadn’t even wanted the world for their own use. If nothing else, this taught them the lesson of digging deeper burrows.

Prismatic Divergence
Darijin was a young world, and only a few billion years of time had culminated in the Amalls. One thing the Amall had that many species lacked was a lofty attitude. They would never dream of getting their hands dirty, hence why their cities were placed high in the clouds, held by immensely strong shafts. Several platforms could be held on a single shaft, if need be, and they had devices to keep the environment and lower platforms running below, such as the large lighting systems on their ventral surfaces. Darijin was a very vivacious and diverse place, even with the billions of Amalls that lived in the sky.

Just a few months ago, the Amall had discovered a way to lower zero-point energy in a vacuum. A side-effect of the formerly unpractical process was a temporary increase in the permittivity of space. Sublight engines had developed to the point of speedy acceleration and deceleration, but most missions were still fairly long term. Now, journeys could be made in days and months, instead of the years it had taken the first Amall exodus to reach the nearest habitable world.

It had been known since the first transmission returned that these Amalls were traitors to the government. Sadly, it was far too costly for an Amall vessel packed with guns to make the journey to the world, a good thirty light-years away. This would be the advantage the Imperial Amalls had over the breakaways. Disloyalty was looked at very harshly by the Amalls still living on Darijin.

Admurishin had become much like the former home of her residents. Great cities loomed in the sky, gathered together in several distinct patches, as visible from space. The Darijin Amalls may’ve had their engines, but the Admurishin Amalls had the tactical advantage of distance. Not only that, but another society had taken interest in them. Whenever they showed up for meetings, they appeared to be roughly similar to the Amalls in physiology. Despite all those similarities, anyone could see from the angular components of these others that they were machines, haphazardly built to resemble those they were meeting with. The aliens had previously indicated that any fighting the Amalls did couldn’t be interfered with, due to a crisis among the aliens’ species. When decision day finally came, the Amalls of Amurishin were ready.

“Admiral, the vessels approaching still appear to be within a few thousandths of light-speed. We’ve only got moments to scramble the fleet we have. It looks as if they’ve come here without the furl to get—” the sensory outpost was taken out by two heavy laser shots. Responding to the first shot, Menis ordered the jury-rigged Amall fleet to actively intercept. Sie’d been expecting a fleet with fewer weapons. All the fuel it took to get here would take up any space that could go to weapons systems, they’d figured. This drive system hadn’t been foreseen.

The resultant fight wasn’t interesting to watch. The lasers were invisible until they made contact with their targets. The resultant battle might give the impression that every ship in the vicinity had undergone some self-destructive event. After a prolonged siege, the imperial fleet was finally disposed of, and Amurishin was safe for now. Menis, the admiral of the flee that’d fought, was commended for hir battle won.

The typical Amall’s dwelling was always reflective, since the Amall preferred such things. Other than that, rooms were left up to their occupants to decorate. Menis’s home in the clouds was larger than an ordinary Amall’s, due to hir status. Sie wasn’t required to put hir uniform on for the dinner, so some casual fabric, with a noticeable sheen, was good enough. One of hir prehensile tongues slipped out from her mouth and pulled on the door. Cleanliness wasn’t much of a problem since Amalls’ mouths were packed with antibiotic compounds.

Menis received several happy congratulations from passersby on hir way to the hall. Typical city platforms could be a few miles-wide, depending on how well they were built. The dining hall was located in a tall, ornate building near the center of another platform. Long, thick, enclosed bridges crossed from platform to platform, and someone might be intimidated if they looked through the glass and over the edge. Menis had taken these trips often, and sie wasn’t intimidated by the dizzying heights, since sie was always high in the clouds. Once sie’d arrived at the hall and beat what resembled a hoof against the glimmering door, a message reached hir communicator.

The Darijin Imperium was back with another fleet.

Scorched Earth
Parakon had died with a whimper long ago, and only the Paraks had survived the virus. Every living thing on Parakon had suffered the same fate. The verdant green forests and warm murky waters had formerly filled the Paraks and their kin with great joy and directive. The Paraks were young, and the advanced technology they possessed wasn’t their own. It was only through the efforts of a now deceased guiding race that Paraks had survived at all. Now their mother race had left them with their knowledge and legacy. It was known that the Guides had erased any specific memories the Parak had of them, and all that any Parak could hope for was the continuation of that deceased species’ philosophy.

