On the Korath - TheGiraffe3/Endless-Sky-Creators-Handbook GitHub Wiki
Original text, by Lia Gerty, AKA ravenshining
BACKGROUND
HISTORY OF KORATH CIVILISATION
- Beyond Kasichara
- Weaving in the Weft
- First Blood
- The Final Civil War
- Raids
- Superweapons
- Supernovae
- The Archon Intervention
- Exodus
- Exile
FACTION GLOSSARY
- Alaji
- Anatruskor
- Efreti
- Efret-Korsmanath Alliance
- Exiles
- Kashikt Empire
- Korsmanath
- Mereti Collective
- Sestor Federation
- Similisti
FINAL NOTES
Based upon work by Michael Zahniser
14 September 2022
It's easy to paint a culture you don't understand in terms like “maniacal military dictatorship.” The news does it for us constantly with our "enemies," because it dehumanises them and makes them easier to hate. Whereas, you may hear a very different story were you to actually talk to said “enemies” themselves. We have yet to hear the Korath side of the story.
What follows is my attempt to stitch together into a single, cohesive narrative all the scraps of Korath lore that exist in the game, the vast body of lore which we have been collectively developing over on Swizzle 6 over the past eighteen months, MZ’s “A Brief History of the Galaxy", and various other sources stretching back years such as conversations on GitHub. While much of the connecting tissue is more recently developed, the meat and bones of this has been a long time in coming.
I am very grateful to everyone who has contributed to this effort, particularly Zitchas, EjoThims, Saugia, IdiomAlpha, Janaszar, WarlordMike, Hurlever, and Terin. There are many others and please do forgive me if I’ve neglected to mention you.
I would ask the reader not to consider this document to consist entirely of my set in stone and unchallengeable opinion. Major strokes of the story have been rewritten as I have been passing this document around and incorporating feedback from faction authors and the core Korath team. For example, both the origin of Korath Jump Drives and the Peresedersi nova event have been rewritten several times over.
If you have comments or suggestions, would like to add to or change something herein, please do not be shy about saying so!
Kasichara Het, in the Korsmanath system, would have once been a lovely world to call home, were it not for the relatively high amount of radiation and meteorite impacts it endures thanks to its location close to the galactic core. Evolution therefore favoured adaptability, at the expense of longevity and healing ability. Live-bearing orders like mammals never gained a significant foothold, allowing reptiles to maintain their dominance over the food chain despite numerous extinction events, although small monotremes flourish in select environments.
Intelligence was slow to develop – with short lifespans and egg-laying favoured, there isn’t as much time to accumulate knowledge to pass down to subsequent generations, nor are there many species that rely on parents to rear their young. Therefore, it wasn’t until a certain species of partially-feathered, hyper-adaptable, omnivorous lizard developed a mutation that expressed functions normally reserved for neural tissue in their epidermal tissue, that the seeds of sapience were able to germinate.
Thought to have arisen as a defence to a form of meningitis, the proto-Korath developed a mutation that decentralised the storage of memory, with some aspects moved from the neural connection pattern of the brain to an organelle in the cells of the epidermis. Furthermore, many species on Kasichara Het had adapted to the changing environment by developing a digestive system that did not merely break down the plants and animals it consumed, but sorted and passed selected proteins, plasmids, and sometimes even whole organelles to organs to be used directly. It was a small leap for further mutations to connect these two processes, allowing accidentally consumed scales or feathers shed by other proto-Korath – or indeed deliberately in times of starvation – to be routed directly to their nervous system, granting access to the aspects of memories stored therein.
Thus intergenerational memory was born – not through the active teaching through communication, but through the physical passing down and reproduction of memory-storing organelles. Parents who tended to linger and care for eggs and hatchlings were finally favoured, greatly amplifying the knowledge available to a young korath, and societies began to form centred around the sharing and passing down of ancestral memory.
Armed with their superior memory, korath swept across the planet like wildfire. Their short lifespans – maturing in seven years and ending around forty – spurred them to explore and experience as much as possible, their cannibalistic memory providing them with, although no rote information, an instinctual knack or familiarity with the skills necessary to do so. Technology developed rapidly – faster than certain aspects of psychology enjoyed by longer-lived sapients, lending a number of quirks to the Korath mind.
With memories shared from brood-rearer to hatchling, and from Korath to Korath, they sometimes have a more difficult time than other species in distinguishing between the self and others within a given population, and have an extreme suspicion of those from a separate population. One is either with and part of the society, or one is not – neutrality and peaceful disagreement are concepts not easily understood.
On the other hand, they lack many of the collective instincts possessed by sapients descended from herd-forming species. And, because the sharing of memory means an individual may have a difficult time differentiating themselves from their peers, individual expression and independence are considered of paramount importance – not only for the psychological health of the individual who may feel lost or empty otherwise, but to encourage new ideas and innovation to flourish, advancing the society and adding to its body of shared knowledge.
