| Hydrothi | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
| General Information | |||
| Homeworld | Hydroth | ||
| Intelligence | Sapient | ||
| Biochemistry | Carbon-based lifeform | ||
| Biological Information | |||
| Locomotion | "Quadrupedal" crawling in natural environment, but can walk "bipedally" in lower gravity environments. | ||
| Feeding Behavior | Filter-feeder | ||
| Predators | Xrondo | ||
| Lineage Information | |||
| Cultural Information | |||
| Personality | Formerly Peace-loving, but have become cruel killers and slavers since subjugation by the Zolacians during the fall of the Troika. | ||
| Affiliation(s) | Troika (Dispanded) Crux Space Piracy | ||
| Sociocultral characteristics | |||
| Scientific Taxonomy | |||
| Planet | Hydroth | ||
| Other Information | |||
| Creator | Somarinoa | ||
The Hydrothi are an invertebrate sapient species native to planet Hydroth. Originally a peaceful race, years of Zolacian subjugation has transformed them into bloodthirsty monsters, which makes them an excellent addition to the Crux, who discovered Hydroth and uplifted them along the Zazlotl, Ghazra and Lyssh while enslaving the Zolacians.
The Discovery of the "Others"
The Hydrothi were eventually discovered by two other sentients races from the other submerged continents of their homeworld, crossing the great abyssal plains in strange vessels. The first of these strange sentients was the Zazlotl, strange amphibian like beings. The other sentient race was the Zolacian, which they were distantly related to, belonging two the same phylum. Unlike themselves, the Zolacian were paranoid and aggressive compared to them, but the Zolacians. Nevertheless, the Hydrothi soon became allies of the Zazlotl and the Zolacians, and together they formed the Troika, a Utopian society in which all three races prospered under.
An Unintentional Betrayal & the Collapse of the Troika
It was not more than a few hundred years before the Zazlotl came across the Ghazra. They soon discovered that the Ghazra were not hostile to them like they were to the Zolacians, and the two species were able to set up a relationship with one another. No harm came from this for quite a while, leading to even more prosperous times where the Troika's combined technologies influenced the few tools of the Ghazra. However, when the Zolacians discovered their original allies had become good friends with the hostile Ghazra, they took this as an omen. Believing it would lead to the downfall of their beloved Troika, the Zolacian leaders confronted those of the Zazlotl, initially pleading with and eventually ordering them to cut all ties to the "free-swimming monstrosities". The Zazlotl, taken aback by this order, refused, inciting their own freedom and will to do as they chose fit.
For the first few months after this dual-race council meeting, the Zolacians lived in complete fear for their lives, every day filling them with the dread of an attack, while every night filled them with nightmares of the same. This fear within their general populace led to anger in their councilors, who incited that they had lost the peace they had striven so hard to obtain. With the Zazlotl utterly refusing to cut off their relations to the Ghazra, the Zolacian council chose to go to war.
Not expecting these results at all, the Zazlotl were far from prepared, and large numbers of their kind were annihilated within a few days' time. Many Zazlotls fled their ancestral lands and moved into Ghazra territory, where they were welcomed by open fins. Here the two races retaliated against the zealous Zolacians, and for a while they seemed like they would win. But when the Hydrothi were ordered to be enlisted into the former Troika's armies, the tides quickly turned, and both the Zazlotl and the Ghazra were beaten into submission, both their technological levels being stripped from them, forcing them back to a near-tribal era.
The peace-loving Hydrothi were traumatized by what they had been apart of, and when the Zolacians explained at another meeting of their intent to bring the Lyssh to their knee-equivalents to prevent them from also affecting the overall safety of both species, the Hydrothi shakingly told their allies that they could not participate in the oncoming battles, as their hands were already too stained with the blood of others, and they could not let their people perform such a terrible act again, which had brought their entire populace into a dark, brooding depression. The Zolacians were disheartened by this, and reluctantly agreed to the terms; soon the Zolacian army was off to bring down the Lyssh culture as well. This species proved hardier than the two before it, and many Zolacian soldiers were killed in the ensuing battles; however, they eventually won with numbers, and the Lyssh too were beaten back.
With the few surviving soldiers returned to their home cities, the councilors began to secretly distrust their allies, the Hydrothi. Why had they chosen not to fight alongside them? If they had, perhaps the casualties on their side would have been far less, and the war would have been won far sooner. Fearful as ever, they began to wonder if the Hydrothi may one day conspire against them, as they sincerely believed the Zazlotl had before them. They eventually decided it was too risky to trust them not to, and with heavy heart-equivalents, they brought their remaining soldiers against their only remaining allies, choosing to do so under the cover of darkness. Few Hydrothi survived that bloody night; those that did were mostly larvae and juveniles, with a few adult females and males peppered sparsely between them. Those who did survive the onslaught were then forced back to their home continent, and like the others, their technology was stripped from them. With all other races beaten back into their tribal ages, the Zolacians became the absolute rulers of the world, which they named in their honor: Zolacia.
