Thexus

**Thexus** is a desert world and the home planet of Sonny and Sau. It's a world that has arid lands, geothermal valleys, large rock formations, land reefs, introduced fauna and flora, canyons, plateaus, salt flats, large mountains, rare sights of billabongs, swamps, rainforests, and a mixed amount of similar cultures to Southern, Western, Mexican, Australian, British, and African, but it is mostly a Southern world. It has one moon, it is roughly the size of Earth/Marbon, has a breathable atmosphere, and has a 24 hour day and 386-day year.

The planet has 5 large continents surrounding 3 small oceans.

Location: Epsilon Universe, Polgren Sector, Rislama System

## History

Thexus was formed 2 billion years ago and started out having it's own water due to having a secondary crust of ice beneath it's surface, which was coated with lava. But in time, this ice got so cold, it cooled the lava from below and the resulting contained pressure caused the formation of the tectonic plated. Water oozed out when it was melted again after heat returned. When this happened, and with the organic compounds from introduced asteroid impacts, life began to evolve underneath the first crust. Once all the water oozed onto the surface, the microbes inside the water went with it, and a global ocean coated the surface while the mantle oozed into the former secondary crust's place. From there, life evolved onto land once volcanic and tectonic activity sprouted islands and continents. The life was too primitive and too limited with resources to evolve any sentient creatures, but much of prehistoric Thexus' life was intelligent. Though one lifeform, a virus, became so good at evolving that it learned to assimilate itself to other microbes' DNA, evolving into a new design which made it look like a separated fraction of DNA, and has learned to break up a fraction of it's host's DNA and then take it's place, corrupting the host in the process. In time this virus evolved to look like a worm-like strand of DNA. This became the nematode-like bacterium called the Crucydiod, capable of assimilating creatures and thus taking control over the fauna like tyrants, and even sustaining itself and evolving from each other via their assimilation into the fauna and flora. Thus life evolved and the Crucydiod along with it, managing to develop it's own powerful genetic memory and even learn how to mutate it's host as well as potentially craft any lifeform it pleased. These abilities accelerated the biota's evolution rate to only a few millennia, making the biota more bizarre and alien-like.

Billions to millions of years later, a new lifeform inhabited Thexus: The Crucyds, who had initially lost their original home planet of Crucygeua from exhausted resources, adopting Thexus as their new homeworld. In time, these beings managed to adapt well to this new planet and tame the newfound terrestrial wildlife on the planet, as well as grow new crops and terraform it to a new world, giving the Crucydiod new hosts. However, the alien DNA was far too complex for them to adapt to quickly since Crucyds had a massive genetic code. Thus they would lay dormant for eons while the Crucyds lived exciting lives of adventure and giving hope to the AUU throughout it's mixed history without the knowledge of this genetic parasite. They even made an alliance with a new rodent-like race called the Arans, who also lost their home planet of Arai to an asteroid impact and was given a neighboring planet of Thexus called Ruslion. These beings aided the Crucyds well throughout history ever since, especially since they obtained identical technology to them, as well as sharing their love for thrills and adventure. The Crucydiod parasite was unable to assimilate them because their DNA was twice as complex as the Crucyds, meaning they'd have to take twice as long to assimilate them, and their exoplanetary habitat meant they couldn't easily infect them.

After eons, the Crucydiod parasite finally evolved into a form good enough to infect the Crucyds. The plague started out small in a small town, but the Crucyds were able to spread out and do their business as if nothing happened, and fortunately, the parasite could not assimilate any other sentient race because like the Arans, their genetic codes required more and more evolution time to assimilate. Thus the parasite was limited to only the Crucyds. Thus the president of the Crucyds ended up becoming infected by the parasite the same time the race started an alliance with a black-skinned humanoid race called the Vocerkans, dubbed the 'Dark Arms', the parasite was able to give him a genetic disease that mutated his brain and made him racist. As a result, the Crucyds' already-skeptic trust on the semi-flawed Vocerkans was made worse, and thus after wronging them with racist tension, it resulted in a race war.

As the Crucyd-Vocerkan war continued, soldiers discovered that the Crucyds were mutating slowly but quickly into bizarre new forms that made them look like mutant zombies. After intense research, the Vocerkans discovered the Crucydiod parasite and that it was of Thexan origin, evolved from a virus that learned to become one with a host's DNA and created a worm-like nematode creature with a large branch of DNA inside of it, and when it feeds on a portion of that host's DNA, it's own strand takes it's place and takes control of the host itself, and it's unclear and random genetic history and code has severe and permanent effects on the host. Their leader thus decided that the only way to win the war was to wipe out all organic life on Thexus, as they discover that Thexus' biota has become completely assimilated by the parasite, and thus it controls all of it. Though some were skeptical, their leader said there was no other choice and that the parasite has permanently destroyed them down to their own DNA, and thus it could not be cured. So they created a massive UV radiation field all over Thexus, and in the process, killed all organic life on the surface, including Crucyds, and the parasite, ending the war. However, only a few Crucyds survived and fought in a few final battles until they were exterminated and preserved for research on the genetic parasite to ensure that they can create defenses against it's assimilation, and still honored the race itself by burying all the bodies beneath the planet's surface in an underground graveyard that they have dubbed the Underworld, a forbidden sector that had been sealed away by terraformation.

