Lithilions

Beginnings
The Lithilions were not naturally born creatures, or at least did not evolve from a lower life form into what they are now. The birth of their race occurred in the year 2135 A.I., in far off Galaxy light years away from the Milky Way and the many wars and events that occured there, called the Sarin Sictor. Although this sector remained largely unexplored, many great events had transpired there, including a bloody war that had lasted centuries. The Ranthens, a race of insect like creatures, tried to create the ultimate biological weapon with which to overcome their enemies, the Vasonions. All attempts had failed, however, and the Ranthens had given up all hope. The Vasonions had conquered all five of the outlying colonies that belonged to the Ranthens, and had blockaded their home planet. The Ranthens were forced to wait on their home planet of Kasair, waiting for the inevitable orbital bombardment of their planet. That is, until a little known Ranthen scientist discovered a jello-like, constantly shape shifting creature. It seemed that the creature could consume any other living thing, quickly sucking the nutrients out of it, leaving a dry, empty husk.

The Ranthens, desperate to live, shot a payload of missiles filled with the creatures at the Vasonion capital ship, the Ontega Prima. The missiles punctured its hull, and the creatures swarmed the ship, sucking the life out of all the crew on board, who's weapons seemed to be ineffective against the creatures. Soon, the capital ship was completely overrun, and several task teams, sent from the surrounding flag ships, who were sent on rescue missions to the ship did not return. Unfortunately, the fourth and final task team sent to the ship did return, bringing with them passengers; the dangerous parasatic creatures had come back with them, and soon flooded another ship, a Destroyer class cruiser called the Sangia. This ship was a speciality ship, filled with robotic infantry that were to be used to invade Kasair after the orbital bombing. The crew thought that since the robotic infantry aboard the ship were not organic, the robots could easily destroy the parasites. While the robots did not die when they came in contact with the parasites, something much worse happened. The Parasites bonded with the robots, forming an entirely new species. The Lithilions had been born. The robots, driven insane by the bonding process, slaughtered the crew onboard. The robots spread the parasite to the main computing core of the ship, which regulated the processes, shields, and weaponry of the ship. The ship was completely infected by the parasite, and began firing at all the surrounding Vasonion ships. The Vasonions on the other ships had no idea what had transpired on the ship, but had no choice but to return fire.During the ensuing battle, the Lithilions, no longer consumed by the complete rage caused by the bonding process, suddenly gained intelligence. Each robot contained a central "brain" of sorts that regulated the functions of each individual robot. Now that the robots had been bonded with the parasite, the brain combined with that of the parasites, which was miniscule, and formed an intelligent species. The robots, sensing their chance to spread the infection to other ships, quickly loaded themselves into boarding pods. The ship, also part of this new sentient race, launched the pods toward several other ships, infecting them with the parasite as well. The Lithilions repeated the process over and over again until every ship in the entire Vasonion fleet had been completely infected. The Lithilions, now controlling an entire fleet of sentients ships and robots, invaded the Ranthen home world themselves and slaughtered everything on the surface. The Lithilions claimed Kasair as their planet, and soon used the Ranthen factories located on the world to manufacture more robots, which were then implanted with the seed of the parasite. Word had not yet reached the other worlds of the Vasonions, so they were completely unaware of the lurking doom at Kasair. A month after the battle at Kasair, the Lithilions launched their invasion of the Vasonions' planets, reaching their home world of Abas in a mere five months. The Vasonions had been completely annihilated within a year, and were then considered extinct. The Ranthens went extinct two months after the extinction of the Vasonions. The Lithilions then lied in wait, building and waiting for many, many years for their next chance at conquest.

Early Expansion
The Lithilions laid in wait to be discovered for 346 years after the fall of the Vasonions. A mining crew from the nearby Galaxy, Sacren Six, flew through Lithilion airspace, unknowingly alerting the Lithilions to their presence. A Lithilion cruiser was dispatched to deal with the ship. The mining crew was surprised when they were stopped the cruiser, a ship much larger than their small mining ship. The ship was boarded by the Lithilions, and before the mining crew could ask any questions, they were all killed. The mining crew, which had been sent from Hasani, a planet from Sacren Six, were from a species which had only recently developed deep space travel. The Lithilions used the information from the onboard computers to locate the planet, and quickly dispatched a humongous war fleet to Sacren Six. The fleet included several new additions to the Lithilion race, robots and machines that the Lithilions had built themselves instead of salvaging. The fleet arrived at Hasani within a week, and obliterated all life on the planet. The Lithilions then settled on the planet, and quickly colonized all the surrounding planets.

