Difference between revisions of "Kraeton"

Revision as of 19:03, 17 January 2007

In the Future Tech Universe of NationStates.net, the Kraeton are a hegemonizing gestalt race of countless creatures spawned through a controlled form of speciation. Kraetons travel from planet to planet, stripping the worlds of all life and resources. All Kraetons are under the rule of a Gestaltmind Node called the Caedes, which are in turn controlled by the planetoid Omnilord. Everything about the Kraetons deal with one concept: Efficiency. Efficient hunters, efficient killers, efficient evolution.

Physiology

Kraetons have many characteristics of reptiles and insects in terms of how they look.

1. Kraetons have 8 appendages. These are usually the body parts that are the most evolved, varying from wings to claws, scythes and swords, hooks and guns and some times vestigial.

2. Kraetons have 8 jaws. The first pair are the main ones, similar to the Xenomorph or Tyanids jaws. The next two pair are on opposite sides of the main jaws and are capable of moving independently from the main jaws. They lock into the prey and rip it apart. The final pair are the slicing jaws. These are like an ant's jaws, slicing horizontally instead of vertically like the other jaws. Again, these jaws are changed through the different species.

3. Kraetons have elongated tongues on which they have four chitinous daggers on the end like a claw. Their tongue muscles are very strong, capable of lifting a man.

4. Kraetons have a chitinous exoskeleton as well as an endoskeleton.

5. All Kraetons have 4 eyes. Again, because of their constant evolution, they can serve different purposes or none whatsoever.

6. All Kraetons are able to fire acidic saliva and/or napalmic bile from special sacs in their jaws.

7. All Kraetons have poisonous and somewhat diseased blood. Handle dead bodies with caution.

8. All Kraetons have a series of sensory organs with special electroreceptor cells that can sense movement as well as the bioelectricity of a living organism.

9. Finally Kraetons are immune to radiation; however the shockwave and heat of the nuclear blast will kill the smaller units and injure their larger cousins. Still not an effective way to kill them but it works. In the Battle of Yahil, the Kraetons survived the nuclear holocaust by simply burrowing. The majority survived although those caught in the center of the blast were killed outright.

Species of Kraetons

Species List in Evolutionary Order

Omnilord

Kraetus Deus

This is the culmination of countless Larvaeton bodies all bred together over the planet Kraetus to create the Gestalt Mind of the Kraeton. He is the size of a planet and controls the very creation of every single unit ever created. Many times the fleet of bioships are sent ahead of him and out of his synaptic control. Thus, Caedes Gestaltmind Nodes are created in the form of sentient creatures (nicknamed Caedes) that rule over the horde.

Larvaetons

Kraetus Primus

The basic organism of all Kraeton Evolution, this creature can become the several species and structures of the Kraeton Hive Fleet. 2 inches long. Harmless by themselves but destructive in groups.

Shrykas

Kraetus Gurculio

The evolved form of Larvaetons, these are much more dangerous. They have 8 legs, sharp jaws, and a paralyzing barbed tail. Shrykas impale their hosts before burrowing into the body and laying their eggs. Every so often one Shryka is born with a special form of the Caedes Gene that allows them to bond with the host and create a Caedes Gestaltmind Node that controls the Fleet.

Caedes

Kraetus Dominus

The Caedes Gestaltmind Node(s) control the fleets for the Omnilord. They have complete control over the genetic splicing of the race and come with formidable psychic powers. Although completely sentient, they are still under the control of the Omnilord. The Caedes ensures that the lesser and greater Kraetons stay within control of the gestalt, for once a Kraeton is out of his range, the Kraeton(s) revert to their feral stage. The Caedes is created by a special Shryka with a mutation of the Caedes Gene. When they burrow into a host's body, instead of laying eggs they meld with the host and thus the Caedes is created.

The Caedes Artifice

When the Caedes is killed, the entire brood that he/she was watching over will revert to a vicious and feral state, killing nearly anything that moves. However, within the genetic coding of all Kraetons, multiple Shrykas will be spawned with Caedes mutation and thus there are multiple Caedes, each one fighting for dominancy until there is only one.

Landbased Kraetons

Asesinos: Kraetus Homicidae These are the shock troops of the Kraetons Gestalt, traveling in groups (known as Murders) as small as 14 to as large as a massive horde. They are the embodiment of the living flood of scythes and flesh, the oldest complex Kraeton created. Each Asesino is the size of a horse and runs on four legs (the other four legs have grown frail and have become vestigial). Every Asesino is capable of firing an acidic saliva and/or a napalmic bile from two sacs in their mouths. They are poisonous and many have evolutionary augments that make them more powerful (Adrenal Glands, Enhanced Sensory Organs, Augmented Muscular System, etc.).

