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THE QUARG AND THE COALITION

QUARG GOVERNMENT/SOCIETY STRUCTURE

RINGWORLDS

CHARACTERS

THE QUARG AND THE COALITION

Saryds

Some centuries prior to the Saryds becoming spacefaring, the Quarg were made aware that the region would likely bloom with not only those, but two other fledgling species soon. The Quarg, knowing that meant the Pug would also soon become aware of the area, if they already weren't, readied fleets and moved to the area. They arrived there first, and mounted a blockade with the sheer number of ships they had brought. The Pug did come, and the Pug did fight, but these were not the same Quarg as from when they lost a ring, they had grown to hate the Pug, to desire to kill them, even, and for that purpose they had constructed larger, more powerful warships, weapons specialized in fighting the Pug, and though rudimentary, a worrying amount of tactics for such a large force.

They fought on the Pug's "game" terms for some time, then against a few of the more powerful, serious ships the Pug had, but the Pug were beaten back by numbers all the same. The Quarg would, and did, pour as many ships as they needed to stop the Pug from coming in. The Pug could perhaps have used some of the most devastating pieces of their arsenal there, but there was no ring to destroy for a quick victory, and they did not want to drag the Archons into the conflict. So, the Pug stopped trying to get in. The Quarg, however, never trusted the Pug to give up, and kept their fleets in the region all the same, patrolling, ever in search of Pug ships or a base of operations. Meanwhile, the construction of the first of their rings began, on a crossroads that would link the three species one day, this ring facing the Saryd portion of that space.

When the Saryds achieved spaceflight, they began exploring the neighboring systems carefully, eventually running into the Quarg. Having carefully observed the Saryds from afar, the Quarg had grown fonder of them than they had of most other species: as they saw them, the Saryds were calmer, wiser than most, having learned much from their wars on their home planet, and the Saryd people growing to be older than most other species also made the Quarg more willing to befriend them. Their relationship grew to be good enough that the Quarg deemed them worthy of receiving a few Jump Drives, so that they could explore, and eventually, have easier means of meeting their soon-to-be neighbors.

The Quarg were happy to share much information with the Saryds, some eager to teach them. Only two topics were "taboo," the Saryds found: the reason for why the Quarg held so many ships in the region, even in Saryd systems, only vaguely speaking of defending them from some group called "Pug"; the other, inquired after the Saryds had found some remains of an ancient civilization in their exploring with the Jump Drives, artifacts of a gargantuan scale, was of what happened to these "dragonfolk."

Kimek

The Kimek, having almost gone extinct before reaching space, continued to suffer for centuries after their first Hyperdrives, struggling to supply the food for their home planet, desperately colonizing nearby worlds that could offer the least bit of farming area. Having encountered the Quarg first by looking upon a patrol fleet, they asked for help with their famine crisis, but didn't receive much aid from their part. The Quarg, who didn't recognize the Kimek's situation as dire enough "just yet," didn't want to "carry" them through the struggle. They were also not very pleased with how the Kimek had developed and how they had gottento that point, judging them another reckless, young race that didn't look to the efficiency they themselves like so much.

The Saryds, having met the Kimek under Quarg mediation, helped as they could by providing them with several large freighters' worth of food, equipped with their Jump Drives so that they could make the trip quicker. The Kimek asked the Quarg for Jump Drives of their own, to facilitate the process, but they were denied. They asked the Saryds if the Quarg also fielded so many ships in their space, the answer being yes, and when asked if they knew why, they learned the Saryds had been told the same they had when they asked the Quarg: something about defending them from a group called "Pug."

Arachi

As for the Arachi, their path to space was anything but unified, with the different Houses leaving for far away worlds to claim as their own as soon as they could, leading to conflicts in the space era not too different from the ones humanity had. As they were with the Kimek, the Quarg weren't particularly interested in the Arachi, annoyed by how another young group was so quick to go back to conflict so shortly after reaching space.

