Overview
Spacer Unathi are a diverse group with many different possible origins. They hail from existing Unathi ports in space, or even settlements of majority-human or other aliens throughout the traveled, cosmopolitan galaxy. Three factions of Spacer Unathi however, have captured the imagination of what the galaxy's pop culture considers ‘Spacer Unathi’ - The Venerable Order of Banners of Saint Zalessa, commonly known as the Order of Zalessa, the Immortal Supplicants of Maruduk, commonly known as the Immortals, and the Carrion-Eaters of Kemmut, also called The Carrion-Eaters.
Spacer Unathi Factions
Order of Saint Zalessa
The Order of Zalessa is a religious military order founded in the early 2000’s CE by the eponymous Zalessa. They were originally cybernetic slave soldiers to the exiled Unathi God-King Maruduk. Their primary headquarters is Nebum Fortress, which orbits the large black hole commonly called Maruduk’s Demise within Space Storm Sally. Their order was listless and without purpose for over a thousand years, but recent events and turmoil has seen their Order both reinvigorated and fractured as its Knights and members either abandon the cause or spread through the galaxy in a feverous search for the Warlock Maruduk. While other factions tend to not take the Order's claims of galactic doom seriously, their services as honorable roaming fighters lends them frequent contracts for both protective and humanitarian services.
An archetype of knights in shining armor. Their knights espouse honor, chivalry, and good deeds. Women take a primary role in leadership roles within the Order, as well as being the majority of its Chaplains.The Order is egalitarian with its roles open to anyone who shows proper merits, while also being very hierarchical in that positions are rigid and lower echelons are expected to follow any honorable commands of their betters. Knights tend to be either dashing and heroic or more cynical from their time fighting out in the galaxy. Being spacers, they struggle to survive on planets with full gravity and lack a major presence on any. Factions really want to return home and crusade on Bomus to free the people, but their lack of manpowers + inability to actually go down onto the planet and fight keeps them constrained. The Order forbids alcohol. Small Order attachments to space stations often act as medbays and pharmacies. The Order has a respected university for medical degrees. Its primary jobs are Medical Doctor, Pharmacist, and Security Officer. Former members, Exiles, or civilians from the Order with no expectation of military service, are often found in the same roles or in Service, Supply, and Engineering roles.
Members from the original Headquarters in Maruduk’s Demise, because of slight genetic drift, typically have blue tinted eyes. The most common hide colors from this lot are also shades of brown, blue, and red; though all typical Unathi colors are present.
Religion
The primary faith of the Order is a worship of their dynasty of Saints called Iconism. They’re not considered Gods but as pure, ideal versions of Unathi. They keep Zalessa’s original genetic data and use it to clone her into new Saints of either gender during the equinox of the Fortresses’ orbit around the black hole; approximately every one hundred and thirty-seven years. These clones were cultivated for their role from birth as a continued reincarnation of Zalessa’s ideals, virtues, and ability. The second most professed faith is Sassurism, who have incorporated the Saints into their christian sects as holy figures. Relations between these two groups are mostly amicable.
Immortals of Maruduk
The Immortals are an antagonistic faction with no known headquarters. They were originally the loyalist followers of the God-King Maruduk, who were all killed in the original revolt on the Generation-Ship Balmog. Maruduk had been completely neutralized as a threat to the Order since its founding day. However since then Maruduk escaped and has slowly been spreading his cult throughout Unathi Spacer societies in the rim of civilized space. His closest followers are under the influence of his powerful psionic abilities and powers of suggestion, while more mundane followers are pulled to his group through its pervasive and persistent preying on vulnerable populations, inviting them to join a new found family and then using shame and social isolation, or psionic influence, to draw them further into the cult. Immortals are often seen as a nuisance at best or pirates at worst by local galactic powers as the group avoids overtly antagonizing major powers, but periodically a cell will undertake missions that range from theft, piracy, kidnapping, to attempted assassination. Maruduk’s expressed aim is the subjugation of the Unathi species which will worship him as a God, which is a standard desire of any Unathi God-King, but Maruduk is one of the few who is able to act on his mission.
An archetype of various possible antagonists. Canon members would not openly announce that they’re an Immortal, but it’s not illegal to be from a space station with a significant Immortal presence. Its members either keep their original faith and support the group, or are ardent worshippers of Maruduk as a living God. Because of their diverse lineages, there is no phenotype of colors that is seen as common to them.
Religion
Ardent Immortals worship Maruduk as an Ensi; a God-King.
