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 Kharakin 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.
Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.
This week sees the release of Homeworld 3, the latest in the venerable 3D real-time strategy video game series. There's never been a better time to jump on board the franchise, which has now expanded to tabletop games, mobile games and other entry-points to the series.
But what if you want to know more? Whose homeworld? Time for a Franchise Familiariser!
The original box art from Homeworld, released in 1999.
The Basics
Homeworld is a space opera saga spanning thousands of years in the history of the Hiigaran people. It tells the story of the exile of the Hiigarans to the desolate desert world of Kharak, their desperate battle for survival, the discovery of the great Hyperspace Core in the wreck of the ship that brought them to the planet, and their resulting battle to reclaim their original homeworld from the tyrannical Taiidan Empire. Subsequent entries in the series have expanded on the Hiigarans' return to galactic prominence and their survival in the face of new threats.
Almost all Homeworld video games are real-time strategy games set in a full 3D universe, allowing vertical movement and attacks to come from any direction. Each game features a series of missions, through which a narrative unfolds, as well as various multiplayer options. Many of the games are accompanied by manuals, PDFs and websites that further expand the franchise's background lore and storyline.
The video games have been developed by several companies, although the same core team including Rob Cunningham has made four of the five "main" games in the series, Homeworld (1999), Homeworld 2 (2003), Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak (2016) and Homeworld 3 (2024), the first two at Relic Entertainment and the latter two at Blackbird Interactive. The remaining core game, Homeworld Cataclysm (2000), renamed Homeworld: Emergence in 2017, was made by Barking Dog Studios in consultation with Relic. The IP was originally owned by publishers Sierra (aka Vivendi), then sold to THQ and currently reside with Gearbox Software.
Both mobile and VR side-games have been developed, and Modiphius Entertainment have released a series of tabletop games based on the franchise.
Curiously, despite the franchise's age and well-developed lore, no comic books or novels have been written or set in the Homeworld universe.
The Homeworld canon consists of seven video games, a remaster of two of those games, and a series of tabletop games.
The core canon consists of:
Homeworld(1999)
Homeworld: Cataclysm (2000), renamed Homeworld: Emergence in 2017
Homeworld 2(2003)
Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak (2016)
Homeworld 3 (2024)
In 2015, Homeworld and Homeworld 2 were re-released as Homeworld Remastered, a thorough remake of the first two games with updating for compatibility with modern systems.
The spin-off games consist of:
Homeworld Mobile (2022)
Homeworld: Vast Reaches (2024)
The spin-off tabletop games consist of:
Homeworld: Revelations (2022)
Homeworld: Fleet Command (2023)
Homeworld tells the story of the Kushan people as they leave their desert planet of Kharak and journey across the galaxy to locate their long-lost homeworld, Hiigara.
Homeworld: Cataclysm, set fifteen years later, tells the story of the conflict between the Hiigarans and the mysterious organism known only as "the Beast."
Homeworld 2, set one hundred years after Cataclysm, tells of the battle between the Hiigarans and the Vaygr warlord Makaan.
Homeworld: Deserts of Kharakis set 106 years before the events of Homeworld and tells of the desert expedition sent to find the long-lost First City of Kharak. The game is notable for being the only one in the series set on a planetary surface rather than in deep space.
Homeworld 3 is set one century after Homeworld 2 and revolves around the arrival of the Anomaly, a mysterious force threatening the galaxy. Karan S'jet, a key protagonist of the first two games, vanishes whilst investigating the Anomaly, sparking the commissioning of a new mothership to track her down.
Homeworld Mobileis a game designed for mobile phones. Set fifteen years after Homeworld 2, it tells of a Hiigaran expedition beyond the Eye of Aarran, into the mysterious Nimbus Galaxy where new threats await.
Homeworld: Vast Reachesis a VR game set shortly after Homeworld, telling of the conflict between the Hiigarans and the treacherous Radaa.
