Hydrogues

The Hydrogues represent the air aspect of the four elemental powers, and are the most powerful of the races in the Saga universe. They exist in the centres of gas giant, and cannot exist in lesser air pressures. They use transgates to move between their worlds, and use an unknown form of propulsion to move between planets to attack.

The First war
The previous war against the verdani and wentals, they had a volatile alliance with the faeros. The war swept the planets of the Spiral Arm, and involved the destruction of stars and planets. They had no intrest with the Klikiss, or the Illdirans. They had no clashes of terrirtory or idea. They were merely bystanders in a conflict they could barely understand.

The Klikiss robots
The Klikiss robots managed to communicate with the deep core aliens, and form a truce with them. In return for helping them kill their creators, the original Klikiss, they provided the hydrogues with the transportal technology. The hydrogues then transformed that technology into the transgates, which they used to great effect in the war. On the day of the Great Swarming, the robots changed the destination of all the transportals used by the Klikiss, sending them into the hydrogues enviroment, killing them instantly.

The Klikiss torch
A small group of klikiss managed to flee to the planet Corribus, where they developed the superweapon, the Klikiss Torch. The huge weapon was capable of the destruction of an entire hydrogue world, but it couldn't do anything against the warglobes that came running. The final few survivors were killed, or so everyone thought.

The end of the first war
The huge war against the other lifeforms was of massive destruction, and when the hydrogues believed the other races were extinct, they retreated into their gas giants. For nearly ten thousand years, the hydrogues remained peaceful in their gas giants, believing that they had won the great war, but at a great cost. They were reawakned by the Hansa's test of the Klikiss Torch.

Redisturbed
The Hydrogues stayed inside their gas giants for nearly ten thousand years. However, thanks to the work of Margaret and Louis Colicos, the Hansa managed to recover the ancient superweapon, the Klikiss Torch. Ignorant to the presence of the hydrogues, the Hansa succesfully tested the Klikiss torch at Oncier. This single event, the destruction of the gas giant that led to five years of war and millions of dead Humans and Illdirans.

The Second Great War
Following the destruction of the hydrogue world Oncier, the hydrogues were at war with all rock dwellers (as humans and Illdirans were referred to). The retaliated with several strikes on Roamer Skymines, scaring the more cowardly Roamers into removing them from gas giants. After revealing themselves to the Hansa leader, King Frederick, they imposed an embargo on skymining. No rock-dwellers were allowed on any gas giants, ever. Upon announcing the embargo, the hydrogue emissary destroyed his life support chamber, killing all inside the throne room, including the King. Only the teacher compy OX managed to survive.

Battle at Jupiter
Following the assasination of the Human king, the newly revealed Prince Peter ordered the EDF, the human space navy, to seize resources required by the Hansa for space travel. A EDF fleet immediately set out for the gas giant Jupiter, escorting several Hansa skymines. They settled into the area around Jupiter, and waited for the hydrogues to show themselves. After three to four days of waiting, the hydrogues attacked. Remora scouts from down below the skymines reported bright lights appearing from down in the lower depths of the gas giants. The EDF Mantas and Thunderheads moved down into the lower areas of orbit, to open battle. From the newly completed Juggernaut, the Goliath, the EDF commander Admiral Stromo refuses his trooops to open fire, attempting to open a dialogue with their commander. Eleven warglobes emerged from the depths of Jupiter, massively outgunning the EDF fleet. The hydorgues ignored the EDF and began the destruction of their skymines. The skyminers fled in small escape pods, which were later picked up by some EDF ships. Despite Admiral Stromo's pleas for communication, the hydrogues continued the destruction of the skymines. When one of the EDF Mantas moved in closer for an attack, a nearby warglobe attacked with its blue lightning weapon. This blast vaporized the entire cruiser, leaving no survivors. The shock of this was felt across the fleet, and Admiral Stromo was shocked. Taking the initiative, the EDF ships began firing their weapons at the warglobes. Their most powerful weapons, however, were of no use against the hydrogues fleet. The hydrogue warglobes barely noticed the fleet at first, but eventually were roused to battle by the EDF fleet. Some fired glancing shots at the EDF Mantas and Thunderheads, vaporizing anything that their lightning touched. The fagship the fray, trying to make use of its more powerful guns. But even the Goliath's huge firepower barely even damaged the warglobes. The warglobes focused their fire on the flagship, which would have been destroyed, if it were not for the courageous actions of the surviving EDF ships. They rallied around the damaged flagship, ushering it out into inter-planetary space. Despite the retreat of the EDF, the hydrogues destroyed all remanents of the Hansa skymines, before returning to the depths.

