Ralgon
Metadata
Setting
Publications
General Information
Homeworld: None
Discovered: Created by Remali scientists
Status: Critical Threat to the Civilized Worlds
Affiliation: Ralgon
Role: Antagonist
Dossier
By Human terms, the Ralgon are a grotesque insectile, parasitic race. Specific descriptions vary based on the strain of Ralgon in question (see Morphology Section below). In general, they are the colored in puke browns browns and yellows with patches of purple and greens. Ralgon operate on a modified eusocial and swarm model, relying on sheer numbers to overwhelm and consumer their targets. Face to face encounters with Ralgon Minions are the stuff of nightmares and of the few who survive direct confrontation with them, the majority have been known to suffer severe mental trauma. Whether this trauma is a 'weapon' of the Ralgon, or a form of PTSD, remains unknown as there is very little scientific data to test.
Morphology
The Ralgon exist in many forms that work together in a hierarchical caste-like system. Truthfully this is more of a misnomer, as the Ralgon do not see themselves as above or below other castes. Instead they all work in their respective roles for the good of the swarm as a whole.
Prime
A Ralgon Prime is a giant space faring organism devoted to command and control over the rest of the swarm. Covered in a thick armored carapace that rivals most starship hulls in terms of density, strength, and thickness, Prime is a very large creature with a main body extending a full 9 kilometers, and a 'tail' that pushes that length to 12.2KM. It looks more like a very large dirigible on steroids that got rained on by corrosive acid. Prime has very few weapons on it's own, relying on its sheer size, durability, and Minions for defense. But when Prime choses to mix it up, it typically charges and rams targets, using it's size and mass to literally demolish targets. This is aided by a large, armored superstructure interconnecting Prime's forward section that's been described as 'armored whiskers' or 'horns'. Although Prime is a spacefaring organism, it reads on sensors as a ship. It also contains ship like systems including a communications relay. However, if the carapace is ever destroyed, the biomass within would read as a life form on traditional sensors. As a spacefaring organism Prime has it's own propulsion through space, is capable of traveling through Slipspace and can create it's own entry/exit aperatures.
Cruisers
Cruiser forms are the primary command and control nodes for the Ralgon navy after Prime. Like Prime, they typically don’t get involved in direct firefights. But unlike Prime, they have a few more offensive and defensive options. Like all other Ralgon, these options are primarily natural weapons along the lines of caustic acid and natural projectile attacks. These cruisers are classified as Light, Medium, and Heavy based on the size of the creature, and it’s stage in it’s life cycle. “Young” cruiser forms would be considered “light”. Older and fully matured forms would be considered “Heavy”. The larger the form of cruiser, the more Ralgon it can control within it's own sub-group. These sub-groups may contain other cruiser forms, fighters, and minions. These creatures are larger crescent shape with relatively short, stubby appendages and a relatively small insect like head. These appendages are more for stability than for attack and defense are are not very mobile as limbs and have limited range of motion. The nearest out of universe reference would be that of the Zerg Guardian. Cruisers of all sizes are capable of traveling through Slipspace, but only the Heavies (and older ‘mediums’) have the ability to create their own entry/exit apertures as this ability develops with maturity.
Fighters
Housed by (and rumored to be even spawned by) the Cruiser forms, Fighters are small spacefaring organisms adapted to fast sub-light maneuvering in dog fight conditions. Their primary role is to escort Minions, and engage enemy fighters. Their primary weapons are shooting spikes at the unshielded and lightly armored fighter craft and frigates. For the most part these fighters are useless against larger capital vessels, but they do employ an acid attack to help corrode the hull of a target and make it easier for the Minion forms to do their job. Fighter forms have no FTL capability and much return to their parent Cruiser in order to safely traverse Slipspace.
