User:The Collective Mind/Concepts

BIDONITE ESOTERICA

Enemy Dossier
IDENTIFIED THREATS TO THE UNITED BIDONITE EMPIRE

What follows is a partial list of alien species that pose a threat to Imperial reconstruction.

BALZER
Codename STEEL PLOW.

A species of disunited raiders and pirates who nonetheless have threatened Imperial interests in multiple star systems thanks to surprising technological ability, physical prowess, and sheer numbers.

Balzers are a cyclopean, sturdy race believed to have evolved in high-gravity conditions. They do not have a united civilization; rather, the Balzer race exists in a constant state of internecine strife, rallying around powerful warlords and fighting over territory and supplies. This anarchy is unsustainable -- the competition drains Balzer resources faster than they can produce them. To maintain their strength, Balzer pirate fleets raid planets and other astronomical objects, strip-mining them as quickly as possible and seizing every natural resource they can get ahold of before moving on (lest a rival fleet interrupt their operations).

While Balzers are stereotyped as crude and primitive compared to the Bidonite Empire (which is generally true), some of their technology is actually superior to the Empire's. Their massive drilling machines are capable of dismantling asteroids and mining ore seams dry in mere hours, and their equally gigantic mass fabricators use nanoassemblers to convert raw materials into finished products on the spot and just as quickly.

NECROX
"Their civilization cannot have developed naturally. There should be countercultures, internal variations. In point of fact there should be more than just one culture in the first place. No outside forces act on them, like they do with the Assembly. Like the Collapse did with us. And yet, this species-wide devotion to a single philosophy... Mark my words, something is very wrong with the Necrox."

- Dr. Bironak Aaban Mesimar

THE GALACTIC COMMONWEALTH OF PROGRESS AND ENLIGHTENMENT, codename GREEN ARM. A technologically advanced meritocracy dedicated to the philosophy of "Progress", or the ideal of accelerated societal and scientific advancement unbound by any code of ethics or conduct. Governed and populated by the Necrox, a species of great biological curiosity.

The Commonwealth is not a united force. It is divided into several dozen "societies", all in direct competition with each other -- it is believed that this accelerates Progress. Still, every one of those societies serves a central government that oversees and regulates all aspects of Commonwealth infrastructure, communication, standardization, squabbles between societies, etc.

The societies that have most frequently come into conflict with the Empire are the Steel Claws, the Life Gardeners, and the Technocrati. As luck would have it, these three societies are among the largest and most powerful within the Commonwealth.

NARI
The NARI KNIGHTS

Initially mistaken by Imperial surveyors for a pre-gunpowder/iron age civilization native to the planet Ehlna, the vaguely batlike Nari only received comprehensive attention from the Empire upon the discovery of immense anti-spacecraft artillery emplacements hidden in the Ehlna Spine mountain range a handful of kilometers from their monastery-fortress.

Closer examination of Nari technology revealed that their ubiquitous plate mail was in fact incredibly advanced powered armor, and their anachronistic swords were sheathed in crackling power fields capable of shearing through solid titanium with little effort. Imperial Intelligence theorizes that Nari personal defense technology has far outstripped Nari firearms technology, forcing them to regress to close combat as their primary means of warfare. Scavenged Nari armor plating has been shown to withstand coilgun rounds, particle beams, and high explosives with minimal damage, and could only be breached reliably using tank guns and dedicated anti-tank weaponry.

The Empire knows very little about the greater Nari civilization. All four known Nari colonies are extremely distant from each other, and consist solely of a single well-defended monastery-fortress and surrounding villages, with no other holdings. Each monastery is either placed on land holy to the Nari and/or protects a relic that the Nari consider holy. No large Nari population centers are known to exist, nor other Nari nations besides the monastery-builders. Nari spacecraft, civilian or otherwise, appear to be very few in number.

