The Siege of Rodinia

At the onset of the Blood Harvest there were twelve civilizations throughout the cosmos collectively referred to as the 'Great Civilizations' (or the Nakrazor - 'na' meaning 'final' and 'Krazor' meaning 'city'). They were characterized as possessing Souls of a spiritual power far beyond average, and therefore demonstrated unbeatable Psikinetic prowess. Most of them either had, or were in the process of, transcending the need for technology as their minds superseded the role of manipulating their environment.   The Nakrazor were collectively ahead of everyone else through the great fortune of evolving on exceptionally habitable worlds that supported teeming, ancient biospheres. These biospheres across billions of years produced enormous quantities of spiritual dyne that condensed into large spiritual Auras around these planets, and from these rich and dense auras came souls of outstanding complexity and power. Through a combination of the bioactivity of their planets, the successful spreading of their biosphere to other celestial bodies, and the sheer luck of avoiding life-ending disasters either natural or, more frequently, artificial and conflict sourced, enabled them to outpace everyone else in terms of spiritual growth. This ensured they'd forever remain in a league of their own. They raced ahead of the cosmos and knew only the Nadrakians as their superiors.   But as great as they were, they were still no match for the Nadrakians. No matter how powerful their command over matter, energy, space and time, the Nakrazor civilizations were merely monohypostatic souls – souls that only contained one source of spiritual power, or ousia (specifically that of The Vita Field in their case). Nadrakians were dihypostatic souls, possessing the divine spiritual ousia of Theosis in addition to the basic spiritual ousia of the Vita field. This rendered their Psikinetics and supernatural powers (and therefore their bodies and minds) untouchable to those of monohypostatic souls, as there was simply an extra dimension to their souls that couldn't be interacted with, like a square intersecting a cube.   Relations between Nadrakians and the Nakrazor societies were peaceful however, and the two largely complimented one another. The Nakrazor would assist the Nadrakians in building and maintaining their Realm, furthering their goal of promoting "peace, promise and prosperity". The Nadrakians in return gave them preferential treatment in terms of colonizing the cosmos. The exception, of course, was Rodinia and the Creatures of Earth, who were mockingly referred to as the "wayward child" of the Nakrazor. They were the smallest and weakest of the twelve, belligerent to those around them and the other members of the Nakrazor, and hence received no preferential treatment from the Nadrakians. On the contrary, the two skirmished regularly, with Rodinia losing every confrontation ever recorded. This strained and futile history earned them the insulting moniker "Little Rodinian", which elder Rodinians despise to this day.   When Archnadrakian Balaine created the Nadrakians of the Ninth Caste, he imbued them with the Iconoclastic ousia, creating the first trihypostatic Nadrakians (aside from himself). The power gap between the Ninth Caste and the Nakrazor societies was difficult to imagine, and now of course the original dihypostatic Nadrakians couldn’t touch them either. The Ninth Caste possessed an additional spiritual dimension to their souls making them untouchable to souls of lower complexity, similar to how it was between mortals and the original Nadrakians. The remaining original Nadrakians despaired as the Ninth Caste annihilated thousands of civilizations and reduced the Nakrazor to just one: Rodinia.   Rodinia was considered the youngest and weakest of the Nakrazor at the time, but their rate of growth as fueled by the Earth’s rapidly growing aura was impressive. If circumstances were different, they could've overtaken the others in a few hundred million years (a significant contributing factor to their eventual confinement to Rodinia). Nevertheless, it wasn’t relevant here, and they would die quickly against Balaine and the Ninth Caste. Balaine regarded them as being so inconsequential that he never bothered personally arriving at Rodinia to destroy them himself, as he did with the other Nakrazor societies.   Perhaps it was overconfidence that caused his absence at the siege of Rodinia. Afterall, he and his Ninth Caste wiped out the other Nakrazor members with little difficulty, so why bother putting effort into destroying their final remaining, and weakest, member?   His own personal disdain for the Rodinians could've been a factor, too. Balaine was well aware of the Rodinians; they'd been a perpetual thorn in his side from the very moment Nadrakians first set foot in the Milky Way galaxy. Whether it was the constant skirmishes with his Nadrakians or other Nakrazor members, or their never-ending silly plots he had to foil for the safety of other civilizations and species, or the day Balaine needed to personally threaten the Great Houses of Rodinia with execution if they didn't call off their invasion of the Andromeda galaxy following the Chicxulub strike on Earth, he despised them. Perhaps, now that he could finally kill them, he wanted to do so without giving them the satisfaction of earning his personal time and investment, as a final way to communicate how unworthy he thought they were.   Whatever his reasoning was for not showing up at the Siege of Rodinia from the start, it would become his undoing.   Up until now the original Nadrakians had experimented with creating souls with greater hypostatic complexity to see if they could fight back against the Ninth Caste. This was accomplished through donations of their own divine power to the Nakrazor civilizations, granting them dihypostatic souls like the original Nadrakians. Many of these Nakrazor became far more powerful than the original Nadrakians once they became dihypostatic, due to how powerful their souls already were before receiving the divine Theosis ousia. This initially gave the original Nadrakians hope, however they couldn’t appreciate yet that no matter how much power they gave these species, a dihypostatic soul could never defeat a trihypostatic one.   And now, all that the original Nadrakians had left on their side were the "Little Rodinians", like a chess player left with only a king and a few pawns on the board whilst their opponent still retained their entire set. In the minds of the original Nadrakians, it was over.   But it just so happened that one of those pawns took down a queen, revealing that these Rodinians had been hiding something.    

