Every society has a dark underbelly. Like a tree that is beautiful on the outside, but rotting and dying from the inside out, if the root system could be unearthed the rot would be revealed. Fetid organisms darting this way and that, climbing over each other and in and out of burrows on there way to or from their next meal on the roots, on the carcasses of other fetid organisms, and sometime even on each other. Biting, stinging, feasting on the roots of the tree, slowly choking it to death as they make their shelter in the life giving roots, and working their way up into the trunk of the tree.
This underbelly had its own laws, its own social structure, its own streets. Laws were enforced brutally, swiftly and without mercy. A lucky transgressor was killed, there were worse punishments. The social structure was built on favors, bribes and raw power and prestige. Everyone had a ranking whether they knew it or not. Minor players were ignored or brushed aside, with the more powerful often fighting for the next position, collecting favors, paying bribes, exercising their power. The streets had no maps showing their back alleys, blind switch backs or roads to nowhere. There were no street lights, one knew his way thorough the treachery or one fell pray to it.
Zal'Ga was born into the fetid underground of Toria. Coming from a poor family, often the only way to get food was to steal it, or run an errand for money for a character of ill repute. As he proved a trustworthy and loyal errand boy, his status grew as did the nature of the illicit activity he was doing. It started first with simple things: take this and deliver it here lead to get in here and steal this. There were many of these kinds of errands as he grew up, he became accustomed to trading favors for food. He became an enforcer, graduating from stealing to beatings, beatings given without mercy or care and often for reasons unknown. He had learned to view fellow Torians as tools to be used, objects to be owned. He knew one thing: since he became an enforcer, meals were plentiful.
His first killing was only remarkable in one way: it was easy. Executed at first without feeling, he stalked his mark through the streets and waited until he had entered a blind switchback, a community that would not witness anything, even in broad daylight at noon. He slowly drove the knife into his victim, feeling the blood warmly flowing over his hand, grinning slightly at having power over life. The ecstasy of it drove him into a frenzy, and he stabbed his victim over and over, with violence and prejudice, even after his victim was dead until he was covered in blood. He was unmoved by the slack jawed stares cast at him from onlookers that would never testify that they saw anything, slack jawed at the pure, primal violence of his attack.
It was time to make his move, for him to move up in rank and prestige.
His first mark was his current employer. Zal'ga killed the gang leader and took his place. He executed those that didn't follow orders. He removed incompetence by killing it. Zal'ga built his gang on the shores of a river of blood. He steadily built his reputation in the underworld, becoming feared, becoming ever more ruthless. Soon his gang was large, and there was a change from the internal feuds of the underworld to beginning to control visible society. Money was exchanged, bribes taken, soon government officials began to fall under his sway. If they could not be corrupted, they could be blackmailed. If they could not be blackmailed, the family of the victim could be kidnapped, only to be returned after the victim was broken.
Victims would go to the police, only to find the police were nothing but paid thugs of his organization. Once the victim went to the police, the intimidation and extortion grew worse--all resistance of the victim had to be crushed. The incorruptible would be broken until mercy was begged for, and then only conditionally granted.
Slowly over years his organization became known and feared in whispered conversation filled with nervous glances. His organization had become so large, that nobody dared opposed it. Resisters no longer needed to wander into a blind switchback to be murdered, most of Toria had become a blind switchback for his organization. Prosecutors that perused his organization were toyed with: near brushes with death, family kidnappings that only lasted a short time and without demand. If the prosecutor didn't understand that he was on a dangerous path, his family would suffer first starting with the murder of his children. There could be no resistance, no quarter given.
When Zal'ga was ready to take the final seat of government, it was an orderly transition of power. The needed blood had been spilled, elections had been fixed. He simply walked into the office of the emperor and asked that he step down. The surreal scene became more frightening as security was called, but no guards arrived, the trusted aid was unavailable, the close confidant advised that he not 'make a scene'. The coup was total and bloodless, the announcement made on holovisions across Toria. Those that did not walk the halls of power were stunned, protests were violently crushed. Government officials that spoke against the new emperor were openly murdered in front of their colleagues until nobody dared say anything but words of allegiance. There could be no resistance, no quarter given.
Zal'ga was not satiated. The relentless hunger of his youth was simply a biological need, but as his power and ambitions grew that physical hunger changed into a hunger for power over people, control over events, the power to decide who lived and who died. It was not long before the Torian Commonwealth fell under his sway, but quietly to the rest of the universe. The peaceful Torian Commonwealth was largely ignored by the other major powers in the universe until they were simply in the way. They had remained neutral in the Boarder Wars, allowing free passage through their space in exchange for peace. They made sure to trade equally with all races to further secure their neutrality.
It was a perfect cover. Shipyards deep inside Torian space, well away from prying sensors of other races secretly built new ships, powerful ships, ships not for defense but for conquest. Armies had been raised not in honor but in brutality, armies that had no low they would not cross to accomplish their objectives.
The sciences were hijacked from discovering cures for disease and other needs of the people to weapons research. New engines were needed to launch attacks, and a new weapon, a weapon that would be feared. In society that weapon was murder, blackmail, kidnapping, but these tools were wrong for instilling galactic fear. It must be a weapon that was brutal, relentless, because there must be no resistance, no quarter given.
Subverted from medical uses, advanced research into nanobots was promising. In medicine nanobots were programmable and life saving. In construction, a colony of nanobots could break down a material into base components and reconstruct it from base components into something else. The nanobots could be programmed, and soon the programming capacity increased, doubled, tripled until nanobots could be used on a large scale.
The Nano Plague had been born.
With its birth came the birth of a new and terrible Torian Commonwealth: no longer a Commonwealth, the flag was changed into symbol resembling an eclipse on a blood red background. The Commonwealth changed into an Empire, an Empire that bore resemblance to the gang that Zal'ga ran as a youth, and to the government that he ran as a dictator. Thus, it would be named after his criminal organization and became known as the Empire of the Shadow Sun.
"Gone, sir...they're all gone. Everything is gone. I'm not detecting any signs of life, no technology, nothing."
Captain Jackson set his jaw, considering the 5000 soldiers that had just...disappeared. Disappeared with out a whisper, bloodless. A silent pall fell over the bridge as the shock of the disappearance--death--of the Marines had come so swiftly. This was no time to be indecisive: "Ensign, keep your eyes open for enemy ships. People, this is no time to let our guard down. The enemy has caught us unaware, but now has lost the element of surprise. Ensign, get me command and patch it through to my Ready Room."
"Sir!"
"Admiral, we don't know what we're dealing with. We've never seen anything like it."
"Concur, Admiral. I just had 5000 Marines, men and material just disappear."
"Was there any sign of a weapons discharge? Energy surge? Anything?"
"Nothing, Admiral."
Austin sat pensively in front of his communications console in front of the images of his three commanders leading the liberation of Cassius Prime, Acturus Shipyards and Vega VII. "You're dismissed--not you, Frank."
"Sir?"
"What do you think we're dealing with?"
"Anything I can think of is just speculation. Who knows. All we know is that the Torains have some new kind of weapon that is very dangerous. How did you know to send the abort code, sir?"
"The Torian Ambassador. He contacted me just after I gave the go ahead for the operation. He told me not to land on those planets, then I saw him murdered on screen."
"Holy shit."
"Agreed. Something is very wrong inside the Torian Commonwealth--war just isn't their way--" his chain of thought was interrupted by a bleep from his console. "Frank, we'll have to continue this some other time, looks like our Altarian neighbors are checking in."
"Roger, sir, over and out."
