Viktor DuSang
Baby Ren
Name: Khil'Hek
Region: Unknown Region
System: System 24T
Suns: 1, 24T, Black Hole
Orbital Position: Outer edge of 24T's Accretion Disc
Moons: Lotus Ring
System Features: A cloud of asteroids and dwarf planets locked in orbit around 24T.
Coordinates: 11 horizontal, 6 vertical
Rotational Period: Tidally Locked to 24T, no rotation
Orbital Period: 93.45 days
Class: Terrestrial
Diameter: 12,105 km
Atmosphere: Type 1
Climate: Frozen
Gravity: Standard
Primary Terrain: Deserts, Mountains, Frozen Oceans
Native Species: Khil'Heki (Extinct)
Immigrated Species: None.
Primary Languages: Khil'Heki
Government: None
Population: None
Demonym: Khil'Heki
Major Imports: None.
Major Exports: None.
Affiliation: None.
Major Locations:
Tomb of the Sol -
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On the tidally locked hemisphere of Khil'Hek rests the Tomb of the Sol. The resting place for the Sol Council sits at the base of a large mountain. The complex itself runs deep underground, making it's way into the mountain. In this unhallowed location sits the archives of the Khil'Heki, a vast database on all of their research done throughout their existence.
It's here that the Rogue Sith base is located. The location was scoped out for it's strategic value. Not only can a majority of the Khil'Heki research continue here, but it is heavily guarded with large turrets, missile batteries, and mine fields left behind by the extinct Khil'Heki.
Lotus Ring -
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The Lotus Ring is a supermassive fusion reactor that orbits Khil'Hek. Built when their star was destroyed, the Lotus Ring was intended to bring much needed power to the Khil'Heki people. However, the project was so massive and time consuming, by it's completion, the Khil'Heki were no more.
The Ring collects gases from 24T's Accretion Disc, sending gargantuan bolts of electricity down to power relays on the planet's surface. The surge of electricity heats the surrounding area, flash steaming water all around the surface, sending water vapor into the air. Because of this, Khil'Hek has a working water cycle.
Since the Sith started their massive base on ground, parts of the Lotus Ring that have been inactive for thousands of years have been converted into massive shipyards. These shipyards have also been fitted with Sith-grade AA turrets and missile batteries. Although ancient, the superstructure still operates at about 7% efficiency, which is more than enough to power the shipyard and Tomb of the Sol.
Essentially, the Lotus Ring is nothing more than a power plant. If one were to overload the generators, they would only succeed in destroying the structure. No aspect of the Lotus Ring could be converted into a superweapon. However, in theory, if the right modifications were made, the Lotus Ring could be used to power a superweapon.
Mox Relays -
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Artist - Chippy
Following the basic shape of the Lotus Ring, along Khil'Hek's surface runs a series of gigantic obelisks that are around 300 km apart. These structures serve as relays for the bolts of electricity that are shot off from the Lotus Ring. Each relay is connected to each other through miles of underground tunnels filled with massive cables that help conduct electricity across the planet's underground grid.
Over time, a lot of the insulation of the cables has deteriorated, causing bolts of electricity to arc across the tunnels, or fly up from the ground from a damaged subterranean cable. One of the first things the Sith team made sure to do was to map out the grid. It allowed them to power a lot of the equipment needed to get their base up and running.
Whispering Ocean -
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Locked in permanent dusk, the Whispering Ocean is a place of constant shifting plates of ice. The tidal pull of 24T causes cracks in the ice. The shift in water causes large sheets of ice to shoot up, launching on top of neighboring sheets. Huge plumes of water shoot high into the atmosphere, freezing in the cold air. Every so often, chunks of Infinite Empire ships shoot up with the ice.
As the chunks fall back towards Khil'Hek, they create strange sounds. The Sith researchers equated the sound to whispers on the wind. But Khil'Hek is tidally locked, it has no wind.