Homeworld: Revelations is a tabletop roleplaying game published by Modiphius, using their 2d20 rules system. Players create characters and take part in narratives set during any part of the Homeworld timeline.
Homeworld: Fleet Command is a tabletop wargame/board game using large numbers of model spaceships, where players can re-enact battles from the video games or take part in new campaigns.
The planet Kharak during the events of Deserts of Kharak.
Prequel game Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak sets the initial scene. The desert planet of Kharak is home to the Kushan, a humanoid species divided into several large, distinct family-clan structures, the kiithid. Most of the clans are united in the Coalition of the Northern Kiithid. Some years before the start of the game, it was discovered that the planet Kharak is dying. The small seas are drying up, the amount of fertile land is dropping dangerously and the planet will not be able to support life for more than another three centuries or so. The Kushan have launched satellites and even people into orbit, but are a long way from being able to evacuate the planet, and there is nowhere to evacuate to.
A malfunctioning satellite uncovers an unidentified but incredibly powerful energy signal coming from deep within the Great Banded Desert, a vast, borderline uninhabitable region on the equator. The Coalition launches an expedition to find the source of the signal, but they are attacked by the Gaalsien, an exiled kiith who inhabit the deep desert and have gained access to advanced technology from an unknown source. The Gaalsien are religious fanatics, believing that the pursuit of high technology and space travel will bring about a prophecy that will destroy the Kushan people. The Coalition desert carrier Kapisi breaks through the Gaalsien lines and discovers that there are myriad wrecked starships across the desert, some having apparently materialised in solid rock. The Gaalsien have ransacked these ships to gain access to new technology. The Kapisi refits with some of this new tech itself. Eventually it defeats the Gaalsien flagship and finds the source of the signal: a wrecked spacecraft known as the Khar-Toba. According to legend, Khar-Toba was the First City of Kharak, and the explorers find a vast city buried under the sands, centred on the ship.
In the succeeding decades, Khar-Toba is thoroughly explored and excavated. Two objects of immense interest are found. The first is a technological object generating the energy signature, apparently a quantum waveform generator capable of faster-than-light travel: the Hyperspace Core. The second is a map, made of stone that is not native of Kharak: the Guidestone. The Guidestone's three-dimensional coordinates pinpoint the location of a spot near the Galactic Core known only as Hiigara, the ancient word for "Home." This confirms the xenogenesis theory, that the Kushan are not native to Kharak, as they share no DNA or other genetic similarities with the planet's few native animal species. The Kushan instead came to Kharak some three thousand years ago, fell into a dark age of primitive barbarism, and then climbed back out to a level of technological development.
With the impending extinction of all life on Kharak, the Kushan agree to band together as never before and build an immense starship. This vessel and a support fleet will travel to Hiigara and reconnoitre the situation before returning to begin a mass evacuation. The vessel - known only as "the Mothership" when a more aesthetically pleasing name cannot be decided upon by all the parties involved - and its support structures take almost sixty years to build. More than 600,000 people are chosen to accompany the vessel and its crew of 50,000 in tightly-packed cryosleep chambers. Karan S'jet was chosen to undergo the dangerous neurosurgery required to merge with the Mothership's central processor to become Fleet Command.
Unfortunately, when the Mothership launches and tests the Hyperspace Core, the hyperspace interdiction field it was generating around the Kharakian system - causing interloper ships to materialise in solid rock or crash instead - vanished. A sensor network monitoring the field reported this development to its superiors. By the time the Mothership returned from its hyperspace test flight, it found Kharak burning in space, having been hit by multiple weapons of mass destruction. More than 300 million people had been killed. The Mothership returned in time to capture one of the attacking ships. Interrogating its crew, the Kushan learned that they came from the Taiidan Empire, a vast space confederation spanning much of the galaxy. The Kushan people, known to the Taiidan as "The Exiles," had been banished to Kharak more than three millennia ago with the agreement to never develop hyperspace technology or leave Kharak. Breaking that agreement - which the Kushan had no knowledge of - led to the destruction of Kharak.