Furthermore, the oviparous Korath do not tend to form specific parent-child bonds as mammals do. There are exceptions, particularly amongst rural-dwelling Efreti, but most most urban Korath hatchlings and almost all Exiles are raised communally by specialist agender brood-rearers, a sex that manifests when a Korath is subjected to conditions of high humidity and low radiation. Other conditions of humidity and radiation will trigger a Korath to express male or female characteristics. Outside of specific ranges, however, sex remains constant, and in modern society, Korath are able to remain in or switch between chosen genders through simple climate control or medical conveniences.
This adaptability is not limited to gender. The plasticity of the Korath genome and its capacity for self-repair when subjected to damage ensures that change may take place rapidly when exposed to new environments. This led to the widespread – if extremely conservative – adoption of genetic engineering techniques once their scientists gained a sufficient grasp of epigenetics. Generally this is considered part of routine medical care. For example, when faced with a new environment or food source, Korath physicians will inoculate their patients with genes for the expression of appropriate enzymes or even organelles much in the same manner as a human might receive a vaccination against a disease outbreak. Great care is taken to ensure any edits are safely passable to offspring, and are not undertaken for reasons beyond medical or social necessity.
There are serious problems with these adaptability mechanisms, however. First, korath are extremely vulnerable to certain types of virus, which may be taken up by their immune system without a fight. Thus, while the Korath have a sordid recent history of employing various weapons of mass destruction with abandon, biological weapons targeting the Korath themselves remain one of their few taboos. Second, their macro-level healing processes are very slow, incomplete, or sometimes absent as compared to other sapients. Physically injured korath are very likely to perish without medical intervention, and limbs are easily lost. A Korath with multiple prosthetics is an extremely common sight.
The Korath were, as previously mentioned, omnivorous, while genetic manipulation has over the millenia increased the range of edible substances. The Efreti diet has changed relatively little, and despite shortages, still consists largely of vegetables and large land-animals, supplemented by tubers and fruit, while a herd-forming species of gas-giant dwellers is a rare delicacy.
The Exiles, on the other hand, have been forced to adapt to rather extreme conditions. The bulk of the Korath population subsists primarily upon bland, processed algae, and starvation was a massive problem for the first few generations after the Exodus, before the famed Captain Palavret brought her precious cargo of live fish from a raid on Syndicate space. This particular species proved perfect for aquaponic integration with what vegetable crops the Exiles still maintained, possibly saving them from a very early extinction.
Still, Korath living on smaller or older ships do not have regular access to fresh fish and vegetables, subsisting almost entirely upon algae paste. To break up the monotony, they developed an artificial food source: Nutrigel.
A precisely engineered slurry of algae, fish, crops, gas-giant animals, and even petrochemical and mineral compounds the Exiles have bio-engineered themselves to digest – not to mention the occasional corpses of criminals and would-be boarders of their ships – Nutrigel is an extremely compact, energetic, and easily consumed foodstuff. In addition to its psychological use as a treat, Nutrigel globes are issued to combat personnel, extravehicular workers, operatives on long deployments, doctors, and to the sick and injured.
It is, however, thoroughly inedible to the Efreti, Sestor, and those outside Korath space who have descended from Exiles who would not be up-to-date with the latest enzymes. It is outright dangerous to humans, and is so energetic and mineral-rich that a large quantity may even prove hazardous to a ship’s shielding systems.
Much like their lizard ancestors, the Korath possess a poor sense of hearing. Lacking an external ear, they have difficulty localising sound and hearing higher frequencies. This, combined with excellent vision, and the ability to pass information directly, led to the development of visual language before spoken. The Korath languages – or at least those of the Sestor and the Exiles – rely heavily on the drawing of ideas rather than the speaking of them alone, which, coupled with the societal encouragement of expression, means that areas inhabited by the Korath may be plastered with colourful scrawls, scratches, pictograms and pictures upon every available surface. If a drawing surface is not available, they will pantomime doing so.
They do possess an independent spoken language as well, though it does not express ideas of full complexity. The Efreti, having more exposure to and need to communicate with friendly outsiders, have developed and refined spoken language to a greater degree, using fewer sounds that aliens may have difficulty pronouncing, and have transitioned more of their drawings into hand gestures. The Exiles, on the other hand, use a wider variety of sounds, and tend to use foot gestures which to the untrained observer may look like they are awkwardly shuffling. The Sestor language sits roughly between this, with a limited set of sounds, and a variety of motions in use.
The lack of reliance upon spoken language, their difficulty hearing sibilant phonemes abundant yet unimportant to their speech, the reliance upon cannibalistic memory to pass down information, impatience born of their short lives, and the general distrust of outsiders all conspire to make the learning of a Korath language an exceptionally difficult task for outsiders. Only those of extreme patience (like Quarg and Archons), neural plasticity (like newly-moulted Wanderers), or exceptionally sharp minds (like the Alphas) are likely to ever master it, and without help from one of these, neither will your average human textile worker.
