Hanstone Library Data

The Triumvirate - The Triumvirate was an ancient, pre Droyne interstellar Civilization known for its use of Portal Gates for its primary method of FTL travel. The origins of the civilization aren't known, but some dig sites have carbon dated their remains at a maximum of 18 million years ago. The exact fall of the Triumvirate is more clear, and dates back roughly 47,800 years ago in what historians call the Second Triumvirate War, when post-Ancient Droyne ultimately destroyed the Triumvirate. Indicators are that at least two of its member species were eradicated utterly, including a mysterious psionic species known as the Houmi.

The term Triumvirate comes from a lose translation of ancient Droyne sites of the descriptor "Three Dominated By One."

"And lo, did Nelkoydray take his wrath out upon the Houmi, and direct the entirety of their kind, their servitors upon their world, and all they had made there, to burn forever within the sun that gave rise to their intelligence.

Worlds moved, and the psionic death-wail of the Houmi was heard from the Rim to the Core before the last peace could begin ...."
- Symbolism or Racial Memory? Interviews with the Drones of Uduxsyu, Saknussemm University Press 2294 AD

The Neddrik Scientists are fairly certain the Neddrik were one of the three controlling member races within the Triumvirate, and so far their artifacts and archeological are the best known of any Triumvirate species.

Neddrik excelled at advanced ceramic, stone, anti-gravity, antimatter, and crystalline derived superconductor technologies, a few of which surpass contemporary understanding of physics. Examples include seemingly powerless anti-grav units contained within their hermetically sealed crystal sarcophagi, the diamond shaped Stone Weapon in orbit of Enigma - that seems to amplify most energy forms expressed at its core several billion times into a focal 'beam', and advanced plasma and fusion weapons.

Although the Neddrik used Portal Gates heavily, they seem to have spread, at least culturally and militarily, through the use of very fast slower than light technologies, only erecting their gates via slower than light importation long after the establishment of a colony.

It has not been determined whether contact with the Post-Ancient Droyne of Hanstone introduced the Neddrik to Jump Drive technology, but scientists have determined that their later era ships (Second Triumvirate War) not only had the technology present, but also included an advanced jump 'tractor' weapon that could pull a ship from one side of an open Jump Portal to the observing Neddrik ship's side.

Little is known about the nature of their biology, but what is known is that they seem to have come from a standard or dense standard atmosphere, and a planet with a marginally lower gravity than Neu Samara's. They seem to have multiple castes that each grow to different sizes and have vastly different colorations, but the nature of these differences is still a mystery.

The largest example of the species, a corpse found in a Neddrik mausoleum on a vacuum world, was bright lobster red with gold inlaid directly into its head carapace, would have massed close to 900 kilos and would have stood close to 3 meters tall and been over 6 meters long. The smallest specimens found were pasty gray-white with lighter blueish underbellies, were less than 2 meters tall, 3.5 meters long and would have massed over 300 kilos.

"Their Children are still there, waiting, orphaned, awakened from the nightmare of the Houmi, and reeling still from the daymares of Nelkoydray. They are few while being many, heavy-sky stone masons of the past, the still living paradoxes, corpses of our enemy."
- Cassandra's Dilemma: Ramblings of the Drones of Uduxsyu - Botany Bay Publishing, Lidenbrock 2311 AD

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Just some notes, thoughts, from my current Traveller game.