Characteristic Nari isolation and insularity prevents meaningful Bidonite diplomacy. As per Imperial regulations regarding neutral alien-held planets, settlement on Nari worlds is strictly forbidden. For the time being, the Empire is content to leave the Nari alone.

ICEWORLDER
"They're a very honest people in their own way. Very open and upfront about how much they want to murder you. I can respect that."

- Colonel Vahar Myral Dun

THE ICEWORLDER ALLIANCE, codename IRRITABLE REACH.

The Iceworlder Alliance is a military alliance of seven Iceworlder nations. Belligerent, heavily militarized, and intensely xenophobic, the Iceworlders respect no political boundaries and operate according to their own ruthless directives.

Iceworlders are a hulking ammonia-based species that thrives in subzero environments, and must rely on armored environmental suits to survive outside those conditions. They bear a vague resemblance to crustaceans. The Empire is long familiar with the Iceworlder Alliance, having been in conflict with the race since pre-Collapse days. While the Alliance gave Bidonite space a wide berth both during and after the chaos of the Collapse (not wanting to invite destruction upon themselves), rapid Bidonite expansion has caused them to resume hostilities with a vengeance. However, their own expansion over the past three centuries has brought them into direct conflict with the Necrox, and the ensuing war has done much to reduce the amount of pressure either nation can bring to bear on the Bidonites.

MARAKK
Codename BELLIGERENT RED. Originally a rank-expunged dabidon born on Furosh, a planet conquered by the Empire. The self-styled "General" Marakk, seeking to overturn Imperial rule, gathered an army of malcontents, terrorists, and rebels, and began a bloody uprising on Furosh that cost millions of Bidonite lives and billions of sporebucks of infrastructure damage. While the rebellion was crushed following deployment of the Royal Guard, Marakk himself managed to escape despite grievous injury. Necrox involvement was suspected but unconfirmed.

Years later, Marakk returned at the head of a mercenary army, known simply as Marakk's Army. The General and his Army, operating from a ramshackle yet formidable fleet of spacecraft, struck repeatedly at Imperial supply lines and delayed shipments of food and materiel to the front lines of the Bidonite-Necrox conflict. Among other effects, his actions are believed to have led directly to defeats in the Corbus and Datarat systems. The 114th Combined Fleet was mobilized in response to Marakk's attacks.

While the 114th dealt the mercenary general a crippling blow with the destruction of his asteroid bases in the Parigon system, Marakk once more evaded the killing stroke, with the Necrox Commonwealth openly and violently revealing their involvement by engaging the Combined Fleet long enough for him to escape with what remained of his army. Since then, General Marakk has been reported working openly with Commonwealth Claims Control against Imperial forces, though he and his army appear to have taken independent mercenary contracts on occasion.

ASSEMBLY
"The Assembly is the most thoroughly joyless society I have ever had the dubious pleasure of studying."

- Oraxes Merl, Necrox Commonwealth (Biotic Catalogue)

Codename IRON AXIS.

Assembly was discovered approximately a century into the Second Founding, a civilization that made its home in the debris disks of star systems rather than planetary bodies. Discovering that Assembly territory intersected Bidonite territory and planned Bidonite expansions at many points, and finding that Assembly had little interest in their planets, the Empire was quick to exchange languages and diplomats with them and eventually struck a mutually beneficial alliance.

Assembly is notable for three things.

First are its exceptionally large spacecraft. Being a spaceborne civilization, whatever part of its population that does not make its home in asteroid habitats is instead carried in gargantuan asymmetrical "ironclads", serving at once as colony ships, factories, and fortresses.

Second is its channel network, a portal system operating according to principles unknown to Bidonite science capable of transferring ships across space at speeds faster than any known hyperspace drive. Part of the terms of Assembly's alliance with the Empire is leasing the use of the channels to the Empire, allowing the Imperial Armada unprecedented mobility within joint Empire-Assembly space.

