Origins of the Armada

Much of the Armada’s early history and the history of the zravvisk before it is unknown. Many of the zravvisk records were destroyed or made unreadable in the shift from ancient Zravvisk to modern if they existed in the first place, the AIs of their original ships had most of their files dating back to this time corrupted, the precursors that built the ships had all but died out by the time contact happened, and most of the civilizations that made records of the early Armada were biased against them. This report will try to stick to the facts and respected theories about their history.

Dragua was a very geothermally active planet with frequent eruptions and love flows. Some areas of the planet were calm enough to allow life to emerge, but still turbulent enough to force life to evolve to tolerate the volcanic gasses and temperatures that were present every where else. At some point during this time members of the common ancestor to the zravvisk and fairvisk species somehow ended up on a planet across the galaxy and evolved into the fairvisk. Due to the zravvisk’s extreme adaptations to survive the planet and the planet’s extreme geothermal activity, many believe that if the planet still existed it would be classified as a death world.

During the zravvisk’s evolution came the famous shattering of their planet. The zravvisks’ bodies were forced to evolve to survive the vacuum of space. Sometime after the shattering, or ten millennia ago, the precursors arrived and the zravvisk go their two first ships from them, the ever famous Dragua II and Lunastra II named after the zraavisk’s planet and moon respectively. There are a few theories on how exactly this meeting happen described below.

First are the two natural evolution theories which differ only in how the zravvisk’s ships were acquired. Theses are the theories that the Armada officially supports. It goes that the zravvisk ancestors were fully evolved with their modern physical and mental abilities and surviving in the ruins of the planet when the precursors arrived. The theories spilt on what happened then. The peaceful theory has the precursors gift the zravvisk the ships, while the aggressive theory has the zravvisk capture the ships in one of the boarding actions they are so feared for. The Armada doesn’t support one of these over the other admitting both are equality likely to be true. Others don’t think these theories are likely since it seems unlikely for the zravvisk to be so luckily to win all of their impressive physical and mental abelites by the evolutionary jackpot.

The other two theories agree that the zravvisk couldn’t be the species that they are today without some genetic engineering help from the precursors, but for very different goals. These are the uplifting and bioweapon theories. The uplifters agree that the zravvisk had their physical abilities but believe that they were at the basic levels of sapience at best when the precursors arrived. So, the precursors uplifted them and gifted the zravvisk their ships. For the bioweapon theory, its believers think that the zravvisk didn’t have all of their physical abilities or not to the extent they have now but provided the perfect base for the precursors to make the perfect bioweapon. Most also think that the precursors’ bioweapon project worked too well and lost the ships when the zravvisk revolted. Some even go as far to claim that the precursors caused the shattering in the first place trying to put down their revolting bioweapons pointing out that the Dragua II does have a weapon that can shatter planets. Never mention that version of the theory to any zravvisk, they aren’t fans of it all.

Regardless of which theory is correct, the beginnings of the Armada set off into the stars to find a new home. This is where the historical record gets very spotty as the zravvisk were alone for most of this period and none of their records from this time are legible. What is know is that during this period the zravvisk were usually aggressive towards most. Many believe that frequent pirate attacks on their ships before they encountered another civilization distorted their view of the world into a more xenophobic one. Supporters of the bioweapon theory think that left-over bioweapon programming caused it. Either way this period was one of great conflict between the Armada and galactic civilizations.

The Armada at this point often attacked any ship they spotted and so the galaxy began doing so in kind. These conflicts were high in collateral damage and civilian casualties. The Armada had no civilians or concept of it at this time as all of its members were expected to fight and assumed other nations were like this. Even though the Armada had two of the most powerful ships in the galaxy, they were still learning the ships and tactics for them ruining chances for decisive battles for any side. While the Armada could take most things that were lightly defended like some stations or even some colonies, they were often forced to retreat when reinforcements or a counter attack arrived. Tensions were not helped by the Armada’s lack of translators.

This is also when the only zravvisk colonies were attempted to be established. The result was always failure. When they settled on planets near an establish civilization, it would be forced to be abandoned when the civilization sent a strike force due to the Armada’s reputation. Colonies away from civilizations failed for reasons that are not known to anyone. Whenever they attempted to seize an established colony so that they could skip over the steps where their colonies kept failing, the colony would be almost immediately recaptured in a counterattack. Eventually, with so many failures to find a new planetary home, the Armada came to its current conclusion that the stars were its home.

It’s unclear when the Armada’s unusual early aggression started to taper off. Eventually the Armada stopped attacking everyone on sight, instead regarding everyone near them with suspicion, to ignoring everyone but those attacking them, to their modern more than wiling to talk and trade with anyone but the worst of people. While the Armada was changing, other civilizations weren’t convinced and kept their old policies. While the conflicts still raged, the galactic civilizations noticed that this definitely wasn’t the old Armada of a few centuries ago. The new Armada didn’t claim territory, did their best to avoid civilian casualties, was willing to negotiate, and had mastery over void tactics. As the Armada become more dangerous to fight and more civilized in their dealings, most lost interest in trying to fight them, leading in the status quo of the last nine millennia were the Armada is tolerated and remains pacifistic unless attack or to the worst civilizations. Though the Armada also learned from this time that anyone can attack them at anytime so it’s a good idea to have all weapons and shields fully charged and ready to fire at all times, leading to civilizations assuming that the Armada is preparing to invade and attack, reinforcing the Armada’s assumption.