Origins of the Ken'Tarii
Early attempts at terraforming by humans was a messy, complicated process. Each planet presented a unique problem, and many solutions that were proposed never saw a great deal of success or funding. One that did, and is still of great moral debate to this day, is the use of genetically-modified human beings.Humans by nature are environmentally-fragile creatures, but by exposing human stem-cells to an environment which was procedurally degraded from earthlike to those on the target-world, human embryos could be grown which would have ideal traits which let them withstand environments that most normal human colonists couldn't sustain.
Eventual improvements to this method involved the introduction of alien DNA from native carbon-based life into an embryo's genome, which would further augment the produced organism's survivability and also reduce any impact it had on the existing ecosystem. This would make them part of the planet's biosphere just like any other native plant or animal.
The most successful and proliferated of these cultures were produced at Taylor Colony in the Tau Ceti system, where the DNA of the native alien population produced individuals which had proven in trials to be the most adaptable and successful in the long-term; This, paired with the wide-scale acceptance that the Tau Ceti's aliens were not legally guaranteed any more rights than any other non-human animal, helped to build the narrative that humans with modified genomes were similarly expendable.
Under both the Federation and the Empire, modified humans were used as indentured or slave labor to conduct on-surface terraforming operations. These projects often ended either with the inter-breeding of the lab-grown workers with incoming colonists, the eviction and recollection of their established communities to be used in other terraforming projects, or in extreme cases the wide-scale termination of the planet's neo-native population to make way for regular humans.
March 5th, 3307, was the millennial anniversary of when the project at Taylor Colony began, and here many of the modified humans enjoyed a relatively higher degree of personal freedom. This date became infamous for another reason entirely, however, as it was also the day that an organized uprising of these neo-natives took place on the planetary surface.
The instigating group of modified humans had given themselves the name "Ken'Tarii" as they considered themselves more or less kin by blood to the oppressed and encaged/enslaved Tau-Cetians whose genetic material had been used to create them. They firmly believed that many of humanity's greatest evils came from being able to see other people as less human than themselves, and as they were considered "non-human", they surmised that there could never be any peace with their masters.
News of this "Ken'Tarii Uprising" was suppressed, since the neo-native program was still a state-kept secret by The Club and their legal status as citizens was being brought into question. While these people could be discerned as non-human by certain bodily and facial proportions that would have been anatomically unusual or even impossible for most natural humans to have, they were able to speak and comprehend English and other languages, they shared the ability to cross-breed with regular humans (which is a characteristic most other neo-native populations had lost over the course of centuries of sustained isolation), and they also shared higher cognitive function, social skills, and the ability to not only understand and operate heavy machinery, but also vehicles, computers, maps, and even spacefaring vessels under the close supervision of testing officials.
They took key staff members as hostages, and made demands to federal negotiators, promising they would be released unharmed if the Ken'Tarii were allowed to leave. After nearly a day of discussion and weighing options, the Federation agreed to provide them with a small fleet of unarmed ships, fitted with the most basic internal modules necessary for sustaining themselves in wild-space. Nearly all of the staff were returned, except for one individual, which decided voluntarily to stay on-board: Federation Rear-Admiral Teegan Perry.
Admiral Perry sympathized heavily with the plight of the Ken'Tarii, as he believed their revolt was undeniable proof of federal hypocrisy. He had studied their cultural and religious practices in private, and had even won the romantic favor of Tayno Shosuke, who had become the tribe's chieftain only a few years after her father Mataruuk Shosuke was executed in front of the rest of the group in the year 3305. His execution was done as punishment for striking and killing a Federal Navy Lieutenant which he had claimed prior to his death had been caught with two other military officials attempting to rape his daughter. His death provided the inspiration for her to lead the uprising which had set her people free from Taylor Colony at only 16 earth-years old, yet for fear of his daughter's safety, he made another Lieutenant, one who had always shown a genuine interest in their culture and of whom he spoke about having seen in prophetic dreams, promise to marry her as his dying request when she came of age. Teegan Perry was that young officer.
Despite successful negotiations and an otherwise uneventful hostage-exchange, it was revealed that the ships the Ken'Tarii had been given by federal authorities had been tampered with. These faulty ships would show incomplete system maps which directed them to other systems where federal ATRs were lying-in-wait to interdict and execute the defenseless vessels, which had also been falsely marked as wanted with high-notoriety. The defecting Rear-Amiral could circumvent this sabotage with his personal knowledge of federal systems and surrounding space, but the possibility of contacting anyone outside of the fleet was out of the question as the ship's comms arrays had all been sabotaged as well.
