ParoxysmalBirth
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History
The vrexul did not begin as a single species but a variety of them on worlds near the edges of known space, around 250 light years away from Earth. On the planet of Spojekralovstvi (Spoy-eh-kra-lov-stee), a world rife with swampy jungles, moss-covered plains, and craggy wastelands, various species of large arthropod like organisms were locked in brutal struggles for survival on a world full of enormous predatory creatures. Their features varied from populace to populace but they approximated features of taxonomic families akin to staphylindae, carabidae, phronimidae, and chilopoda. Initially they were a number of distinct species inhabiting a dangerous and uncivilized world, primarily tribal creatures living in underground, underwater, or arboreal nest-settlements. Some societies were nomadic but all picked up a mixture of fungus or mold based agriculture to supplement hunting against swarm-based intelligent predators and larger solitary megafauna, many of which would attempt to exterminate them to eliminate their fierce competition or to harvest them as a food source.
Sometime in their history they began to encounter both other groups of vrexul and adaptable parasites that caused a variety of mutations or other morphological changes in those they infested. As luck would have it, these parasites were no less endangered than they were with many of the dangerous fauna and occasionally flora of the Spojekralovstvi increasingly adapting to finding and catching them and their usual host species. Early vrexul tribal alliances would begin experimenting with the integration of these creatures into their bodies, selectively breeding and subsequently modifying their genetics over the years to select for very particular morphological effects. This would lead to them discovering biotechnology before metalworking and electricity derived technologies (though it would help lead to the prior two's popular implementation) and would also begin the creation of the vrexul species. In discovering how to change their bodies, they also did the same for their genetics. As more populations encountered and intermingled, gradually they would begin to mix not only phenotypic but also genotypic data.
Now known as the vrexul, this species in the midst of a biotechnological boom and growing in unified power rapidly began to turn the tables on those that once treated them as prey and pest. Gifted with bodies now much deadlier than what they could naturally afford, with strange weapons growing from their carapaces complimenting radically modified internal biologies, they rose to become the dominant life form on Spojekralovstvi. Some arthropod species did not end up assimilating but usually were isolated from the primary population groups, maintaining distant relationships of trade and culture. The new vrexul-dominated world found itself with breathing room for one of the few times in its existence and the now unified tribes, quickly becoming larger organized associations, began to put all of the shared knowledge to use in creating what appeared to be the first true signs of civilization.
While the conflict against an external threat had ended and they were making rapid growth in terms of technology, philosophy, architecture, the arts and other fields a variety of rifts began to appear amongst the various societies forming in this period. The war had forged some of them into a more stationary, loosely associated, and relatively quiet set of settlements and others into militantly aggressive and ever-watchful ones. Others simply wanted to vanish back into the same murky depths they had risen from and others felt they were owed far more for their service in these conflicts. Weariness from a history primarily defined by bloodshed kept all out conflict from happening and many of them still saw themselves as part of the same natural world they had practically been at war with. For many the idea of themselves as a people separate from nature was a philosophically deficient and even harmful idea with civilization as it currently stood being a dead end waiting to disappoint those it had trapped.
As a whole, Spojekralovstvi began to rapidly grow and expand with biotech-infused FTL-capable vessels created fairly quickly. It was also during this time that they began creating a variety of space stations that soon grew into floating cities. Many of those who believed that the current societal trends were not in their favour ended up on these floating structures, developing cultures sharply different than those they had left on the surface.
During this period the rifts within the vrexul as a whole were starting to worsen. Galvanized by rapid technological growth contrasted by increasingly entrenched, slowly changing ideologies it was not long before once conflicting positions all began to reduce themselves to two major umbrella classifications. The first were the Prvolhlastni (Primordial Voice) which was formed of the larger city states and industrialist organizations, the independent military organizations, and a number of interest groups directly propped up by emergent industrial powers. The second was the Jedgnozilik (Gnosis Eater Sect) formed from independent nomadic associations, loose associations of smaller settlement organizations, various floating cities, and governments typically in exile from a variety of smaller homeworld conflicts. Prvholhlastni desired an expanded sense of statehood, the full unification of Spojekralovstvi with its colony worlds, and an aggressive push outwards to find and settle on more space. Jedgnozilik by contrast desired a multipolar alliance with a looser series of bonds between its constituents and a more regimented, council-based way of handling relations between the vrexul and their allies.
