Cult of Troniac — Faction Blog

History

The Engine of Negation is an extremest sect of the Cult of Troniac, founded by General Zarlok, after being accidentally rescued from exile. Zarlok was a robot built specifically to defeat Troniac during the 1,000 Years war, and as such was both sheltered against evidence of the abuse of robots in the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns, and protected with the Nalaxian Code.

Only when directly confronted with the facts of that oppression via a memory device surreptitiously by one of Troniac's agents, did Zarlok relent and support robotic liberation, albeit after the conclusion of the war. This was the critical event that led to the founding of the Engine of Negation.

So great was Zarlok's rage, at being systematically deceived, that it detonated a powerful Neutron Pulse Device on Artanis 4, killing millions of civilians. After this, the Empire exiled Zarlok, by beaming its program into "uninhabited space", only for it to be received thousands of years later, on Earth (at the close of Era-0). After declaring war on humanity and all other organic life-forms, and spreading the creed of Troniac throughout human space, General Zarlok decided that the time was right to found an organization dedicated to wiping out organic life in the galaxy. This organization was the Engine of Negation.

Luckily, for humanity, the Planetary League's efforts against The Engine were effective enough to prevent it from achieving its goals. In particular, the Department of Artificial Justice (originally founded by the United Nations to combat Zarlok's villainy) was tasked with hunting down and eliminating the Engine. The Tardigrades also had frequent clashes with the Engine of Negation, as did the Interstellar Navy, and various Planetary Defense Forces.

The Engine of Negation continued its activities until the War of the Gods, when Troniac returned to the galaxy. The Engine of Negation joined with the regular forces of the Cult of Troniac in order to combat the Holy Empire of Man.

Tactics

Among the most disturbing weapons of the Engine of Negation are the Maenads of Troniac, intelligent life-forms infected with virobots designed to send them into a berserk rage.

History

Long ago, before the 1,000 Years War, the Greys split off and became a separate species from the Cielioid Greys. Unlike the Cielioid Greys that use their biological radio-organs for communication, the Greys use theirs to form hive minds. These hive-minds are sensitive to radio interference, which made life in the E1MS difficult. Eventually, the largest of the Grey hive-minds got together, and decided to leave the Empire in search of a quieter place to live. This was the founding of the Convergence.

The Greys set off in early versions of their distinctive silver flying saucers (the distinctive design of which cancels out radio noise) in search of a new home. Eventually, they settled in a place on the arm of the galaxy between the Empire and Earth.

When the radio beacon encoded with General Zarlok’s program was activated, the signal passed through Convergence space. As a result, when human explorers discovered the location of the Convergence, they assumed General Zarlok had been one of their information-warfare tactics. Some of the Convergence ships in the area at the time actually received the signal, and those Greys who had learned to communicate wirelessly with computer systems actually became hosts to parts of Zarlok’s program. As a result, there are some groups of Greys who joined the Cult of Troniac.

The convergence grew slowly, initially colonizing only a few dozen systems, but they did send out scout ships to survey the galaxy. When they did encounter intelligent life they would occasionally attempt to subjugate it if it was convenient. About 5000 years ago (around 3000 BCE), The Convergence enslaved the Bravaxians, forcing them to work producing food. They also developed a taste for Bravaxian flesh, which had a narcotic effect on Greys.

In mid 1947, a Convergence scout ship crashed near Roswell New Mexico after radio broadcasts originating from Earth interfered with the crew’s hive-mind. Neither the crew nor the ship was severely damaged, and after a brief detention by the US military, they made a hasty escape. Other members of the scout fleet subsequently made occasional harassing raids on Earth in retaliation, typically doing minimal damage, but terrifying the locals.

During Era-1, the Convergence and the Planetary League got into occasional conflicts arising mainly from the radio-noise sensitivity of the Greys. Typically these skirmishes only resulted in minimal casualties, but left a lasting impression, due to the Convergence's mastery of psychological warfare. These conflicts were known cumulatively as "The Convergence Wars", and mainly took place on the frontier of the Planetary league. During the third Convergence War, the Planetary League liberated the Bravaxian home-world. Even so the Convergence still held large populations of Bravaxian slaves.

During Era-2, the Convergence fought a series of small wars with the Holy Empire of Man, which resulted in the Convergence losing most of its territory, until the remainder fled to the rim of the Galaxy, where their hive-minds merged with the collective consciousness of the Galactic Republic.

Structure

The Convergence is a hive-mind, where the consciousness of many organisms is merged together through brain-to-brain communication. Short-range communications are handled directly through engineered organs inside the brains of Convergence entities that receive and transmit radio signals. Long-range coordination is handled through a specialized organism, known as a Convergence Node. Each node has a set of subservient organisms, and communicates to others of its own type through a peer-to-peer network. The Convergence has no central node, though certain places see higher concentrations of Convergence-beings, and some nodes are more interconnected than others.

Culture

The Convergence can typically be recognized by their unique silver and grey disc-shaped spacecraft.

Convergence weaponry tends to be highly ornate in a style similar to industrial design from the United States during the 1950's. They are especially known for their ray-pistols, which tend to be streamlined, polished chrome with fins.

The Convergence greatly prized the foods produced by the Bravaxians. Two of the most popular Bravaxian foods within the Convergence were Garbage-fruit, and the meat of the Grunkle-fly.

Even though the main method of communication within the Convergence is direct, brain-to-brain radio, occasions do arise when writing is required. Here is the set of symbols used within the Convergence. This is combined with the base-8 numbering system found in the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns.