The Anahn, The Black Sun, and the Jordan

A summary of the history of the Anahn.


The Anahn are not an old race. Scarcely six thousand years has it been since the Prince of Blood - the Kyru wanderer Adashim - created them by depleting his Soulshard crystals he had stolen from the Kyru capital shortly before it was abandoned.

As if to bring back bad memories, the Anahn civilization crumbled in much the same way the Kyru did. Adashim, still weakened by using his power to create the race, was lost in the political image of the fascist government and other individuals who held either political or military power eventually sought personal fame and glory, and threw down their beliefs and honor, succumbing to greed.


The four thousand-year long civil war is all the Anahn know. Although they were always a militaristic race, this excessively bloody conflict was perhaps a necessary step to forging the ultimate state of mind. Adashim and his loyalists, known as the Royal Family, hid back in the shadows for nearly three fourths of the war.

During this alienation period, the thousands of Anahn warlords were left with nearly two galaxies of space to fight for control over. There was one place none of them dared venture to, however - the Black Sun.


The birth of the Anahn used a vast amount of energy, even greater than the energy released by the spontaneous creation of the physical universe. When the Anahn were created, residue energy from Adashim's soulshards collected into a massive white star that drew neighboring light into it. This star burns infinitely hot, hotter than Deimos, fueled by alien energies far beyond the understanding of conventional science. It was speculated by many that the Royal Family had been destroyed, but a silent few believed that Adashim used his remaining power to hide near this sacred ground.

Meanwhile, the Anahn changed.

Anahn are under the firm belief that "What nature does, we can do better". They were already a heavily science-based race and the demand to not only have strong soldiers, but lots of soldiers, lead to the creation of enormous cloning and genetic manipulation facilities. Most of these were based on planets, as they were vulnerable to attack and were the most vital facility early into the civil war. The Anahn's general ignorance and overall lust for bloodshed lead to the destruction of hundreds of enormous shipyards, and only later on would they begin to realize these shipyards would be irreplaceable.

The plans had been lost for these facilities, and creating new ones took tremendous resources and time. Tiran elemental ore was situated across the three galaxies that consisted of Anahn's clustered space, but the third galaxy was too distant to jump to conventionally, and so warlords scrambled to secure the largest quantity of the material, as Tiran was used in all Anahn ammunition and in armor plating.

This separated Warlords into pockets of control. Particularly large warlords would push others around, but only destroy them outright when the situation deemed it important. The first thousand years was simply bloodshed and nothing more. Genetic manipulation ran rampant, progressively fusing Anahn soldiers with highly advanced mechanical implants and devices that allowed them to directly interface with armored suits, creating a generation of super-infantry.

In response to the growing power of boarding and planetary control, space warfare began to rise. Back then, there were only first-age ships - old, slow, and very vulnerable to conventional weapons. Without reactive armor, ship battles were quick, brutal, and messy. The survivors would have the prize of the admittedly small battle - the planet. Opposing forces generally chose to shell the planet to a smoldering ruin rather than spend time weeding out the hidden facilities deep within its surface. Years upon years of such bombardments left behind uninhabitable wastelands. Some warlords had the cunning to return to these searing radioactive barrens and drill deep into the planet, hiding their facilities within the mantle.

However, even the largest of warlords were not complete madmen. They would rather gain power than lose it in constant skirmishes. It wasn't uncommon for two enemies to meet on neutral grounds through ambassadors, and make trade. Generally the trade consisted of either technology, tactical intelligence, or even a direct trade of actual ships, for precious Tiran ore. Large warlords were in control of the market with colossal stores of resources they couldn't exhaust through the course of the entire war.

The most highly prized construct would soon become the Shipyard, however. Once the word spread that shipyards couldn't be easily replaced, their value became priceless. Even the most insane and zealous of warlords wouldn't fire upon a shipyard. As more and more planets were shelled to oblivion, the vast span of two galaxies soon became so barren of shelter that the Anahn were forced to live exclusively in space.

Conventional stations were not like ships, however. They weren't armored, or armed with weaponry. Out in the cold void, they were extremely vulnerable to any manner of devilry at the hands of a sneaky warlord. The obvious solution was to change the way stations were built. Soon, orbital facilities became completely independent heavily-armed fortresses capable of thwarting entire fleets. Of course, only the more powerful Warlords had the resources and means to house their soldiers like this. Others carved fortresses out of Tiran asteroids, many larger than entire planets, some as large as stars. Anahn space, especially in the first galaxy, was not open; it was a labyrinth of Tiran and Bloodstone formations. Navigation and battle were twisted in unusual ways by the relatively confined environments native to the Prince's former territory.