During this time, one a major question was debated and argued even by those unaligned to either side was the question of the vrexul's nature. They had after all subjugated an environment that had once nearly driven them to extinction and assimilated multiple parasite species to their own ends, becoming the most fearsome sapients in the region. At the same time, they proved they could unify and were people who when given the chance could also make great strides in the arts, philosophy, sciences, and technology. The current conflict created a conflict between the perceived being of the vrexul - was what was happening proof they were not any more evolved than when the first parasite-augmented warrior struck down the great mammalian beasts in ancient jungles, propelled by nothing more than a desire to survive via domination. In the midst of escalating tensions and proxy conflicts, it was decided to settle which of the two great ideopolitical fronts was correct on the matter in what would be the final great experiment of their kind.
The purpose of this experiment was not just to answer a hot button philosophical question but also to hopefully stop the forthcoming conflict many knew was over the horizon. It had quietly been set up by the Jedgnozilik through a mixture of controlled neutral organizations and covert operations groups to counteract the fact that they knew they could not defeat the Prvlhlastni in a straight up fight. The whole experiment was based around relocating a large amount of vrexul eggs on large life-seeder fleets and send them to a top secret location observed by hidden surveillance - one that would see if they would resort to barbarity or unity. It was to be protected by a top secret research project - the creation of a hybrid form of technology in the form of an advanced living supercomputer. Known as the Ixaxxion, it was a grotesque cloud-like formation of magical, biological, and cybernetic components programmed to protect the unborn fleet and it was assisted by a variety of advanced AI's.
As the life-seeder fleet left, the situation on Spojekralovstvi further deteriorated. The promise of a grand experiment watched from afar held for a decade but the proxy wars had worsened and as everyone expected, lead to the long awaited civil war breaking out. Their homeworld was once more embroiled in a massive war, one that the Jedgnozilik would lose as they scattered across the stars, forced to retreat as they were hunted down for information on where the life-seeder fleet had landed.
The vrexul did not begin as a single species but a variety of them on worlds near the edges of known space, around 250 light years away from Earth. On the planet of Spojekralovstvi (Spoy-eh-kra-lov-stee), a world rife with swampy jungles, moss-covered plains, and craggy wastelands, various species of large arthropod like organisms were locked in brutal struggles for survival on a world full of enormous predatory creatures. Their features varied from populace to populace but they approximated features of taxonomic families akin to staphylindae, carabidae, phronimidae, and chilopoda. Initially they were a number of distinct species inhabiting a dangerous and uncivilized world, primarily tribal creatures living in underground, underwater, or arboreal nest-settlements. Some societies were nomadic but all picked up a mixture of fungus or mold based agriculture to supplement hunting against swarm-based intelligent predators and larger solitary megafauna, many of which would attempt to exterminate them to eliminate their fierce competition or to harvest them as a food source.
Sometime in their history they began to encounter both other groups of vrexul and adaptable parasites that caused a variety of mutations or other morphological changes in those they infested. As luck would have it, these parasites were no less endangered than they were with many of the dangerous fauna and occasionally flora of the Spojekralovstvi increasingly adapting to finding and catching them and their usual host species. Early vrexul tribal alliances would begin experimenting with the integration of these creatures into their bodies, selectively breeding and subsequently modifying their genetics over the years to select for very particular morphological effects. This would lead to them discovering biotechnology before metalworking and electricity derived technologies (though it would help lead to the prior two's popular implementation) and would also begin the creation of the vrexul species. In discovering how to change their bodies, they also did the same for their genetics. As more populations encountered and intermingled, gradually they would begin to mix not only phenotypic but also genotypic data.
Now known as the vrexul, this species in the midst of a biotechnological boom and growing in unified power rapidly began to turn the tables on those that once treated them as prey and pest. Gifted with bodies now much deadlier than what they could naturally afford, with strange weapons growing from their carapaces complimenting radically modified internal biologies, they rose to become the dominant life form on Spojekralovstvi. Some arthropod species did not end up assimilating but usually were isolated from the primary population groups, maintaining distant relationships of trade and culture. The new vrexul-dominated world found itself with breathing room for one of the few times in its existence and the now unified tribes, quickly becoming larger organized associations, began to put all of the shared knowledge to use in creating what appeared to be the first true signs of civilization.
