The Chosen blinked as she ascended into the sunlight, her black eyes unaccustomed to natural skies. She could feel the warmth of the desert night, a gentle wind carrying it over the spurs and ridges of her body. Her loose-fitting sleeveless robe billowed behind her as the Ordained whispered in her ear.
“Now. You must destroy them, for all of us!”
She hesitated. “But the Imperials came to trade with us.”
“That is what they want you to believe. They are deceivers!”
The power of the god coursed through her veins, and she could feel it building up inside her. The Ordained spoke the words of angels. To defy them would be sin.
She lifted her hand, keeping her fingers curled down. She looked at the Ordained, as if waiting for him to say that there had been a terrible mistake. Maybe this was just a test, to see if she had it in her.
“Do it!”
Her fingers straightened and the energy of unmaking flowed from them. One of the Imperials turned toward them, his hand reaching for something. It didn’t matter.
In moments, they were gone, the only remnant of their presence gouges in the sand where the god’s power had gone astray.
She felt her face twitch. Her nostrils flared, and she drew in a sharp breath. It was an atavistic trait, a legacy of inferior ancestors, one that she had learned to keep secret and suppress at a young age. She wanted to cry.
The god was not what she had thought it was.
The Cetans
Although the Cetans were pushing the boundaries of what it meant to be human before their exile, one could now be forgiven for mistaking them as a sort of alien or artificial life form.
Developing for millennia aboard colony ships and planets nobody else would even think of colonizing, the Cetans adapted to become survivalists. Dispersed from the early human colony on Tau Ceti and forced to live in the least habitable worlds, they are often compared to insects by outsiders, both for their cultivated affinity for tight spaces and their tendency to “infest” worlds and colonize every usable iota of territory.
Cetan society is built around a caste system, with an average of four dozen castes on any particular planet. Individuals who are faithful to the Cetan regime may be “reincarnated” on their death by earning reinstantiation into a body that belongs to a higher caste. Criminals may likewise be punished with instantiation into a body from a lesser caste. Few Cetans travel off their home-worlds, but when they do a valuation is applied by the Prophets on their receiving world if their caste is not present there, which serves to establish their rank in the social hierarchy.
The Imperials and Eastrisers view the Cetans as backwards and totalitarian due to its focus on in-born ranks and the use of forced reinstantiation, but the Cetans rarely have complaints with their own system. Outsiders would point out that this is due to social programming and control, but the Cetans themselves view their lot in life as part of a grand cosmic struggle.
Because their society has tight information restrictions, with only Prophets and some Ordained knowing the broader history of the universe, they have rewritten their history. They no longer recognize themselves as descendents of humans.
The Cetans have a biological basis for most of their technology. Even inorganic systems are designed using the analogies of life: nanomachines are treated like independent organisms, manufacturing is viewed as an act of growing and nurturing, and power is treated like a resource in line with food. Because of their early technological edge over the rest of humanity and their focus on turning their technology toward self-modification, their scientific worldview is actually validated by many of their engineered systems.
One exception to this is the FTL drive, which they have imported from other civilizations. The first FTL drive was built after the Cetan colony ships went into hiding among the stars, and the Cetans never figured out the methods required to build them independently on their own. The Visionaries are a separate caste dedicated to the integration and understanding of foreign technology.
Cetan Castes
In addition to the castes that spring up in individual worlds and systems, the Cetans have a half-dozen castes that are universal.
Foremost among the Cetans are the Prophets, a technocratic aristocracy of immortals who exercise absolute authority checked only by the will of other Prophets. Within the Prophets there is a complex rank hierarchy, with each Prophet competing for dominion over increasingly large areas of Cetan territory. Prophets are terrifying but beautiful to behold, with unique abstract fractal patterns flowing out of humanoid forms that tower above other Cetans. Their innate psionic abilities are nearly unrivaled.
The Ordained are a bureaucrat caste. A relatively late addition to the Cetan hierarchy, they operate in conjunction with the Prophets but lack authority of their own. Physically powerful in a way that few other Cetans can claim to be, they project authority. Their intelligence is above that of the average person, but their emotions are chemically suppressed, making them little more than puppets for the Prophets. Nonetheless, being an Ordained is highly privileged and comes with great luxuries.
The Chosen are a unique case among the Cetans. When the Empire and its allies brought about the dawn of magic, the Chosen were little more than mining drones. One of the closest to human baseline among the Cetans, they were modified to survive in low-gravity, with bony exoskeletons that functioned like vacuum suits and the ability to seal off their lungs for short spacewalks. Magic changed everything. The Chosen have an innate connection to magic, though they have a hard time controlling it. Their sudden change in lot has led to oddities; they still live in warrens underneath the ground and avoid sunlight on planets too close to stars.
The Defenders are the most prominent Cetans in the minds of outsiders, owing to their popularity as villains or allies of the heroes in entertainment broadcasts and stories. That the Defenders are likely to find themselves outside Cetan space on missions and assignments is also common. Defenders are one-size-fits-all emissaries and soldiers, and while there are a number of sub-castes among them the general formula applies: physically they are broader and bulkier than baseline humans in their proportions, with keen intelligence and reduced stress responses.
Cetans and Magic
The Cetans have an unusual relationship with magic. They view it as the manifestation of an incomprehensible deity that has been part of their belief system almost as long as the castes have been their social order. This is in part a deliberate effort on behalf of the Prophets to reduce rebellious whisperings.
However, the Cetans did not expect magic to exist, and they weren’t part of the coalition that modified the very fabric of the universe. Their perspective on magic reclaims it for their belief systems.
Most Cetans have little or no aptitude for magic, since its designers attuned it to baseline humans and certain intentional designs. With their drift away from their human origins, they have locked themselves out of magical aptitudes.
Cetan Exiles
Many Cetans leave their society for life among the stars. Advancement opportunities more lucrative, and the pressure of the caste system is absent.
So long as the individuals leaving the colonies are of low enough status and have earned their keep, the Cetan central government doesn’t mind letting them go.
Exiles face discrimination, viewed as potential infiltrators or backwards savages by humanity. Many become mercenaries or unskilled laborers. The Cetan language is incomprehensible to outsiders and has enough differences between castes and in the address of various castes that exiles may find that the few people who could speak to other Cetans will speak to them incomprehensibly.
Cetan Foreign Policy
The Cetans in the Saturnides are unified in a single hierarchy, though in the wake of the Spellscourge there are hives that have splintered from the main group. They have never had significant contact with other Cetans since their initial exodus, though they are not the only Cetans.
Classified as moderate among the different branches of the Cetans, they have friendly relationships with the Eastrise Alliance, who hope to woo the Cetans to their own political system. The Cetans trade raw materials, especially rare earth metals, to the Eastrisers, and the Eastrisers sell them technology like FTL drives and Korsakov circuits in exchange, allowing the Cetans to further connect with the outside world.
The Imperials have more strained relations with the Cetans, viewing much of their political ideology as a violation of the Eight Prerogatives. However, the general consensus among the Successor Empire is that military action and diplomacy alike would have unwanted consequences.
The Cetans, Eastrise Alliance, and Successor Empire have a military treaty, which is currently in use against the Supremacy. The Supremacy considers the Cetans a minor threat. They have not encroached on Cetan territory, but this is due to a lack of desirable strategic assets in Cetan space.
The Prophets are keenly aware that Cetans missed out on humanity’s greatest achievements, and hope to one day surpass their counterparts. For now, they bide their time, fighting alongside their nearest stellar neighbors against a worrying threat. Eventually they wish to break free of the alliances they have wrought, but it is going to require major changes.