The Arachi came in contact with the Quarg, who introduced themselves to all the Houses in order to avoid what they judged as idiotic, political drama the Houses had over such important information. The Saryds introduced themselves afterwards, the contacts overseen by the Quarg, and finally the Kimek met their fellow arthropods on the initial version of the third ring the Quarg were building there.

As did the Saryds and Kimek before them, the Arachi asked the Quarg many questions, and the topic of the Quarg's unnerving fleet presence all over the place came up. As they did with the Saryds and Kimek, the Quarg told the Arachi that they were there to protect them from a group called "Pug."

Conclusion

The three species continue to develop. The Saryds exploring farther, deeper into human space, now that the Arachi provided them points to refuel and resupply closer to that area, and trying to uncover more about things like the mystery civilization the Quarg would not talk about; the Kimek, still traumatised by the events from their early spacefaring history, worked on gargantuan projects, rendering whole planets into farms, looking into terraforming to further bolster worlds with potential to become their "breadbaskets," developing their arcologies so that worlds could have both a lot of people and a lot of farming area, and devising their hunger towers, in case they ever came to need them; the Arachi, though still divided into Houses who fought for dominance, had now come to an agreement (upheld sometimes, ignored other times) to solve major issues in more civil meetings, rather than wasting their ships and bickering about in system fights, something which did make the Quarg view them in a better light.

That was until House Chamgar came to develop their first prototypes of an outfit that would repair their ship's hull while still in flight. The Quarg, having learned of that, thought it suspicious that the youngest of the three species would be the first to succeed in that field, and began questioning them about the origin of the technology. Not just House Chamgar, in some centuries all of Arach space was filled with more Quarg ships than ever before, their justification being that these "Pug" must have been involved in this, and as the completion of their first ring was just over the corner, the Quarg grew ever more paranoid that the Pug would seek to attack them there. After one Saryd expedition had returned, they even prohibited them from leaving again, thinking they could be in contact with the Pug "out there," and soon extended their intrusive patrols to Kimek and Saryd space as well.

The Arachi, though they had broken ground with the hull repair technology, were still far behind the Kimek and Saryds in all other fields, and afraid and seemingly powerless against the Quarg, asked the two for help. The three pressured the Quarg to stop, to no avail, and so they saw it necessary to fight, concluding these "Pug" might have never existed in the first place.

It was very easy for the Quarg to disable the ships the Coalition threw at them, as Quarg ships were a lot stronger than Coalition ships, and figured the three species would eventually stop. Most of the Quarg's ships were kept at the rings, however, as they thought that necessary in case the Pug attacked. After many years, the Coalition develops some prototypes that would prevent ships hit from jumping away, and so it was only a matter of time before the first few Quarg ships were disabled by them, allowing them to loot the Quarg technology. Though they had many ships, the Quarg couldn't search everywhere at once for their stolen technology, and so they would not take it back in most cases. As the Quarg never intended to slaughter the Coalition ships, simply defending themselves against attacks, their ships would keep getting "hooked," and their tech looted. The solution the Quarg thought up was to get their fleets closer together, by pulling back a few systems, closer to the rings. That, however, had the opposite effect, as it rallied the Coalition, who saw it as a victory and gained a lot of morale and will to keep fighting.

Facing their own weapons in battle, the Quarg began losing even more ships than before, and though for every ship of theirs that was defeated, a dozen of the Coalition's own also was, they saw it needed to pull back again, even closer to the rings.

Getting "pushed back" closer and closer to their rings, and still believing the Pug were responsible for this, the fear of their rings suffering the same fate as the one they had lost tens of thousands of years ago, fearing they would be added to the pile of trillions of lives the Pug had taken, many began leaving the three rings, fleeing to other parts of the galaxy.