Eventually, those who performed the dark deeds with heavy heart-equivalents perished, and the old alliances were forgotten. The generations of Zolacians who followed would rule with iron phalanges.
The Hydrothi Subjugation and Transformation of the Hydrothi
The Zolacians ruled the planet of Zolacia for many thousands of years, keeping the other four sapient species in check due to what they considered as being their more hostile natures. Over time, they had lost their love for the Hydrothi and the Zazlotl, and they felt it a necessary evil to continue to keep the others at a third world technological level, preventing each from being able to properly rise up against the ridiculously more advanced Zolacians.
While the Zazlotl, Ghazra, and Lyssh did not fight back against their subjugators, the peaceful Hydrothi grew increasingly enraged over time. They did not see it fair how the Zolacians treated them, and over the course of a few hundred years, with their levels of technology constantly being hampered, they became desperate. Some of the more desperate Hydrothi chose to perform espionage attacks against their overbearing neighbors, although this did not put much of a dent in the Zolacian way of life, and led to many Hydrothian casualties, which then led to more Hydrothi terrorists, fueling the cycle all over again. As time went on, the secretive Hydrothi terrorists became more and more open to their own people about their standing, and as time went on, more and more peaceful Hydrothi began to join their ranks.
Although these Hydrothian terrorists were ashamed of the position they believed that they had been forced to take, this attitude transmogrified into a true hatred as the older generations died out and new generations took their place, ones who knew nothing of peace and only of war. In their bide to take back their freedom, they had become as violent as the Zolacians themselves.
At the same time, however, the Zolacians had reached a nearly Utopian society, minus the occasional terrorist attack made by the Hydrothi, and had begun to slowly become more passive in their attitudes, now that they no longer had to worry about predators or their sapient neighbors. Initially this caused them to war with themselves for the first few hundred years, but this quickly died down once they realized what they had been doing, and that it might be an exploitable weakness to their enemies.
They had finally learned of true peace and prosperity, and started to look back towards the Hydrothi for an ally in these, their most peaceful times...but it was too late. The Hydrothi had already converted to a vicious species, and it seemed as if the Zolacians and the Hydrothi had completely switched positions, with the Hydrothian viciousness heavily fueled by their blood-hatred for their cousins, the Zolacians. Disheartened at the massive change they had unintentionally caused their cousin-race, they sadly turned their backs to them once more, and continued to keep them in a third-world culture like the Zazlotl, Ghazra, and Lyssh.
Crux Invasion & Initial Xenophobia
Unfortunately for the Zolacian Empire, their rule was not meant to last forever. It was eventually discovered by the dreaded Crux, a huge group of space pirates led by the mysterious being, Cycrab. At first the Crux found nothing of interest other than water that they could leech from to provide their crews with much needed water, but reconnaissance scouts eventually discovered the huge submerged parapets of the Zolacian capitol city.
Thinking quickly, the Crux scanned the remainder of the planet, getting a feel for the opposition residing beneath the waves. They discovered the other races, too, but took note of their tribal lifestyles, and it was decided that they were of no threat and little consequence to the pirates; they were to be spared however, to attempt converting them into SKULLs, bands of masked gangs that do much of the Crux's dirty work on numerous worlds they secretly have holdings on, many of which were formed out of religious cults as fronts. With a general knowledge about what kind of resistance the Zolacians could hold, the pirates struck.
The war was almost equal, as although the Crux had far vaster numbers, they weren't built for taking a battle strictly underwater, while the Zolacians were "on their home turf". Despite their having lesser technologies than the pirates, they were beating them back somewhat, causing a barely unstable front line.
It was during this time that a Hydrothi terrorist cell moved into Zolacian territory and caught sight of this war. While initially dumbstruck at the existence of so many other sapient races in their midst, an air of sinister cleverness came over them, and they rushed back to their home continent. Returning to their leaders to hold a closed meeting, it was not long before they came to the realization that this might be their best chance to overthrow the Zolacians once and for all. However, without knowing the intent of the other races they witnessed, they could not be certain that taking out the Zolacians wouldn't spell doom for the entire planet, and thus, they moved delegates towards the other continents under cover of night, utilizing several stolen Zolacian vessels that the terrorist group that witnessed the war had stolen to return home quickly.
It took little effort to convince the other three races to strike the Zolacians at this, their most important hour, and soon the races had stolen several more Zolacian vessels to use as transport for the soldiers of the other four races to attack. The following decisive moments would determine the outcome of the Zolacian people, and with that, the entire world.
Notable Hydrothi
- Thrapp: High ranking Crux pirate serving under Seikrabh.
Allies
Being members of the Crux, the Hydrothi have several allies, including three from there own homeworld of Hydrothi.
Major Allies
Minor Allies
Enemies
The Hydrothi feel no love towards their former allies, the Zolacian, and continue to consider them mortal enemies. Through their open war, they also now consider any races allied with the Zolacians as foes, too.
Major Enemies
Minor Enemies
Gallery