The Sacren War
The Lithilions did not know, however, that the race that they had exterminated were part of an Alliance of races that ruled most of Sacren Six. A diplomat from the Alliance arrived at Hasani, and was shocked to find that the race that once lived there, the Zoins, were now extinct. Infuriated, the diplomat and her small fleet tried to get an audience with the Lithilion leaders, but were denied access. Instead, the Lithilions attacked the diplomat and her troops, and they were all captured. The Lithilion leaders, who were actually huge, hulking machines that had little care for the survival of any species other than their own, demanded that the diplomat tell them the location of all member planets of the Alliance. She refused, and was executed, along with all of her men. The Lithilions, determined to conquer the Alliance and all of its members, quicky dispatched several exploration teams that combed the surrounded systems for colonized planets. The teams returned a month later, with information of the whereabouts of the Alliance. It turned out that the Alliance had colonized more than seventy five percent of Sacren Six, and that the Lithilions stood no chance of winning a war against the massive organization. Even so, the Alliance had lost contact with their diplomat, and quickly dispatched a rescue team to Hasani to try to find out what happened. The rescue teams cruiser was detected by the Lithilions long before it reached Hasani, and was destroyed in a fierce hit and run by Lithilion fighters. The ship managed to transmit back a distress signal to the Alliances home base, a massive space station that was the size of several planets combined. The Alliance sent several transmissions to Hasani, demanding an answer for the destruction of both the diplomats and the rescue team. The Lithilions did not answer the calls, and thus the Alliance unanimously agreed to take military action against the Lithilions. A large fleet was dispatched toward Hasani, and the Alliance were certain victory would be easily claimed over the insignificant threat of the Lithilions.

The Lithilions recieved reinforcements from the Sarin Sictor, and braced themselves for a bloody battle, readying all of their planets defenses and surrounding each planet with a sizable defense fleet. The Alliance fleet soon arrived, and a huge battle erupted over Hasani and the outlying Lithilion colonies. The Alliance ships were far superior when compared the Lithilion war ships, being more durable and more well built. Even so, the Lithilions repelled the first wave, but knew more would soon be on the way. The Lithilions knew the next wave would spell doom, so they quickly devised a cunning plan to defeat the Alliance fleet. The Lithilions abandoned Hasani and lied in wait on a nearby colony, letting the Alliance fleet take Hasani. The Alliance, believing that the Lithilions had retreated off the planet because of cowardice, quickly landed their ships on Hasani to refuel and secure the planet with ground troops. The Lithilions then seized their chance and moved their fleet around Hasani, and bombarded the planet from orbit. The Alliance fleet was annihilated, and the Lithilions had clearly proven to the Alliance that they were a force to be reckoned with. What was left of the Alliance fleet retreated. and the Lithilions had their first taste of real space warfare and its interworkings. Even with this excellent victory, the Lithilions realized that they had to quickly expand in order to build a large enough fleet and to acquire enough soldiers to defeat, or at least just intimidate, the Alliance and all of its members.

The Alliance was confused as to what to do. It's board of directors, made up of two representatives from each race, did not know what to do about the Lithilions. They had clearly proven to be formidable foes, able to come up with an excellent military strategy in a mere three days between the attacking waves of the Alliance fleet. Although the Alliance had many more large war fleets, they were hesitant to send them in fear that the Lithilions might be far stronger than they initially thought. This gave the Lithilions plenty of time to recieve even more reinforcements from the Sarin Sictor, and the Lithilions were gearing up for a quick invasion of the Alliance's outlying planets, the ones that were located closest to Hasani and other nearby Lithilion colonies. The Alliance board, after months of arguing over what to do, finally decided that the best decision would be to conquer each Lithilion planet one by one, starting with the planet closest to the Alliance, Bureon. Before the Alliance could prepare their ships and gather the appropriate crews, the Lithilions launched a muliple front attack against the alliance, targeting several outlying planets, which were the most poorly defended. The Alliance, panicking, dispatched thousands of ships in an attempt to defend themselves from the Lithilion armada. This proved to be a poor tactic, as the Alliance fleets, spread thin in their attempts to defend multiple planets, were easily defeated by concentrated Lithilion fleets. The Alliance quickly recalled every remaining fleet back to the Alliance base, abadoning all surrounding planets, even if the planet had sufficient defenses to hold off a Lithilion fleet. The Lithilions plan had worked, their fear tactics had successfully made the Alliance misjudge the power of the Lithilion fleet, which would of not been able to take every single planet the Alliance owned. The Alliance planets, now abandoned by the military, were easily taken, and the Lithilions soon surrounded the Alliance home base. A huge battle erupted, thousands of Alliance and Lithilion war ships fighting all around the Alliance home base. A small Lithilion boarding ship punctured through the Alliance defenses and boarded the Alliance home base. Vicious fighting ensued inside, the soldiers and crew aboard fighting to the death with the Lithilion boarding force, even if it came to pure hand-to-hand combat.

