Angertharke

**Angertharke** is the homeworld of the Ornali and the capital of the Republic of the Spider Nebula. It is a small world, and its red sun lies static in the sky after

## History

### Prehistoric Era

The planet first formed roughly 2.4 billion years ago, with the appearance of life around 100 million years later after the end of Archas's late heavy bombardment. These early life-forms remained as simple bacteria and archaea until ~700 million years ago when the first complex cells abruptly emerged, diversifying rapidly. From there, life exploded into a large variety of organisms from plants to complex animals, with intelligence beginning to arise before animal life had ever left the oceans of Angertharke. A particular branch of this sea life would go on to evolve true intelligence and create the first tools of the planet. An imagination to outsmart prey, endurance hunting abilities unmatched by any animal in nature, versatile tentacles allowing them to not only craft tools but also to gather a large array of foods, and a number of other advantages gave these cephalopods access to a unique niche not yet filled on the planet. Many variations of this new intelligent species began to arise.

One particular variant, *Ornala sapia*, rose above the rest of their genus, with the others either being wiped out or interbred with to the point of homogeneity. Of all of their genus, they had the greatest capability to adapt to various environments, able to survive in the chill ocean of the twilight fjords as well as the subsolar ocean where they evolved.

### Pre-Space-Faring Civilizations

The first civilizations on Angertharke formed on Kelmen Rise, a large undersea plateau, in about 19,433 BCE. These civilizations started as fairly small city-states surrounded by "farmland" but within the next thousand years became sprawling empires complete with writing systems, an advanced grasp on mathematics, and territory taking up the entirety of the Rise. Around this time, they began sending explorers over the inhospitable abyssal plains towards other distant seamounts. They colonized the Telmanrai Seamount Chain first, eventually reaching every scrap of ocean on the planet and sending explorers even to the uncrossable ice wall beyond the twilight zone. These civilizations remained fairly primitive for the next one thousand years, those living on Kelmen Rise entering the iron age in around 10200 BCE. They would not go on to form multi-continental civilizations until well after industrialization in 8041 BCE. After the first high-level technology was invented, the Ornali began exploring the lands above the water, and soon above the very atmosphere.

### Space-Faring and Interstellar Age

The first rockets of the Ornali were launched in 7988 BCE from the original home of the species, Kelmen Rise, in an effort to be poetic that went unnoticed to everyone except historians. These rockets allowed for many great achievements, including launching the first Ornali beyond the atmosphere of Angertharke to even a full-scale colony mission to the outer planet Dalair. Because of the relative lifenessness of the Spider Nebula, when the Ornali breached the Archas Limit Cloud, they were able to swiftly claim the vast majority of the territory in the Nebula to colonize at their leisure.

This colonization proceeded for thousands of years, concluding in 63714 CE when the last colony ships bumped up against the territory of the similarly expanding Union of Narenna and Kormin Empire. All the while, the Ornali's newly unified government of the Republic of the Spider Nebula created a lucrative trading relationship with the pacifistic nation of Haralza.

This era of peace ended with a bang when Emperor Latrekon I Karekas begun a full-scale invasion of the seemingly weak Haralza. The Republic was bound to come to its aid, but the overwhelming force of the Kormin war machine led to the subjugation of Maeress and the destruction of Haralza as an independent nation. Thus, The Union of Narenna and the Republic were bound by treaty to declare war on the Kormin Empire, officially starting the Forever War.