Homeworld 3

Two hundred and thirty-five years have passed since the exiles returned to their homeworld, Hiigara. The Hiigaran Hegemony has since spread across the Inner Rim of the galaxy, defeating the Vaygr warlord Makaan and activating the long-lost Great Network of hyperspace gates to revolutionise galactic travel and trade. But the gates have now started going dark. A vast area of hyperspace dysfunction, the Anomaly, is growing. Karan S'jet, the ancient navigator who guided her people home, has vanished whilst investigating the phenomenon. Two decades later, her protégé, Imogen, is ordered to take control of the new Hiigaran Mothership, the Khar-Kushan, and complete Karan's work.

Few franchises have proven as stubbornly tenacious as Homeworld. The original game launched in 1999 and was a moderate hit, and was rapidly followed by a stand-alone expansion, Homeworld: Cataclysm in 2000, which also did reasonably well. Homeworld 2 sold very disappointingly in 2003 and had a mixed reaction from fans. Combined with complex rights issues, this basically halted the franchise in its tracks for over a decade, until Gearbox saved the IP rights from obscurity and released Homeworld Remastered in 2015. Blackbird Interactive, a company formed by much of the original development team of Homeworld and Homeworld 2, subsequently released the ground-based prequel game Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak in 2016. But what fans really wanted was another space game.

Eight years on, Blackbird have delivered the third numbered game in the series, the fifth mainline game overall and, thanks to the recent release of Homeworld Mobile and Homeworld: Vast Reaches (a VR game), the seventh title overall. Not bad for a series that has only ever sold modestly and remains obscure to the general games-playing audience.

As with its forebears, Homeworld 3 is a space-based, real-time strategy game. It takes advantage of its setting to operate in full 3D, with battles taking place in all three dimensions and both you and the enemy being able to launch attacks from above and below.

As usual, you have a huge mothership, in this game the Khar-Kushan, which operates as your mobile command centre and ship foundry. Resource gatherers collect resources, normally by mining asteroids or leftover salvage, which provide you with income to build more ships. Ships come in multiple classes, starting with fighters and bombers, and then moving up through corvettes, frigates, carriers, destroyers and battlecruisers.

Ships have specific roles and are best deployed as hard counters to specific enemy ship types: assault frigates chew up fighters, ion cannon frigates are excellent anti-capital ship vessels and minelayer frigates can assemble enormous minefields to disrupt enemy attacks. Bombers can be a relatively cheap way of engaging enemy capital ships without threatening your own, expensive capital vessels. You can put ships into different formations and vary their responses to enemy forces, from passively ignoring them to aggressively pursuing and shooting everything in sight. You can also assign ships to guard other vessels, such as sending a group of fighters to escort your resourcers as they head across the map to acquire more funds.

In terms of controls, there's a modern, WASD-based system which treats the camera like it's a first-person shooter, whilst a "classic" scheme perfectly recreates the interface from Homeworld Remastered (itself based on Homeworld 2's system, and mostly similar to the original game). The addition of the third axis can make using the interface slightly clunkier than in other strategy games, but there are a number of QOL options to make the controls more flexible. Selecting one of your formations and ctrl-boxing an enemy formation will make your ships target and destroy everything in that group rather than having to individually click enemy units, for example. The game also has time controls, for the first time in the franchise since Homeworld: Cataclysm, with you being able to slow down events by 25%, 50% or 75%. You can also pause completely and issue new orders before rejoining the fray. This is important in the most frantic and largest battles.

The game has three modes. The first is the story-based campaign, which follows up on the events of Homeworld 2 a hundred and twenty years later, with voice acting, cut scenes and dialogue explaining the plot. For the first time in the series, the cut scenes are pre-rendered in full 3D; the previous games were infamous for their minimalist, hand-drawn and originally black-and-white animated cut scenes. Deserts of Kharak began the process of "glowing up" these cut scenes into full colour and using rotoscoped animation, but Homeworld 3 goes full AAA with them. Well, AAA for 2007; the animation is surprisingly stiff in places and character facial expressions are sometimes cartoonishly exaggerated, which feels a bit off.

The story starts off very nicely, with a mystery unfolding over the fate of Karan and the nature of the Anomaly. Unfortunately, Imogen later develops the ability to talk to the main antagonist via a hyperspace connection, and she is a deeply underwhelming villain. The Taiidan Emperor, the Beast, Makaan and the Kiith Gaalsien, the villains of the prior games, were all worthy adversaries with some real menace and presence, but the Incarnate Queen is prone to histrionics and petulant fits which remove a lot of menace or tension. This is annoying as the story holds a lot of promise, and the way it is integrated into the mission design is often very good, such as having to defend a ship trapped in ice as it breaks free, or constructing an insane defence around a hyperspace gate to deal with an incoming enemy fleet of stupendous size (think of the battle for Zion's dock in The Matrix Revolutions). A mission where you have to guide your fleet through a colossal asteroid storm, navigating from safe zone to safe zone, is incredibly atmospheric. Another mission has you hiding like a submarine in an ice flow but surfacing to launch surprise attacks on passing enemies.

So the story goes off the boil, but the mission design remains extremely impressive, with some of the best missions in the entire franchise to be found here. It's not terribly long campaign. This is not unusual for Homeworld, which has always had controversy over its modest campaigns, but at just 12 story missions, Homeworld 3 is a startling four missions shorter than the original Homeworld. On normal difficulty, you'll probably put the story away in under 10 hours. For a full-priced release in 2024, this is eyebrow-raising in the extreme.

We have the standard multiplayer/skirmish mode as well, which is fine. More interesting, and possibly the ultimate test of the game's longevity, is the WarGames mode. This mode can be played solo or in co-op, and sees your fleet taking on escalating enemy forces whilst trying to complete objectives. As you go through the missions, you gain experience which allows you to build better fleets next time around. Failure is assumed; there's a roguelike element of learning from your failure, as experience remains in place and allows you to unlock new ships and options for the next run regardless of success. It's a pretty good mode and it has to be said the maps it uses are frequently gorgeous. Map design is in fact extremely strong through all of the game's modes.

The apparent killer feature of the game is, oddly for a space title, terrain. The story sees you investigating vast, ancient megastructures left behind by a long-extinct alien species known as the Progenitors, with battles taking place in close proximity to them. You can send fighters skimming along the surface of these structures or through tunnels in them to jump out and surprise enemies, and even use makeshift cover. This is a splendid idea, but after a while you kind of forget about these options. Your larger ships can't use terrain in this manner, so you usually end up forming a single large fleet and sending it around curb-stomping most opposition without too much trouble, without having to micromanage the terrain.

Homeworld 3 ends up as a reasonably worthy follow-up to the earlier games in the series and I ended up preferring it to Homeworld 2, at least in terms of gameplay. The story is one of the weaker in the series, replacing the epic themes and scope of the original games with something more rooted in a smaller number of individual characters. I am also not in love with the cliffhanger ending, which teases a sequel or later expansion that might never come.

