Tuoctlo

The **Tuoctlo** are a monstrously powerful race of aliens that once existed in the The Cluster many millions of years before the emergence of any recognizable civilizations. Though they are believed to have once occupied a massive intergalactic civilization, the Tuoctlo now cease to exist, their civilization reduced to ruins by a Vuokra tribe known as Pink Two Trillion.

## Legacy

The Tuoctlo are perhaps some of the most mysterious beings to have ever inhabited The Cluster. What the Tuoctlo looked like, as well as their culture, government and history, is completely unknown. All that remains are various large structures and strange technologies that stand as memorials to their civilization, many of which are concentrated in the Triangulum Galaxy, the presumed origin point for Tuoctlo civilization.

It is known that the Tuoctlo were an extremely powerful race, with an unimaginably ancient and large civilization. Their technology was most likely second to none during the height of the civilization, as many of the Tuoctlo artifacts completely defy the laws of physics. Ancient alien technology certainly isn't a rare occurrence, considering the frequency of intelligent life in The Cluster, but the Tuoctlo deserve special attention due to the inconceivable scale of their technology. Most surviving Tuoctlo artifacts are the size of planets, if not larger, and surprisingly, many of them remain partially operational. Their size, complexity and age, however, make it difficult to discern the exact purpose of many of these artifacts. Certain structures, such as Nevermind and the Vude Construction, were clearly built for war, indicating that the Tuoctlo fought in a great number of conflicts. The details of these wars are unknown, but many suspect that the Lapidus were involved at some point, as both Tuoctlo and Lapidus information banks make occasional vague references to the other species. Some speculate, due to the disparity between Tuoctlo and Lapidus technology, that the two civilizations maintained a fierce rivalry at some point, which could have easily led to war between them.

In what seems to be a strange coincidence, there are a great number of similarities between Tuoctlo technology and the technology of the Vuokra. In fact, many technological feats of the Tuoctlo are simply weaker versions of technologies employed by the Vuokra (Tuoctlo Blackmetal, for instance, bears a striking resemblance to Vuokra Voidmetal, with the obvious difference being that it is less durable). It is not known how the Tuoctlo managed to replicate Vuokra technology with such a degree of precision, considering most civilizations fail to survive an encounter with the Vuokra due to their destructive nature. Some suspect that a prolonged conflict against Pink Two Trillion could have given the Tuoctlo enough time to reverse-engineer bits of Vuokra technology for use against the Vuokra themselves, which would account for their ability to resist the onslaught of Pink Two Trillion for such a long time. It has been posited that there are two radically different "pre-Vuokra" and "post-Vuokra" versions of Tuoctlo civilization, with the former being almost impossible to learn about due to a lack of artifacts, which can be attributed to age and the comparative fragility of Tuoctlo technology before their encounters with the Vuokra.