Chapter 6: War of the Universes.

THEIR VISION. YOUR FUTURE.

The first Legion Conflict, was a war fought between the United Empire and the Legion, wich should ring in a new era of total war in the history of the known universe.

Shortly after the devastating defeat of the Sheredyn fleet in the new discovered home system of the Legion fears among the imperial senators began to emerge that the legion could start an invasion on the far reaches of imperial space. The United Empire sended a large fleet to protect the whormwhole wich lead into the Hades system and the imperial government was preparing for war. But still the proposals of laying a big scale minefield arround the whormwhole entrance were rejected by the cooperate senators with the argument that mines with a Identification, friend or foe system (IFF) would be to expensive and a minefield made out of IFF-less mines would prevent further raids on the large Dust stockpiles of the Legion in the near future. Once again the greed of the human species should let to a catstrophic disaster.

Events came to a head with the arrival of the Legion invasion fleet a few months later. The defense fleet of the united empire relied heavily on big scale capital ships and large squadrons of bombers as the ideal counter tactic to the massive asteroid capital ships of the Legion which were seen during the first contact battle.Unfortunately for them this time the Legion consensus decided to approach with a different strategy and was planning to take prisoners to gather more knowledge about the galaxy and its inhabitants. Instead of capital ship the Legion sent thousands of small fighters,spaceborne Legionaries designed for boarding. Hundred of swarm ships attacked a single target at once, which overwhelmed the victim's point defenses. The legs of the ships pierced the hull of their victims and punctured it before the Legionaries began to ate their way through the hull with their giant chaws to infiltrate and kill or capture the vessel's crews.

The „great“ United Empire was humiliated a second time in a row by a species they thought they could hunt down like animals for their dust.

After this second devastating defeat of the imperial Fleet,

The Legion spread itself now having acess to new technlogies and hyperspace strings through the infinity of space almost effortlessly.They devasted the galaxy as it were just a ordinary body made of flesh and bone falling pray to a foreign substance in its organs.Legion forces were slowly overrunning human space destroying ships,stations and planets.

After a vicious strike on several of the human worlds on the edge of the galaxy, most notably the Sheredyn HQ Planet the entire human race was stunned by the appearance of such an enemy.

When the Legion started its war it made no difference between the various factions of the homo sapiens (UE,Horatio,Pilgrims,Vaulters). And any attempt to communicate with them failed. It took the Legion sometime to penetrate the minds of their prisoners through torture with hostile Dust and to learn that the homo sapiens was not a united species but was rather a race in a state of eternal civil war and that many other hostile and dangerous factions are populating this galaxy too.

This ultra different foreign species seemed to have unexplainable intensions. While some worlds were burned down to the ground others were completely ignored.

Shifting the balance of powers in between the entire galaxy.

At this stage the empire was unable to provide a solution for this crisis and the imperial senate was even debating to form an alliance with the Horatio and the Vaulters, when suddenly the Legion stopped its crusade and retreated back only keeping a handful of systems near the whormwhole to their home sector.

Some poeple say they had encountered the Dust hating Harmony which took the initiative and landed a number of defeats against this new on hostile dust based lifeforms. But there are no confirmed reports.

Whatever it was the Legion retreated out of the territories they had conquered leaving back a great vaccum of power in the galaxy.

The United Empire didnt enjoyed a period of peace and stability after the drawback of the Legion on the contrary.

The next years the United Empire was bussy to wage war against all the other races who were now trying to claim the former star systems of the UE abandoned by the Legion while at the same time many slave worlds revolted and joined the Pilgrims or declared their independence.

The Legion just vanished by sheer luck, just barely. With billions upon billions humans left dead in ther wake.

Legislation by all human faction was put in place never to allow entering Legion space or even try to contact them...ever.

And for a certain time it seemed humankind would have learned its lesson. No one ventured to look for the Legion not in decades.

But then again it was discovered that some faction or individuals thought differently...

What about you? Are you brave enough sending into Legion space?And if yes what will be your message and what are your intentions?
Hope?
Despair?
The thirst for knowledge?

Or do you just want knocking on their door?

Press "send" now. And listen carefully behind the background noise of the universe.

Faction Creation Project "The Legion"

Race Lore Chapter 7

Chapter 7: The ghost in the shell

Introducing „The Nameless“
"Leader" of the Legion

"What actually is the Nameless"?.
Well that is a excellent question!

