Lore:Vulpkanin
 Vulpkanin |
Denonyms: Vulpkanin, Vulpkanen |
Vulpkanin
A group of fox-folk.
History
Pre-FTL (2100AD - 2150AD)
Historically, recorded Vulpkanin history starts with a distant mythos about the species once being two; Vulpkanin beliefs hold that they were, at some point, two-headed giants, defeated in great battle and their wounds cauterized by the starlight of their home. Starting in the pre-modern era, their history truly begins in facts with an immense quantity of various monarchies to the point it became hard to even count them, akin to a royal balkanization, now called the Era of One Thousand Lights In The Night Sky. The beginnings of the greatest shift in Vulpkanin history started with the largest recorded dynasty known through extensive recovery of videologs, a name loosely translating to ‘Supreme Kingdom Cradled in Red-Hot Sunlight,’ dealing with the "barbarians' of other lesser kingdoms' for nigh on two centuries.
Naturally, this was starting to exhaust their military legions to the point that an order was given to provincial governors and petty nobles that allowed them to essentially conscript normal civilians into armies of their own design. This naturally backfired as such an order had no given expiration date, compounded with the phrasing 'to their own design.' Immense amounts of nepotism and handpicking occurred and thus 'provincial governor' evolved to 'Vandal-Decapitating General With Stars Reflected In Her Blade'. Eventually, one powerful figure amongst this new wave of warlords decided that the current monarch was not only false due to their inaction, but that having plural dynasties was not what was meant to be. This was how the Zealot-King was born, and this is the most probable cause of the Vulpkanin tradition of Jurors dueling to maintain their position, the Jurors likely having evolved out of a Zealot-King's advisors and closest cabinet.
This individual, the Zealot-King, was the sole leader of the Vulpkan’aan homeworld, a monarch in both title and function. They were both the political leader of the state and the highest priest of Vulpkanin religion. There was a complete dynasty of various different Zealot-Kings, of which each typically came to power in rather unique ways. For many, their rise and fall were created by huge revolutions capped off with spectacular one-on-one swordfought regicide, while others had the luck of being heirs or convenient replacements for whenever the current king inevitably died. Pre-Exodus Vulpkanin society was well described by being engulfed in strife, victim of many, many changes in hierarchy. Yet the title of Zealot-King remained.
Effectively, to be a Zealot-King, one had to be physically, mentally, and spiritually strong, a rather obvious display of how old the Vulpkanin self-betterment doctrine is. They were typically the strongest warlord on their homeworld, capable of holding a stake on the Zealot’s throne by force alone. In this case, the most relevant and logistics-capable of them had started a several hundred years regime change into an absolute monarchy, former generals becoming advisers, advisers becoming jurors. The last Zealot-King was known as Setath Sho Rhell-Zennha, a prime mover in the Vulpkanin Exodus.
The Exodus
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Translator Xuqqiurik, detailing an excerpt of a late Pre-Exodus Vulpkanin poem says: "“Spectacularly infinite divine beauty of our goddess’s crimson red glow. No matter where we are, at the trim’s edge of our system or at the middle blot of the night, a glimpse of glimmer can be seen from our sun. Eons, she has guided us with light and shine. Eras, we held her in our core’s hearts, knowing she would stand eternity with us. If only we knew truth."" |
One major event of their past has been titled ‘The Exodus’ by many Vulpkanin, a good title for what many consider a tragedy; their planet swallowed in undying holy flames at the hand of a supernova. Nonetheless, their old homeworld is somewhere within Ordoht territory, being the target of both Ordoht xenoarchaeologists and Vulpkanin historians.
Despite most of their past being buried due to a lack of surviving documentation, a small variety of classical Vulpkanin religion survives to this day, preserved both by the few videologs remaining that went into detail about their beliefs and the descendants of living practitioners who boarded the Caravans. The biggest of these can best be translated as the ‘Eternal Warmth of The Heavenly Lights’, worshipping not only the stars but the galactic core itself. Naturally, a number of new religious movements were born after contact with the Ordoht, often inspired by historical events that have occurred since their exodus.
Going as far as we can down Vulpkanin history, the very first mentions of the species’ homeworld itself is part of a greater scheme in the Vulpkanin religious heritage that seems to have been sparked from a belief their sun - what humans can only quantify as ‘eight times the size of Sol’ due to it now being an ultra-dense neutron star - had deemed their species unworthy of living within their star system, upon their astronomers realizing that their sun’s immense size was due to an impending supernova. The exact source of this belief before that is much too hazy to be pinpointed to a specific origin, yet this very belief led to what is now referred to as ‘The Exodus’ within various Vulpkanin videologs.
Over the course of their star steadily growing larger and larger, impending death being brought on by Gods beyond their understanding, rumors began to spread. Members of Setath's 'royal cabinet' were seen... changing. Strange meteorological events coincided with unexplainable events happening in local space, meteorites rumored to be lifeforms landing and disappearing before researchers could find them.
The populace at large had come to believe any one of three conspiracy theories due to his immense silence and delay on dealing with the issue. One, that Setath had angered the Gods and the loss of their homeworld was to serve as a punishment for him. Two, that Setath believed that the purpose of their star’s impending expansion would be to transport them to a new world of ever-lasting paradise, which was naught but folly. And lastly, that Setath, no matter the outcome, wanted it to happen.
