#mod blackstone

In addition to being home to the velumians and quvians, Mivus is also home to a host of other smaller, but no less significant organisms. Soot frogs come out to play after eruptions, commonly found at the edges of lava flows where they hide amongst the fresh rock. The vibrant kazui firebirds roost in canopies all over the planet, providing early warning calls before eruptions. The most well known creature from the planet, however, is the flamewalker salamander. A well-loved snack of velumians, the little critters are abundant on Mivus’ surface and have been brought to many neighboring systems due to sheer demand.

Aside from its fascinating range of fauna, the planet is well known for its volcanic and tectonic activity, making it a popular spot of study for geologists, volcanologists and the like. Mivus’ governing body is usually courteous of such requests, but they have always reserved the right to deny or restrict access to areas of their planet if said areas are of cultural, environmental, and/or historical significance. Some governments and even entire races have been barred from sending scientists to Mivus due to violations of these rules.

It should probably be said that for the reckless and inconsiderate, Mivus is a near endless supply of bureaucratic red tape. As the homeworld of not one, but two, non-allied races, its governing body takes protection of both their people and assets very seriously. Visitors to Mivus can expect a thorough but efficient background check of their person, transport, and cargo, but the planets’ denizens are well-versed in making other races feel incredibly welcomed once they pass these check-ins. 

Once one manages to get past the mild tedium of arrival, Mivus quickly becomes a wonderful place to explore. Its capital, Camionira, is a beautiful city with even more stunning views. With the bulk of the settlement built atop a plateau and numerous sub-levels carved into the rock below, Camionira is a prime example of its inhabitants’ ingenuity and collaborative natures. Host to the planet’s primary spaceport, the capital has been designed with ease of access in mind to account for the hundreds of visitors it receives on a daily basis. Finding where one needs to go is almost never a problem, especially because its citizens are typically willing to offer assistance. 

This friendliness and willingness to interact with and support others is often credited to come from lessons learned during a troubled period in Mivus’ history. Roughly 300 years ago, the majority of the planet’s velumian clans were at war with each other for reasons no one can quite remember. These velumians suffered for the grudges of their ancestors and some only made it worse by enlisting their quvian neighbors as assassins and spies. When all was said and done - treaties made, the dead honored, and repentance performed to the planet itself - the clans and tribes involved agreed that in order to coexist with each other and their planet, they would never again take up arms against each other without due cause.

It is this agreement and how it carried over to dealings with other races once they became space-faring that has proved most interesting. Mivus is a truly neutral party that will not take part or choose to support any particular side in interplanetary or galactic conflicts unless they have truly no other choice. This pacifistic attitude doesn’t make either of its races very popular amongst more war-mongering races or their governments, least of all the Alliance. They have tried on numerous occasions to hound at least one of the two native races into supporting their conflicts, but these attempts are always met with a well-rehearsed list of reasons why it isn’t possible. With their home system so close to the edge of Alliance space, the Mivans cannot afford to not be prepared for such situations.

However, despite this, Mivus has entered into alliances with other non-allied races before. In these treaties, it has been clearly established that neither of its races wishes to be ammunition for any conflicts their allies get involved in. As they see things, upholding peace and cooperation is extremely important and those who wish to work with them must understand that. When sufficiently motivated to a cause, however, the people of Mivus are a force to be reckoned with.

Designed to potentially be home to over a hundred researchers and their families, Server had all the tools and constructs required to be a self-sustaining environment for research and discovery. From its’ trio of powerful generators to the magnificent greenhouse dome sitting atop the massive structure, Server is a prime example of the architectural and engineering skills the riukarans possessed. The ability of experts to study its construction in depth has been impeded, however, by the fact Server currently is in the possession of the coalition of individuals known as the Hermits.

While the exact details of Server’s abandonment and what occurred within its halls centuries ago are not publicly known, it is thanks to the forthcomingness of the Hermits that we know a good chunk of the story in the first place. Further developments are hopefully sure to follow as they continue piecing together its’ story during their stay on the station.

Centuries later, the station would be detected by newly installed long-range scanners on the human-settled planet of Ninsar. Ninsar is considered by most of humanity to be one of the “backwater colonies” and thus was often later in line to get new technology. Upon installation of these new scanners, though, they made an interesting discovery: There was a derelict space station floating at the edge of their star system.

Luckily for the planet’s very surprised governing body, Ninsar was also the home to one of the only human experts on the riukaran species - Joseph Hills. He was quickly sought out to become part of the team Ninsar’s government was putting together to send out to investigate the station. Mr. Hills was to lead the research contingent of the expedition, which was made up of three parts in total. The research contingent was to conduct a multitude of surveys and studies of the station itself to determine if it was truly riukaran in origin. If that could be confirmed, they were then to venture deeper into the station and see what observations and evidence of riukaran life they could find. The security contingent, made up of local security experts, hired mercenaries, and freelancers was to protect the researchers and supporting crew. The final contingent, the supporting crew, were intended to take care of requisitions alongside maintaining equipment and any other gear necessary for the expedition.