"In a sense it realy is a virus. A Virus created by the Endless. One made with the best of intensions yet however
with the deadliest of results. 
This Virus erased the minds of an entire species. Deleting souls like they were ordinary files including those who released it. Leaving thousands upon thousands bodys behind as mindless shells, becoming mere limbs of the anomaly that we refer to as The Nameless".

-Pilgrim Scientist to a student at a lecture about the Legion.

If a hive mind is a universe full of stars shining in harmony. Then the mind of the Legion would be just...a blackhole.

We have to understand that he was once one of them

The Legionaries, those who were merciless.

and those who were damned to fight the Endless.

During that conflict the Virtual Endless invaded his mind like burning suns and scorched his soul.

But out of reasons unknown he was able to resist.

He did not trembled before the Endless...

He devoured them...

Finity and Infinity

„The Nameless“ became one of the few beings in the universe truely understanding the meaning of those words. For his entire life the Nameless had no doubts that all this things he had achieved were his destiny, the apex of evolution of the Legion.

As the foreign aliens who called themselves "humans" intruded his space and attacked his Legion meaning his very body he literally took it very personaly.

It was like an reflex that he wanted to exterminate that thread and to learn more about the galaxy who lays behind the whormwhole which was recently opened by mankind.

The Nameless used its body "the Legion" to start a crusade of massive scale against humanity.

During this time the Nameless occupied many territories of the galaxy and he eventually encountered some the various ruins of the Endless facilitys.

And the truth he found in those veritable encyclopedia of the Endless and their knowledge changed the psychological make-up of the Nameless forever. As the information he found showed him the truth of his existance.It showed him what he truly is and how he was born.

The further the Nameless studied all data he could find about the Endless the more he/it/she began to understand what really happened many milliennia ago when the Legion were the military branch of the “Acteon Multi-Universe Empire” to expand their realm and sended by them to fight against and destroy an enclave of the virtual Endless. Before the servers of the virtual Endless were destroyed they created a new kind of hostile Dust in an attempt to kill most of the Acteons and take control and use their warrior caste the Legioniaries as their new physical servers and bodys.

The Nameless reconstructed the circumstances and found out that it, its formerself was patient zero the first who came in contact with the hostile Dust carrying the minds of of the virtual Endless.

Eventually the virtual Endless made a fatal mistake.

In the moment their minds touched those of a Legionary something went horribly wrong.

After the Nameless devoured the minds of the virtual Endless who loaded themselfes up into his mind thousand of years ago. A chain of events was set in motion. Most of the Acteons died and those who were not infected were killed by their own military which started to attack all Acteon worlds controlled by the Virus of the Endless.

Afterwards they "evolved" and the synthetic DNA of all the Legionaries was altered by the hostile Dust.

Through that The Nameless had become a void in the middle of their collective mind, an infinite abyss where the other minds of the Legion started to be dragged into.

This all consuming anomaly was like a blackhole. The more it consumed the more his event horizon growed and in the end every single Legionary was dragged into it and vanished. (metaphorically speaking)

His species was dead, The Legion was dead.

That he is the only survivor and also the one who is responsible for the death of all his specimen.

His birth was not the apex, the genetical destiny of his Legion rather then it was the unexpected result of a virus of the virtual endless which was supossed to exterminate the Legion completely and transform their bodys into controlable shells.

Through their death, he was created. Through his birth, their voices were silenced.

A single soul forced to devour all other souls amongst his species and damed to live in their empty bodys. 

In all of them.

The Legionaries died.

But just like it is the case with a blackhole their information were not lost.

Out of all their informations the being nowadays known as “The Nameless " was born.

A supreme being but cursed to everlasting soltitude.

As soon as The Nameless tried to breed new legionaries in their moment of birth.

They just were dragged into the infinite nothing of the Nameless nature.

...Stillbirths.

Leaving nothing behind but one more shell one more limp one more corpse for the Nameless to inhabitate.

Now the one thing the Nameless wants most is knowledge.Knowledge about this new galaxy which once belonged entirely to the Endless to either end his eternal soltitude...or to dragg the entire galaxy an all living beings into his abyss.

Appendix:

So what is „The Nameless“ now?

How can we imagine him?

As the Legion was first encountered most factions of the galaxy assumed that they were a hive minded species. Even though no communication was made and the various intelligence services werent able to collect any valuable data the United Empire just declared it a fact that they had to be a hive mind taking in concern how their fleets acted and reacted during their bloody conflict.

But this is far away from the truth. And soon pilgrim scientists would discover the true nature of the Legion.

