Hurde

Hurde are an aggressive species native to the Milky Way Galaxy.

Biology
Not so much as a species, but more of a distillation of biology and technology that has been perfected over vast periods of time.

The Hurde are made up of synthetic tissue and rather than possessing blood, Hurde contain a black analog that according to scientists resembles a stimuli-responsive gel that goes way beyond any-electro-active polymer humanity can create. The gel mimics tissue when a command signal transmits through it but when shed it becomes completely inert. Hurde script alters their bodies in response to different stimuli and environmental changes.

The Hurde physically would best described as living high-speed tissue printer, essentially making them living technology of highly advanced nanotechnology. Thanks to their nanotechnology they can regenerate not only limbs but their bodies so long as a fraction of them exist. Not only that they can use their smart technology to instantly adapt their forms and create tools. Thanks to their modified bodies can withstand the most harshest environments, be it climbing a ten thousand foot mountain in sub-zero temperature or even in the vacuum of space.

Outlier
During the emergence of the humanity controlled Alliance, a Hurde ship was found by a scavenger vessel known as the Outlier. It was captained by Fason who ignored the warnings of previous Hurde encounters and opted follow her greed to claim the vessel as a rare opportunity to find any valuables and sell them to Falcorp as the company was interested in exploiting advanced alien technology. The mission was botched when another Hurde ship came to attack the derelict. Several crew members were left behind at the mercies of the aliens.

The Hurde took an interest on one of their human captives. After two years of continuously dissecting their human specimens, they became intrigued by the concept of human revenge. The notion of revenge fascinated them and in order to explore it, they released Caul converting him into a Drone Soldier. Caul now free and filled with burning rage set out to find those who wronged him.

The first victim of his crusade was Raoul Maizels a newly made billionaire Grazian who established himself on the planet Graegan. Caul caught Raoul right after a session with some hookers in his own apartment. Raoul was brutally beaten, though he tried to beg for his life and even offered to bribed Caul to spare him. To show his sincerity Raoul went to get some money from his safe only to turn a weapon on the intruder. The weapon had not effect and Caul proceeded to bash Raoul with a model of the Outlier.

Caul's murders attracted the attention of Jared Carcer, a Hurde survivor who lost his parents in an encounter. Not only that but when Carcer was captured by the Hurde, they had experimented on his giving him enhanced eyesight. After he managed to escape, Carcer became a criminal investigator using his optics to solve cases, before he fell into the employ of Falcorp, a human conglomerate working to unlock the secret of Hurde technology. Carcer was directed by his superior to intercept what they believed to be just a Hurde drone.

Carcer followed the trail to Drekklin, where Caul killed another of his old crewmates, Drexy who used his money to become an rich addict. By then Carcer's employer, Ms Farson had put the pieces together and determine who the Hurder drone was and his objection

Brothers Jay Krakow and Sol Krakow, another pair of the Outlier crew who had gotten rch at the expense of Caul, were tracked by the assassin to their privately owned safari planet Ampriss. The brothers were warned by Ramona and rather than flee the two gun-trigger men were hired by her to use an armory of weapons and traps to disable Caul, in hopes of scrapping their former comrade and also selling his remains to Falcorp. The two managed to lure Caul into a pit which had the function of fossilizing anything within its depths.

Their effort proved useless as the Hurde enhanced human merely grew wings to fly out and slaughtered them. At the same time Fason receive a call from her superior, Mr. Hain, at Falcorp who informed her of the corporation's findings from a sample of Caul's blood. The company executive wanted more samples of Hurde technology and despite the dangers made the capture of Caul a prioirty.

Carcer having finally caught up to Caul on Ampriss, tried to reason with him, having suspected that his employer was not so clean and surmised that she had betrayed Caul and left him for dead. Despite his attempt to talk to Caul, Carcer was stabbed but left alive while Caul continued his hunt. Though not before leaving a tracking bug on Carcer's ship.

Ramona Fason then contacted the five other remaining members of the Outlier, informing them of the situation. Her former crew blamed her for the cause of the deaths, as they felt they should have never provoked the Hurde. Ramona though believed it was not time to place blame for 'her' mistakes, but proposed to find a way to survive. She invited her crew to a secure island that contained the state of the art sentient architecture that would protect them from the Hurde-Human Hybrid long enough for the Falcorp scientists to devise a way to deactivate Caul and contain him.

