Zatrai

The Zatrai machines are from the Resus star system on the planet Valis located towards the center of the milky way galaxy at the southern rim in the Double Helix nebulae. While most of the zatrai empire has concentrated on the east and west sides of the milky way, rarely remains of a zatrai can be found on a planet far from those locations.

The only zatrai found by humans so far have been fragments that were made into full zatrai when placed with other crystals and left unattended to.

Anatomy/Physiology
Zatrai are an impressive 9-13 ft tall from tip of atteanae to tip of finger of the lower limb set. The main zatrai body is best described as a downward curved T that is clear and varies in color. This main body houses much of the zatrai’s intelligence in every little bit of crystal fiber that can potentially make new zatrai should the main zatrai be shattered. The thing about the zatrai “mind” is that truly killing a zatrai is only possible if the remnants of the zatrai are subjected to extreme temperatures that can fry to the nanofibers inside of them or if you crush them inside a black hole or pulsar. Magnetic forces don't seem to affect them much oddly enough. The main stream of consciousness is transferred to the largest section of the shattered remains, but if that gets shattered as well the zatrai “self” that was there is pretty much dead due to loss of self altough the meories do remain.

The memories from the remains of the past zatrai that got shattered will make a new independent consciousness if they meld with enough crystals to create the proper body size of a new individual zatrai.



In short, zatrai reproduce through breaking themselves and disturbing their remains to multiple piles of crystals to make more zatrais. A zatrai doesn’t need to be killed in the process of making new zatrai; all that is needed is a part of a zatrai combined with numerous crystals to assimilate to the zatrai to make a new zatrai.

The body structure of a zatrai is made up of billions of conductive nanofibers that allow the zatrai’s body to perform numerous tasks required to survive. When the zatrai gets damaged, these fibers group up and become a tendril that looks for a crystal to meld to the zatrai body. These nanofibers move very slowly and regenerating even minor fractures can take days.

There are 3 types of bundles of super fibers that are used to make the template design of every zatrai. 4 tendril-like limbs, a pair of large wings, and an false head.

The “False head” of a zatrai is used to probe around and analyze their environment effectively. It is called a false head because while it sees and hears through the false head, destroying the false head won’t kill the zatrai. The zatrai have trichromatic vision that allows them to see from their false head, and makes them more sensitive to ultraviolet light.

The 3 tendril-like limbs that sprout outside of the zatrai have been compared to arms and legs, even though they all function the same way; the zatrai is in a sense, both a quadruped and a biped since they use both body stances interchangeably. The limbs are composed of a single large middle core tube surrounded by many smaller tubes that come in “cool” colors like purple, blue, and in rare cases green. These limbs are very strong, being capable of lifting 100 pounds with minor effort, although their strength is lower than that of a stronger human’s.

At the end of each limb is a hand with only 3 digits, a right digit, a left digit and one opposable digit on the inverse side of their hand. The fingers of a zatrai and much more thinner and slicker than a human’s fingers due to being an extension of the nano-fibers. Zatrai with more than 3 digits are not rare.

The zatrai’s wings are more suited to gliding than they are flapping, and in fact rarely do flap., rather the zatrai launches itself off the ground to fly and like a bird of prey takes advantage of wind drafts to glide incredible distances through the sky. The wings of a zatrai also double as nutrition preserve not unlike cacti, and the coloration of their wings is a indicator of their diet. Most wings are usually a color of blood (of varying colors) or some form of microscopic algae due to this.

Speaking of nutrition and food zatrai “eat” by absorbing liquids and particles through numerous microscopic holes in its body that trap particles in it and use the particles for energy. Any solid larger than 2 mm is effectively impossible for a zatrai to absorb. The blood of living creatures are a common food for zatrai due to the high iron values in it that can be easily metabolized into energy. Zatrais for this reason, despite not necessarily only absorbing blood have been classified as hematophagic in diet due to their preference for blood over moss.

Zatrais usually will shred their prey until they are little more than a large pile of blood, then roll around in it to get as much blood on them as possible to absorb. In more civilized circumstances, the zatrai will literally bathe themselves in vat of blood. As disturbing as these methods may sound, they are the most effective means to get as much blood as possible in a short time frame.

It is obvious many of the zatrai traits are made for enabling the zatrai to kill more effectively and stay longer in combat while being easily replicated to make more zatrai war machines. When the warmongering and long extinct creatures of the zatrai, the Tzerk made the zatrai, it is clear that their only use was to kill. However, the zatrai went beyond what their creators had in mind. Far, far beyond what their creators had in mind for them.

