Database and Lore

The Emphra Page 2

Regardless, by 2291, the war was starting to shift more and more in the Itreans favor. Battles in space were the highest of this time period, and ground warfare was still at its bloodiest. Even with new weapons, fighting hordes of enemies was difficult. However, as each month passed, more ground was gained. Worlds no longer needed to be nuked unless all was lost on the battlefront. Even then, it was infrequent at this point. By the time it hit 2292, the battles were starting to die down. This didn’t mean that the Emphra let up, but signs were starting to be seen that the alien race was losing the war. The numbers of the fleets were dwindling in size. More and more planets were being retaken. One of the biggest successes was the retaking of the very first colony that the Emphra took. The Yutilian world would undergo a reseeding program almost immediately as an act of defiance to the Emphra. Offensive campaigns were more and more common by this time. In 2295, it was deemed that the Emphra were all but doomed. The battles, while still existent, were becoming less and less at this point. By now, most of the worlds had been retaken, and the Emphra that infested them were wiped out. New resistant measures in the Itrean bodies were made to also help slow down their advancement and provide more chances of resisting them from possessing a person. One of the biggest questions, however, was where they were coming from? Where were their hidden bases and homes that they were using to launch their attacks? Great exploration campaigns were made as the Itreans went on the offensive scouring system after system to eliminate them. In 2297, the Battle of Sector TO-45 would occur. This would be the last major battle with the Emphra fleets. The Itreans had utterly decimated the Emphra fleet and broke the backs of the alien offenses. By this time period, all the worlds had been “liberated,” and the Emphra were gone, but the search campaigns had little results in finding their launch point. Finally, a breakthrough was made in 2299 as one of the hulks of the destroyed Emphra ships revealed the point of origin. It came from a solar system located just at the edge of Itrean space. More was also learned about the alien species that the Emphra had consumed. What became the Battle of Emphra’Ka in 2299 was little more than an outright victory for the United Itrean clans. By then, there were too few Emphra vessels to oppose the incoming Itrean vessels. However, it is speculated that some of the Emphra ships had actually circled around their planet of the advancing Itreans and jumped out, but there isn’t enough evidence to back this claim. What became known as the Bombardment of Emphra’Ka was one that is echoed in the recent Itrean history books. It is reported that the Itrean ships began to nuke the planet with warheads and shells. Railguns and grazer-based weapons would be used over and over again against the surface. No ground forces were ever launched for the first three months because the bombardment kept going. It is strongly believed that the Itreans were releasing their heartfelt emotions of the loss of their kin and families by letting it out on the planet. Day after day would pass as more warheads rained down on the surface. There was no stopping to it. Ships that ran out of ammunition would double back to reload to continue the bombardment. It was believed that over ten thousand Itrean ships continued to shell the surface continuously. Families (men, women, and children) that lost loved ones from the Emphra were brought aboard the ships to press the buttons to launch more warheads onto the surface. There was actual anxiety of stopping the bombardment in fears that the Emphra had reached god-like proportions. The Itreans utter hatred of them remained. The bombardment would last for three months. Every mountain had been reduced to a glass-like state. The crust had been pummeled into a radioactive wasteland. Every corner, every inch of land was entirely unsuitable for life. To this day, the Itreans (Primarily the Aksren clan that later took it) even use Emphra’Ka as a testing ground for weapons on their ships, just because of the horrors it left upon them. There would be no further sightings of the Emphra in the next forty years. Impact of the Emphra After forty years of no sightings, the Emphra have been looked at as an extinct species. Its legacy has been that of horrors and absolute terror. To the Itrean people, they have songs that talk about what the Emphra was, the actions that they did, and the courage and sorrows that came with it. It is believed that 40% of the Itrean families had been directly impacted by the Emphra attacks, losing a loved one or even most of the family. Conservative estimates believe that the Emphra and friendly fire had wiped out 20% of the Itrean population. Others claim that it’s as high as 33% as many of the bodies had never been recovered. Over 2 trillion Itreans in the lowest estimate are reported dead or missing. It would be one of the most cataclysmic events in recent Itrean history of damage inflicted upon them that would last to this very day. Regardless, the Itreans had been somewhat used to bloodshed. Repairs had begun even before the Emphra were completely eradicated. The Emphra had ravaged over forty worlds at one point, but it would take about twenty years to completely restore the eco structure and infrastructure of some of these homes. Warships and weapons constructed to combat the Emphra are barred from being scrapped, often leaving the decommissioned ships to hulk in the shipyards endlessly. The Yutilian clan made an incredible effort to take in the