Strategos Collective

## General Overview

The Strategos Collective are a civilisation that resides entirely within a computer mainframe. Only the leadership of the Strategos Collective is actually aware of this, with all civilians being implanted into a virtual construct of the Black Eye Galaxy at birth and never learning the truth.

Strategos technology is built off of a system which involves using magnetic fields to manipulate matter on an atomic level. It can only really be used on inorganic matter, primarily metals or alloys. They use this process to fabricate their equipment, bodies and machinery, allowing them to create what they need on the fly, regardless of available parts and technology.

This means that the Strategos can form 'nests' which are converted from any available resources into server farms. The Strategos have learned how to easily interface with biological nervous systems, allowing them to convert thought patterns into digital data and vice-versa, however because they have little use for physical bodies, their interface systems are designed primarily as an extraction tool. They do not give much thought about the impact of biological interfaces on the body itself, due to the fact that once the consciousness has been extracted both the physical body and implants are recycled for raw materials.

Because of this, Strategos implants are generally are not easily removed nor are they designed to be a practical personal accessory. Survivors of a Strategos implant that has not been removed can eventually suffer side effects such as degradation to the nervous system, leading to a general numbness in the body. The connection to the implant also makes the subject's nervous system susceptible to things that could harm electronic devices, such as EMP.

Strategos, while technologically advanced in many areas, also tend to rely heavily on more archaic systems because of the nature of their species. One of the primary examples of this is that Strategos rarely use wireless transmission systems for communication and data transfer. Almost everything in a Strategos mainframe is hard wired and they prefer all of their connections to be physically connected. Strategos will rarely transfer 'crew' wirelessly between ships and if any form of important data transfer (Such as crew consciousnesses) is required, Strataegos ships will dock with each other to form a physical connection to do the transfer. When the Strategos do communicate wirelessly, such as when communicating with other species ships via their comms system, they use a device called a Transmission Relay. The Transmission Rely is basically a stop gap used to prevent malicious signals from interfering with a Strategos ship.

The Transmission Relay system works as follows: When it receives a signal from an unknown source, it will scan and examine the signal, attempting to determine it's intent and purpose. If the signal is considered 'safe' the Transmission Relay will use a docking arm to make a physical connection from the Transmission Relay to the ship's mainframe to allow the data to be transferred. In the event the signal is considered malicious or indeterminable, the Transmission Relay will NOT allow a physical connection to be made, thereby 'trapping' the offending data in the Transmission Relay itself, which will then initiate a memory dump to eradicate the offending signal before rebooting to begin accepting new signals. This makes it next to impossible to hack into a Strategos ship remotely. This is also why there is often a delay in response times when trying to initiate any form of conversation with a Strategos ship.

As for the structure of the ships themselves, it's often futile to attempt to board a Strategos ship directly, as they have no physical bodies. This means that there are no life support systems on board the majority of a Strategos vessel, except in specific cargo bays designed to house biological captives for assimilation into the mainframe. They refer to these areas as 'biomatter storage'.

The majority of the ship itself is a cluster of machinery tightly compacted amongst itself, with the only real access being narrow corridors used by maintenance drones. These corridors are often no more than 1.2 meters wide, and often have no light sources. They also are routinely patrolled by maintenance drones, who will attempt to forcefully remove any foreign material they encounter in the corridor, usually by attempting to grind it up to be sent to material storage.

However, because Strategos do not 'clone' consciousness and instead extract it, their ships are not simply 'drones' being controlled by a mother-ship. Instead, the crew of each ship is a collection of individual consciousnesses that understand that they will 'die' if the ship they are currently inhabiting is destroyed, making them open to negotiation if the threat of destruction is a possibility. If a ship is about to be destroyed, they will often 'abandon ship' in the form of escape pods which house an individual server and battery, which will broadcast a distress signal. Because these pods do not come equipped with Transmission Relays they are much more susceptible to being influenced by wireless transmissions and hack attempts.

In regards to countermeasures, Strategos ships ARE susceptible to EMP bursts, however it will not outright destroy or incapacitate them. Their primary server cores are shielded from EMP to protect the crew and vital systems, however a targeted EMP can take down auxiliary systems such as weapons, engines and communication arrays, and it can take some time for the crew to reset all these systems and repair any damage depending on the severity of the pulse.

Attempting to directly interface with the Strategos mainframe or one of their ships is not recommended without someone familiar with their systems acting as a spotter. The Strategos are highly adept at controlling the digital space in which they reside, and they are quite good at shutting down attempts to override or hack into their systems, often being able to use any open channels or links to instead gain access to their opponent's systems. Due the nature of Strategos technology, attempting to interface with the Strategos via a Strategos implant without authorisation can lead to any of the following:

Having their consciousness stripped from their body, having their body hijacked, sever brain/nerve damage, and in more extreme cases, coma or brain death. Severing a Strategos connection without properly disconnecting from them is not advised and can cause severe brain damage or death.

## Known Ship Classes

* Strategos MDU Class
* Strategos MPU Class

## Established History

Origins of the Strategos goes back over five thousand years ago. In order to protect themselves against the The Old Ones and the threat of the Void, the people of the planet Insidiea converted themselves to a digital form in order to protect themselves against the "Insanity Field" of the Old Ones and to give the impression that their civilisation had been destroyed.

The Strategos were responsible for the downfall of the original Nox-Veredian Empire, causing many dissidents to flee from Verakia when the Empire fell five thousand years prior.

First contact with the Strategos Collective came in 2419, when Strategos forces successfully attacked the U.S.S. Quest, causing the crew to abandon ship. It was later discovered that the Quest had not been destroyed but had fell into a Temporal Rift when a Photon torpedo detonation created an Temporal instability, making it appear that the ship had been destroyed.

The Strategos Collective launched a failed attack on the Australis system of the United Commonwealth of Planets in 2419. This event resulted in the brief Strategos War of 2419 in which ended with the Commonwealth destroying the Strategos Mainframe.

Due to this crippling blow, the Strategos retreated back to the secondary Mainframe on the edge of the Lambda Quadrant, only emerging to join forces with the Rothian Corperation in 2420 in order to finally destroy the Commonwealth.

In May 2419, the U.S.S. Callisto was captured by the Strategos who planned to use the vessel to gain access to the Chioni defensive mainframe. The Callisto crew were successful in retaking the ship, destroying the Strategos reserve mainframe in the process and crippling the Strategos beyond recovery.

Current, the Strategos are considered to be extinct and no further contact has been established with them.

## Notes

* The Strategos Collective were first encountered in the U.S.S. Quest episode, "Strategos" on the *14th May 2019*