Faction Name: Yel'krusu t'Sar'Makth (literally means "Star Empire of the Great Race")
Government Type: Dominion
Faction Leader: S'cum Ish-veh N'ssan (title: Sur'sim're t'Abru-ma AKA Grand Supreme Overlord)
Capital: Tsokal'yel T'Sar'Vafer (Great Beginning, primary star system of the Sarmakth, location unknown)

OVERVIEW:
Sarmakth are an enigmatic alien race hiding in the uncharted regions of the galaxy. They lack the strength to directly challenge major powers yet their inherent superiority complex strives to put them above all races. They hate mankind with cruel passion yet not above using humans as pawns to achieve their objectives. Currently they are obsessed with the idea of reaching Ayrie and take the seat of Ashtar for themselves.


Many millions of years ago, long before primates even walked on Earth, the distant low-gravity planet of T'Mekth birthed the first signs of advanced civilization. Dominion sources refer to them as Vesh'Makth or Precursors these three-tentacled medusid creatures were among the earliest sapient lifeforms in the galaxy. Sarmakth love to weave tall tales of these mythological Precursors. Of their greatness. How they created all life in the galaxy. How they were practically gods. All these are petty lies made up for propaganda purposes. Veshmakth were weak and not really versatile. While quite intelligent when it came to imagination these creatures also fell quite short. Their technological development was a long struggle yet few million years ago they finally achieved utopia. This golden age was short lived though as their excess rapidly drained the planet's resources. Lacking FTL technology the Veshmakth made a desperate bet at exploring deep space and sent out swarms of generation ships in bright hopes. None of these responded back and so far there are no signs of Veshmakths surviving anywhere close to the modern times. Desperate and short on resources those who had remained on T'Mekth engaged in centuries of apocalyptic wars, ruining their planet forever. Realizing their mistake late the Veshmakth were at the verge of extinction. As a last bet they turned their advanced technology to repopulating their planet and restoring some of its former splendor. The invasive growth of Red Weed was one of these products. So were the Sarmakth, an artificial "next step" to the Veshmakth evolution. There are conflicting theories in Ashtar records whether these early Sarmakth had the distorted bodies of their present selves or it had been product of their millennia of evolution. Either way with their inherent collectivism and features which allowed them to thrive in the reborn T'Mekth the Sarmakth began building a second utopia.

Yet just as the last one this utopia didn't last forever. The planet was slowly dying and without FTL they had no means to explore space and find new planets habitable for life. Yet luck was on their side as within decades they made first contact with an alien race. No recoird remained of this species aside from the Sarmakth referring them as Duhmakth (Race of Stupid). Probably undeserved yet when one looks at their fate it can be certainly said the Duhmakth were foolish. The explorer ship which made first contact never reported back home. The crew were probed and dissected by the merciless Sarmakth until they knew enough to reverse engineer the ship's FTL drive. Using this newfound technology the Sarmakth launched an invasion on the Duhmakth. Within a decade the Duhmakth were no more, their planet conquered and their entire species were transformed into mindless cattle for the Sarmakth to feed on.

The stolen FTL drive was primitive yet allowed the Sarmakth to terrorize the neighboring civilizations, achieving heights they never imagined prior. Eventually they encountered human colonists sent by the United Nations Government. They of course did what they always and enslaved the inhabitants as the newest acquisition to their ever growing empire. Yet unknowingly rather than catching a rabbit they awoke the bear that was the United Nations. Though certainly not militaristic their nation far surpassed the tiny Sarmakth Dominion. Military-wise their hundreds of years of combat history proved superior of the Sarmakth's thousands of years of stagnation. UN at first only retailated but after realizing the horror which the Sarmakth meant they went on the offensive, liberating planet after planet. With their own subjects rising up the Sarmakth were quickly forced back to their homeworld of T'Mekth (humans also called it Vulcan) to make their last stand. Genocide was never the UN's intention and to their credit they tried to minimize lynchings and other atrocities done to stranded Sarmakth. In contrast the Sarmakth were furious and a bit delusional, still firmly believing in their superiority and that they could win this war. Turning their planet's core into a gigantic reactor was what sustained Sarmakth civilization for thousands of years. Now they began to apply dangerous experimental technologies to the complex, including the ability to harness the planet's own subspace shadow. These experiments backfired spectacularly when without any warning the entire planet of T'Mekth exploded, killing the overwhelming majority of Sarmakth. Survivors lived on for a few centuries as pariahs yet soon enough the entire Sarmakth race went extinct.