Upon the expedition’s arrival, the station was found to, shockingly, possess breathable air in its common areas. It appeared that even while dormant, the station’s backup power was still powerful enough to cycle oxygen to several decks, including engineering. Finding this curious, only a couple weeks into their allotted time, Mr. Hills ventured deeper into the station on his own. His intuition ended up leading him to the Core, which appeared to be a control center of sorts. Found at the heart of the station, the Core sits directly above one of Server’s three generators. Consequently, the chamber is always filled with a gentle thrumming, which is supposedly what drew him in.

The Core, with its inviting decor of dusty consoles and long-powered off screens spanning its walls were a discovery waiting to happen. Naturally, he just had to get to work. After all, if the station had been out there all that time, simply sitting untouched, wasn’t there a good chance it could tell them something about what had happened to its creators? So little was known, even a thousand years later, about the conditions the riukarans had faced during their plague-driven extinction. A station like this surely would have some of those answers, wouldn’t it?

When Mr. Hills didn’t report back along with his fellow researchers a few hours later, the security team became concerned. Having supposedly had some form of warning for the head researcher’s tendency to wander off alone, Xisuma took it upon himself to track the man down.

Xisuma would find Mr. Hills still in the rather process of pressing buttons and flipping switches, nearly at random, trying anything he could possibly think of to bring the station out of its dormant state. Xisuma, whose curiosity was piqued, offered to help.

That simple offer is what ended up determining Server’s fate. When Xisuma approached to offer aid, he leaned up against one of the consoles. This seemingly innocuous action is what led to the discovery of riukaran tech responding exclusively to individuals who possess riukaran DNA. One can only imagine the surprise and wonder the two must have felt as the station came to life around them.

There is one final piece to this puzzle, though. Due to orders issued by its former Admin, the station had shut itself down in the middle of what we now know the riukarans called a scramble-warp sequence (a series of warp-jumps known to have been performed by riukaran stations to confuse sensors). Shortly after it was reactivated, the station warped a final time, depositing the entire expeditionary crew into unfamiliar space.

As to be expected, most of the expeditionary crew did not remain on the station for much longer once they were able to regain their bearings. Those few who did, however, ended up becoming the very first members of the now infamous Hermits. This incident also would eventually place Xisuma in the role of Admin, as the title would be dictated by Server’s now defunct AI (but that is another story).

It took a few hundred years, but the Alliance eventually came to see them as a threat to their governing power. Despite the riukarans’ lack of political power, the Alliance’s more paranoid members believed that if the opportunity presented itself, that they could be a very real threat to them as a governing body. After a couple more decades of debate, the conclusion was that this threatened unseating could never be allowed to happen. Thus began the conspiracy to simply remove the riukarans from the equation entirely. This began with numerous disappearances of riukaran leaders and scholars on visits to Alliance worlds. While to the rest of the galaxy, the Alliance claimed to be looking into these “vanishings”, in reality they used this coverup to slowly and systematically cut the riukarans’ major civilization centers off from the rest of the galaxy. With the isolation nearly complete, they then began to target ships and space stations. As the Alliance’s betrayal began to sink in, the riukarans pulled back to their worlds, desperate to defend themselves. By then, though, it was far, far too late. The Alliance had suspected the riukarans would retreat - they were a warrior race no longer, after all - and had already prepared the resources for planetary assaults. Hundreds of thousands of riukarans were massacred before the Alliance was even close to being satisfied. They crushed the riukaran worlds, in many cases leaving little behind but dust and death. Those few who survived fled into the outer reaches of the galaxy, knowing that if they remained, they too would face slaughter. The Alliance’s treatment of the riukarans was horrifically brutal and under any other circumstances would have been labeled as a gross violation of numerous treaties. Though, when speaking of the government, it’s too much to expect them to prosecute themselves, isn’t it? 

Following this, the Alliance had to put all their time and energy into controlling the narrative surrounding the riukarans, as they referred to it, “abrupt disappearance”. Their official statement went somewhat like this: The riukarans were wiped out by a fast-spreading, deadly plague that only affected their kind due to vulnerabilities specific to their physiology. Due to their great wisdom, they understood that there was no way they could be helped, and thus, they gracefully accepted their unfortunate demise.

Roughly 700 years on, the riukaran race was largely considered extinct. Any items or tech that could be said to be “of riukaran origin” were now historical artifacts. New discoveries that gave insight into what the riukarans may have been like were closely monitored by the Alliance, as they knew that anything that could shed light on their involvement in the riukaran ‘extinction’ could ruin the carefully crafted story they had fed the galaxy. And they were mostly successful in maintaining this cover for many years to come.

What is it they say about humanity… that they have an insatiable curiosity? 

Despite riukarans being long considered the stuff of history and legends by the time humans emerged onto the galactic playing field, that did very little to deter humanity’s fascination with the ancient race. In fact, humans were the ones responsible for the majority of expeditions and large-scale research projects concerning the riukarans in the last century. Their efforts and successes have fueled a great number of other historical and scientific endeavors into learning more about the history of this once great race. While much has been learned - a “safe” amount of information, if you will - it’s not nearly enough to satisfy those who have dedicated their lives to learning and understanding what came before. This… sudden spike in interest has resulted in more extreme efforts on the Alliance’s part to stem the galaxy’s flow of knowledge on the subject, lest their past sins finally come to light.

As with any attempts at censorship, however, the Alliance has not been able to silence the past entirely… and that is the point where our story begins.