Even if the Paraks had been saved from death, some of them felt that their existence amounted to something much worse. The mechanical bodies gave the Paraks effective immortality, but they couldn’t continue their line with these artificial bodies. Once the last Parak was killed, that would mean the end of their legacy. There were still a few million of them left after the accident, but they’d have to be extra careful about operating until they could find a method to reproduce.

Kella’s body had been damaged during the repair of an exploratory vessel. They’d already made contact with a group of separatists. Kella’s mind was still intact, despite the extensive and irreparable wounds that’d been inflicted on the machine that housed it. The metallic liquid in her circulatory system oozed out from between two of the metal plates that were pasted around her torso. She’d obviously had this body patched up many more times than it was worth. A new lifeboat had been constructed for her mind using instructions left by the Guides.

“Kella,” he mechanically hissed. “Please tell me if you’re roused yet.” Velraan had overseen the transfer of his friend’s mind. As soon as he’d received a conscious “I’m functional” from her, he quickly got to the task of recycling the old body’s components. “We’ve completed repairs on the bleeding vessel. She’s now ready to ascend into the Void again.”

It only took a few steps to adapt to unfamiliar body, but breaking it in would take a few days. The Parak had very little regard for their home planet. When they’d been revived within these machines after the accident, all traces of the Paraks’ and their Guides’ bodies had been removed, but there were still slowly disintegrating remnants of life everywhere. It was a truly eerie site to behold. The broad fern leaves didn’t even rot naturally, since microbes had been completely killed. For the first few days, it seemed like nothing had happened to the plant life, though animals were visibly dead. After a week, however, plants were visibly paler as entropy slowly overcame the landscape.

The vessel, now repaired, hovered over her, and with one thought, a thick rectangular platform descended from the ventral hull. She paced onto it, all four legs, and awaited it to rise again. Once the platform had entered the vessel, Kella looked around to the other Parak. This was a sizeable craft certainly, but it required few Parak to operate it. Once she’d greeted the others, she placed her mitt on the wall and connected with the ship’s circuitry. There was much to which the Parak had an obligation. They’d never encountered war before meeting another race. It interested them to know what it was about. They’d make sure to learn everything they could about the creatures on the other end of the Void. Maybe they’d learn a little about themselves in the process.

Wherever the Parak went, they would be asked, “Why don’t you just go home?” The obligatory reply was always said with apparent apathy, “There’s nothing there for us.”

Destiny
It’d been eight years since the all of the spacefaring species in the local galaxy had met up. It’d been a rocky ride, for sure. They’d been relatively unchanged in opinion since they first set out. Humanity had signed a non-aggression pact with the Utalics, but they still often fought over resources in their capitalistic rivalry. The Arkeni possessed a massive territory due to their relentless yet erratic march across the Great Gift. The Secare had lost the war with the Arkeni due to bad luck and were continuing to make a living aboard their larger ships, in a single species-wide fleet, while they searched for a new home. The Amall rebellion had heated up fiercely. Both sides had stupendous vacuum-drives, and the fire exchane was now being carried out between several world confederates, a dozen or so planets representing each side. The Parak had met the others and looked on in confusion. Relations had broken down with the Admurishin rebels after they’d refused to fight. Luckily, the Amall had no idea where to look for their home world, which was now just dust. The Parak were making a nomadic existence, roughly similar to the Secares’.

Over the years, a growing number of mysterious archways had been found by the expanding Tellurian Empire. They were merely boxed up and sent to museums and the sort, classified as alien artistry. A small group of scientists had divided from the increasingly fascist Tellurian Empire, along with one of the archways. By the eighth year, stories of their small underground operation, then referred to as the Neokhronos, had spread into the gutters of other societies. Slowly, their society had become a coordinated effort between representatives from each species. Although they lacked the infrastructure to mass-produce vessels and weapons, they were easily capable of stealing.

Kella of the Parak had left those she loved most to protect them. It’d occurred to her that the ‘Arkhaios’ that were rumored to have used the archways may well be Guides that left their legacy to the Parak. Each of the few dozen members had their reasons for helping. Some of them were just outcasts; another few believed that this would bring them spiritual salvation; still others were in it for the riches; of course, the occasional scientist was solely in it to be proven right.

