Sinister Wars

The Sinister Wars are a period of Vaikan history during the early days of the Drallan Federal Monarchy in the Fourth Age of the Vaikan. During this time, the entire Vaikan species was conquered by the Sinister Hegemony and was subjugated to their brutal rule. The First Sinister War consists of the initial nine hour long first contact event and the Second Sinister War is the Vaikan's attempts to free themselves.

The Nine Hour War

Decades after the Nerisuc Incident, SETI devices detected a series of signals exchanged throughout the Twin Hearts Nebula. Interestingly, it seemed the signals were directed at them. Expert cryptographers began to decipher the signals noting that it followed a strangely similar lexicon as the Omni language, but much of it had yet to be deciphered. Many believed that the Omni had finally returned after they had covertly witnessed the Vaikan’s attempt at interstellar exploration. Part of the signals contained a map prominently featuring the planet Pelietta. New hypotheses originated, believing the map to lead to some sort of treasure or cache of technology.

However, before the Vaikan could decipher the treasure map, they had received another, more daunting message. Knowledge of the Omni language was limited, but the translation came out to “Submit”. This raised some questions on whether the Omni were truly benevolent, but some believed that there could be multiple factions trying to either harm or help them. It would not be long before they found the answer to their question.

Only two years after receiving the message, extraterrestrial ships were discovered in the solar system. One by one, contact with other colonies was lost until the ships finally showed themselves to Ucharpli shortly after detonating an EMP device to wipe out all communications. Their designs were similar, but not quite the same as what were rumored to be Omni ships. These hostile alien visitors referred to themselves as the Eghos and claimed to be the direct descendants of the Omni. The Eghos were a race of genetic constructs designed to continue the legacy of the Omni after their extinction.

The Eghos mercilessly bombarded Ucharpli’s surface, destroying many of its cities as well as damaging the topmost floor of the 3,000-year-old structure Kazel-Hal. In just nine hours, the Eghos had taken complete control of Ucharpli - an event which retroactively became known as the First Sinister War, or alternatively, the Nine Hour War.

Sinister Conquest

Promptly after being conquered, the Vaikan were introduced proper to the Eghos. The Eghos claimed themselves to be the descendants of the Omni, survivors of a purge from 33,000 years ago at the hands of what they referred to as the Minions of the False One - later known to be the Buyuk Empire. The Eghos had hid themselves through cryostasis until they were sure the Buyuk Empire was dead. However, the detection of the Vaikan’s presence in the Eros system was what led them to awaken prematurely. Even though the Buyuk Empire would not make themselves known to the Twin Hearts Nebula for another 7,000 years, the Eghos were still paranoid of the return of the False One, and thus, believed they had to take desperate measures to ensure other species would not betray them.

The Eghos had claimed that the reason why the Vaikan were conquered was that they had been too selfish and arrogant. Instead, the Eghos wished to remind them that there were forces in the universe greater than the Vaikan and that the Omni and by extension, the Eghos were the superior species. The Eghos claimed it was their responsibility to shape the galaxy so that every species had a specific purpose to serve them - just like how their ancestors formed their empire.

As the Eghos believed themselves to be superior, their first ruling was to immediately ban all forms of religion. Krayhan and other Vaikan gods became outlawed and most public images representing these deities were destroyed and replaced with images of the Eghos. This was because the Eghos claimed religion in general to be evil - their god had abandoned them to spawn the False One, the entity responsible for destroying the Omni Empire. Despite the Eghos’ claims (which for the most part was actually true), the Vaikan internally dismissed it as lies and propaganda to get them to accept their grim situation. Retroactively, the Eghos and their empire became known as the Sinister Hegemony.

As it turned out, in the short time that the Eghos had been awake, they had already conquered six other species, the Lusari included. The Vaikan were merely the most recent. Other member species of the Sinister Hegemony were the Glukar, Avarith, Slothra, Rirath and Malenven. The Eghos planned to have each species serve a specific function - the six others had already gone through significant genetic engineering and the Vaikan were next.

