Advent

The Advent are an evolutionary offshoot of Humans, having evolved a collective intelligence and great psionic mastery. Because of this, their super-weapon is a mind-control beacon, as opposed to a long-range missile platform like a Novalith or Kostura Cannon.

History
The Advent's ancestors were desert-world colonists. They began to experiment with neurological implants and psychotropic drugs. The Trade Alliance was religiously opposed to psionics, and was able to throw the world quite literally away. The Advent continued their psionic research, and their culture became based on psionic strength. For whatever reason, females were just plain better at "magic" then men, and became the society's rulers. They developed this ideology into a religion called "The Unity", and gained many dread abilities, including the ability to paralyze or confuse enemies, and in the case of exceptionally powerful or large groups, permanently brainwash them. Gaining population and strength over a thousand years, they eventually began to seek for Trader space. Finding them weakened by their war with the Vasari, they quickly invaded, attempting to taking revenge on the vindictive TEC and beat back the imperialist Vasari.

Culture
At an early age, Advent children are taught to seek enlightenment in whichever way naturally suits them and it is common to see even the very young using neurochemicals or artificial implants to augment their mental abilities. This advanced level of integration with their technology – known as PsiTech – is largely responsible for the Advent‘s strange sense of collectivism, and allows the sharing of thoughts and feelings on an almost innate level.

Navigating, interpreting, and shaping are highly prized skills in Advent culture and one’s mastery in these areas forms the basis of the Unity‘s social hierarchy. Females in particular demonstrate a natural prowess and have come to dominate the higher castes, called Coalescences. Then there are the Silent Ones - those who are unable to participate in the Unity‘s group mind - they are exceptionally rare and universally shunned.