The Second Age

The second age was when the regional controls of the warlords began to stabilize and the over-zealous lunatics had, for the most part, been destroyed by overextending themselves. This was when the cruelty of men began to manifest itself. Warlords began to resort to exceptionally violent means of destroying their enemies. Anahn were still a primitively-minded people; imagine cave men, or medieval tyrants, at the helm of spacefleets consisting of hundreds of thousands of ships. Their philosophy of battle was very simple - "If my gun can't kill my enemy, I need a bigger gun."

The second age brought about the modernization of Railcannons, Powerguns, and most importantly, reactive armor. Reactive armor gave Anahn who could afford it an enormous advantage over those who couldn't. The presence of even unreliable single-layer reactive armor often meant a ship could survive a shot from a Railcannon, while those without reactive armor, no matter how large or how dense their conventional plating, would generally be instantly bisected by such a projectile.

Further and further the powerful became powerful and the weak were crushed until the number of warlords were reduced to a few hundred. However, these warlords began to have a problem. Their own leadership was still weak, and most warlords still had internal power struggles of their own. If such a warlord was destroyed, their power would splinter, and officials would take claim to new factions and new individual powers would arise. It was a never-ending war. Countless soldiers died every single day; the average lifespan of the most advanced of marines was less than a week. Few Anahn ever had the opportunity to see anything other than the generic interiors of their warships, tending to the crude and dangerous hardware of Anahn engineering.

Further genetics were pushed to develop soldiers that could not only withstand incredible punishment but think like geniuses. Genetic tampering eventually resulted in the destruction of reproductive capabilities and Anahn gender became little more than a memory. "Everyone is a man, a soldier, a warrior. Otherwise, he wasn't worthy of being kept on my ship."

Warlords severely punished the weak. Those who failed their orders, or those who hesitated, were often executed on the spot. Those who were strong to survive years of service became legends amongst themselves and the enemy, even enemies a great distance away involved in their own troubles. Those who were weak would simply be replaced. Soldiers could be grown in a matter of days, and starships could travel the distance of multiple starsystems within a day. The only factors in Anahn warfare were strategy and cunning.

It wasn't an uncommon sight to see a Warlord's stronghold in the great distance, multitudes of heavily-armed facilities surrounded in warships, mining vessels ferrying supplies to and fro. Once the localization of resources became available to Warlords, they sought to build bigger, more fearsome ships to smash their enemies with. After all, the bigger the ship, the bigger the guns it could carry. Sieges against stations slowed down as Warlords learned the hard way that giant indestructible rocks bristling with guns could not easily be overwhelmed with numbers. They needed heavier firepower to stake new claims.

The era of battleships had begun.


The Battleship



In the heart of every fleet worth its weight in Tiran was a collection of Battleships. As time progressed, they continually increased in size and power, even moreso than the other classes. The Battleship was considered to represent the Warlord who built it. After all, if the battleships were weak, their fleet would be destroyed, and so would follow the Warlord. Warlords would pour tremendous resources into their Battleships.

Battleships began to take on excessive scale late into the war, after two thousand years. Some ships were as large as small planets and bore Railcannons capable of destroying such objects without hesitation. Powerguns were evolved to take on enormous and complicated reloading mechanisms to handle titanic ammunition that required to be accelerated and launched across huge distances, or fired in tremendous quantities. The highlight of any great conflict was the duels between battleships, compared often to classical broadside battles or complicated swordplay. Captains who lived through these fights were given the highest honor amongst all who heard their name. Experienced captains were given Advisors and bodyguards who were exceptionally skilled in the art of the Sabre and served as their shoulder rest against would-be assassins that were just as common.

Differences in technology used to manage massive turrets, engines, armor, and weapon loadouts, accounted for unique characteristics to each Warlord's ships and, when facing each other in battle, the true genius of the Anahn military mind was tempered time and time again.

Living in Anahn ships was not comfortable. Despite their great size, ships were all armor and mechanics. Interiors were extremely hot, cramped, and dangerous for the unwary. Warships do not have windows or luxury, for they are ships of war and such things presented exploitable weaknesses. 80% of the most spacious of a ship was still completely armor and mechanics, with the rest of the space dedicated to ammunition. The bridge was typically the most expansive location, usually located in the absolute center of the hull. Anahn ships could usually be managed by less than a dozen officers, but good officers were constantly in high demand.