Downfall of the Creators (??? BC - 4501 BC)
The zatrai were designed to be killing machines by their creators, the Tzerk to be merciless and mindless killers who do their master’s bidding, which the zatrai fulfilled ever so effectively. The Tzerk civilization made them some of the most advanced machines around; capable of learning, thinking, remembering, and more so they would assess a situation and think of a celver way to complete the objectives the Tzerk gave them. The Tzerk, realizing what they have created suppressed the zatrai’s minds in favor of making them fanatically devoted to the Tzerk so no zatrai would ever question them. So the zatrai would never surpass them.

Through means unknown, the Tzerk ended up destroying themselves and all life on the planet including the zatrai machines, scattering their remains throughout the world. Almost all of the remains were destroyed by the sky scraping walls of napalm that surged throughout the world made by the Tzerk WMDs. Some zatrai eventually came back to life, but without their leaders whom they devote their existence to went insane and ended up committing suicide like programmed to.

For millions of years, the zatrai were stuck in this loop as life on the planet started to regrow from the horrific mass extinction that happened millions of years ago. One day, like a mutation in the genetic code of DNA, there was one remnant that had a glitch in it which made the remnant lose the sense of fanatical devotion that once suppressed the zatrai. This remnant started to build itself back together by assimilating crystals to its shattered remains.

Rebirth (4501 BC- 4500 BC)
This zatrai called itself Tzeer as it was one of the first things that came to its mind. Tzeer was like any zatrai, it had a curved T shape body, 4 tendril-like limbs, razor sharp wings, and a arrow head shaped head with 2 concaves in the sides of the head.

Tzeer, unlike the fanatical zatrai before was free of the blind devotion that blocked them from seeing their insane creators for who they truly were. Tzeer looked at the ultraviolet skies, seeing the red dwarf star, Risus set and looked at it in awe as the red dwarf receded into the skyline.

Tzerk, as the months went by found ways to twist its dialogue to make new tunes to describe things, found ways to make simplistic tools and even emulate fire. However, Tzerk eventually realized it was alone. Tzeer was only zatrai around, the only being with detectable intelligence around.

Tzeer had an idea, very clever idea, but somewhat idiotic idea in hindsight due to the self-mutilation required. Tzeer flew around the planet looking for a crystal deposit, which Tzeer found with low difficulty due to the amount of crystal material on the planet. Tzeer then proceeded to make multiple crystal piles and using a sharp rock chipped off parts of its self and placed the broken parts on the crystal piles that it made. This resulted in zatrai with the new code being made.

Tzeer guarded these crystal piles for weeks as the first group of “true” zatrai formed, with the same code as Tzeer. Tzeer, ecstatic to see fellow zatrai made from it greeted them and taught them everything it knew like a mother would to a child. The first 5 zatrai formed were told to make up their own names. It took the new zatrai a week to think of their names, and Tzeer helped them along the way as much as it could. The first zatrai called itself “Zirtrix”, the second zatrai called itself “Tzern”, the third zatrai called itself “Ikri”, the fourth zatrai called itself “Tuilius”, and the fifth one called itself “Regis”.

Tzeer's Reign and Demise (4500 BC - 1700 BC)
Tzeer however, realized one day it would somehow be destroyed. Due to this, it had to pick a successor. Despite Zirtrix being formed first, Tzeer picked Tzern, because Tzern’s name was like Tzeer’s.

This caused Zirtrix, the first zatrai formed to be jealous of the benefits Tzeer gave to Tzern. Tzeer told Tzern things it didn’t tell the other zatrais like how to swim and its overall plan to put the zatrai into greatness, wanting Tzern to carry it out should Tzeer be destroyed. Zirtrix found out about these things Tzeer hid from the general zatrai public, and took it into its own hands to take over and spread this knowledge believing it is wrong for Tzeer to withhold this knowledge. Tzeer told Tuillius this, who became equally outraged by this revelation. However, Tulius suggested that they must take matters into their own hands. Zirtrix agreed with Tuillius on this matter and started to plot out Tzeer’s demise.

Zirtrix, and its right hand ally, Tuillius decided to frame Tzern as the killer of Tzeer and to kill Tzeer through throwing it into a volcano. Tuillius mislead Tzern away from the other zatrai, while Zirtrix told Tzeer it wanted to talk with Tzeer on the summit of the volcano Azis about when it can be successor. Tzeer, oblivious of the trap eagerly went along. Zirtrix and Tzeer made it to the top of the volcano, where Zirtrix cut off Tzeer’s wings and threw Tzeer into the volcano killing Tzeer.