Culture: From the earliest recorded histories, the Khi'Heki were always a peaceful people. From the Stone Age to the point the Sol deemed 'The Renaissance', weapons were only developed for protection and hunting. All Khil'Heki treated one another with respect and admiration. They embraced each other with open arms, and mourned passionately each time a Khil'Heki passed.
Truly, their own mortality was the only thing that the Khil'Heki worried about when dealing with each other. Their legends reflected this, creating a deity of death. A projection of their greatest fears. They called him Yawgmuul. Eventually, an entire religion was created in reverence of him. However, he wasn't a malicious deity. The legends stated that Yawgmuul called his children home because he missed them.
Over time, religion gave way to science. Yawgmuul was forgotten, making way for advancements in the Khil'Heki civilization. In time, they even discovered they weren't alone in the Galaxy. They welcomed these outsiders with open arms, although they were rather reclusive. The Khil'Heki sent their best and brightest out into the various corners of the Galaxy so they could learn new studies in medicine and genetics.
The return of these scholars began The Golden Age. This collaboration of Galactic knowledge helped fuel decades of applied sciences. Receiving what they needed from the Galaxy, they fell back into a philosophy of isolationism. The Khil'Heki kept themselves rather busy with expanding their lifespans, and dealing with the agricultural problems of a swelling population.
But when science was exhausted, they turned to augmentation. Robotics was a blossoming field, and if they could somehow integrate synthetic parts with Khil'Heki anatomy, then truly they could conquer death. There was a significant problem, however, Khil'Heki scientists had no idea on how to integrate robotics with flesh. They started with a small test group.
The initial experiments were disastrous. The integration was a total failure, as the test subjects' bodies began violently rejecting the machines. Out of a dozen test subjects, only one survived longer than 48 hours post-surgery. And that was because they had hooked the last surviving test subject to a series of life support systems. They prolonged his suffering to see where they had went wrong.
They took that research and applied it to another group of test subjects, with the same result. They experimented on the elderly. On those in the prime of their lives. Children. Even newborns. Every test a bitter failure. Of course, the body count started to raise some serious questions on the ethics involved. The Khil'Heki wanted to achieve immortality, but the costs for such an ambitious project started to weigh heavily on the populace.
Once more, they sent scholars out into the Galaxy to find answers.
A team of scholars discovered alchemical tomes that could possibly help with the integration. Normally, scientists would scoff at such a notion, but the Khil'Heki were desperate. The Sol refer to this moment as the beginning of the Renaissance. Peaceful, reclusive people were turned into savage abominations. The weaker beings were killed off, their parts used in making bigger, stronger Khil'Heki.
The sole concern of the Khil'Heki became the survival of the self. In this madness, the oceans became polluted with oil and blood. The very air became thick with smog. Various body parts and corpses piled up like mountains. But there was a system to it. An intelligence. From these mountains of the macabre rose the Sol, a collective voice that unified the Khil'Hek.
They saw the Khil'Heki as the perfection sought for so many years. Immortality was a gift granted only for the strong. Under the Sol's rule, the Khil'Heki built new structures to build better parts. Mined further into the crust to find better metals. In the darkness, the Khil'Heki found everything they sought from the dawn of their civilization; escape from death, and the fear associated with it.
Even after the Infinite Empire killed off their sun, the Khil'Heki did not fear death. The Sol set forth the ambitious project of constructing the Lotus Ring and Mox Relays. Although the scale of this project was too large to be constructed in time that would've saved the Khil'Heki, the Khil'Heki gave everything to complete the projects. An eerie testament to their devotion to the Sol.
Technology: Galactic Standard during Rise of the Infinite Empire.
History: Khil'Hek is a world that time forgot, and for good measure. Some of the most barbaric acts in the history of the Universe have occurred here. The Khil'Heki were once a vibrant people. A society of scientists and philosophers. They were not burdened with wars or territorial disputes. As a people, they only sought safety from one thing; their own mortality.