It would naturally lead to a siege on the palace, and events came to a culmination; demons would pour out of the windows. Devils out of the doors, masses of seething flesh and hateful bone changing forms a thousand times before the warriors approaching the doors. The manifestation of the Gods striking out against arrogance was in front of them. It would take two years to siege the palace proper, the demons they were fighting not responding well at all to traditional means of warfare. Fusing together, burrowing under the ground, shooting their insides out and impaling men by the dozen. The weapons used during the Pre-Exodus have all but been discarded from the Vulpkanin historical record, out of shame they ever had to be used.
When all came to a close, tens of thousands were lost. Thousands more would be from events happening in their planetary orbit, but the Vulpkanin had believed once they had taken Setath Sho Rhell-Zennha, it would surely all go away. The inner doors were breached, the walls nearly eroded from constant bombing and mechanized firepower. The palace-graveyard was broken open like an egg, with the half-consumed bodies of scores still around.
There he sat; Setath Sho Rhell-Zennha, in quiet contemplation. His body had grown into the throne itself, trembling and weeping blood from far more eyes than anyone should have. His uncursed relatives had stood in a shaky shield wall before him, knowing their time had come.
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Translator Xuqqiurik, emphasizing the last recorded words of the last Zealot-King says: "'You have come for nothing. You, are, nothing. If I, the greatest of all of us, could not escape this, can you? Can you withstand the unimaginable hellstorm of our God? Can you escape gravity, whelps?'" |
The execution was televised; him and his heirs were slaughtered solemnly. The downfall of royalty in the Post-Exodus Vulpkanin era - what is now known as the ‘Modern’ era - has deeply affected its culture: not only has it shifted the focus of excellence from a single member of society to its entire populace, it has led to the actual use of 'noble' terms as an insulting, demeaning adjective for things. Pretending to have royal blood is a social death sentence for a Vulpkanin. With the death of the Zealot-King, the only remaining upper echelon of leaders within Vulpkanin society were the Advisors of the Vulpkan’aan court.
It didn’t take much time before they began placing down plans to carry their species off-planet, urged in knowing no other solution was possible. Demons still flocked to their homeworld, falling as bitter tears from the star they once placed their faith in. It would take the death of their home to stop them. Schematics for vast ships were drawn up, a resource scramble beginning to draw every last bit of workable metal out of their world, recycling everything short of weapons ammunition and armor. Underneath the palace, what used to be the capital building of the Supreme Kingdom, forbidden artifacts gatekept by various dynasties since the beginning were unearthed; well-preserved suits seemingly for deep sea diving or mining, and what was left of some sort of air vehicle or satellite. A glowing core was forcibly 'checked' by a captive devil, killing it in the process through what was then understood to be intense radiation. Suits were fashioned and the core was studied over years and years of work; a faster-than-light drive.
Practice of Vulpkanin star worship varied from person to person, as each Vulpkanin alive tended to congregate around worship of a particular star’s assigned deity. A common ritual by Vulpkanin astrologers past the invention of electricity was to use keen instruments to essentially listen into a star’s output of radio waves, divining messages from what was called ‘celestial noise.’ This pattern of low-frequency noise would be adjusted, tuned, and remixed until coherent patterns were made more obvious; used for ritual, future-telling, and sometimes even to name children, all by assigning certain patterns to different motions of the body used in the non-verbal communication aspects of 
CanilunztA somewhat simple language consisting of heavily articulate barks, growls, yapping, and combined movements of the tail and ears. It's natively spoken by the Vulpkanin, although certain groups of gene modders have adopted it as a secondary form of communication. Its parlance has been loosely compared to the Germanic language group.. Most contemporary Vulpkanin music would use the output of different stars as a sort of ‘bassline’, thought to promote healthy living. Different positions of their homeworld’s moons over their sun would hold great significance in astrology as well, an equivalent of human zodiac signs previously existing based on what shape the moons would create, depicted as different circular drawings.
Work in Progress: Footer subject to change at a moment's notice. Do not take a red link's presence, struck-through or otherwise, as confirmation (or denial) of their canonicity.
| Nova Sector Lore
| |
| Common Species | Humans, Tiziran, Unathi, Moths, Ethereals, Azulae, Slime Hybrids, Teshari, Synthetic Humanoids (and assorted robots), Pod Persons |
| Other Species | Genemodders (Felinids, Ice Walkers, Dwarf), Ashwalkers, Hemophages, Snailpersons, Ordoht (Formerly Skrell), Plasmamen, Flypeople, Vox (Primalis et al), Tajaran, Vulpkanin, Xenomorphic Hybrid, Rouges (Abductorkin), Miscellaneous Species |
| Nanotrasen | Nanotrasen, Central Command, Emergency Response Corps |
| External Groups | The Syndicate, Interdyne Pharmaceutics, DS-2, Cargo, The Spider Clan |
| Nova | The Nova Sector, Indecipheres, Freyja |
| Concepts | Bluespace, Plasma, Faster Than Light Travel, Resonance ("Souls"), Death |
| SolFed | SolFed, Earth in 2565, |