Sicari: Kraetus Cassius This is an evolutionary jump for the Asesinos, acting as command units for the murder of Asesinos (although there have been cases where the Sicari act as independant creatures). 15 feet long with 15 feet tendrils, they are biologically superior to the Asesinos, having the Muscular Augments and Adrenal Glands naturally. These strong muscles are needed for the incredible agility it has, as well as holding it up with the ten tendrils on its back. These tendrils are very strong with four chitinous daggers on the ends of each tentacle, used for movement and mostly for ambush killing.

A covert ops type unit for the Kraetons, they trade the chitinous carapace for agility and stealth. Their skin cells are actually specialized Kraetozoa that use the pigment chemical reactions to bend light around the creature, making it virtually invisible. The lateral line sensory organs are enhanced greatly, making it a perfect hunter. Within its body is a special gland that controls the body temperature of the Sicari, keeping it either at a constant 112 degrees or changing it to match the environment.

Falxifer: Kraetus Falcis These are another evolution of the Asesinos, newly created. These were first seen on the planet Gheistarch by the Wandarjarian Armada. They are the size of raptors and are similar in build. Their chitinous armour is light but still very durable. They are best known for their frontal claws, having three long sickles for each finger. They are the fastest and are known to hunt in packs, having an alpha male known as the Scythewielder. The alpha male is larger and their scythe fingers are much sharper and more durable. This is a close combat unit exclusively, even with their acid/napalm.

Tiiacari: Kraetus Polyboli These cousins of the Asesinos are known as the "walking battlecannons". They are one of the few basic shock troops that retain full use of all eight legs. Their body structure is similar to a spider, with their body fully armoured and able to roll into a protective ball that allows the Tiiacari to roll at fast speeds. Tiiacari are the size of Asesinos only more stock. The jaws in the front have taken a strange evolutionary turn, becoming actual bioplasma guns to assault the enemy.

Ballista: Kraetus Nex

Infector: Kraetus Aegrotationis This is known in the Kraeton sciences as a Godslayer,

Bioweapons

Bioplasma Cannons/Guns: Similar to actual plasma weaponry, this is created usually in the arms with several glands that mix together liquids creating a chemical reaction that help to launch the plasma at high velocity speeds. Found on moor advanced units and Broodships. NOTE The only unit that has bioplasma guns that aren’t on their arms are the Volucari, whose legs have actually become the bioplasma guns.

Acidic Saliva: A highly corrosive solution stored in a special gland that can break down matter at a molecular level. Highly reactive against metals and rock, this is used against troops and vehicles as well as digging through tunnels. All units can have this.

Napalmic Bile: A reactive substance that is similar to napalm, it is a very flammable and volatile liquid secreted from a special gland in the mouth of a Kraeton. All units can have this.

Spike Projectiles: Large chitinous spikes as tough as adamantine that are fired from special pores on a Kraeton's body with the use of a special set of muscles and nerve clumps that act as an organic "railgun", launching spikes at high speeds. On more advanced units. The Broodships have larger spike projectiles call "Biorailguns". This is a larger clump of special muscles and nerve clumps that charge bioelectricity through the "cannon", launching a special armour piece that is high in adamantine content, making it a high velocity impact shell. Shells coming in impact and explosive.

Kraeton Cardiac Larvaetons: Contained inside some projectiles are special breeds of Larvaeton called Cardiac Larvaeton that once inserted into the body, escape the bullet and begin eating through the body at a fast rate, following the rhythm of the heart and eating through any amount of flesh before finding the heart. Once found, they begin constricting the muscle and devouring the heart, leaving the unit dead within a minute of being shot. On all units except the Tiiacari and Volucari.

Plagued Emulsion: Only found on the Infector, it is a special acidic liquid mix of several biochemical toxins and diseases that can corrode through armour and infect entire armies with the plagued cocktail. It is so strong that even lesser Kraetons can be killed by it.

Pestilence Swarms: Only created by the Infector as well. These are living bullets, massive swarms are 2 inch long Kraeton-bees that, despite being small, has the most powerful teeth, first digging through armour with their sharp proboscis, then digging through the flesh with their jaws and the acidic saliva. Very deadly but highly weak against fire and explosives.