Third is its society. Assembly is single-minded to the extreme, being utterly devoted to industrialism and acquisition of resources. This unnatural monoculture is enforced by the cabal of artificial intelligences that rule Assembly, where people are built to serve machines rather than the other way around.

While the Empire has no plans to betray their alliance, the Bidonites are nonetheless wary of how so much Assembly territory intersects their own. The amount of space they share has only grown since the authentication of the alliance.

Notable Imperial Assets
DEAREST AND GLORIFIED SOLDIERS OF THE LEGIONS

What follows is a partial list of Imperial Legions assets that have, in some way, achieved renown in the Empire.

IIBARAZ
A world famous for being one of the eight "petty empires" in the post-Collapse era of the Empire, especially for having fought and successfully held back a Biomachine incursion until their disappearance from the galaxy. Famous for producing soldiers of particularly high quality and notably devoid of the unflappable cheerfulness endemic to most other regiments.

Instead, Iibaraz is notable for its lack of cheer. Its soldiers are grim and relentless, taking Bidonite tenacity to a whole new level. They gather overwhelming force, steamroll enemy positions with a massive mechanized push, rapidly fortify the captured area, and repeat. Very little can deter them -- positions held by Iibaraz soldiers must be killed to the last Bidonite before they are ever relinquished.

STRENGTH OF WING
A legendary Imperial battlecruiser with a long and celebrated history. Flagship of the entire Imperial Armada, currently captained by Admiral Sorel Obir Set.

The Strength of Wing was constructed shortly before the Collapse, having originally made a name for itself in the Second Iceworlder Wars, where it, operating alone, destroyed three Iceworlder ships of comparable tonnage while protecting an evacuee convoy.

After the Collapse, the Strength of Wing was one of those ships of the Armada that went dark to evade detection and destruction. With its entire crew in cryosleep and all but the most important systems shut down, it drifted in deep space for twenty-seven years.

Rediscovery came about after the Second Founding, when, through sheer luck, the Strength of Wing 's automated systems detected the the distress signal of an Imperial expeditionary fleet. Once revived, the Strength of Wing proceeded to fight and help win one of the first battles of the Balzer War, its sudden appearance earning it even greater fame.

The Strength of Wing became one of the figureheads of the resurrected United Bidonite Empire -- like the Empire itself, a symbol of the past returned to the present. With the Imperial Armada still budding and weak, the immense firepower the ancient battlecruiser could provide was greatly appreciated. It went on to fight several key battles against the Balzer pirates, eventually turning the tide of the war over the water world Oocalis by destroying two Balzer motherships, the loss of which greatly demoralized the enemy.

Since then, the Strength of Wing has remained one of the Empire's key assets as it grew in size in strength. Its heroic reputation only grew with every battle it fought -- and though it didn't always come out victorious, battle damage was always an excellent reason to refurbish the aging ship with all the most cutting edge technology the Imperial Armory can manufacture.

ROYAL GUARD
The Imperial Royal Guard is the personal army of the High Sovereigns, used to protect them and their rightful authority. While the Guard is largely considered ceremonial, it sees little action only because there has been little internal strife within the Empire lately. The role of the Royal Guard is to put down uprisings and rebellions -- internal threats -- whereas the Imperial Army fights external threats. Nevertheless, the Royal Guard tends to wield the latest weaponry and wear the most advanced armor, earning them the nickname "gold haulers" (a rough translation) from other elements of the Legions.

AMBASSADOR BETIK KYN MORAT
A polyglot aadamez ambassador who first made a name for herself by talking down the rebellious Sovereign Tovar Mamoz, her efforts in settling territory claim disputes between the Empire and the alien Mavra led to the discovery of her ability to learn other languages with astonishing speed. Since then, Ambassador Morat has become a mainstay of Imperial-Alien diplomacy. Her talent is a form of savant syndrome; she was born with a Bidonite neurodevelopmental disorder similar to autism in humans. At current count, she is fluent in 12 languages and conversant in 24 more.