Race Summaries feature - Fall of Sol mod for Sins of a Solar Empire

War is being waged across humanity's borders by four factions: humanity's
Sol Confederate, the alien Western Armada, the synthetic Ecorin, and
the ancient Vichor Empire. The War over Sol has just begun.

The Sol Confederate
2099 - the Age of Wire - was a golden age of peace for humanity. Technological leaps and bounds had been made by a united Earth over the past one-hundred years: the catalyst for their technological revolution being found in a very unique piece of Chinese hardware: the ‘Ivory Drive'.The Ivory would eventually catch the suspecting eyes of the other economic superpowers, and, remarkably, a democratic consensus was able to be reached on the matter. Europe, America, Southern Asia and Russia were able to put aside their differences and focus their efforts onto the development and sustainment of the Ivory project. A veritable age of gold was reached as the economy stabilized; human peace swept across the continents as a tide of
focus. For now, humanity's lustful gaze was fixed on one thing: the stars. Doors of opportunity flung wide open by the Ivory, this piece of hardware found a special place in the heart of space farers all across the globe.It was August the 8th, 2093 when the first unstable FTL drive was put into production. It would take a further 6 years to minimize the chances of vaporization on worm-hole entry by a trough 200%. As one spacefaring nation, planet Earth coined the term: The Sol Confederate; symbolizing their achievements as one united civilization. Their goal was simple: to explore, to colonize, and to learn.However the Ivory Drive was faulty, only capable of making short range jumps, mainly used in-between planets, but due to an
archaeological discovery on the planet Mars in 2125, they were able to improve the drive, enabling them to go further than before, the first stop was the Alpha Centauri System.What humanity would find was not the lonely galaxy they had set out to colonize. What they saw as they stepped over the borders of what they had only since mapped on a telescope were throngs of violent aliens, masses of insane synthetics
and a whole new tree of frightening technology. Their first mistake was considering everything outside of their system to be a threat to be destroyed.

The Western Armada
Originally known as the Oracle, the Western Armada is a coalition of countless alien species. The Oracle was formed in the Earth year of 1722 when humanity was only now getting stuck into the Industrial Revolution. It was originally a sect of counter-insurgency units, formed to counter the Daragon rebels as they began to mobilize a frighteningly wide-spread fleet. In desperation, the Daragon rulers turned to the
mercy of their economical competitors, the Zerim; who, together, united over two-dozen species in a fleet of staggering proportions. After the rebels had been brutally quashed - the Civil War over, their fleet, the Oracle, remained. The species of these united systems not nearly as self-destructive as the humans, a peace was sustained and the Oracle only continued to grow in strength. In fact, in the year 2000, a number of species left the Oracle - leaving only the territories of the West side of the galaxy as members of this
fleet. The entire membership of this troop was thus renamed the Western Armada, in 2011. The Sol Confederate, on their first alien encounter in 2220, opened fire on a Trigor embassy vessel (allegedly
as a precaution), killing hundreds of innocent Trigor nationals. They further proceeded to sprinkle salt on the wound by moving two fleets out of their home system towards the Western Territories. The Western
Armada responded to these military movements with hostile force, pushing their expansion far back into their home system. A plan to eradicate the SC's home system before any more Westward expansion was
made possible was the Armada Council's final consensus. Considering the SC the largest threat to their system, the WA quickly dispatched a huge portion of their fleet to the system of Sol. Five developed
species make up the majority of the Western Armada: the Zerim (the Command Fleet), the Qwessa, the Metracos, the Trigor, and the Daragon.