Years passed by. Anahn were nearly immortal, but only those in power of men or ships ever saw the passing of time. Soldiers were not allowed to acknowledge the flow of time. Only the flow of blood- the enemy's blood or their own.

This all changed three thousand years after the civil war had begun.

Because now, rumors of the Royal Family's existence being true had indeed been realized. More rumors began. Some warlords mysteriously went missing. Powerful warlords, the kind that when one suddenly goes missing, those who would otherwise be quick to assume power hesitate. It was some time before a name was put on the killer. Garjukk, he who is said to possess the strength of twenty men, and the speed of a vengeful spirit.

Garjukk was said to be a servant of Adashim who was returning to destroy the Warlords. Most laughed at this claim, until the mighty fleet of Haktish appeared. Haktish, whose name only the oldest Warlords could remember, was the commander of the original Royal Family's fleet. When he deployed into contested space he was equipped with everything Warlords had come to recognize, and more. Spearheading the Royal Family's unexpected return were the Bloodstone Battlecruisers.

These monumental warships, of which there were only a dozen, appeared without warning. With advanced weapon systems never before seen and extremely potent shielding, their victories came quickly. Their reputation caused many warlords to simply surrender upon their arrival. The absorption of Anahn resources into Haktish's fleet seemed almost clockwork.

Many refused to surrender, though. Some Warlords allied with each other against this new foe, vowing to solve their differences after the Prince, if he even still lived, was destroyed. Others turned and run. Some foolishly tried to stand their ground.

Haktish's fleet was the most brutal and merciless of them all. Garjukk sabatoged shipyards, stations, entire city networks, killing billions at any second without hesitation or remorse. The assassin's terror spread through the distance like ripples in a pond. He especially enjoyed targeting distant neutral grounds, those used by Warlords to discuss trade. He would cut down ambassadors and leave a single ship left, its crew dismembered, with a single survivor to tell the story. It was never known how he traveled such distance so quickly, or how he learned of top-secret meetings. Some began to speculate the Prince, once revered as their God, had indeed returned, and his divine retribution fueled this demon.

As Haktish's fleet and Garjukk's blade wove chaos and wakes of thick, still-warm blood through the first galaxy, Warlords in the second galaxy gained wind of this power shift and began to heavily fortify themselves. Skirmishes died down, except when one was bold enough to attempt to steal the resources or facilities or another. At this time, unknown to them, Adashim was helping Haktish develop the first Third-Age vessels utilizing Kyru technology. Those who would bring a violent and bloody end to the final fools who thought to undermine their father.

The Third Age

All this time, Adashim had not been sleeping. He had been hunting down another Kyru wanderer, a priestess, whom he forced to give him a son - Garjukk. This was one of his secrets; Garjukk was a Kyru. A God amongst mere mortals. Even though Garjukk knew nothing of who he was, or what he was, or even how to control his powers, there was little fear of him ever being killed. He knew only how to fight, how to kill, because that was he was ever supposed to know. Haktish himself was amongst the first of the Anahn. Under his command were "pureblood" admirals and captains, each honored amongst the Royal Family, each tied to his blood directly. Adashim was not an engineer nor a craftsman, but what he knew of Kyru technology was gradually adapted into Anahn counterparts. Driven by his visions of the future, Adashim sought to craft a fleet that could contest with the horrors of the real world.

The third age marked the introduction of, most notably, energy weapons into the Anahn arsenal. They remained almost completely exclusive to the Royal Family, although some Warlords had developed primitive energy weapons previously. Adashim chose the Proteus element, as it was easy to create and control. No amount of plasma or ion-based firepower could ever compare to the devastation of Proteus-based weapons. Even simple Proteus bolt-based weapons could shred a large ship bearing reactive armor. Elements functioned on entirely different physics than what Anahn were accustomed to.

But even this terrifying new weapon type wasn't enough to force the Anahn race to submit to him. Adashim was growing impatient. He knew what was coming on the horizon, and he had to be prepared. Once the first galaxy was completely under his control, the second would follow. This time they were waiting for him.

