Ayar

## Description

Tens of thousands of years ago, two ancient rivals existed. The ayar, and the Zunni. The mezulas were brilliant scientists, the ayar were hyper advanced warriors and conquerors. Millions of years later, they warred for control of each other’s growing territory. When the dust of the hundred year long conflict settled, the ayar were victorious. However, the mezulas poisoned the ayar out of spite. They synthesized a highly dangerous chemical that caused the ayar to rot at an exponential rate.

## History

The ayar, at the zenith of their power, spanned almost half the galaxy (probably the reason why they’re in almost every single verse in vast numbers). They were beginning to encroach on mezula territory, the mezulas, threatened by their sheer power, declared war thinking it would be easy.

The chaos that ensued from the Poisoning of the Ayar caused them to plunge into civil disarray, the empire broke into pieces and individual ayar became solo warlords, creating vast synthetic hordes and battling each other, which they still do to this day. When the collapse began, the politicians were the first to fall, later the common-folk. However, the ayar that managed to endure were the soldiers, who were already cybernetic. The enhancements included pain inhibitors and biomechanical weapons. Since the soldiers had the weapons and tech, they selfishly began to preserve themselves by hoarding weapons and fighting each other over cruisers to take as their own. High ranking ayar scientists also preserved themselves and hoarded all of the wondrous bioengineering technology that the ayar were so renowned for. Unfortunately for them, the scientists also eventually fell to the rampaging soldiers, who then took the knowledge and tech for themselves to use to breed their own armies.

## Biology

Due to nature of ayar biology and physiology, the genetic makeup of the ayar has changed drastically since their poisoning by the Zunni, as current ayar barely resemble their former selves save for those that make concerted efforts to maintain their original appearance.

### Pre-Destruction

The ayar were humanoids, very close to diatroth and humans. They’re skin was often a very light blue or stark white, and their four eyes glowed brightly in many different shades of purple, blue, red, and green. Unlike most quadclopes, ayar had only two eye sockets, but each eye contained two irises and two pupils. The inner pupils could see in standard vision, but the outer pupils saw in the ultraviolet spectrum. The ayar also had six digits, four fingers and two opposable thumbs, the latter of which were tipped with small claws. The ayar’s small noses were also distinctly hooked and avian in appearance, and autopsies made by mezulas revealed that the nose was actually the remnants of early ayar evolution. However, this did not reveal that the ayar were birds, they were still most definitely mammals.

### Post-Destruction

The ayar are a shell of their former selves. The original victims of the attack have become twisted by machinery and various alien parts to keep themselves alive, with only their cybernetically enhanced original brains intact. Many of the originals are little more than skeletons brought back to life with synthetics, while newer ayar are amalgamations of captives and programmed brains. These brains are uploaded with the tragic history of the ayar, essentially turning these shells into ayar themselves. These ayar then run out into the galaxy in their horrific warships to bring terror upon the galaxy, adding more and more victims to their constantly decomposing body.

Having lived tens of thousands of years in a constant state of physical and mental anguish has severely warped the brains and psyches of the ayar, who have developed into remarkably hateful and melancholic beings obsessed with destruction and self-preservation. Even in an alliance, ayar only truly serve themselves out of fear of betrayal, which always leads to labyrinthine plots as ayar warlords seek to destroy each other.

The ayar's vanity, however, has remained and become even more pronounced. When before they simply admired themselves and proclaimed themselves as angelic beings, the ayar in the present are so reviled by what they have become that they are obsessed with repairing their broken images. As such, the appearance of ayar varies by personal preference, with them kidnapping aliens that they admire physically and grafting the most desirable traits to their body or by melding it with their own through extensive genetic modification. Others will purposely seek out species that have resemblance to their former selves, though since these genetic codes are still incompatible, cancerous tumors and growths still sprout and warp the ayars' appearances even further.

## Technology

Ayar weapons and ships were sleek and ornately designed and acted as both a luxury cruiser and a powerful battleship. Many of these ships were colossal in size and harbored a 30 ton main armament that could shred apart most enemy vessels. New ayar ships, much like the species themselves, are combinations of different things, many are giant conglomerates of captured ships that have been fused to the hull of the ship, this includes the weapons as well. The ayar do this by latching onto the enemy ship, boarding it and killing the people inside. Whilst the slaughter ensues, spiders synths and mechanical arms quickly begin to attach the ship from the outside until eventually burrowing into the inside as well.

