GROGHEM CLUSTER HISTORY

In the great scheme of things, the cluster is full of young species. The first of these great peoples arose on the jungle planet of Khera. This insectoid race communicated with a complex system of auditory clicks and whistles in communion with a vast telepathic ability and a complex weave of pheromones. For many Millennia the Kheran's plied the stars of the cluster alone, searching for other sentient life, finding few races worthy of their attention. Among them were the Ekin, a race of winged bipeds calling themselves the Ekin, and a race of primitive and violent silicon based insectoids, the latter of which was embroiled in constant wars of global domination between the two halves of their society.

The Ekin, were a peaceful race interested in exploring their corner of space on the edge of the cluster. Their exploration however was cut short however with the invasion of a warring race known only as the Y'lesta. The Y'lesta, bipedal as the Ekin, but lacking wings, and having a reptilian hide, immediately engaged the Kheran's in a war of domination, attacking with relentless fervor the thousands of colonies the Kheran's had spread throughout the cluster.

The War raged for nearly a thousand years, inflicting heavy losses on both sides. The Y'lesta attacked in hordes with a suicidal viciousness, slowly, they pushed the Kheran's back to their home world, where the Great Kheran Scientist Alpha, released a super ship unlike any other seen on the Y'lesta. It's power core was the first to ever utilize quantum singularities, and with this massive infusion of energy to it's weaponry, coupled with a sentient mind, the ship, Khera's Revenge, cut through the Kheran lines with little trouble, and over the coming decades wiped out every known Y'lestan ship and colony in the cluster.

The Kheran's however suffered from a tenacious biological agent that slowly killed off the remaining population in huge quantities. It is believed that the Kheran's might still inhabit some of their worlds, in self sustaining habitats, kilometers beneath the crusts of their worlds, shielded from sensors, awaiting a time when they might return to power.

The Ekin were caught in the middle of this war in it's final decades, and rather than see their race perish, they made a radical attempt to save their race with experimental theories of temporal Dynamics. It is believed that the bulk of the Ekin Species may have survived on the Ekin home world.

Approximately five hundred thousand years later, The KhZah arose from the planet of their birth, in two distinct factions. The inhabitants of the Lower continent were known as the Kzaer-Zah, and those of the upper continent, the Khor-Ah. The Two factions expanded in a strip of space cutting directly across the cluster, in an attempt to out strip one another. Over the next 480,000 years they fought a series of decisive engagements, that resulted in minimal change of borders, and extreme loss of life. Until the great Doctrinal War erupted, reasons for which have been lost in history. The Doctrinal war spanned nearly nine decades, culminating in the Kzaer-Zah defeat.

The Kzaer-Zah armada was allowed to penetrate deep into Khor-Ah space, all the way to home world, from which they had been evicted for hundreds of thousands of years. The Khor-Ah evacuated the world before the final battle, and upon luring the Kzaer-Zah forces into the home planetary system, detonated an antimatter device within the core of the planet. The resulting reaction created a planetary grenade that fragmented in a violent explosion destroying nearly 82% of the Kzaer-Zah navy. The resulting victory and superiority of the Khor-Ah forces allowed the Khor-Ah to succinctly end the war. The Kzaer-Zah fell prey to the Khor-Ah's mercy, and instead of being systematically exterminated, the Kzaer-Zah populace was exiled from the cluster, with the understanding that they would never return.

Three thousand years later the Cluster, barren of star faring races save the Khor-Ah, received it's first refugee… A noble race of humanoids exploring this distant cluster, seeking colonial possibilities for their race, which was embroiled in a Great War. The exploration vessel crash-landed on a nearly dead world, where a small Khor-Ah colony, ecstatic to find a new race, rendered immediate aid to the ailing Sooman. Over the course of then next hundred years, the Khor-Ah terraformed the planet to a Sooman standard environment, and withdrew their colony to a minor island in the South Seas. The Khor-Ah assisted the fledgling Sooman with materials and technology, bringing the Sooman forward in a great leap, and allowing them to rapidly spread across the planet and into space.

During the time of terraforming another race entered the cluster, and immediately fell into disfavor with the Khor-Ah due to their savage nature. (The Khor-Ah had long grown out of their own Savage tendencies, leashing them in with a code of honor.) The Khor-Ah in a series of lightning strikes, forced the Hrunten into the most distant corner of the cluster, and bombed them into the Stone Age. Believing the planet sterilized, they left the remains of the wasp like Hrunta to the native carrion eaters of the world.