Five years of war
Following the disaster at Jupiter, the second hydrogue war raged on. The EDF attempted to defend the obsolete skymines they fielded, the Roamers tried to skymine on out of the way planets, and the Illdirans used huge skycities to try and gain some moe vital ekti. No major battles happened during this period, just minor skirmishes between the rock-dwellers and the hydrogues. There was a minor battle between the Illdiran Solar Navy

Heating the war up
After five years of war, the Hansa and the Illdiran empire had grown used to the war. Thanks to the work of the Theron green priests, the Hansa became aware of warglobes patrolling inhabitated systems, looking for something.

Boone's Crossing
Following these seemlingly random sightings, the hydrogues attacked the Hansa colony of Boone's Crossing. The world was heavily forested and was the site of a large lumber industry, which harvested fast growing trees that looked similar to redwood. The hydrogues attacked with a large fleet, which was promptly intercepted by a small EDF patrol fleet. The EDF tried to defend the colony, but found themselves completely outgunned. Thanks to the innovation of Manta captain, Tasia Tamblyn, the EDF managed to evacuate all of the surviving colonist by moving them to the small inland seas. Right before dropping them into the sea, the EDF placed large amounts of tactical foam, which hardens on contact with water, making a safe place for the colonist to stay. Meanwhile the hydrogues continued to attack the lumber camps, ignoring the small EDF fleets evacuation efforts. When they ran out of lumber to destroy, they continued to strafe the water with their ice-wave weapons. Just before the waves hit the rafts, the hydrogues pulled up, heading up and out into space.

Corvus landing
Following the battle at Osquivel, the hydrogues began doing more intense sweeps of worlds in the hunt for the verdani. Several Hansa colony worlds had worldtrees on them, along with green priests to care for them. One world the hydrogues found, was Corvus Landing, where one of the members of the Theron ruling family was. The green priest Beneto was out in the small worldforest grove, when the hydrogues arrived. Similar to when the hydrogues came to Earth, they dispatched a emissary. The emissary demanded the location of the home of the worldforest, in return for letting the human race live. Beneto refused and the emissary became enraged, but the verdani dispatched him. Whip-like roots emerged, and destroyed his enviroment chamber. The warglobes overhead destroyed the entire colony before killing Beneto and all of the worldtrees.

Hyrillka
The Illdiran Prime Designate flew to the Illdiran slinter colony of Hyrillka to pick up his son, Thor'h. A septa of warliners, led by the Adar of the Solar Navy escorted the Prime Designate to the lavish resort world. After a fabulous sky parade, the warliners were manned by minimal crews, while the rest of the crew enjoyed some leave on the planet. But, as the celebrations continued, a hydrogue warglobe cruised in. The three warliners in the air prepared to defend. The warglobe began to use icewave and lightning bolt attacks to level much of the planet. The warglobe destroyed much of the planet, and the Solar Navy septa had most of it's ships on the ground. The two in the air doing a skyparade flew in, but failed to do any major damage to the warglobe. Another warliner took off and engaged, but the others on the ground were destroyed before take off.

The Adar of the Solar Navy sent a shuttle down to get the Designate, the Prime Designate, and the son of the Prime Desginate. Jora'h, ordered the soldiers aboard the shuttle to load as many of the civilians aboard as possible. The Hyrillka designate ran to get his pleasure mates, but was crushed by a falling wall. Though he lived, the designate could no longer be felt in the ''thism. ''As another warglobe came in, the Adar was forced to call off the defense of the planet. For their own reasons, the warglobes suddenly departed, leaving the pleasure planet in ruins.

The Osquivel slaughter
Thanks to the EDF wing commander, Robb Brindle, who followed the hydrogues back to their lair, the EDF knew the location of an important hydrogue base. The location was a gas giant called Osquivel. When the EDF commander, General Lanyan, heard of this, he ordered an immediate offensive to Osquivel. One of the EDF commanders at Boone's crossing, Tasis Tamblyn, knew that the gas giant Osquivel had a large Roamer shipyard orbiting the gas giant Osquivel, which the Hansa did not know about. In a completely selfless gesture, Tasia sent out her small personal robot, EA, to warn clan Kellum, despite the fact that the two of them had been together for a long time.

Thanks to Tasia's warning, the Roamers gathered their ships, and evacuated the Osquivel shipyards, after hidding most of their equipment. All of the men from the cometary extraction facility were evacuated first, and then, following the massive coverup of their shipyards, the majority of the Roamers fled the shipyards in the ships that had came from Rendevous, the Roamer seat of government. Only a few of the Roamers remained, including the Kellum clan chief, Del and his daughter Zhett.