The Eghos undertook a project of systematically reshaping the overall Vaikan population and their genes to be useful for serving the greater good. Their intent was to make an obedient servant species just like they had done with other members of the Sinister Hegemony. Seeing the usefulness of their ability to generate electricity, they chose to optimize the Vaikan for just that purpose by going through a series of genocides. Firstly, they killed off Vaikan which they deemed unusable or unable to work which included the elderly, sick, injured, disabled and even those unable to use electricity. They also segregated the Vaikan by gender and limited the number of fertile females so that they could always keep their population in check and only allow a Vaikan to breed when they deemed it necessary. The gender ratio skewed as disproportionate as 80% male and 20% female.

Afterwards, the Vaikan were put into reeducation camps, attempting to brainwash them into believing that the Eghos were their saviors and that their own pre-existing history was a lie told by the False One. The Eghos went as far as to redecorate existing statues and relics, excavating ancient ruins on Ucharpli to remake them as if the Eghos were there all along. The one area they were unable to reach was the Tomb of Kings, so they just blocked the entrance to it, claiming it to be a forbidden place corrupted by the False One.

The Vaikan were also introduced to jumpgates - ancient FTL structures that had only been recently turned on to allow travel between star systems in hours. Much like livestock, the Vaikan were transported all throughout the Sinister Hegemony to generate electricity where necessary. The Vaikan had quickly discovered that most members of the other species of the Sinister Hegemony had already been brainwashed beyond recognition of their original forms. But the process of brainwashing all Vaikan had yet to be completed. In a few decades, it was expected that all traces of Vaikan deviances would be eliminated - they’d become loyal, obedient slaves to the Eghos with zero signs of resistance supposedly like the six other species of the Sinister Hegemony.

Despite the upcoming grim fate of the Vaikan, one hope still remained. The treasure map to Pelietta sent to the Vaikan from somewhere in the Twin Hearts Nebula seemed to have been sent by an unknown rogue agent. Most assumed it to be a hoax created by the Eghos, but a small minority believed it was a sign that the galaxy had the chance of being something other than a totalitarian nightmare.

The Treasure Map

The decades past and over the years, there were more than a few Vaikan that congregated together by going into hiding. One of the key figures was a Rustiagon named Parlo sowing the seed of hope. He promised that so long as the divine Rustiagon bloodline still existed, there was hope of uncovering the treasure on Pelietta. Parlo searched the other parts of the Sinister Hegemony for species that could accompany him and help him decipher the map.

Parlo discovered that the map itself came from the planet Welthar, the methane-based homeworld of the Avarith. The Avarith’s unique physiology made them much more difficult to make compliant. The Eghos instead resorted to constant threats and extortion to keep them in check. Essentially, the Avarith owed the Eghos a neverending debt. But the Avarith, however, had the financial resources to make a proper excavation of Pelietta possible. Parlo promised to share the wealth and knowledge of the Vaikan with the Avarith should they succeed at uncovering the treasure and defeating the Eghos.

After Parlo rounded up a crew of archeologists and mercenaries, the secret expedition to Pelietta began. They managed to get past the Eghos and discover the location of the treasure. What they found was a remarkable discovery - a starmap showing the entire local jumpgate network. Not only that, but it also contained a larger jumpgate which led to a nebulae several thousand lightyears away. The Vaikan had learned that the Eghos did not build the jumpgates themselves and even they were still attempting to recolonize and explore the ancient systems. The larger jumpgate needed an immense source of power to reactivate it. Immediately, they began making copies of the starmap onto data discs.

However, at that moment of discovery, one particular Avarith in the group betrayed Parlo outing his act to the Eghos in hopes of being paid a handsome reward. Parlo and many other key resistance leaders were captured and sentenced to execution. The starmap however went into public circulation being contained on data discs. The Eghos rewarded anyone who destroyed these discs.

Despite this, the Eghos felt they hadn’t done enough. They began to spread more propaganda to encourage their citizens to not only destroy the discs, but to find anyone who was a member of the Rustiagon bloodline and out them as traitors.