The Ecorin
The Ecorin are a sentient machine-race, birthed as a consequence of an old Confederate project: Pioneer. The Pioneer project saw a pair of Pioneer-class craft venturing out of known Confederate territory.
This project was one of the Confederate's first steps in utilizing the Ivory technology. Early on in the project there was a sudden malfunction in Pioneer 11, and the ship was sent veering off-course.
Their transmissions came in static only minutes later. It's speculated that the craft crashed into a piece of old space debris, as this came in spades in their area of operation.A derelict, ancient Vichor frigate was to be Pioneer 11's undoing: the craft spiralled right into the sleeping colossus' bowel. Its mangled wreck was never recovered. Unbeknownst to the Confederate, this sudden impact stirred an infected hull defence program deep within the ship's core. The software awoke and projected itself onto the remains of Pioneer 11. It learnt more about humanity than it could have possibly hoped for; and began at once to bring the ship online, and to contruct husks from salvagable mechs left deactivated on board. It now had an agenda.Relying on variations of alien and human tech, the Ecorin are found in small, tightly-populated pockets of Deep Space. They salvaged most of their fresher tastes of recent technology from the Western Armada race, the Qwessa. The Qwessa were the first to bring the emergence of the Ecorin to the Armada
Council's attention as they were brought under siege by a small fleet of Ecorin cruisers. The Ecorin, whilst outnumbered and outgunned, were able to play on the tactical inferiority of the Qwessa forces;
their fleet forced Qwessa cruisers into a stranglehold and tore them apart. Using their forward momentum, the Ecorin cut right through the remainder of the Qwessa fleet and began to bombard their home
planet. As the remainder of the defeated fleet began to retreat away from their territories, setting forth to seek the assistance of the Western Armada, the Ecorin quickly tore the planet apart for
resources and usable technology, then retreated back into deep space. Their business in the Sol system and their decision to declare war on the Sol Confederate and the Western Armada are open for extended
speculation. Perhaps they want resources to continue building a foundation on which to form their empire... perhaps they simply long for revenge on their clumsy human creators, and all who stand around
them. Whatever their intentions in the Sol system, the fact remains that they are here, and that they are willing to fight for whatever it is that they desire.

The Vichor Empire
Utterly disregarded for many centuries, the Vichor have been able to operate in the dark, all other alien superpowers in the galaxy having their gaze cast elsewhere. The Vichor Empire, 2000 years before humanity even took its first steps into the sunlight, was the supreme alien race. Its Empire spread the breadth of the galaxy - one of a ruthless, cannibalistic, very culturally sensitive race of humanoids.
Their technology, whilst no longer as revolutionary as it used to be, still stands up well against most human tech even to this day. With this, they enslaved, murdered and cultivated every opposing species in the galaxy. Their culture, however, would prove to be their undoing. Split between the ideas of tradition and expansion, many of the leading figures of this Empire broke away, and began to rally support in favour of an upcoming galactic civil war. This civil war began in 10000 BC, and ended in 4000 BC. Entire planets were decimated; species wiped from existence all by Vichor malice. The Traditionalists would come out as the victors in this war - the majority of the Vichor population willing to adhere to the primitive
dictations of their culture. Despite this, the Revolutionists fought with staggering ferocity and conviction; eventually bringing the War back to Vichor Prime itself. There the Battle of Tower Void took place; resulting in the deaths of almost every leading figure of the Vichor Empire. Their economy collapsed. Their subjects ran in anarchy. Entire space-stations, factories and ships simply stopped being maintained. Their identity destroyed and the remainder of their race forced into the recesses of uncharted space, the new galactic powers would cast the threat of the Vichor off for many centuries to come. Truth be known, the Vichor settled into the familiar shelter of darkness very close to home, only two systems over from their
primary. The Vichor would watch from the shadows a new race emerge from earliest flourishes of an age of the first cranes and pullys to the superpower they are today. This system would eventually become
known by the human name, 'Sol'. Seeing no prior sign of their return, you can imagine the other alien races' surprise when an Empire fleet appeared from an instillation based wormhole with haunting and
nostalgic forms of revamped technology. They first reappeared when the Sol Confederate, Western Armada and Ecorin were all in the same place; Earth's Gravity Well. The sudden appearance, outgunned and outnumbered Sol Confederate forces so they resorted to the proverb ‘The enemy of my enemy, is my friend' with the Western Armada, however, the battle didn't go well, for a massive planet cleansing
planetoid appeared from under the surface of the moon and wiped out all life on Earth. Rebuilding the crushed humanity's system would take time, but with such foundations, a new era would be paved for
the Vichor Empire to return.