Many still remained in the rings, until they were contacted by the Drak: for the sake of the wellbeing of the three species, they should leave the region, as they feared the three would throw away so many lives attempting to overcome the Quarg, they could be put at risk. Though they weren't happy with the request, taking it as a blow to their pride, many of the remaining Quarg leave, out of the high regards they held the Drak in.

Some, however, protest the absurdity of the request, they would not abandon their homes because of the stupidity of the three groups. They set up a final defensive line, holding all their ships on the three systems.

Though by now the Coalition ships outnumbered the remaining defenders, most of the war took place during this last-stand of sorts, the remaining Quarg now fighting much more aggressively, without the intent to spare the Coalition ships, for they held the rings as more valuable. After centuries of being dwindled down, without the logistical support for producing many more ships, and lacking the manpower to man what new ships they could make, the defenders were eventually overrun, most escaping via the complete ring's teleportation mechanism, while a few remained behind to disable functions of the rings they deemed dangerous for the Coalition to find.

The defenders who escaped have, for long now, gained much influence over the remaining Quarg, talking of the shame of abandoning three rings, and claiming their inexperience and disdain for warfare was what led not only to the three rings being taken, but also to the Pug managing to destroy one. The rings were homes to trillions, and it was not right for trillions to lose their homes, regardless of what the Coalition or the Drak could claim. The last defenders of the rings, and those who left them out of fear or following the Drak's request, still remember their homes, and when the time comes, will fight to take them back.

QUARG GOVERNMENT/SOCIETY STRUCTURE

It is my belief, and something holding as true while planning and writing the campaigns, that the Quarg power structure is organized like a gerontocracy, a government where the older members would have more power and/or influence.

What leads me to think this are the following:

  1. It would explain much of the Quarg's reverence to the Drak, as in the timeline the Drak would be the only ones (native to the Milky Way, at least) "older" than the Quarg as a civilization, and so the Quarg as a whole would feel inclined, due to the way their own society works, to act with respect and admiration when regarding the Drak;
  2. Corroborates with the Quarg being so willing to help the player locate the Alphas in the Wanderers campaign only after Elias talks with them. As a Beta, and one who has lived far longer than normal humans, Elias would be seen in a better light than most "humans" the Quarg interact with, his age giving him much more pull and more of a voice than the player character;
  3. It'd factor in on the Quarg's decision to give Jump Drives to the Saryds, something that happened only with the Saryds, as the Saryds themselves are said to have very long lives (roughly a 600 years lifespan), and so the Quarg would grow fonder of the Saryds as they would live longer than most other species they interacted with;
  4. This would also explain the Quarg's general dismissive/patronizing attitude with humans, who are one of (so far the) youngest kids in the block, and who haven't earned much in terms of respect with the Quarg;
  5. Could serve as an explanation as to how the one Quarg you talk to in Wanderers (when asking them to protect the Wanderers from the Automata) just has the authority to send away multiple Wardragons to guard them, in this case it'd be an older Quarg, having the power to do that.

The general idea is not that one Quarg who is 9000 years old can just tell a planet's worth of younger Quarg to do something and it'd be expected of them to do it, there would of course be limits. What I'm thinking is more of a pyramid of delegating tasks. An example is, one Quarg who is 9000 years old wants to send 10 Wardragons out to somewhere, but it can't just command 10 Wardragon's worth of crew, so instead it tells 10 different Quarg (say about 5000 years old each), separately, to assemble a Wardragon. Each of those Quarg would, in turn, speak separately to some younger ones themselves (say about 2000 years old), telling them to gather some 10 truly young Quarg, to help man a ship. Eventually, the crew for all 10 Wardragons would be formed. The youngest Quarg refer to the 2000 years old ones, who refer to the 5000 years old ones, who all refer to the 9000 years old commander.

This wouldn't be law, and younger Quarg refusing to do as an older Quarg says wouldn't get them arrested or some punishment like that, but it would be something they almost always would frown upon, as it's expected that the younger ones follow the guidance and lead of older Quarg.