Instead of developing technology for war or space travel, their work focused on genetics and medicine. In a decade, the average Khil'Heki lifespan went from 90 to 250. And yet, that still wasn't enough for them as a people. So when they had exhausted the fields of medicine and science, they put their focus into robotics.
This was a dark period for Khil'Hek. Up until this point, ethics were never questioned in research. But when provided with the dilemma of mixing man and machine, there were a lot of instances where experiments turned brutal. Hundreds of test subjects suffered unbearable agony, many taking weeks to finally receive the sweet release of death. Still, they were no closer to elongating their lifespans. The Khil'Heki began trying alternative methods.
Eventually, it lead to using dark side alchemy to merge flesh and steel. But where did the machine end and the man end? The original test group consisted of twenty subjects, but something went hideously wrong. Some cross between the machine and alchemy twisted the subjects' brains, making them feral and vicious. The scientists tried everything they could to revert their minds to the peaceful mentality of the Khil'Heki. Eventually, these horrible creations escaped from captivity, turning the scientists into the same abominations they created. These creatures scoured the land, assimilating all that they came across.
In a year, all life on Khil'Hek was a mutated combination of flesh and machine. They had never encountered war, so the savage abominations had no trouble assimilating the entire race. Pollution poisoned the air and water. Oceans and streams ran a deep crimson. With nothing left to conquer, the Khil'Heki turned on themselves. Utopian Communism was replaced with Darwinist Totalitarianism. Not only did the strong survive, they ruled as well.
Rising to the top of the social order, five individuals took charge of the Khil'Heki people. Dubbing themselves the Sol, they ruled the world with an iron fist. Their rule brought darkness, bloodshed, and cruelty to the world.
Around 50,000 BBY, a Rakatan survey team landed on Khil'Hek to survey it as a possible new conquest for the Infinite Empire. The Khil'Heki slaughtered the surveyors, bringing them into their numbers. When the Infinite Empire's armies showed up, they were greeted with the twisted remnants of their fallen comrades. The sight horrified the troops, and in their demoralized state, they were also slaughtered and assimilated with the Khil'Heki horde.
Not wanting to send any other armies to the world, the Rakatan overlords decided it was best to bomb the planet from orbit. But nothing they threw at the Khil'Heki stopped them. They continued to thrive on their polluted wasteland. The Infinite Empire extinguished the Khil'Heki sun, hoping the lack of energy from the star would lead to their extinction.
The Rakatans were correct in that assumption.
But the Khil'Heki didn't die out without a fight. Using the Infinite Empire's ships that were left behind on Khil'Heki, they began to construct the Lotus Ring that now rotates throughout the planet. An ambitious project, but one that only sped up the demise of the savage race. By the time the structure was complete, most of the race had already died out. The lack of organic material and energy from a nearby star caused the race to eventually starve themselves out.
Even the energy from the Lotus Ring couldn't bring the long dead Sol back to life to lead the Khil'Heki to glory.
As a rogue planet, Khil'Heki drifted for tens of thousands of years through empty space. The chemical compositions of the pollutants eventually breaking down, leaving the atmosphere breathable and the water drinkable. Even the fuel in the fusion reactors eventually went out, and for many millennia, Khil'Hek was a dead planet.
About a century ago, the rogue planet got caught up in the gravity of the black hole 24T. Eventually, it was brought into the collapsed star's accretion ring. The sudden influx of gases caused the Lotus Ring to come back to life, blanketing the planet in bolts of electricity. These spikes in electrical energy blanketed by the large waves of gravity and gamma radiation coming out of the black hole.
Until a survey team from One Sith discovered the planet when passing through the system. It took almost a decade, but a research team was finally able to translate the Khil'Heki language, and the researchers finally caught on to the amount of data in the archives. Many resources were poured into the Khil'Heki Project, in an attempt to regain some of the savagery that so easily struck fear into the hearts of the Infinite Empire.
Notable PCs: None.
Intent: To win dat sweet, sweet competition.