Tullius pretended to be witness to the event, claiming Tzern killed Tzeer so it could be the rightful successor sooner. The other zatrai believed Zirtrix, except Regis. However, Regis was ignored while Ikri believed Zirtirx and Tuillius and Ikri was the most prominent non-leading public figure at the time. Tzern managed to convince the other zatrai that it was innocent, with some avail. Zirtrix, unable to execute Tzern with Regis standing up for Tzern decided instead to have the two banished from its realm to the west. Some zatrai choose to follow Tzern and Regis, much to the annoyance of Zirtrix and its two right hand zatrai.

Zirtrixe's reign (1700 BC - 1200 BC)
Zirtrix went on to make the first zatrai oligarchy consisting of Zirtrix, Tuillius and Ikri. For hundreds of years the elite zatrai’s rule was unquestioned until Tzern and Regis reappeared with their own government. Their government however was a diarchy instead of a oligarchy, if only because there were only 2 ruling zatrai instead of 3. Zirtix called its empire “Ziruillikri”, made after a heated debate between the ruling trio. Tzern and Regis named their empire “Tzere”, in the namesake of Tzeer. Nothing much for a couple hundred years happened after this split.

Minor uprisings, caused under the belief Zirtrix killed Tzeer were the worst that happened in this period of peace. Minor technological advances involving magnetic weaponry were made to quell these uprisings more easily.

Then, a sudden unforeseen strike from a squadron of zatrai from the Tzere faction who found proof that Zirtrix murdered Tzeer destroyed multiple civilian areas which plastering the proof of Zirtrixe’s treachery in the ruins. This unprovoked attack caused the the beginning of the Ziruillikri empire due to their inability to stop the attacks and the exposement of a secret kept hidden for hundreds of years!

The Downfall of the Ziruillikri Empire and the rise of the Vizulik (1200 BC- 600 BC)
Ikri most notably was disgusted by the lack of responsibility Zirtrix and Tuillius gave over the incident, and spoke out to the public to start a new uprising. This quickly caught the attention of Zirtrix who promptly attempted to get rid of Ikri with success by having a several of its guards kidnap Ikri and shatter Ikri to thousands of bits that were cast off into the sea. Some zatrai actually went into the sea to search for and rebuild Ikri and never returned to easternlands for a good 700 zatrai years or 196 human years.

Ikri’s assassination only made Ikri a martyr, and the most massive uprising against the Zirul (renamed due to Ikri’s assassination) empire that despite the valiant efforts of the loyalists, resulted in which Zirtrix and Tuillius being destroyed. Without these rulers, the now anarchic zatrai needed a new form of government. While various ideas for zatrai governments did appear, by far one of the most popular governmental methods was the “rule by deadliness” thought of by the zatrai Yizor.

In rule by deadliness, zatrai who wanted to be in charge would fight in a arena until it gets shattered or shatters its enemy opponent in a series of matches. The reason this governmental idea was so popular was due to the inner war machine inside every zatrai. While they had free will, the need to have a leader or rarely, lead still is a very strong part of their selves despite overcoming their original creator's devotion.

Yizor called this tournament, the Vizulik. In the Vizulik, zatrai gained points by how effective of a killer they are and are judged by time, effeciency and precision. If a zatrai gets chattered in combat, they are forced to quit out until next tournament. Once every 50 zatrai years, or 14 human years does another tournament start. If a zatrai decides to go totalitarian and disband the tournament in a an attempt to keep power, the zatrai that destroys the totalitarian zatrai is the new leader and must restart the tournaments.

The zatrai that won the first tournaments was not Yizor, who got 2nd place, but instead it was Dullibus much to Yizor's surprise. Dullibus liked the tournaments and decided to keep them. Dullibus called its empire "Viszislusk" which means grandiose in human language. Perhaps Dullibus may have been too good of a fighter as for its reign no zatrai ever actually beat Dullibus in a tournament. Although a leader like Dullibus was exactly what was needed for the impending invasion of the Tzere empire, whom now wanted to take over the eastern lands Dullibus ruled due to the higher crystal concentration found in the eastern lands of the Isnis contenient. Although a threat neither empire saw incoming would do more harm than ever imagined before.