At first organics have to understand that what they call the Legion species is nothing less then a single gigantic body for just one single individual being „The Nameless“.

Image you would wake up tomorrow and suddenly you were in control of all the bodys of your entire species, the minds of their former owners just vanished into nowhere. That you could not only navigate and control them but also that you would see,fell and smell anything they can and in addition using all their brains to your capacity. You would be the lifeform with the biggest „body“ in the history of the known universe.

The Legion is the body and the Nameless is its soul...its only one.

If you would ask one of those Legionary limbs what it is doing "at the moment" it would take estimated over 450 solar standard years to transmit this information via on sonicwaves based communication.

This is the easiest way to explain what the Nameless is.

But actually his nature of existance is so far beyond those of man they cannot even imagine it.

HI there Moderators/Admins.

I transfered this topic to Endless Space 2 so feel free to delete this topic here.

-This was always ment for Es 2 and is lost in this old ES One Subforum.

- I added alot of new content besides a complete new lore chapter also an major overhaul

-I needed my post to be in a straight line and not interrupted by posts from other guys so that the thread becomes a clear thing again.

I think you understand.

If you have any question pls write me a Private Message.

Respectfully

Sov.

My Forword :

Hello Emperors and Empresses of the Endless Space

I would like to show you my project, I was working the last YEARS on, it has one special goal being different and exiting.

"The Legion" is a custom faction project which is planned to be a long-term project to create a unique faction which will maybe one day get the attention from the Devs most likely due to the next Endless Space Faction Creation Competition, which will not probably in the very near future, but I think the chances are not bad that one day maybe for Endless Space 2 there will be one competition again and when this day comes i want that "The Legion" is already prepared an maybe if u are enjoying my project already have a little fan base.So after I put so much work in it, I would highly appreciate it if the people also read all of that so pls do so ; ) also I would love it to get some feedback about their Lore, their Affinity their Technologys, their appearance pretty much everything.

And PS: English is not my mother tongue but I really tried my very best okay.

It is not that easy to write stories and that much stuff in a foreign language even if its English. And if you are too lazy to read or got no time then let it speak for you by the "awefull" google translator(listening button in the right down corner...awfull but also kinda cool to hear the History of "The Legion" been spoken) but i recommend just to read ; )

And maybe even rate the thread if u like this Faction and their lore.

If you are a skilled modder or practised designer (ships, etc....), and you want to help me and be a part of this project?
Then just write me a private message.

Lore:

Chapter One :

 One universe to rule them all.
"How our Ancestors embracement the idea of war"

[The big one is an Acteon Legionarie.]

„Desperation and a bunch of mad admirals

the two pillars of a new stellar empire"
-exalted Actaeon

The exact time of rise  of that what we know as "the Legion"  is largely unknown.

Basically, very little is known about the Legion in general and the limited information that we have come from that historical data itself gathered by the races of our universe after the first contact.

The data reports, that the Legion didn't originate in this universe, but that they  forged their empire  at about the time as in our universe, the "Dust wars"  the civil war of the Endless came to an end.

The Legion or "Acteons" as they formerly called themselfes were silicon based lifeforms from a another universe. They were or respectively are  composed out of all kinds of minerals rocks and strategic resources like for example hexaferum or adamantium.

Legion physiology is very different from the carbon-based species more commonly found in the universe and galaxy of the Endless. They fed on rock, and thus they are able to nourish  themselfes by tunneling. 

Speaking of their appearance a human would describe their bodys as arachnid like.

Insectoid looking golems with a great variety of shape and size.

The Actaeon were an extremely advanced race , but never developed super luminal speed drives, as this has already been declared in their atomic age as mathematically impossible.

And as a matter of fact, in their universe hyperspace strings were just not existant, efectivly trapping them in their home system which contained nothing but their barren homeworld and an small asteroid belt with only a few number of asteroids worth of mining.

Their low gravity home planet was the only major planet in the system, and all systems had within nearby. Therefore, the Actaeons investigated in their desperation other ways to expand.

When the scientists successfully opened the first portal to a parallel universe, companies and government finally saw an opportunity to expand. However, there was a problem. Each universe portal was fixed to a particular universe and the parallel universe system to which they had opened a portal was already inhabited by another advanced species.

Scientists demanded the construction of a new portal, but the voice of the military was stronger. The home world of Actaeon was on the brink of an ecological disaster. The overpopulation was going to make the planet uninhabitable and in case the universe portal program would have not been successful weapons  of mass destructions were already planted and ready to go, which should decimate their own population.