The Lithilions tactic of infection was no longer an option, since years of the parasite bonding with inorganic metal had eliminated the race's trait of death on contact. Instead, the parasite had to be forcefully injected to cause death, an ability which the Lithilion boarding force lacked. So the fight was harder for the Lithilions than they had initially expect, and the boarding force was defeated by the overwhelming odds of the soldiers and crew on board. The Alliance fleet was completely annihilated soon afterwards, however, and several more Lithilion boarding forces entered the Alliance home base, one of the boarding forces armed with a seed that would infect the core of the ship, which would bring the entire ship under Lithilion command. This time, the Lithilion boarding force proved for the Alliance defenders, and the Lithilions killed all the crew and soldiers aboard the space station, including the Alliance board members. The Lithilions soon found the computing core of the ship and planted the seed, infecting the ship and placing it under Lithilion command. The Lithilions had won their first war, and every planet in Sacren Six fell under their rule.

The Lithilions Now
The Lithilions had been content for thousands of years with their large empire, but have recently sought to expand their already large intergalactic empire. The Lithilions picked up radio transmissions coming from a galaxy light years away. The Lithilions, after deciphering the transmissions, determined that there were indeed sentient beings in the galaxy, and dispatched a large war fleet toward the galaxy, a galaxy that the Lithilions simply know as the Milky Way.

Lithilion Physiology
Lithilion physical traits vary greatly, as the Lithilion race is comprised of several different mechanical beings with several different primary functions. Some are in military roles, which usually are geared toward a more aggressive build, including weaponry, claws, scythes, and superior reflexes. Some are part of ship crews, and although most Lithilion ships are sentient, and thus could operate on their own, a crew is needed to make sure the ship operates properly, and is following orders given to it. Finally, a very small amount of Lithilions are head officials, which are rare since every Lithilion planet only has two. Universally, however, Lithilions all have the appearance of being half-machine and half-organic, organic parts usually exposed at the joints in their limbs and in the their mouths, if they have one.

Lithilion Soldiers
The military of the Lithilion is quite impressive, and comprises all ground forces and ships, excluding crews. Although the build of ground troops vary by purpose, most have very good reflexes and have good eye sight and hearing, which are musts when on the battlefield. The Lithilions have several classes of ground troops, from reconnaissance drones to long range support machines. The Lithilion soldiers that have been seen have been hand-to-hand combat infantry and support infantry.

The Lithilion close range combat infantry is the HK V-1, V-2, and V-3. Each variant of the HK, or Hunter Killer, combat infantry is uitlized in different environments. HK-V1s are used when attacking a planet with ground troops. They have slightly elongated heads that have pipes coming out the back of the head and connecting to the back of the HK-V1. The purpose of these pipes is not known, but many have theorized that the pipes and wiring lead from the brain of the HK-V1 to all of the limbs. The HK-V1s also have long claws on each hand, and have a mouth that opens in three parts. They also have a tail that is relatively long, about five feet, that ends in a small, curved blade. This appears to be the HK-V1's main weapon, as it have reasonable reach and has been used in combat against the Ranthen, Vasonians, and Alliance and proved effective. The HK-V1s have very fast reflexes and are very fast, especially when in full sprint. The HK-V1 does sacrifice armor for this speed, which leaves it protected against small arms fire but nothing more than that. The HK-V2 is the variant that is used when boarding ships. The close quarters and cramped hallways of a ship offer little room for manueverablilty, therefore the HK-V2 is far more heavily armed than its V1 counterpart. It also has a breathing tube that covers it's mouth, which is needed for it to breath in case of a hull breach in the enemy ship. The V2 is essentially the same as the V1, other than the aforementioned differences. The V3 has only rarely been seen, so little is known about what it exactly looks like. It is the variant designed to protect Lithilion planets, and is usually located on the surface of a planet, waiting for enemy ground troops to land. It is known that V3s, other than having close range claws and tails, are also equiped with a short to medium range plasma gun that is attached to their left forearm. They, like the V1, are built for speed and have less armor than the V2.

The Lithilion support infantry serve a much different role than the HKs, yet are much more flexible and versatile. Support infantry can be equiped with a variety of weapons, which may alter their appearance in combat. The basic support infantry, the Purger, looks much like a humanoid creature, and has a head that is relatively the same size as a human's. The Purger has very thick armor, and has a large amount of armor on it's head and torso. It has several slots on it's sides for storing weapons and ammo, and has multiple tube like eyes on it's face. It lacks a mouth, and intead has a small bullet proof glass part on it's lower face that has a light behind it. The light brightens when it's talking, and goes out when it's not. They also are equiped with a small breathing apparatus on their backs.