RINGWORLDS

Perhaps what the Quarg are most known for, ringworlds are the ring-shaped megastructures the Quarg have built all over the galaxy. They are immense, all the matter of a star system - save for the star itself - being used up to create one, and are nigh-indestructible, for neither the Mereti's dangerous Slicers, nor what arms the Coalition and Heliarchs have developed, are capable of causing any significant damage to even incomplete ringworlds.

Unlike how they are most popularly known in other media, these ringworlds aren't of the sort that dedicates its inner faces to artificial oceans and landmasses, to simulate a planet, rather having said faces filled up with hydroponics facilities, or very large solar panels. The outer faces of the rings have colossal thrusters for all directions, allowing the rings to readjust their position should it be needed. The rings are, instead, gigantic space stations through and through, the habitable portions, and general areas people move about and commute, being endless hallways and rooms. It is an "indoors" style of ringworld.

True to their size, the rings can support an absurd amount of people, with trillions of Quarg comfortably living in one single ring. Essentially having an infinite food and energy supply, more space than anyone could ever need, for all kinds of factories, shipyards and all facilities, and being the safest places to live in all the galaxy, they are by far the most useful material structures anyone has built in the galaxy, from what information we have so far, several orders of magnitude above any other.

Their Value to the Quarg

The Quarg came from the small moon of a gas giant, a world with very little air, unlike the worlds where all other species in the game so far first began, and so they can't live on the worlds of other species, nor can others live on worlds most adequate to them. The worlds the Quarg are most adapted to, some that we can see in the game, near Tarazed, are those of a thin atmosphere, with a barren, deserted look to them. It is reasonable to assume that, given the harsh conditions of the Quarg's homeworld, very little life developed there, compared to worlds of other species.

This lack of great biodiversity might be part of the reason why the Quarg are said to not care much about color, rather being interested in the texture of things, for their homeworld, a moon of a thin atmosphere, unbreathable by most, likely barren by most species' accounts, held very little vibrant coloration, in no small part due to the lack of a flourishing flora and fauna.

Once they reached spaceflight, however, the Quarg would naturally run into one of the many planets around the galaxy where conditions are much closer to Earth or the worlds other species live on. Vibrant colors, a flourishing ecosystems, seas of green plants and the power of mighty air currents, all form of animals, all matter of relations between the species. And the Quarg could not take part in it. Their bodies not adapted to those worlds, their lungs too subtle, their frames too weak, they were unable to join in on those worlds for long, only with the aid of machinery, of suits.

They could, of course, terraform those worlds to be adequate for them, and when they got the abilities for that, I'm sure they did so, but terraforming a lush world to their needs meant dooming most, if not all else on that world, draining them of their atmosphere, of what all life there had grown adapted to, what it needed to survive. The Quarg cannot live on the worlds with wonders of nature, and the wonders cannot live on the Quarg worlds.

So, the Quarg continue to develop as they can, claiming for themselves worlds that were adequate for their species, or terraforming worlds that were not. They would, of course, experience with the creation of space stations, as well, and in creating those living grounds, artificial, controlled, they would eventually find it possible to reach a "Goldilocks" point, conditions where both them and the life of other worlds could live in. Stations with such experiments would no doubt flood with tourists, looking to see what life was there on worlds they could not live on for long, seeing it all up-close.

These stations would grow to be small hubs to countless flocks, all wanting to see what else they could accomplish in an environment suitable for all form of life, what else they could experience, what else their home world could not provide them. Enjoyable an experience as it was, however, the Quarg could not support their entire population on tiny stations. So, they thought, they needed larger, greater structures. Not mere stations, but proper living grounds for their people, for if chance would not give them grounds where they could walk as other life did, they would create it.

