Krilgorian

Biology

Biology is not really an appropriate subject when dealing with Krilgorians. Looking at the average Krilgorian now, with all the machine augmentation they have provided to their bodies, it's often difficult to even see any biological life in there whatsoever. Where most legions followed a path of genetic engineering, Krils have always seen machinery as superior to nature and have made it a part of not only their own biology but of all complex life on the planet they have any use for, such as their pets.

Being their own predators, Krils have always been warriors, with the original, unmodified Krilgorian being a fearsome creature in its own right. Bipedal, and roughly not humanoid, the natural Kril resembles what could best be described as a gargoyle. Males and females are almost completely indistinguishable and equally powerful in all regards.

Seemingly always ready to pounce the 5 foot tall Kril (probably more like 7 foot but they are always crouching slightly), the unmodified Kril has only 3 pairs of limbs, one being a powerful set of legs, another being like arms and terminating with hand like appendages and the third being a small and fairly ineffective set of leathery wings protruding from its back. The Krilgorians legs are impressively powerful allowing it to leap nearly 4 times its own height. Never fully straightened, these legs terminate in a foot that resembles a raptor's claw with each toe equipped with a deadly talon capable of tearing even metal surfaces. The wings whilst not allowing the Kril to fly as such, do give it excellent control in the air meaning that a common from of attack from a Kril is from above. The arms are nothing special as stand alone weapons with the hand (3 fingers and an opposable thumb) generally used to utilise weaponry rather then be a weapon itself. Continuing from its lower back, the Kril has a reasonably long tail that terminates with 2 scythe like blades which create a distinctive whistling sound when whipped rapidly through the air. The Kril's short thick and well armoured neck holds a unique head that makes the nightmarish image of the Kril complete. It has 2 sets of orange eyes, one in the back of its skull and one in the front giving it excellent all around vision, a set of sharply pointed ears, 2 slits for its nose and a mouth that is accompanied by a nasty looking set of external mandibles. Totally hairless, viciously aggressive and with its bright red, leathery skin and a pair of bony protrusions that run front to back along its skull, it makes the hell that planet Krilgore is seem ever more apparent. Although rare, Krils of this nature can sill be found in the few ultra traditional warrior clans that refuse to be modified. Although seen as old fashioned by their peers, these unmodified warriors who only fight hand to hand with the most basic of weapons are highly respected.

The modified Kril is barely recognizable. Machinery clashes hideously with flesh and augments every bodily function. Ocular implants give it the ability to see in an impressively wide spectrum as well as zoom, record and replay images. Sub dermal implants allow extremes of heat to be tolerated. Lightweight synthetic plate armour with intelligent projectile sensing and dynamic rendering has been integrated with flesh on all vulnerable bodily surfaces. The wings are amputated early in life and replaced with dual docking bays which when activated can swing around onto the Krils shoulders or to its sides and are capable of carrying a wide range of peripheral devices. Its powerful legs are given further assistance with all the new weight by replacing the original leg bones with servo assisted titanium and complementing the muscle with billions of adrenaline carrying nanobots. The bone and flesh of the head has been augmented with plasteel to provide the appearance of a combat helmet with much the same function with a complex, retractable long distance communications array, a form of laser diffusing battle glass protects the eyes and can darken rapidly when bright light is detected. The heart, lungs and adrenal glands are replaced with superior machinery optimised for combat. The wrists and elbow joints have been strengthened with titanium joins and a set of retractable talons lashed to the bone of the forearm which can extend from the ends of the knuckles a distance of about 30cm when needed. Floating around in the Krilgorians bloodstream, billions of multipurpose nanobots complement the immune system, assist the digestive system and rapidly boost repair of damaged flesh as well as machine parts. Already a dangerous warrior as it stands, after augmentation, the Krilgorian is the most dangerous soldier there is.

About the only piece of original biology left in a Krilgorian is its brain which although assisted by peripheral devices, has been left fundamentally unmodified due to the fact that to date, Krilgorians have never been able to create a machine brain that even comes close to the intelligence and outright viciousness of the Krilgorian mind.

Government / Religion

Traditionally Krils arranged themselves in warrior clans, determined more by battle philosophy than bloodline and today the tradition remains strong, only that through contact with alien races and heavy modification, the once myriad clans have now reduced to only 4. Interclan warfare is much rarer now that an alien threat exists, as Krilgorians tend to unite against a greater threat. The leaders of each clan sit on the Krilgorian High Council which is the executive body of Krilgorian government and function amongst themselves pretty much as a democracy. There is no real election as such to determine the hierarchy within the clans, it is simply understood by all. Those with the greatest combat experience / genius are those at the top, it's very simple.

There is no religion in Krilgorian society, they do not worship external gods, but there is a sort of quasi religion, with Krils studying the lives of long dead warriors and paying homage to their memories.

Society / Behaviour

Krilgorian society is based completely around warfare. Even before birth, Krils are fighting. Krilgorian females are only capable of successfully carrying one foetus at a time through to birth, but they initially carry several. Battling it out in the womb only the strongest will survive. This concept carries right through Krilgorian society. Everything is a competition, every interaction is war, and only the strongest make it to the top.