History of Maruduk & Zalessa
Maruduk’s ship fled Moghes a hundred years before The Disaster , and reached the black hole XXX hundred years later. When he declared his intention to pilot the ship into it and seize control of it with his psionic powers, the Slave-Engineers were alarmed by his apparent madness and sabotaged the security systems and cryogenic tubes so that the cybernetic implants of the bodyguards and soldiers would be disabled when they were awoken. A high ranking commander, Zalessa, rallied the forces of the mutiny against Maruduk and his remaining loyalists. Losing control of the ship and his psionic abilities heavily strained, Maruduk retreated to an escape pod and ejected it towards the black hole. Because of time dilation and the large black hole having low tidal forces, his escape pod was perceived by the outside world as slowing down before coming to a complete stop above the event horizon. The mutiny succeeded and Zalessa declared her intention to stay and make sure Maruduk never escaped. They converted the ship into a space station and harvested materials from surrounding asteroids.
They made contact with humanity and the wider galaxy in 2XXX. Their HQ was dilapidated and lacking major purpose in all this time so many Unathi left to join the wider galaxy. Only a small core remained.
From Maruduk’s perspective only an hour passed since his escape pod came close to the event horizon. Due to time dilation thousands of years passed for observers above. In this time in 24XX a mysterious group used telescience to teleport a beacon to the falling Maruduk, who used it to teleport out of his escape pod and onto the shuttle. He fled with the mysterious group while taunting the fortress over a hologram channel, causing immediate alarm. The Order’s four antiquated fighters weren’t able to scratch the Hephaestus No.4 Hull and it escaped.
Grand-Master Kalikal and the modern Saint Nalitta readied the Order for war, but Maruduk’s agents exposed genetic data that revealed Saint Zalessa, as well as all his former long-since deceased Command Staff, were actually clones of himself. This caused a crisis of faith and immediate unrest in the Fortress, jeopardizing the Order’s cohesion. Members abandoned in droves and those that remain struggle to expand Chapters and outposts through the galaxy, fight their ancient enemy, and navigate the complicated modern galaxy all while going through a collective identity crisis.
Saint Nalitta for his part, and all his supporters, are pushing consistently with the idea of redemption and it being retroactive - a person is what they do, and the entire dynasty of Saints has been working to defeat Maruduk.
The Carrion-Eaters of Kemmut
The Carrion-Eaters are a large, loose collection of spaceborn Unathi fleets with a society revolving around the scavenging of orbital graveyards and abandoned megaprojects. The great projects of the galaxy were not built successfully on the first try. The discards are often left abandoned after some innate flaw is discovered during construction, or a flaw that made itself known through catastrophic, often lethal failure. These decaying carrion are as important to scrapper societies as a Whalefall is to the deep oceans of Earth. The graveyards frequented by the Carrion-Eaters are diverse. From the shattered metal islands of the failed Xarxes 7 partial Dyson-Swarm, to the broken bodies of Gladwyn’s shell-world siblings, to the preserved ruins of stations torn apart by calamity, to the graveyards of battles lost to time, their presence is ubiquitous where they’ve beaten other scavenging groups to the mess.
Carrion-Eaters are surrounded by misconception from outsiders. Seeing them as grave-robbers at best, and cannibal pirates at worst. Part of this comes from their religious practice of endocannibalism, which carries as much religious importance as it does the practical matter of recycling nutrients when months away from the nearest civilized location.
Each fleet is made up of roughly dozens or hundreds of ships, with each ship’s crew being considered one family group. A fleet is typically led by a council made up of members of each of a fleet's family groups, and the most influential member which takes on a leadership role is often called the Skull-Keeper. This title comes from the primary responsibility of the leader in maintaining the Catacomb-Ship, a ceremonial vessel or multiple vessels that hold the skulls and other bones not ritualistically consumed which are packed into the interior walls and constructions as part of the architecture. These ships are the most important vessels in a fleet.
Carrion-Eaters are typically known to be cold, quiet, but sentimental. While they hold little value in strangers, and are even usually off-putting and blunt, they are typically seen as loyal friends when they warm up to someone.
History of the Carrion-Eaters
While known since the mid-2400’s, the Carrion-Eaters became known to the wider galaxy in 25XX, from the release of a documentary by a journalist and film-maker embedded in the Fleet of Sacred Putrescence, which was scavenging the shattered remnants of an O’Neill cylinder from a lost civilization. The fleet's ancient history is lost to time, but oral traditions seem to tell a story of an exodus from the Unathi home system following a great catastrophe; considered by many historians to be The Disaster.
