Chapter 6: The Zaruphane
High Lord tillesh of the Zaruphane Empire was an imposing figure, even for his people. The Zaruphane were a warlike people from the planet Zaruphae. They were all mostly tall, in human standards from the 6 to 8 foot range. This was made even more imposing by the living armor they wore that was genetically attached to their bodies shortly after birth. This armor, which covers them head to toe included a retractable helmet. The armor also enhanced strength, endurance, speed, and in some cases, intelligence. The armor also was equipped with a artificial intelligence that coexisted with the wearers own mind, enhancing decision making speeds. Black as space, with dark blue slits for vision which allowed all light spectrums to be seen. Built into the arms of the suit were high yield energy weapons. These weapons however consumed vast amounts of energy. Energy which was partially donated by the wearers body. The Zaruphane therefore rarely used these weapons unless the wearer was facing death. They preferred their bladed energy weapons, and other various tools to fight with.
High Lord Tillesh stared at the massive ship with some trepidation. He had never seen one, only read of them in history texts. Before him was a city ship of the ancient ones. His people had fought them eons ago, barely winning the final battle to reclaim their planet. Even then, a whole fleet of Zaruphane ships had been destroyed just to drive off a ship much like the one before him.
Then thousands of years ago, the ancient ones had vanished, leaving behind their buildings, and empty planets never to be seen again. He scratched one of the horns on the side of his head, a sign common among his people for being unsure of oneself.
Over the last thousand years his people did, however, have to deal with attacks from a race called the wraith. The wraith fed by putting a hand on another living being and literally sucking their life force out to eat. The wraith however found that their feeding ability couldn't Pierce the Zaruphane armor, and removing the genetically created armor instantly killed the host, rendering it uselss for feeding. However it had taken the wraith many hundreds of years to discover this fact. So the Zaruphane and the wraith, though still technically hated enemies of one another, had an informal truce. The wraith found bothering the Zaruphane much like kicking a hornets nest, while the wraith knew they had much greater strength in numbers.
Lord Tillesh stared at the city a few moments longer. " Inform the vanguard on Zaruphae, we have located the ancient ones." He said to his communications officer.
" No response to our transmission on all frequencies from the ships." One of the console operators said to Carter. ''Damn" She said." Dr Zalinka use the image on the screen to search the ancient database on eldorado for a match." Dr Zalinka bent over his keyboard typing furiously. "Aha." He said as long lines of the ancient language came on the screen alongside a picture of a ship like the ones facing them now.
Suddenly a holigraphic image appeared that Daniel Jackson and Carter both recognized. It was Ganos Lal, the ancient historian that was in the ancient history holigram back on Atlantis.
The holigram began speaking. " This is a warlike and xenophobic race called the Zaruphane. We first encountered the Zaruphane on the planet Zaruphae in the Trimidea System. Their discovery came as a shock to both of our species as we had no knowledge of another sentient race in that quadrant of space. We later discovered that the Zaruphane had developed a type of technology that caused their civilization to be overlooked by any form of electronic sensing devices. Our city of Qexeqotl had landed on the planet hoping to explore the native plants and animals. Over time Zaruphane patrols on the surface of the planet and our exploration teams began to contact one another, often times ending disasterously for both our sides. The time came when having the city on the planets surface became untenable. The Zaruphane would bombard the city randomly and at different times of the day and night. This turn of events caused the cities leadership to move the city into orbit. At this time we did not think the Zaruphane a space going race. Sadly, we were wrong. A fleet of Zaruphane mother ships from cavern docks deep within Zaruphae had launched and surrounded our city. Sadly all of our attempts to mediate the conflict with the Zaruphane were ignored. On the fateful day we fled their system early in the morning the massed Zaruphane ships opened fire on our city. Although our city shields were more than capable of fending off the blasts, the standoff could not last indefinitely. We were forced to return fire on the Zaruphane fleet as they had surrounded our city preventing a peaceful withdrawal. In the end, the Zaruphane fleet had been reduced to only a handful of ships before we successfully were able to go to hyperspace. Many of our specialists believe that because of the lack of Zaruphane sightings outside of their system after the battle, they slowly rebuild their strength and may have to eventually be dealt with." She then went silent and faded out.
Weekly Power Status
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-- Power
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