The Mothership and its fleet were grossly outnumbered and outgunned but possessed one advantage: the Hyperspace Core they possessed was at least an orders magnitude more powerful than the drives used by the Taiidan. The Mothership and its fleet could jump thousands of light-years at a time, as opposed to the dozens of the Taiidan ship, allowing them to simply outrun the Taiidan border fleets all the way to Hiigara.
The journey of the Mothership from Kharak to Hiigara is covered in the original Homeworld, and sees the Kushan learn that they are the descendants of an ancient interstellar empire which grew too greedy and powerful, and was overthrown by a coalition of other races including the Taiidan and the incredibly powerful Bentusi, an "unbound" species of traders who have merged with their ships to live forever in space. The Bentusi do not hold the descendants responsible for the crimes of their ancestors, especially as the Taiidan Empire itself has become morally corrupt, brutal and tyrannical. The use of forbidden weapons of mass destruction spurs a civil war within the Empire, and censure by the Galactic Council. Eventually, aided by the Bentusi and the Taiidan Republican movement, the Mothership makes it to Hiigara. Its fleet destroys the Taiidan flagship and kills the Taiidan Emperor. The Empire collapses, with warlords and the new Republican government vying for power. The 650,000 survivors of Kharak reoccupy Hiigara, becoming known as the Hiigaran people once more. Karan S'jet survives extraction from the Mothership but with a mysterious side-effect: she no longer ages.
Fifteen years later, as depicted in Homeworld: Cataclysm (aka Homeworld: Emergence) a ship of the mining Kiith Somtaaw becomes embroiled in a secretive conflict. A million-year-old starship from another galaxy is discovered, harbouring a lifeform known as the Beast. Capable of subverting both biological and technological systems, the Beast takes over several Hiigaran and Taiidan fleets and destroys multiple Bentusi vessels (who are very susceptible to its influence), forcing many others to fleet. The Somtaaw make several technological breakthroughs and finally destroy the Beast with their advanced weaponry. The conflict is covered up to prevent mass panic, with the Somtaaw instead honoured for helping defeat an unspecified Taiidan warlord plot against Hiigara.
In the following decades, the Hiigaran people discover that the mysterious and ancient Progenitors, who existed more than ten thousand years ago before vanishing overnight, leaving behind many obscure ruins, built three great hyperspace cores, capable of jumping clear across the galaxy. The Bentusi discovered one, whilst the ancient Hiigarans discovered the second. The third remains missing.
One hundred years later, in Homeworld 2, the Vaygr, an obscure species from the remote eastern reaches of the galaxy, suddenly invaded the rest of civilised space. The Vaygr quickly overran frontier settlements from numerous species, apparently jumping far beyond the abilities of their opponents. Karan S'jet realised that the Vaygr and their charismatic warlord, Makaan, had discovered the third great core. Makaan was now on a crusade to unite the three cores, which according to ancient, garbled history, would open the way to Sajuuk, one of the most famed Progenitors (and a key character in Hiigaran mythology). A new Mothership, the Pride of Hiigara, was constructed in record time.
In the Vaygr War, Hiigara came under siege but the Pride of Hiigara scoured the galaxy for clues on how to defeat Makaan. Eventually, in the ancient starship graveyard at Karos, it discovered a Progenitor Dreadnought. Making use of its power, the Hiigarans were able to destroy several Vaygr fleets. During one battle with Progenitor drones, the Bentusi flagship, the Great Harbour Ship Bentus, self-destructed to destroy the hardy foes. The Pride recovered the Bentusi core and pursued Makaan to Balcora Gate, a great hyperspace entry point to the black hole cluster at the centre of the galaxy. There the Pride finally destroyed Makaan, seized the third core and was able to reactivate Sajuuk, now revealed to be a Progenitor flagship vessel. Karan S'jet took command of the Sajuuk and raced back to Hiigara to destroy the last Vaygr forces threatening the homeworld, including the use of Progenitor planet-killing weaponry uncovered by Makaan.