Minor genetic drift has Carrion-Eaters commonly having red tinted eyes. The most common hide color is white, gray, and black; though all typical Unathi colors are also present.
They are able to take any job on the station, though are most common in Engineering, Medical, and Operations, as these three roles are the most vital to a fleet’s survival and are focused on during training and schooling.
Religion
The Carrion-Eaters have a very close relationship with the remnants they’re scavenging, and their relationship to the ruins and death in general is called Kemmutism. Kemmut is not a typical deity, but the idea of a dead deity created and then killed by man. Kemmut philosophy says that building such massive constructions turns them into objects of reverence, empowering them with the power of a God. In their death, the construction becomes a literal corpse - a god-corpse called Kemmut. Kemmutists believe that these gods aren’t truly dead as we understand it, and so they have rituals and rites to purify and placate each construct to avoid its wrath or encourage it to reveal its hidden riches. Scavenging is a very dangerous job which has a habit of killing scrappers in arbitrary and almost capricious ways, comparable to the selective destruction of a tornado skipping over houses while flattening all the rest; from industrial accidents to threats from pirate raids, or attacks from hivebots.
In funerary rites, Kemmutists recycle the biomass from fallen members in a ceremony on the Catacomb-Ship. The members of the family of the fallen pick out particulates of ash and bone from the ashes and ground it with a maize-like vegetable called Mier and drink it as a gruel called Mier’vesh. Bits of knuckle and smaller bones are used to make jewelry. Other parts of the ash are used to cover the faces of the mourners during the mourning period, typically lasting twenty days. The rest of the biomass is used as nutrients for plants in the hydroponic bays. The skull is kept separate and embedded in part of the architecture of the Catacomb-Ship.
Bone-Keepers, also called Shamans, are typically a female member of a family, though they can be any gender. They usually leave their family group and reside on their fleet's Catacomb-Ship when chosen by the other Bone-Keepers for their potential. They help tend to the bones and spiritual needs of the fleet in general. They are known to practice osteomancy with the bones of their ancestors, though on the station they typically use dice or tarot cards. They also are known to cover their body in tattoos using an ink blended with the ashes of the fallen.
Abridged History
Unathi history is extremely ancient, and is therefore divided into several "ages". The specific date of eras are not strictly important until events of modern times.
Moghes had forever been ruled by Unathi who have set themselves up as living gods that ruled collections of city-states, and society was built around them. They were called the Ensi. The Ensi were resisted by a successive series of civilizations, scholars, and inventors that worked to proliferate their knowledge and the dream of progress. This struggle played out for twenty thousand years.
Eventually, one of these leagues managed to colonize Yzali, the second habitable planet in the system. In retaliation the Ensi destroyed the colonizers' cities on the home world and the colony of Yzali was left to itself. The colonists on Yzali, despite being abandoned and expected to perish, proliferated and became a well-organized, complex technocratic nation. Unshackled by their former conservative masters, the Yzali began to rapidly exploit the planet and each other in a relentless drive for progress whatever the costs.
After surpassing its home world, Yzali dominated the Bomus system with advanced technology including android and cyborg soldiers called Akran - the precursor of modern Aut'akh. With its own biosphere tapped out by the end of the era, Yzali Techno-Princes colonized the barren world of Zakkeran and terraformed into a blossoming world within a few decades. They eventually turned their eyes to Moghes, and with the power of two worlds they descended upon it. Legions of Akran and glittering spaceships carrying immense firepower swept aside the bronze-wielding armies of Moghes. The pyramids of the God-Kings had their former occupants replaced by Yzali Princes, who integrated advanced technology into every facet of the home world. They became new God-Kings, and adopted the culture of their former masters to rule over the common people. The remaining native God-Kings who swore fealty to the Yzali invaders were allowed to continue their reigns.