refuges of the ravaged Shal’rein and Aksren worlds that the Emphra brought forth. This jump in population would turn the clan into a melting pot of new cultures and beliefs, something that would prove beneficial for the human race in the far future. The Shal’rein clan would be put into an economic recession for thirty years that they are still recovering as far as 2350. The Aksren clan, perhaps, probably had the most to benefit from the Emphra War, although even they had economic instability for the first ten years. Most warships built beyond the Emphra War were dramatically less in quality than the warships built in the next thirty years afterward. Many commanders and soldiers would be heralded even long after the Emphra Wars. Master Adjunct Wo’vat’trun and Greater Adjunct Lij’Lara of the Yutilian clan, Master Adjunct Gular’Shel of the Shal’rein clan, Master Adjunct Zedresh, and Greater Adjunct Jal’Falren of the Aksren clan were many that earned their names as veterans that fought against the Emphra, including much much more. They would bring advisement and warning about the impending dangers that the Emphra were. There are speculations that the Emphra are still out there. The greatest impact in wiping out the alien menace is that it saved humanity from an impending future invasion. It was very likely that if the Emphra won and completely consumed the Itreans, they would continue to spread outward throughout the galaxy. Human scholars estimate that the Emphra fleets would have reached the Sol System within a few hundred years. Even then, while time passes and there are no sightings of the Emphra, many believe that they have been completely wiped out, but a few disagree. What is called the “Melting Fleet Paradox” is often whispered by some Itrean commanders. The theory is that the Emphra had been leaching their fleets. In the last five to seven years of the conflict, there would be a small amount of Emphra ships that would withdraw for no reason within every battle. It is believed that these ships would be later encountered in future battles, but there isn’t enough evidence to support this claim. Some say that the Battle of Sector TO-45 was the meeting place of these retreating Itrean vessels, where they were all destroyed. The truth is that nobody knows. With gate folding technology, the Emphra can go anywhere…… Fears would promote the creation of the Trinity Government, a failed but valiant effort for the Itrean clans to have a form of United Republic. All of this is in due thanks to the Emphra Wars. Even with crumbling civil wars, these treaties still persist that the Itrean clans must work together if the Emphra are ever discovered again. All fleet assets must be dispatched to eliminate the alien fleets before they can become a danger to themselves or somebody else. Further analysis of the Emphra had been made on the Emphra’Ka world. Soldiers that came to the ground found the world to be completely blasted. The goal was to make for certainty that the Emphra were completely dead or resume the bombardment and crack the planet into pieces if need be. The soldiers found nothing for weeks as nothing was recognizable. It wasn’t until the end of the scanning that they found the remnants of an etched stone wall. When it was checked, they found that there were scarring marks of that of acid. It is believed that the Emphra might have actually created these etchings, but there is a lot of mystery to this. Some claim it might have been something that survived from the Ka, although the acidic properties argue against it. If so, why do they exist? Scholars have been trying to figure this out to this day. It featured that of an etching of a void similar to a spinning galaxy or black hole. Three eyes, a pattern that had been seen on the Emphra abominations and gore nests, were the same as the etchings. If the Emphra had a form of religion, it would have been one that they took to their graves. They never said anything else about it when they possessed the other lifeforms they took. Some speculation is that the Emphra were mimicking something that they had “seen,” rather than a religion that humans and Itreans can even define. Further analysis of the Emphra have shown that they originated from the world of Emphra’Ka. The name of the planet is a conjunction of the word “Emphra” and the word “Ka.” The name for Ka (A loose Itrean translation for ‘dragon’) is the name given to the original race that the Emphra consumed. There is no knowledge of who they really were but that of a nomadic race. Their ships were enormous but designed to carry their entire populations onboard, much like the Noo’dort clan. They would land on a planet, consume all the resources, and move along. Unfortunately, the Ka would land in a world where the Emphra existed. It is heavily believed that the Emphra were the natural apex predator of the planet. They lived deep underground to avoid the harsh radiation that was left from the parent stars. When the Ka landed, the Emphra emerged to consume them. The Ka had access to hundreds of thousands of their enormous vessels along with gate folding technology. With the Emphra using their husks and gate folding technology, their reign to spread throughout the galaxy began. *Spoilers if you haven't read past Gabatrix: The Silver Rain arc*  It wouldn’t be until 2350 that the Emphra would be spotted, and this time it would be in UWA space. The unknown wreckage that gave out a distress call caused the UHN to send out the battleship Columbus to investigate it. Not much longer, a distress call was picked up by the battleship that they had encountered “something,” then silence…… The UHN battleship Paul Jones and an