It was clear at this point that the Federation wanted to ensure the ships would never be able to dock or request help from other human ships or installations, as the landing-gear was also rendered inoperable. They would either be captured and killed by authorities or bounty-hunters without them being any the wiser, or they would make it out into the wilds of uncivilized space and disappear, only to have their fleet of refugees die slowly from a lack of supplies.
After nearly two weeks of attempting to make contact with groups outside of the Federation for assistance and rationing fuel from what little amounts of coronal tritium the malfunctioning fuel-scoops could gather from each star they visited, it became clear that their last best hope was to attempt a landing in a system which they would be able to build their own rudimentary facilities in. Tayno and Teegan both chose the Amitae system, and by this point their relationship had developed to a point where he promised that as soon as they were able to land somewhere and secure the future of the Ken'Tarii, he would marry her.
Upon arriving in Amitae, federal police began their pursuit of the lead vessel in what remained of the fleet of refugees. Admiral Perry knew all too well that they might be forced to fight until the bitter end, and had devised a plan to commandeer a Federation vessel in order to use the working comms array aboard it. In the Ken'Tarii fleet, there were three Anacondas, two federal dropships, and six eagles, all which despite having some form of inoperable or malfunctioning equipment were all captured from pirates by federal police before being given to Shosuke and her group.
Admiral Teegan has an escape-pod modified for use with the hatch-breaker limpet system on-board the lead anaconda, and told the crew on-board to fire it whenever a large vessel was close enough. As soon as the shields went down from the thermal weapons of smaller ships, the Farragut cruiser throttled up its main engines and began training its weapons onto the anaconda that him and Tayno were aboard. The limpet drone carrying Teegan broke through the cargo hatch, and embedded his escape-pod into the ship's interior.
In the same cold, methodical fashion he had become all too familiar with in his service with the Federation, Teegan's training and professional bearing gave way to relentless bloodlust as he started to slaughter the crew on-board the corvette. At first his service rifle, then his sidearm, then a captured weapon from one of the other crew members, and finally a large metal flashlight from one of the capital ship's wall-mounted emergency panels. His anger swelled as he approached the bridge, and by the time he had reached the door to the command-deck, he had already entered a state of primal rage. The gruesome acts of vengeance and the horrific methods with which he carried them out upon the vessel's leadership would wrench the stomach of even the most barbaric of pagan blood-cultists, and call into question the existence of an omniscient loving god.
Finally in control of the cruiser, Teegan shuts off the turrets firing onto the Ken'Tarii fleet. Using the on-board communications systems to patch himself through to Tayno. Upon making contact with her, he asks if the fleet sustained any heavy damage. Tayno responds that, miraculously, only one of the larger vessels sustained any major damage. Every other ship was sitting safely in low-orbit, mostly unscathed from the bombardment. Teegan's relief to this seemingly good news was short-lived, however, as the capital ship's radar picked up a single vessel, entering the planet's gravity-well and descending at an uncontrollable speed due to the failure of its thrusters.
She reveals to him that she evacuated the rest of the crew from the Anaconda that she was on-board, and positioned the vessel directly between the capital ship's turrets and the remnant of the Ken'Tarii fleet. Her breathing became shallow, with her hand moving away from her stomach to show that she had been lacerated by numerous shell fragments, many of which had cut clean through her. Despite the agony inflicted by her severe wounds, she gave Teegan a genuine, loving smile, a smile that would stick with her beloved forever afterwards, as she calmly closed her eyes. She laid her head back, thanking him for saving her people and telling him that her job is finished. She makes him promise to look after the Ken'Tarii, and slowly but certainly the video feed begins to cut out, giving way to the view from the ship's bridge in which a small, metallic dot began to catch smoke and fire as it plummeted to the surface of the planet, striking it like a meteor. Nothing but static can be heard as Teegan falls to his knees and sobs, doubled-over in a mixture of overwhelming anguish, rage, and sorrow...
The rest of the fleet did not learn of their chieftain's sacrifice until the Farragut cruiser, piloted by Former-Admiral Perry, began its descent to the surface near the impact site. What they were able to find of the Anaconda's wreckage was salvaged for the black-box, which was played back only once, and which is said to account Teegan's conversation with Tayno throughout his one-manned assault on the cruiser as well as her sacrificial actions. The black-box recovered in the first portion of the wreckage has since then never been played in public, and is kept as a memento in Teegan's personal quarters to this day. It is said that sometimes the widower will play the box at night when he is by himself, listening to his beloved's voice so that he may remember their time together.
