Unknown Region
SWG
About a year ago
Nhur-Galladu shifted from the position he was holding as he gestured and an irregular object flew to his hand. Examining it, he turned it slowly in the long digits of his hands looking at every surface noticing the different protrusions and composition of them. He contemplated the seemingly random design until he noticed a pattern.
Grandfather, it is time
Thank you Overmind.
Nhur-Galladu sent a fragment of his awareness in a “direction” and found four others waiting for his arrival. Melding with them, he began the meeting.
The room formed around him and it appeared to be a standard conference room complete with a holoprojector above the round table. He noticed his four Grand Admirals waiting for him as he entered their gestalt. As one they “stood” and waited for him to be “seated”.
“Let’s begin.”
Dev’Staht was first to speak. “Warlord, we have been watching for an ally of sorts who we could use to further our goals. I believe we have found the ideal candidate.”
The holoprojector flickered into life and a scene appeared in the middle of the table showing a small reptilian being. It appeared to be about a meter in height but the maw contained several sharp teeth.
“At first they do not appear to be anything imposing or threatening other than those teeth. It is their number and beliefs which convey what caught my interest. They replicate quite quickly, have reaction times greater than most of the races out there, dislikes the usage of AI, and have interesting eating habits. They devour their prey alive and prefer what they call sentient creatures. It seems their dietary habits are more of a necessity than one of taste. They need to digest the lifeforce of their prey in addition to the husk. For this reason they are viewed as abominations by others and many try to use them as weapons through trickery. It seems they do not mind being tricked for they get to fill their larders and often those who trick them end up sharing space with their victims. They do not appreciate double dealing any more than their appreciating for those they consider beneath them on the food chain. They consider themselves the top predators in the MWG and allow others to use them to secure prey. On average, they need to eat three victims a day to maintain a happy lifestyle. “
K’Ing spoke next.
“They have traded their mercenary services to other nations in trade for technology, funding, and other concessions to further their racial ideals. They value strength and power above all and they frequently get what they want out of any deal. Any negotiating with them will initially be viewed as a weakness but a show of strength and power should get them to reconsider their initial assessment of a race. Of course, if the display attacks them, then they will only consider you an enemy and you will be swarmed. They value the natural order and evolution above others and distain anything artificial. AI, sentient robots, and other constructs are, if it could be described this way, pitied by them. They do not champion them in any way and would rather put them out of their misery of existence than deal with them. They are much the same way Kobol was when we first encountered them.”
Ga’Ton took his turn.
“As K’Ing as already said, their technology is taken from their employers and prey. They represent a hodge-podge of techs they acquired through their contracts and employ them most efficiently. They also have Gate Technology they acquired through some deal or from a fallen foe, not sure of the source. They use the Gate Technology to send their military forces in large motherships using ion drives for propulsion. It seems the majority of their ship enhancements came from their alliance with someone called the Viprans. Their attack ships cling to the mother ship hidden by their shield tech so they cannot be individually detected and then drop their forces in one big swarm of death.”
Finally Rdz’Quix took her turn.
“The parameters you set for our search has been met the most with the Gata’ja. They need a regular food source which we can not only supplement with our cloning technology but also by transporting some of them here we would give them new hunting grounds. They need to champion the Natural Order and many of the ones we will be pushing use the very things they abhor, making them natural targets for the Gata’ja. They will swarm targets and reduce the populations of those who have stagnated allowing room for those who can still embrace evolution to survive. They also represent something which can be fought against instead of us pretending to be beatable. Their losses will be quickly replaced and fuel their fighting spirit. Their distain of the stagnated ones will ensure they remain loyal to us and not try to cut deals to turn against us in the future. Predators do not lie with their prey unless they are devouring them. They also kind of remind me of a fleshy version of the Kythons, except they are purely reptilian instead of a mix between insect and reptile.”
Nhur-Galladu stared at the display depicting footage of the diminutive reptiles as he weighed the details presented to him by his Grand Admirals.
Send a representative to … Kuluma. Make a good impression and get them talking with us. If they do not agree to the proposal, leave them be. They do kinds resemble the Kythons in a way; I am sure Overmind will love working with them. Thank you for your excellent work. Meeting adjourned.
Nhur-Galladu returned the fragment back to his Self and continued what he was doing, levitating another fragment toward him and examining it until he found a matching face. The two pieces drifted together and when they met, they joined each other, matching surfaces and subsurface compositions. Reaching out with his will, he picked up another piece from the pile and began examining that one while the two joined ones drifted to a small collection of others floating nearby, waiting to be put together into a whole structure.
---
Kuluma System
MWG
One year ago
A wormhole suddenly appeared.
A black anomaly grew from nothing a safe distance from the Gata’ja homeworld and set off every gravitational and energy based alarm in the system. Just when they techs were able to acknowledge the alarms and silence them, the ship appeared.
It was nothing large, a mere 80 meters in total length. It appeared to be made of shapes instead of something functional. Two triangular wedged projected forward from a quartered and segmented sphere at the aft of the strange vessel and an arc of metal projected forwards from the tail of the ship. It appeared the bulk of the ship, the triangular wedges were barely connected to the sphere. The blue glow of energy seemed to fill the missing areas in the spherical section. It appeared to be a collection of shaped not even connected yet it was definitely a singular object.
As soon as the ship cleared the event horizon of the aperture, the wormhole closed. Additional alarms went off as sensor detected the vessel as containing a stellar mass and the power readings were off the scale, literally classifying the vessel as possibly a star if it was not an 80 meter ship composed of loosely connected shapes. The hull of the vessel was difficult to get any reading, almost as if it absorbed the energy of the sensors and even visuals observations could only get a generalized slightly blurry image as if it also absorbed some of the light itself.
A single sensor sweep began at the aft of the vessel, swinging through the ship in an arc as it swept through the system from right to left. Some of the closest vessels actually had the paint blackened or bubbled from the strength of the scan. Once the single sweep was completed, the ship remained silent for a few minutes while every defensive measure in the system locked on the anomaly as best they could. Other than the scan, the strange ship performed no other action, neither defensive nor offensive. It merely sat there until the Gata’ja were sure there was no immediate attack although they would not stand down.
Suddenly without out warning, a voice echoed in the minds of every native in range, seemingly speaking in their native tongue.
We are the Ta’Nar. We have chosen to speak with you on an important matter for your species.
The ebon ship waited in silence for the reply from the Gata'ja...