The Tzere- Viszislusk Conflict (600 BC-100 AD)
Dullibus was training an army of elite zatrai mde from parts of itself known of the "cosmics" or Dikuls. These Dikuls were trained by Dullibus itself to fight from their birth. These Dikuls proved to be some of the most effecient fighters besides Yizor and Dullibus. However, from a small team of zatrai from the Tzere faction a message was delivered to Dullibus that basically went (translated):

"Death to you. The true rulers of Valis want their land back by force. Either summit to our superiority or succumb to our might. Your choice, Dullibus." Dullibus, eager to fight a war replied with (translated): "Ha, no. Bring your whole bitch army to my doorsteps. If you want my land, you can extract it from my molten corpse." and had the messangers leave. Dullibus promptly prepared its army with Dikuls leading them. While the Tzere empire at first believed that conquering Viszislusk would be easy with their greater numbers and slightly greater technolgical edge, it turned out the Dikuls lead their groups well. Even Dullibus was impressed at how effective they were at fending off the Tzere armies.

The war was a stalemate, with neither side really winning due to the sheer numbers of Tzeres and the extrodinary tactics of the Dikul brigedeers. Due to the headstrong nature of Dullibus and the complexed Tzern and Regis, the war between the two empires went on for hundreds of zatrai years. Until the infinity struck, that is.

The Infinite's Wrath and Destruction of Zatrai Civilization (100-101 AD)
In the icey northen areas of Valis the followers of Ikri have over the ages started to reconstruct their lost idol, going as far as to see Ikri as a diety-like being. They with utter devotion searched the ocean floors for any remnant of Ikri and constantly double checked every crystal to make sure that it had Irki's signature in it 100%. These cultists however, were distressed as they only had 45% of all of Ikri's remains and instead decided to give up and mass-suicided themsleves by shattering themselves onto the pile of Ikri en-masse.

The result of this mass-suicide was something horrific that the zatrai of the mainlands called Infinity, or "abomination" in zatrai speak. It didn't look much like an actual zatrai, as it looked like a big ball of zatrais smashed together with numerous eloganated limbs and false heads sprawling out in all directions. The wings stuck togethers into a ball at the top of the infinity and spun like a rotar enabling the infinity to hover.

With the insanely high collective of zatrai memory smashed into this ball, a bizarre effect happened. The infinity started to slow down the speed and time of everything withen a 50 meter radius of the thing, allowing the infinity to strike with its elogtated limbs at slowed down targets with ease. The only thing it said was YZjUs repeatably twelve times a second in screechingly high tone. The infinity set its sights at the empires it detected from thousands of miles away and decided to destory all zatrai civilization.

The infinity hit the western lands first, ravanging and decimating thousands if not millions of zatrai in its path. Nothing the zatrai had proved to be of real use against the damn thing, no projectile shot fast enough to overcome the slowing effect of the infinity and it was practically impossible to dodge almost every limb the beast threw at the zatrais to somehow stick a explocive onto the beast and shatter it.

This beast destroyed everything that was in its path, even Tzern and Regis found themselves at its mercy, but it only destroyed them with little delay after humming their names. the Tzere empire was devestated by this abomination which allowed for Dullibus to push forward in the battle only to find this horrific beast. Dullibus witnessed the beast as it destroyed even the Dikuls who hopelessly tried to take it down. Dullibus decided to round up as many zatrai, Dikul and non-Dikul to find a way to destroy this abomination before it destroys all of zatrai civilization in a single swoop.

Dullibus however, when it attempted to destroy the infinity by using gel to cover it failed to do so because the warp field was simply too large to cover fast enough to sorround and kill the infinity. With Dullibus gone, Yizor found itself to be the last zatrai "leader" the other zatrai suddenly turned to for help how to beat this thing.

Yizor in collaboration with multiple Dikuls through a series of traps managed to eventually damage the infinity to its breaking point and cause it to shatter. However the Infinity shattering proved to have very horrific consequences as the infinity had a very strong internal reactor that let out a massive shockwave on death ripping apart almost every zatrai in its path leaving a few zatrai survivors.

The few survivors seemingly had not much hope left for zatraikind with the zatrai empire pretty much in ruin as a result.

Until Raznat took over, that is.

Raznat and the Reconstruction of Zatraikind (101 AD-Present)
Raznat was a zatrai dikul who had a malfunction with it that allowed it to think differently, not unlike Tzeer. However it thought much more about space and control than anything else and wanted to expand the zatraio empire to other worlds so that a event as catastrophic as the Infinity doesn't have such long lasting effects on the zatrai race.

Raznat with most dikuls being destroyed by the infinity didn't have much trouble winning the vizulik and quickly started up radical changes with the zatrai not Raznat effectivly treating Raznat as they would Ikri or Tzeer with treating it as if it was a god. With no other zatrai opposition, Raznat was able to without conflict

Raznat unlike Yizor or Dullibus was much more focused on expanding the zatrai.