Making full use of the Sajuuk's power and the three united cores, Karan S'jet discovered the Eye of Aarran, a vast hyperspace gateway. Unlocking the gate revealed the existence of an entire network of gates floating in the space between stars, linking all of the galactic sectors together with instantaneous travel. A new golden age of interstellar trade and diplomacy began. Or so it appears...
The Homeworld galaxy - what we call M51a - during the events of Homeworld and Homeworld 2.
The Setting
The Homeworld saga takes place in M51a, what we call the Whirlpool Galaxy, located 23.5 million light-years from Earth. Although the Homeworld series mostly revolves around humanoid or human-looking species, it has nothing to do with Earth at all, and Earth does not appear or is even mentioned. Some fan theories suggest that the mysterious Progenitors may be humans from Earth, or our descendants in a distant future, but there is little corroborating evidence.
The following are key factors in the setting:
The Progenitors
A mysterious, ancient civilisation who dominated the galaxy more than ten thousand years ago before vanishing overnight. The vast mega-structures in the Karos Graveyard and the derelict at Tanis are remnants of their civilisation. They had total mastery of hyperspace and built the Three, the great hyperspace cores allowing for Far Jumping. They also built the Great Hyperspace Gate Network. Only one Progenitor name has survived through history, Sajuuk, who built the ship of the same name and the Cores. Sajuuk became a religious figure to the Hiigaran people.
The Bentusi
Oldest of the known races, the Bentusi arose to become a spacefaring civilisation some millennia after the fall of the Progenitors. The Bentusi found the First Core and used it to become dominant in matters of trade. A peaceful species, the Bentusi founded the Galactic Council as a forum for interstellar diplomacy. They later forsook their homeworld and merged with their ships, becoming creatures of space: the "Unbound." The Bentusi were adversely affected by the Beast War, most fleeing the galaxy, leaving behind only their Great Harbour Ship, the Bentus. The Bentus was destroyed during the Vaygr War. The First Core was claimed by the Hiigarans.
The Hiigarans (aka Kushan)
The Hiigarans area a humanoid species who act as the primary protagonists of the Homeworld series. The Hiigarans established a galactic empire some four thousand years ago, but became rivals of the Taiidan, whom they believed had corrupted the Galactic Council into always taking their side. Discovering the Second Core in secret, the Hiigarans used it to launch a military attack on the Taiidan homeworld, crippling their fleets. The Bentusi forced the Hiigarans to surrender, but they (apparently) destroyed the Core rather than surrender it. In secret, the Hiigarans took the Core with them to Kharak, but forgot about it when their high-tech civilisation collapsed. The survivors took three millennia to rebuild a technology base and rediscover the Core, and then used it to return Hiigara. Only 650,000 Hiigarans survived the annihilation of Kharak by the Taiidan to repopulated their homeworld, but by over a century later the population had boomed to the hundreds of millions thanks to a high birth rate, genetic engineering and adopting outcasts from other species.
The Taiidan
A humanoid, space-faring species who established an empire to rival Hiigara some four thousand years ago. After the Hiigarans were exiled to Kharak, the Taiidan Empire became the premiere force in the galaxy. However, over the millennia they came more decadent and corrupt. The Empire's attack on Kharak using banned weapons of mass destruction spurred civil war and rebellion. The Taiidan subsequently splintered into independent warlord kingdoms and a democratic Taiidan Republic, allied to Hiigara. The primary antagonists of Homeworld, and play a supporting role in Homeworld: Cataclysm.
The Turanic Raiders
Pirates of the Outer Rim, employed by the Taiidan Empire as mercenaries. The Turanic Raiders aided the Empire in its attack on Kharak. Minor antagonists in Homeworld and Homeworld: Cataclysm.