However many hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of years it took them, long after the Quarg had left their first world, a small, barren moon, they had stripped whole planets down to their flaming cores, and then said cores, for raw materials; they had funneled gas giants into great metallic pieces, their furious storms giving way to the void; they sought out every last asteroid, every single comet, to grind down into the smallest of structural pieces. Only the star remained, crowned by their first ring.

Going forward in the timeline, at present day the Quarg have dotted the Galaxy with many rings, many complete, many in construction. The rings are grounds to whatever they can imagine, whatever they wish to create, whatever project they may have, the ring allow it. The rings have allowed them to freely walk and speak with the other, younger species. The rings allow them to see them, to guide them, to guard them, if need be. The rings are the worlds the Quarg have created, the ringworlds are their greatest achievement.

On top of what usefulness I've already mentioned, it's also been discussed before, and is something that I'll be holding as true in the campaigns (being a major plot point), that the rings also function as gigantic teleportation hubs: all rings, even those incomplete, have at least a few of the mechanisms to allow any Quarg to teleport to any other ring. Complete rings, the pinnacle of Quarg achievements, are much more powerful, being able of teleporting countless ships at once to any other complete ring. The rings serve as the galaxy's greatest transport logistics mechanism, allowing the Quarg to travel around the galaxy at their leisure, to visit any and all rings, and see what else the countless trillions of other Quarg have made in them, see how each ring has been made, the imprint of thousands of generations past still present on them.

If comparing only by virtue of how many people they hold, assuming the Quarg end up having about 10 complete ring at the point the galaxy is filled, one of their rings would be in some ways comparable to continents here on Earth. We cannot create other continents, like the Quarg can, but we already hold comparatively miniscule creations in the highest regards: the Vatican, the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China. If we had created something the size of a continent, we would no doubt hold it as our highest achievement thus far.

The Quarg, holding no great scores of planets or moons, have instead created their ringworlds, homes to trillions, great builds of an astronomical scale, self-sustaining, safe, playgrounds for whatever they wish to see or do, the rings are, in their own words from the game, their most precious creations.

Nearly all of the Quarg live in ringworlds. Almost every last one of the trillions of Quarg alive was born and raised in ringworlds. There are almost no Quarg who would not call a ringworld their home. Nobody likes to be kicked out of their home. Nobody likes abandoning their home. Nobody wishes to see their home destroyed. Especially when your home is also where all your food comes from, where all your goods are made, where all your family and friends are. The Quarg are their ringworlds.

In stories, all factions, all people, have things they value, things that, if compromised, will drive them to the greatest extremes. The rings are the most valuable thing the Quarg have, the rings are all that the Quarg have, the Quarg must care most for their ringworlds, for if they don't, **there's nothing greater for them to care about. **

CHARACTERS

Tarndaus"Reckoning Come"

Full name Tarndaus Unsa Vih-Gwall. A lean Quarg of sharp, white eyes, it was born in the Ring of Wisdom just over a decade before the first Quarg left due to the Coalition closing in, it was taken away by its guardians, who had not been born in any of the Coalition rings. The change from its home having impacted it more than most, Tarndaus found solace with Quarg combat veterans, who had also fled the Coalition, and who, like itself, lamented the fact. Dissatisfied with the reasoning given by the adult Quarg as to why they had to leave, Tarndaus spent most of its early study life looking into the Pug, their conflict with the Quarg, and the trauma that the breaking of the ring had brought to Quarg society.

With the movement for the Quarg to learn of warfare, it looked into every battle in the galaxy that the Quarg had records of, from the ancient, now extinct species, to those of the newcoming humans, in order to learn about every manner of punctual, decisive point in warfare, like the Pug's breaking of the ring, not only to know how to see such attacks coming, but to learn how to employ them. One of the Quarg to leave the rings while still in their child years, Tarndaus became a much prominent voice in aiding Gohl in recruiting more of its fellow exiled Quarg to the revanchist movement. It is the Quarg that leads the first fleet, which is teleported into the Coalition via Ring of Friendship's mechanisms, striking at the heart of Heliarch forces, and separating their fleets into thirds.