The interior of ayar ships is also horrid, the walls are lined with biomechanical wires, skin, captives who have become part of the walls, weapons, cyborgs, cryo-pods, breeding chambers for genetically engineered monstrosities, factory arms that add to said hybrids, blood stains, and torture devices.

The aforementioned genetic hybrids are a remnant of ayar greatness, their achievements in the fields of bioengineering and genetics are unmatched. Sadly, they now use these great gifts for more nefarious purposes. The original ayar still own these vast foundries and use them to create blueprints for super soldiers, stealing the genes and traits that they deem desirable from large sums of abducted victims. The victim is operated on without anesthetic, they then use a microscopic claw to “pluck” out the desired genes, forming the DNA in a way that suits them, then pouring the materials in large vats that hold the materials in stasis until activated.

When all the materials have been gathered, the ayar activates the vat, called a Birther Tank. Over a course of a few hours, the materials take the form of a hybrid fetus, that then develops into the killing machine that was designed. Most of these are unsuccessful on the first run, but the ayar have a vast surplus of captives to choose from. Once the hybrid is complete, it becomes a template in a cloning facility, and a large army is bred in a matter of days. Machines then fuse cybernetic enhancements and weapons onto the clones, creating a terrifying joining of steel and engineered flesh.

Particularly powerful ayar warlords will still have access to some of their ancient tech, which they will guard jealously and often reserve for themselves, essentially becoming walking tanks on the battlefield as they wield weapons of unimaginable power. Their penchant for dark matter and nuclear weapons is especially prevalent on more powerful warlords, known as Archwarlords, who are so powerful that their fleets are more like mobile empires, often commanding subservient warlords who are ruled through either genuine loyalty or fear, as betrayal is punishable by death and absorption into the Archwarlord's own cybernetic body.

### Subservient Species

The ayar's arrogance and desire for galactic control has led to many pursuing hegemony over lesser species, often primitive tribalistic societies, who they enthrall through a variety of tactics. When an ayar warlord discovers a species to their liking, they will send probes to study the culture of the species, analyzing weaknesses and aspects of culture for them to exploit. The most common of these is religion, wherein an ayar warlord will pose as that species' god and thus bind them to their will, systematically and subtely enslaving the species through mind-controlling cybernetics, and dogma. The most infamous of this was Telios the Reverent, who posed as the god of the amphibious teleans, who came to worship him as their god and have served him and all ayar after him following his untimely death to another ayar warlord, sending the teleans into civil war that eventually ended in their reunification and reaffirmation to the ayar as loyal subjects.

Ayar who wish to acquire the services of one of their enslaved species will recruit a battalion of troops who are then cloned on their massive foundries, creating motely hordes of soldiers who are often further augmented, creating further abominations in an already long list. After the species' task has been complete, the survivors are returned to their homeworld while the clones are kept and then traded as blueprints to other warlords in exchange for other schematics. The most commonly seen synths fielded by the ayar include saurians, which are cloned dinosaurs from Earth, the squidlike kalimied, the teleans and their Telion offshoot species, the Bythinians, Balorike Synths, spravac, Dalithtites, and the valith, one of their oldest and most loyal followers.

In addition to enslaved species, many ayar will exploit cults dedicated to them, who are often pariahs and criminals within their own societies. These ayar cults will often choose a specific well known warlord to worship, often making contact with that warlord declaring their allegiance to them and practically begging for deliverance.

#### The Valith

The valith, or Val’Ith in their tongue, are a dreaded and ancient species that are almost universally feared throughout the Milky Way for their tight symbiotic relationship with the ayar. The valith before their time with the ayar were primitive and tribalistic, observed by ayar surveyors to be extremely violent and well suited as laborers and soldiers. Before the ayar collapse, the valith were absorbed into the Ayar Empire to serve as soldiers and slaves, indoctrinated into a life of service that they have carried into the present day. The valith achieved spaceflight and antimatter technology from the ayar, who uplifted them and used them until the Ayar Plague, which freed the valith and their homeworld from ayar control.