The single-player campaign is also startlingly short. Yes, in 2003 you could get away with a single-player campaign that was 10 hours or less in a full-price game. But it's not 2003 any more. The multiplayer and skirmish modes are fine, but the WarGames mode is the game's secret sauce, being interesting and challenging with some stunning vistas and level design. That said, WarGames will probably, at best, double or triple the time investment of the campaign. I don't see it being something people will play for hundreds of hours on end. Although Homeworld 3 is obviously graphically far superior to 2017's Battlestar Galactica video game, Deadlock, that game did a much better job of combining a tense story campaign with dynamically-generated side-missions to create a much more engrossing campaign which gave the player more control of what was going on across not just a few hours but dozens of them.

Homeworld 3 (***½) should be of interest to established fans of the franchise and anyone who likes exploring the central core appeal of good science fiction, namely 1) the wonder of exploring the cold vastness of the cosmos and 2) having really big spaceships which explode in a cool manner. Whether the game is worth buying at full-price is a little bit questionable, given the extremely modest campaign length, but the WarGames mode is different and interesting, and is especially fun for co-op multiplayer. If you're a total newcomer to the franchise, you'll be better served by picking up a copy of Homeworld Remastered from Steam for a more modest price for a lot more content. The Homeworld franchise's return can be said to have been a success, but not an unqualified one.

The game is available now on PC.

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HOMEWORLD 3 gets March 2024 release date

Blackbird Interactive have confirmed that their much-anticipated space game Homeworld 3 finally has a firm release date: 8 March 2024.

The game is actually the fifth title in the series, following on from Homeworld* (1999), Homeworld: Cataclysm** (2000), Homeworld 2* (2003) and Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak (2016).

As with the previous mainline games in the series, it follows the fortunes of the Hiigaran people. In the original game, they were exiles living on the desert planet Kharak for three millennia, with no memory of the crimes that saw them banished there, nor any knowledge of how to get home. A chance archaeological discovery (chronicled in prequel Deserts of Kharak) gave them the knowledge of hyperspace travel, and a route back to their homeworld. However, their return home is not the end of their troubles, but potentially just the beginning.

If you want to brush up on your Homeworld backstory, I have an in-depth history of the universe here.

* Homeworld and Homeworld 2 were re-released as Homeworld Remastered in 2015.

** Later renamed Homeworld: Emergence for various IP reasons.

HOMEWORLD 3 delayed until 2023

Homeworld 3 is the latest game to fall foul of the postponement curse. The game will miss its long-scheduled autumn release window and will instead launch in "early 2023."

The game is actually the fifth title in the long-running science fiction strategy franchise. The series kicked off with Homeworld in 1999 and continued through Homeworld: Cataclysm (2000), Homeworld 2 (2003) and planet-bound prequel Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak (2016). The original two games were also revamped as Homeworld Remastered (2015). Homeworld 3 has been eagerly awaited by fans for many years and was crowdfunded through the Fig service two years ago to success.

The game is being developed by Canadian studio Blackbird Interactive, which spun out of Relic Entertainment (who created Homeworld and Homeworld 2), which many veterans of the original games working on it. The new game picks up some years after the events of Homeworld 2 and sees a new mothership, the Khar-Kushan, launched to deal with a new galactic threat.

A huge number of games have recently been delayed from 2022 to 2023, most notably Bethesda's epic SF RPG Starfield. Only a small number of notable games remain on the schedule for this year, including Marvel tactics game Midnight Suns and God of War sequel Ragnarok, although the latter is widely expected to also be delayed.

Despite the delay, it's a reasonably good year for Blackbird who recently launched the critically-acclaimed spacecraft disassembly game Hardspace: Shipbreaker and have just launched real-time strategy game Crossfire: Legion into Early Access.

Blackbird have promised a more in-depth look at the game during Gamescom 2022 at the end of August.

Blackbird Interactive reveals more information about HOMEWORLD 3

Blackbird Interactive and publishers Gearbox Software have revealed more information about Homeworld 3, their upcoming space-based real-time strategy game and infinite screenshot generator.

The companies have confirmed the contents of their Homeworld 3 Collector's Edition, which includes six model starships, a WW2-style "spotter's guide" to the ships of the game, a keychain and lithograph. Digital contents include a copy of the game, exclusive ship decals and icons, a Year One Pass and a copy of the Homeworld 3 soundtrack by the excellent Paul Ruskay. The Collector's Edition is available to preorder, for those who didn't back the Fig campaign of a couple of years ago.

Blackbird and Gearbox also confirmed that the game would revolve around the adventures of a new mothership, the Khar-Kushan. Unlike the previous two motherships, this one can "flip" from a horizontal to a vertical configuration, something that will be necessary for tight ship maneuvers in asteroid fields and around "megaliths," ancient alien structures that will form a core part of the gameplay in the new title.

Homeworld 3 is actually the fifth game in the series, following on from Homeworld (1999), stand-alone expansion Homeworld: Cataclysm (2000, retitled Emergence for a recent re-release), Homeworld 2 (2003) and prequel Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak (2016). Homeworld and Homeworld 2 were re-released as the acclaimed Homeworld Remastered in 2015. The series follows the fortunes of the Kushan people after they discover their dying planet is not their original homeworld, and a wrecked starship in the desert contains technology and information that leads them to their real home, through a series of interstellar wars.

Homeworld 3 is currently slated for release this autumn, with Homeworld Mobile also due for release on iOS and Android before the end of the year. Blackbird's other big space game of the year, Hardspace: Shipbreaker, is due for release on 24 May.

HOMEWORLD 3 trailer released

Blackbird Interactive and Gearbox have released the first full trailer for their upcoming epic space opera video game, Homeworld 3.

Homeworld 3 is the latest chapter in the epic saga which has so far spanned four games: Homeworld (1999), Homeworld: Cataclysm (2000), Homeworld 2 (2003) and Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak (2016), as well as a recent, upgraded reissue of the older games. The previous games in the series charted the fate of the Kushan people, apparently natives of the desert planet Kharak who discover that they in fact originated from far across the galaxy. After an epic voyage home, battling the Taiidani Empire along the way, they reclaimed their homeworld, Hiigara. Later games chartered huge struggles against renewed threats to their safety.

The new game picks up some decades after the events of Homeworld 2. Karan S'Jet, the cybernetically-enhanced sentient core of the Mothership, has opened the Eye of Arran, activating a vast network of hidden hyperspace gates which have greatly bolstered interstellar trade and leading to a renewed golden age. However, the gates are now failing and an unknown enemy has asserted itself. Once again, S'Jet must lead an expedition to locate the source of this threat and neutralise it.

Homeworld 3, as with the previous games, will see players guiding a persistent fleet across a fictional galaxy, transferring resources between missions. This game adds a tweak in the form of "megaliths," effectively space terrain in the form of moons, vast space hulks and asteroids, with your ships capable of using this terrain as cover in combat. The game will also feature nebula and ion storms, as well as a return for the original game's occasional asteroid belts. 

Homeworld 3 is currently scheduled for release on PC at the end of 2022.