The Exile fleet is a loose confederation of stations, world-ships, and task forces. There is a democratic, civilian, de jure superior government, however it is not very strong outside stations and havens, and the military council of Navarchs overshadows it through de facto exercise of power. For example, although the economy is centrally and tightly planned, individual Navarchs, Admirals, and even Captains often subvert overarching directives as opportunity dictates, such as Alaji poaching of alien life before it is properly assessed for sentience or sustainability.
Social norms vary widely from ship to ship, while a few common themes emerge - or are found in common between different ships of the same class. Military discipline and meritocracy necessarily hold society together. However, since the entire Exile movement was founded by those unwilling to compromise on their beliefs, there is a sort of underlying hyper-individualism when it comes to belief and expression.
The arts, albeit constrained by limited resources, enjoy a thriving, often abstract culture, as a means of preserving sanity in compensation for the lack of natural beauty in their immediate environment, and the lack of freedom for the common Korath to pursue one's material desires. This is further fuelled by the surplus of labour found on overcrowded ships, and the inability to fail to provide for basic needs - the closest thing to a "homeless" Korath would be one without quarters, and they are impossible to send away or ignore.
There is much bickering between different fleets, and stereotyping of Korath who live on different sorts of vessels. This discourages ship to ship transfers when unnecessary, and further undermines the civilian government. It's almost unheard of for fleets to come to blows with one another, as the Korath generally feel united by the need to survive and in defiance of the higher races, but not completely, should the actions of one admiral threaten the movement altogether...
The Exiles, harsh as their lot may be, and though forced together from different cultures, have purpose and potential. They're dying out, to be sure, hope may be scarce, but they do hope... they may not have the freedom to roam the whole galaxy or blow up stars any more, or even to live on planets, but in their intellectual pursuits? They still make jump drives, still refine and grow from that technology, they maintain responsibility for their own protection and society... They have their dignity, if nothing else.
The Korath did not, as Humanity and many other species did, reach out to the stars prior to the development of the hyperdrive. Probes were fun to make, and these were sent out to observe other star systems as intergenerational projects, but even at light-speed it would take too many years out of a Korath’s short lifespan – and at more realistic speeds, too many generations – for a personal journey to be considered worthwhile. Therefore, they remained in their home system for many centuries. Sublight engines, with great emphasis upon speed, were extensively developed during this time, so that explorers, scientists, and miners might visit as many of the Korsmanath system’s features as possible. Although not yet an interstellar power, the Quarg took notice of their burgeoning interplanetary civilisation and began building a ring nearby in anticipation.
Once the first hyperdrive-equipped Korath probe made it to a neighbouring star and back, interest in the galaxy exploded. Korath signed up in droves to be the first person to form new memories on new planets around new stars, and they flooded across the local hyperlane network – until abruptly, expansion ceased as all the interesting planets had become, to some degree or another, known, and memory of them became distributed.
The building of large infrastructure projects tends to be an intergenerational affair for the Korath, so there were only a handful of efforts to establish industrial bases on the new worlds, mostly to the far more hospitable north of the Korath homeworld. Colonies centred around these efforts formed their own separate, isolated societies together with nearby systems, and the Korath-whole became fragmented into five distinct empires, each developing their own divergent body of memories, values, customs, religions, languages, and means of governance.
The first of the colonies gave rise to the Kashikt Empire, whose people in later times would become the Kor Efreti. Although the Korath were friendly with the Quarg at first, the latter’s reservedness alarmed the Korath, and the colonisation effort to Kashikt was motivated partly out of the desire to intercept Quarg construction efforts in Dokdubaru.
Little remains known about the Similisti Empire, it having been subverted by the Mereti Collective prior to the outset of the final civil war, although a few of its more fanatical terrorist leaders managed to escape with the Exiles.
The Anatruskor Empire, which despite political instability and the forced relocation of its scientific community in the Exodus, was once widely regarded as the most “authentic” surviving example of pre-hyperspace Korath society, until its final, pitiful collapse in the late 30th century.
Finally, the Sestor Federation was the youngest of these original empires, established in far-flung Asikafarnut as an experiment in republicanism. Although reduced to a handful of survivors living deep in underground bunkers, it remained at the dawn of the 31st century the oldest surviving Korath civilization, if it could still be called such.
Although Desi Seledrak was primarily known for agriculture and genetic engineering, the Solifar system had long been a subject of intrigue and frustration within the Korath astrophysical community, owing its proximity to no less than three star systems with gravitational characteristics indicating there ought to be some hyperlane connecting them, yet none had ever been found. For millennia, the Korath sought to find a way to bridge this gap and escape the bounds of the hyperlane network as Quarg and Archons were suspected to do. There, in Solifar, the Anatruskor built grand observatory stations that attracted the best physicists from all of Korath space.
