Quarg

"Our species began on the moon of a great gas giant, on a planet most small, that gathered about itself very little air. And we are an old race, and do not kill for sport or whimsy, so the Drak gave us the gift, that we may go among the other races and settle where we please, and make friends of all, because none dare be our enemy."
- Anonymous Quarg (First Contact: Quarg)
The Quarg are an ancient race of powerful aliens who inhabit ringworlds scattered across the galaxy. Their technology is renowned for being some of the most powerful obtainable tech in the game, including ridiculously powerful shield generators, batteries, and weapons. They act independently, but often talk about the Drak as if they are their mentors or overseers.
At the moment, Quarg outfits and ships are placeholders. There are plans in development to replace and expand current Quarg technology in the near future. 
== History ==
The Quarg are apparently native to the Milky Way, although it is unknown where exactly they originate from within the galaxy. They originally evolved in a gas giant's moon with an atmosphere so thin humans cannot breathe in it. Their kind and non-violent nature attracted the attention of the Drak, who deemed them worthy and gifted them the technology to make their own Jump Drives, allowing them to explore the galaxy and befriend other species.
At some point in their past, for whatever reason, they fought a war with the Pug; in retaliation, the Pug broke one of the Quarg's ringworlds. In 2320, the Quarg made first contact with humanity; by 2330, they were beginning to learn human languages.
About six thousand years ago, the Quarg came into conflict with a collection of three different species which had banded together to form an organization known as the Coalition. The Coalition's leaders, the Heliarchs, claim that through unification of their forces, they were able to defeat their Quarg oppressors in battle, capturing the three ringworlds in Coalition space and ousting the Quarg. The Quarg, however, take a different claim to this history, stating that they voluntarily left to avoid conflict. However, there hints that many Quarg took an extremely violent approach to defending their ringworlds, and that some Quarg took actions severe enough to become prisoners of their own people.
== Attributes ==
The Quarg are considerably tall compared to humans. Their legs bend backwards at the bottom, "like a dog walking on its hind feet," and they move gracefully and almost silently. Their eyelids come from their sides instead of from the top and the bottom; the eyes themselves look almost human, except for their unusual variety of iris colors, such as gold or violet. Their skin is a deep gray with slight hints of green and blue beneath it, and is somewhat scaly. The Quarg also have a form of color change in their skin that can trigger when they feel extreme emotions, like anger (patches of their skin will turn into shades of red, purple and blue). It is apparent that Quarg fashion centers around texture, rather than color. The Quarg are bald, but some wear small cloth caps and hoods.
The two Quarg ships in the game, the Skylark and the Wardragon, have nothing in common with each other visually. While the Skylark is dark, blocky and textured, the Wardragon is bright gold and has an organic shape.
== Technology ==
Quarg technology is immensely advanced, to the point some of it is nearly incomprehensible to human minds. While their weapons and engines are powerful, they require massive amounts of energy to function, which is provided by their ships' antimatter cores. 
The Quarg are extremely protective of their technology due to the sheer potential for disaster if it falls in the wrong primitive's hands. Obtaining it illegally is considered an atrocity in their legal system. Anyone who is caught with stolen Quarg equipment of any sort in Quarg territory will be seized, lectured on the dangers of stealing their creations and sentenced to life imprisonment. To ensure capture of the thief, Quarg outfits have a failsafe that will shut down any ship they're installed into the moment it lands in a Quarg dock.
=== Ships ===
Heavy Warship
* Quarg Wardragon
* Quarg Skylark
=== Outfits ===
Weapons
* Quarg Skylance
* Quarg Anti-Missile
Systems
* Quantum Shield Generator
Power
* Antimatter Core
* Nanotech Battery
Engines
* Medium Graviton Thruster
* Medium Graviton Steering
Hand to Hand
* Intrusion Countermeasures
== Interspecies Relations ==
The Quarg generally refrain from violence, unless a species attacks another species in the Milky Way.
* Humans: The Quarg are neutral towards humanity: they do not oppose humans (although humans have attempted to attack them in the past), but they refuse to intervene in either the Human Civil War or the Human–Pug war. The Quarg have a ringworld in Enif.
* Alphas: The Quarg view the Alphas as an internal human political issue, and remain neutral.