Paul Ruskay unveils first tracks from the HOMEWORLD 3 soundtrack

For me, the most eagerly-awaited video game of 2022 is currently easily Homeworld 3, the long-awaited new game in the long-gestating space opera strategy series. One of the key ingredients in the series' success is the amazing soundtrack work by Paul Ruskay, whose music for Homeworld (1999), Homeworld 2 (2003), Homeworld Remastered (2015) and Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak (2016) has always been spine-tingling.

Publishers Gearbox have released two tracks from the soundtrack to Homeworld 3 to what the appetite for the full game release.

Homeworld 3, developed by Blackbird Interactive (founded by the creators of the original Homeworld and Homeworld 2 when they were at Relic Entertainment), is currently due for release in late 2022. A mobile spin-off game is also currently in development.

Modiphius Entertainment are also releasing a tabletop roleplaying game based on the Homeworld universe this winter, and have just opened preorders on their website.

Eli Roth and CHERNOBYL writer team up on BORDERLANDS film

Eli Roth, the director of films including Hostel, Cabin Fever and The House with a Clock in its Walls, is developing a film based on the Borderlands video game franchise from Gearbox Studios. Chernobyl writer Craig Mazin has written the latest draft of the script.

Borderlands is a science fiction first-person shooter series, noted for its offbeat humour and focus on co-operative team gameplay. The series so far consists of Borderlands (2009), Borderlands 2 (2012), Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (2014), Tales from the Borderlands (2014-15) and Borderlands 3 (2019). The series has sold 58 million copies to date, making it one of the biggest-selling video game series of the last decade.

The news has come in the wake of a change of fortunes for video game adaptations. Previously seen as a doomed endeavour, several recent video game-to-movie adaptations have enjoyed greater success than any previous attempts, including Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog, whilst the Castlevania TV series on Netflix has enjoyed significant success.

The current plan is to fast-track Borderlands to start shooting later this year for a possible late 2021/early 2022 release date.

A History of Homeworld Part 8: The Vaygr War

In this series celebrating the franchise's twentieth anniversary (and the recent announcement of Homeworld 3), I look at the background lore of the critically-acclaimed Homeworld series of video games.

After the return of the Exiles to Hiigara, they began the task of building a new civilisation. During the course of the reconstruction and re-inhabiting of Hiigara, they found historical records stretching back some six thousand years, giving them access to a history they had previously lost all knowledge of. They learned of the First Time, the first strike of the Hiigarans on the Taiidan homeworld and more.

Contained within these records was the secret of the Three Hyperspace Cores, and the knowledge that the First Core had been found by the Bentusi and the Second by the Hiigarans’ ancestors, used to power their warship Sajuuk’s Wrath. After that ship’s destruction, the Second Core was recovered, hidden on the lead evacuation ship to Kharak and lost under the ruins of the First City of Khar-Toba for three thousand years. Then it was recovered and powered the Mothership on its way to reclaim the homeworld.

By the time this knowledge was found, some forty years had passed since the Landfall. The Second Core had been extracted from the Mothership – still in orbit around Hiigara as a shipyard, although its efficacy was falling behind that of the new custom-built generation of orbital yards – and there was now some debate about what to do with it.

The decision fell on Karan S’Jet, who had neurally bonded with the Mothership during the journey from Kharak to Hiigara and at one key point had been blasted with a backwash of energy from the Core. Since that day forwards, she had not aged, nor had her intelligence declined. She lived in isolated seclusion, but at key moments the New Daiamid called on her wisdom. Karan’s decision was that the Core should be publicly displayed in the capital at Asaam Kiith’sid, to remind people of their past, but it should not be used again save in the utmost need. This decision – which the Galactic Council was relieved to hear – was honoured.

Makaan, warlord of the Vaygr Reaches.

Decades passed. The Exiles’ population grew, passing 300 million (the same as on Kharak before the Genocide). A new Hiigaran federation took shape, several worlds being colonised and adding their economic and industrial might to that of Hiigara itself. The peace that had endured since the rumoured Beast War continued.

But then rumours arose of a new threat arising in the Eastern Fringes of the galaxy. The Vaygr, a nomadic race of warriors and pirates, had unified with several former Taiidani Imperial factions to form a new fleet, a fleet that now struck worlds with overwhelming force. For several months the Vaygr rampage continued unabated through the Eastern Fringes. Worlds fell to their advance, industrial centres were converted to churning out more warships for their fleet and those Vaygr clans which remained independent were soon subjugated. Hiigaran agents ascertained that the Vaygr leader was a warlord known as Makaan, a charismatic, intelligent and arrogant warlord with a formidable strategic vision. Makaan also referred to himself under a new title: “Sajuuk-Khar.” The Chosen of Sajuuk, who would fulfil the vision of reuniting the Three.

Analysing the speed of Makaan’s advance confirmed what this had hinted at: Makaan had found the Third Core, sparking the long-prophecised End Time.

Only the fact that the Vaygr fleet was not yet large enough to challenge Hiigara directly spared the Exiles. They put into operation an emergency contingency plan: Hiigara’s fleets were pulled back to defend the homeworld. The Second Core was restored to the Mothership and then Far Jumped to the Great Derelict at Tanis, where the Hiigarans had established a secret shipyard and redoubt. There the Mothership would be reconditioned and rebuilt into a larger, more powerful vessel, one whose power plant could operate the Second Core at maximum efficiency. This ship would become known as the Pride of Hiigara. And Karan S’jet would once again command it.

The Pride of Hiigara in orbit around Hiigara's Angel Moon.

The War
The Vaygr learned of the Pride’s construction and struck with overwhelming, total force. They overran Hiigaran outposts right across the Inner Rim and their fleets converged on Hiigara. A secondary fleet attacked Tanis, destroying it, but not before the Pride was able to jump clear. The Pride returned to Hiigara and rendezvoused with Captain Soban, who was escorting the crew of the Pride to join the flagship. They fought off an attempted Vaygr interception and left, with Soban setting out to locate Makaan’s flagship and the Pride to rendezvous with a mobile shipyard.

Its forces bolstered by the shipyard, the Pride received intelligence from the Bentusi directing them to the Gehenna Asteroid Field. There the Pride discovered the Oracle, a Progenitor device constructed tens of thousands of years earlier. The Oracle interacted with the Second Core, transporting the Pride to the Karos Graveyard, now revealed to be the remains of a colossal Progenitor starship. The Pride, no longer under Fleet Command’s control, moved through the Graveyard towards what used to be the Progenitor ship’s engineering section, where a powerful Dreadnought-class vessel was located. The Oracle reactivated the Dreadnought, but in the process inadvertently triggered an attack by a Keeper, a Progenitor security vessel. The Keeper was neutralised and the Dreadnought recovered.

An attack on a Vaygr staging area proved that the Dreadnought’s systems were not yet fully online. Captain Soban’s recon fleet arrived and confirmed the location of Makaan’s headquarters at Balcora Gate, but Soban was captured before he could transmit the coordinates. The Pride pursued but was intercepted by a fleet of Keepers, which threatened to overwhelm its fleet. The Great Harbor Ship of Bentus directly intervened and self-destructed to obliterate the Keepers once and for all. The Pride recovered the First Core from the ruins and proceeded to space station Thaddis Sabbah, where they rescued Captain Soban and learned of the location of Balcora Gate, an immense Progenitor hyperspace gateway located close to the black hole cluster at the very centre of the galaxy. Beyond the gate lay a tremendous Progenitor starship of unparalleled power: the Sajuuk itself.