Lithilion Ground Vehicles
The ground vehicles of the Lithilions are geared toward a more direct confrontation instead of long range. Lithilion armor consists of walkers, the main one being the Vindicator. The Vindicator is a large, quadropod walker with a short barreled cannon and small anti-infantry gun. The Vindicator stands about 6 meters (18 feet) and is very fast, able to cover a long distance in a short amount of time. It is well armored, although a direct hit from an anti-armor rocket, shell, rail gun, or plasma blast can easily take it out. It has no operator, and simply is a larger Lithilion robot. Lithilion also have a strange anti-armor and anti-personel vehicle called the Incisor. The Incisor is a verticle disk-like vehicle that runs on a tread that is lined with small spikes. It is extremely fast, and can easily outrun most ground vehicles and infantry. It is equiped with a small gun on it's side that is used for taking out infantry. It also has the ability to explode if badly damaged, useful for taking out enemy vehicles or positions.

Lithilion Ships and Fighters
The Lithilion fleets are large and varied, and many different ships serve many different roles in their fleets. All ships are usually industrial like, and rarely have any smooth surfaces, save for the fronts of the ships, which are usually more heavily armored. Many weapons line the sides, underside, and top of their ships, leaving little room for anything else, such as command decks or sensor arrays, which are usually very small and hard to spot on a Lithilion capital ship or flag ship. Lithilion fighters do not have pilots, and instead are actually robots that can pilot themselves. They are usually small, although larger than most fighters when compared to other races, since they are so heavily armed. This also makes them slower, however, so a skilled pilot in a faster ship can easily run circles around a Lithilion fighter.

Lithilion Crews
Lithilion crews consist of a ship overseer and operators, and armed soldiers in case of a boarding. Lithilion ship overseers are fairly large, standing about 3 meters (9 feet) and are very bulky. They have several tube like eyes, and have a pair of large arms that end in scythes, as well many smaller arms for operating machinery. They have three pairs of legs that are used to drag their large, snake-like bodies around the ship. The ships crew is very similar to the overseer, although they stand much shorter at only five feet, and lack the many arms of the overseer, instead having a pair of scythe arms and one pair of operating arms. Not much else is known about Lithilion fleet crews, except that there are soldiers on board each ship that protect the crew within, although there are no records on what the soldier look like.

Lithilion Technology
Lithilion Technology is very advanced, although most of their tech came from the species that they conquered. There have been many improvements made by the Lithilions on the tech they had, however.

Armor
The Lithilion use a special alloy that was found on the Vasonion war ships to produce the armoring on their ships, infantry, and vehicles. The alloy is comprised of Metararium and Firston, two metals that are found on most planets in Sacren Six and Sarin Sictor. The alloy is tough and can withstand a lot of punishment, especially from small arms fire. Depending on the thickness of the armor, it can even deflect anti-vehicle rounds, although this is a rare occurrence.

Weapons
The Lithilions utilize a huge array of weaponry, from conventional anti-personel weapons, such as machine guns and laser rifles, to advanced weapons, such as rail guns and plasma cannons. Plasma had never really been used for warfare before by the races in Sarin Sictor and Sacren Six, instead being used for construction purposes. Thus the Lithilions were the first to use its power for military purposes, at least when compared to the species in Sarin Sictor and Sacren Six. The Lithilions commonly use plasma for turrets on their captial and flag ships, along with rail guns and laser cannons.

Communications
The Lithilions utilize standard communications tech, having visual screens on each ship to communicate with planets and other ships. They also have a large sensor array on most capital and flag ships that can pick up transmissions, both enemy and friendly. The Lithilions, since they were originally Vasponion robots, speak Vespen, just as all races in Sarin Sictor did. The Alliance and many other organizations and species each had their own language, however, so the Lithilions focused a large amount of resources on decoding and translation teams. These teams can translate enemy transmissions into Vespen, and can also decipher enemy transmissions if they are in code.

Lore
From what could recovered from Alliance fleet wreckage that floated near the Milky Way, there were many terrifying rumours and stories surrounding the Lithilions. Alliance members were terrified by the Lithilions, who seemed brutal and unstoppable in their eyes. According to Alliance logs that were made after shortly after the first battle with the Lithilions, the survivors from the attack on Hasani, a Lithilion colony, called the Lithiliions the "Metal Reapers", citing that the Lithilions were like death, wiping out entire species in a matter of months. Other than this story, which was proven true after fact checking, most other lore surrounding the Lithilions written by the Alliance and its members is mostly false, the stories driven more by fear and terror than actual facts.