The existence of weft space was known, even relied upon in some areas of science, but for millennia the secrets of how to access it directly eluded the Korath. Tens of thousands of years went by, until relevant advances in fields such as energy disruption, nanotechnology, and gravitics were made that, applied to weft science, allowed them to build the first probes.
Although these advances enabled the Anatruskor to produce devices that entered the weft, the early experiments were disastrous, demolishing entire stations and other nearby infrastructure. It seemed inadvisable to continue - questions were raised as to the ownership of the technology, and the Kashikt were the first to pull their physicists out of the project entirely, deriding the industrial failures. Undaunted, the Anatruskor pressed on, the possibilities of weft space access having become something of an obsession to the reigning Queen.
Finally, after many more disasters, a sharing of feathers between astrophysicists and geneticists at a family gathering on Delsi Seledrak sparked an unexpected weaving of the two disparate fields. A breakthrough in weft-access ensued, allowing the first probes to enter and return intact without killing anyone, and it wasn’t long before the Anatruskor produced the first Korath jump drives.
The Archons were delighted at this development at first, hoping that the promise of exploration made possible by the jump drive might help ease tensions that had begun stirring between the various factions. And it may well have done, had the other factions not removed themselves from the project to mock the Anatruskor’s efforts. Due to the danger of the early jump drive manufacturing process, very few were constructed, and the Anatruskor kept them to themselves.
Thus began both the golden age of the Korath, and the seeds of conflict between them. Anatruskor explorers embarked on peaceful journeys of exploration to neighbouring sectors, befriending the Hai and exchanging works of art, stories, and knowledge - jump drives were too unreliable and dangerous yet for regular trade. At the same time, the other factions grew jealous of the Anatruskor, and competed with one another for favourable terms for trading with them.
Once a unified people with great ability to share in one another’s point of view, the Korath did not have an extensive history of war, or the knowledge of how to resolve it. Small rebellions would pop up from time to time, and were even encouraged to the extent that property destruction might be considered a valid form of expression, but there were no centuries-long feuds of Korath killing Korath. Thus, after tens of thousands of years of peace, the first great war between two Korath populations erupted at a much more dangerous phase in their technological development than other species. Where once a Korath might eat their defeated foe and understand what had gone wrong between them, when nuclear-powered starships exploded in deep space, there were often no bodies to learn from.
The Kashikt-Korsmanath war, arising over a dispute concerning trading rights with the Anatruskor, was far longer and more bloody than it needed to be, humbling the two empires. It shocked the two societies to their very core, ending in a sweeping cultural revolution that sought to artificially repress the natural Korath predisposition to suspicion, and unite their respective cultures under single religions and sets of values, more open to influence and friendship from the outside – hence the moniker “Kor Efret,” or Korath Friends, for the former Kashikt empire.
In the eyes of the then-further-flung Anatruskor, Similisti, and Sestor empires, however, some of these ideas were downright blasphemous, a betrayal of what it meant to be Korath. The Efreti were shunned, while Korsmanath was entreated with desperately to abandon the more radical of these changes for fear of their influence spreading from the Korath homeworld.
One lesson from the Kashikt-Korsmanath war was taken to heart across all of korathkind, however: that in the event of interstellar war, it is better for space battles to be fought between drones, than for the Korath to command ships directly, lest their memories be lost. Eternally suspicious of one another, the Sestor, Similisti, and Anatruskor began to construct massive fleets of drones to discourage attack, and the new Efret-Korsmanath Alliance reluctantly followed suit.
Tragically, this development of understanding only went so far as to discourage each faction’s own soldiers from serving in space, and did not extend to forbidding the drones from attacking opposing troops directly.
Ideological conflicts set the tone for the next several centuries. The Anatruskor enacted a trade embargo on the Efret-Korsmanath Alliance, leading to frequent, small-scale conflicts between them, with the Similisti Empire alternately acting as a mediator, joining in, or engaging in their own quarrels. Removed from the immediate vicinity in Asikafarnut, the Sestor Federation would send token gestures of aid, but grew increasingly suspicious of the Similisti as they began to absorb collectivist ideas from Kashikt and Korsmanath.
While the Anatruskor and Similisti, backed up by their Sestor friends, slowly chipped away at the economic might of the Efret-Korsmanath Alliance without taking significant losses, the Similisti were losing the battle of ideas. Eventually, their government fell to a coup by collectivist extremists. Fearful the newly-christened Mereti Collective might be on the verge of allying with Korsmananth and the Efreti, and – according to Korath thinking – therefore be about to turn upon the Sestor and Anatruskor, the Sestor launched a fateful surprise attack upon Mereti shipyards in the late 26th century.