... Or they should've been. A tiny group of less than thousand Sarmakth actually escaped the doom of T'Mekth. Their ship needed over a year to reach the distant Horsehead Nebula where they could remain hidden and rebuild. For this purpose everyone on the ship were put in stasis and they were to reach their destination via auto-pilot. Yet the subspace shadow contraction confused the instruments and flung them a yet uncharted location of space. Crashlanding on a lifeless planet they were doomed to perish. The preserved remains of the escapees were left there for centuries only to be discovered by the Ashtar. Intrigued to revive a long-extinct species the Ashtar experimented with the corpses, failing with all but the last one. His name was S'cum Ish-veh N'ssan, a complete nobody who were to become the literal father of the revived Sarmakth nation. After a conversation about responsibility and given a new chance the Ashtar repaired the ship (accidentally giving it some advanced features later to be reverse engineered) and gave S'cum coordinates for the nearest habitable planet. Following that they promptly left. Sarmakth reproduce asexually and thus S'cum began to settle down and literally repopulate his species. Unlike what the Ashtar told him he had no intention to merely restart the Sarmakth race, he wanted to rule the galaxy as he was destined to be! Yet being left vulnerable and (from his point of view) just recently taught the cost of overconfidence he choose the slow yet steady route, patiently awaiting his time in obscurity. He also taught the Sarmakth children about the Dominion, their past and their ultimate fate. Of course hinted with lies and propaganda, with special mentions to highlight the heinous nature of mankind. They began establishing the Second Dominion, starting with the conquest of the nearby minor civilizations. Their actions were put on relative halt 130 years ago when the Ashtar chose to reveal themselves in full, intent on policing the galaxy. While this prevented open hostilities the Sarmakth still had means to slowly strengthen themselves using infiltration, manipulation and similar underhanded measures. With the Ashtar's sudden disappearance the Sarmakth doubled down on their previous efforts, building up to finally undermine and crush mankind once and for all. Of course done in secrecy with the galaxy at large still unaware of their existence. With the final message of the Ashtar the Dominion feels it is time to take Ayire as their rightful possession.


TBA

Many of the unique qualities of Sarmakth are also reflected in their society. All Sarmakth are telepathically connected through the Great Link which allows them to freely exchange thoughts and makes all other forms of communication unnecessary. Quantum receiver implants enable Sarmakth to remain connected even at interstellar distances and losing access to this link would greatly hamper them even in daily life. Even though those in the Great Link are technically equals the Sarmakth maintains a hiearchic system based off willpower and personal qualities. Those most fit to be on the top are automatically chosen in leadership positions. Those with particular set of skills are automatically chosen to work in said field. Some argue that the Great Link is actually "rigged" to prefer certain individuals and keep them in power. For example even though nowadays billions of non-Sarmakth are also part of the Great Link they are never assigned positions superior to the dominant species. Some even think this "perversion" of the Great Link is also responsible for keeping S'cum in power as the Supreme Overlord. Either way the Great Link is the primary form of Sarmakth communication and social network, very much the pillar of Sarmakth society. Of course not everyone are included in the Link, those tend to be nothing more than slaves. This can be either obvious or secret to these people. Many subject races live in peace and think they are free when in effect they are under subtle Sarmakth control. The fact Sarmakth likes to implant slaves with "obedience chips" to control them further muddles the line between wilful and forced subjugation. In the end all races under the Sarmakth are subordinates but they do have an established hierarchy.


Important Characters:



Sarmakth technology is unique and at times radically different from what could be found within the Empire. Their massive intellect grants them innately superior understanding of science. Yet having missed out a few millennia of progress they have some fields to catch up on. Sarmakth technology is unique and even weird by the standards of other species. For example Sarmakth relies on walkers moving on flexible tentacle-like legs which requires advanced computers to properly operate while humans merely use wheels and tracked mechanisms to achieve similar road performance. In general Sarmakth technology looks organic or even "alive" and some of their devices indeed use modified living tissue. It also shows in their transportation means. Sarmakth never invented the wheel and its association with human culture made sure they'd never rely on it, either. Instead they use various multi-leg transportation mechanisms or anti-grav systems. The Sarmakth themselves usually equip grav gliders which lift their bodies and save them from physical exertion because their species is accustomed to low gravity planets.