No body belonging to Tayno Shosuke had been found among the debris which was recovered; It was also initially surmised she had perished on impact, but in 3309 her body was discovered in an unsearched portion of the wreckage which was half-buried in the planet's surface much farther North of where the first portion of her ship had been found. When her body was finally brought in for autopsy it shed new light on the events surrounding her untimely death; Even though she had survived the crash, it was very unlikely that she would have escaped the conflagration or survived long enough to be rescued. In learning that their former chieftain had effectively been burned at the stake, the resolve of the Ken'Tarii has only been strengthened against outside threats, and further unified the people of the Mandate under their posthumous sympathy for Tayno, as well as their reverence for her as a martyr.
Tayno was idolized by her people, and with the last of their ruling bloodline gone the Ken'Tarii were left without leadership. It was during this critical moment that Teegan kept his promise to her by taking charge of the leaderless lot, consulting with the group's elders to document the Ken'Tarii's cultural and religious practices as the others began to disassemble the fleet and captured Farragut, using the materials to assemble the first permanent, modern settlement of the Ken'Tarii people. Built upon the impact site of Tayno's anaconda, the settlement was subsequently named Shosuke Vision in honor of her.
After re-organizing as a theocratic state which ruled with a mixture of Ken'Tarii and human elements, the colonists named their new government The Ken'Tarii Mandate, and through an elected papacy would appoint Teegan Perry as the Archbishop to head this new entity. Tayno posthumously became the figurehead of the Ken'Tarii faith and many of its practices, established as a prophetic figure with a status equivalent to sainthood. Archbishop Perry lamented at the centralization of their religion around his bride-to-be, knowing that by becoming a papal figure of the theocracy and swearing to a vow of clerical chastity, he was in effect keeping his promise of marrying her, even if it was not in the way that he originally intended. Both of them understood one thing very well, however; At this point there was no going back, that the freedom to TRULY dictate their own path had been attained, not gained thru compromise with hostile groups and not granted via a written contract, but by victory and sacrifice.
Despite the faction's namesake, The Ken'Tarii Mandate is also host to a vast human population, of which only a minority can trace their lineage back to the full-blooded Ken'Tarii who first made the treacherous journey from Tau Ceti to the Amitae system. Nonetheless, almost every one of its citizens, both human and abhuman, share a united sense of identity and nationality through their shared values, sense of freedom, and spiritual enlightenment. Though the faction's official territorial claims originally only consisted of three systems, (Amitae, Lhanayi, and Nugua), the influence of their culture and growing prominence as a regional power has proven difficult for even the most staunch critics of the Mandate to ignore.
In truth, the majority of full-blooded Ken'Tarii which exist in the galaxy do not live and serve under the governance of the Mandate, nor do they choose to live within the region of human-inhabited space coloquially referred to as "The Bubble". Many of the galaxy's far-flung earthlike and near-earthlike worlds are host to rogue communities of Ken'Tarii and other peoples of a subspecies origin. Many of these communities actively avoid detection by living exclusively underground on metallic worlds with marginal but relatively thick atmospheres. Such dwellings are rumored to even be constructed on the deep ocean floors of wild water worlds, or even beneath the ice-sheets of frozen ice giants and moons.
Although these rogue nations are supposedly numerous, the likelihood that any two of these frontier worlds might establish and maintain contact with eachother is extremely unlikely. This problem is further exacerbated by the efforts of those same worlds to actively remain hidden from discovery by human explorers. The lack of trade and the inability or unwillingness to establish orbital and open-space infrastructures, therefore, results in many of these nations becoming self-reliant city-states, which vary drastically in their cultural and technological advancement.
It is even possible, in theory, for two such city-states to exist relatively close to one another upon or underneath a planet's surface. One might consist of a collective of neolithic tribes which prowl the deserts and jungles of the planet's surface, and just under their feet might be a sprawling, subsurface corporate ecumenopolis with technology similar to that of 21st Century Earth.
Stranger still is the fact that neither of these societies may know anything about the existence of the other, or even if they do, they might choose to ignore eachother entirely. Whether this is done by their mutual distrust or a simple lack of interest is often unclear, but the fact remains that it is extremely rare for Ken'Tarii settlements to emerge as planet-wide entities. This is the case even within Mandate-controlled space, with the most popular theory being an innate preference to maintain equilibrium with their planet, rather than to exploit their settled worlds as human settlers might do.
Detailed knowledge of these exclaves of abhuman civilization rests solely within the upper echelons of The Ken'Tarii Mandate's papal leadership, with fewer still even knowing their exact locations across the galaxy. Although it is rumored that a handful of these wild settlements are actually secret colonial ventures undertaken by the Mandate, nobody is truly able to say for certain except the Arch-Bishop himself. The exact nature of such colonies is speculative, but it is more than likely that the purpose served by each exclave is different, depending on the target system's natural resources, strategic value, or even it's religious significance according to star constellations and ancient folklore.