Two humans, an Amall, and a Utalic had been prepped for their trek to another world. Initial surveys had reported that the planet had been terraformed many millions of years ago, as were many of the archway worlds, but that there was also no sapient population. If this was true, it would’ve made a great base of operations in the event of their current residence being trashed. Armed with pulse guns, the four paced into the radiant inner span of the archway, arriving at their destination in what would seem an instant.

Forrest, a young man and brilliant engineer from the original group of scientists, was followed closely by Serfiva, an Amall who had a hefty bounty on his head back home. Those two, were followed by a rather paranoid Utalic, a runaway CEO from a former rival company of Iralok Corporation. In a lucky streak, she’d left the day before the entire panel of executives had turned up dead from an ‘accidental’ gas leak, suspicious if anyone bothered to advertise that there weren’t any gas pipes in the office building to begin with. The last through was a Tellurian woman who’d sought to escape the consequences of murder and been successful. No one felt the need to directly ask anyone about their past, unless they brought up the subject. Even then, members were given the choice to keep silent. The group set out into the woods nearby, homing in on a faint and previously undetected EM signal. Two days passed since their trek through the archway, a day after the scheduled check-in.

Kella was chosen to lead a search party. She’d been asked to be ready with a team in an hour or two. Making her way across the base, she watched for anyone who might be useful to accompany on this jaunt. The members had already received the news, and some of them would certainly ask her if they were right for the job. Kella slowly paced through the camp, stopping at the crude and diverse tents set up around the archway. It was just another day being a Neokhronos.

[Iron Coyote]