As such, Krils do not make good dinner guests. They disagree with everything and everyone, often just for the sake of it, never with a good thing to say and eternally in a bad mood, Krils are just no fun to be around.

The Path to Space

The Krilgorian Legion demonstrates how strong a driving force warfare is behind technological progress. Constantly at war with each other, with the desire to develop new weaponry, Krilgorian technological progress has always been the most rapid of all the races, although that said, their applications of technology are almost always combat based and they miss important breakthroughs in areas such as communications and medicine. As such, they were the very first legion into space and the first to discover hypergate technology.

The Krilgorian Space Agency was born and by 1750 and with no shortage of metals or fuels it wasn't long before launches were occurring twice a week. Ever seeking new weapons and ways to deliver them, completely by accident, Krilgorians discovered jump gate technology in the year 1772. And discovering two gates from their own home sector sent automated probes through each, the first of which returned in 1804 bearing an unwelcome visitor.

The alien virus spread like wildfire, the disease it led to resulting in the accelerated disintegration of the skeletal system and breakdown of the lungs, and within 2 years it had practically wiped out the entire Krilgorian race. Physical augmentations began in a last ditched effort to combat the virus with artificial titanium bones and respiratory implants being inserted into infected individual to try and combat the disease. Luckily it worked and as the civilization slowly recovered and the virus was contained, it became apparent that the augmentations were making ordinary Krilgorian people feel physically stronger. With memories of the plague vividly etched in their minds, the Krilgorian civilization began to experiment with other forms of augmentation, from ocular implants that provided infra red and zoom vision, to sub-dermal implants that could protect against the extremes of heat and cold. As the Krilgorians realised how greatly their quality of life was increased, they began to modify every single organ of the body. In 2003, only two centuries after the Great Plague, the Krilgorian High Council approved a program that would begin the augmentation of Krilgorian children at the embryonic stage. Krilgorian children are born with over two hundred implants that will continually grow and auto-upgrade as the child develops.

Meanwhile the obsession with becoming a race of bionic warriors meant that some of the older technology took a back seat, but nonetheless during the 200 years after the plague, space technology was rediscovered and in 1991 the Krilgorian Space Agency reformed. Although less frequent, launches occurred regularly and without much public awareness in the year 2001 the first manned hyperjump was made by the Krilgorian legion. The success of this mission was however noticed and the Krilgorian Legion suddenly exploded with the renewed desire to get into space, even putting their bionic development on the back burner for a while.

2012 saw the invention of holovision. A dark year indeed for Krilgore. Here was a technology that allowed Krilgorians to get an incredible fix of violence from the comfort of their own homes! The technology was an immediate success and as it spread into the lives of every Krilgorian, the focus on space dried up and the mighty Krilgorian race slowly zombified with the effect on research and development being much like that of the Great Plague. By 2090, the Krilgorian Space Agency had long since crumbled and the final Krilgorian ship in space blew up in the Asteroids.

Had it not been for the Great Plague and then the scourge of holovision, Krilgorians would certainly have discovered, colonised and dominated all of known space before any other legion had even discovered hypergates probably even wiping out the other legions entirely. Fate, conspiring against Krilgore provided a chance for the rest.

Zombified by holovision the Krilgorians may never have returned to space were it not for the egos of Follywood producers and actors, and the spate of good luck that led holovision star Loki Parry to the new sector 81103.

With the main culprits removed from the picture, Krilgorians awoke from their daze and aware of the threat alien legions could pose uniformly destroyed their holovision technology and returned to space in earnest, finishing the rebuild of the First Krilgorian Battle Fleet by 2149.

Fighting Characteristics

Krils are eternally enraged and hostile. They may hate each other's guts and constantly fight, but that's nothing compared to how they feel about all other life in the universe. To the Kril, almost everything is a competition, everything must be dominated, whether it be a fellow Kril, an argument, a race to see who can be first to pay for their groceries and be out the door, or just an entire universe. The behaviour of Krils towards one another may seem aggressive to an outsider, but to them it is just normal, they choose only to show REAL aggression when fighting in real war, such as what goes on in space.

Krils attack like demons, full of spite; they are vicious, tough and fast. Their ships are like them, a fusion of metal and flesh, and have often been known to fight with a mind of their own. Kril ships are just like their pilots with all their bionic enhancements, tough, fast, powerful and vicious, they are feared by all, and many experienced pilots will simply run when confronted by a Kril strike force.

The two weaknesses in the Krilgorian pilot is its unchecked aggression which can sometimes get it in trouble and its fear of the homeworld being contaminated with biological matter from The Southern Sector. On the first hint of alien ships jumping from Southern to Krilgore, Krils have been know to disengage from fights they were winning and go charging home.

Although Krils hate everyone, seeing them as weaklings who must be destroyed and may only live if they are tough enough to fight back, the Krils utterly detest Ajaxians most of all. This is because the Ajaxians, with their love of diplomacy and rules in war, their religious beliefs, banning of cybernetics and their fragile frames are the exact opposite of all that a Krilgorian is. If you really MUST fight a Kril, try calling them an Ajaxian. In the rage this fuels, they might make a mistake.