Organic Torpedoes: From the Broodships are special pores and vacuoles that launch explosive tubes of biomatter propelled at high velocities thanks to a chemical reaction where the "boosters" are. Comes in a variety of types, from impact to explosive to plasma.

Viral Ordinance Sometimes when a planet is too powerful to take over, the Broodships release countless spore containing toxins and viruses to kill off all lifeforms on the planet. This is usually not used since this destroys the resources that the Kraetons try to take from each planet.

Kraeton Organitechture

All Kraeton Organitechture is created by the bodies of Larvaetons. They are:

Cacuscudo Gestation Sac: Think of it like an HQ from Starcraft or WH40K Dawn of War. This is where all Kraetons are spawned, each Larvaeton having their growth accelerated exponentially to produce triplets of Kraetons. The Sac is the size of a bus. It then evolves into a Gestation Magen which is the size of a small building. Then it becomes a Gestation Organ the size of a massive fortress. The final evolution is rare and only a last resort, when the Cacuscudo Gestation Organ uproots itself and becomes the Cacuscudo, the largest land based Kraeton. A walking fortress of bone and flesh, it retains its ability to create units while spearheading alien armies. Because of its huge girth, it collapses back onto the ground after a day, but not before inflicting mass destruction across the land.

Asphyxiation Spires: These coming in during the main part of the invasion. They take the atmosphere and strip it of oxygen, nitrogen, and argon, releasing a lethal miasma that can cause the world and all fauna and flora to suffocate.

Brood Glands: They create the Broodships for the Hive Fleet.

Assault Tendrils: Massive tendrils that attack ground units with their tentacles and spike projectiles.

Bile Towers: Massive skyscrapers of flesh and chitinous armour with bile glands that fire a napalmic liquid at airplanes and other aircraft.

Special Planetary Weaponary

NOTE: As of right now, these structures are only found on the Omnilord.

Plasma Ziggurats These are massive towers of chitinous armour and hardened flesh, each with countless plasma turrents coming from the pores. They range from the size of a skyscraper to literally protruding from the planet's surface.

Rail-gun Silos Similar to the Rail-gun organitechnology, these work similarly to the Plasma Guns and are about the same size.

Ballistic Minarets These are the torpedo launchers of the Omnilord. Works similarly to the first two and multiple types of missiles are available.

History

Kraetus

The Kraetons began ironically as an evolutionary mistake on the planet Kraetus, located in the now know galaxy NGC 1232 in the Eridanus Cluster. The planet Kraetus was a jungle planet, brimming with dangerous and deadly life forms that hunted and survived against the hunters. On this planet were a leech-like species called the Larvaetons. These Larvaetons were utterly defenseless, no known skeletal system, having only primitive sensory organs and were only able to eat algae. These creature reproduced by mitosis. The Larvaetons were the main course of countless species of plant life, avian predators, and aquatic life forms. Even at the bottom of the food chain, they still survived for millennia unchanged.

There came a time when an alien race known as the Yahil arrived on Kraetus. Fascinated by the wildlife there, they happened to stumble upon the Kraetons. After analysis, it was shown that the Larvaetons were edible and had a chemical that made them addicting. Utilizing these Larvaetons, they began harvesting them for food and traded them to other races, making incredible profits from the small creatures. Soon countless races were addicted to the meat of the Larvaetons and the Yahil began to run culinary businesses dedicated to the preperation of Larvaeton meat.

Extinction

After a century of uncontrolled garnering, the Larvaetons were almost driven to extinction. Only a few hundred were left and they were being picked off by the predators of Kraetus. Seeing that their main source of profit was almost destroyed, the Yahil took the genetic code of the Larvaetons and began cloning them in laboratories to continue the trade.

However, something short of a miracle happened. Amongst a handful of Larvaetons was the Caedes Gene, long dormant for millennia but now becoming awakened after countless generations of Larvaetons. This gene had special properties that even now are still mostly unknown. What is known is that the entire genetic structure of the Larvaetons was changed forever. Larvaetons began growing small teeth and more advanced sensory organs. The way they reproduced had changed from mitosis to asexual breeding. They could even change their genetic structure at will, but because of lack of sentience, the changes were sporadic. The most drastic change was the metamorphosis that they would undergo, turning into the Shrykas, a cat-sized organism with spidery scythe-legs and a paralyzing barbed tail. The Shryka would attack a creature and burrow into the body, laying hundreds of eggs filled with Larvaetons ready to hatch.