The Final Battle for the Anahn Race

Adashim's assault on the second galaxy was anything but subtle. Garjukk watched as space as far as the eye could see began to blink with light. Stars, planets, moons slowly appeared, and rays of light poured into his ship's bridge. As the wall of darkness that was Haktish's entire fleet vanished from sight, jumping into the second galaxy, drums sounded in the ears of those onboard. Thunderous horns, and the royal choir. This was the song of the Royal Family. It was beautiful, its chords ringing through the mind and soul. But at the same time, it was terrifying.

It took weeks to take control of the second galaxy. If Warlords did not surrender upon contact, they were scorched to the last man without hesitation. Few defenses held for more than an hour against Haktish's mighty fleet. Apocalyptic battles spreading across multiple star systems raged for days on end as countless ships burned upon the black horizon. It was a massacre.

But it was nothing like what would happen shortly after.

The coming of the Undead

With the destruction of the Myrookk faction, something evil took notice in the Abyss - a realm far larger, and more vast than Creation. Physical space was but an incomprehensably miniscule pocket amongst the Abyss which was, for all intensive purposes, a vast nothing. Adashim knew it was anything but empty, however. It was the home for terrors which his Anahn were not ready for. The time would come where he would prove himself once and for all for those who still doubted him as their God. The time would soon come where he would shape the future. His endgame had come into motion.


The Undead-Myrookk fleet struck fast, and they struck hard. Even the Royal Family's advanced technology could in no way prepare them. It started with a simple Myrookk science vessel, turned into a massive cannon. Then, Bloodstone Battlecruisers were targeted and subverted by evil spirits. Baletongue's demon fleet came down upon Adashim's people like a searing rain. Even though they were not true Undead ships, the Myrookk demon fleet was no less devastating.

The Undead were an opponent the Anahn were unprepared to fight. Although Railcannons could deal damage to Undead ships, the Undead came in enormous swarms and their Deimos elemental weaponry could burn through battleship armor like paper. Undead are a reckless, fanatical and selfless race. They gladly throw thousands of themselves into the awaiting fleets of their enemies, just to destroy a single straggler. They came in endless waves. No day was without fighting. In a few short weeks, Adashim was forced out of the second galaxy, which was laid to waste by the Undead. Soon they approached the first galaxy. No amount of fleets or stations could slow them down for long. The demonic Myrook soon showed their trump card - the Bloodstone Battlecruisers they had stolen. Twisted by the powers of the Great Undying, they had been turned into monstrous planet-sized behemoths bearing massive Deimos beam weaponry with stellar range. The mightiest of second-age Battleships were turned to dust before these engines of destruction.

The Undead never said anything special. They just laughed, and laughed, and fired until their ships burned with raging flame. Then, they threw themselves into their enemy, and destroyed themselves - taking the unfortunate Anahn in the way with them. The song of destruction and madness could be heard across the Anahn world.

The Battle of the Jordan

Adashim began consolidating his forces within the inner galaxy, surrounded by Bloodstone and dense crystalline Tiran. Previous to this conflict, he had planted artificial psionic devices that disrupted Undead tear-drive technology. This would force them to funnel through a valley of fire and crystal beauty, called the Bloodstone Jordan. Here rested the largest of Anahn stations extensively used during the civil war: a huge marine training facility called the Bloodstone Garrison. Realizing that if the Undead gained control of this key location the war would be over, Haktish and Adashim designed a retrofit plan to the station.

They were going to build the biggest gun of them all.

Time passed slowly as Anahn threw themselves at the approaching Undead juggernaut but could do little to slow them down. Every minute counted, the demons converging on the one access point to innermost Anahn space. The dozen demon battlecruisers would attempt to jump directly into the Jordan, Adashim predicted, one-by-one. The Undead could jump smaller ships almost directly on top of the station. He had to position Anahn ships in dense formations around the facility, and force them to fight a battle they were ill-prepared to fight - close quarters. Extremely close quarters.

The Garrison was large enough as it was in the narrow crystalline caverns, but Haktish mapped out positions for over a million of the largest Anahn warships to cover the gaps.

There was a problem, though. The Anahn could build no power source capable of powering the Garrison cannon fast enough to destroy every single subverted battlecruiser that would come through the Jordan. This was it, Adashim knew. The time to prove himself.

He would power the cannon with his own blood. He would withstand the onslaught with his bare hands.


So it began, the greatest battle in Anahn history. The Undead attacked in a typical manner. At first, it was easy. Thousands of Undead cruisers entered Anahn space in intra-system jumps, spraying darkness in the otherwise beautiful serenity of the Jordan, and there they were destroyed by Anahn defenders.