The Birth of Rodinian Iconoclasm

  Long before the Blood Harvest, Rodinia attempted to conquer the Milky Way galaxy.   They were soundly defeated by the Nadrakians at the time, who sent them back to Rodinia with their tails between their legs. As punishment for repeated aggressions against their neighboring civilizations, Balaine himself sentenced them to fifty million years of confinement to Rodinia and its internal Weave of Worlds.   In their fury and desperation, the Rodinians entered into a pact with an entity calling itself the Survivor. It gifted them a power called Iconoclasm, and told them that once they could master it, they’d be able to slaughter the Nadrakians in battle. In return, it asked the Rodinians to focus on becoming as powerful as they could, conquer their entire universe, and ascend to godhood “as a matter of urgency, so that you too are not reduced to mere survivors.”   The Rodinians, however, couldn't master the power or bend it to their will, and not through lack of trying either. It became a fringe religion among the Rodinians with few paying it any heed after generations of failure to manifest it in any meaningful capacity.   Then, millions of years later during the Siege of Rodinia at the tail end of the Blood Harvest, a Rodinian named Nyza Thezumai rushed a Nadrakian of the Ninth Caste to save her father from being murdered by the beast. In a near feral state of terror and desperation to save her family, she manifested those iconoclastic powers that lurk deep within the soul of every Rodinian, and obliterated the Nadrakian so comprehensively that its soul was erased from existence.   Ultimately, she could not save her family, and her desperation turned to wrath. Fueled by wicked and wild emotions, the divine powers already granted by the Nadrakians to all members of the Nakrazor, and her own incredible soul, Nyza became something more than just another dihypostatic soul. She became the first Rodinian to fully awaken the power of Iconoclasm that existed dormant within the bedrock of every Rodinian soul over the last fifty million years. In doing so, she became a trihypostatic soul, capable of fighting and killing the Ninth Caste.   Her awakening was felt by spiritually sensitive beings for thousands of light-years in every direction as a shockwave coursing across the Vita field. She was beset upon by hundreds of Nadrakians of the Ninth Caste, but she slaughtered them all with her bare hands. Up until this point, the Ninth Caste hadn't suffered a single casualty against any opponent, but now suffered hundreds in moments.   There was a catch though.   Nyza was exceptional by Rodinian standards and very atypical in her spiritual strength, yet even her outstanding soul barely crossed the threshold to activate Iconoclasm following the Nadrakian’s donations of divine power to all Rodinians. No other Rodinian had yet crossed the required threshold, but they all had the potential to.   After hasty and unsatisfactory deliberation leaving many questions unanswered, the remaining original Nadrakians made the ultimate sacrifice. They were granted access to the Earth by the Rodinians, and dumped all their remaining power into the soul of the Earth. This massively boosted the spiritual power of all Rodinians, propelling them collectively across the threshold required to activate the Iconoclastic hypostasis. The cost however to the Nadrakians was mortality, and to be at the complete mercy of whatever happened next.    

