Never Give Into The Voices Intro
Before written history, before the Great Whirlwind, before the Traveler left, there was triumph, unity, the ability to live instead of survive. Before the Fallen, there was the Eliksni. Equality was granted, differences embraced. There were no strict castes, just Eliknsi. Giant Servitors watched over their mountainous cities, stopping what little crime there was on Eliksnios, their homeworld.
Before the violence, before the ether, before the mandatory service, Eliksni were very different than they are today. They were covered in fur. White fur, the most commonplace, was generally seen from those that dwelled near or at the summit of the mountains. Below them but above the tree line were those that lived among the rocks, taking on a characteristically gray fur. Brown furred Eliksni originated at the bottom of the mountains where their fur blended in with the dirt and lush jungles. Blue Eliksni were mysterious and rather rare. They had white torsos with blue on their backs, a perfect disguise for swimming in the oceans and lakes that covered Eliksnios, but their supposed cities beneath the water were only legend. Each of the different fur types could be seen in almost every settlement, but they generally stayed to their sections of the land because of the Aviasni, airborne predators of the Eliksni and the main evolutionary cause of the Eliknsi's differences. While it was rare for someone to be carried off by one of these reptilian and winged creatures, an unlucky citizen could sometimes be seen being lifted away.
The original Servitors originated from the Traveler. Comparative to the Ghosts Guardians use today, there were far fewer of them than the Eliksni, but their connection to the Traveler allowed each Servitor to relay information to the citizens. Eventually, the Eliksni divided into clans known as "Houses" and called upon select individuals, called Councilors, to meet under the power of the Traveler to discuss their growing differences in a governing body known as "The Council." Trade agreements were made and alliances formed in case of invasion. The largest clan present at the meeting was the House of Devils, a comparatively more barbaric tribe that had forsaken much of the traditional religions and began worshiping the Servitors as their prophets with the Traveler as their God.
After centuries of relative peace, a trade caravan stumbled upon a ruined village bearing Devil banners. Blood spattered the sides of houses and littered the streets, but the physical remains of the Devils were missing. The only things present besides the gore and ruined buildings were a few chitinous plates and a large sword of unique design. Bonds tied by blood immediately rotted away as tension grew. The House of Devil's immediately blamed another large faction known as the House of Wind, known for their innovations to swords and wide use of the weapons. House Rain claimed it knew nothing of the attacks and would do what they could to solve the mystery, but the Devils didn't care. Ties to almost every other House initially kept either of them from moving against the other due to the threat of civil war. Several more villages and even an entire city disappeared under the same circumstances with the same scarce evidence. The once-powerful allies House Wind held quickly deteriorated, danger growing like the evidence mounting against them.
That was when the Traveler left, abandoning the Eliksni and taking with it all of the Light. Blaming the Wind, the Council held a vote to eliminate the House of Wind and end the attacks and bring back the Traveler. The only delegates who voted against the annihilation were those from House Wind; otherwise, it was a unanimous decision.
The fighting was fierce but short lived as the House of Devils led an all-out assault on the House of Wind and destroying them within a month of the actual vote. Despite their elimination, the attacks continued at a rapid pace. Lines were drawn in the sand and new alliances brokered, essentially dividing Eliksnios in an event ultimately known as Nurr Ra'kaah, or the Great Whirlwind, christened after the supposed origin of the attacks, the House of Wind. The Servitors the Traveler gave to the Eliksni remained, cut off from the Light, but they continued making false prophecies, spreading rumors of attacks from other Houses.
Quickly brother turned against brother, house against house, as the House of Devil's invaded several smaller houses in fear that they would consolidate into one House and oppose them. All out civil war broke out shortly thereafter. Blood salted the once-fertile soil of Eliksnios and stained the sand. One House razed another in fierce battles of blades and plasma as Dark influences tainted their minds and ultimately took over each and every one of the Eliksni. War consumed the planet and fires raged throughout the planet as villages became charcoal, and House flags became the tinder on which those within it began to burn. Regional capitals were bombed into oblivion and fields of crops slowly grew sickly and lifeless, much like the Eliksni.
In the midst of starvation, the barbaric Devils stole Ether, a substance from the Servitors used to nurture the young or sick, from hospitals and used it to feed their troops. It became a drug of sorts, extending the amount of energy each soldier had and led them to working harder, faster, and stronger for much longer. Also like a drug, the Devils and the other Houses that adopted this same strategy quickly became addicted to the substance and forced the Servitors to synthesize en masse. Not long after, scouts from the House of Stone discovered strange readings from within one of their volcanoes along with chitin plates and other artifacts similar to those found in the villages destroyed during the Great Whirlwind. It was then that they realized that it was the Hive, ancient beings led by a cruel King and his Son, seeding their world and annihilating millions of their brothers and sisters.
The Stones tried to mount a large alliance to eradicate the Hive infestation, but the leaders of the other Houses killed the messengers in ignorance, claiming this invasion was rubbish and the invitation for peace was a coward's way out. Soon, Hive fleets charged through the atmosphere, cutting divisions in the planet and making their presence undeniable. It was then that an unstable peace was made between the few remaining Fallen Houses to fight off the Hive. Strongholds, bastions, forts, all of Eliksni banners, fell overnight as the underground tunnels of the Hive unleashed their forces from within the bases and destroyed them in quick surprise attacks led by the personal servants of King Oryx.
A massive decree to evacuate the planet and scuttle any remaining military installations echoed throughout what little of Eliksni civilization remained, the Hive already laying claim to over 80% of Eliksnios by this point. Large, heavily armed arks known as "Mega Ketches" or "Motherships" were hastily built and carried off the few remaining billions to escape the clutches of the Hive. Smaller Houses merged with the larger ones to protect themselves, and any left on the forsaken and wartorn planet were quickly exterminated by the Hive.
These Motherships were massive, able to mine nearby asteroids for metals and construct smaller Ketches onboard. The remaining Eliksni more or less thrived in the reaches of space, stealing whatever supplies they could get there hands on and killing any civilization that may or may not have gotten in their way, however the effects of consuming Ether for prolonged lengths of time emerged as the norm: fur loss, wrinkled skin, stunted body growth, and worst of all, a hopeless addiction to Ether. Each pirate unable to survive more than a few days without the elixir produced by the Servitors.
By this time, the Servitors from the Traveler were all but destroyed, and the Fallen, a name derived from an ancient text that first used this word to describe them as they no longer acted or looked like their Eliksni ancestors, reverse engineered there own and created other machines, including their own Servitors and robotic scout units known as Shanks. These "new" Servitors realized the grip they had on the Fallen and quickly used their position to establish a sort of religion or cult around them, quickly converting all of the soldiers to their twisted ways under the threat of Ether deprivation and, ultimately, death. The machines once used to guide the Fallen became their gods, their dictators, almost overnight.
Centuries passed and anything that once made them Eliksni now made them Fallen, pirates as they searched for a new homeworld. Most memories of their past selves dwindled on the brink of legend, and the name Eliksni was all but extinct…
...and the name Heksis was only beginning.