Chain 160: Homeworld - Deserts of Kharak

Chain 160: Homeworld - Deserts of Kharak

Location: Tiir
Age: 25
Identity: Kiith Soban (Drop-In)
Drawbacks: [+300] The Homeworld Era

[Free]      Desert Scout
[300/1300]  Into The Sun Itself
[900/1300]  Inspired Advancement
[1000/1300] Desert Nomad
[1200/1300] Arid Selection
[1300/1300] Import: Demona and the Conspiracy

Kharak is not a nice place. Its star is old and slowly dying, dragging Kharak with it. Oh, when the Hiigarans were exiled here, no one really thought much of it other than they were being set down on a desert planet, but no one really foresaw that the planet would slowly but surely continue to warm. What little life remains on this planet, including the exiles themselves, are focused primarily around the poles. After all, the first settlement on Kharak was near the equator, but the temperatures there three thousand years later are nearly hot enough to boil water in the noon sun.

And into that situation walked a pair of outsiders, their arrival heralded by a thousand blackbirds. Oh, other than their walking out of the deep desert without the appropriate desert attire, there's not all that much strange about them, but the fact that this was possible in the first place beggars belief - and this was only further stretched when they join Kiith Soban, who will take anyone who wishes to join. Even a couple of desert-mad people who claim to be scientists.

Their claim was quickly put to the test when, at the prompting of other Sobani, they submitted designs for building better walls to keep the desert and the raiders within from damaging the cities that the sands threaten to swallow. Their design accomplished this with aplomb, and they then put forth a more daring design: massive pylons, structures made to siphon heat from the world, instead converting it into electrical energy. While it was more resource intensive to build than what typically powered cities on Kharak, once in place, they could provide virtually limitless power with no further investment. The Diamid sponsored their construction, and despite certain factions in the desert complaining about it (and occasionally shooting at them), they proved their worth as well.

It is of little surprise, then, that they were a part of the expedition that located the Khar-Toba, although it was of course Rachel S'jet that received the credit for finding the Khar-Toba itself and the Guidestone within.

In the decades that followed, they were a key part of much of the effort to create the Scaffold in orbit, and subsequently the Mothership itself. They seemed to age more slowly than most, though no one realized this for years; while their efforts were seemingly ineffective in discovering breakthroughs, they were certainly the people to go to when a problem needed to be looked at from a different angle, and they were responsible for a great many technologies being applied in different ways, or reverse engineered and built upon, as well as security measures to prevent interference with the great work that would become the Mothership.

And in the century that followed the Guidestone's discovery, a strange thing seemed to happen. An awakening amongst the populace, of sorts; there were superstitions among the Hiigarans, to be certain, but at first children claimed to speak to the blackbirds that had taken up residence in the city of Tiir. And then they began to manifest other powers that some decried as sorcery, and others dismissed... until a group of young adults displayed such abilities openly, claiming they had been taught by the blackbirds and that their purpose was to teach others. And as time passed, more and more children displayed these abilities - and even some adults. Until it seemed that every child born on Kharak had, somehow, been changed in order to use magic. They were limited to low-grade abilities and cantrips until a member of Kiith Somtaaw stumbled upon a way to focus these energies for greater effect, but no one could deny that magic was real and it rapidly became a part of the lives of all, not to mention that those with magic seemed to age half as quickly once they reached their prime.

As the scaffold was completed, those without magic numbered equal to those with it; by the time the mothership was half-completed, it was almost unheard of for someone to lack magic, though its impact on the lives of most individuals proved to be understated - with two notable exception: the ability to teleport short distances, and the invention of the cooling charm, which in combination led to the practicality of a very thorough excavation of the derelicts in the deep desert. But some magic-users' talents manifested in different ways, and while this took many forms... most notably was the tiny sliver of the population that were clairvoyant. Seers.

They issued cryptic warnings that, when viewed through the lens of religion, warned of the end of the world. They warned of the end of the world if it wasn't, as well. They learned of others in the galaxy, though vague in terms, and they learned they were driven here from their home by a species that was now led by a great evil. And they learned that the destruction of that evil by their hand was Sajuuk's will. Those who were concerned demanded shelter from the coming apocalypse, and became louder as the years passed. At first they were ignored, but in order to placate them, license was granted to construct great vaults within each city in the unlikely event that the Great Evil rained destruction from the heavens and all of that.

One hundred years after the discovery of the Guidestone, the Mothership was christened and helmed by Karan S'jet, but there was a different atmosphere to the project. Hope, but an undercurrent of quiet desperation and grim preparation.