The Rodinian Death Waltz

  As expected, the moment the Nadrakians transferred their remaining power into the soul of the Earth, the planet’s soul crackled with newly awakened Iconoclastic power.   The immense collective power of the remaining Nadrakians coursed into the souls of all Rodinians via the Earth, and awakened both their divine and iconoclastic hypostases. This granted them power beyond even the Nadrakians. The resulting spiritual tremors in the Vita field were more than sufficient to blow away the gargantuan ocean of Congealed Malice enveloping Rodinia, sent forth by Balaine to drown the Rodinians. Every spiritually sensitive being in the cosmos not beyond the cosmological horizon observed a new spiritual quasar in the Vita field as the Earth’s soul outshone everything else in the night sky.   The war progressed swiftly from there. Realizing the threat the Rodinians now posed, Balaine descended upon Rodinia in person and commanded all his Ninth Caste Nadrakians throughout the cosmos to come to the Milky Way and crush the Rodinians at once before their powers could billow out of control anymore.   Struggling at first but gaining increasing momentum, confidence and efficiency as their powers swelled to unnatural highs, Rodinia pushed them back. For reasons relating to Praxis, the Rodinians executed the three distinct ousia within their souls far better than the Ninth Caste could. By the time the Rodinians had plateaued, the Ninth Caste were being routed in what's come to be known as the Rodinian Death Waltz, where the Ninth Caste were systemically and comprehensively annihilated at every turn.   And unlike the other Nakrazor societies who were originally pacifist in nature, the Creatures of Earth were warlike, aggressive and martial focused, with millions of years' worth of old scores to settle against Balaine and his Nadrakians. They had been preparing for war for 50 million years since their confinement, and therefore had the numbers and the aggression to fight through the hordes of the Ninth Caste.   The ranks of the Ninth Caste broke and began to flee as their sense of self-preservation and shock overwhelmed Balaine's control over them. Rodinia would spend the next three million years hunting down and exterminating what was left of them.   Of Balaine himself, he fled too, but with Emperor Rhanel, Nyza Thezumai and many of Rodinia's best hot on his heels. They cornered the Archnadrakian in the system of Sicarsis, and without so much as a word spoken they set upon him, no mercy. Balaine proved to be a greater challenge than anticipated however given his eagerness to turn and run, killing the Emperor of Rodinia and several of the Great House Lords, but he couldn't keep up. In the end It was Nyza's spiritblade that eventually found its mark and split the Archnadrakian in half, bringing the Blood Harvest to an end.    

The Aftermath

  The original Nadrakians were severely reduced in number following the Blood Harvest and worse still, they were now mortal. They possessed no divine powers, and scarcely any psikinetics. They were suddenly vulnerable to even low powered psikinetic using species, many of whom may have had their own bone to pick with the Nadrakians.   The Rodinians offered them a place within their Weave of Worlds where they could live together, free from any worry about being attacked or exploited, and where their material needs would be met. Most took this offer, and lived out the remainder of their days there until all passed away of age after a few thousand years. Being unable to reproduce, they are now extinct with the sole exception of the mysterious Rilean Quellor. Kline Nadrak was the world within Rodinia’s internal Weave of Worlds where they lived, and which now stands as a memorial.   The Ninth Caste Nadrakians who survived the war fled into deep space. They retain their divine power, but are likewise unable to reproduce either and so their numbers are fixed. They went into hiding, occasionally popping up when caught terrorizing a civilization or attempting to jump and kill some Rodinians. Their ultimate goals are unknown.   The former Realm of the Nadrakians fell into a state of disorder and lawlessness until parts were claimed by the expanding Rodinian Empire, which re-imposed largely the same rules and order of the former Nadrakians.   The Rodinians themselves were permanently transformed, from a powerful psikinetic using group of species into demigods, with no one who could stand in their way.