At Balcora a final great battle took place and Makaan was defeated, but not before revealing he had activated an ancient Progenitor doomsday weapon, consisting of three planet-killer platforms which even now were approaching Hiigara. The Three Cores were united and Sajuuk was activated. Karan S’jet transferred to the Sajuuk and jumped in one bound to Hiigara. The planet-killer platforms were intercepted and destroyed before a single one of their weapons could be fired at Hiigara.

The remaining Vaygr forces, deprived of the power of the Third Core, fled. The war was over.

The Age of S’jet
The combination of the Three Cores on the Sajuuk and the integration of Karan S’jet into their energies resulted in a great transformation in galactic affairs. Karan and her ship traversed the galaxy and found the greatest secret left behind by the Progenitors: the Eye of Aarran, a hyperspace gateway rivalling Balcora. But this gateway was linked to hundreds of others, great free-standing structures simply left hidden in open space. The Great Hyperspace Network was reactivated by the power of the Three Cores, allowing every race in the galaxy to Far Jump. New trade routes opened, new paths of pilgrimage and exchanges of knowledge began, and a new golden age began.

The Age of S’jet began. Under Karan’s guidance and the Hiigarans’ leadership, the galaxy would take a step forward towards everlasting peace and tranquillity…until the day that a third great conflict would come to pass.

But that is a story that is still to be told.

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A History of Homeworld Part 7: The Beast War

In this series celebrating the franchise's twentieth anniversary (and the recent announcement of Homeworld 3), I look at the background lore of the critically-acclaimed Homeworld series of video games.

The following is classified at the highest order of Hiigaran planetary security. Only the New Daiamid can permit access to these records in light of the disturbing implications they raise.
Approximately fifteen years after the return of the Exiles to Hiigara, an event took place that cost tens of thousands of lives and involved fleet actions consisting of Hiigaran, Turanic, Taiidan and Bentusi forces. Despite this, the full scale of the events involved have never been publicly revealed by the Daiamid, to the point where some doubt they took place at all. Certainly plenty of eyewitness accounts of the conflict leaked out in the subsequent decades, but they were so apocalyptic and bleak that even hardened conspiracy theorists had a hard time accepting that they could be real.

Kiith Somtaaw mining vessel Kuun-Lan.

Unleashing the Beast
The chain of events in question began in 15 AHL when a Taiidan Imperial fleet launched an assault on Hiigara. The Naabal carrier Veer-Rak was charged with the defence of the Hiigaran system and called in every ship in range to help. Dozens of ships from numerous kiith responded and the Taiidan fleet was forced to retreat after sustaining heavy losses. During the battle, unexpected help arrived in the form of the Kuun-Lan, one of Kiith Somtaaw’s mining vessels. Although not a warship as such, the Kuun-Lan’s support forces and fighter squadrons were enough to help tip the tide of battle. Kiith Somtaaw’s presence at the battle was initially unrecorded, but the records were later amended to give a glowing account of how the Somtaaw warriors comported themselves in battle.

The Kuun-Lan then jumped to the outer edge of the system to investigate the disappearance of a Kiith Manaan destroyer, the Bushan-Re. The Somtaaw found the ship, repaired it and set it on its way, but not before picking up an automated signal from a derelict probe of unknown origin. The probe was recovered, but the Kunn-Lan’s research team were baffled by it. The ship jumped to the nearby Coruc-Tel system to rendezvous with the research vessel Clee-San, only to find it under attack by Turanic forces. The Kunn-Lan drove off the Turanic Raiders and liberated the Clee-San.

The Clee-San crew prepared to inspect the alien probe, but before they could do so some kind of organism left the probe and began to infect the Kunn-Lan’s systems. The entire lower hanger module was compromised, forcing the rest of the ship to jettison it. The Clee-San pursued and discovered that the module had been overrun by a biogenic organism which could subvert both mechanical and organic systems. Before more could be learned, the Clee-San was also infected and subverted by the same organism. The Kunn-Lan attempted to engage and destroy the infection before it could spread further, but a Turanic fleet jumped into the system and was immediately subverted. Heavily outgunned, the Kunn-Lan jumped to the nearby Aiowa system to ask for help from the Bentusi. The subverted ships pursued and attacked the Bentusi trade ship. Although the Bentusi were able to defend themselves from the enemy’s weapons, they were vulnerable to the subversion beam. Rather than be taken over by an alien force, the Bentusi ship chose to self-destruct. The Kunn-Lan was able to take evasive action and flee the system, along with a Kiith Manaan carrier, the Caal-Shto, that had arrived to help.

Whilst the Caal-Shto returned to Hiigara for reinforcements, the Kunn-Lan continued to investigate the new threat. Analysis of the alien data pod confirmed that it was over a million years old and was part of a ship called the Naggarok, which had travelled from another galaxy. An extremely prolonged period in hyperspace had resulted the Naggarok being infected by an alien organism, dubbed “The Beast.” The Beast was able to absorb and take control of organic and inorganic matter to improve itself. The Somtaaw realised with horror that the Beast could spread exponentially and overrun this part of the galaxy within weeks unless stopped.

A fleet of carriers near Hiigara.

The Counter-Attack
The Kunn-Lan crew learned that the Imperial Taiidan outpost on Gozan IV had been conducting research into the Beast. It slipped a commando team onto the planet to steal the data and then conducted an emergency hyperspace jump to a nearby debris field, where the crew salvaged an immense siege cannon. They were found by the pursuing Taiidan forces, but also the Beast mothership which had grown out of the captured Kunn-Lan hanger module. The siege cannon destroyed most of the Taiidan forces, but the Beast was able to regenerate quickly after the attack. The Kunn-Lan jumped to rendezvous with its sister ship, the Fal-Corum, and helped fend off another Beast attack. The Somtaaw crews discussed the intelligence and realised that a viable strategy would be to recover a piece of the Beast from the original Naggarok and then use it to adjust the siege cannon beam to a frequency which the Beast would not be able to recover from.

Using astrogation data from a Turanic starbase, the Somtaaw located the Naggarok only to find that the Beast had gotten there ahead of them, and formed an alliance with a Taiidan Imperial force to help repair the command ship. The Somtaaw recovered a sample of the Naggarok and hyperspaced to a Bentusi system to ask for their help in fine-tuning the Siege Cannon. However, they found the Bentusi in a blind panic over the threat of the Beast: the Bentusi had spent thousands of years as an “Unbound” race, having become one with their starships and not restricted to existing solely on the surface of planets. The Beast threatened to imprison and constrain the Bentusi within their ships, turning them into slaves or prisoners. As a result, the Bentusi had triggered a failsafe: a hyperspace gate (presumably built with the assistance of the First Core) which could carry them out of the galaxy altogether.