Minions
Minions are the stuff of nightmares. They are the bread and butter of the terror that strikes into the heart of any sentient who has ever heard the name Ralgon. Fighter and Cruiser forms exist to support and defend the Minions. They are the vanguard, the foot soldier, and the plague all rolled into one. They are hungry, singleminded, and relentless. Small on the scale of starships but large by humanoid scales Minions are fast, insectile crosses between spiders and the praying mantis. They are deployed directly from cruisers in large bio-pods against a target. When the bio-pod strikes, it bursts open instantly, spewing hundreds of Minions which then proceed to consume. When deployed against Starships and Stations, the eight armored insect legs of the Minions bite in to the hulls leaving pock marks in their wake and allowing them to travel on a hull with out the need for artificial gravity. They scuttle to their point of entry, looking for any hull breach they can use to enter the ship. If one is not available, they will happily drive their heavy claws into the hull and, aided by an acid like saliva, literally tear it open layer by layer. Once inside, the body of Minions swarm in and consume anything and every thing in their path. If you are unlucky enough to not able to kill a Minion before it reaches you, it will kill you, disembody you, and eat you. If you’re lucky...it’ll do it in that order. Minions are very weak against enemy air cover and must rely on the Fighter forms to drive off air support before they can be bombed. Minions come in two forms, Warrior and Worker
Warrior Minion
Coming Soon
Worker Minion
Coming Soon
Ares
Ares is a unique Ralgon. Created solely for the purpose of infultration, Ares is a modified light Cruiser, though much smaller, that has been armored and concealed to look like a small ISPA Scout ship. This ship gives the appearance of an Earth Manta Ray with slightly blunted wings and no tail. Ares is boardable in a way that no other Ralgon is, in that should anyone try to board, they’d believe they were on an an experimental starship complete with decking and internal systems and the like. Ares is armed with standard ISPA weaponry suitable for a scout vessel and serves as an intermediary between Prime, and the Parasites. For more information on Ares please see the dedicated article.
Parasite Queen
Non combatant slug like form of Ralgon whose sole purpose is the spawning of Parasites.
Breeder
Non Combatant form of Ralgon whose sole purpose is to seed appropriate breeding grounds with the needed genetic material to grow a new brood of ralgon. By the time of the Second Ralgon War, an ‘appropriate breeding ground’ would be an entire planet. I have no description of these forms as they are only hinted at and never truly seen.
Parasite
Like the name implies, this form of Ralgon is a parasitic form designed to take direct control over host entities by tapping into their nervous system. In humans this usually occurs at the brainstem. Parasites roles are for infiltration, sabotage, intelligence gathering and reconnaissance only. Host bodies are nearly indistinguishable and there is no obvious way to tell if a person has been taken over. Specific medical scans as well as minor, permanent, alterations in the host physiology are the typical telltales, scientifically speaking. Additionally, there may be perceived changes in behavior, attitude, and habit exhibited by the host to others as the parasite tries to mimic what it believes to be the ‘norm’ for it’s host. It is worth noting, that Parasites are not in direct contact with Prime, in the way that the other minions may be (electrical conduction). Instead, when they need to exchange information, they, through their host, make use of conventional communications technology and either contact Prime either directly or through a support ship such as Ares.
Physiology
The Ralgon are a protein based artificial life form originally created in a Remali laboratory as microbes designed to consume and neutralize the countless industrial toxins that Remali technology had created. Over the course of their originally short lifespans, the many generations of Ralgon ultimately evolved into the monstrous creatures they have become.
Communication
Ralgon do not communicate verbally or telepathically. Parts of the Ralgon body are covered by what can only be described as metalic hair. This 'hair' serves as an antena tied to a second nervous system operating separately and independently from the one that controls muscular movement and autonomic functions. Through this system electrical impulses are sent and received between individual Ralgon, using the hair as both a transmitter and receiver so that communication may take place. During this process, Ralgon also expel various gasses through which the electrical currents can (and do) arc. Arcing also occurs in normal atmospheric conditions and this presents a frightening image of a monster from which electric bolts emit. This system also has the side affect that essentially 'grounds' all Ralgon from electrical discharges as a form of weapon as the energy is captured by the hair and then driven to ground within the redundant nervous system.
Propulsion
As a spacefaring race, the Ralgon have developed two specific internal organs designed to contain relatively large quantities of densely packed oxygen and hydrogen gas. When combined together and ignited by an electrical discharge from the Ralgon nervous system, the gasses ignite and produce propulsion. This process is not entirely dissimilar from the way in which a firefly creates luminescence within it's body. Additionally, Ralgon forms existing and operating primarily in space also have an evolved form of gills which are capable of absorbing stray gasses in space and converting them to oxygen and hydrogen for the purposes of 'resupply. However, unless there is a large concentration of stellar gasses such as in a nebula, there is not usually enough absorbed to make this a fully viable method for replenishment. For that the Ralgon must rely on their digestive system
Consumption and Digestion
At their core, Ralgon remain true to their original intent, and consume all that lay in their path. As such the Ralgon are capable of consuming and eating virtually anything. Whether it's muscle mass of a biological target like a human or the metallic hull of a starship, the Ralgon digestive process can consume and break it down into the atomic level and re-construct it to fit need whether it be oxygen/hydrogen replenishment, proteins for cruisers to grow fighters, or metallics to be metabolized as a harder carapace, the Ralgon digestive system is non discriminatory and nearly 100% efficient in it's ability to break down and reprocess consumed matter.
