Dan Vs. Iokath · 4:31pm Dec 26th, 2022
Star Wars has lots of superweapons. Weapons that reach such a status are considered powerful enough to threaten entire planets, so strong that they can eliminate entire armies and space navies with ease. They are not always massive machines; some are small ships, organically-grown satellite weapons, strange creatures or missiles and droids of various sizes, shapes and strange natures. Many are, however, enormous space station-sized monstrosities that can threaten worlds with subjugation or outright destruction. Superweapons have their own special classification, setting them apart from the usual arsenal and range from planetary to galaxy-class weapons. Throughout the long history of the galaxy far, far away, many superweapons have been created, and many worlds have known their threat.
Many worlds have sought to create defenses from such terrible weapons. One planet, however, desired to do the impossible... and dedicated their existence to making them. That planet was known as Iokath.
Yes! Yes, Iokath, such a gorgeous planet. So rich, so symmetrical and pure... and so full of power. We've had our eyes on Iokath for quite some time and oh boy, are we ready. The Terran Empire's own efforts at researching galaxy-class superweapons has been, unfortunately, limited by our lack of resources. Constant conquest means that we have to focus on smaller and more efficient means of terror and destruction, and so many of these weapons take up SO MUCH POWER it's just too much of a drain on our resources. That, and the damned Resistance might get their hands on one of them... or a lowly captain might decide to get ambitious. Wouldn't be the first time it's happened.
So yes, our research into such weapons is severely lacking. A whole planet like Iokath, devoted entirely to studying different weapons and their effectiveness, well... that would certainly speed things along, wouldn't it?
The planet Iokath was once home to a sprawling civilization, another galactic empire that was based on a single species. Historical records from this time are sketchy, but they could have been dominant long before even the rise of the Rakatan Empire, the Hutts and the Republic. What is known is that on Iokath, these rulers built all manner of weapons and technology designed to rule the planets they conquered. For centuries, they studied countless ways to maintain populations, manage growth, suppress uprisings and promote progress. They made many breakthroughs in the fields of medicine and agriculture and created new species of flora and fauna adapted to new climates. They were even able to harness the power of stars and singularities... it seemed nothing was beyond them.
The weapons they made were not meant to oppress, but to maintain. The aliens that created Iokath, whoever they were, wanted to learn.
Unfortunately, Iokath is all that is left of them. A species that once conquered much of the known galaxy collapsed at the very height of their power and fell into obscurity. All of their innovations and technology, all their knowledge remains on Iokath. Because no records remain except those on Iokath, deciphering them is incredibly difficult even for the best xenoarchaeologists. A few things have been gleaned but by far Iokath remains a planet mostly of mysteries. And mysteries can be very dangerous.
Who the hell cares who these people were? It's just like the frakking Federation to want to know all the backwoods folk songs and fairy tales told by a species that died out millions of years ago. We know all we need to know about the trilobite, okay? Digging up more fossils and decoding the language of a bunch of ancient volcano worshippers isn't going to tell us anything we don't already know. That's what the Federation and what Equestria don't understand: there is such a thing as useless information and cataloging it takes up space.
Oh yeah, these Iokath blokes were religious, too. They built a bunch of machines that even considered themselves to be "gods." What a joke. Gods do not represent things; gods ARE things represented. The Empress rules because she has power; she does not share it. These Iokath fools squabbled with each other, argued about how to better handle their weapons on world populations, some of them broke off and joined them, the masses rose up and overthrew them. Divided, they fell, end of story.
You see, separating power, dividing up the branches of government is just another form of division. You thought you could control corruption but you only delayed it. Power is like gravity; mass creates gravity, larger mass pull smaller masses into them. You join or die, divided you fall. All that remains is power and the poor fools that built this place aren't around to claim it. But we are.
As Iokath grew and evolved, so did its efforts of "maintaining" the galaxy. They developed contained biomes on the planet's surface to act as test environments for their weapons and technology. Armies of droid "custodians" regularly disposed of any remains and waste, including test populations. These droids still function today and regularly "cleanse" organics unlucky enough to venture onto Iokath's surface, though many explorers still brave the dangers to seek treasure. Some of the planet's biomes remain active and teeming with life, overgrown in many cases.
What is interesting is that these "gods" still exist to this day- and we know of a way to control them. Six massive droids, the "old gods of Zakuul" or something or other, they exist in a complex on the planet's surface. We haven't had much luck in reaching this complex, but if we could get our hands on one of these droids, well, would do some research of our own.
It's not exactly known how many weapons are scattered across the surface of Iokath or hidden somewhere in its depths. That knowledge is- blah blah blah blah, lost to the pages of history, we get it. You Allied people really take your time explaining things that are really simple. Look, we know the Iokath bastards were wiped out and there were probably multiple factors to it. Disease, plague, famine, some sort of virus they probably created and that along with civil war and their own subjugated "test subjects" rising up against them, that did them all in.
They found the last member of the species dead on some kind of throne, a control module, we think. Apparently, these 'thrones' allow you to connect and control various weapons. We need to get ahold of these modules somehow; too bad they're in another universe at the moment. But, as you've seen, we have ways around that little obstacle.
Generations' worth of history and research, lost to time. An ancient civilization mysteriously vanished, leaving behind machines of unparalleled power and might. Mysteriously, despite the tremendous power Iokath held, the planet has remained virtually unscathed throughout the passing conflicts. Perhaps the builders of this world and its secrets built it to last, or maybe some secret defense lies buried in its construction. The Terran Empire, the Federation, even Equestria has a reason to search the unspoiled ruins of this strange and dangerous world.
Knowledge of superweapons does not end with how to build them. In understanding them, we may also glean a defense against them. Knowledge is power, after all, and there is much knowledge still contained on Iokath.
Dan Vs. IKEA
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The six god Driods of Isokath worry me because I cant remember what each of the methods were, just that at least at one point in my personal history Ive seen at least 6 different ways to trigger a Total Reality Collapse, and at least a couple of them were handheld.
As for the population, Ive seen a couple stories that used a similar method, reason. One was used in Eon by Greg Bear. Or any of many other Virtuality Civilisations. which often end up being higher dimentionality just by effect of existance.
Higher dimentionality is pretty much how you handle anything alrger than a single star anyway, because of the severe limitation of the speed of light. Unless you really want to torture a while galaxy by detnating it with a speed of light dissolution wave, which takes 100 thousand years or so to complete.
For power efficiency, you really can't beat the Sun Crusher. It was the size of a large starfighter, had its own hyperdrive, could take out the majority of a solar system by destabilizing the star into going nova, and was physically invulnerable.
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Indeed. It would've been really fun to fly around. And you could disguise it amid Equestria by making it look like a giant ice cream cone. No one who knew Equestria would even guess it twice; it would just look like a themed ice cream parlor.
Not that that wasn't my plan already.