Info
By no means is anyone required to read this information, but it might give you an idea in regards to what each of these species is about.
Human
Description
A human, of course, is just a human, nothing more than that and certainly nothing less. As a species, they tend to be generalists and opportunists, but so does every other species. Also like other species, several names have been given to them by their space-faring peers, and not all of them are nice ones. Names for Earth are diverse, but a well-respected and often-used one is the Latin name of Telluria.
Empire
Government has been relatively stable since the turn of the century, and these governments continue to exercise control over their respective domains. Otherworldly Tellurian possessions are maintained, protected, and acquired by a separate division, known as the Voice of Telluria. They tend to operate above the influence of most governments, but make heavy demands on resources. The Voice is given very generous and positive publicity, and it’s often the wish of any young human to join their ranks.
Technology
Most races around this time have used fusion to power many of their machines. Some more ambitious methods exist in other races, but humans are decidedly happy enough with what they have.
Railguns
One of the most proliferated and diversified weapons on Earth are the railguns. Conventional chemical projectile weapons have been phased out of use, their components in weaponry being filled in by batteries and exchangeable packs of slightly-smaller caliber rounds. Both of these are unloaded an loaded through the posterior of the weapon when required, though designs vary vastly. Large models are mounted on vehicles for military use, and personal models exist with many of the aesthetic properties of the chemical guns used in the past.
Dimensional-Drive
The greatest achievement of humanity by far is its above-average superluminal travel system. It’s an effective combination of the speedy Arkeni slice-drive and the accurate Utalican jump-drive. When activated, the vessel dives into a conventionally unperceivable dimension. It’s much like a speck of graphite on the inside of a curled sheet of paper being pulled out of its two-dimensional world, only to be zoomed around to somewhere else and placed back down. Add another dimension to the analogy and that’s how the Tellurian slip-drive works. Constant power is needed to keep the vessel en route to its destination, and if failure of the drive occurred due to lack of sustained power, the vessel would reappear from its compressed dimension, somewhere between start and finish.
Focused EMP
The most useful weapon that humanity has been using is the disrupter, a focused EMP weapon for the sole purpose of precisely disabling enemy electrical circuitry. Like most weapons, these exist as miniaturized machines, hull-mounted varieties, and unfocused devices meant to take out entire radii of targets. The effects of this weapon on enemy machines often include temporary overheating, damage to onboard systems, and general dysfunction. They’re incapable of harming most organic creatures.
Directed Energy Weapons
Most Tellurian DEWs are limited to bulky hull-mounted weapons. Laser, lightning, and plasma based weapon are the most commonly used types. They’re not nearly as effective as the weapons of races that specialize in some of these weapons, but they do provide some variation.
Space Vessels
Humanity has a very practical approach to the aesthetics of their ships. They aren’t artistic or anything, but they’re certainly effective. Tellurian fighters are deltoid in shape and bare resemblance to Utalic fighters. Carriers are vaguely cylindrical, as are larger battleships. Most sizeable vessels have dimensional-drives of roughly equal ability.
Arkeni
Description
The Arkeni are mammalian creatures with a rather strong sense of nationalism, despite the fact that most of the Arkeni outside of traditional society are relatively adaptive. They’ve got the standard lupine predatory framework of muscles and bones, and a strong, light tapering tail. Their jaws are slightly deeper than a traditional predator, and their pinnae are rather small on their skulls. Their bodies are covered in a usually short coat of fur, and most possess gold, green, or orange eyes of varying shades. The Arkeni are capable of using their forefeet to manipulate items, but prefer to walk on all four limbs, unless in the presence of other bipedal species. Arkeni are about the height of a human and typically live for twice as long, reaching adulthood around the age of eight. Arkeni have a gestation period of about 4 months, are born live, and have a decent ability to survive alone if needed. The staple of a young Arkeni’s diet is a nutritious secretion from the belly of its parents.
Empire
The territory of the Arkeni is divided amongst multiple packs. Within each pack, the government is a bureaucratic meritocracy, divided into eight separate fields, which are military, research, production, resources, commerce, culture, public service, and religion. The branches are each led by the single highest-ranking alpha in that sector. Merits are awarded according to strict guidelines and provide the basis for ranks. In theory, each alpha has equal power, but most packs are influenced heavily by one alpha or another, which is often the military leader. They’re one of the older races, complete with an expansive territory. As a race, they prefer to work alone, but won’t hesitate to get in the way of other civilizations or Arkeni to deal with a threat. The Arkeni know nothing about a fair portion of their past, a barrier in Arkeni recorded history known as the Awakening. Many nations have found themselves swarmed by the Arkeni only minutes after first contact.
Technology
