Uchalda

> ***"Time and time again, the Citadel fails to recognise one, simple truth: there can be no peace with the krogan without justice for Uchalda!"** - Antraxes Mehrkuri, publicly breaking the Normandy Entente of 2186 CE*
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Uchalda was the third and final colony that the turians lost to the krogan at the height of the Krogan Rebellions. Like its fallen sister worlds, it was rendered devoid of all life after the krogan slammed a guided asteroid into its surface, which instantaneously vaporised over one billion people. Uchalda's destruction galvanised the turian people in a way that had not been seen since the days of the Unification War, revitalising the turian war effort. While they fought valiantly and never retreated, sacrificing their lives in the tens of thousands, their lines eventually broke under the tremendous weight of the krogan war machine.

Having pushed the turians all the way back to their home system of Trebia, where they made a bloody final stand on the moon of Menae, the krogan began to prepare a fourth asteroidal bombardment with the designated target of Cipritine - the capital of the turian homeworld, Palaven. Faced with the very real existential threat of their species' extinction, the turians were driven into a realm of such psychological desperation that they chose to illegally deploy a salarian-developed bioweapon (known as the Genophage), virtually sterilising the krogan and sending them into a decline.

Even in the wake of the Genophage being cured and the formation of a critical alliance between themselves and the krogan during the Reaper War in 2186 CE, the turians have never forgiven the krogan for the lives lost on Uchalda that fatal day. The turians continue to demand reparations and stamp territorial sanctions upon the krogan for the historical war crimes committed against their species; the standard krogan retort proclaims that the Genophage was a war crime of equal, if not greater, proportions. Such tensions led inevitably led to the breaking of the Normandy Entente of 2186 CE (the krogan-turian peace treaty devised by Desolas Arterius II, *Primarch* Adrien Victus of Palaven and Urdnot Wrex) during the illegal reign of Antraxes Mehrkuri.

Ethnically Uchladan by birth, Antraxes was unable to reconcile himself with a galaxy where the krogan stood as equals. When the Citadel Council began lobbying for the return of Gellix and Canrum to the krogan (planets which the turian peacekeeping forces had garrisoned after the deployment of the Genophage), Antraxes retaliated by withdrawing the Aurelian Empire from the treaty and heavily fortifying the krogan-turian border. This ploy was a clever attempt to goad Clan Urdnot into attacking turian space, which would have automatically granted the turians a *casus belli* for a war of 'self-defence' under the Citadel Conventions. Urdnot Wrex, recognising his people's past mistakes (specifically the Occupation of Lusia, the event which had kickstarted the Krogan Rebellions), refused to take the bait, choosing instead to lobby the Citadel Council for the imposition of financial sanctions upon the turian state. His message was clear; the krogan wanted peace, while the turians sought to instigate violence.

Antraxes' xenophobia cost the turians dearly, fuelling the citizenry's growing discontent with his reign. After Antraxes' deposition and death, *Primarch* Fidellion Victus personally championed the signing of a renewed Normandy Entente, under which Gellix and Canrum would be ceded to the krogan. His actions brought an end to the Council's crippling financial sanctions and facilitated the development of more cordial relations with the krogan. As a show of good faith, he sent several brigades of turian sappers from the Engineering Corps to assist in the removal of dangerous landmines, which had littered the surface of Gellix since the time of the Krogan Rebellions.

Not all Uchaldans perished in the fiery armageddon of their homeworld. Homeless and with nowhere else to go, the majority of Uchaldan refugees fled to Palaven, throwing themselves upon the mercy of its citizens. Even after the passage of 1,500 years, the impact of the intergenerational trauma which the Uchaldans continue to endure cannot be understated. Culturally distinct from their Palavenian hosts, with their own language and customs, they remain a displaced people and are forever haunted by the memories of their murdered kin. On the anniversary of its destruction, those Uchaldans who can afford to make the journey will travel to their lost homeworld - now little more than a fiery ball of molten rock and toxic gases - where they traditionally read aloud the names of their dead in a ritualised outpouring of collective grief.