While most civilizations rely on professional military to provide forces in battle the Sarmakth are different. They view technology as their sole answer to military expansion, using warmachines and bioengineered monsters in battle. While they cannot entirely avoid to have their brethren fight in battles in general the Sarmakth want to minimize the danger they expose their populations to. This used to manifest in a very unbalanced army composition of pure warmachine forces. These towering tripods were fearsome yet unsupported they had some glaring weaknesses. To resolve the numbers issue the new Sarmakth Dominion relies on Tselmakth bio-soldiers. These are not infantry in the classical sense but a variety of biomechanical robots, often using horrifying bioformation techniques to turn other races into mere machines. Tselmakth troops can range from tiny swarmer units to giant mammoth-sized beasts that are more akin to a tank. Many of them fight in melee and rely on numbers but Tselmakth are also frequently using the biological derivatives of Sarmakth technology. They don't wield weapons per say but rather they are the weapons themselves and have such systems internal part of how they function. Creatures with eyes modified to be heat rays or abdomen protrusions that are actually cannons would be some of the examples how Tselmakth troops integrate technology into their being. While not foreign to the idea of entrenched infantry and similar tactics, Sarmakth don't really have anything to replicate such. Their military is still very much unbalanced yet the Sarmakth believes it's to their benefit.


Sarmakth spacecraft are just like their warmachines in the fact they look less like purpose built constructs and more like living entities. Most Sarmakth space vessels look like deep sea creatures, assuming the shapes of starfish, jellyfish, crustaceans and cephaloids. Just as their surface vehicles these rely on tentacles but in a different way. The average Sarmakth warship consists of a main body and various tentacles. Main body houses all the essentials while tentacles mount the primary weapons. This gives a flexible and finely aimed platform for said weapons but also makes them fair bit more obvious as targets. Most Sarmakth warships have primary and secondary tentacles with the latter being considerably thinner. Said tentacles could be also used in close combat and are known to contract and stretch to unbelievable extents. Another less known fact is that while vulnerable these tentacles can grow back. At the root of each tentacle is a regeneration unit which gradually reconstructs the lost appendage while hidden within the hull, bursting out with full functions as soon as ready. Due to hiding in the unknown regions and refusing open contact the Sarmakth Dominion was never part of the Detente. This means while overall weak the Dominion has a surprising amount of unregulated battlecruisers and considerable force of dreadnoughts. Of course with the Detente ending and hyperdreadnoughts becoming the new craze the Sarmakth are rapidly losing their advantage. Another observation is that overall the Sarmakth are less focused on space superiority than many other civilizations. Rather than winning space battles the Sarmakth focus is on establishing dominance in space enough to make planetfall and invade a region. They suppress dissents, defeat rebels and invade planets. Their objective is usually to conquer and subjugate a planet, not to win over a hostile nation state. This may be an advantage or their greatest weakness depending on how the war is waged.



Translates as the "Great Destroyer" this ambitious vessel is basically an effort by the Sarmakth to remain in the naval race. It's effectively a massively enlarged Suppression Vessel (AKA a dreadnought) with the main body length of 6 kilometers and tentacles stretching far further. Speaking of which this is the first vessel to have tertiary tentacles raising the total count to the extreme number of 584 (8 primary, 64 secondary, 512 tertiary). Unlike for previous ships this almost fills up the space in front of the vessel and would make it difficult for the tentacles to not tangle up with each other. As an "elegant" solution the Sarmakth introduced phasing technology, allowing the tentacles to harmlessly pass through each other. While this helped to avoid clutter the tentacles were incapable of firing while phased thus introducing an unique blindspot. The phasing tentacles were also found useful for special occasions when the ship had to grab something up close. Aside from the tentacles the Sar'Vashek also has various floating weapon platforms that are capable of fighting independently. Effectively its own escort these platforms carry auxiliary weapons of various types and sizes and could temporarily separate from the main vessel and be controlled via psychic signals. When not in use these platforms are "quantum docked" using gravitational anchors and quantum pairing technologies which also includes a quantum power conduit to charge these units. Lastly the Sar'vashek has not one but four spinal mounted heavy beam weapons. Three of these are the modified variants of the main hypermetric accelerator of the Tafkauak-class suppression vessels. With no size restriction it has a much faster firing cylce and overall better capabilities while not exactly much greater firepower. Still, the ship effectively carries the main armament of a squadron of dreadnoughts so it could be quite useful. The central weapon is much more surprisingly a gigantic disruptor array capable of horrible destruction. While not particularly useful against ships the weapon can do massive damage to planetary surfaces and with relatively minimal energy expediture. It also has function as resource collector which gives it unexpected versatility. Of course the Sar'vashek also has wardisc launchers, point defense weapons and gigantic internal space for fighters, transport craft, prisoners, Tselmakth growth chambers and much more. The sheer size of the ship allows rather respectable room for these functions.