Arkeni are either insatiably proud of their technology or rather unconcerned with it. Most of their technology was developed with unification of their society in mind. Due to the Arkeni’s decent knowledge of space travel, their ships are commonly bought by other groups. The Arkeni rely on quantum computing for most of their technology, and traditional circuitry is almost exclusively electrical with crystal components for data storage. Much of Arkeni technology is mysterious to the race that created it. Elaborate production lines for their portal-based technologies exist that appear to have been built long before the Awakening.
Wrist Device
The most familiar technology associated with the Arkeni is the wrist device, also called a cuff. It serves as a portable communication device with computer databases and other Arkeni, in addition to having various attachments for practical devices and weapons. A commonly integrated Arkeni weapon is the heat gun, which works by remotely heating up the target and through the ill effects caused by that.
Portal
Most Arkeni settlements, stations, and larger vehicles have a hexagonal portal present inside them to facilitate the transport of small vehicles and personnel. The portals are made of superconducting materials and are inherently difficult to produce and even more so to manage. The portals are connected to a navigational computer and capable of connecting to any other known Arkeni portal. The connection is initiated by an increasingly bright ring interior. If entered at this point, any matter will be fried beyond recognition. This light then quickly fades out to reveal the scenery anterior of the connected portal, or the posterior if viewed from the other side. Once disengaged the device goes through a reverse process, severing anything caught in the middle. While two portals are connected, another portal can’t connect to either, and the connection can only be manually severed by one of the portals disengaging. Gravitational fields aren’t translated through the barrier. Most systems are about 3 meters-wide since the Arkeni aren’t usually too tall while walking on all four limbs. Some are designed specifically for large vessels and can be quite big.
Ring Device
An Arkeni ring device is a variation of the portal, designed to transport individuals and small vehicles from place-to-place. Two separate ring systems are required for transport, and must be within range of about1000 miles, depending on the model. In effect, it’s a mobile, horizontal, suspended version of the portal, going through the same activation and deactivation processes. Prier to activation, both of the rings will levitate into position above their target objects. Once activated, both ring systems will move synchronously, usually downward. Anything presently under either ring will be transported over to the other ring, top first as the rings descend. The same hazards and failsafes as the portal system are present. Ring devices are usually about 2-6 meters-wide, and they’re often mounted on the ventral hulls of vehicles.
Artificial Accelerators
Most Arkeni vessels are equipped with artificial accelerators and have a limited ability to facilitate inertial compensation, as well as maintaining artificial gravity. Most devices can provide a maximum counter-acceleration of about 980 m/s and a sustained value of 490 m/s. They take the form of complicated box-like machines installed in a secure place on the vehicle. The accelerators can simulate surface gravity throughout an entire vessel.
Slice-Drive
Arkeni slice-drives are decidedly faster than some others, and can be intercepted while en route. The machines are projected portals, and the ship can exist in countless thin slices, strung out across a few light years, at any given time, hence the name it’s given by viewers and users of the technology. Physical force is required to move the ship to the next ‘slice’, so without sublight engines to accelerate the vehicle after the initial activation of the drive, it’ll be stalled and remain on location. If power suddenly cuts out during use, the presence of any matter on transit will keep the pathway open until it slips out at the location of the last slice present at the time.
Space Vessels
The Arkeni are one of the few empires with a well-maintained, high-orbit military fleet. There are only two classes of military vessels, fighters and their carriers. They’re incapable of harming a planets surface, but are efficient in thwarting attempts at domination by other Arkeni. The fighters take two forms. The first are a deltoid variety capable of atmospheric travel and the second are compact spherical fighters designed for deployment through the portals. Another type of ship exists in the scouts, which are cylindrical vehicles designed for small groups of Arkeni to scout out other territories. Occasionally, fighter-sized portals can be strapped to scouts heading through a larger carrier-sized portal. Carriers are unique in that they can be equipped with their own superluminal drives.
Utalic
Description
The Utalic species bares the most immediate resemblance to a lizard. Contradictory to initial appearances, their movement and internal anatomy is mammalian in character, and they’re warm-blooded. Utalics also have a collection of feathers that grow out of the back of their skull and neck to provide a decent amount of insulation. The Utalicans have strong, flexible, tapering tails with which to balance their speedy digitigrade stance. The Utalic species is completely female but every so often, on a yearly cycle, any specific Utalic will temporarily adapt to serve as a male of the species. Ovoviparous gestation typically takes about 10 months, with about 1-3 eggs being hatched within the female. The young are capable of surviving independently, but cultural development has resulted in a tendency to keep their young nearby.
Empire
