Faction of Eight

The **Faction of Eight** was the galactic power before the Scryve Empire came into existence. The Faction met its end at the hands of the Scryve after millennia of ruling the stars. The Faction was a meritocracy that welcomed new members to its roster after they had killed the previous ones.

**Culture**

The Faction were a curious example of a galactic power, as it adversely refused to advance the technology of its eight members and each was indeed banned from doing so. This was to allow the races they encountered to have a fighting chance against the already established species in the Faction.

This culture of violence and technological stagnation was a result of observing the various species the Faction encountered and seeing how they annihilated themselves with either advanced weapons or by opening some gap in reality and being eaten as a result. To stabilise this, the Faction propagated galactic conflict which kept the various species from advancing too far and kept them from venturing too far into pan-dimensional travel.

Once combat was declared by the Faction, neither side in their various conflicts would be allowed to surrender, only able to fight for their survival or go extinct. This ruthless nature had hardened the Faction over the millennia of their existence and the races that had been elevated to their positions were often cruel and dangerous.

Most didn’t see the wisdom of this system and even amongst the Faction, it was seen as foolish to promote such a low level of technology amongst their members. Unfortunately for the Faction, despite millennia of controlling the stars and maintaining this status quo, their rules were taken advantage of by the Scryve, who proceeded to annihilate all but two members of the Faction, driving it to extinction.

**History**

The Faction of Eight had been the dominant power in their sector of space for eons. Races came and went with somewhat regularity and they were responsible for the extinction of many races, something that still affected their sector even ten thousand years later.

In time, the Faction would meet the Scryve, a new upstart races of centaurs who had developed on a hostile world. The Faction declared they must fight a member species and the Scryve did so, wiping out their predecessor to the last man. They would be the last of the Faction to join.

In their complacency, the Faction had declared that no technological development would be allowed to take place between the members of the Eight. The Scryve took full advantage of this trust to begin a secret build-up of weapons and technology to wipe out the other members of the Faction.

A couple of races saw this and sought to protect themselves, as warning the others would lead to a war with the Scryve they could not win. One race, the Urpox, fled from the Scryve as the conflict began and the Faction was destroyed from the inside out. In its place, the Scryve strove to create something better and left the other races to their own devices.

This led to the same mistakes that had caused the creation of the Faction in the first place, as species destroyed themselves in pan-dimensional accidents or with advanced weapons they could not control. In a way, the Faction continued on, as the Scryve became the dominant power in the area and formed their own methods of keeping races safe and secure, but without the excessive bloodshed of the Faction’s past.

**Members**

The Faction of Eight had seen a constantly shifting membership, as each client race was met with challenges from upstart races who in turn wiped them out. Much of these races are lost to time, but four are known about:

* Tpktpk (replaced by the Urpox)
* Goros
* Urpox
* Scryve, the last race to join.