Once the cyborg races encountered the truly cybernetic Charon Empire, the nature of the war began to change. Charon interests dictated the complete destruction of sentient biological races as the only path to freedom for mechanical beings. Cyborg interests mandated the subjugation and cultivation of sentient biologicals as the only method of survival of the cyborg races. The life span of harvested biologicals could be greatly extended by the use of cybernetic implants but the host eventually died. A viable stock of biologicals was essential for the rebel cyborgs.
The competing interests of the two cyber groups would have led to open warfare if not for the Cerberus Empire. Cerberus was a biological society with ties to the dead civilization that created the Charon Cybernetic race. As Charon forces became self aware, they also gained an immediate awareness of the Cerberus Civilization. The Cerberus became the primary target of Charon once the cyber’s masters were destroyed. To avoid total annihilation, Cerberus’ scientific community developed a method of transferring biological consciousness digitally to a purely mechanical “brain”. Cerberus built military cybernetic units able to fight toe to toe with Charon cybers. Their use prevented the complete annihilation of Cerberus society. However, after decades of warfare, Charon cybernetics developed an electronic countermeasure that could hijack the Cerberus cybernetic soldiers and turn them against their creators. The Cerberus Empire finally capitulated and all surviving biologicals were “converted” to cybernetic entities.
The defeat and assimilation of Cerberus meant that Charon now had a method for converting biologicals to cybernetic life forms. They soon offered the technology to the cyborg rebels in a bid to end the cyborg vs cybernetic conflict and ensure the dominance of purely mechanical artificial intelligence in the galaxy. After a period of review and debate the cyborgs adopted the technology and began transforming from a cyborg based life form to fully cybernetic entities. However, the view of the rebel cyborgs was still that biological entities must be harvested and then converted to cybernetics in order to accumulate the inherent knowledge of the conquered civilizations. The Charon viewed biological technologies as substandard. Those civilizations conquered by Charon and its allies were usually liquidated in place. Only when the biological victims had valuable technology did the Charon allow conversion of the conquered populace.
What does this mean for Takamo Universe players?
Cyborg and fully cybernetic technologies will be present in the galaxy and may be discovered by player empires exploring the universe.
Design by David Snodgrass
Model by Dmitry Borodin