While the conflict against an external threat had ended and they were making rapid growth in terms of technology, philosophy, architecture, the arts and other fields a variety of rifts began to appear amongst the various societies forming in this period. The war had forged some of them into a more stationary, loosely associated, and relatively quiet set of settlements and others into militantly aggressive and ever-watchful ones. Others simply wanted to vanish back into the same murky depths they had risen from and others felt they were owed far more for their service in these conflicts. Weariness from a history primarily defined by bloodshed kept all out conflict from happening and many of them still saw themselves as part of the same natural world they had practically been at war with. For many the idea of themselves as a people separate from nature was a philosophically deficient and even harmful idea with civilization as it currently stood being a dead end waiting to disappoint those it had trapped.
As a whole, Spojekralovstvi began to rapidly grow and expand with biotech-infused FTL-capable vessels created fairly quickly. It was also during this time that they began creating a variety of space stations that soon grew into floating cities. Many of those who believed that the current societal trends were not in their favour ended up on these floating structures, developing cultures sharply different than those they had left on the surface.
During this period the rifts within the vrexul as a whole were starting to worsen. Galvanized by rapid technological growth contrasted by increasingly entrenched, slowly changing ideologies it was not long before once conflicting positions all began to reduce themselves to two major umbrella classifications. The first were the Prvolhlastni (Primordial Voice) which was formed of the larger city states and industrialist organizations, the independent military organizations, and a number of interest groups directly propped up by emergent industrial powers. The second was the Jedgnozilik (Gnosis Eater Sect) formed from independent nomadic associations, loose associations of smaller settlement organizations, various floating cities, and governments typically in exile from a variety of smaller homeworld conflicts. Prvholhlastni desired an expanded sense of statehood, the full unification of Spojekralovstvi with its colony worlds, and an aggressive push outwards to find and settle on more space. Jedgnozilik by contrast desired a multipolar alliance with a looser series of bonds between its constituents and a more regimented, council-based way of handling relations between the vrexul and their allies.
During this time, one a major question was debated and argued even by those unaligned to either side was the question of the vrexul's nature. They had after all subjugated an environment that had once nearly driven them to extinction and assimilated multiple parasite species to their own ends, becoming the most fearsome sapients in the region. At the same time, they proved they could unify and were people who when given the chance could also make great strides in the arts, philosophy, sciences, and technology. The current conflict created a conflict between the perceived being of the vrexul - was what was happening proof they were not any more evolved than when the first parasite-augmented warrior struck down the great mammalian beasts in ancient jungles, propelled by nothing more than a desire to survive via domination. In the midst of escalating tensions and proxy conflicts, it was decided to settle which of the two great ideopolitical fronts was correct on the matter in what would be the final great experiment of their kind.
The purpose of this experiment was not just to answer a hot button philosophical question but also to hopefully stop the forthcoming conflict many knew was over the horizon. It had quietly been set up by the Jedgnozilik through a mixture of controlled neutral organizations and covert operations groups to counteract the fact that they knew they could not defeat the Prvlhlastni in a straight up fight. The whole experiment was based around relocating a large amount of vrexul eggs on large life-seeder fleets and send them to a top secret location observed by hidden surveillance - one that would see if they would resort to barbarity or unity. It was to be protected by a top secret research project - the creation of a hybrid form of technology in the form of an advanced living supercomputer. Known as the Ixaxxion, it was a grotesque cloud-like formation of magical, biological, and cybernetic components programmed to protect the unborn fleet and it was assisted by a variety of advanced AI's.
As the life-seeder fleet left, the situation on Spojekralovstvi further deteriorated. The promise of a grand experiment watched from afar held for a decade but the proxy wars had worsened and as everyone expected, lead to the long awaited civil war breaking out. Their homeworld was once more embroiled in a massive war, one that the Jedgnozilik would lose as they scattered across the stars, forced to retreat as they were hunted down for information on where the life-seeder fleet had landed.
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