Embers of Muaat

The history of the Gashlai of Muaat is one inextricably twined with that of their oppressors, the Jol-Nar.

The first Jol-Nar explorers to the volcanic planet discovered massive reserves of valuable minerals and crystals unique to its hyperthermic ecology. They duly earmarked it as a mining colony and began the progress of transferring massive extraction fleets into orbit. However, as the first drill platforms were lowered to the surface, the Jol-Nar were shocked to find that the lava-flooded world was inhabited by an extremophile species of sentients, the Gashlai.

Gashlai culture had developed despite the harshness of their homeworld. The volatile surface of Muaat regularly swallowed and regurgitated entire continents, stymying early attempts to build anything permanent. The only advantage the Gashlai had in establishing a culture was their long lifespan, and the first histories they developed were entirely oral, sung to each other as they surfed the lava flows and trudged across the obsidian sands of their planet, searching for temporary stability.

Gashlai children were born extremely rarely. Whenever a brief calm on the surface of Muaat was found, the Gashlai would anchor down, procreate, and spend their time in contemplation and preparation for the next time their planet would unleash its tectonic fury, by which time their offspring had hopefully grown enough to break free from their cocoons and survive the coming cataclysm. They were a people forged by fire, tempered in the hardships of their own planet’s whims.

In spite of this, the Gashlai eventually did manage to build permanent civilizations. They learned to shape hyperdense obsidian and char-granite, materials that were strong enough to ignore the frequent earthquakes and stand up to the intense heat of the lava flows. They built small villages on the edges of the massive lava lakes and dug canals to reduce the deluges of molten rock to a constant pleasant flow. By the time the Universities’ scouts arrived, the Gashlai had built their first mobile environmental suits and were attempting to explore the inhospitably frigid highlands that surrounded their searing homes.

The Jol-Nar were fascinated by the Gashlai’s protective cocoons; a biological process that enabled energy-to- mass conversion on a subcosmic scale was unheard of. The allure quickly wore off when efforts to replicate the process in any other form failed. Instead, the Gashlai were rounded up and used as enslaved labor, forced deep into the hottest arteries of their world to mine for precious resources they would never use.

Their centuries-long enslavement at the hands of the Jol-Nar seemed to the Gashlai like a terrible hardship, but one that they must endure until they could find a means to reclaim their freedom. In the meantime, they went from a people who had just mastered a steam engine analog (using molten lead instead of water) to having the use of mining lasers, antigravity lifts, and supercomputers. They watched as one Jol-Nar mining barge after another winked away to a far-off unknown galaxy, they toiled in the massive naval shipyards constructed in their world’s orbit, and they became unwilling instruments of the weapon that the Jol-Nar would come to call the war sun.

Through all this the Gashlai learned, and waited.

When salvation came, it came from Muaat itself. At the outbreak of the Twilight Wars, the Jol-Nar needed to expand their mining operations. The Doolak Mountains on Muaat, previously overlooked, became the target of a survey operation. The Jol-Nar explorers became infected by a previously undiscovered virus there. Unknowingly, they carried it to their home planets, where it rapidly mutated and flourished in the mineral-rich saltwater environment.

The Doolak plague killed nearly all it touched, devastating a full quarter of the population and resulting in massive military defeats for the Jol-Nar. Desperate to stop the Sardakk N’orr advance into their systems, they deployed the war sun. The massive experimental battle station slipped its Muaat moorings, taking with it the vast majority of Jol-Nar in the system as emergency reinforcements for the critical winner-takes- all battle at Saudor.

The Gashlai’s moment had arrived. They incinerated every remaining Jol-Nar officer, administrator, and scientist in the system as the shipyards returned to their control. The Embers of Muaat were born in that moment of fiery retribution, the spark of revolution provided by their planet itself with its offering of the plague.

The Embers of Muaat Today

Through the millennia of the Dark Years, the Gashlai prospered. The technologies they claimed during their insurrection formed the basis of their new culture and scientific advancement. Birth rates soared. For the first time, Gashlai communities consisted of tens or even hundreds of thousands. They were also suddenly able to choose their own government. After much debate, they decided to make leadership by Fire Wardens, who had spearheaded their revolution, their new form of government.

Each Fire Warden is chosen by consensus to lead a particular undertaking important to Gashlai society. The larger the job, the greater the consensus needed. So, a Fire Warden tasked with completing a new lava canal might be chosen by a local village, but a Fire Warden nominated to lead a fleet must be elected by all of Muaat. A Fire Warden’s authority is absolute, but only in matters pertaining to this undertaking. Once it is completed, they return to their life as an average citizen. Some Gashlai might only become a Fire Warden once, while others with specialized skills might be nominated multiple times.

Throughout their renaissance, the Gashlai did not forget their centuries of enslavement. The Fire Wardens tasked with protecting the Gashlai began to work collectively, calling themselves the Embers of Muaat. The Embers spearheaded the development of new environmental suits called Ember suits, which allowed their people to venture far beyond the bounds of their world. They repurposed the shipyards and developed their own fleets, cladding them in their now distinct gold-bronze plating.

Finally, they had retained all the information the Jol-Nar had used to develop the war suns and had spent several thousand years upgrading them. They put this information and experience to good use. When the Embers of Muaat finally established contact with the wider galaxy, the first ambassador ship they sent to Jol-Nar was the fleet’s finest war sun, a message the Headmasters did not fail to receive. The beings the Jol-Nar had enslaved had become formidable, and the Gashlai had neither forgotten nor forgiven the Jol-Nar’s past transgressions.

Today the Gashlai are slowly becoming a more common sight throughout the galaxy. However, the highly social and touch-sensitive species chafes inside their Ember suits, which isolate them from everyone, including each other. Many envoys become extremely homesick, so they are frequently rotated out to prevent psychological scarring. This inhibits their ability to form deep friendships with species who cannot survive the magma-chamber temperatures the Gashlai require.

This friction between the political ambitions of the Embers and the needs of their people has come up more sharply since the nomination of Fire Warden Sushon Azh. Azh has been tasked with defending Muaat and the Gashlai from all alien factions that could pose a threat. Beyond overseeing the increased militarization of the Gashlai, the Fire Warden has also pushed the development of a new version of the war sun, one that trades durability for speed and firepower and could dramatically tilt the balance of power in the galaxy.

Factions opposed to the Fire Warden’s ambitions argue such reckless power should not be brought into existence. Others claim that Azh has exceeded the bounds of their undertaking and is wielding past oppressions as an excuse to claim power. They feel that their people have strayed too far into the militarization espoused by their oppressors. Many want a return to lives lived with family on the surface of Muaat and a cessation of this nascent imperialism.

Goals of the Embers of Muaat

First and foremost, the Embers of Muaat are tasked with defending the Gashlai people and protecting Muaat’s freedom. The broadness of this goal has excused a number of excesses on the part of individual Fire Wardens and has encouraged calls to launch punitive expeditions against Jol-Nar territories, or even a massive first strike to cripple Jol and Nar’s ability to make war.

However, these voices have been tempered by the arrival of the Mahact, and by their ability to enthrall another extremophile species, the Creuss. Many Gashlai fear that the gene-sorcerers could do the same to them, and this fear has driven the choosing of dozens of new Fire Wardens tasked with burning the Mahact from the face of the galaxy. Crucially, many of these Wardens are allies of Sushon Azh.

Now the Gashlai face a difficult choice. Even those who oppose Azh and their allies have to acknowledge that the Embers hold tremendous sway, and that in times like these they may be the last defense against annihilation. It remains to be seen whether, once power has been grasped in their massive fists, the Embers will release it.