One of the crew Arlo though saw that the offer would turn them into bait. He believed that Caul was only after Ramona for revenge, but suggested that everyone take a vote on it to decide. However while on a holo conference with the crew Arlo was killed in his home by a shadowy figure that was believed to be Caul. Arlo's death spurned the remaining survivors to agree to Ramona who seemingly cried tears for the loss of a comrade. Once the call ended, Ramona received a call from Hain who was pleased to learn that the crew accepted the terms. Ramona wiped away her fake tears and revealed that Arlo's death was committed by an assassin hired by her to motivate her crew to accept the deal so that Falcorp could move forward with the trap on Caul.

The remaining crew of the Outlier gathered on Ramona's island located on the planet Solzengar. While Ramona welcomed her guests and allowed them to get to their accommodations, Carcer arrived to speak with her. Ramona suprised that Carcer was left alive by Caul, and also knowing his value, tried to use Carcer's sympathies to get him to reason with the hybrid. Carcer knowing the intents of his employers believed that it was possible but not likely. Eventually Caul made his way into the island's complex via the ocean ducts. The Falcorp scientists though were arrogantly confident that they decrypted enough of the Hurde language to disable Caul and were planning on proceeding. The entire sentient island complex was used as lab experiment with the guests in the room as bait to test out Caul's abilities. Guests were isolated into their rooms and Caul given entry by the watching Falcorp scientists.

These tests included to see if Caul could be slowed down with a hostage or to see if he would kill an unarmed, non-hostile target; bribe with financial incentives, personal appeals, etc. After all but two of the Outlier crew was killed, Ramona and Mr Hain decided to send in troops to stop Caul. However they learned that they had severely underestimated his combat abilities after he ripped all of them apart. Mr Hain though still believed that they had a chance to subdue Caul and order Ramona to stall the hybrid.

Carcer guarding one of last survivors faced Caul again and tried peacefully talk it out so that he could know what happen and get justice for Caul. Caul revealed what really happened on the Outlier. He was a menial cook aboard, who fell in love with another crewmember named Jess. Ramona jealous of Caul and Jess abused her authority as captain to make his and Jess's life miserable. When scavenger ship came across the derelict, Ramona Fason forced him to board it as payback on Caul for refusal to have sexual relations with her. When the Hurde came to recover the derelict, Ramona intentionally locked out Caul and the scavenger team, to buy her and the Outlier time to escape. Though she claimed it was not personal but in the name of survival, Ramona at the time stated it was a nice bonus in leaving Caul and his lover to their fate. Furthermore Caul explained he was not even the real Caul, but a copy that was sent while the real one was kept captive in the Hurde's grasp.

By then Ramona and her accomplices managed to crack the Hurde language and used their newly found access to the Hurde database to enhance their latest weapons, the Armorigami Droids. The robots were a form of smart technology that could adapt and anticipate Cauls attacks and used electrified graphene nets to disrupt Caul's command signals, in effect paralyzing him.

Ramona triumphantly declared Caul her property and ordered her minions to bring Caul to the lab. Knowing that her crimes would be brought to light if Carcer spoke, she proceeded to shoot him to keep him silent. Whilst Caul' immobile body was being studied, Caul informed Ramona and her peers that his capture by them was part of the Hurde's strategy. The drone then began a chain reaction within his body, changing its molecular structure. Mr Hain realizing what was happening tried to flee but was incinerated a sample of Caul's energy cells that he and his men were studying. After Hain was killed, Caul explained to his captors that the Hurde sent him not just to fulfill his revenge but to neutralizes all the stolen Hurde technology Falcorp acquired. Their every move had been anticipated, knowing that they would scrutinize Caul, a Hurde-Human Hybrid, to access their database, and thus planted a failsafe to cause his energy cells to undergo extreme volatile reaction. Despite still being a pawn to others once again, Caul was content with his fate as it gave him a front row seat to see Ramona die. Ramona and the remaining Falcorp staff were killed by the explosion near Caul, reducing them to bones.

Caul and the remaining Outlier survivors though managed to limp out of the building to safety in front of a contingent of Alliance military personnel. However Carcer's problems were just being and was soon arrested under trumped up charges for being associated with Falcorp's illegal actions and Ramona Farson. The crime for not alerting the Alliance, despite being under a confidentiality contract with the company, was two decades of prison time. The Alliance offered to make a deal with Carcer, though it was hardly a choice. The military also had an interest in Hurde technology and wanted to exploit it just as the defunct Falcorp did. They believed that Carcer's expertise to be valuable given his nature with Hurde technology, and wanted him to investigate a Hurde ship. Disgusted by their greed for power, Carcer rebuked that the Alliance military officials blindness for not learned anything of the deaths from the incident. He advised that the military should open their eyes to the fact that the Hurde were more advanced than humanity in every aspect and any further interaction would end badly.