The Utalics are a young race on the scene, sharing a capitalistic rivalry with humanity, which happens to be around the same level of technology. Like the other races, they possess several pre-terraformed worlds through use of the archways, but all of the colonies are controlled by a single monopolistic corporation known as Iralok. The democratic governments are largely controlled by this one entity, which often fulfills its plans through careful planning and stealthy execution. Iralok Corporation was the first race encountered by the humans. Since then, Iralok and Earth have been hostile towards each other, stealing ships and trying to thwart the other through various underhanded methods. Utalicans are almost exclusively shifty and secretive beings, concerned with only what brings the most capital into their possession. The preferred method of war is through sabotage, assassination, and secrecy.
Technology
Most of the Utalics’ technology is based around moving things back and forth and controlling capital. All of the high technology is managed and built by Iralok, with most individuals more concerned with worldly affairs.
Railguns
The simple Utalic railgun is built to be sturdy, many models being based off the same core technology. Most of these weapons have a caliber around 1 mm, but the speed of the shots makes up for this lack in mass, and they’re decidedly dangerous. Larger versions are mounted on Iralok merchant and military vessels, some rounds designed specifically to cause secondary damage to the circuitry of opposition, or explosive detonation on contact.
Jump-Drive
Iralok’s infamous jump-drives are one of the most annoying things about them. Even with the virtual speeds obtainable through the use of these drives, it can still take several months to reach another world. The Iralok method of dealing with this is the use of superconducting rings, which must be kept very cold in order to remain functional. A ship passing through and to another one of these rings is capable of jump times that are near instantaneous. Arkeni gates have failsafes on them which prevent their use by the Utalics, due to prior expansion problems between these races. Damage due to failure of these drives is unheard of, barring undocumented collisions on re-entry. If insufficient power to reach the destination is present, then the drive will simply jump the vessel a little shy of its destination. While en route, an individual using the drive won’t perceive any time having passed from start to finish.
Space Vessels
Iralok has a large fleet of ships which utilize the often large jump-rings to transfer goods from place to place. To protect these vessels, a military force is also present, composed of small fighters and very large carrier ships. Carrier ships are capable of making jumps but most fighters aren’t. Merchant vessels are often equipped with low-level drives which can be greatly amplified by use of the jump-rings.
Secare
Description
Secare are a hive-based species, with many castes all born to a central queen. All Secare except the queens and the male caste are incapable of breeding. As a species, Secare are very diverse in outward appearance, taking the forms of many different bug-like creatures. Despite their striking resemblance to Tellurian crustaceans, the Secare have an internal skeleton. Their external shell is more for defense than support. They typically exist underneath the seabed in the dark depths, and the queen of a hive is tucked well away from the top. Secare queens have a decent ability to manipulate the genetics of their offspring, and examples of the varied genderless castes include that of the guards, builders, artists, and pilots. The single male caste receives a fair amount of attention, in addition to the most autonomy in moving from clan to clan, and the queens may fight amongst each other for the possession of a particularly fit one. Secare are highly adaptive, and even hard radiation can be tolerated to a much higher degree than other species. Queens are capable of producing many eggs in a short period of time, which take very little time to hatch, making Secare easily capable of replenishing their numbers.
Empire
The ancient society of Secare is matriarchal, with lots of respect for the mother. Typically each clan is led by a single queen, and the primary target of any attack, even on another species, are the closest thing to females. Secare will protect their mothers at all costs, and they’ll stay loyal to them. Males are encouraged to roam between clans to keep up genetic diversity. Government is entirely managed by the queen and an elected batch of representatives. Three-fourths of Secare are workers with diverse roles. One-fifth is made of warriors, and the remaining amount is composed of more specialized castes. The queens try to keep diplomatic relations with one another, but internecine war is far from uncommon.
Technology
Secare technology is electrical, and most of it is designed to hold some artistry in it. Despite this, they’ve got a wide-spread belief in utilitarianism.
Particle Beams
Secare have an affinity for big weapons, and the particle beam fills out the specifications when it comes to hull-mounted weapons. Both varieties work primarily through high energy plasma, almost all of them using a direct tap on a modified fusion reactor. The output of these weapons is accelerated to reach a significant percent of light speed, inducing heavy radioactivity in materials and general damage associated with strong heating, such as ionizing, melting, and vaporising. The Secare don’t mind firing these weapons on even their own planets, due to their increased resistance to residual radioactivity.
Burrow-Drive
The burrow-drive is the primary method of Secare propulsion on the long journeys. It’s essentially instantaneous to the users of the drive, despite it taking a fair while to get to a place from the perspective of anyone watching. It works by opening a wormhole between a nearby position and a position near the destination. Sublight engines are required to transverse the wormhole.
