Vetra walked to the observation deck. Below, the city-spire stretched into the smog. Giant pipes, thick as starship hulls, pumped toxic runoff into massive fermentation vats. This was the "Knights of the Toxic God" quest—a search for the progenitor who had blessed them with this glorious filth.
The air inside the atmospheric processing plant on Otheman II didn't just smell bad; it tasted like rusted pennies and desperation. For Vetra, a Chief Reclamation Officer of the Otheman Industrial Mandate, this was the scent of progress.
Her skin, a translucent shade of bruised purple, slicked with a protective layer of natural secretions that shielded her from the caustic fog. Behind her, the massive vent of the toxin-scrubber groaned, belching out a fresh cloud of sulfurous yellow gas. To any other species in the galaxy, this room was a death sentence. To the Toxoids of Otheman, it was a nursery.
Vetra sighed, a wet, rattling sound. "Tell them it is a localized pheromonal greeting. If they want the trade deal for the mutagenic crystals, they have to breathe the air we breathe."
She looked at her hands, where the chemical burns were beginning to form—a sign of the "Shorted Lifespan" trait she had accepted for the sake of her empire's growth. She wouldn't live to see the next century, but her civilization would choke the stars until they were the only ones left breathing.
The Otheman Mandate had risen from the literal trash heap of their sector. While other civilizations spent centuries cleaning their oceans and filtering their skies, Vetra’s ancestors had leaned into the rot. They had accelerated their evolution through the Relentless Industrialists civic, turning their home world into a tomb world that thrived on the very pollutants that killed everything else.
"Inform the Blorg," she added with a jagged grin. "The tour is over. The harvest begins."
"The Blorg representatives are refusing to disembark," her assistant, a twitchy drone-operator named Skrit, chirped through the comms. "They say the 'aroma' of our starport is melting their environmental suits."
Vetra walked to the observation deck. Below, the city-spire stretched into the smog. Giant pipes, thick as starship hulls, pumped toxic runoff into massive fermentation vats. This was the "Knights of the Toxic God" quest—a search for the progenitor who had blessed them with this glorious filth.
The air inside the atmospheric processing plant on Otheman II didn't just smell bad; it tasted like rusted pennies and desperation. For Vetra, a Chief Reclamation Officer of the Otheman Industrial Mandate, this was the scent of progress.
Her skin, a translucent shade of bruised purple, slicked with a protective layer of natural secretions that shielded her from the caustic fog. Behind her, the massive vent of the toxin-scrubber groaned, belching out a fresh cloud of sulfurous yellow gas. To any other species in the galaxy, this room was a death sentence. To the Toxoids of Otheman, it was a nursery. STELLARIS TOXOIDS SPECIES(2022)
Vetra sighed, a wet, rattling sound. "Tell them it is a localized pheromonal greeting. If they want the trade deal for the mutagenic crystals, they have to breathe the air we breathe."
She looked at her hands, where the chemical burns were beginning to form—a sign of the "Shorted Lifespan" trait she had accepted for the sake of her empire's growth. She wouldn't live to see the next century, but her civilization would choke the stars until they were the only ones left breathing. Vetra walked to the observation deck
The Otheman Mandate had risen from the literal trash heap of their sector. While other civilizations spent centuries cleaning their oceans and filtering their skies, Vetra’s ancestors had leaned into the rot. They had accelerated their evolution through the Relentless Industrialists civic, turning their home world into a tomb world that thrived on the very pollutants that killed everything else.
"Inform the Blorg," she added with a jagged grin. "The tour is over. The harvest begins." This was the "Knights of the Toxic God"
"The Blorg representatives are refusing to disembark," her assistant, a twitchy drone-operator named Skrit, chirped through the comms. "They say the 'aroma' of our starport is melting their environmental suits."