Unnoticed from the species of the other universe, which was conjured the Actaeons would be interested in diplomatic and friendly relations. All remaining resources were spent from then on to create a new and massive interstellar military strike force simply called "The Legion" by the common folk. 

Unleashed on the unsuspecting victims, the following conflict was more like a massacre than a war. 

The Acteon Legionaries were like giant insectoid golems to the aliens, exceling them by a wide margin.

The Actaeon decided that they would need all the space for expansion and let the strangers species eradicate completely by the Legion. The Actaeon saw that they had not only saved their civilization, but also that their new  spacefaring military in combination with their cross universe gate technology constituted an instrument of immense and unlimited power giving them the ability to suprise attack a new parallel universes everytime as a new gate was constructed.

The centuries passed, and the expansion process was repeated dozens of times.

Whenever a new universe gate was completed and a other species was discovered behind it, The Legion eradicated them to conquer more space for the expansion of the Actaeons.

The Actaeons built over the centuries a multi universal empire that spanned in the end hundreds of worlds in hundreds of different universes, all connected by a network of multi-universe portals. Behind the latest multiverse-portal the Actaeons discovered large orbital stations circling a seemingly uninhabited giant T1 planet, but they quickly noticed that this stations were anything but uninhabited. They had actually met up here an isolated and mixed enclave of the "Cabal of Pure Thought" and the "Logic and math system" of the Virtual Endless secluded on the edge of their galaxy, survivors of the "Dust-Wars".

Whether physical or not the Legion was again sent to destroy any "population" of these space stations.

Chapter two : „Virtual slumber“.

„01010100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101100 01100001 01110110 01100101 01110011 00101110 00001101 00001010“ 

http://www.qbit.it/lab/bintext.php?text=ok&enc=Encode+text+to+binary+code 

-"Anaid" Virtual Endless

Dust Nanobots doing their work in the nervous system of an Acteon legionnaire.

For the first time in the history of the Actaeons they were facing serious resistance.

The weapons systems of the Endless were based on a kind of extremely miniaturized nanobots superior then everything they ever saw. The artificial neural nervous systems of the Legionaries  were hacked or so badly damaged that the crews of ships began to attack each other. For each orbital station that they managed to destroy the Legion were suffering thousands of casualties. However, the Actaeons possessed the resources of several hundreds of worlds, and the virtual endless didnt have had left any own ships to carry the war to the Actaeons. After a few year's fiercest war and the death of hundreds of thousands of legionaries, the Acteon Legion had improved through their innatural artificial evolution and evolved an adaptive tolerance against Dust attacks on their nervous system. The fortunes of war turned.

Aware that they would be now overhelmed the Virtual Endless blew up the planets with weapons of mass destruction, in the hope that the Actaeons obsessed by their greed of a new living room would then lose interest.

However, the virtual endless didn't consider the incredible arrogance of the Actaeons.Even though the war had already swallowed up enormous resources and aware that the war would bring no profit or new habitats, a retreat was no option to them.

"Anaid" a virtual endless scientist in his capacity of the "Logic and math system" planned as the legion started their assault on the last big space station in the asteroid belt, to transfer all the virtual endless to the Neural nervous system of the Legion vessels themselves. The Virtual Endless planed to be acting as a virus in the Legion to to rewrite protocols and to use the ships as a temporary body to destroy the multi universal portal.

What exactly went wrong remains a mistery

but the fact that the ships did not stoped their attack suggest that the Endless failed. The Legion destroyed the last space station of the virtual endless.

Their servers with their datas were lost forever.

Chapter three : „The Hounds and the Cervine“

„ cogito ergo sum“

„I think, therefore, I am“

-Rene Descartes

After their victory,

the Actaeons tried to understand the Dust to make it usable for their own purposes while also spending at the same time on rebuilding the Legion to compensate the losses which they had suffered to make them ready for a new conquest campaign.

However, it should not come to that.

At a certain point in history of the Actaeons many marines of the Legio began due suffer an overload of their nervous system resulting in instant death after a short period of agony and madness . Over next months those isolated cases escalated into a species wide epidemic. Scientists failed to localize the universe where this disease originated from and set all universes of the empire under a general quarantine interrupting any interuniversal traffic by deactivating the entire cross universe gate system. But the gate stations didnt responded. None of the military facilities did.

Out of reasons unknown suddenly the military of the Acteon empire began to start a crusade against their own species.