accompanying T’rintar clan warship went together to dispatch a marine team to investigate the floating Columbus. Its derelict hull seemed to give hints that it was attacked or raided by another Itrean clan, but upon going deeper, it was revealed to horror and confusion that there was an alien lifeform on board the vessel. Later it was identified as the Emphra that was onboard the floating wreckage that Columbus’s crew took aboard. The two Emphra creatures began to spread around in rapid succession before the crew scuttled much of the equipment to prevent the Emphra from using it. There were no survivors on the ship, and only two members of the marine team had managed to escape the Emphra onslaught alive and free of the Emphra. For safety reasons, The Paul Jones nuked and scuttled the Columbus after the retrieval of the marines. The event that transpired has been one that was partially noticed by UHN leadership. Itreans claimed that it was just a relic of the Emphra War and that the debris from some past war had wandered into human-controlled space, but there is much debate on this. Even at the fastest speeds, any wandering debris would take hundreds of thousands to millions of years to even reach the farthest of UWA worlds. How did this debris get within 100 light-years of the Sol system? It is speculated that the piece of debris broke off from a larger Emphra ship that traversed near the UWA systems. This has sent alarms to the UHN that the enemy whom the Itreans fought might still be out there, but where they went is a true mystery. The response to such an event has been half and half. Most Itreans are not fearful of this situation and consider the Columbus disaster as an isolated accident, but not all are fully convinced. The UHN has begun the creation of Grazer-based laser rifles (based on the Itrean Anti-Emphra guns) just in case something is still looming out there, but others claim that it is far from enough….. Emphra warships consist of whatever they can get ahold of. No two ships are alike, and their assets were enormous. While some of it is a mystery, it is believed that the Emphra used possessed bodies to begin massive retrofits of buildings and factories to begin constructing and commissioning warships. These warships consisted of many of the enormous nomadic ships of the Ka at first, but soon they began to use skyscrapers of captured colonies as makeshift craft. Technically, they didn’t have much need of atmospheres in their ships, with the exception of any bodies and organic tissue that they used to keep functional. The silver liquid could thrive in all but the most radioactive of environments. Skyscraper vessels tended to be weakly armed and of low quality. The Emphra used whatever they could to transfer to them from captured Itrean weapons to weapons from the Ka vessels to provide some armament, but they made for poor warships. To make up for this, they would normally come in huge numbers and use guided munitions and ballistic warheads that “carried some of the Emphra” to other vessels and colonies. If the missiles penetrated a ship hull, they could easily spread in the interior of the ship. Technically, only in massive numbers could the missiles be effective. There were also tactics that the Emphra engaged in. Some warships were designed as “runner” vessels that would head straight to a planet. Others would serve as “Warships” that would go straight after the defenses to distract or wipe out the Itrean forces. “Support Vessels” tended to be the most unpredictable as they could either attack or make a run to a planet. Once the vessel would fly into an atmosphere, the Emphra bodies could rain down upon the ground. The silver liquid can easily survive great falls from the sky and pursue any organic living creature on the ground or water. At times, the Emphra would take asteroids and even convert them into runner vessels. Technically, the Emphra tried to avoid using super large asteroids as they could wipe out the atmosphere or obliterate all life that they needed to consume if the rocks impacted. Their tactics also tried to call upon the same thing when engaging enemy fleets. “Capture and consume” was generally their main route, but capturing and consuming everything that was on the ground was the higher priority. The Emphra also had some form of awareness to recognize what was a threat to them, at least to a point. It is unknown how the alien race was able to communicate from ship to ship, but there was a consciousness that each ship operated with inside. Fleet coordination didn’t seem to be prevalent, which served as another advantage that the Itreans had over them. There are no true estimates of how big the Ka fleets were when the Emphra consumed them. Speculation is believed that the race was completely nomadic. Everything came with them when they went from planet to planet. It was believed that they all traveled as one when they went to their final destination world. Experts point out that the numbers could have been 10,000 of their super/city ships were taken, but it could have been as high as 11,000 to even 90,000. It was these numbers in which why the Emphra were so dramatically overpowered. However, even these ships were not so ideally suited for combat. The later years of them diverting their armament to the skyscraper vessels further weakened their combat prowess. Itrean vessels, while smaller and less quantity, were more adept at combat. Even a small Yutilian battleship can still challenge and take down a Ka warship in a balanced fight. If anything, some of the Itreans, like the Shal’rein simply referred to the big ships as “Perfectly fat targets to blow up. It was hard to ever miss…..”