Their drive, like those of humanity, can’t be intercepted by conventional means. But just as two human vessels can intercept one another, skilled Secare pilots can cross wormholes with an approaching enemy faction in hopes of launching a surprise attack, damaging the other ship’s burrow drive before making a quick escape. An accident like that, anything that stops the drive from functioning, would lead to the destruction of any matter within the projected wormhole when it collapses. Another ship could enter the opposite end of a wormhole to intercept a fleet en route, but it would have a high probability of being a suicide mission. Certain drive types could be used to escape, no matter how far within the wormhole the intercepting fleet was, such as the human dimensional-drive.
Space Vessels
Secare have been around long enough to implement some considerable diversification in their fleets. They tend to stray away from fighters, preferring smaller numbers of capital ships to supply the same fire power. Their thick hulls are built from tougher materials than other races bother to use, and weapon turrets are squeezed onto every square inch of the exterior. Secare vessels are absolutely terrifying things to encounter for any unprepared fleet.
Amall
Description
The Amalls, as a species, bare an uncanny resemblance to llamas, but they have three separate genders. Amall genders include a male, a female, and another gender to suffice as a middleman. They possess two hearts and a twin set of prehensile tongues to manipulate their environment with. They also have very long, whip-like tails for protection, with sharp feather-like ornaments on the end. Amalls also have extremely efficient respiratory systems, adapted for the high mountains of their homeworld, Darijin. Gestation within the female takes 6 months and young are born live. The young are nourished by glands present on the female and middleman parents. Male and female Amall take respective pronouns, and the middleman Amall will respond to male pronouns, or other manufactured systems the other races have. ‘Sie’ and ‘hir’ may be used by Tellurians to describe refer to the seemingly accessory Amall gender.
Empire
In Amall government, a panel of representative choosers is elected by the common people, each representing 20% of the Amall populace. Each chooser serves for two two-year terms before elections. The choosers are required to elect a panel of five individuals every term, three female and two males, called the ‘Trio of Two’. Loyalty to this government is stressed, and all acts of treason are punished through the death of the traitor. They’re a young race like many of these others, fresh to the interstellar scene thanks to their vacuum-drive.
Technology
Amall technology relies heavily on photons. Their circuitry is composed of sophisticated plasmonic systems.
Lasers
Tongue-held and mounted laser varieties of varying power and frequency exist in Amall weapons.
Interference Cloaking and Shielding
The Amalls possess an unparalleled aptitude for cloaking themselves from electromagnetic radiation by use of an interference cloak. It works by projecting a destructively interfering field to negate any outgoing or incoming light, including thermal radiation. A stronger and more focused variation of the technology exists that manifests itself as a barrier to radiation-based weaponry. The equipment needed is bulky and dampens any internal energy too, meaning a cloaked or shielded ship can’t fire its weapons.
Virtual Images
Using their light-based technologies, the Amall can communicate with virtual 3-dimensional images of themselves. These devices are built into their important buildings and vehicles for quick interaction.
Vaccuum-Drive
The Amall vacuum drive is a sophisticated and unique method of virtual superluminal travel. By manipulating the vacuum, they decrease the zero-point energy of the region anterior to the vessel. This greatly increases the transmission speed of information traveling along this path. The drive experiences relativistic effects, greatly shortening the time it takes from the occupants’ perspectives. It essentially works by greatly increasing the local speed of light, which means that sublight engines are required for it to go anywhere. If the drive is damaged, sublight engines can be used to get home in a few years time, but less time passes for the crew due to time dilation. This drive can be intercepted in deep space, but only very carefully. Accessory ships nearby, friend or foe, can also make use of the field produced.
Space Vessels
The Amalls have only just begun construction and development of their interplanetary fleet. Most of the uniquely designed military vehicles are meant for protection against any threats that may show themselves. The militia of vehicles is grounded for the most part, due to inactivity and the costs of using them without a viable threat.
Parak
Description
No other species known to Telluria have as mysterious origins as the Paraks. Most individuals see them as machines, advanced machines certainly, but still machines. Many theories abound about the Paraks but the most widely accepted is the theory that the Paraks are artificial intelligences, created by another long-gone race. The Paraks don’t discuss their history with each other or others. In terms of machinery, they’re often just as complicated as any biological entity.
The typical space-faring Parek has a reflective, superconducting, chassis. Beneath this tough exterior, there exists a complicated neural network and liquid-metallic hydrogen circulatory system. Their brains are crystalline computers which other races find particularly difficult to understand. Forms vary widely, but they’re typically prone to basing their constructions on the body forms of other beings they encounter. The most common form for both civilian and military bodies is a weasel-like creature, complete with shiny claws for defense. The bodies do eventually wear out, however. Unknown to other species, Paraks are incapable of traditional reproduction and rely n transferring their conscious minds to new bodies to sustain their numbers. Despite their best efforts, the Paraks are a dying race.
Empire
