The Askari

An old race caught in the throes of a half-finished uplift, the Askari are mighty warriors and rigidly honorable, for their own concepts of honor. Fractious and territorial, the Askari have been a broken state ever since the end of the Askari War, but their use as mercenaries and old experience in galactic warfare make them major players even in their reduced state.

When Gods touched Men
The species that would become Askari were large, reptilian herbivores who had evolved on Maktaan in something of a 'defensive prey' role. Their bodies were inclined to growing tough muscle and hardy flesh, and their front legs- which held sharp digging claws and the beginnings of opposable digits- while excellent digging and support beams, were equally excellent for beating and stabbing an aggressor, making the herd-based creatures unappetizing targets for predation. This allowed their population to grow based on nomadic movements from food source to food source.

At the end of their primitive period, the proto-Askari were learning to use agriculture instead of naturally cultivated food sources when the Maran-uoun made contact with and chose to uplift the impressive specimens. The Maran-uoun had long suffered in battle against Progenitor Augments; their own forms, and those of most of their vassal species, were insufficient in the face of multifarious alien combat-forms, and the hunt for a suitable shocktrooper type was made in earnest. The tough and very strong reptilians, with their herd mentality and blooming intelligence, seemed the perfect candidates.

Their impressive ability to grow muscle and tough flesh was increased, and natural limits broken in every literal sense; the Askari gained the ability to grow larger and stronger than ever before, and indeed would continue to until its body collapsed on itself, burdened by an inability to support its own bulk. When it became clear that this was no easy to reverse- and undesirable, given Maran-uoun needs- cybernetics were routinely added to the older and stronger subjects.

The Maran-uoun lost the war, as did their Progenitor enemies, but the Askari were some of the few to survive by virtue of being relatively non-tech minded and extremely savvy; the few machines they owned natively, they shut down or destroyed, and roving fleets of Von Neumann machines missed the small dot of inactivity that was Maktaan. Though all offworld population was scoured from the galaxy, the Askari as a species survived.

Scrambling up a mountain without feet.
The problem with the Askari Empire was never a lack of intelligence. Even when separating their people into castes, it was obvious to observers that Askari are not a "dumb" race. The Askari are, instead, stubborn and fractious. It took three millennia for the broken clans to unite after frequent inter-group fighting. Over the intervening seven, the Askari waxed and waned in power, sometimes shrinking and sometimes expanding. This kept the empire in a manageable region- to date it is the most longterm and stable polity in provable history- but also kept interclan disputes and differences hot and clear. When the Terran Directorate forced terms of surrender on the Askari ruling caste, it proved to be the single thing required to shatter an already strained empire; stripping away the air of invincibility that the Askari had built up over the millennia.

Askari society is based on eight clans, in which there are warriors, workers and rulers. The ruling caste is an invention rather than a natural evolution; because the Askari sense of smell is so well defined, they can tell one who is a part of the herd apart from one who is not, and will often come to blows based on invading males, much as females will fight foreign females. The rulers, by contrast, are hermaphroditic. Although they are completely sterile because of this, their pheromones and odors are neutral and conciliating, commanding a subtle respect by virtue of 'always' being part of any given 'herd'. This provides a great force of direction and prevents problems within the clans; once the empire split apart, however, the clans began to identify common markers within themselves and within others, leading to a series of new divisions.

Each clan has a separate idea of how to work with nearly everything. For Clan Orektikin, technological improvement is the end all and be all, with their reasoning being that it wasn't superior valor, but superior technology that allowed humanity to defeat the old empire. For Clan Marrok, because of its refusal to use the cloning technologies endemic to the Askari war machine, technology is also the answer; however, their dismissal of many technologies as unbefitting a soldier of the empire has led them to seek the aid of outsiders, and to date they are the most amenable to foreign contact, citing what they see as the great honor and cunning of Terran troops and leaders. This continues in such a way that alliances are fluid, and so too are clans; while names often remain the same, all clans have seen upheaval and reformation

Technologically, Askari are fond of cybernetics, to the point where their pilots and most of their transport craft do not have a full pilot body so much as a brain sustained by a small life support unit and wired into the vessel. Protected from accelerations, this gives their fighters superior longterm maneuverability that only heavily augmented Terragens, Ibnasi and other true synthetics can really begin to match. Favoring heavy armor with supplemental deflector screens, Askari vessels are high-accel, low velocity change sluggers designed to close under the cover of particle beam and missile fire to either pound an enemy with their peculiar semi-guided Shard weapons or to board them, if the opportunity arises. As boarding is a rare occurrence, most experience of their vessels is by seeing them firsthand tearing into an enemy hull.

As a result of a general bushido-like warrior ethic and the widespread use of cloning technology- to say nothing of their own imminent mortality, should they prove successful- Askari have a very dim view of the value of individual life, and so they are highly sought after for mercenaries; clans are well known for sending entire corps out to buyers in exchange for the simple currency of the galaxy; raw material. Such shocktroopers are especially sought after by the Morningstars, but any polity with the means can buy them, and it isn't uncommon to see clan politics play out on battlefields hundreds or thousands of lightyears from Askari space.