Released to the Nexus by Archivist Ellysiar Faegwyn of EverKnowledge Library on Moraeus
The History of the Tundran
The Tundran are a mechanically complex and contradictory race of robotic people who carry an exceptional burden. Each Tundran carries the spirit of a powerful mage from a bygone time that uses its essence to power the synthetic body it now finds itself captured within. This seamless bonding of technical marvel and magic created a race of people able to understand the importance of combining the old with the new. They now rule across Gaius, thanks to the immense respect they carry and the wisdom they can offer.
Tundrans are an intriguing race, as they are immortal and finite. There are only ever so many in existence and this number cannot be increased. The Gaius expedition planets do have a handful of Tundrans on them however, how these individuals came to be in their home is unknown but one theme is shared among them, none of them have a memory over 300 years. It is rumoured that those placed on expedition planets are Tundrans who have been repurposed for one reason or another.
The Soul Sphere
The Tundran people come with a complex and challenging history. The founders of Senatus, where they herald from, were regarded as some of the most contentious in history thanks to some extreme abuses of time travel to prevent a timeline they saw as calamity. These leaders all disappeared during the founding of Aurora Novus and as their final act, released the souls of millions of mages they had collected from a dying planet onto Senatus. These souls were all from mages with incredible power and they easily overwhelmed and possessed the bodies of the people of the planet. This combination of souls permanently tied the two together in a way which, previous to the founding, would have been easily mended.
After only a few years, there were very few Senatus people left with their own minds. The spirits were appalled and disgusted with the impact of their actions and an elite task force of Technophiles was set up at the Chrysalis Institute of The Unwell. After more than 20 years of research they were able to create a facility that would allow the production of Tundran bodies, placing the original people back in control of these new bodies and their spirits as the power cores of these bodies. Placing the spirits as nothing more than a battery for the robot bodies of the people whose lives they had inadvertently stolen.
The spirits took one last phase to celebrate their own stories, to write down their knowledge and build a utopia for their hosts so that, when they got their bodies back, they would be able to live good lives.
Then, one by one, they entered The Soul Sphere, a gigantic facility built to mirror the exact sphere that captured the mages soul when their home world was destroyed. Almost all of them were converted into a robotic body with the mind of the host body back in control. A sad moment in history, for millions of industry leading experts were replaced by ordinary citizens, but one welcomed as a display of the unquestionable moral fibre of Gaius.
The Tundran Conundrum and Spontaneous Shifts
Tundrans have since embraced their immortality, and the ability for their guiding spirit to protect them, when there’s crystal enough to power them, has led to them being the voices of intelligence and wisdom across Gaius and many other factions. However there are many who believe that Aurora Novus should invest in freeing these spirits, allowing them to separate from their 20,000 years of service and to live their own lives.
The topic of whether to separate them from their hosts or not comes with multiple challenging questions that have been debated for years. Gaius has been unable to come to any solution on the topic and it’s a well known secret that the Lodge has a very itchy trigger finger when it comes to ancient powers being released. The two sides of the argument are incredibly persuasive. Is it an insult to their legacy to undo it and free them? How do we know that these ancient mages won’t pose a threat to Aurora Novus as we know and see it today? Can we trust that the hosts will be the same when separated from their soul battery?
In recent phases, certain individuals have experienced something known as “spiritual bliss”, a process in which a Tundran places themselves in a crystal shell and emerges as some form of organic creature. This process has been known as “the Ethereal Shift” and it’s reported that those who have undergone the process emerge as the mage version of themselves. It’s reported that this is occurring when the host has completed their mortal duties and has nothing left to achieve in their life, so truthfully wills their body to their spirit so they can use it to achieve their own goals. This moment of bliss seems to have activated a technology hidden within their frames to bring the mages back.
None of The Ethereal mages are public facing and the Gaius leadership has agreed unilaterally to keep them under the tightest protection until more is known. Regardless, these individuals would hold incredible personal power and the rest of Aurora Novus would do well to keep tabs on these individuals.
There are some cynics who believe that this ethereal state was all deliberate and that the reason that people are reaching this state after 20,000 years is that the spirits were not interested in waiting for the reonic sphere to pop so had their hosts take over instead.
The Hidden Cacophony
The expedition planets never really were exposed to Tundran culture, it’s not that there are huge secrets here but more that they, as a people, believe wholeheartedly in the play hard/work hard aspect of life that it’s rare outsiders get to see their wild approach to recreation. In Chiro, one of the largest cities on Senatus, there’s an area known as Wornarch in which there are almost 6,000 different nightclubs, bars and circuses that never close. The district is fitted with a unique signal that blocks all communications related to work and it’s seen as incredibly rude to bring up anything related to work.
This separation between work and life has meant that the arts have truly struggled
to flourish within Senatus, despite the best efforts of many across Zamorra. As such, the Tundran people don’t really have a notable cultural history to pull upon. Tundrans are individualistic and as such you would hear them introduce themselves based on their achievements rather than their family name.
This division from their cultural heritage has made Tundrans the ideal leaders of Senatus, regarded as the capital of Gaius, as the faction continues to specialise in utilising alien technology. Tundrans focus on the raw logical value of an action and are able to void themselves of the same judgements that prevent other factions from succeeding in the same fashion. Should the Tundran people lose their cultural dominance over The Senate, it is possible the resulting chaos would cause Gaius to lose its position as a technological leader in the universe.
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