Location[]
The Drownscaled Tempest, Xhalsoth’akaroth System. The Rainreaved Ocean.
Government[]
Prior to Operation: Bull Market, Zhryai’loth was ruled exclusively by the Thirteen Archivist Lords, positions that stretched back to the world’s founding. Heavily augmented warlords, they each commanded their own personal armies and navies and wielded authority over a portion of the Icano Secalshion Koshin, the sprawling megalopolis colloquially known as the Grand Library. The city-colony was the seat of authority on Zhryai’loth and Zhryai’loth, as the best established and most prosperous world in the Tempest, was the seat of power in the region. The worlds of Amnoskeld and Syo-Ba, the Lighthouse megastructure, all aligned themselves with the Archivist Lords; exchanging mercenary soldiers and favorable economic arrangements for ease of access to the Relays and the greater Transversal. The Archivists were essentially feudal lords, filling their personal retinues with Gongbashe and their coffers with the proceeds of trade.
Then the corporate invasion: a lackluster response from their erstwhile allies coupled with internal populist uprisings mixed with the mercenary incursion. Already bitter rivals at best a number of the Archivists betrayed their fellows, a move mirrored by a handful of the more moderate insurgent factions. The modern political landscape on Zhryai’loth is a mix of those three factions.
The Archivists remain as a hereditary executive branch and are still allowed to field their own private forces, though hard limits have been set on their numbers, and additionally retain administrative control over the city proper and its functions and utilities. However their power is now balanced by the Kaith, the Curatory, a popularly elected legislative and advisory body with veto authority as well as the Titan Corporation which has installed itself as the dominant military force of the region.
Current Rulers and Leaders[]
The Archivist Lords rule Zhryai’loth alongside the Curatory and Titan Corporation.
Population[]
Settled approximately one thousand years ago, Zhryai’loth was originally a distant colony of their empire that survived the catastrophic fragmentation and subsequent contraction of the state.
Immigrant and transient populations of the planet are notably large as befitting its station as a trading capital. Batarians, hanar, turians, the rare krogan and the rarer human (the last almost always company employed) can be found here as well.
Description[]
Zhryai’loth is a garden world in the iconic sense: mostly shirtsleeves climates, (comparatively) temperate weather, and a wide range of biomes that can be settled with relative ease. Transsapientism was introduced here through trade and cultural exchange rather than out of raw necessity. Out of all the territories of the Drownscaled Tempest, Zhryai’loth has the most diversity in its available augments. Numerous Archetypes are present in its halls, samples from across the spectrum; from the dominantly biological to the almost exclusively mechanical, and everything in between.
Zhryai’loth was and in many ways remains a trading state. Tools and tech, medicine and narcotics, ships and slaves and military materiel all passed through the gates of Icano Secalshion Koshin, situated as it was at a nexus of several secondary relays (the Fengdra Diluvian Relays) and within easy access of the Sadarung Floodgate Relay. All this was taxed by the Archivists. The treasure-halls and sunken storerooms of the city were packed with mineral and metal wealth, with weapons and servers packed full of precious information.
And for a time, things were peaceful and that peace bred prosperity. But as the years slowly turned on that prosperity brought with it a greater greed. A hunger for more power, influence and wealth. The Archivists were no longer content to be a simple trading outpost of the greater Rainreaved. They wanted to become a focal point of the cluster.
The power-play saw money changing hands and military changing allegiances. Pirates began preying on the Shrike-Rainreaved trade route, seizing rival ships and besieging space stations. The plan was to ensure Zhryai’loth as the only economic power of note in the area. To force the powers of the Rainreaved and the nations of the Shrike to do business with it or not at all. For much of the Sankaita No the prospect was reasonable enough, ultimately most of them would suffer but minor fiscal losses, not enough to justify a military deployment, and those targeted could not levy support for much beyond token sanctions and condemnations. Likewise many in the Shrike could bear the minor inconvenience in the interrupted trade while those in direct competition with Zhryai’loth could only seethe.
Ultimately the Archivists plans never came to fruition. Kraithandai, one of the Shrike worlds devastated by the piracy campaign, hired on a company of Omega based mercenaries. Those mercenaries fought the Archivists, fought them and won against virtually all odds. And the rest is history. Or at least Contemporary Politics of the Transversal.
Like the rest of the Drownscaled Tempest, life goes on under Titan rule. New banners fly from the Grand Library on the continental island in Zhryai’loth's southern Jade Seas. Though the tradelanes have shifted some, the planet still does a roaring business. Mercenary armies from the Tempest fight for other worlds, guard for other worlds in the Rainreaved but, fundamentally, what has happened to so many other would be conquerors has happened to the corporation from Omega. Rather than dominating or subjugating the region, they have become a part of it. An aspect of the Tempest and the Rainreaved beyond.