There was virtually no resistance of the Actaeons, there was no other armed organisation besides the Legion at all, which  jumped from universe to universe from system to system, eradicating systematically every singel Actaeon world. Leaving nothing behind but debris fields. After a few months the Actaeons were nearly wiped out.

The last of them fled to the Dust Research facilities, located in the only universe which was not been attacked yet. Due to the extremely low population the former universe of the Endless was not a target of high priority for the Legion so the scientists assumed.

The last Actaeons were able to send a signal which they hoped would be complex enough to break through the by the Legion installed firewalls of the local interdimensional gate initiating a self-destruction command and so isolating them before the Legion armada would arrive.

However, the signal was not sent in time. The inter-universe gate system destroyed itself too late.

The Legion in its full strength had already jumped into the last universe in Actaeon possession. The planet was blasted into an asteroid field. And the mysterious disease killed of the last Acteons whether civilian or legionnaire. 

The last Acteon scientists died with the just recently achieved knowledge that the "disease" was infact a super agressive form of hostile Dust which either killed an Acteon or "reprogrammed" ones mind to kill all uninfected of his kind.

In the end their entire species was extinct.

So it seemed...

Chapter four: „The Road to Independence“

“They call me Legion... 

yet I am just one”
- "The Nameless"

After the extinction event of the Acteons and the destruction of their multi-universe empire. 

The universe or to be more precise alot of them thought the Acteons and their dread military arm the Legion were gone for good.

But they werent.

A small amount of them survived within a small star system located in the universe of the Endless.

Just a few bodys and trapped within a system with nothing within it but the debris field of a destroyed planet and a large asteroid belt.

In the next few thousands of years, the Legion made probably the biggest step to evolve a lifeform has ever made.

First: Their entire "species" changed to be the "body" of one single individual being.
It was NOT a hive mind (One word spoken by a tempest of voices ) it was just one single personality (Only one voice , billions of bodys) one gigantic artificial organism called "The Nameless"

Secondly: They developed the ability to use the Dust which became part of their "DNA" or the construction planes (its a point of view) for their larvas an evolving to a species partially based and dependent on Dust. Its entire "genetic" code or some would call it basic code was reorganized over time by actually hostile Dust nanobots.

The Nameless as we mere humans just call their entity form has its own guess about its birth. He thinks The last try of the virtual Endless to defeat the Legion actually worked and the infection with hostile Dust either killed every single Legionarie except hisself or merged them all together into one individual being. Leaving him behind with the control of the bodys and the intelligence of all his brethren.

Also he came to the conclusion that becoming a lifeform with the Dust itself in its DNA(actually it doesnt is Deoxyribonucleic acid at all but it follows the same concept) could be a sideeffect that maybe he actually is one of the virtual Endless wo wanted to upload themselfes into the Legion.

There are strong evidences that do support the theorys of "the Nameless" about its birth.

At First, the genetic remembrance of the Legion confirms the Actaeon empire ceased to exist within a short time after the destruction of the last virtual endless space station.

And he does remotly remember(more like a dream) a time were he was not "alone" and their were others with him...others who were filled with almost unimaginable pain and fear. But those feelings are nothing more then echos.

But at the moment "The Nameless" got his consciousness all of this was already history and centuries had already been passed.

Chapter Five : „First Contact“

„We have opened pandora's box"
-Lazara Nazarus, human scientist.

The Nameless and his Legion remained for centuries isolated in its new home.

And all the inhabitable planets were blown up by the virtual endless centurys ago only leaving gigantic asteroid fields behind.

But this hindered the overmind of the legion in no instance.

The ancestors of the Legion as a race fed anyways on strategic resources which could also be mined from asteroids in the empty space and  because of that they were therefore predestinated for the life on and between the wide asteroid belts of the so called Hades sector. The ability to use the hostile Dust within their blood gave the Nameless the ability to adapt his race or to be more precisely his very body to this new habitat. They were now dedicated of building nests and defense systems on large empty asteroids.

After some decades, all types of Legionaries were perfectly adapted to live on asteroids, and the Legion also bred new kinds of small shells, which were more specialized in increasing the intelligence of "The Nameless". The Nameless also decided to use the big asteroids which contained no resourcesof value to be reconstructed into large capital ships and by doing so producing a gigantic armada so that the Legion would be prepared if those they know as the Endless would return to this star system.

Just about  this time, a group of United Empire scientists under the leadership of the young female Lazara Nazarus crossed their ways.

An originaly fragile white wormhole that they were able to stabilize after years of long efforts in the hope they would discover "Tor" the Homeworld of the Endless even before the Pilgrims, they reached by accident the isolated Hades star system and its inhabitant.