As the first Battlecruisers appeared, Adashim fired the Garrison cannon. Each ship would just appear in physical space, not quick enough to activate their weapons, and then a bolt of light would smash into them and spray an ocean of searing glitter across the Jordan. Every shot became consecutively harder for Adashim. His was still weakened, and every shot seemed to suck life out of him. Adashim was not trained in the arts of psionic warfare, nor was he experienced in what he sought to do.

Meanwhile, the Undead assault greatly increased in severity. Often the station was surrounded by an Undead fleet three times the size of its defenders. With no room to maneuver effectively, the ships simply blasted each other. Every time Anahn ships were destroyed, others would move from the inner galaxy and jump in to replace them. It was a battle that lasted an entire day. Each ship, be it Anahn or Undead, had an average engagement time of half a minute before it was destroyed.

One-by-one, the Undead's subverted battlecruisers appeared in the Jordan, and were destroyed. Every ship that was obliterated beneath the cannon brought the Anahn that much closer together, and when the battle was finally won, it would be remembered for all as simply, "The Jordan". No longer did Anahn question their God.

With the defeat of the Myrookk fleet and their own forces battered, Adashim knew he had to recover, and quickly. The Undead possessed far more deadly powers than those they carelessly threw his way. The Myrookk were not even a true Undead fleet. Untold horrors had gorged themselves upon the energy released by his wars. Horrors he had intentionally awoken.


The Fear

Adashim recovered quickly from his losses. With Baletongue defeated, he immediately expanded outwards and arranged for a total of three expedition fleets to be launched to specific regions of space. Although Adashim was gifted with amongst the most potent of the Kyru's foresight abilities, their abilities were still very much limited. He had to interact with elements of the world to clear his picture of the future.

One fleet travelled to a region inhabited by Asthurr remnants, and encountered the Xy`Kranasha. Commanded by Haktish's last blood-son, Haroth, who had been fused to a flagship's computer network, was forced out of the region by the Xy`Kranasha and DyiithJhinn after an extended engagement (Storyline - "Black Sun"). The second fleet, commanded by Admiral Askaramaan, Haktish's second-last blood-son, travelled to a region in subspace to be discovered as a Zelconian boarder. An Undead squadron followed them, the Nightmare Vindication, and ambushed them as they encountered the Zelconian flagship, the Heidomus. The Anahn were able to defeat the Nightmare Vindication, but Askaramaan was killed in a duel against the Heidomus. The Zelconian spared the remaining Anahn forces, who left the region and returned to Adashim with records of their engagements (Storyline - "Heidomus Kaladonmus - The Legend of Heidomus"[/i]). Haktish was especially wounded by the loss of another son, and vowed to destroy the Zelconian should they meet again.

But Adashim had known that the Anahn would face defeats in these regions. To him the losses were acceptable - his interaction with alien elements through the Anahn clarified his visions of the future. He knew now that something was watching him. Something had followed him from the Abyss, observing his every movement. This something was an Undead warship of colossal scale, one who had somehow gained partial independence from the Great Undying. This ship, called The Fear, had been feeding upon him and his wars for all this time. It would soon make its move.


The Fear was a vessel of such scale and power that Adashim dared not encourage it to engage directly. He calmly directed his forces and advanced technology, seeking to break past the restrictions of kinetic armaments. It was during this time he had reached the limits of his knowledge of technology and individual elements. Anahn technology reached a roadblock in their capacity to deal with Undead energy-metal. For a while, Adashim and the Royal Family focused on updating their older ships with shields and Proteus scattering armor technology that would given some degree of resistance against the Deimos element.

Deimos is an element descending from the Dark Matter elemental tree. Its unique properties grant each Deimos particle the ability to release a tremendous amount of a special type of radiation, simply called Deimos radiation. Even the smallest of Deimos weapons are fatal to non-shielded ships, as the radiation could vaporize Tiran metals in a heartbeat. Deimos weapons fired on stars could consume their fuel in an instant. Meanwhile, Undead ships were immune to the effects of gravity, ether, and heat. Kinetic weapons were only effective because they destabilized regions of their energy-metal upon impact. Even so, Undead ships could fully regenerate in under a minute if the damage did not completely disrupt their psionic image, maintained not by crew, but by souls of the damned fused to said image. Adashim did not fully understand how Undead physics worked, only that they were constantly evolving, constantly becoming more dangerous. He needed a more reliable way to damage or disrupt their speed and maneuverability to give slower ships a chance at surviving more than a few seconds.