Unable to use the ayar tech effectively, the valith destroyed their planet, nearly cracking the planet in two until the ayar Archwarlord Kaladin the Scourge saved them in 4399 BCE. Thankful to the ayar for saving their species, the valith once again pledged themselves to the ayar, offering their binding services as soldiers and raiders who scour the galaxy in search of prisoners and weapons. After returning from a successful raid with a wealth of captors, the valith then present their cargo to the warlord who hired them, trading flesh and genetic material in exchange for cybernetics, weapons, and food. Despite living with ayar technology and influence for almost 15,000 years, the valith have remained primitive, much akin to children playing with a poorly hidden gun than an advanced species utilizing advanced technology. Their complete focus on destruction and servitude to the ayar has essentially made them animals who mindlessly and enthusiastically carry out the will of any warlord who hires them.

## Society

As a diasporic and fragmented species, the ayar no longer have a single unifying government or society to govern them, instead it varies by hive. An ayar hive is a massive space station or planet that has been completely consumed by the ayar through terraforming, complex machinery, and even biomechanics. At times, the planets themselves appear to be alive as gargantuan flesh sumps heave with life as they produce soldiers and slaves for the ayar to use and abuse. Regardless of this fragmentation, many Ayar Hives follow some general rules that largely mirror the social rules of the Old Ayar Empire. Hives are ruled by a superintendent, an Archwarlord who has proven their strength and ability to govern through conquest and scheming, claiming lordship over the hive and its other inhabitants.

The hives serve as docking bays and stations for all warlords who own a piece of its area, essentially becoming a city of bloodthirsty generals who all adhere to the rule of the superintendent. Those that strike out and manage to escape are exiled and blacklisted, announcing to the other warlords on in the hive that they cannot be trusted and will not be treated with. Unsurprisingly, many nomadic warlords are exiles from specific hives. The Superintendent's rules in the hive are always personalized and varied, ranging from elections on policies, tyranny, and even hereditary succession based on whomever the superintendent claims as his children, who are more often than not adopted warlords who have proven loyal to the cause of their "parent."

### Ayar Empires

Particularly powerful Archwarlords who serve as the superintendent of multiple hives will then become known as a Warlord Emperor, who rules their empire with an iron fist through intimidation, espionage, and instilling loyalty in their subjects. Many of these empires are extremely brittle, only held together by the unimaginable power that each Warlord Emperor wields, however there have been some divergences throughout the ages.

#### The Red Duchy

A powerful empire ruled by Kaladin the Scourge, the Red Duke of the Sedorian Hive, is an empire located in the Gigantoverse in the Perseus Arm, which he presides over by ruling through a strong sense of loyalty that he inspires within his subjects. This is primarily due to the inhibition implants that all of his subjects, most of whom are actually clones implanted with ayar memories to instill their psyche within them. As an exile of the Balor Empire, he is remarkably powerful, able to survive as a nomadic lesser warlord with nothing to his name to becoming one of the most powerful Archwarlords in the Milky Way, which he is keen to remind of his subjects and enemies.

#### Balor Empire

Founded by the nearly all powerful Balor the Godlike, the Balor Empire, like its namesake, is the most powerful ayar empire in the galaxy, holding most in terms of territory and species it has enslaved and assimilated. Beginning as a scientist of the Old Ayar Empire, Balor, through ingenuity and sheer force of will managed to claw his way to the top of the loose ayar hierarchy, becoming the closest to a unified figure amongst what remains of the ruined and broken species.

#### Tesseract

Named after the eponymous Tesseract, an Archwarlord referred to simply as the Tesseract Overlord, the Tesseract Empire is centrally located in the Digammaverse, where it rules as curiously one of the most stable and equal ayar societies in the galaxy, being the only one that actually has regular ayar civilians instead of a society of military tyrants. Despite this, Tesseract is just as ruthless as his contemporaries, and is known for his hoarding of old ayar weaponry and extensive use of patriated valith warriors, who make up a large population of his subjects.