Before long however, the Hrunta had a small but thriving civilization on the planet, and the only thing reigning them in was the simple lack of space travel.

It was during this initial phase of colonization that an ancient organization made its presence known. The Keep, founded shortly after the Kheran/Y'lestan war, and consisting of thousands of Khor-Ah, a few native races in their industrial ages, and a growing number of Sooman established itself as a political force within the cluster, as a peaceful group dedicated to maintaining peace and steady growth throughout the cluster.

Soon after the Hrunten arrival, the Zeerich Karr arrived, a convoy of refugee ships that quickly established themselves on a Gaia world, occupied by an industrial tech race known as the Kilrathi. This Feline species was soon befriended and uplifted into the stellar age by the Zeerich Karr. It was not until nearly a hundred years later that the Zeerich Karr and the Khor-Ah made contact with one another, at the beginning of the ZK colonial phase. The ZK and the Khor-Ah's relations have always been strained by the inherent distrust between their peoples, recent studies show that this may be attributable to pheromone signals given off by both races, and found mutually distasteful on a subconscious level.

No one knows exactly when the Pendadragoons arrived in the cluster, or whether they have always been here. Some speculation states that their race may indeed be far older than the Kherans. It is now known that the Pendadragoons have extensive colonies somewhere beyond the cluster.

This ended The Age of Seed, in which these races found soil in which to grow within the cluster, expanding into Pan-Cluster Civilizations.

Ten thousand years ago, the Dark Matter wall enveloped the cluster. Gravitational shifts within the galaxy proper brought an extensive field of dark matter into the galactic orbit of the cluster, which upon passing through, gravitationally pulled enormous fields of Dark Matter with it, over a thousand year period, these chunks spread out to envelop the entire cluster. The cluster's stellar winds however, for the most part overcame the Dark Matter, and forced it outside the cluster proper, creating a shell of dust and debris that however, enveloped millions of stars. The Dark Matter fractured Hyper-space with it's intense gravitational field, making travel outside the cluster impossible. The Cluster became an isolated group of civilizations, and over the next ten thousand years fell into a constant state of infighting, with full scale war barely held in check by the peace keeping forces of the Keep, and to a lesser extent, the Khor-Ah.

****

Modern History

****

Six years ago the Cluster nearly fell into a full-scale war initiated by other races misunderstanding of Khor-Ah withdrawal into isolationism. Political rumor ran rampant, and the Khor-ah and Sooman, once the best of friends, nearly came to serious blows, the imminent war however was averted by the resurgence of an old enemy.

An enemy of immense technological power was invading the cluster through a small passageway in the dark matter wall. The Kzaer-Zah had returned, in staggering numbers. The Kzaer-Zah fleet proceeded to burn through worlds left and right, causing great disruption through out the closer in their attempt to destroy the Khor-Ah in the Second Doctrinal War. The Kzaer-Zah however had greater designs, after their rampage throughout the nearby galactic proper, their fleets rebuilt, and their xenophobic fervor at it's peak, they were eager to exterminate all sentient life within the cluster, and claim the ancient home as their own.

In a war that raged for nearly a year the Khor-Ah and their cluster allies held the Kzaer-Zah at bay, even winning a series of decisive engagements. Yet in a powerful offensive the Kzaer-Zah forces drove through opposing forces to engage the Khor-Ah at their Home planet, a massive star system engineered around a white dwarf star. The Star System had been designed however to self distract, much as the Khor-Ah had destroyed their original home, in a great fury that devastated the Kzaer-Zah ranks, and allowed the remaining forces to route the remaining Kzaer-Zah forces. A rouge band of Kzaer-Zah however remained active in the far reaches of the cluster.

The Khor-Ah, devastated in the war, retreated to a second star system, set up for this eventuality, and maintained by native Khor-Ah. The system, engineered into an envelope within the Dark matter allowed the Khor-Ah to go through a spectacular metamorphosis, in the only recorded act of spontaneous evolution. The Kzaer-Zah within the cluster also went through this transformation elsewhere. In the mean time, the cluster races recovered uneventfully from the Second Doctrinal War. 4 years later the Khor-Ah were all but extinct, and their child race, the Rhastah-Khor emerged into the cluster once again, as a crystalline race with highly advanced technology.

---

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page