Without the time to construct monstrously large Battlestations or Bloodstone Battlecruisers, the only large Anahn warship that was constructed during this time was the Bloodstone Champion II - the Khorannaroth. At two-thousand kilometers in length, it was on the same scale as the original Bloodstone Battlecruiser. However, it was powered by a unique power source - the Black Sun itself. Compressing the super star and taming it through the use of the last remnanets of Kyru technology available to him and the priestess he had capture, Adashim equipped the last of his great flagships with a most valuable power source. The Khoran was, at its heart, just a vessel for the Black Sun, to deliver it to a safer region in the future. Adashim never specified where this region was, only that Anahn space was no longer safe.

The Undead returned shortly after. These were not simple Myrookk, but true third-generation Undead, equipped with pure energy-metal and Deimos firepower yet unwitnessed by the mortal worlds. The Undead invasion was divided between the Anahn and the Zegredark on the other side of Creation, and Adashim intended to take advantage of this diversion - but he had to be wary of the darkness that watched his every move, waiting for its opportunity to feed upon him.

As the Anahn finally concluded their research on the information provided by Haroth and Askaramaan, Adashim came to a disturbing discovery. The Undead that were encroaching on his new boarders were not being launched by the Great Undying, they were being controlled by the Fear itself. This monstrosity had the capacity to overpower the will of other Undead, and was turning them away from the ashes of Templar civilization. Scarcely an hour had passed in the time it took for the Undead to devastate the most powerful mortal civilization Adashim knew of. They would attack again soon, and this time it would be fatal. Adashim had to be ready for when they turned to him next.

Taking advantage of these skirmishes from the Fear toying with him, he employed the use of experimental new weapons - quantum disruptors. They aimed to disrupt the elemental bonds of Undead ships, but the most they could do was temporarily slow them down. Against conventional ships these weapons were devastating, but against Undead their effectiveness was unreliable. Adashim had to accept his blessings, no matter how small.

The Fear seemed to enjoy this struggle.

"Let it watch. Let it flounder in our dried blood. Let the demons spoil in their bloodshed."


The Average Undead battlecruiser was more than a match for ten Anahn battlecruisers. Not only were Undead larger, but they could also move far faster. Most Undead vessels could accelerate to 3/4C within a few seconds, allowing them to avoid incoming Railcannon projectiles. Only elemental weapons, that travelled faster than light, could reliably hit them. Such weapons were sparse in the Anahn arsenal - they had to compensate with firing patterns and numbers. Numbers, another advantage the Undead always had. Their numbers were only limited by the amount of life energy they had devoured over the ages of Creation and beyond. They were, for all intents and purposes, infinite in number. Only the Fear's hunger for a slow, tormenting death did the Anahn escape complete annihiliation from an overwhelming attack.


The Art of Anahn Combat

An overview of second, third, and fourth-age offensive and defensive tactical systems at your control while in the service of the Prince.

This doesn't cover all of your weapons systems, but rather, a summary of the major ones.



Overview

Anahn combat is more conventional than the other races. You'll recognize some features on their ships at a glance. First, huge cannons. Huge cannons are big, slow, and pack a hell of a punch. There's some big differences between these large pow-wows, however.

The Tiran element is a unique material found within Anahn space, created by Adashim's arrival to Creation and the subsequent destruction of his Soulshard he had used to create the Anahn. Tiran can be processed in two different ways, either yielding an immensely resistent composite metal or an extremely reactive sand-like powder capable of releasing tremendous energy if given a current. Tiran descends from the Spectral Matter elemental tree and is amongst the few true elements that can assume a form similar to metal.

Second-age systems

As the Undead-Myrookk war reached its climax in the battle of the Jordan, and the Anahn began the infancy of introducing super-advanced Kyru technology into their current production pipeline, the majority of their fleet consisted of refurbished second-age vessels, smaller, heavy ships employed primarily during the great civil war. All but the largest and most expensive second-age ships are restricted to "conventional" weapons, or physical-based attacks. This typically entails the usage of Tiran elemental powder (think black powder on crack trained in the arts of killing by Chuck Noriss) to launch a variety of ammunition at extreme velocities over moderate ranges. Most average Railcannon projectile speeds were around 1/2C. Systems utilizing subspace waves to break ether resistance could send projectiles at five times the speed of light, but such technology was difficult to create at the time.