Raznat had decided to instead have the arcitect zatrai focus more on building means to override the gravity on the planet and explore space than make more guns like usual. Due to the zatrai civilization being nearly destroyed twice too many and the worship brought in from winning the vizulik practically every zatrai agreed with this idea and decided to focus heavily on making ways to get off the planet resulting in the first zatrai spaceships, or the Razors. These ships were designed to be made inthe group and are arguably one of the smallest spaceships, being only 195 ft long.

Due to the rapid expansions, Raznat decided to make it a new political rank for zatrai for zatrai that controlled single planets/star systems who answer directly to the top zatrai (known as the Visulik as of now) called the Hibrus. Hibruses consisted of the second place winners of previous Visulik matches who are granted ownership of planets they conquer, but still are subordinate to the Visulik.

In these colonies the zatrai were very loose in control only demanding crystal mining and for groups to be sent to be juiced into massive blood amounts. The natives may be also used for whatever interests the raznat and/or hibrus has in mind. While the zatrai kept the colonies safe from any other intrusions. It is ver likely the only reason zatrai don't attempt genocide to natives is due to the blood the native life forms supply and the labor they provide.

Thankully zatrai only expand when they need to, or when the zatrai populations get high enough to warrant conquering a new world.

Thanks to the rule by deadliness mentality zatrai have going for them, there has been ocassions where a native has killed a zatrai hibrus and has taken its place as the hibrus despite not being zatrai. However the replacement hibrus is still subordinant to Raznat unless they want to be invaded by the greater zatrai force.

Some of these colonies however has rebelled against their zatrai empire and demanded independance much to the surprise of the zatrai leaders at the center, especially the very few that had rebellions done by a zatrai Hibrus. Zatrai own an estimate of 70 star systems throughout the center and west/east parts of the milky way with the majority being at the center main sectors.

It is suggested that the grand zatrai empire may however start to falter due to them being so spread out with a limited number of leaders at the top.

Technology
Technology wise the zatrai like their creators are very focused on crystalline technology. Metal is not used that much in comparison to crystalline materials with metal often being used in the construction of frames. Zatrai often focus on gel-based technology with much of their stuff using forms of crystalline gel that is hardened into numerous structures and spaceships. They are mediocre with metals and AI construction with their computers only being at the same level of a human mid 21st century computer at best.

Zatrai also seem to have some affinity for the cold and often utilize freezing weapons into their arsenals and in some of their ships have been reported to use super conductors to enable them to countinue flying for extreme if not infinite amounts of time without requiring recharging. Thanks to the properties of zatrai, they can easily withstand this freezing cold. They use this to their advantage against other races by hiding in the frigid cold without much effecting them besides consuming some water perhaps.

In comparison to other races/factions like the Machweik, Gerian or Pentagon Protectorate they are somewhat outclassed. The zatrai make up for this short coming through their deadly use of their tech and lack of need to sleep or age. In many ways the zatrai themsleves are part of the tech since they are crystalline bots, and are arguably the most advanced peice of tech they have that they replicate constantly.

Military
Being the war machines they are, zatrai have a very extensive military system consisting of numerous brigades led by Dikuls who are then led by the Visulik winners.

Weapons

 * Z-Gauss
 * Repeater Rifle
 * Unknown gel thrower
 * Unknown bubble gun type
 * Unknown melee weapon type
 * Unknown grenade type
 * Unknown mine type

Ships

 * Razor
 * ??? (crusier)
 * Starburst
 * ??? (destroyer)
 * ??? (Boarding craft)

Notable Zatrai

 * Tzeer- the first "new" zatrai, the 5 zatrai it made it called the "firstborns". Was assassinated by Zirtirx due to favouring Tzern over Zirtrix.
 * Zirtrix-Zatrai that was the first of the firstborns to be made, killed Tzeer because it favored Tzern over it. Was killed when its empire was defeated.
 * Tzern- Tzeer's favoured firstborn. Was exiled when Zirtrix took over with Regis and went on to make a new empire with other zatrai that still followed Tzern. Was destroyed by YZjUs.
 * Ikri- Most popular of the firstborn zatrai. Was murdered for treason.
 * Tuilius-Firstborn that helped Xirtrix in Tzeer's assassination plot. Was killed with Zirtrix
 * Regis- Firstborn that followed Tzern to create the new empire. Was destroyed by YZjUs.
 * Yizor- Thought of the Rule by Deadliness. Killed by lightning in the process of destroying YZjUs.
 * Dullibus- The first winner of the Vizulik [Tournament]. Destroyed by YZjUs.
 * YZjUs-Zatrai infinity, the first known one. Was destroyed by Yizor.
 * Raznat- The current zatrai leader.

Note; Incomplete