The Ruined World Skelardves

The Ruined World Skelardves

Skelardves was once a largely steppe type world, with broad plains, few mountains and a few widely spaced mega-lakes. The climate was largely cool, with large storms being common as lake effect precipitation. The planet was quickly settled and grew a large population, a vibrant culture, and eventually became a leading world in the local space sector. The Skelardvii exploited the resources of their homeworld and star system in a very cunning fashion, elevating themselves into a position of economic and military supremacy. This in turn lead to a massive increase in science and technology on the planet. But such conditions cannot sustain themselves long.

Almost every advanced economy is governed by its 'unobtainium', a mineral or resource that limits their growth and power. For Skelardves that resource was the strategic metal Germanium. The building and maintenance of a FTL fleet required large amount of germanium, and the Skelardves system was not very rich in it and local demand quickly destroyed any reserves of this metal. This meant that the Skelardvii had two options. The first option was conservation of resources, limiting their military fleets, and rationing the rare metal while exploring peaceful trade negotiations with germanium rich powers. The other option was war.

The Skelardvii War lasted 16 years, ravaged dozens of planets and eventually lead to the death of hundreds of millions. The death toll was staggering. The at first seemingly invincible Skelardvii war machine delivered victory after victory, but this drove the worlds around Skelardves to form an alliance to drive them back. Years of dominance lead the Skelardvii into blind arrogance. Rather than accepting cease fires or peace terms, they deployed more horrific and more terrible weapons. This lead to an escalation of conflict that only ended after the burning of Skelardves Prime, and destruction of their colonies.

The atmosphere was devastated by airburst nuclear weapons. The mega-lakes were vaporized by orbital bombardment. Huge swaths of the population were slaughtered by nano-virus weaponry. This isnt to say that the Skelardvii were entirely victims. Entire fleets were destroyed by single shot super weapons, such as a neutron wave cannon, and their vengeance weapons caused Eta Caurrida to enter a period of solar eruptions that sterilized the formerly inhabited worlds in that system.

This was the end of the Skelardves as an inhabited world, and its fiery birth as a hell world.

The Dawn of Ruin

While the greater Skelardves culture was annihilated, the world was neither sterilized or purged. A small fraction of a single percent of the population survived. These were the warmongers and the super scientists, the very nucleus of evil and hatred that drove a war that wiped out worlds and decimated entire cultures and civilizations for at first their convenience and then later their hubris.

Deep in their vault-cities, they crafted new black technologies, more abominations of science.

Roleplaying Notes and Hooks

Super-Science and Super-Weapons: Skelardves exists as a shell of a world, but deep under the surface, there are still massive facilities staffed by the now cybernetic Skelardvii and their legions of robot laborers. Their days of massive scale warfare are over, and they realize this, but this doesnt mean that they are impotent. Instead, the Skelardvii are now custom manufacturers. one off super ships, custom mega-mecha, and mind boggling tech-porn war devices are their bread a butter. Need a sun-destroying mega-bomb, they have that. You need plans to build a 30 kilometer long battleship, they have that on file.

Anvilicious: Morals are fun in a game, and the Skelardvii are a fairly straight forward example of choosing violence and war over any other option. But rather than follow the standard path of they are evil Shun Them! I felt a peculiar sense of pity them, because in true tragic fashion, their downfall has taught them nothing. They keep their old ways, favoring violence to their own benefit. Their massive intellect and technological achievements are nothing more than a rogue's gallery of superweapons.