Second-age vessels are the foundation of your fleet. As they are so numerous and simple, constructing and fielding them is cheap, efficient, and helps clear out the mess back at home.

Battle Cannons

The Battle Cannon is a conventional cannon system using Tiran elemental powder to discharge a large shell, usually depleted uranium or a solid Tiran slug, across a large distance.

These shells are shaped in ovals and function just as well in atmosphere as they do in vacuum. Due to the heat produced by the tiran explosive, the DU shells are coated in a thick layer of conventional metals designed to melt as the projectile is fired, creating a hybrid shell of liquid metal that explodes violently when it impacts something. Slugs do not heat up when fired as even impure Tiran is impossible to heat up conventionally.

Battle Cannon autoloaders are efficient, but not enough to bring these weapons into the state of readiness an energy weapon has. They fire slowly, and so they are usually fielded in rows and rows of barrels so they can overlap each other's firing pattern and shower enemies in wave after wave of withering shells.

Powerguns

The Powergun is usually a smaller weapons platform used for point defense or close-range engagement. Powerguns are typically sets of barrels attached to a minigun-esque multiloader that rapidly fire liquid metal by superheating it as it is fired. These platforms are cooled by liquid nitrogen and can achieve incredible firing rates, spraying incoming strike craft or the unfortunate cruiser's waste disposal unit with searing shrapnel. Powerguns fire in lasting volleys and then drought their systems and recharge their individual power cores which takes a few seconds.

Larger Powergun platforms were created, but are still restricted to smaller engagement zones than Battle Cannons and generally fire slugs. Almost all ship-born Powerguns fire slugs by the third age for maximum range.

Slag Cannons

The primary weapon of larger ships, these monstrous weapons are, in a nutshell, railguns. Known in Anahn as Railcannons and nicknamed Slag Cannons for the enormous plume of fire that is the hallmark of their design, these giant platforms use Tiran elemental powder to give a large projectile initial inertia, which is then computed real-time by the fire control computer, and then aligned with magnetic rails. The specially-designed Tiran-plated shells travel at extreme velocities and can tear apart conventional ships in a single shot. Even small Slag Cannons can deal crippling blows to larger vessels, and they lead to the rise of reactive armor plating almost exclusively.

The drawback of Slag Cannons is that small ships cannot field these systems on turrets, and their cooldown time is much larger than those of Battle Cannons. Railcannon barrels are designed in a manner which allow the rails to spin the projectile like a threaded barrel might, providing even greater penetration capacity.

It isn't uncommon to see large battleships fielding these in rows along their sides for maximum broadside firing power.

Subspace torpedoes

With the invention of Battle Cannons and Powerguns, conventional missile systems were rapidly outdated by the dawn of the civil war. With the accuracy and rate of fire presented by these moderate-range engagement systems, no amount of missiles could ever approach an Anahn battlegroup without being shot down.

However, many Warlords invested in the development of very large, very destructive devices that fielded their own powercores that allowed them to quickly reach velocities unheard of by even interceptor craft. These missiles were very time-consuming to produce and difficult to field, making their numbers small, and deployment unpredictable.

Subspace torpedoes typically carry multiple low-yield fusion reactors and a single, primary reactor or a large Tiran powder charge that detonates upon impact. The forces released by these city-sized projectiles can easily destroy planets, and often they were used for long-range bombardments in the destruction of star systems or platforms. Some Warlords developed highly advanced torpedoes that shielded themselves in Subspace bubbles, rendering them indestructible to conventional weapons.

Reactive Armor

Anahn ships are very cramped inside. Even the largest of battlecruiser have relatively limited interiors. They aren't pleasureships, they're vessels of war. And vessels of war are loaded in armor. Not just any old armor plating, but layers upon layers of extremely resilient reactive armor.

These carefully-designed reactive armor segments are designed to be extremely magnetic, and are built around self-powered reactive quadrents. Once the firing control detects an incoming projectile, generally the round of a Railcannon, the magnetic systems force the molecules of the quadrent to become closer together, more dense. The result is a much tougher material to break through. Additionally, if a round does penetrate the quadrant, the metal will fragment and shatter, yielding minimal damage to nearby quadrants, and yielding another layer of reactive armor below it.