The Kadeshi
Inhabitants of the Great Nebula. A splinter-group of Hiigarans/Kushan whose ships did not make it to Kharak, instead foundering inside the Nebula. The Kadeshi are fiercely insular and xenophobic. Minor antagonists in Homeworld.
The Beast
A powerful and hostile biotech organism of unknown origin. The Beast was discovered by extragalactic explorers who endured unusually long exposure to hyperspace on their way to the galaxy. The Beast was discovered and inadvertently released by Hiigarans of Kiith Somtaaw, but with the help of the Bentusi they were able to overcome and defeat the Beast. The primary antagonist of Homeworld: Cataclysm.
The Radaa
Duplicitous interstellar traders who are instrumental to Hiigara rebuilding its technology base after the reoccupation of the planet, but later turn on the Hiigarans. The primary antagonists of Homeworld: Vast Reaches.
The Vaygr
A species of raiders and warriors from the galactic east, divided into warring factions and groups. United the warleader Makaan after he discovered the Third Core, but defeated by Karan S'jet during the Vaygr War. The primary antagonists of Homeworld 2.
The Keepers
AI-controlled spacecraft and artefacts left behind by the Progenitors, and almost impervious to harm. They seem to be in perfect working order despite the passage of at least ten millennia. Minor antagonists in Homeworld 2, after a brief appearance in Homeworld.
The Nimbus Galaxy
Another galaxy, located an unknown distance from the Whirlpool Galaxy and only accessible via the Eye of Aarran gate network. This galaxy is home to the Tanoch Empire, the Yaot Federation, the Amassari Remain, the Iyatequa Traders and the Cangacian pirates. The main location for Homeworld Mobile.
The Anomaly
An unidentified phenomenon which appears to be destroying the Great Hyperspace Gate Network; its appearance sparks the events of Homeworld 3.
The artwork of British SF artist Chris Foss and his contemporary Peter Elson was a key influence on Homeworld.
Behind the Scenes
Work on Homeworld began in 1997 as the first project at Relic Entertainment, a new video game studio based in Canada. The original idea was to create a video game inspired by the art of pioneering science fiction artists Peter Elson and Chris Foss, and using a similar premise to the 1970s show Battlestar Galactica (a remake of which began airing shortly after the release of Homeworld 2).
Homeworld was released in late 1999 and was an immediate hit. Publishers Sierra (later Vivendi) were keen on a sequel, but Relic were contracted by Microsoft to make a new game for much more money, which became Impossible Creatures. Sierra instead commissioned Barking Dog Studios to make an expansion, Homeworld: Cataclysm, but the expansion ended up becoming a larger and more original game, so they released it as a stand-alone title in late 2000.
Relic released Homeworld 2 in 2003, but the game did disappointingly. Budget limitations meant the original concept, of "Dust Wars" fought amidst vast space derelicts, was dropped in favour of a linear campaign similar to the original game. Shortly after release, Relic were acquired by THQ and put to work on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, which was released to enormous success in 2004. The company then made the similarly successful World War II historical RTS Company of Heroes (2006).
After the release of Company of Heroes, many of the founder and original team at Relic left to found Blackbird Interactive in 2007. The company began work on Hardspace: Shipbreakers, a "spiritual predecessor" to Homeworld revolving around exploring wrecked spaceships on a desert planet.
Also in 2007, THQ bought the Homeworld IP from Vivendi, leading to speculation that Relic would make a new game, but with the original development team now at Blackbird, there was limited interest in pursuing the project. Relic instead made Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (2009) and Company of Heroes 2 (2013). In 2013 THQ collapsed and Relic was acquired by Sega; Sega refused to buy the Homeworld IP, which was instead acquired by Gearbox.
Gearbox and Blackbird Interactive entered discussions on a collaboration, which resulted in Hardspace: Shipbreakers becoming an official Homeworld prequel game, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, released to a solid reception in 2016. The two companies also collaborated on Homeworld Remastered (2015), a thorough revamping of the original games.