After nearly a month of preperations, the EDF set out for Osquivel. The majority of the EDF ships were employed in the offensive, including ten collosal Juggernauts. The task force was led by the EDF commander-in-chief, General Lanyan. Before the EDF engaged in the battle, Wing Commander engaged in a final attempt to resolve the war through diplomatic means. He volunteered to be placed in a small capsule that was to be dropped down into the depths to act as a emmisary. Despite Brindle's brave effort, he stopped transmitting as he approched the core, following his last transmission. There was no way to tell whether the capsule had been destroyed, or whether it had crumpled under the extreme pressure.

The Battle
Following the dissapearance of Brindle's capsule, Remoras piloted by the new Soldier Compies reported warglobes rising from the depths. General Lanyan ordered all human controlled ships out to the poles. The Compie crewed ships were ordered to hold position. As the hydrogues emerged, the Soldier compies engaged them. As one of the ships was nearly destroyed, the General ordered the endgame sequence to be engaged. All of the compy ships began to overload their stardrives, and rammed the nearest warglobes. Though each of the warglobes struck were destroyed, the amount of warglobes emerging from the depths outnumbered the human fleet. In the slaughter that followed, the EDF tried to counter the warglobes with nukes, but to no avail. A whole Juggernaut was lost, and dozens of Mantas and Thunderheads were vaporized. As the EDF retreated pell mell for the nearest friendly system, they left behind their wounded and dead. It would be some time before the EDF returned.

Attack on Theroc
As the war against the hydrogues continued to heat up, the hydrogues discovered the location of the worldforest, the home of the verdani. In a massive attack, the hydrogues attacked, using warglobes on an unimaginable scale. The worldforest never had a chance, but they tried to fight back. They tried firing armoured seed pods into the huge warglobes, which sprouted and shattered the warglobes. They tried a instant regrowth tactic, so all the damaged trees regrew immediately. But the hydrogue force was overwhelming, destroying massive amounts of the worldforest. The verdani fired armoured seed shells, which collided with the low flying warglobes. upon impact, the seed penetrated the diamond hull, shattering several of the warglobes. In response, the hydrogues climber to greater height, avoiding the seeds. They continued to fire them, but fell to the ground, in the hope that one would would surivive. Father Reynald, the newly crowned ruler of Theroc, climbed to the top of the fungus reef to personally watch the battle as it unfolded. Many of the Therons ran deep into the worldforest hoping for some protection. But, in their darkest hour, salvation arrived. Flaming fireballs streaked across the sky, destroying several of the warglobes. The faeros had arrived. The faeros engaged in a furious battle, engaging and destroying some of the warglobes. But the hydrogues responded with powerful lightning bolts and ice waves. A few fireballs were extinguished, and fell to the planet. As the hydrogues retreated from Theroc, one warglobe was attacked by a fireball. Father Reynald watched on as the fight happened close to the fungus reef. Eventually, the warglobe lost and shattered, and one of the falling pieces struck the fungus reef, killing some of the inhabitants, including Reynald.

The Faeros war
Following the battle at Theroc, the hydrogues ignored the verdani presence on many worlds so they could pursue the faeros presence in many stars. Notable sites inlcude the star Onicer, the site of the first Klikiss Torch use by humans. Oncier was extinguished by the hydrogues, as were many other stars. The faeros were on the retreat for almost a year before the arrival of the wentals and the betrayal of the Illdirans forced there hands. Following a second failed attack on Theroc, thwarted by a combination of wentals and Roamer ingenuity. The hydrogues continued to strike back, capturing a fleet of rammers at Qronha 3. When a emissary from the Illdiran Empire convinced them to listen, they decided to eliminate the human threat with help from the Illdiran empire. The revolt of the Soldier compies had left the EDF weak and unable to defend Earth effectively.

The Battle at Earth
After the Soldier compy revolt, which left most of the EDF fleet in the hands of the Klikiss robots, the Illdiran Adar arrived on Earth with terrible news. They had learned of the planned hydrogue attack on Earth. The Mage-Imperator of the Illdirans sent the Adar to offer help, in the form of cohort of battleships. The King and Queen immediately took the help, realizing that the help might save Earth. When the Adar arrived,just ahead of the hydrogue fleet, they brought an additional cohort. They performed a massive parade in space, then assumed a position around Earth in preparation for the coming battle. Within a few days, the hydrogue fleet arrived, numbering more than a 1000, completely outnumbering the