Outlier: Dark Symmetries
Jared Carcer managed to avoid accepting the deal made by the Alliance Military, by feigning PTSD from the Falcorp incident for six months. However the military had Carcer under surveillance at the recovery center and determined that his symptoms were fake. The military official, Colonel Amit Luthra, assigned to get Carcer cooperation and unwilling to let the issue go, seeing that bribes and threats failed chose another tactic by going with transparency, and showed Carcer images of the Hurde vessel the Alliance Military wanted his to investigate. The vessel was explained to be found right after the Outlier discovered the first vessel. They found the Hurde ship on a nearby planet, it was damaged by weapons fire indicating that it had attacked the other Hurde ship. The colonel explained that the Alliance Military believed that the weapons damaged was evidence of infighting between the Hurde which to the humans was valuable information.

The symbols on the vessel piqued Carcer 's interest as his optic implants recognized them to be Hurde but also denoting of military rank. Determining that the second craft was a military ship, Carcer agreed to go along with the investigation, under several conditions. During his time in the recovery center, Caul came to the conclusion of about what Caul told him, that he was just a drone copy, making him wonder that perhaps his parents who were taken by the Hurde were still alive.

Carcer was brought to Graegan's arctic region where the second Hurde vessel was being kept under guard. Despite Carcer being invited to investigate, his loyalty was brought into question as many of the military soldiers found it suspicious that the man managed to not only survived the Hurde once but twice and even suspected him being an agent of the aliens. When Carcer was brought on the Hurde ship, his eyes began to react to the controls. One of the soldiers turned his weapon on him, causing Carcer to lash out to defend himself taking the guard out and his companion. The connection to the Hurde ship strained Carcer, weakening him long enough for the military soldiers to restrain him, now more convinced that he was compromised by the Hurde.

Colonel Luthra interrogated Carcer, who was confused by the link with the ship, but managed to tell her that the vessel was trying to repair itself and was using him to enact it self-repair protocol. Though is actions could not be accounted for, Luthra was wary that he still may be a Hurde agent and was willing to take extreme measure to ensure such a threat was eliminated. Upon examination of the ships systems, the military scientists determined that after Carcer linked with it, the vessel tried to send a hailing frequency, which was blocked. However the military base was being infiltrated by smart dust which entered Carcer's cell and freed him from his restraints. Soldiers were sent to apprehend and kill him, but Carcer killed them first and then accessed the ship. While commanding the controls of the Hurde vessel, Luthra stopped him by injuring his right wrist. Carcer warned her that he was not escaping but trying to shut it down, as it was building a drone copy of none other than Caul. Caul revealed himself, having been built by the automatic machines of the ship and used Carcer to activate him. He proceeded to regain control of the Hurde ship. Despite Luthra's attempts to stop with by shooting him in the head, Caul merely regenerated and stabbed her in the shoulder. The Hurde ship then flew through the military base, melting the floors above, killing all personnel. Several Alliance military vessels attempted to intercept to prevent the Hurde ship from escaping, but even when damaged the HUrde ship was able to employ the use of temporal weapons to freeze the vessels in their tracks.

Caul now having captured Carcer and Luthra, explained to them that when he first met the criminal investigator, he had injected him with a nano-spore of Hurde Black Amber that was slowly hijacking his body. It was a new method of information gathering by his Hurde masters and more potent that the torture Caul faced when he was captured. Soon when the process was complete Carcer's would be converted into a Hurde. The reason for this was due to Carcer's uniqueness of being a Hurde survivor which was deemed a statistical outlier by the Hurde. Caul though wasn't being disparaging of Carcer's fate but actually wanted his help. Since being captured by the Hurde and forced to become them, Caul had risen from the ranks and fought in the never ending Hurde Caste Wars that are waged among the Hurde. Having enough he used the opportunity to get assigned the mission to retrieve Carcer and the Hurde vessel to scheme a way for Carcer to free his real body that was contained on an Ark Ship. But since there were protocols that prevented a copy from freeing its original in place, Caul needed Carcer to free not just him but his girlfriend Jess. Initially Carcer refused to help him, but after Caul mentioned that his parents were among those kept in the Hurde Archive, he accepted. Luthra though had other ideas and tried to stop the vessel by destroying the controls, but was stopped by Carcer.

Rather than kill her outright Carcer and Caul placed her in an escape pod outside the edge of Hurde space, leaving it up to chance to whether she was rescued by the Alliance or found by the Hurde. The breakout succeeded, and the Archive saw a release of thousand of specimens collected the Hurde. In the confusion Carcer managed to locate and find his parents. However Carcer having succumbed to the Hurde nano-spore willingly stayed behind while Caul and the others managed to escape. However Caul's efforts were deemed monstrously selfish by Jess as now the Hurde would seek retribution on humanity, classifying them as a threat.