In 2019 Gearbox and Blackbird used crowdfunding platform Fig to fund early development of Homeworld 3, the first mainline new entry in the series for over twenty years. Increased awareness of the franchise also led to Modiphius Entertainment creating spin-off products, namely the tabletop roleplaying game Homeworld: Revelations and tabletop wargame Homeworld: Fleet Command. Gearbox also expanded the video game franchise with Homeworld Mobile, developed by Stratosphere Games, and Homeworld: Vast Reaches, a VR title from FarBridge.
Homeworld 3 is due for release on 13 May 2024.
Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.
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.
Blackbird Interactive and Gearbox Software have released a new trailer for their upcoming space strategy game, Homeworld 3.
Defying titular logic, Homeworld 3 is actually the fifth game in the venerable series and is set around 100 years after the events of Homeworld 2. A new mothership, the Khar-Kushan, has been constructed and launched under the guidance of a new Fleet Command, a scientist neurally wired into the ship to act as its living intelligence system. The primary threat in the new game is "the Anomaly," an artefact capable of destroying planets and shutting down the Great Hyperspace Gates. Karan S'Jet, the Fleet Command from Homeworld and Homeworld 2, is missing in action along with her fleet, leaving her successor and distant kin Imogen S'Jet to guide the Khar-Kushan on a new mission. S'Jet's mission is complicated by the emergence of a new polity, the Incarnate, whose motives are initially unclear.
Homeworld 3 will be released on PC in February 2024.
In a wide-ranging interview with Stephen Colbert, George R.R. Martin has cited the original Homeworld as one of his favourite video games, confirming his status as a man of culture.
The original Homeworld was released in 1999 and was a real-time space strategy game, praised for its peerless atmosphere, graphics, music and genuine use of 3D space (allowing your ships to move up and down and attack from above or below the ecliptic; this was a big deal back then). It was followed by sequels Homeworld: Cataclysm (2000, recently retitled Emergence) and Homeworld 2 (2003), as well as prequel Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak (2016). Homeworld and Homeworld 2 were spruced up and re-released as Homeworld Remastered in 2015. The team are currently working on Homeworld 3 for release in early 2023.
Whether George has played any of the other games in the series is unknown.
GRRM also named Railroad Tycoon (1990) and Master of Orion (1993) as among his favourite video games. In other interviews he has cited Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1985), Sid Meier's Pirates (1987), Civilization (1991) and some games in the Total War series (2000-present) as titles he enjoyed playing. Martin notes that his addiction to Civilization and Railroad Tycoon may have cost him "a couple of novels" in the early 1990s and he stopped playing video games regularly in the early 2000s to focus on his books. He hasn't even played the hugely-acclaimed Elden Ring, the recent video game he provided backstory and lore for.
Various other SFF writers have reported having to manage their writing time and gaming time effectively. Iain Banks was so addicted to Civilization in the early 1990s that he had to remove the game from his hard disk and smash the disks so he could complete his in-progress Culture novel. Terry Pratchett was famously a huge fan of Lemmings (who make a cameo appearance in a Discworld novel), Tomb Raider (for which he once joke-planned a prequel called Tomb Stocker) and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which he got so into that he even contributed some writing to a fan mod of the game. Contemporary writers like Joe Abercrombie regularly report on their video game habits and Brandon Sanderson recently ran a series of reports for his playthrough of the aforementioned Elden Ring.
Does this mean that GRRM should use his clout to get a Homeworld TV show made at HBO? Yes, clearly, it does.
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 Homeworldin 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.
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.
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.
Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods, which will also get you exclusive content weeks before it goes live on my blogs.
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.
Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods, which will also get you exclusive content weeks before it goes live on my blogs.
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.
Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods, which will also get you exclusive content weeks before it goes live on my blogs.
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.
Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods, which will also get you exclusive content weeks before it goes live on my blogs.
