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the Chor'ii come from a world orbiting one of the metal poor Population II suns in the cluster. their world is a frozen wasteland in the grips of an ice age, massive glacier sheets covering much of the globe. this ice age began shortly after the Chor'ii stumbled into an industrial revolution, and it is only the many pollutants and greenhouse gasses that have prevented the planet from becoming covered in a single sheet of ice. the massive ice flows are broken only by immense arcology cities where the planets 25 billion population live and work, and the massive mining operations that continue to strip the planet of any accessible resource. the planet is practically dead, with no land dwelling animal life larger than a rat, save for the Chor'ii. this is because the Chor'ii consumed every species that survived the start of the ice age. the Chor'ii are purely carnivorous, unable to consume plant matter. this caused a major crisis when the food stocks ran out, one they solved in a very grisly manner. to prevent a complete riot and destruction of their society, they turned to the only source of meat left on the planet, themselves. at first, they merely processed the criminal element for consumption by the working classes, leaving the few remaining stocks of animal life for the elite. eventually they were forced to invoke the death penalty for even minor crimes, the convicted being sentenced in kangaroo courts and sent to the food plants. when even that proved insufficient they instituted an eugenics program, with governmental agencies observing the birth of every infant for weakness, and only the strong being allowed to survive. the weak, the infirm, the sickly, the deformed were shipped to facilities to be raised like animals on a diet of the remaining rodent like pests, fattened, slaughtered, and processed for food when they became large enough. and this was done with full knowledge by the populace. Cannibalism was nothing new to the Chor'ii, it had been common and accepted in their society long before this during the period when they were split into many tribes and nations. the ice age crisis merely elevated it to extreme levels. the Chor'ii were able to keep this horrific practice going because they are prodigious breeders. all chor'ii are hermaphroditic, able to self fertilize. a pregnant Chor'ii gestates a dozen embryos in stomach-wombs, before regurgitating the infants. during this time the mother goes without solid food for months. because their biological systems have a unique distributed structure, it is impossible to chemically or surgically sterilize the population. so their population continues to grow, despite the horrific practices used to supply food to the population.
the Chor'ii obtained space travel long after the ice age began, in hopes of alleviating their looming resource problem. their first space ships were simple chemical and ion drive vessels, unable ot leave the system. with these, they began strip mining their solar system, to supply the arcologies with needed metals and chemicals. they quickly progressed to atomic and then fusion drive vessels, which made the process all the easier. no terraformable planets existed in their solar system, so they saw no hope of easy resettlement. they considered construction of "Space ark" slowboat colony vessels, but had barely began to tackle the issues of sustaining the crew and population for thousand year trips when their salvation arrived from outside their system. an exploratory vessel from a neighboring system arrived, possessing a more primitive drive and technology, but with a valuable resource. Faster Than Light technology. a drive that could reduce the ship's effective mass, submerging the ship into "tachyonic" space where it could travel at speeds faster than light. these newcomers, one of the rare human worlds in the cluster, were welcomed at first. they were encouraged to set up trade relation, share technology, and so on. but things turned sour when the newcomers learned of the Totalitarian government of the Chor'ii, and what exactly it was they had been eating at all those state dinners. when the newcomers attempted to escape back to their orbiting ship, they were captured, and their ship was overrun and seized. it did not take the Chor'ii long to copy the FTL drive, and begin construction of a war fleet. after all, there was another inhabitable planet only a few light years away, and filled with very edible locals...
the Chor'ii turned their formidable industrial capacity to building ships and weapons. after a few years, the first scouting fleet was ready. 500 ship strong, the scouting force not only discovered the neighboring human planet, but several other worlds ripe for the taking. construction of the Chor'ii war fleet, thousands strong, was well underway, and hundreds of massive troopships were being built for moving the millions of infantry and vehicles that were planned for the first wave attack on the human world.
the next hundred years of Chor'ii history was one of conquest and consumption, taking dozens of worlds and strip mining them of their resources, both organic and otherwise. the massive troopships were pressed into duty to move masses of the Chor'ii population off world. but even with the ships they possessed, they could only keep up with the rate of population expansion, not reduce it. and the colonists just took to breeding more with the open spaces and abundant food on the new worlds.
the Consortium of Civilized Worlds was the first to encounter the Chor'ii in their rush to claim the thundercloud, and it was good for the galaxy that it was they, not the Trans-Galactic Empire, that did so. the first two CCW exploratory ships were obliterated by the Chor'ii before it was realized who claimed that space, and the CCW locked down that region once they learned what they were dealing with and their danger to the galaxy as a whole. Had the Trans-Galactic Empire been the ones to make first contact, it is likely the TGE would have attempted to exterminate the Chor'ii, likely resulting in a war that would see the Chor'ii obtaining galactic standard technology. Chor'ii space has the unique distinction of being the only region of the 3 galaxies that the CCW has declared a complete interdiction on, with anyone crossing the border, for any reason, being destroyed on sight. all to prevent the Chor'ii from obtaining galactic standard technologies like contragravity drive, shields, effective energy weaponry, and antimatter power plants. such technology combined with massive industrial capacity of the Chor'ii would be a threat to the entire cluster, and perhaps the entire Thundercloud galaxy.
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