Outlier: Survivor Guilt
After the attack of their Archive and the escape of their specimens, the Hurde finally had enough of humanity's intrusions on their territory and by extension their Alliance allies. Humanity having antagonized the Hurde. The Hurde ended their Caste War and concentrated all their resources on wiping out the Alliance by launching a full-scale attack on humanity and their allies.

Despite knowing the severe military disadvantage, General Sornell, who replaced Luthra refused to surrender and instead deployed their newest weapons, the Armourigami Shoal Droids, robot drones made from stolen Hurde smart materials. The Armourigami proved their worth by scoring some victories for the Alliance as they were able to adapt their forms like the Hurde.

However the Alliance was severely mislead as the Hurde were studying their tactics and that the victories they acquired were tests. A diplomatic solution was proposed when it was discovered that members of the Hurde's Drone Caste had arranged the conflict with humanity to end the Caste War plaguing the Hurde. The plan was to bring the evidence to the Hurde Elite to hopefully call a ceasefire.

However the effort proved fruitless as General Sornell installed explosives unto the shuttle delivering the evidence in hopes to gain a short-term advantage by crippling the Hurde's dark matter stellar gates. Despite the sabotage the evidence was eventually brought to the Elite, but it mattered little to the Elite as the Hurde already deemed humanity irreparably too dangerous to be left alone. The aliens then enacted their endgame by weaponizing a star to go supernova. The emanating radiation of the star guaranteed that all organic life in the galaxy would be killed by the radiation. They left only an ultimatum to accept to be archived or death.

General Sornell defiant to the end refused to accept defeat and tried to urge the remaining Alliance vessels to engage in a last suicide run at the Hurde. However the mad general was then killed by his second in command who accepted the terms of surrender to allow the Hurde to assimilate what was left of the Alliance to survive.

Culture
The Hurde are beyond anything humanity can hope to understand. Encounters with other species are of only second hand accounts, and they mostly stated to end disastrous. The Hurde have obtain a reputation as bogeymen in the galaxy as those that have the misfortune of crossing the Hurde are never heard from again.

Though the stories that spread outside Hurde space do no justice to the Hurde their victims described that the Hurde are much more worse than anyone could possibly imagined. When encountering intruders into their territory, Hurde torture their victims, absorbing every moment of pain, experience they inflict to understand them. New victims are taken to the Hurde Archive, a storage facility that contains captured lifeforms from across the galaxy.

Originally Hurde expanded their numbers by capturing members of other species. After their tortuous examinations, specimens are put in the Hurde Archive, where their bodies are free from death and disease, but their minds are preserved an placed in drone bodies that instinctively serve will of the Hurde.

They have no concept of good or evil, and are said to have eons of experience, consciousness flowing through myriad forms, never dying, merely refining. To the Hurde, the other races are ghost in their universe. The Hurde consider themselves as strain of life that alters itself to become stronger, by absorbing successful strategies from other species whilst letting inferior species die. They are focus on survival and it has served them well for millennia, through learning and adapting from every species they encounter. The Hurde's motives are not clouded by pride or ego but only with the purity of survival. The Hurde witnessed every horror in the universe, from countless civilizations rise and fall, extinction events that wiped out planets in a single moment and the collapse of solar systems, shaping them to become the horror to survive.

Technology
Their technology is so advance that their victims survive through the brutal vivisections and torture, exploring every facet of their bodies to determine how much pain they need to inflict to break their captives. Thanks to this level of examination, the Hurde have amassed a database of over several thousand life forms, which they use to modify their bodies.

Their vessels are said to be quite durable as they can repair themselves so long as a Hurde host is in the vicinity. The hulls of combat ships are capable of impressive damage and when charged can turn stone into magma.

The Hurde have mastered temporal warfare, using gravity implosive collapses to localized space-time and freeze time.

A new technology was later developed to revolutionize the archiving process of new specimens: the Hurde Black Amber, a type of nanotechnology that infects living organisms and coverts their cells. Through the process their minds are preserved in the amber as raw data and subjects become willing specimens.

Castes
Physically Hurde can come in various forms, depending on the number of lifeforms that the Hurde capture and archived. There are two distinct divisions in the species. One being composed of the Drone Caste which are distinguished by green and black armor and the other being the Elite Caste which possess silver and amethyst armor.

Hurde rise through the ranks, through merit to the Hurde Elite. To the Hurde war is a cyclical event for the castes and a way for their culture to improve itself and its technology. Drone and Elite Caste are in perpetual warfare, both sides fighting, dying and resurrecting again and again without end.