Although initially devastated by the loss of their ability to construct heavy warship hulls, the Mereti began bolting smaller ships together and lashed back at their betrayers with unbridled fury, drawing all of Korath space into an all-out, three-to-five-way war between the Efret-Korsmanath Alliance, Mereti Collective, Sestor Federation, and Anatruskor Empire, with Similisti terrorists resisting the Mereti Collective.
Surrounded on three sides, Anatruskor sought aid from the Hai, who flatly refused. Perceiving this as a betrayal, and desperate for resources with which to stave off the Mereti and the Efret-Korsmanath Alliance, they began attacking the Hai rather than trading with them. To make matters worse for the Hai, the Anatruskor instead formed a close alliance and shared their jump drive technology with the Sestor, who embarked upon their own raids in the north.
Although primarily reserved for raiding, it wasn’t long before jump-drive equipped Anatruskor and Sestor vessels fell into the hands of the Mereti and the Efret-Korsmanath Alliance. Although they were unable to reverse-engineer the drives, they pressed them into use for their own, more limited raiding activities – the Mereti making frequent, if not terribly fruitful, raids on the Bunrodea, and Korsmanath undertaking occasional long-distance raids south upon the Remnant.
Wishing to simultaneously bolster their own image and belittle or perhaps even provoke the Quarg – who had refused to take part in the conflict – against their enemies, the Anatruskor and Sestor denied that their ships had been captured, claiming that it was the Quarg whose vessels had been raided, instead. Although many saw through this propaganda, some Efreti were nevertheless deceived. The rumour persists to this day, having grown in scope to suggest that all Korath jump drives were stolen from the Quarg, a tale the Quarg are hesitant to deny for fear it may inspire others to follow in the Korath’s footsteps.
In the crucible of war, technological development went wild even as economies and environments were ground to dust. It was during this time that the Efret-Korsmanath Alliance – who refused to consider themselves participants, but regarded their actions as defensive – began constructing vast, luxurious “world-ships” to relocate the wealthy away from the polluted surfaces of their worlds. The Anatruskor’s jump-drive equipped Raider series, which started out as a flagship carrying transmitters to control the drones it would carry into a system, went through dozens of iterations. The Sestor Federation deployed nuclear, fungal, and chemical weapons against planets with abandon, prompting the Mereti Collective to unleash nanobots in return. The Anatruskor upped the ante with terrifying planet-crackers.
The Quarg, once at least tentative friends to all Korath but now shut out as “collaborators” by the Mereti and Sestor, looked on in horror. Their unwillingness to involve themselves directly on any side, however, limited what impact their advice could have had. Feeling powerless to stop the carnage without inflicting yet more, the Quarg withdrew, leaving only a few well-guarded observers in Dokdubaru.
Towards the end of the 28th century, surrounded on all sides by enemies, the Mereti Collective was on the verge of collapse. Already they had divorced themselves from direct involvement in the war, leaving it entirely to their drones and nanobots. They were less able to supplement their economies through raids, and society was coming apart at the seams as they struggled with Similisti terrorists. Tentative peace talks were again being held with the Efret-Korsmanath Alliance.
The pressure was on to stop the destruction of Korath society as the Sestor and Anatruskor knew it. Through the combined efforts of Anatruskor weftphysicists, relatively well-funded Sestor weapons bureaus, and ingenious Similisti technicians, a new superweapon was developed and tested in the uninhabited Persitar system, one thought able to put an end to the war once and for all: the supernova bomb.
The Efret-Korsmanath Alliance’s industrial centres at Kasikfar and Fastiopfar were targeted simultaneously by the new weapon, capable of triggering a supernova in even low-mass stars through weft-space interactions, in an effort to terrify them into submission. Unfortunately, with Korath tolerance for destruction already seared by the devastating effects of planet-ravaging weapons, this effort appeared to fail.
Now, to the most radical of Korath thinkers, the salvation of the Efret-Korsmanath Alliance was a lost cause. The suppression of individual expression ran too deep, the transfer of wealth to the ruling classes was too obscene, and the infectiousness of their ideas too dangerous.
At the same time, even the less extreme recognised that the Efret-Korsmanath Alliance could not be conquered as long as the rest of the Korath remained divided against them, and the prospect of the Mereti signing on to the Alliance remained terrifying. The only way to break their might would be to attack Korsmanath itself, but the thought of what a Sestor fungus-bomb or a Anatruskor planet-cracker might do to the Korath homeworld was too painful to consider, even if it could make it through the homeworld’s entrenched defenses.