By the 1600's CE, with the Yzali ascendant and masters of the solar system, the Tech-Princes sought ever-increasing ways to improve themselves. Breakthroughs in mind-mapping allowed true cloning and potential immortality. But after the harrowing discovery of Clone Madness, Tech-Princes banned the practice in their realms. Tech-Princes feared a mad clone ruining future plans, or for themselves to suffer the descent into madness. Only the most vain Ensi on Moghes took in the practice, leading to the over one-thousand year reign of Hal-aman “the Eternal” - also known as Hal-aman “The Aberration”.Around 2000 CE by sol reckoning, a massive solar flare wiped out the nascent solar Yzali empire, casting them into the role of techno-barbarians while Moghes, with its Ensi well equipped to rule over a technological backwater, enjoyed a resurgence of power. With the Yzali's cybernetic soldiers all falling dead on the spot, the legions of the remaining God-Kings swept over the world and embarked on a brutal campaign of revenge and conquest. Yzalian Tech-Princes and God-Kings were struck down wherever they were found. On Yzali itself, society was thrown into techno-barbarism until it was able to coalesce back into functioning order over the next few hundred years.
Only technology stored in secure caches or otherwise shielded remain spared, and in modern times are called Pre-Disaster Tech. This technology can do wondrous things akin to magic.
In the 2300’s arriving colonists, mostly Jesuit missionaries, encountered the system in a damaged and decrepit colony ship, long since cast adrift by the solar flare from Bomus that had reached their ship a hundred years later. Rejected by Moghes and fearing inhumane exploitation by Yzali the majority escaped to Zakkeran, joining the Unathi inhabitants there to form a new syncretic culture. The Prophet Sassur served as translator for the Jesuit mission on Zakkeran. He served as prophet and missionary, spreading his teachings throughout Zakkeran until he peacefully died of old age in his eighties.
In modern times Yzali has once again become a hedonistic technocracy, where ambitions tend to be tempered by luxury while merchants and scientists obsess on lost technology from before The Disaster. Moghes continues to resist change as best it can, working to increase the Ensi’s power to better enforce its conservative order. Caught in the middle, Zakkeran continue to protect their new, free society.
While the four nations had learned of alien life through the arrival of the lost Jesuit missionaries in the Middle Bomus, the arrival of formal expeditions from the other space faring powers led to Unathi emissaries being brought out to the wider galaxy. The shock at seeing the sheer size and breadth of the galactic community (and their warships) shook the emissaries to their core. When they returned the Yzali, Moghean, and Zakkeran emissaries spent over a decade hammering out an extremely tenuous and in-name-only alliance between the three planets called The Hegemony.
Moghes has incredibly complex and shifting realms of city-states and realms. However half of the planet has been conquered by Hal-aman and his hive-mind of clones.
Yzali is technically a single world government, but in reality its glittering cities - which can even float across the sky or web their way under the oceans - are ruled by petty, vindictive, paranoid, and utterly self-obsessed Tech-Princes.
Zakkeran remains a world of semi-nomadic communes and established city-states that do their best to absorb and care for the discarded wretches of Moghes and yzali.
The Aut'akh remain aloof and distant, technical members of Zakkeran societies. They seek to continue taking in the unwashed masses yearning to be free - and protected by twenty thousand kilometers of deep ocean.Zakkeran Lore Books
[A volume that chronicles the life and teachings of the Unathi Sassur (2390 - 2420) with several passages chronicling his journey to eventually become the next Prophet of God.]
After Hal-Aman conquered the city-state of Sanu and killed its patron God-King, as well as Sassur’s mother who had been a chariot-rider in the final battle, Hal-Aman punished the city for its resistance and spoke a spell which turned every newborn within the city to ash. Sassur’s father, an attendant of Sanu’s former God, protected the newborn Sassur by placing him in a sealed chamber within the palace. Outside Hal-Aman spoke again and the palace was brought down to rubble, killing Sassur’s father. Sassur was found later by a slave digging up the rubble and spirited away to safety.
Sassur was raised secretly within the court of Hal-Aman by his slave mother Milika until he was old enough for her to convincingly lie that Sassur had been born shortly after Hal-Aman’s conquest, thus spared from his spell. He gained the attention of one of the local four Hal-Aman; part of the ruling immortal hivemind of Hal-Aman clones. He is trained as a scribe and attendant within the floating pyramid that serves as the local Hal-Aman’s palace and city garrison and is known to be pleasant and friendly. Years later Sassur witnessed Hal-Aman lose his temper at a group of slaves and speak a spell which caused half of the slave quarter of the city to fall dead. Deeply disturbed Sassur fled the city-state into the countryside.
