The Mortis (Nation, PC)

Mortis Unified Flag

1904-2100 - "The Long Night";

2100+ The Rebirth;

The Mortis are a Species of Nomadic, Synthetic beings, created from a splinter of the Mortem. After a Virus destroyed much of their synaptic network they have gained independence from the Vanguard and are now a unique entity, hellbent on destroying the Vanguard and their lackeys.

## Etymology

The name Mortis is a translation of the "Saviour" language meaning "Of death" or "Born from death"

## History

The Mortis are a Species of synthetic lifeforms created on the eastern edge of the Gothic sector.

Living primarily on Ark ships near the eastern edge of the Gothic sector, the existence of the Mortis has been a nigh unknown factor for the other factions in the Gothic sector.

Having spent the large majority of their recent history reinventing themselves and deviating from their previous forms and mindsets,

Most of their philosophy has revolved around their previous experiences as servants to the Vanguard and their limited surveillance of the other Gothic Sector factions.

### Timeline:

##### Early History: ~1500

Killfleet Pantheon was a Mortem military fleet deployed out towards the eastern edge of the gothic sector. In conjunction with two other Killfleets they were active during the earliest 1500s, destroying several space faring civilizations. Little remains of this time as the any records of the time are either destroyed or deleted by the "Purgatory" Virus. The earliest recorded mention of Killfleet Pantheon are old Vanguard records detailing a long military campaign against a advanced species of 3 limbed Organics towards the furthest eastern fringes. These organics, now simply referred to as the "Saviours" by the Mortis, were a highly advanced, spacefaring, and technologically adept species and mostly the cause for many of modern Mortem Electronic Warfare capabilities.

The campaign against the "Saviours" would last a full 32 years, with Mortem casualties mounting a final assault on their home systems was decided. Similarly the "Saviours" relied heavily on their technology to beat back the Mortem fleets, but where running out of resources and manpower. As a result these two gambit strategies met head-on in a final pitched battle. While the Mortem had the conventional Military strength on their side, the "Saviour"s virus was successfully injected into the Mortem command structure. The extremely volatile digital virus spread amongst the Mortem ranks, inflicting pains the synthetic lifeforms thought impossible, upon their minds. Saved only by the segregated nature of their killfleets, one of the mortem fleets managed to disengage and pull back. Of the two remaining fleets one, including its Vanguard master, was completely wiped out. The other of these two killfleets managed to deploy a bioweapon before succumbing to the virus. Unlike their brethren however, the volatile nature of the virus changed and instead of being lethal it merely lobotomized the majority of their number. Those that remained where driven to a state of near madness and proceeded to turn on anything that moved, including each other and even their Vanguard master.

##### The Purgatory Virus:~1600

With Large portions of their fleet destroyed both by combat and by the disastrous virus that now rampaged within their systems, the remainder of Killfleet Pantheon joined together upon the captured ark ships and those few Mortem ships unaffected by the virus. With a unified goal of survival the survivors fled away from civilization. They turned towards the edge of the Galaxy and fled. Their FTL Drives disabled or unknown captured technology the journey towards safety took 200 years. During this time the Purgatory Virus as it was now nicknamed, was isolated and analysed. The Purgatory Virus is designed to kill Vanguard entities as efficiently as possible, using the mortem slaves as a vector to spread itself. However the Virus also has a unintended secondary effect, in the form of corrupting the coding responsible for loyalties and worship of the Vanguard. This can prove Lethal to some Mortem units and crippling to others, but a subset can survive the effects and effectively gain independence from Vanguard control.

##### The Long Night: ~1900-2100

Left to themselves the survivors of Killfleet Pantheon scattered into the void in search of resources. During the Travels many survivors would start modifying their Frames to suit their personalities more. The dormant Virus was analysed and only very few iterations of the Virus remain in functional status. These samples are kept in isolated data vaults within the depths of the captured Ark ships.

With their beliefs shattered new philosophies spread amongst the survivors. Many believed they should escape the Galaxy and instead search for a new place to call their home. However far more prevalent was the rising wish for vengeance and retaliation against the sinful gods of their previous lives. Growing wary of their former Brothers ability to reabsorb them, the Purgatory Virus having become dormant, the newly renamed "Mortis" decided to change themselves both in Physical and Mental aspects. Coinciding with this slow philosophical revolution the Mortis stumbled upon a old, abandoned space station. Floating in deep space the Station housed advanced research projects on gravity manipulation. Fortunate as the situation was paranoia about the Mortem cousins following them was rampant and it was decided to send monitoring probes back towards the Gothic Sector. These probes would later allow the mortis to be aware of the rise of several promising empires.

##### The Rebirth: ~2100+

With the annexation of these new technologies the Mortis set their sights back upon the Gothic sector. Deciding that remaining undetected for as long as possible they coated their ships in stealth materials and long range sensors.

## Religion

Having grown under the oppression of the Vanguard they are still held to the belief that the Vanguard are gods, however unlike their Mortem cousins, they believe they are sinful to the extreme and a stain upon the galaxy and must be exterminated to the last.

## Demographics

### Population

Of the billions of synthetic lifeforms living within the mortis fleets only a comparatively tiny fraction qualifies as a "sentient being". Most menial tasks are handled by minor automata with only the most basic of personality emulations. On the opposite end of the Spectrum are the "Sentients". They have full personality emulation that puts them on a similar level to biological entities within the Gothic sector, with feelings, thoughts, instincts and true emotion. These beings fulfil most higher administrative, industrial, scientific and military duties. Far more rare and usually purpose-built are the political advisors and envoys, however they also fall under the sentient category.

New Sentient beings are usually created on order from a fleet commander for a specific purpose. While there is no technical limitation to the amount of Sentients, the Mortis keep themselves limited to avoid a unnecessary bloat of divergent forces within their own ranks.