Therefore, Peresedersi, home to the agricultural world of Livrakerab, became the next and final target. The yellow giant was large enough to supernova on its own, and Korath weftphysicists calculated that the weapon would jump excess mass just far enough out of the system to strike Korsmanath. Although a majority of the Sestor and Anatruskor leadership was swayed, this extreme measure was not agreed upon universally. As the fleet departed, dissidents attempted to warn Korsmanath and the surrounding systems. But the residents of Kasichara Het, with their monolithic society and over forty thousand years of collective memory of their homeworld, couldn’t bear the thought of leaving.
Anatruskor bombers escorted by Sestor heavy warships jumped in to Peresedersi. The Korasmanathi picket hypered out in terror as the weapon fired. As the Anastruskor-Sestor force jumped away, Peresedersi’s core collapsed into an unstable neutron star. Hyperlinks to the system collapsed. The outer layers exploded outwards as the star continued to decay, skipping through the weft clear to Korsmanath. Remnants of the blast kept on for several hundred more light years than anticipated, striking the Era Natta system.
All Korath planetside in the Korsmanath and Peresedersi systems were consumed.
As much as they had tried not to interfere, the Archons could not help but notice the sudden death of four stars, the annihilation of the population of Kasichara, and the irradiation of Byruca as mere collateral damage. They believed the Korath were on the verge of driving themselves extinct, possibly even taking an Archon with them if they weren’t careful.
Bolts of antimatter soared through the heavens, annihilating supernova-bomb deployers before they could be used again, and the husks of vessels infested by nanobots. Hyperlinks were severed around the hopelessly infested Sayaiban system, as well as to the uninhabited raiding-route south of Korsmanathi space.
System by system, Archons appeared, ended any fighting, and delivered their ultimatum:
You will abandon your nova-devices.
You may abandon your jump-drives, and live under the Quarg with the Efreti,
Or you may abandon your home territory, and live in the southern reaches, never to return.
The reaches shall be your only home,
Until on Far’en Lai you remember how to live together in peace.
To this day, there remains some debate amongst the Exiles as to what exactly constitutes the southern reaches: whether it encompasses the seven coremost systems only, whether it encompasses historically Korath systems that are now populated by Human pirates, or whether Far’en Lai is meant to be the centre, making Levana the southern edge. A small but powerful minority – calling themselves the Alaji – take the view that it may encompass the entirety of the Ember Wastes, but most Exiles do not take them seriously.
Regardless, most Korath, from every faction, accepted one or the other of these options. Even dissidents and raiders from the Efreti and the shattered remnants of the Korsmanathi chose to join the Exiles in determining their own destiny, and less ambitious Sestor and Anatruskor joined the Efreti. However, not inclined to be dictated to even in the face of annihilation, some Anatruskor, Sestor, Mereti, and Similisti negotiated for a third option: to remain right where they were, provided they gave up their jump drives and all their superweapons, reasoning that to join with the Efreti would constitute an extinction of their unique cultures.
But those scientists, engineers, and technicians who had worked on the jump-drives and superweapons were offered no choice. Knowing that their memories would spread amongst any Korath that stayed behind, they were forced to leave.
All across Korath space, Korath piled into their raiding vessels and left for the core. This was scarcely enough to convey them, however, and so Efreti world-ships and their specifications were co-opted for the effort, much to the chagrin of the Efreti elite. In Archon-occupied systems, shipyards were temporarily powered and used to produce massive numbers of these vessels. In other, less-developed systems, rather than build shipyards or stations of their own design, the Archons simply hollowed out local asteroids, moved Korath inside along with any portable dwellings or infrastructure, and jumped those asteroids out.
As Korath from all six factions converged in their new home territory, it was, after some lower-level quibbling, determined that the needs of survival outweighed any desire to continue active hostilities. Feathers were exchanged, and a new, pluralistic society began to emerge aboard the world-ships.
Back in Korath space proper, war raged on, albeit far less destructively. The Efreti, with Quarg protection, were finally able to withdraw from hostilities entirely. Their shattered and depleted Korsmanathi allies joined them, overloading polluted Efreti worlds which would spend the next two centuries plagued by famine and disease.
With most of the Similisti gone, the Mereti Collective finally crushed the terrorist insurgency once and for all, only to be wiped out by the Sestor fleet, who were in turn wiped from the surface of their worlds and forced underground. The remaining Anatruskor, although managing to avoid most of the remainder of the fighting, eventually perished in the late 2900’s when a revolt against a particularly unpopular king breached the last of their habitation domes.
Originally written by UnorderedSigh
As the exodus of the Korath gathered in what would later be called Kor Nor’peli, and beheld the planet now known as Far’en Lai, their Archon escorts issued another decree:
Destroyers of worlds: Hear our words and heed them.
Contemplate Exile in galactic wastelands, meditate among dead stars.
Witness a living world testing your resolve to coexist.
Destroy it, and you destroy yourselves.
Seek kinship for liberation.