Though Parlo was executed, as it turned out, he had an illegitimate child named Gelda. Only a mere twenty years old at the time of her father’s death, Gelda had remained in hiding and was entrusted with a data disc. She had etched the coordinates of the big jumpgate into her shoulder by modifying one of the Eghos’ slave brands. While the last of the data discs were lost along with the rest of the starmap, the location of the large gate remained - a backdoor exit where Vaikan could escape to in hopes of forming a new colony away from the Eghos.

Gelda kept her own existence a secret - unfortunately, a little too well. The general public had thought that the resistance force as well as the Rustiagon bloodline had died out. Gelda did not have the chance to undertake a peaceful effort to rise up against the Eghos, as the general public had already begun to blame the Avarith for the failure.

Avarith Rebellion

With the Rustiagon bloodline apparently having been extinguished, the Eghos would continue their mass indoctrination and brainwashing of the Vaikan. The Vaikan were slowly molded into highly religious, physically powerful warriors. While the Rirath species were used mostly as disposable foot soldiers, the Vaikan slowly became the enforcers for the Sinister Hegemony.

However, the Avarith were the only species in the Sinister Hegemony that was unindoctrinated. A few Avarith knew that Gelda was still alive and knew that other Vaikan had also yet to be fully indoctrinated as well. Fearing that the Vaikan could pose a threat to them, they chose to take action by slowly diverting away the Eghos’ financial resources into other miscellaneous, bogus side projects for the purposes of crippling their economy.

The Avarith had a very quiet victory against the Eghos after turning their own economy against them. They overspent on the Vaikan’s indoctrination and made it far less efficient, thus giving greater chance for more Vaikan to remain. The Eghos, however, caught on and violently retaliated by setting fire to the Avarith’s homeworld of Welthar. As Welthar was covered in hydrocarbon oceans, the planet was destroyed leaving not enough Avarith to sustain a minimum viable population.

However, despite the Avarith’s extinction, they proclaimed themselves to have the last laugh as the economy of the entire Sinister Hegemony was in shambles. The Eghos could no longer maintain a strict control on their subject species, and this gave the chance for the remains the Drallan Federal Monarchy to make a comeback.

Second Sinister War

The Avarith’s actions had destabilized the entire Sinister Hegemony. As a result, the remaining members fought among themselves. The Eghos never finished the brainwashing process of the Vaikan population and the remaining unindoctrinated Vaikan waited in hiding for the Sinister Hegemony to destroy itself. The Lusari, Glukar, Slothra and Rirath species all went extinct as casualties in the civil war. The Eghos were unafraid to genocide those who had betrayed them, but they were unable to defeat the Vaikan. The Vaikan were the most physically resilient and survived the Eghos’ attempted purge.

As the Vaikan were the only remaining target, Gelda was forced to come out of the shadows and reestablished herself as rightful heir to the throne resurrecting the Rustiagon bloodline. Promising a better future, Gelda led a charge to defeat and free themselves from the Eghos. Gelda proclaimed the resurrection of the Drallan Federal Monarchy and mobilization against the enemy was underway.

The Eghos were cornered and desperate for a solution. The Malenven were still loyal to the Eghos and decided to develop a superweapon that could extinguish the Vaikan for good. The Eghos, desperate for a short, swift victory, pooled all their remaining resources into developing a bioweapon known as Odium, a single entity that combined all the genetic traits of every member species of the Sinister Hegemony. Engineered using Lusari DNA as a base, Odium could transform and adapt the natural skillsets of all the other species. It was designed to take on an entire army by itself.

Odium was devastating to the DFM, but it was defeated when it was launched into the atmosphere of a brown dwarf where it was torn to shreds. The Sinister Hegemony had surrendered. Both the Eghos and Malenven had also fallen below the minimum to survive.

Gelda ordered the execution of all leading Eghos and Malenven officials. However, she wished to preserve the member species of the Sinister Hegemony in spite of lacking the technology to restore their population. Thus, Gelda ordered DNA samples of all their species to be stored in a vault for future study. While their culture would be lost, having extraterrestrial DNA in hand would allow them to better understand the galaxy. The Eghos were also the closest they had to the Omni.

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