Metallists
Metallists are an extinct species that left behind many questions. Their obsessive behaviour (such as extreme, obviously intentional pollution of their worlds with not only 'standard' pollution but also extremely high ammounts of heavy metals and radioactivity) makes literally no sense, just as their equally obssessive attempts to hide the way they looked - despite hundreds of metallist facilities uncovered thus far, not a single image depicting their forms has been found.
They disappeared in an equally inexplicable way. Which left even more questions that nobody can answer.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Unknown. The remaining ruined cities and ships are completely devoid of any sort of pictures and art, which together with their computers being mostly fried prevents learning a lot about them. However, the city construction details makes them relatively comfortable for humanoids of human sizes, suggesting that they were similar in size and shape to humans. However, that still leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Attempts to figure out their anatomy by thorough examination of DNA samples have turned inconclusive, suggesting that either they suffered from massive genetic divergencies (like radiation-caused mutations for centuries), were a union of at least four different species, or enjoyed genengineering a bit too much.
Ecology and Habitats
For some reason the Metallists seemed to purposefully destroy every environment on the planets they inhabited. Mostly by expelling vast amounts of mercury and other heavy metals, plus all sort of toxic chemicals and radiation from their cities. All of that done of purpose. In fact, it is believed that they were literally afraid of the life besides themselves, acting to expunge it and prevent its eventual rebirth wherever and whenever they were. No clues as to the sources of this behaviour were ever found.
Civilization and Culture
Average Technological Level
Curiously, the technology of metallist seems to went through slightly different route than those of Mankind. Their construction and overall production never moved from metals to plastics. Even their building materials were mostly an advanced forms of concrete and metals. This also severely impaired the development of electronics, making them jump from electron lamps straight into a biological genocomputers that reached the level of Mankind's current electronics.
Because of that, their ships and general constructions were vastly different - bigger, and more primitive looking - sometimes compared to XIX century factories... but on much bigger scale and capable of achievements that either reached or surpassed current Humanity. Today, however, most of them is beyond ruined and no longer works, unless the Hyperspace managed to conserve them. On the other hand, the repairs of metallist equipment are relatively easy, due to the modular construction. All weapons, reactors and so on can be dismantled and recontronstructed like a threedimensional puzzles. While it's impossible for current world to construct these puzzles (due to radically different technological base), it is very easy to for example make one working reactor from three damaged, by swapping the damaged puzzles.
Notable XenotechsShredder MAW
History
The metallist imperium (its name unknown, it is not even known if there really was a single metallist state, or many different ones) rose to prominence in the area of western Perseus Arm during late 8th century and quickly expanded throughout it, soon controlling a significant part of Human Space (entire Perseus Arm and western Orion Spur). It reached its apex during 15th century, during which it is believed to have waged several succesful wars against other xenoempires of the period. Leaving a number of toxic worlds where their enemies homeworlds used to be.
It reached its abrupt end around 15th century. Its sudden decline is dated to 1450-1470, during which 85% of located metallist bases and outposts were abandoned. A signs of mass genocide accompanying this retreat are found, with surviving records from a number of them indicating self-cremation of their crews. Remaining 15% were gone before the end of 16th century, most of them in a roughly similar fashion. Now, the metallist are almost surely gone, with no signs of their activity since the 1700 AD.
Reasoning for their extinction isn't understood, but there are theories. They range from catastrophic genetic flaws (caused by extremely toxic surroundings) that led to a de facto species-wide euthanasia. Others claim that something forced them to it (for example, an Archenemy.
EXTINCT
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