* Hai: The Quarg are neutral towards the Hai: while they have a ringworld in Hai space, they have not demonstrated any willingness to actively fight with or against the Hai.
* Unfettered Hai: The Quarg have not yet displayed any indication of their attitude towards the Unfettered, as they do not interact during the game, although it is likely that they are neutral towards them due to their policies towards not intervening in other species' conflicts.
* Korath Exiles: Whether the Quarg are actively hostile towards the Korath Exiles for their actions in the Korath Civil War—that is, whether they actually bear strong negative feelings toward them—is unclear. But, as a result of their actions, the Drak intervened, ending the war and exiling the leaders of the Kor Mereti and Kor Sestor factions to the Core.
* Kor Efreti: The Quarg protect the Kor Efreti from the hostile Korath automata, but otherwise seem to have no strong opinions toward them. The Quarg have a ringworld in Efreti space.
* Kor Mereti: The Quarg are initially hostile towards the Kor Mereti, but cease combat with them once the Wanderers pacify them.
* Kor Sestor: The Quarg are hostile towards the Kor Sestor.
* Pug: The Quarg were at war with the Pug, and it is apparent that the Quarg still bear a great deal of animosity towards them and consider them "despicable", to the point of suffering bouts of anger. The Pug state that "We are in fact on blowing-each-other-up terms with them" The Pug have destroyed one of the Quarg ringworlds, now visible in World's End. 
* Wanderers: The Quarg are distrustful of the Wanderers because of their extragalactic origins and connections to the Pug, but grudgingly send ships to protect them from the Korath automata, if only to supervise them.
* Gegno: The Quarg are protective of the Gegno, due to them being a young race. They're worried over their future due to their factional divisions and believe the Gegno would achieve a greater future if both the Vi and the Scin united their forces and found balance in their ideologies. They also trade with them. Harming them will invoke the Quarg's wrath, as they don't want the Gegno to end up like the Builders.
* Rulei: Relationships between the Quarg and the Rulei are unknown due to the latter's extinction, but Giaru Gegno was originally built to observe a different species than the Gegno. The ringworld also has ships of unknown origin docked to it still, but information about them is scarce.
* Builders: The Quarg were the first race the Builders met and they once had a friendly relationship, with the Quarg building a ringworld near their home systems. That changed when the ancient Hai attacked the Graveyard, which made the Builders fearful of other species and highly xenophobic. While they never turned against the Quarg, they distanced themselves for the rest of their existence.
* Drak: The Quarg are friendly towards the Drak, seeing themselves as the Drak's servants.
* Coalition: The Quarg are very likely hostile to the Coalition because of their war 6,000 years ago, but no in-game information from the Quarg's perspective exists to confirm or deny this.
** Arachi: The Arachi developed hull repair technology, which terrified the Quarg as they thought the Pug tampered with them. The Quarg scoured the Arachi systems searching for Pug presence, which terrified the Arachi and drove them to ask for the Kimek and the Saryds' help.
** Kimek: It's uncertain what relations the Kimek had with the Quarg before the Coalition's formation, but they did listen to the Arachi's plea for help.
** Saryds: The Saryds and the Quarg used to be allies, to the point the Quarg shared Jump Drives with them, but the Saryds turned on them to protect the Arachi, as they were unhappy with their mistreatment by the Quarg. The completed ringworld built in Saryd space, Quari Kell, was taken from them and is now known as the Ring of Friendship.
* Heliarchs: Because the Heliarchs lead the Coalition, the Quarg are very hostile towards them.
== Trivia ==
* The Quarg are the only alien race, pre-Pug invasion, that humanity was publicly aware of.
* As part of Michael Zahniser's early story plans, the Quarg were intended to eventually be rebalanced—after all other species were added into the game—to maintain their position as the second strongest race in the game. As such, their outfits and ships can be seen as placeholders or having placeholder attributes. However, with the addition of the Coalition, their true strength has been called into question.
* Landing on a Quarg world, station, or ringworld with Quarg outfits or ships will have disastrous, game-ending consequences for the player. To repeat:
** DO NOT land on Quarg territory if you steal their equipment and/or board their ships or you will never fly again (It will have the same effect as dying).
Category:Species
Category:Quarg