History/Vectides

The Vectides live on a planet in the same solar system as Resurgence, the deposit planet. Extremely intelligent creatures at the head of a small, technologically advanced civilization, the Smuggler has invited them, along with the humans, to exploit the etherium.

The first incursions were difficult, because the Vectides are particularly fragile beings; their extremely short life expectancy, a year at most, and their delicate, brittle, skeletal body made them very poor warriors. They suffered heavy losses in each war for only minimal gains: their participation in the etherium rush therefore created a controversy that raged over the entire planet, where opinions differed between the partisans, convinced of the usefulness of etherium for the development of their civilization, and their opponents who wanted to withdraw from the race to protect the population.

The partisans then devised a bold new plan to reassure their detractors, with irreversible effects: as their body was their main weakness, they would dispense with it altogether to transcend time, pain and death. They would transfer the consciousness of millions of willing Galads in cells containing etherium, which they would place in the exoskeletons of a new army. Each soldier was therefore controlled not by a feeble Vectide, but by half a dozen determined, intelligent units of consciousness, made immortal by etherium.

Now leading an army of powerful soldiers, the partisans enslaved all those who refused a transfer of consciousness and imposed their law on Vectis, prepared to sacrifice a number of their people to found a new civilization.

Since that era, hundreds of Vectide slaves have been transported to the deposit planets every thousand years to take part in the struggle for etherium. They served as shields or cannon fodder and were mainly used to form a pool of consciousness ready to transfer for the constant renewal of the Vectide units. Moreover, by applying the same transfer system to their buildings as to their soldiers, the Vectides have made the majority of their infrastructures utterly invincible, each one designed to protect the eternal spirits of the Vectides who control it.

But their technology has left them utterly reliant on the harvest: the cells that keep their consciousness alive feed on etherium, and the survival of the Vectides now depends on victory over the other factions. But will they be strong enough to win?