In a desperate gambit, the Kuun-Lan disabled the hyperspace gate and tried to force the Bentsui to see reason: after a brief stand-off, the Bentusi agreed to provide assistance. They fine-tuned the siege cannon. The Kuun-Lan then used the cannon to destroy the Clee-San and the Beast mothership which had formed around their old hanger module. The Somtaaw then hunted down the repaired Naggarok, which was attacking a massive Taiidan Republican military installation, the Nomad Moon. A pitched battle resulted, complicated by the Beast taking over the Moon. Bentusi reinforcements proved critical and the Kuun-Lan was able to disable the Moon and then stopped the Naggarok by disabling it with a powerful EMP charge. A colossal amount of fire directed at the Naggarok disintegrated it, along with any last remaining traces of the Beast.

The Beast mothership, formed out of the hanger module of the Kuun-Lan.

Aftermath

The so-called Beast War was a significant military conflict, spanning several systems and entailing a high number of casualties. However, the conflict was carried out by ships exclusively using Short Jump drives, severely limiting the area over which the damage was spread. In addition, the conflict did not take place in proximity to an inhabited, major world (apart from Hiigara, which was far too well-defended for the Beast to risk an attack), severely preventing the number of ships and people who could be subverted by the Beast. This also prevented news of the Beast and the level of threat it represented from spreading, preventing a major panic.

In the aftermath of the conflict, it was classified at the highest levels of both the New Daiamid and the Galactic Council. The Bentusi did not want the rest of the galaxy to know about their weakness to the Beast. In addition, although all traces of the Beast had been apparently destroyed, there was always the marginal risk of additional debris or pieces of Beast-infected ships being found and starting the infection over again. Prohibiting the information from spreading was seen as a more effective way of keeping the events of the war as secret as possible. The Taiidan Republic also agreed to this stipulation.

The reasons for the Taiidan Imperials keeping quiet are less clear, but the fact that they were defeated by the Beast several times and then treated like fools by it suggests it was a matter they wished to forget as soon as possible.

One outcome of the conflict that was made public was the honour of Kiith Somtaaw. For their triumph in “a clandestine military campaign against Taiidan Imperial forces,” the Somtaaw were elevated to the rank of an honoured warrior kiith and given a new symbol and nickname: the “Beastslayers.” The technological improvements gained during the conflict were integrated into Hiigaran forces as a whole.

Of course, more than a century after the alleged events it is now rather difficult to confirm if they did indeed take place; certainly, some experts in the field do not believe a word of it.

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A History of Homeworld Part 6: The Reconstruction

In this series celebrating the franchise's twentieth anniversary (and the recent announcement of Homeworld 3), I look at the background lore of the critically-acclaimed Homeworld series of video games.

In the Galactic Standard Year 9510 – 1216 of the Kharakian Dating System – the Exiles returned home. The almost-50,000-strong crew of the Mothership and the fleet it had accumulated over the course of the six-month Homeworld War began the slow process of thawing out their 600,000 brethren, cryogenically frozen for up to a dozen years before the Genocide.

The Mothership in orbit around Hiigara, now converted into an orbital spacedock.

The return to life was, for many, traumatic. They went to sleep on a world of approximately 300 million people and woke to learn that almost all of them had been killed, a great war had been fought, and the homeworld recovered at tremendous cost. For many the recovery was difficult, almost impossible. The joy of finding themselves on a verdant new world was offset by the knowledge of the losses that had the trip had incurred. 

Establishing a working civilisation and industrial base was essential. The Taiidan had occupied Hiigara for over three millennia and considered it their world, but the fall of the Emperor had sparked an exodus. Millions of Taiidan had fled the planet in every ship that could carry them, returning to their own homeworld or one of its numerous colonies. Some remained behind and surrendered with honour, in many cases being remanded into the custody of the Taiidani Republic that had arisen in place of the brutalist Empire. Taiidan cities were occupied, factories converted to Kushan – Hiigaran – use and surrendered Taiidan ships were used to bolster the Mothership’s own fleet. Resource-gathering missions were launched into the small asteroid clusters in Hiigara orbit, and elsewhere in the system. 

The Mothership, now converted into an orbital shipyard, began pumping out ships by the score. With Taiidan Republic and Bentusi help, the Hiigarans secured a buffer zone out to ten light-years from Hiigara itself. Several systems in this vicinity were colonised as mining and military bases to defend against incursions by Turanic pirates or Taiidan Imperial warlords. 

The New Daiamid was established in the capital city of Hiigara, now named Asaam Kiith’sid. The kiithid assembled, but soon a problem was discovered: seven kiithid (S’jet, Manaan, Soban, Naabal, LiirHra, Paktu and Kaalel) now represented slightly more than half of the Hiigaran population and dozens more were massively underrepresented, in some cases with only a few hundred survivors in the population. Some kiithid, such as Gaalsien, had no representatives amongst the Mothership crew or the “Sleepers” and were presumed extinct in the Kharakian Genocide. Some of the larger kiithid took advantage of the situation to offer a new home to members of smaller ones, a helpful "merger," although some kiithid saw it as a hostile takeover and resisted furiously. 

A key moment came seven years after the Landfall. Kiith Naabal attempted to almost forcibly absorb Kiith Somtaaw, which had been reduced to barely 15,000 members. Naabal wanted to use the Somtaaw’s mining expertise to enrich themselves. The Somtaaw resisted, helped by the Soban and Paktu. Several smaller kiithid chose to unite with Somtaaw, raising their numbers to over 25,000. In a furious series of debates in the New Daiamid the Somtaaw proved surprisingly victorious and not only secured their independence but were granted access to the Mothership fabrication facilities. In a matter of months, the Somtaaw had established a fleet of three ships: the mining cruisers Faal-Corum and Kunn-Lan, and the research frigate Clee-San. The Somtaaw used these resources to carve out mining territories in the Hiigaran system and beyond. 

Hiigara seen from space, with the lights of an old Taiidan city still visible.

Hiigara’s position in the galaxy was controversial. Some races, looking at the history records of the First Time, were nervous about giving the Hiigarans a place on the Galactic Council, but the Bentusi and the Taiidan Republic spoke for them. Hiigara’s claim to the surrounding systems was recognised, and support and supplies provided until the Hiigarans could stand by themselves. The Bentusi profited from early trade with Hiigara, in thanks for their support during the Homeworld War. Hiigara and the Taiidan Republic also signed a treaty of peace and alliance, with war criminals implicated in the Kharakian Genocide extradited to Hiigara for trial. 

The Taiidan Empire had effectively collapsed, placing the fate of its 360 billion citizens in doubt, but sixty star systems remained loyal to the new government on Taiidan. Ninety more collapsed into civil war, or were seized by former Taiidan admirals and generals keen to restore the empire. These warlords spent more time fighting one another or the Republic than challenging Hiigara, but several times (in 4, 9 and 11 After Hiigaran Landfall) they mustered enough forces to invade Hiigaran space. The second and third attacks penetrated the Hiigaran system, but all were thrown back in disarray. Hiigara was secure, but the Exiles would have to fight to continue to protect it.

