The Thanatoks were an ancient species from a distant galaxy.
Biology[]
A single Thanatok resembles a giant pus of sac with no eyes, mouth. A truly horrendous creature that is actually a superorganism. It is a telepathic creature that uses other creatures via small tick-like parasite/symbiotes that care mostly composed of brain tissue. These parasite latch themselves on their victims and subsumes its victims under a Thanatok's control. Though the victims do possess free will and a mind of their own.
Background[]
In the distant past, the Thanatoks assembled all its knowledge into a single matrix, becoming the Thanatok Matrix. The device was an exquisite piece of creation and was the pinnacle of scientific knowledge and power. However the Thanatoks some came to the realization that the device was a terrible mistake as in the wrong hands the Thanatok Matrix could be a weapon of unimaginable destruction. To prevent the abuse of its power, the Thanatoks decided to dismantle their creation and scatter its components across the galaxies so they would never be found.
One of the locations for the device was Earth which they planted there two million years ago.
At some point the Thanatoks went extinct, and the last member of the species, the Prime Entity decided to go against its kinds decision in the usage of the Thanatok Matrix. The Prime Entity sought to scour the universe for the pieces to reassemble it. To aid it in its efforts, the Prime Entity, abducted and enslaved any race that could serve it, and at times destroying worlds that were in the way.
By 2117, the remaining piece that eluded the Prime Entity was the core matrix of the Thanatok Matrix. After a alien obelisk that served as a perimeter beacon for the piece of the Thanatok Matrix was unearth on Europe by human researchers, it alerted the Prime Entity of its location. To investigate the beacon, it sent out a scout ship piloted by two Vellakwan thralls. Upon arriving at the Europa research base, the scout ship immediately attacked the humans. In the chaos, the human marines stationed on the facility managed to fight back, and a Vellakwan Navigator wishing to defect and be free of the control of the Prime Entity sabotaged the fighter, causing it to crash.
The Navigator was the only survivor of the crash and was captured. After a cursory examination, the human scientists discovered the alien parasite attached to the Vellakwan. They removed it through electrocution, though it quickly leaped away to target one of the patients in the medical ward, taking control of a female patient. In a last bit of defiance the Prime Entity through its human thrall declared that Earth and humanity would die, before a soldier managed to kill the creature and free the victim.
Five years after alien contact, humanity improved their military technology by a thousand years with the assistance of the Navigator in an effort to defend their planet from retaliation by the impending alien invasion. The stakes was not just their species existence but the fate of the universe as the Navigator explained that should the Prime Entity acquire and use the Thanatok Matrix, it could elevate itself into a god with reality at its mercy. Under the command of V-Com, the governments of Earth united to fight the impending threat, and secretly began to work in the shadows to uncover the location of the Thanatok Matrix.
The threat of alien invasion was made public after the Prime Entity's forces detected a second beacon in Guatemala, causing a scouting force to attack the site. It was repelled thanks to the forces of V-Com, though the news of the arrival of the aliens served only as a percussor of the war to come.
When the Prime Entity's vanguard forces attacked Earth, the previous countermeasures that the Navigator provided proved to be outdated as the invaders had adapted thanks to the information provided by their scouts. Topped with the limited time and materials to disseminate the new technologies, humanity was poised to be destroyed. Though due to the sacrifices of the human militaries, the first alien wave was defeated, though at the cost of the near destruction of most of the chain of command of the armed forces, destruction of the Eastern seaboard of the United States, Europe, Beijing and Moscow.
Despite the casualties humanity was determined to fight back, and decided to launch a preemptive strike against the Prime Entity's fleet waiting in the solar system. At the same time, with the aid of a human girl who had bonded with the alien beacons, V-Com was able to pinpoint the location of the Thanatok Matrix core. Before they could send out teams to destroy the matrix, the Prime Entity using its sensors teleported both beacons out of the custody of V-Com intending to use them to track its location itself. The Thanatok Matrix, though managed to spirit the human girl away to its location.
The human fleet of fighters then attacked the Prime Entity's fleet as it turned out to be a mobile space gate bringing its forces into the system. Fighting through the hordes of fighters, a ship of humans managed to destroy the gate, using a weapon called the Hamstr that was a high amplitude megaton generator. The shockwave severed the Prime Entity's connection to most of its thralls, freeing many of them. Though the human forces were captured by the Prime Entity and using its parasites tool control of them, and forced them to tell it the location of the core.
The Prime Entity having acquired what it wanted, summarily destroyed San Francisco by ripping the core of the Thanatok Matrix out into orbit. To power the machine it proceeded to drain the sun of its energy, threatening to destroy the entire solar system. It intended to destroy Sol and become a god.
Unknown to the Prime Entity, the Thanatok Matrix, having become sentient was beseeched by the human girl to help them stop the Prime Entity. Though it knew the Prime Entity was a member of its creators, the device could not morally abide to the Prime Entity's destructive actions. Now that it was complete, the Thanatok Matrix, decided to us its abilities to ascend itself to a higher being, robbing the Thanatok of its glory and used itself to explode destroying it and its fleet.
Source[]
- Navigator (2023)