The Vocerkans and the Arans had since reterraformed Thexus and introduced it to it's current wildlife, all free of the genetic parasite that wiped out the Crucyds, the Vocerkans comforting the Arans for their lost allies by, making amends to them by saying that they should be remembered by how they lived, and not by how they died. Thus the Crucyds' leftover technology was left in better hands. While the planet recovered with a new biota, eventually in later millennia, it soon became a colony of worlds like Carbungia, Chimerum, Mucury, Cruiter, Sioephus, and Danoucant, and thus ranged in Teadr levels. Though they discovered the Crucyds' old cities which were still ravaged from the Crucyd-Vocerkan War, and the Vocerkans, who had ownership of the planet itself, omitted the origin of these old cities from them to protect them from the potential threat of the reawakened Crucydiod. However, this had ended up working against them when archaeologists, remembering the Crucyds and learning of their war against the Vocerkans, especially when they dubbed them the 'Dark Arms', concluded that the Vocerkans wiped them out in a war out of sheer racism, which they were further convinced of when the Vocerkans refused to share the truth. Thus they were given a bad reputation by many races across the AUU, but the Vocerkan leader persists that this reputation is worth protecting the AUU from the Crucydiod, even when this reputation ended up painting them as racist bad guys in many political cartoons or movies like the original *Zirago* movie franchise.

The new biota of Thexus allowed new forms of gems and resources to be created including laserum, an energetic gem that is commonly used in laser batteries for laser blasters, and rarium, a mirror-like chrome gem that is worth a load of money in the AUU Currency Troupe. New civilizations in the form of small towns, colorful cities, rarely megalopolis cities, fossil fuel plants, cantinas, arenas, factories, facilities, global metro/subway stations, lopping and twisting highways, mine shafts for rarium, laserum, gems and metals, refineries, casinos, parks, and wildlife reserves were built all over the planet while the technology left behind by the Crucyds had revolutionized the planet's community including weaponry, medicine, flight, vehicles, and advanced household appliances. This leftover technology is also collected and sold to the many corporations for massive profit, especially by the black market.

The massive wealth of resources made the planet rich with greedy people who ended up causing a resource war, this ended up upsetting the Vocerkans into demanding that the people quell the corruption or they will have to repossess the planet. This began a series of wars including the Resource Wars, which was fought between the common people and a tyranny of capitalists who sought to take over the planet and it's resources, the Armaments War when the people ended up wanting to capitalize on Crucyd weaponry along with the rest of their technology against the Vocerkans' wishes and people fought for the Vocerkans when one person was told of the truth behind the Crucyds' extinction: the war hero Tavy Sprocket, who fought the hardest during the Armaments War because of this knowledge and died during the Battle of the Olomo, the richest area of Crucyd technology on the planet and a modern-day national monument protected by law, and then the Thexus Revolution, when the people of Thexus wanted to declare their independence from the Vocerkans because of their strictness on how they allow them to live on the planet, which has already become so accustomed to them that they refuse to leave, especially since Tavy Sprocket's death inspired many to stand up for their rights. But Tavy's friend, Geogo Restell, who had been told of the truth behind the Crucyds by him before his death, had to help both sides and prevent the people of Thexus from declaring a war that they couldn't win because of the Vocerkans' advanced technology and power. He took his friend's place and helped fight for both sides under the guise of a resistance leader against the people's need for independence and claiming that a war against the Vocerkans is a bad idea and they should do this diplomatically. After bloodshed, the Vocerkans arrange a summit and the deed to Thexus is given to it's first president, under the contractually-obligated condition that they follow a series of rules that have become part of Thexan law. These people have thus lived independently ever since while Geogo spent the last of his days trying to continue serving the concerns of the Vocerkans and ensure that the Crucydiod disease is never awakened again, all by considering anything in relation to the Crucyds is under government protection and strictly confidential.

## Society and Culture

   The world is rich in gamblers, bandits, pirates, criminals, crime lords, gunslingers, outlaws, and local vigilantes. The world is primarily protected by a high-tech police force lead by a General Sheriff, and the whole world is a democracy run by a President, and has over a hundred states each run by a single mayor. The societies' common transportation is either ground-based vehicles, animal-drawn vehicles, or introduced dinosaur/mammal wildlife depending upon the state, there are some populations of Indian-like tribes that are sometimes hostile to the outside civilized world but can be made friends with, a decent number of robots are present, sporting events are very prevalent and popular, rodeo competitions are common, and their cuisine is like a blend between Texan, Mexican, Hispanic, Australian, and Italian.