Fleet-carriers piloted by Ken'Tarii CMDRs will repeatedly visit certain locations in deep space while undertaking public expeditions, stopping overnight or for extended periods of time before moving along to their next destination. Some within the papal government have directly inquired as to the nature of these practices, believing the public expedition project to be a cover for something far more clandestine. Given that most Ken'Tarii fleet-carrier operators act with a significant degree of autonomy from civilian government, however, these inquiries have gone mostly unanswered.
Material wealth within the Mandate and the average standard-of-living far exceeds that of most factions of comparable size. Even with the abundance and economic potential provided by their core systems as well as their satellite claims the disparity is large enough to make one thing clear; The wealth of the Ken'Tarii is as much of a mystery as anything else about their civilization, and if popular opinion is to be believed, the people living within the Mandate's jurisdiction overwhelmingly prefer it that way.
The pursuit of freedom is central to the Ken'Tarii mindset, so much so that the Ken'Tarii do not hold captive prisoners of war; Instead, the captured soldier is branded with a special knife, which has upon its flat surface an emboss of the Veris-Oculum (Eye of Truth), and they are instructed to return home and never take up arms against those vying for their own freedom ever again.
Should an enemy soldier become re-captured at any point, and it is discovered that they have the Veris-Oculum branded on their lower back, then they are doomed to discover the secondary purpose of the small, pliable knives. The head of this knife resembles a pilum, and serves a similar purpose with the only difference being that the edge and tip are filed to a surgical sharpness. These knives are driven into the back of the prisoner, through the point on which they were previously branded. Once deep enough, the knife severs the lower spine from the rest of the body, and the knife is bent and broken off inside of the prisoner's back.
The prisoner will be left stranded afterwards to writhe in agonizing pain, with their only means of escape being to crawl to safety or call out for help. Should he be unfortunate enough to survive the injury, the nature of his wound will ensure that he shall never be able to live without depending upon another person to take care of him. It is a wound which effectively renders the victim freedomless, a fate far worse than death in the eyes of the Ken'Tarii.
Death has a cultural significance to the Ken'Tarii as the attainment of freedom and the end of suffering. Rather than mourning the deceased at funerals, they instead celebrate them and their passing, with friends and family of the deceased hosting a party in their honor. The dead are highly revered and respected in Ken'Tarii society as they are believed to guide the living in their thoughts and deeds, whether for good or evil. If your friend or relative dies and they are well-regarded by the community, those around you will praise your good judgement and character, as if you are the vessel for the recently passed; To the same effect, someone who is the friend/relative of a criminal may find themselves being ostracized and shunned upon the death of said individual, and it is believed that by their close relation to the deceased they have invited their evil spirit to influence them. This places a social incentive on trying to live as moral of a life as possible, as nobody will want to associate themselves with someone who has established a sour reputation. Regardless of whether they are good or evil in life, and regardless of their background or heritage, all Ken'Tarii are revered upon their passing; Therefore, it is considered an excommunicable offense to desecrate someone's remains, or to disturb graves or memorial sites without the church's approval. They firmly believe that the faithful departed have attained freedom from mortality, the greatest prison which no sentient being, no matter how wealthy, intelligent, or fortunate, has any hope of even fathoming, let alone escaping. In truth, there are only three aspects in which all people can be considered equal in - Freedom, Law, and Death.
Consequentially, it is therein that an individual's death in the name of a calling greater than themselves is the ultimate culmination of glory and triumph. Ken'Tarii who refuse to surrender even when faced with their imminent demise do so with the knowledge that it is representative of the virtues which their entire society is founded upon, and anyone who so martyrs themselves shall be posthumously rewarded with the same honor granted to Mother Tayno, so much so that their names are even engraved onto a memorial at Shosuke Vision, constructed upon the crash site of the first Ken'Tarii flagship, and the supposed final resting place of their deity's mortal form.
A space-faring nation, caught between its culminating destiny and it's altruistic ideals, the Ken'Tarii stand poised to dominate regional politics within the near future. With each system that is brought under their red and white banner bearing the Veris-Oculum, the question surrounding what is symbolizes becomes more and more difficult to answer. Whether or not this banner will continue to stand for the values of those who first founded the Mandate, or become the symbol of a rising Empire which spans far beyond the breadth and scope beyond that which its founding martyrs could have ever possibly imagined, remains to be seen by a wider galaxy - A galaxy full of humans and Ken'Tarii alike, looking out towards the horizon on a thousand worlds across the distant cosmos...
Perhaps for a blessed few, they might yet catch a glimpse of the mysterious, white wolf, cresting over the horizon, ever watchful, ever wonderful, and ever evoking of a kindred spirit.
Mother Tayno Protects. En Nomen Verita. o7