Some Hiigarans did more than defend themselves: circa 3 AHL the newly-awoken Iifrit Tambuur-sa, the sole survivor of Kiith Tambuur (after his wife was killed in the Taiidan attack on the cryo-trays in Kharak orbit), declared paaura (eternal vengeance) on the Taiidan Imperials and launched a bloody campaign of retribution, claiming over three hundred kills in the next dozen years. 

The Hiigarans had endured many challenges in the aftermath of the Landfall, but had overcome them. But a new threat was arising which no one in the galaxy had foreseen, and one that was so dangerous, disturbing and disquieting that almost all knowledge of it was suppressed, an astonishing feat considering the tens of thousands killed in the process.

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A History of Homeworld Part 5: The Homeworld War

In this series celebrating the franchise's twentieth anniversary (and the recent announcement of Homeworld 3), I look at the background lore of the critically-acclaimed Homeworld series of video games.

Following the defeat of the Hiigarans and the driving of their people into exile in a remote corner of the galaxy, the Taiidan emerged as the strongest and most powerful of the galactic empires. The strongest race on the Galactic Council – bar only the now avowedly non-interventionist Bentusi – the Taiidan expanded their empire far and wide. They established their new seat of government on Hiigara, although Taiidan remained their most populous world.

Emperor Riesstiu was hungry for more power and influence, but also cautious. He knew that the Bentusi, should they be provoked out of their neutral stance, could destroy the Taiidan with the very same technology the Hiigarans had used to lay them low, so adopted a cautious path of expansion mixed with consolidation and aggression tempered by compromise. For three millennia, the Taiidan ruled as the pre-eminent galactic power, but its rulers always restrained their worst instincts.

During this time period the galaxy entered a period of stagnation; technological development proceeded extremely slowly and, with almost the entire galactic disc mapped and explored, there was a lack of brave new frontiers to explore. Various expeditions to the neighbouring satellite galaxy and even other galaxies altogether were proposed, using the Bentusi’s Far Jump capabilities, but nothing came of them. For three millennia, as the Exiles on Kharak collapsed to a medieval level of technology and then rose again, the galaxy spun in peace, but an uneasy peace punctuated by the slowly growing brutality of the Taiidan.

In 9035 GSY, whilst the Heresy Wars still raged on Kharak, the long peace was interrupted by the arrival of the Turanic Raiders. A race of space pirates, the Raiders waged unceasing war on the Outer Rim Trade Routes, stealing vast quantities of cargo. The Raiders soon learned not to test the might of the Bentusi, but had no fear of the ships of other races and became a serious menace. In 9410 GSY (four years after the Second Core was found in the ruins of Khar-Toba) Emperor Riesstiu IV the Second made an alliance with the Turanic Raiders, giving them free reign to attack other races as long as they steered clear of Taiidan ship sand worlds.

Emperor Riesstiu IV had already been among the bloodiest and most unhinged of the Taiidan Emperors, but his clone-successor was possibly deranged, soon becoming known as the Mad Emperor. Riesstiu IV 2nd was so bold as to be reckless, constantly baiting and testing the patience of the Galactic Council and even the Bentusi. In 9503 GSY, the Bentusi broke their long neutrality to censure the Taiidan and suspended all trade contact with the Empire. The Frerrn Aggregate, a powerful Council race along the Far Rim, found itself in almost a state of war with the Taiidan due to a series of border conflicts.

At the same time, Riesstiu IV 2nd was cracking down hard on dissidents within the Empire, including a nascent democratic movement which was demanding the replacing of the monarchy with a republic, restored to Taiidan rather than captured Hiigara. The Mad Emperor’s brutal measures brought several Taiidan worlds and naval fleet elements to the edge of outright rebellion.

If there was one weakness in the Mad Emperor’s armour it was the fate of the Exiles. His predecessors had sent ships to the edge of the Kharak system to monitor their fate, with orders to sterilise the planet completely should the Exiles show even the vaguest signs of developing hyperspace technology. Instead, many of the Taiidan ships simply vanished and failed to return. 

Taiidan forces eventually discovered the presence of a massive hyperspace interdiction field surrounding the Kharak system, presumably the result of Bentusi intervention (the possibility that the Second Core had survived the destruction of Sajuuk’s Wrath and been taken to Kharak seems to have been discounted). An experimental drive managed to briefly penetrate the field and allowed a weapons platform to be deployed in Kharak orbit, but the ship carrying out the work was then pulled down to the planet’s surface and the platform never activated (until, ironically, its discovery by the Kushan themselves).

A prophecy had been uttered at one point that the Exiles would escape from their prison and return to Hiigara, toppling the Taiidan Empire along the way. Despite their best efforts to stamp out the superstition, it continued to be repeated and Riesstiu IV 2nd became convinced that if the Exiles ever did escape their planet in his lifetime, he would need to take swift action. He had a Taiidan fleet positioned as close to the field as possible with orders to completely annihilate all life in the system should it fail. He also granted the Turanic Raiders the right to strip the system of anything of value afterwards.

In the year 9510 GSY, 1216 by the Kharakian Dating System, the inhibitor field shut down and the Taiidan guard fleet immediately responded.

The Kharakian Genocide.

The Kharakian Genocide

It was only a matter of hours after the Mothership departed to the outer edge of the Kharak system that a fleet of alien warships appeared in the skies above Kharak. The planet’s missile defence system immediately responded, destroying several of the Taiidan warships out of sheer surprise, before the Taiidan responded, obliterating first the Scaffold and then the orbital fighter squadrons and missile launch platforms. The space around the planet secured, the Taiidan then dropped several atmosphere-deprivation bombs on the planet.

These weapons of mass destruction, whose use was prohibited by the Galactic Council, detonated with tremendous force across Kharak’s northern hemisphere. The multi-gigaton blasts annihilated vast swathes of the planet, its cities and people by themselves. The blasts then ignited the atmosphere, burning the planet’s biosphere from the ground up. Nothing could survive. Approximately 300 million people were killed.

Satisfied that the job was done, the Taiidan fleet withdrew, aside from several frigates left behind to mop up any remaining orbital assets.

The Kushan Mothership had jumped to the outer edge of the Kharak system to rendezvous with the Khar-Selim, only to find the ship already a wreck. Turanic Raiders were already swarming through the outer system, seizing resources. The Mothership fought off the Raider forces that had eliminated the Khar-Selim and jumped back to Kharak, only to find their planet burning in space. They also found the Taiidan assault frigates commencing an attack on the cryo-trays which had been left behind in orbit. The Mothership’s own fighter and corvette squadrons were able to destroy the Taiidan ships and capture one intact. The cryo-trays were recovered. The Kushan race was now reduced to just 650,000 survivors.

The Mothership in the Great Nebula.