The scientists of the United Empire soon discovered that the strange lifeforms they discovered are made out of a completely new
alloy consistent out of all possible strategic resources like for example Titanium and also that the star system was filled with a tremendous amount of Dust which even runs through the veins of these
new discovered Xenos.

By the order of the imperial science ministry the Sheredyn Order started a military assault on one of the asteroid nests of the Legion to capture the incredibly Dust stockpiles which "the Nameless" used as fooder for his larvas (larvas = blanks made out of different strategic resources) to instruct them to which body form they shall grow.

But the humans lethaly underestimated their prey. The response fleet the Legion sent consisted out of a dozen of gigantic asteroids converted into capital ships which were able to utterly destroy the sheredyn poachers after a cruesome battle.

On their good luck, the explorers under Lazara Nazarus survived as the Legion didnt gave their unarmed exploration ships a high priority of destruction, giving them the opportunity to flew back through the whormhole and warn the rest of the universe.

Now with the new stable nearby whormhole the Legion stands before an entire galaxy with humanoid and non humanoid creatures. An Endless Space to expand and filled with more Dust "the Nameless" could ever imagine.

In their former form of existance The Legion has eradicated dozens of species while their time as the butchers of the Actaeon cross-universe Empire, and this nature is partialy a part of the personalty of "the Nameless".

And if sees it as necessary for protection of his Legion it will embrace the logic of genocide without any hesitation. And the human race and their greed for Dust is the biggest thread for the survival of "the Nameless" since he was born.

The conflict is inevitable. 

But the Legion was once one of the most well oiled war machines in the history of a hundred universes.

And even if  this was thousands and thousands of years ago.

War always stays the same....

In ALL universes.

Governmental system:

The Legion is controlled by a single individual personalty.

A being called "The Nameless".

Their entire "species" serves as the "body" for this single but supreme consciousness.

It is NOT a hive mind (One word spoken by a tempest of voices ) it was just one single personality (Only one voice , billions of bodys) one gigantic "artificial" organism.

THIS WILL ALLOW THE LEGION TO USE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MECHANICS AND SUBSTITUTIONS INSTEAD OF THE REGULAR SENATE SYSTEM. AND COULD LEAD TO VERY UNIQUE INTERACTIONS WITH ALIEN POPULATIONS WITHIN THEIR EMPIRE.

Most of the time this "Nameless one" bases his decision making on math and rational logic. But his true intentions remain a mystery.

The Scientists of the galaxy are not sure if some could compare a lifeform which uses an entire race as its body to the psychology of a mere humanoid.

But in one thing they all agree.

If the mind of "The Nameless" is even remotely similar to the one of an ordinary lifeform...chances are very good that the millenia of being alone drove him into madness. And the sudden encounter with a galaxy filled with billions of individual beings could overexert him/she/it.

In anyway "The Nameless" has been declared incalculable and any contact was forbidden by the governments of most of the known races after the bloody first contact war anyway.

Biology / reproduction:

The Legion is a on silicon based race but are outlandish as they contain attributes from biological beings despite being  not being carbon based in any way.

Biological attributes:

Most laity would call the Legion a synthetical race but that is not true they actually do have attributes of biological species. But this can be overseen cause their bodys are not based on carbon but rather on silicon and strategic resources aswell but hanks to their hostile Dust it still allows evolution based on the "concept" of DNA.(But of course it isent actual DNA)

Since the Actaeons(their ancestors) evolved into the Legion, theiy  possess characteristics of insects. They are created by extra dimensional engineering and evolution adjusted for surviving in space and live on asteroids. They are in a position to expand their "growth code" by using the Dust, meaning they can change their appearance to a certain point which led to the birth of the various different blueprints amongst The Legion.

But because their base "code" was made out of the Acteons some parts of the Legion are still hard "coded" and even "The Nameless" is not able to reprogram them.

Synthetic attributes:

Outwardly, although more reminding on insects and arachnids ,their reproductive process is rather more a genetic "constructing" or cloning process using premade larvas as "blanks"

Larvas: (and all Legionaries bodys) are made of out strategic ressources and silicon based materials.

Using Nanobots (Dust) those larvas get a certain "growthplan" programed into them which let them methamorphose into a worker drone or if many larvas are merging together into a larger warrior.

The fact that Dust became a major part of their equivalent to DNA and nervous system is the reason why the Legion needs to find new Dust deposits before a new brood can be hatched.