With this, the Archons cloaked, leaving the Exiles to ponder the meaning of the words. Now marked and named, the Korath Exiles were forced to live under this vague decree. Combined with memories of Archons’ ominous arsenal, this led to much fear and confusion among the Korath. The seeds of new factions were sown, aligned not with traditions or heritage, but with disputes over which systems were within the exile zones, and whether Korath were allowed to even land on planets other than Far’en Lai. This culminated in a fear that the Drak would kill the Korath if Far’en Lai became ruined.
Surveying Far’en Lai itself, the Korath realized their immediate lack of food. Far’en Lai has a fragile ecosystem. Its lack of dense foliage makes for an abundance of arable land, but Korath farming methods appeared incompatible with the planet’s conditions. Terraformers, believing it would only last a few centuries at most, studied ways to improve the planet, but they were all deemed too risky. The Korath feared the Drak may not differentiate between failure of a well-meaning terraforming effort, and intentional destruction.
As the exiles planned for their future, they traded feathers. Memories of each Korath were filled with hate of other factions and lust for their destruction. Beautiful planets, a vibrant culture, friends and family, destroyed in a moment. With the ability to see all sides of the situation, the Korath now understood the pointlessness of their war. They longed to achieve the state of mind they had before the war: peaceful artists and explorers.
To protect Far’en Lai and their future, the Korath swore never to settle the planet until they found inner peace. Initially, this was purely a rational decision, based on the gestalt memories. As time went on, preserving Far’en Lai embedded itself into Korath religions. Some believe the Drak provided Far’en Lai as a test to see if the Korath can coexist with the galaxy: should the Korath fail, the Drak will carry out a final sentence: save the universe by eliminating the Korath. Although this belief is not universal, it is ubiquitous and has embedded itself deeply into Korath culture.
Lacking a planet, the Korath were forced to seek food elsewhere. Most Korath cuisine comes from an aquaponics system that rapidly turns organic waste into bland algae paste. All larger Korath ships have aquaponics, but the bulk of the algae paste comes from a purpose-built space station. High-energy Nutragel is expensive to produce, and is best compared to chocolate during the Siege of Leningrad. Supplementarily, Korath hunt or farm non-terrestrial lifeforms for meat and other useful byproducts. What few exports Korath can produce are tied up in illicit trades for food with other species. Last, but not least, is delicious human food pillaged in raids.
Fortunately, the systems around Far’en Lai have plentiful mineral resources, enough to make as many ships and weapons as they want. Naturally, this led the Korath to raid other species for food. Initially, they only raided the Remnant to their south, a region some Korath still claim was in the bounds of exile. As human settlement expanded, so did Korath raids. The abundance of Syndicate and pirate planets on Korath borders was a great boon.
In their self-banishment from Far’en Lai, the Korath situation slowly degrades. Food is ever more scarce, and the population always grows beyond capacity. There are plenty of guns to go around, but few people know how to live without them. Caught in an existentialist trap of their own making, the starving Korath struggle to find a way out.
Modern-day sub-faction of Exiles that believe they are permitted to occupy the whole of the Ember Wastes. Although it is the Alaji that carry out void-sprites hunts despite opposition by the civilian government of the Exiles, they are not the only group that raids the Remnant.
Traditionalist empire based on Sepra Anatrusk in the Kaliptari system, they retained an aristocracy, enshrined pluralism, and were ruled by powerful kings and queens who shared power with a parliament. They were the longest continuously lasting Korath civilization, being the second colony established, never suffering a major revolution, and dying out during a popular revolt mere decades before the start of Endless Sky. Independent inventors of the Jump Drive and planet-cracker weapons, contributors to the supernova bomb, they are the only group to have explored the galaxy on peaceful terms, and make up the largest portion of those Korath exiled to the core. The design of raiding vessels like the Palavret and Tubfalet can be attributed to their influence.
A syncretistic, fundamentalist republic with a highly stratified, largely capitalist society. Arose from the ashes of the Kashikt Empire in a cultural revolution. Unusually friendly to outsiders owing to strictly enforced philosophical and moral codes. Between these restrictive social codes, the brain drain of the Exodus, strict limits imposed on technological development, continuing and widespread issues with famine and environmental degradation, and the threat of Mereti drones, the Efreti have no sense of purpose or ambition, and depression runs rampant. Allies of Korsmanath during the civil war. Designers of the Kasichara A’awoj. Victims of one supernova bomb.
Ostensibly defensive pact between the former combatants of the first war, and sociopolitically similar late civilisations of the Efreti and the Korath homeworld.
Officially, a loose confederation, with a centrally planned economy and military hierarchy, but otherwise extensively devolved to the leadership of individual stations, task forces, and world-ships. In practise, the council of Navarchs - admiral-ruler heads of the military - tends to exercise most actual power. Extreme variations in society between ships and stations, but always highly pluralistic and with the right to individual expression enshrined.
