Xanyr Collective

We do not dare go near the Xanyr quarantine zone. They are dangerous, vicious and carnivorous. We are not trespassers, we are nothing more than flying meals

— Kanik Vak'den - Spacefarer

The Xanyr collective is a off-shoot of the Xanyr species that resides on four planets now surrounded by a quarantine zone enforced by the Collective itself. Any attempts to contact those who patrol the area are met with deadly force.

The Collective

A small splinter group of Xanyr had, in the few decades leading up to being discovered, developed a rudimentary hive-mind as a mutation through those among them who were psionically active. These Xanyr were shunned by the majority of the of their peoples, believed to be unnatural and cast aside. There is no singular intelligence to the Collective, but rather a pool of knowledge that each is a part of. The more the collective grows, the more it can retain as each part of the hive-mind contributes a part of themselves to this communal knowledge and thought. While the Collective is part of a hive-mind, they are also individuals, not mindless drones, something the humans found out all too late.
The humans sought out the splinter group among the Xanyr, appealing to the fact that they were disenfranchised from the rest of Xanyr society. They offered them training and technology, in exchange, they would work for the Empire. To help the Empire take control of their people, who never cared about them. They tricked the humans who thought themselves superior to these bug people. They made a deal with the humans, follow the path laid out before them by the humans, but in exchange they required that they were able to more reliably breed their desired traits into their offspring.
The humans agreed, believing that they would be able to keep their numbers under control if necessary. Taking aside a number of individuals from the collective, they experimented on the Xanyr, until they achieved what they had agreed on. The Collective began to thrive, in order to hide their number they began looking for a new home, where they could breed Ilkedar as well as live outside of the sight of the other tribes.
The collective learned much from the time their people were in the hands of the humans. They learned about science, what the humans were testing for and how to modify themselves, while at the same time, learning to fight with the weapons that the humans used. In the decades that passed since the modification of their species, they had managed to make a few of their own modifications, more resilient as well as stronger psionics.

The Sundering of a Species

While playing with their pets in the Collective, the Humans were also approaching the Conclave of Xanyr Clutches, though their overtures were not as well received as they had hoped. The Xanyr had no use for many of the trinkets given to them and the humans were perplexed by their innate resistance to the Slave Inhibitor which was used to enslave the other races that they had brought into the empire, even with their study of the collective they still couldn't quite get it right.
Since they couldn't subjugate the species as a whole they went back to call in the debt from the collective, little did they know what they were truly unleashing. In the decades since their interference with the collective, it had grown exponentially, swifter maturation rates as well as greater numbers from each clutch who were part of the collective. The collective only showed a small amount of their true numbers when they met with the human representatives.

Organic Gaia Craft by David A White

It was time to do as they had agreed to, help the Humans gain influence in the Xanyr territories. Perhaps the humans should have been wary with how readily they accepted what they were about to do, or even agreeing without further concessions. The humans left Xanyr space, content to observe from afar. It was then when they were made truly aware of what they had done as the small enclave of thousands had grown to millions over a few decades, now occupying four planets. Tens of thousands of Ilkedar swarmed into the void, at first the observers were intrigued by the numbers, but as hours passed and there was no ebb to the flow of bugs into space they grew alarmed.
The Collective gathered all of their peoples, armed with weapons that they had made with the information that they had gathered from their time with the humans. Their warriors had spent their whole lives perfecting their skills and they were ready. The viciousness with which they fell upon all worlds in the Xanyr territory was such that even the observers recoiled in horror. In only a few short months, the collective had all but committed genocide upon the rest of the tribes of their people, claiming lordship over the domain in short order. Even more horrifying is that every victory fed the next generation as the corpse were piled high at the entrances to the rookeries.

Culture

Birth & Baptismal Rites

The Xanyr view the birth of children as a spiritual event, to find out if the newborn is aware of the collective, or if it is simply deaf and mute. With the intervention of the humans centuries before, there are far less deaf and mute children within a generation now than there used to be. These children who are unable to hear the voice of the collective and they are looked upon with pity as they are taken into the desert sands and left as carrion for predators.
Those who can hear the voice of the collective are protected and provided for by their community, quickly learning to speak as part of the collective before being able to speak aloud. One gift that the Collective still is grateful to the Humans for, was their genetic enhancements to also physically mature faster, so that their body keeps up with their minds.

Coming of Age Rites

The Learning

Adolescent Xanyr learn rapidly from shared experience with their people, when they approach their adolescence, they are given the task of mastering a skill that has been mastered before by others and to perfect it, usually taking them months to accomplish as their body and mind work together to assimilate the knowledge they are seeking

The Perfection

While adolescents master a skill, they have not yet perfected it, this does not simply come from memory but body experience. One of the reasons they are a feared fighting force in the galaxy, is that each of their soldiers has centuries of memories and training behind them, followed by years of perfecting in motion what they have honed in mind. But this is not just for those who wish to fight with their body, in all aspects of life, members of the Xanyr collective are expected to perfect their chosen work, even adding to the experience shared by all

Funerary and Memorial customs

As they lived for the collective, so too in death shall they serve and nourish the next generation.

— Intoned by spiritualists as the dead are lowered into a rookery as food for hatchlings

The collective do not bury their dead, not seeing the purpose behind the meat of the dead rotting away underground without purpose. Instead the bodies of the dead, friend and foe alike, are fed to the insatiable appetites of the young of the Collective.

The Ritual

The corpses of those who belonged to the Collective are prepared the night before they are given to the young. The last of their psionic power is depleted and memories of them are shared among the collective as they mourn as one. The last memory is shared as the first rays of the sun touch the surface, the body is then taken by pall bearers to the rookery, where a spiritualist intones the final words upon the dead and they are lowered down to become food for the young.
The dead of those not of the collective, are treated with contempt and unceremoniously thrown into the rookery or left at its entrance for the young to swarm over.

Reaver Call by sancient

Space Travel

The Xanyr species were capable of travelling the stars at great speeds, greater even than the humans when they first found them. A large bug with massive psionic potential, the Ilkedar, was found in the swamps of Le'k, it was capable of teleporting short distances, initially used for land transport, centuries passed before the bugs mutated enough to be able to carry creatures inside them, but also before the Xanyr thought of trying to travel the stars with them.
Awakening a small amount of the psionic potential within them, the Xanyr were able to make the Ilkedar travel further and further. Pushing their bugs to travel further, they were able to reach the atmosphere, that was when they realised there was no air for them to breath once they left their planet for the void beyond. Still they pushed, extending periods of time that the Ilkedar could go without air.
The predecessors of the Collective, being the handlers of these bugs, finally came up with a solution, by further awakening the potential in these bugs they could train them to create pockets of air around them, that would then be recycled through their body and renew itself as well as the air for its passengers, though they couldn't go far before needing a fresh source of air, it was a start. The Xanyr first travelled the stars before the Human empire even left its home planet. They were also the first to have the capacity of a what is now known as a psychoportive drive; the capacity to travel space using psionic energy.

Encompassed species

• Xanyr