After only sixty years, the entire planet was covered with Larvaetons. Every life form and flora had been consumed, leaving only the Larvaetons and Shrykas as the inheritors of Kraetus, covering every square inch of Kraetus. When the Yahil saw this, they became ecstatic that their food had returned in greater numbers and went into a full scale harvest, ready to reap the entire population (According to Yahil records, there were approx. 1,989 billion Kraetons covering the land and oceans). When scouts were sent, however, they never returned. The Yahil sent a military scout shuttle with observation equipment to see what was going on. What the Yahil saw horrified them. The living tide of Larvaetons surged around the squad and covered them, suffocating them and stripping them of their flesh. The Yahil onboard the mother ship panicked and set up a beacon to keep other races away while a massive tactical orbital strike ordinance fleet was dispatched from the home world to Kraetus to destroy this potential threat.

The Battle of Kraetus and The Creation of The Omnilord

As the fleet drew closer, the Larvaetons continued writhing amongst the planet they had claimed, it became clear that although they were the best survivors, they had completely destroyed all food on Kraetus and faced extinction again. But the Caedes Gene had struck again. Inside each Larvaeton were special cells called Kraetozoa that acted as a psychic conduit/capacitor/producer. This gave the Larvaeton small amounts of latent psychic energies that extended through the synapses in their skin. Each Larvaeton became something like a living brain cell and thus the psychic Kraetonous entity later known to all as the Omnilord was created.

Fully aware of the situation, the gestalt entity began controlling the Larvaetons’ genetically, causing their biomatter to degenerate and meld into a sort of skin around the planet. This “skin” began taking the resources and nutrients from the planet. The first Kraetonous Organitechture began forming. First were the defenses, Plasma Ziggurats, Rail-gun Silos, and Ballistic Minarets. All of which were massive protrusions from the planet, ready to fire down any and all fleets. Brood Glands were spawned and began production of massive Broodships and smaller fighters called Raveners. These were the mainstay of the Gestalt Fleet and they came in the thousands.

When the Yahil fleet arrived, they were immediately met with a shower of plasma bolts, organic missles, and fighters. The Raveners tored through the other fighters and frigates while the Broodships neared the frigates, launching spores into the ships. The newly bred species Asesino and Sicari swarmed out of the pods, slaughtering the entire crew and stealing their genetic material for the Omnilord’s analysis.

The fleet had been annihilated, all remenants destroyed. The Kraetons had just made their presence known.

The Great Red Dragon

A decade after the Battle of Kraetus and the Omnilord had matured. The crust and core of the planet had been expelled and only the organism was left. The brain matter and genetic material taken by the Sicari had given the Kraetons the weaknesses and location of their home world. Evolving a bio-warp-drive after years of evolutionary failures, the fleet, now codenamed the Kraeton Gestalt Red Dragon, warped into the Yahilian airspace. The battle ensued.

The Kraetons began bombarding the planet with orbital plasma blasts and spores, unleashing the Asesinos and Sicari, as well as the air-based Volucari, onto the populace. The Yahil fought hard, using their titanic war machines to wipe out countless Kraetons. For every one they killed, however, fifty more took their place. It wasn’t long until the Yahil feared being completely overrun and as a last ditch effort, they set off every nuclear weapon they had onto the Kraetons, effectively killing the majority of their population. When the dust settled, however, the Yahil cried tears of sorrow as the Kraetons emerged from the ground, having buried themselves to keep safe from the nuclear blasts. In the ending weeks, the Yahil was hunted and devoured, the war turning into extermination. The Omnilord felt a sense of pleasure killing off their previous predators. The fleet moved on.

Into the Solarium Galaxy

Dec. 21, 2012

Millions of years later, the Kraetons had wiped all life from the Eridanus Cluster and moved on to another galaxy. They came towards a super massive black hole that normally would have been closed to all. Unfortunately, a rare event happened, where the black hole’s tunnel intersected into the Milky Way’s tunnel, allowing access to the Milky Way, aka the Solarium Galaxy. There the Omnilord, now old and suffering from an insatiable hunger, sent all fleets to devour a new galaxy. And thus brings us to the present state of the Gestalt Red Dragon, a massive and high speciated race of killing machines.

The Caedes Gene

The Caedes Gene is what makes the Kraetons so adaptable to other planets and against other enemies. Although it is unknown that the DNA structure of the original Larvaeton was, the Caedes Gene has changed it to having 20 base pairs instead of whatever the original was. This makes the DNA more mutable and unstable, yet the Caedes Gene has somehow complete control over the DNA.