Skourzh"Bane of Kings"

Full name Skourzh Enn'ust Nazg Iqhawe. Bulkier than most Quarg, and of purple eyes, Skourzh was born in the Ring of Power a few thousand years before the war with the Coalition began. Having fought even past the mass exodus of Quarg who were afraid of a Pug attack, it was finally convinced to leave when the Drak request came in. Like most of those who left at that point, however, Skourzh struggled tremendously to settle down permanently on any other Quarg world, and it was not long before it tried to head back to the Coalition rings, though it was denied time and again from teleporting in, as the Quarg from other rings didn't wish to break with the Drak's request. Incapable of moving on, and festering a deep regret for having complied with the request to abandon its home ring, Skourzh was briefly put under watch and care for lashing out in its despaired ranting about how they should not have bowed down to three reckless species, and how they had more than a right, a duty, to fight back.

It was released by Gohl, who took to nurturing Skourzh into a commander, one that could lead and control those Quarg who brew feelings of grudge and revenge towards the Coalition. Skourzh learned of all manner of rapid, surgical attacks from other species, and applies all it can in leading the reinforcements fleet, which crosses into the Coalition via the Arach-human border. Skourzh's fleets lay waste to the immediate infrastructure, destroying stations, and crushing the moon base that the Punisher division used as headquarters.

Gohl"The Ruin"

Full name Gohl Salyi Memt-Wrik Laz. Born in the earliest stages of construction of the Ring of Friendship, Gohl is tall by Quarg standards, and extremely old. Not departing along with the others en masse when the fear of a Pug attack took hold of most of the rings' inhabitants, and ignoring the Drak's request, Gohl was one of the veteran defenders of the rings, who held them until the end, until their last ships were destroyed, and until the Coalition species had assaulted the rings directly in ground combat. In such combat, in a desperate effort to defend its home, it was taken by a bloodlust that no species had seen of a Quarg before, continuing to fight after having its armor damaged, its left eye destroyed by the blast that had bust open its helmet, its arm broken by a Saryd charge, its weapons running out of energy. Having been dragged out of combat by other Quarg, Gohl inspired many of the last Quarg defenders to give in to similar attacks, the primal, nigh-animalistic nature of their attacks halting many of the Coalition forces, and the footage of its carnage, cutting down dozen after dozen of Saryd soldiers, led to the birth of the tale of the "Bloody Quarg," a popular urban legend in the present-day Coalition. One golden eye remaining, Gohl was left to exile like all the other Quarg from the rings, and just as they, could not move on.It kept on pushing for efforts to retake the rings, to learn how they were lost, to learn how to avoid losing them again.

Already venerable by the time it took to exile, Gohl's influence grew exponentially after millennia passed, and it remained alive, growing to be the longest-living Quarg to date. Its body remains remarkably well, though the ages have led to its skin shedding to a silvery pale, and its scale patterns that would shift with its emotions losing all ability to do so. Gohl does not hold many strong feelings against the Coalition species, recognizing that all those who wronged it, and took its home away, are long dead; but, having outlived all its children and closest, oldest friends, and having been one of the defenders who spoke most against the Drak's request to leave, it has grown bitter towards them, with conflicting feelings, as it cannot grasp why they would make such requests, seeing it as a betrayal, and the Drak abandoning them. Gohl is the main instigator of the Quarg operation in taking back the three rings, but does not participate directly in any of the immediate combat efforts. When both fleets are wiped out, Gohl has the Ring of Friendship's mechanisms activated once again, to bring in the Balaur. At the helm of the gargantuan warship, with a crew made up of other defenders who fought until the last moment, thousands of years ago, Gohl's last resort is to make use of the Balaur's main weapon on the stars of the ringed systems, in order to sever the hyperlanes that allowed them to first be besieged, and finally retake its home.