- Warships:

The biggest growable bodys of a Legionary have the size of small space ships like fighters and bombers. They need huge amount of strategic resources to create the needed amount of synthtical larvas.

The Legion was not able yet to grow bodys in capital ship size and in this category they simple put gigantic engines and a even bigger weapon platforms on an asteroid. Those ships are unsentient and need an actual crew to control it.

Regarding their past where the Legion used almost exclusively inter-universe portals to discover new habitats it is only natural that now their FTL and STL (slower than light) engines are underdeveloped in comparison with other races of this universe.  Also the high mass of their ships (in the end they use asteroids as base frames) their engines end up being very large.
Only recently they invented their own technology to make use of the hyperspace nodes and strings of this universe.

Nourishments:

Though being a non carbon based synthetic race Legionnaires are not being build. Instead, they grow. In order to hatch and grow all the needed body parts and to fuel them with energy Legionnaires have to "eat" Dust and a variety of minerals by tunneling through a asteroid. Legionnaires are genetically engineered for warfare but also for mining. Legionnaires eat ore, and then use it to grow metallic limbs which can grow up to several dozen meters long.The Legion has reached perfection when it comes to mining asteroids,and they can even mine one and the same asteroid in different universes at the same time.

Personality / Society :

So far known characteristics:

Aside from fighting instinct, the instinct of brood protection is very strong and if some understands the principle that the Legion serves actually as body for a single being which survival and intelligence depends on it it becomes very logical.

If some mosquito bites you (attacks your body) you kill it without mercy.

Their paranoia and obsessive distrust towards other species are a product of the millennia of isolation of the Legion. The "Nameless" the controlling and ONLY consciousness of the Legion is distrusting and strongly paranoid towards aliens. Also it has a strong territorial behavior.

The different blueprint shells of The Legion:

Worker shells:

The regular population of an asteroid of the Legion are the all purpose worker drones.

As workers only rarely leave their asteroids they look more like sea crabs  those are mainly a trademark of the warrior caste which are designed to conquer all kind of planets with atmospheres before they got finaly anti-terraformed into asteroids.

Warrior shells:

The warriors caste includes ground troops aswell as

small warships serving as bombers and fighters.

Living places:

Inhabited asteroids of the Legion tent to be always not to far away from the next nest. As "The Nameless" is used to keep his body close together.

As gas giants serve more as outposts then habitats for the Legion, Asteroids stay there primary livingroom.

The Nameless gave the asteroids of his Legion different purposes:

"Nests": Are mostly on the largest of the asteroids and are serving as hotbeds were the blanks, the "larvas" of the Legion are made out of the strateic resources available and fed with Dust. Also those asteroids are the place were the Nameless stores the most of his hostile Dust deposits which he needs to (re)extend his body by using it to build new Legion shells for him.

"Dust-Nebula Gathering Outposts": Smaller asteroids which are used as bases and interim storage. From those Asteroids hundred of thousands of worker drones commute between a Dust Nebula were they collect their Dust and the Dust Gathering Outposts.

"Dust and interdimensional Mines": Those asteroid are used to mine "strategic resources" and or Dust.Those asteroids are filled with technological wonders which are able to bring the whole Asteroid in a phase of interdimensionality if needed which gives the Legion the ability to mine the asteroid in more then only one universe. Because of this it takes very long before one mine is considered fully mined and exploited.

The Legion Should remind you on all kinds of arthropods (a combination of Killerbees, (sea)scorpions, spiders,crabs and centipedes so literally an silicon based version of all your nightmares.

Visuals:(Keep scrolling scrolling scrolling)

I think their stings, armed arms and their many limbs are perfect for sticking on,walk and work on asteroids. 

The worker drones in their various versions make up the majority of the legionnaires besides them there are also very large legionnaires of the warrior blueprints which serve as smaller space war vessels like fighters and bombers. They are (mostly) silicon appearing sentient being's with a on strategic resources (like Adamantium e.g.) based hybrid exoskeleton.

While their armor is a kind of a hybrid out of metal and stone like plates their overall look is more natural and animal like.The organs of the Legionaries are fusions out of metal and a extradimensional equivalent of flesh which have a extraordinary high amount of Dust in its molecular structure .

Their outer shell is often used as a a solar power panel as many legionaries work on the surface of asteroids or in the open space.
The energy provided by the starlight, without the dulling of an atmossphere, has proven itself to be very efficient to the Legion.