Culture
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Habits/Mannerisms
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Background
Genesis and Evolution
The Ralgon are an artificially created life form, initially created by Remali scientists stationed on the Kershen Research Depot in ~year needed~. At the time the Ralgon were little more than micro-organisms created for the sole purpose of industrial cleaners. They were intended to be put to use to consume hazardous byproducts of Remali industry, and convert them into harmless byproducts that could be easily disposed. Unfortunately, the scientists did not anticipate the mutative effects these byproducts would have on their creation. Designed with very short lifespans and relatively high metabolisms, the Ralgon almost immediately began to show signs of mutative evolution. Eventually the microbes began to specalize and soon a 'controller' entity emerged as a central unifying influence. This was the first Prime. Within four generations of the emergence of Prime. The Ralgon had already started to evolve. Strains continued their specialization, and now not only did they consume the waste materials, but an entire subset of the population became responsible for gathering resources to return to the hive where Prime would then in turn alter those resources and grow it’s spawn out of them. Prime died fifteen generations later, but not before it spawned another which continued to grow and control the hive until such time as it became too large for a single Prime to control.
Prime spawned a second and this new Prime took immediate control over half of the still evolving Ralgon, and the two sub-hives continued to operate, though independently. Observations of the limited interaction between the two hives, showed an incredibly high level of coordination. The Remali declared the project a success and began separating the partitioned hives and distributing them throughout their Confederacy. The original three hives were kept at the depot to serve as breeding stock and to answer the one nagging question - How had a synthetically created life form evolved? Most synthetic life forms were capable only of creating replicas of itself. How had their gene pool diversified so widely? At first this question was ignored, as the happy accident yielded desirable outcomes. But subsequent research discovered a genetic abnormality present in the Primes that had not been coded by the Remali. Soon what had started as a random occurrence turned into an outbreak.
Fearing for their ability to control the continuing experiment, project scientists targeted and destroyed the Ralgon displaying the abnormality and implemented new procedures to prevent it from happening again. However their efforts were unsuccessful and while they were unwilling to scuttle the project entirely they continued destroying individuals and even made attempts to destroy the Prime outright. However this was met with resistance, and as the Ralgon continued to evolve, they eventually struck back. The only thing the Remali had succeeded in was to strengthen the race and anger their hive mind mentality.
Eventually the Ralgon broke project containment, attacked the station from within and then fled into space. For a time, the Ralgon retreated, to gather themselves before emerging with the intention to destroy the Remali that had threatened them. The Ralgon proved frighteningly efficient at this, consuming entire planets of Remali, killing trillions and constricting the borders of the once vast Remali Confederacy but the Ralgon did not stop and continued their campaign. Eventually, they discovered the rest of the galaxy, the Civilized Races, and widened their campaign.
The First Ralgon War
Upon discovering the Civilized Races, the Ralgon widened their campaign and began attacking and consuming their territory. While the campaign was, generally successful, Prime failed to anticipate the unification of the independent races and their efforts to mount a coordinated defense against the onslaught of the swarm. Eventually as the conflict drew out over several years, far longer than Prime had planned for and resources were stretching too thin. Having seeded dozens of planets with spawn, Prime calculated that the existing strategy was untennable and pulled the swarm back, to wait for the seeded planets to grow and develop. Knowing the broods would take years to grow to maturity, Prime retreated the swarm into hiding intent on re-emerging when the broods were mature enough to fight and use the additional trillions of Ralgon to finish the job.
The War's Intermission
Sensing the impending end of it's natural life, and fearing for it's ability to control the swarm given it's projected growth, Prime devised a much more surreptitious strategy. To execute this plan, Prime brought forth Ares and deployed it into ISPA space, to support the sleeper parasites it had left behind in the latter days of the first war. Sensing the time was right, Prime made it's move.
The Second Ralgon War
Almost a full decade after it had gone into hiding, Prime re-emerged, attacked, and destroyed the Artez Colony, setting off it's second campaign against the unified front of it's ISPA opponent. The details of this conflict are told in Harbinger, Shadowplay, and Redemption, the three books in the Trilogy of the Second Ralgon War. Detailed discussion coming later, but left out for spoiler saving purposes.
Aftermath of The Second Ralgon War
Coming soon.