The Paraks are undoubtably the youngest space-faring race. Only two years ago they decided to finally mount protection for their planet. Their species had existed in its current state for a mere year prior to this. Their only occupied world, Parakon, is a rocky world with great oceans and no life at all, barring the mechanical Parak. A concept of war is young among them, and if they’re attacked even once by another group, they won’t rest until their enemy is eradicated. Paraks are very regretful after killing another sentient being, and do so only for their own protection. War is new to the Parak, and they lack a history of military tradition.
Technology
Parak technology is remarkably advanced, seen by other species as belonging to the race that possibly created them. Keeping in tune with their mysterious origins, their technology is equally confusing. Their walls appear to be solid and lack visible circuitry to damage. Tellurian and Arkeni drives have been seen to cause damage to the circuitry if used nearby, however, but the only incident of this was seen when a pack of breakaway Arkeni colonists made contact with the Parak. The problem has since been fixed, and the use of their technology has been prompted by species other than them in the void.
Somatic Interfacing
Built into various places on Parak bodies, including palms, are somatic interfaces. They take the form of arrays filled with tiny, sharp metallic contacts. When used on the flesh of a living thing, they can cause immense pain and the target to unwillingly flinch, something similar in feeling to a billion minute paper-cuts. Very few traces are left behind after being used on a living thing. The interface has been used to assist other species and is capable of a direct interface through any nerve, though it can be consciously resisted. The cleanest link occurs by a direct connection through the forehead of the other individual. Parak can share information by connecting somatic interfaces.
Scurry-Drive
Like the Parak, the scurry-drive is one of the more eccentric of its kind. It works in a similar way to the Utalic jump-drive, but instead of a single long jump, it works by making billions upon billions of micro-jumps in a second. They’re the fastest drive for interstellar travel. Strong gravity wells make operation of these drives difficult and slow them down quite a lot. Parak vessels use scurry-drives for sublight travel too. Being non-inertial, they’re capable of great acceleration and maneuvering. However, if ‘accelerated’ from sublight to superluminal speeds or vice versa within too short a period, the drives will be fried. Scurry-drives can be intercepted in deep space, though it’s difficult.
Phase Beam
The phase beam is the primary weapon of the Paraks. It’s a high-level beam that anything in its way, emitting light as it crosses a vacuum or any fluid medium. It will dissipate due to the light radiated, and a dense solid will impede it effectively until the material is degraded by sustained targeting. These weapons exist in personal and hull-mounted varieties.
Space Vessels
Since the scurry-drives can be mounted on even small vessels, the typical Parak fleet is composed of many fighter-sized craft and one or more large, spheroid coordinator vessels. Fighters are typically ornately decorated, often having natural curves to them reminiscent of a vertebrate animal. Since Parak are capable of interfacing with technology directly, the insides of their vessels are free from panels and other things.
Neokhronos
Description
The Neokhronos aren’t a species, but they all share a common interest. They’re made up of members from several species, often outcasts, who’re involved in the search for the builders of the archways, known by the moniker the Arkhaios. There are only a few dozen members among their ranks, and they’re always looking for new members to induct. Most of their members have criminal backgrounds in their home nations, hence why they might wish to work together. They’re only advantage over the other races is their extensive knowledge of the archway system left behind in the galaxy. With this, they’ve managed to elude the actions of the societies from which the members have either been alienated or ostracized. Because of the high cost of maintaining a fleet, most operations of the Neokhonos are surface bound. Uninhabited and suitable planets within the archway network are used as basesm but they’re never permanent.
Technology
The Neokhronos rely heavily on technology stolen from the other empires to sustain their cause. Even so, they have a couple of unique technological resources.
Archway
The Archways are a system of 3-meter tall gates distributed across the local region of space, believed to be only the most visible trace of the unidentified race the Neokhronos are invested in finding. Usually, they’ll possess a blue crystal embedded into their anterior to work as a control panel, with eight rotary rings around the center crystal, about 10 centimeters wide total. Only when the markings on the ring define the location of another archway will the connection establish. They have a similar operation sequence to Arkeni portals, except the bright event horizon never fades. It’s regarded as a failsafe of some kind by most of the Neokhronos. Matter traveling along the portal is disintegrated upon entry and reintegrated upon exit. There are occasionally multiple archways on a single world, though it’s rare. The handiest Neokhronos device is the remote dialer. A remote dialer is a portable, similar-sized version of the rotary-ring interface present on undamaged archways.
Pulse Gun
The Neokhronos don’t like to leave a mark wherever their rummaging brings them. So typically, the ideal weapon on their missions is one that stuns, as well as kills. The pulse gun works to that measure by discharging a short-range pulse of electricity capable of knocking a target out, and killing with repeated discharges. In addition to hampering organic system, they can be used to disable delicate circuitry and sensory equipment.