The Journey

The crew of the Mothership had to overcome immense shock and grief to ensure the survival of their race. With Kharak rendered completely uninhabitable, they now had no choice but to follow the path laid out by the Guidestone, to Hiigara. The odds seemed ridiculous, especially once the interrogation of the Taiidan crew was completed. The Taiidan Empire was vast, spanning a considerable portion of the total width of the galaxy, with a population of billions spread across dozens of planets and their capital standard planted firmly on Hiigara itself. The Taiidan navy consisted of thousands of ships, compare to the single Mothership. The chances of victory seemed slim.

However, the Kushan possessed several advantages. The first was surprise: the Taiidan did not know that the Mothership even existed, let alone had survived. The Mothership’s Hyperspace Core was also capable of jumps dozens of times greater than those of the Taiidan. The Mothership could jump past Taiidan fleet lines and make its way to Hiigara in a few months, whilst it would take the Taiidan years to recall their entire fleet to defend Hiigara. The Mothership’s ability to harvest resources and build new ships in deep space also allowed it to rapidly expand itself from a single vessel to the flagship of a substantial fleet of vessels consisting of fighters, corvettes, frigates, destroyers, heavy cruisers and carriers. The Kushan also had remarkable salvaging abilities, boarding and seizing control of enemy ships under heavy fire, allowing them to swell their fleet further. Although the Kushan were ludicrously outnumbered, they were still able to bring their entire firepower to bear in a single engagement, whilst the Taiidan were scattered in an attempt to find them.

In this manner, the Kushan undertook one of the boldest and most impressive military campaigns in galactic history. From Kharak they travelled into the Great Wastelands and destroyed the Taiidan fleet that had attacked Kharak. They then reached the outskirts of the Great Nebula. There, for the first time in three millennia, they were confronted by a Bentusi trade ship. The news of the Exiles’ return was greeted with cautious optimism by the Bentusi, but some trepidation for the behaviour of the ancestors. But the Kushan proved surprisingly merciful for a race which had lost so much, accepting the surrender of enemy forces where it took place and accepting diplomatic mediation with the Bentusi.

The Exile fleet passed through the Great Nebula, coming under attack by the Kadeshi, an off-shoot of their own race who had abandoned the flight to Kharak three millennia earlier. The Exiles defeated the Kadeshi and seized some of their ships to add to their fleet. Beyond the Great Nebula, in the Sea of Lost Souls, they neutralised an ancient alien vessel which had been seizing control of passing ships for centuries. Even the Bentusi had been unable to subdue it.

The Exiles entered Taiidan imperial space by destroying a guard post near an active supernova, then closed in on the Galactic Core. By this time news of the great “victory” at Kharak had reached Hiigara and the Emperor loudly proclaimed the achievement, but the result was not what he expected.

The final battle over Hiigara.

The Galactic Council censured the Taiidan for their use of a forbidden weapon and the Bentusi petitioned the Council to restore Hiigara to the Exiles. The Emperor, furious, launched a concerted attack on the Bentusi. The Bentusi refused to respond with their full force, but defended themselves. One trade ship was actually in danger of being overcome by a large Taiidan fleet until it was rescued by the Exiles themselves. The Emperor’s obvious insanity now split the Taiidan Empire, with a new, free republic being declared on Taiidan itself. Dozens of Taiidan worlds fell into civil war.

The final act began when the Taiidan Republican Navy made contact with the Exiles and formally allied with them. Fleet Captain Elson guided the Mothership fleet to the vast starship graveyard at Karos, from where vital intelligence was extracted showing a way into the Hiigaran system, bypassing most of the Taiidan defences. The Emperor, now aware of the growing precariousness of his situation, had called as many ships in as possible to defend Hiigara, but found this was much less than expected; the allied Kushan and Taiidan rebels were able to smash his fleet in a final pitched battle over Hiigara. They then fired on and destroyed the Emperor’s flagship.

As fire reigned down on Hiigara, the Taiidan forces on the planet surrendered and agreed to withdraw. The Taiidan Empire fell, almost half of the member worlds joining the new Taiidan Republic, the rest becoming independent worlds, or falling to various warlords styling themselves the new Emperor.

It had taken the Exiles – Kushan no more, now once again Hiigarans – six months and thousands of lives to reclaim their homeworld. Hiigara was again theirs, a planet they could barely have dreamed of in the burning sands of Kharak. A world of vast blue oceans, bright blue skies and cool breezes, teeming with animal life.

The Mothership took up station in orbit as a defensive redoubt and then a shipyard. The fleet it had accumulated became the core of an even larger navy dedicated to defending the planet and the system. The slow process of unloading the cryo-trays and thawing out the half million survivors of Kharak could now begin, but not before all of those who had fought their way to Hiigara were allowed to stand on the surface and breathe its air. The last to do so was Karan S’jet, who had guided the fleet more than 35,000 light-years through war and fire. She survived extraction from the Mothership core and became the figurehead of the new era.

The Exiles had returned to their Homeworld. But their struggle was not yet over.

The fall of the Taiidan Empire.

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A History of Homeworld Part 4: The Guidestone

In this series celebrating the franchise's twentieth anniversary (and the recent announcement of Homeworld 3), I look at the background lore of the critically-acclaimed Homeworld series of video games.

The Guidestone, recovered from the Khar-Toba Observatory and providing a three-dimensional vector from Kharak to Hiigara.

The discovery of Khar-Toba changed Kushan overnight in fundamental ways. It proved that the Kushan people had once been far more advanced and powerful than they were now, and it provided tremendous backing to the Xenogenesis Theory.

With the defeat of the Gaalsien, who had been forced to scatter into the deep deserts, and the establishment of runways allowing relatively fast air transit to the northern cities, the scientific and engineering communities of the Coalition descended on the site. Soon it was abuzz with activity, the ancient city once against becoming inhabited after near three millennia of abandonment.

The wrecked spacecraft was not huge (although it was still many times larger than the largest object the Kushan had ever put into space), but the abandoned city of Khar-Toba was gargantuan. The site was unnaturally well-preserved. After three thousand years, the desert sands should have completely buried the site under metres of sand, but instead it remained open to the elements. Rachel S’jet, now a senior figure in the attempt to understand the site, attributed this to the same quantum force that had dragged alien spacecraft out of hyperspace and entombed them in solid rock.

Locating the source of the quantum interference was prioritised, but overlapping signals and the sheer size of the site made it impossible to find quickly. Early discoveries included ancient records and inscriptions that gave archaeolinguists a head start on decoding the languages of their ancestors, as well as rapid advances in metallurgy, engines and weapons gained from studying the Khar-Toba and the other wrecked ships discovered along the way, not to mention the now-disarmed orbital weapons platform.

Two years after the discovery of Khar-Toba, the explorers finally found the source of the quantum disturbance: a large piece of engineering technology. Oddly, it was not located in the ship’s own engineering or power system, but hidden in remote corner of what they believed was the ship’s hold. The artefact became known as a Hyperspace Core, and scientists and engineers alike were baffled by its fundamentals. But, gradually, they began to experiment with the Core and learned how to modulate its energies to open brief gateways into another dimensional realm, hyperspace, which could be used to circumvent the speed of light in normal space.