Ultimately, these systems result in a power-consuming and demanding to operate defensive network that smaller ships do not have the luxury of benefiting from. There is another problem, too.

The Undead.

Reactive armor was designed to shunt the concussive force of large impacts and explosions away from the hull, something that Undead plasma and Deimos-based weapons don't need to worry about. Deimos in particular taught the Anahn a very painful lesson about their reliance on conventional armor systems. A single, well-placed Deimos bolt from a fighter could punch straight through the entire armor line of a Battleship and vaporize its interior.

Third age

The Third Age dawned at the unity of the Anahn, once more under the flag of the Kyru wanderer, Adashim, the prince of blood. Once unified, he pooled what remained of his galaxy's resources into researching new technology and the upgrading of second-age ships. It wasn't long before the Undead Myrookk fleet knocked on his door and demanded such rapid evolution.

Proteus-based power cores and weapon systems

Proteus is a relatively easy element to produce. Get a big enough fusion reactor, manipulate the energy in a specific manner, create an artificial psionic wavelength generator, you've got Proteus. More advanced races can produce Proteus without going through energy manipulation and simply have Proteus cores, but the Anahn weren't so lucky to have this technology quite yet.

Anahn don't have artificial psionics, either. Meaning that producing energy weapons on this level is even more of a challenge. However, Adashim had the solution, being Kyru technology, of which only the newer ships benefit from.

Anahn proteus weapons were relatively new and untested. They are generally limited to pulse-based bolt weapons and not direct energy transfer systems, ie beam cannons. However, they have the advantage of better engagement times than Battle Cannons and provide acceptable damage for their production difficulty.

Upon the climax of the Anahn-Myrookk war, the Anahn had a breakthrough in Proteus core technology and utilized a massive upgrade system to overhaul all existing cores. The result was a hybrid of technology that produced the first generation of true Proteus energy cores which are seen only in third-age vessels. The result is superior engine systems, armor stability, and weapon deployment capacity.

Anahn beam cannon technology was still in its infancy, often regarded as "too power expensive" when a large number of Slag Cannons can do the same work. However, Adashim did not abandon the idea.

Fusion Cannons

Shunting the reactive energy of a fusion core into a beam has been something the Anahn have wanted to do for a very long time. They've had the power sources, but never the means to develop a delivery system.

While the Anahn cannot develop refined Fusion weapons like advanced civilizations can, they can create crude, blunt, immensely destructive engines of destruction that fire miniature stars in a general direction and obliterate whatever they hit. These weapons are typically limited to large battlestations as their power requirements and delivery array are rather large and limit alternate system functionality.

Fourth Age

The Fourth Age of Anahn technology radically changes Anahn science with Adashim's knowledge of Kyru technology. There is no "beta phase" - you get the newest and the shiniest of gadgets as they are developed.

Quantum-based Battle Cannons

To face off with the likes of the Xy`Kranasha, whose terror has held all of material space in a grip of madness for years, and the Undead, whose brutality and recklessness know no bounds, you're going to need big and very hard-hitting weapons.

Quantum energy Battle Cannons utilize quantum energy to project condensed shells carrying miniature Proteus cores into their targets. You can only access these platforms once you have researched portable energy-to-matter technology, as the shells are too difficult to produce through conventional means.

QBC's have a longer engagement radius and a faster movement speed than traditional cannons, and the damage their projectiles do is staggering, even to alien armor. If desired, the projectiles of these systems can tear a star apart. QBC's exist only in the super-heavy B and A grade weapons category (battlecruisers and above); there is no small types.

Proteus Beam Cannons

Instead of stretching a core's energy lifetime over the course of several seconds, Adashim later gave in to a more Asthurr-styled delivery system. The result is a very fast, pulsar-esque beam that travels faster than the speed of light. This still drains a core of power, and has a very long recharge time, but when the time calls for a quick precision strike that deals massive damage, PBC's answer the call. Their ancestors appeared in the Third Age in the form of Flame Lance cannons, but true Proteus-based beam weaponry is considerably more potent and longer ranged.

Jordan Cannons

Smaller than the original Bloodstone Garrison weapon that defeated the Myrookk at the battle of the Jordan, these enormous immobile cannons can be hyperspaced directly onto the battlefield. Jordan Cannons have enormous recharge times as their Kyru systems struggle with limited Proteus power requirements, but when they fire, anything that stands in their way is in for a very bad day. Oh god, I rhymed again.