Formed from the first major extra-korsmanathi colony, they established their colony on Laki Nemparu circa 33000 B.C. and swiftly moved to block construction of the Quarg ringworld in Dokdubaru. Went to war with Korsmanath some thirty-five thousand years later, resulting in their mutual collapse and the rise of the Kor Efreti in their place.
The home star system of the Korath, and also the empire that ruled from it. After the first war and the cultural revolution, it became a syncretistic, fundamentalist republic much like the Efreti, but with a less stratified and more aggressive society. Raiders of the Remnant. Victims of two supernova bombs and the resulting irradiation of their home star system, their society was utterly shattered. Most survivors joined their Efreti allies, others joined the Exiles, where their influence is seen in the Rano’erek and the [Trawler] (upcoming medium freighter / gas giant surfer).
Decentralised, democratic republic based on Sapira Mereti in the Similisti system, the successor state to the Similisti Empire. Like the Efreti, they were syncretistic rather than pluralistic, but never fully absorbed the more tolerant attitudes towards outsiders. The last Mereti holdouts were wiped out not long after the Exodus, leaving their drones to continue fighting uncontrolled. Robotic experts and inventors of the nanobots, raiders of the Bunrodea.
Their influence on the Exiles manifests mostly in weapon design.
Presidential republic based on Sestor Ikfar in the Asikafarnut system, they combined traditional, pluralistic cultural values with progressive politics and central planning. Heavily reliant on nuclear, chemical, and fungal weapons, major contributors to the supernova bomb, secondary raiders of the Hai. Their design influence shows up in chasers like the ‘olofez and ‘nra’ret.
Although some Sestor survive in bunkers at the start of Endless Sky, in a normal Wanderer-aligned playthrough these are all captured and killed by the Alphas before the player has a chance to meet them. Siding with the Unfettered will result in many deaths but a minority of scientists rescued from slavery, while siding with the Exiles may enable the rescue of a broader section of survivors.
Once a great empire, transmission of memories from the post-revolution Efret-Korsmanath Alliance converted many to become the Mereti, while the more fanatical remnants become terrorists. Minor contributors to the supernova bomb.
Very few survived to the Exodus.
Seriously most of these dates are chosen pretty randomly just to fit between each other
37000 B.C. - Korath develop spaceflight
36900 B.C. - Extensive interplanetary colonies and infrastructure have developed in Korsmanath. Quarg take notice and begin construction of a ringworld in Dokdubaru.
33000 B.C. - Colony in Kashikt established on Laki Nemparu. Quarg ringworld construction blocked.
32980 B.C. - Colony in Similisti established on Sapira Mereti.
32900 B.C. - Colony in Kaliptari established on Sepra Anatrusk.
32500 B.C. - Colony in Asikafarnut established on Sestor Ikfar.
900 A.D. - Invention of the Jump Drive
2100 A.D. - The first war, between Kashikt and Korsmanath.
2120 A.D - End of the first war. Cultural Revolution. Kor Efreti and Efret-Korsmanath Alliance established.
2560 A.D. - Fall of the Similisti Empire, giving rise to the Mereti Collective.
2570 A.D. - Sestor attack the Mereti, starting the final civil war.
2580 A.D. - Anatruskor and Sestor start raiding Hai, Mereti raid the Bunrodea
2590 A.D. - Korsmanath steal, reverse-engineer Quarg JDs, raid the Remnant
2780 A.D. - Mereti unleash nanobots, Anatruskor deploy planet-crackers, Sestor use WMDs
2790 A.D. - Supernova bombs detonated. Archon intervention. The Exodus.
2820 A.D. - Exiles raid Humans.
2830 A.D. - Fall of the Mereti, their drones continuing to fight.
2850 A.D. - Exiles raid Remnant.
2920 A.D - Sestor retreat to underground bunkers.
2960 A.D. - Fall of the Anatruskor.
3000 A.D. - Fall of the Sestor. How they fall depends on the player...
When writing Korath dialogue, be sure to emphasise their lack of sense of time. Avoid punctuation, move from topic to topic without pause, try to keep everything in the present tense. Also, they do not hear Ss and Zs very well, so you might add, extend, or omit them at random.
The language cipher was developed in order to quickly and easily convert an English word into a Korath-sounding one, in either the Efret or Exile languages. A more thorough discussion of this is found in the top post of 7101, but for convenience, here are the barebones for use.
- Translate your English word into Indonesian
- Make it backwards - e.g. Kitty -> Yttik
- Replace letters according to the chart below
- For ships like “Kas’lor Ik 577”, find a Korath sound that starts with the last letter of the above for each of the three syllables. (Ik stood for “Refit”, by the way)
- Take the ship’s hull mass, and multiply it by 0.31 for civilian ships or 0.35 for military
- Fudge things about for readability or to taste