The Hyperspace Core and the ship’s great fusion power plant were both moved to Tiir, along with many of the most prominent artefacts of interest. After several years, the exploration of Khar-Toba fell to archaeologists alone, as the technological and scientific interest fell elsewhere. Exploring the ancient city proved challenging given the climactic conditions, especially since, with the removal of the Core, the site began to fall prey to the encroaching desert sands.

In 1135 KDS, twenty-five years after the city’s discovery, the archaeologist Mevath Sagald found inscriptions pointing to a location known as the “Observatory Temple.” The temple lay outside the city bounds of Khar-Toba, in an area buried under the sands, but careful excavations confirmed the presence of an underground structure. In the carefully-sealed inner chamber of the temple, she found a curious, large chunk of rock, sitting alone on a raised plinth. The rock had been smoothed over and chiselled into. Carved into its face was a map of the entire galaxy. A line extended from a position on the outer spiral arms, representing Kharak, to one near the Galactic Core. Numbers along the line provided three-dimensional vector coordinates. Next to that dot was inscribed one word in the ancient Kushan tongue: “Hiigara.”

“Home.”

The Scaffold in Kharak orbit.

The Project

Mevath Sagald presented the Guidestone to a stunned meeting of the Daiamid, the ruling council of the Northern Coalition (by now, the de facto government of the entire planet of Kharak). The Guidestone was subjected to scans and tests confirming it was more than three thousand years old and made of a form of rock completely unlike anything on Kharak. The Guidestone swept away the last vestiges of doubt: the Kushan people had originated on another planet, Hiigara, and had come to Kharak for reasons unknown. With Kharak three centuries away from being unable to sustain Kushan life (and that was being generous), they had both the means to escape the planet and directions to follow.

In 1155 a global plebiscite was held to decide what to do with the information. With the knowledge that Kharak was dying, the result was almost unanimous: the kiithid of Kharak would join forces as never before to build a large starship capable of making the journey to Hiigara. The ship was to ascertain the status of Hiigara and then, if circumstances permitted, begin a planetary evacuation.

For four years, the greatest engineering and scientific minds on Kharak met to plan the expedition and design the ship. Using the latest scientific advances gleaned from the wreck of the Khar-Toba, they were able to make firm plans for a huge vessel, kilometres tall and capable of holding hundreds of thousands of people in cryo-stasis. As technological understanding of the technology from the Khar-Toba site – particularly the invention of Phased Dissembler Arrays (PDAs), which made stripping resources from asteroids and reconstituting them into manufactured goods possible in just hours – grew, so the plans for the ship grew more ambitious.

In 1159 the design for the ship, to be known as the Mothership (the Daiamid failing to agree on a more artistic name), was finalised. But before construction could begin, the resources needed for the project needed to be amassed (which took twenty years by itself) and a massive construction space station, the Scaffold, needed to be assembled (which took another ten years).

In time, the cryo-stasis technology needed to take the population to Hiigara was also perfected. The plan was for the Mothership to be large enough to take half a million people in each trip, but for the ship to be large enough to hold the required living quarters and food for so many people, it would be too big to actually move. Instead, the people would go into stasis and be backed into the ship in tight racks which would allow them to be moved en masse. To test the technology, pilot Rei Magann was placed in stasis and his ship was set on a six-month circular flight path around the Kharakian system. At the end of the journey he was revived with no ill effects (other than some vivid dreams).

Support vessel Khar-Selim.

By 1204 KDS construction of the Mothership was well underway. The Gold List, a list of candidates for the first, pathfinding mission to Hiigara, had been assembled. Six hundred thousand people were on the list – none under the age of 17 and none over the age of 50 – and began entering cryo-stasis a full dozen years before the estimated date of launch. Two years later, the support vessel Khar-Selim left Kharak on a ten-year voyage to the outer system, with the plan being to rendezvous with the Mothership when it undertook its first hyperspace test flight and make sure the hyperdrive was working properly.

Of all the pieces in this immense puzzle, the Hyperspace Core caused the engineering and scientific teams the most consternation. The artefact was immeasurably ancient, apparently even at the time of the founding of Khar-Toba, but still seemed to be operating at maximum efficiency. Even after ninety years of testing, its properties and underlying principles were only vaguely understood. It was known that to function at its full potential – which would allow it to traverse the entire width of the galaxy, more than 125,000 light-years in a single jump – would require vastly more power than the Mothership was remotely capable of generating. After a great detail of work, the Kushan were able to deliver enough power for it to operate at 2% of its total potential, allowing the Mothership to jump 2,500 light-years each time, although the Mothership was required to recharge the system afterwards.

Another problem was that the Mothership was so immensely complex that even the most advanced computer systems on Kharak were unable to process the vast amounts of data pouring through the system. To avoid information paralysis, a direct neural interface was built and a human brain was connected directly to the system. Karan S’jet, a neuroscientist and one of the greatest minds of her generation, volunteered for the procedure and was directly connected to the Mothership Core, becoming Fleet Command.

As the Mothership drew near completion, so attention turned to the prospect of the voyage itself. More than 50,000 people would crew the Mothership during the voyage, from fighter pilots to potential capital ship crews to engineers to medics. The existence of numerous wrecked ships across the Great Banded Desert has been classified by direct order of the Daiamid, but it confirmed the existence of alien life. Some of these ships, such as the one at Torin Crater, were heavily armed, suggesting these aliens might be hostile. As a result, the Mothership was also designed to defend itself from possible attack.

Technical readout and specifications of the Kushan Mothership (source).

The Mothership itself was equipped with point defence weapons (mostly built around mass-driver principles), but to defend the ship it was decided a fleet of ancillary vessels was required, including fighters and frigates. Massive PDAs were built which could assemble capital ships as required, as long as they were fed with resources. The Mothership wasn’t just a colony ship, but a mobile shipyard and a flagship as well.

Some in the Daiamid voiced concerns that, without the Hyperspace Core providing its protective shield around the entire system, Kharak would now be open to potentially hostile ships arriving in orbit. As a result, an elaborate orbital missile defence system and orbiting fighter squadrons were also built.

The Guidestone provided a three-dimensional vector to a spot near the Galactic Core, but the precise location of the Homeworld was still ambiguous, not helped by over three thousand years of galactic drift and rotation. The Guidestone provided the coordinates of a relatively small area which the Mothership would need to comb in search of Hiigara. It would be helped in this by the unique composition of the Guidestone itself, which would help narrow down its system of origin.

Finally, in 1216 KDS, one hundred and six years after the discovery of Khar-Toba, the Mothership was completed. The 600,000 “sleepers” were loaded onto orbital cryo-trays, but these were not yet loaded onto the Mothership (for fear of a cataclysmic mistake which would destroy all of them). Instead, the Mothership was launched from the Scaffold, aligned on the beacon of the now-distant Khar-Selim, and made its first hyperspace test-jump.

The second the ship jumped, the hyperspace shield which had surrounded the Kharak system for three thousand years vanished, and the powerful surge of energy from the activation of the Second Core tripped a series of warning satellites surrounding the outer edge of the interdiction field, alerting the Taiidan Empire that the Kharak system was now vulnerable.

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