During his flight from the city he met a band of travelers that had fled different cities throughout Hal-Aman’s domain and together they journeyed to a relic from Old Bomus, over 400 years ago. After a month-long journey the group discovers the relic and begins to repair it to make their escape. A night during this Sassur has a dream in which an unfamiliar voice reveals itself to be God and commands him to return to Sanu and rescue the people and gave him the words to bid them to follow. God told where Sassur would find a ring that would protect him from Hal-Aman’s power. Waking from the dream Sassur told his companions and left to return to Sanu.[A volume that chronicles the life and teachings of the Unathi Sassur (2390 - 2420) with several passages chronicling his journey to eventually become the next Prophet of God.]
When Sassur was moving through the mountains and forests to return to Sanu, he found the ring that God spoke of in his dream, discarded at the bottom of a stream. Sassur donned it and knew that he would be safe from Hal-Aman’s power. Returning outside the city Sassur found a gathering of other people of Sanu. Sassur spoke the words that the Lord had told him and the people believed; and bowed their heads. Yet others were fearful and asked how Sassur could save the others still behind the walls.
Sassur told them to pass through the gates and gather the people of Sanu and escape as he dueled with Hal-Aman who would be distracted in rage against Sassur. So Sassur approached the walls and Hal-Aman, in his rage, spoke spells on Sassur to put him to death. Sassur sat on the ground at the gate and prayed. Spell after spell was cast against Sassur by six Hal-Aman’s as the people of Sanu made their escape. The people saw the sky split open over Sassur and the ground around him buckle, and streaks of fire erupt from Hal-Aman’s pyramid and swarms of locusts swarm around Sassur. But in all this Sassur stayed in quiet prayer, untouched and protected by the Lord.
When the people of Sanu were gone into the mountains and forests Sassur rose and spoke the words of the Lord in a tongue unknown by any who heard:
"The sound of music shall not be heard in you anymore. No craftsman of any craft shall be found in you anymore, and the sound of a millstone shall not be heard in you anymore. The light of a lamp shall not shine in you anymore, and the voice of bridegroom and bride shall not be heard in you anymore. Sanu is fallen, to rise no more."
And so Hal-Aman looked down upon the empty city and in rage tore open the ground and cast it into the earth, and by the time he was done Sassur had already lead the people of Sanu into the wilderness.[A volume that chronicles the life and teachings of the Unathi Sassur (2390 - 2420) with several passages chronicling his journey to eventually become the next Prophet of God.]
Sassur led the people to the relic and they boarded it and escaped Moghes, traveling to the fabled planet of Zakkeran where Unathi lived free. During the trip which took many tendays, the people demanded that Sassur become their new Ensi so they could live as they had before Hal-Aman’s arrival. Sassur was disturbed and refused, and prayed to God. God told Sassur of one of God’s earlier disciples Zamiel and gave Sassur the words that Zamiel spoke. He said,
“This is what the Ensi who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your harvest and of your vintage and give it to his attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your livestock will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves.
The people feared the return of tyranny and spoke no more of it.
When they arrived at Zakkeran, the relic brought them safely to the surface outside a large forest who’s trees were taller than any had ever seen. The people of Sanu were shocked to see Unathi come from the community, and feared ones that looked to be made of metal. Sassur had great difficulty speaking to the locals who had another language, and Sassur asked the people of Sanu for five of its best translators. The people chose among themselves five volunteers and got to work communicating with the locals.[A volume that chronicles the life and teachings of the Unathi Sassur (2390 - 2420) with several passages chronicling his journey to eventually become the next Prophet of God.]
After making peace with the community of Zakkeran and learning their language, Sassur and the people of Sanu he led from Moghes lived with them for many years. Then one day a radionathi exclaimed that he heard strange voices coming from the sky that was not any language heard before. Sassur and others came to listen. They soon learned that men from another star sought shelter, as their ark was ancient and falling to pieces. Moghean Ensi offered to take them in if they would become slaves and attendants. The hedonistic Tech-Princes of the planet Yzali promised to shower them in hedonistic luxury if they came there. But Sassur warned them that the Yzali would make them slaves and turn their bodies to metal. So the men came to Zakkeran.
The men emerged and proclaimed themselves Jesuits from a distant star called Earth and they had gotten led astray on the long journey, but now wanted to spread the word of God. Sassur was shaken to hear their words and he remembered the words of this God speaking to him and helping him free his people from Sanu. So Sassur asked the community to take them in and they agreed, and the Jesuits created a community and through Sassur translated the word of God for the people of Zakkeran.
As he spoke the Word to the people of Zakkeran Sassur said, "All who believe shall live together and hold everything in common."
And they began selling their property and possessions and distributing the proceeds to everyone as anyone had need. All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.
