----The Shivans----
Eons ago, when the stars were still young and the galaxy
bright as the distant quasars, there lived two species in
the Milky Way galaxy. One was the Xelnon, a peaceful and
compassionate race devoid of any cruelty. The second was
a bloodthirsty paranoid race not unlike Man
himself. When these two species met, the Xelnon were
instantly enslaved and tortured. For thousands of years,
they laid oppressed, beaten and disused. Their technology
continued, however, to grow into realms never seen
before by the likes of the universe.
The Shivans were borne out of that race's last desperate
attempt to heal. Born out of hatred, out of anger, out
of desperation. The Shivans, a cybernetic blend of organic
pieces of the Xelnon themselves combined with scavenged
beam cannon technology the Xelnon took from their oppressors,
were the finest creations of the Xelnon. They would also
prove to be the most deadly. As more centuries past and
the Xelnon were slowly exterminated, some went into hiding.
They built a grand machine, a machine capable of accessing
the intricacies of subspace itself.
Initial experiments brought back many corpses, but slowly the
technology advanced. They endowed their creations, their
closest friends - the Shivans - with all their knowledge,
and more. Yet, alas, even this last fortress fell to the
might of the Xelnon's lust-filled hunters. The Shivans
watched in silent horror as their closest friends, their
family, slaughtered before them, destroyed, shown no
mercy. When at last they could see no more, the Shivans
fled through the subspace portal.
Wandering the interspatial fabric, the Shivans built themselves
a home. They thrived in zero-gee, adapting over and over to its
environment until they reached the form we see them as today.
Over the hundreds of thousands of millennia that passed, the
Shivans saw fit to exit their haven, to look for evidence of
species that had the unique compassion of their forefathers,
to search for another, just one, that wasn't cruel. Yet, they
were disappointed. Their diplomats killed, their observation
of vast interspecies wars, they sadly turned their backs on the
universe, again and again.
The Shivan’s anger grew, fostered by the seemingly endless
hatred that all the others possessed. They did not hate, not
yet. But the seed had been planted. They had seen so much
cruelty, so much injustice, so much... Then they saw something
that the universe itself would deem unforgivable.
It was 8500 years before today. The Shivans had detected
massive subspace disturbances and had, once again, gone
searching for them. They met their worst nightmare. A species,
one with vast technological power, had seen fit to enslave
almost every civilization they set their eyes upon. They were
like a disease spreading throughout the galaxy, the very
embodiment of the horror that the Shivans despised. Mortified,
the Shivans sent in diplomats, to attempt to establish some
kind of communication. They destroyed the diplomats,
and immediately came looking for the Shivans. They did not ask,
they did not care, they lived only to subject everything under
their own twisted control.
The Shivans would let this monstrosity last no longer. The
very reincarnation of their father's killers had been created
at last. They would destroy them. They would destroy them
with a vengeance, with a determination not seen in this galaxy
nor any other galaxy for a billion years. They hunted them.
They destroyed them. They showed no mercy. They showed the
oppressors what it felt like. They showed them what it meant to
be the hunted. The took the greatest sin committed against a
species - their own creators - and blasted it upon that race
a hundredfold. They struck with such might the very foundations
of the universe felt their wrath. The oppressors were
obliterated. And the Shivans had been driven to insanity. They
watched, and waited.
The first thing the Shivans saw when they found the human race
was the Vasudans. And missiles. And explosions. And murder.
It wasn't just one race, it was two! Two races, veritable clones
of the monstrosities that butchered their mothers and fathers,
that enslaved their cousins, their gods, their creators.
The Shivans, as a race, made a choice that day. That the universe
would once again feel the wrath of the Shivans. The Destroyers.