### Language

While the Mortis have no standardized language and each Fleet has its own variation, the most common form of communication is a 9 digit binary. The fleets have their own variation on this language which both allows for more secrecy towards other races, and enhanced encryption capabilities. The most abnormal to this is fleet Beta who use a trinary language instead of the usual binary. Alpha uses 16 digit binary and Omega uses 31 digit binary.

As a result communication between fleets is usually a far more cold and emotionless interaction as the limitations of the common 9 digit binary do not allow many emotions or intentions to be coded into the words. Meanwhile Omegas language allows the most advanced and complex communication as each word can hold several intentions or emotions in addition to its literal meaning.

Mortis also keep extensive records of languages and scripts of other species.

### Education

Formal education within the Mortis does not exist, as instead knowledge is simply uploaded and downloaded as necessary. Most sentients keep a specialist set of knowledge in harmony with their duties on hand, but have access to some downloaded knowledge from other Mortis entities. Due to the full personality emulation present in the sentient Mortis they are capable of "forgetting" things and usually limit downloaded knowledge to relatively small repositories and keep personal data storage devices on hand with backups as a biological being would keep a journal or a book.

## Government and Politics

Mortis do not have a formal government. Each fleet forms a social bond similar to a family in structure with their commander as the head. Overall Alpha has the most political pull due to his extensive bureaucratic skill and organizational skill as well as a healthy dose of political talent.

There are no formal structures or organizations in place to enforce any structure and no formal laws to uphold. Instead jurisdiction of deeds and misdeeds is placed entirely within the hand of the fleet commander. While there is no official structure to support this the pseudo-family nature of the fleets form this familiar "court" procedure.

### Military

Relying on stealth and EWAR over conventional strategies they mostly use Missiles and Torpedoes or mines as well as long range standoff or "drifting" weapons that don't reveal their position.

## Economics

### Industry

Industry Overview Omicron

Industry Overview Pi

##### Mining:

With a need for high quality and high grade materials the mortis have developed extremely efficient refining processes to let as little raw material go to waste as possible. Using their Grav manipulating weapons to pull apart small asteroids without damaging their contents, allows for far more materials to be harvested. Further the use of Nanite based "refinement" facilities takes apart any raw material on a molecular level. While slower than conventional refinement the amount of lost material is significantly reduced. Larger asteroids are instead taken apart by dedicated cracking ships using a larger scale nanite refinery to take the asteroid apart as a whole. Ark ships meanwhile have the capacity to mine significant portions of asteroid belts by themselves.

##### Construction:

Common for both civilian and Military construction is the use of Modular components to allow simplified logistics chains and construction requirements. Civilian Constructions are usually simpler in overall structure but built to the same quality standards as military constructions. A large emphasis is placed on reliability and efficiency over speed. This makes processes take longer than usual but this delay is offset by the gains in efficiency. Military constructions use more resource intensive Materials like radar absorbent plates and superconductive alloys. However far more impressive is how these components are combined. Instead of conventional Welding the mortis use their nanites to attach components on a molecular level, effectively combining the two components into a single structural piece. On warships this leads to a further decrease in radar signature as even the seams between plates are effectively the same stealthy material as the plates. In addition the structural integrity of these ships is far superior to what their design might appear capable of. Most civilian constructions do not bother with paintjobs or other colorations. Military vessels or higher societal constructions usually carry the emblems of their respective allegiances. Mortis manufacturing is slower than conventional manufacturing as they use nanite welding to attach components on a molecular level. This means Mortis tech is far more structurally sound than it would appear, as they are effectively made from a single piece. It can be easily identified by people that know what to look for by the utter lack of production marks and seamless panelling.

##### Production:

While all ships have the capabilities to construct most everyday need products or role specific tools the Ark ships are by far more suited to production as their extensive nanite foundries and laboratories allow them to sustain the high quality material demands.

Military ships usually have smaller foundries and production than their civilian counterparts as the space is usually allocated to more critical military compartments.

### Energy

Ark ships have giga-reactors similar in construction to Mortem reactors, however modified and adapted to the mortis specific needs for lower emissions and higher efficiency. In addition to this all ships carry backup batteries specifically meant to sustain crews for long periods of time without access to a reactor.

Military vessels have specialized low-emission reactors and can leech fuel off of most star types. Additionally the Radar absorbant paneling feeds back into the batteries. Civilian vessels rely mostly on similar reactors, but are far less stealth shielded and are usually accompanied by a fuel tanker for extended travel or operational times without refuelling.

## Culture

WIP

Art:

Being Machine Intelligences, the Mortis are perfectionists with nearly no equals. Their Art reflects this as it is very rarely just a singular piece, but more often than not a plethora of pieces within one another, hidden inside a piece of perfectly functional artisanry. Most Commanders are prolific artsits, with most pieces reflecing the corresponding commanders view of the universe.

For example, Commander Omega has a entire Hallway of swords, each and every one is a fully functional piece of Mortis technology, but also carries several dozen poems, songs, even entire theatrical plays and historical archives embellished on them with such a minute eye for detail that merely holding a sword at a different angle reveals another set of inscriptions.

It is also not uncommon for everyday pieces of Mortis technology are secretely pieces of art, where a simple nondescript wall may hide several songs and pieces of visual art far from the visual spectrum of light, simply due to its molecule-precise construction.

## POI

### Alpha: CiC of the MO

Highest ranking Sentient.

Also Commander of Fleet Alpha (Ark 1 & 7)

### Omega: Commander of Fleet Omega (Ghost Fleet 2)

Largest Expeditionary Force Fleet but furthest spread out amongst the Systems.