Lets start with some possible designs for the warrior blueprints of the Legion which were originaly designed to conquer all kind of habitable planets. Predestined in killing the population even in urban environments and destroying the infrastructure of the planets surface. Ironically the Legion still uses antipersonnel tactics though it would made no difference as the Legion would turn the entire planet into an asteroid field anyway if they want to settle in a star system.

 Most look more like sea crabs...those are the descendants of the legionnaires which were in the past assigned with the task to exterminate all possible undersea settlements and hideouts of the many different species the Legion was ordered to extinguish.With the knowledge that they were designed to fight on planets with an atmosphere and kill its population even at the most remote places it makes sense that some legionnaires even do have wings as part of their bodys. But the majority look like walking fortresses made out of stone.

Here are some more images showing possible designs for warrior shells:

Other surface warrior Legionary designs:

Possibly design for capital ships like Dreadnoughts/Battleships. Those should be basically asteroids retrofited with huge phalanxes as weapon platforms and gigantic engines to make them mobile:

The Worker blueprints :

The Worker blueprints represents the majority of the population. They do not have a homogeneously shape just like their brethren from the warrior blueprints . As each legionary grows in a different way to be able to fulfil his tasks with the greatest efficiency. The worker blueprints serves The Legion as miners,collectors,midwives, and scientists.

Here are some images showing possible designs for worker drones(the smallest Legionaries) of the Legion:

Worker drones (Population):

Smaller ship designs (for example bombers/fighters) are in fact just very large legionary bodys:
Possibly Fighter/Bomber Design: 

made by Stealth_Hawk: 

Tails/antennas: Long range telepathic communication relay/or weapon system
Center: Heart (unkown extra-dimensional artificial metabolism reactor)
Mouth Claws/Tools:Main weapons platform
Blood veins: filled with Dust 


I presented you a few pictures (unfortunately none of them are mine) around you to gain a better perception of the Legionnaires. 

I really hope that I can make one by myself in the future and deal with painting or find a motivated graphic designer with has time and wants to help me. It would be awesome if the Legion could get their own images to make the Legion in combination with my lore
(in which I try to be as deep and so detailed as even possible)

All I want is to create a exciting, creative and authentic on asteroids/the void living race.





PS:
And it all started with me playing arround with gimp many years ago^^:
A Legionnaire [Fighterblueprint](is hunting a nyan cat ^^)

Some words of mine: 

So, all in all, I wanted to create a new race that is different and exotic and radical in any thinkable aspect. Away from the ongoing search for T1 planets directly toward asteroids and (anti)terraforming garden worlds into an even more beautiful big asteroid field.

What leads me to my next point. I think these are the mechanisms which are possible to implement.(And i would be glad if someday some designers would maybe interested in a joint gather.

I think this race could bring something new to Endless Space 2 and create a new and funny play style dependent on asteroids and with more storable resources like Dust. But far far away from a dull "i just buy everything out" playstyle.

We have 5 races (in ES I) which are, in fact, just human parties what I think is a bit pity, but here we have something that is completely different from all cultures we saw in ES I. (In fact only 3 species in ES I were not bipedal humanoids)

The Legion is a race who is seeking control of the Dust not out of trivial motivations as like "using it as money".

Dust means life,freedom and survival to the Legion.

Dust is their very salvation.

I think that brings a race to conditions, which is very torn itself back and forth.

They or better spoken "The Nameless" is not really evil he is not more evil then a bee defending its beehive from a honey greedy bear.

And of course, I'm hoping to get as many votes as possible as one day in the next race competition( (and the day will come not soon, but it will come) to make "The Legion" to on officially race making them able to meet all the other crazy guys out there in the galaxy and bring you tons of fun.

And surely also it brings me fun to pleasure you with lore, and I hope you enjoyed reading and also planning to do so in the future.

Help me me to improve them and pls dont hate.

The Legion needs you!
The Legion know the meaning of the word "Dust" but not of the word "trust" when it comes to other races especially the human kind.
So what about you? Are you maybe the one who shows the Legion the meaning of the word "trust"?
Or will you confirm all your prejudices about other species?

In the end The Legion only is only searching for one thing... your love <3

 

*I'll could post at a later stage several short stories from the perspective of "Lazara Nazarus" and write of her research project about the unstable wormhole into the Hades sector and further more about a secret conspiracy against the Legion if there is some interest out there ; ).

It would be more in an adventure style RP then a chronicle.

Or maybe some smugglers who are trying to use a shortcut trough Legion territory ?

Sincerely,

Your Sovereign <3