First Rachni Collective
From FABT
  The First Rachni Collective at its greatest extent in 48 CE prior to the Fourth Rachni War.
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Type of government: |
Telepathic quasi-monarchy |
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Head of State: |
Starsinger Musics of Blue and Green (first) |
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Commander-in-chief: |
Starsinger Musics of Blue and Green (first) |
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Executive: |
Starsinger Musics of Blue and Green (first) |
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Military: |
Entire species |
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Capital: |
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Official language: |
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Anthem: |
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| Historical information | |
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Formed from: |
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Dates: |
6 April 5290 BCE - 15 July 53 CE
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Preceded by: |
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Succeeded by: |
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- "Our children shall sing crimson and black songs, silencing yours in our infinite symphony. Your songs shall cease. Our songs shall rise."
- — The rachni starsinger Symphonic Exalted to Jaleztea T'mios just before the Battle of Suen.
The First Rachni Collective, simply known as the Collective, also known as the Rachni Collective and as the Rachni Empire, was the representative body of Suen, its hives and rachni colonies from 5290 BCE to 53 CE. The origins of the First Rachni Collective date back to when the rachni were first uplifted by the Prothean Empire in 71660 BCE during the Sixth March, bred by the protheans as weapons of war, with their queens being bred to be warlike and bloodthirsty before being turned upon the enemies of the Prothean Empire. By the Eighth March though, the rachni, having formed under the Rachni Hordes, had become too difficult to control and turned on their prothean masters. The resulting war was one of the first times in their history the Prothean Empire faced a credible threat to their power, but in the end they were victorious, driving the rachni back to their homeworld and purged 200 worlds in the process, only leaving Suen alone once they believed the rachni were extinct. In reality, the rachni had survived, in diminished numbers, but in their intelligence had remained in hiding, remaining on Suen and never challenging the protheans again. By the time the Prothean Empire and all life in the galaxy had been wiped out by the Reapers, the rachni numbered in their billions, living within their vast, interconnected network of subterranean cities beneath Suen's harsh, toxic surface.
It would be tens of thousands of years before the rachni saw fit to unite again, finally doing so in 5290 BCE and creating the First Rachni Collective. From here the rachni began to build ships, using their memories, passed down from generation to generation of rachni queens, to begin building ships from which to reclaim the worlds that were once theirs and new ones, and as they were the only species at the time in engaged in spaceflight, nobody would threaten their way of life. Despite this, the rachni still built and maintained a powerful fleet of organic ships that utilized powerful biotic weaponry. The Rachni Empire occupied most of the eastern half of the galaxy, and enjoyed total dominance for millenia. The First Rachni Collective itself was less of an official nation-state than it was merely the result of a unified rachni species, following a single rachni bred to lead them. The Starsinger, a rare variant of a rachni queen that made up one out of every thousand rachni queen, was chosen to lead their collective, possessing the unique telepathic capabilities to direct all rachni queens. The rachni soon developed the technology that allowed the Starsinger to project this ability across their interstellar territories, creating an early form of natural quantum entangelment communication. The Starsinger was essentially a monarch for all rachni, although the rachni did not see it this way: a Starsinger existed by virtue of genetic lottery, and their leadership was accepted as a matter of rachni psychology rather than of a need to possess a leader. As such, civil wars among the rachni didn't happen, as all rachni shared common cause with each other. Despite prothean attempts to turn the rachni into weapons of war, the rachni were not an inherently violent race, and mostly went to war with the protheans out of a baser instinct to survive rather than to conquer.
All of that changed in 500 BCE with the establishment of the Citadel Council between the Asari Republics and Salarian Union. The Reaper vanguard of the asari cycle, Sovereign, saw the First Rachni Collective as a potential threat to the Reaper cycle, as they were developing along a path that sat outside the Reaper plans. Needing to curb their advancement, Sovereign indoctrinated the Starsinger, by effect taking control of the entire First Rachni Collective and encouraging it to expand its territory far enough west that it would eventually intersect with the Salarian Union's rate of expansion eastwards. The two species finally met in 1 CE when the Salarian Union activated a relay leading into a rachni-controlled territory, and through Sovereign's direction, the rachni slaughtered the salarian explorers and invaded Union territory, starting the First Rachni War and beginning fifty years of intermittent, bloody conflict. The Rachni Collective pushed back the Council forces time and time again, their powerful weapons of war and technology pushing the Council to the brink of defeat just prior to the Fourth Rachni War, when the Tuchankan Empire stepped in, recently uplifted by the salarians. The krogan showed no mercy to the rachni, reconquering occupied worlds before pushing into rachni territory, obliterating world after world, cleansing it of the rachni. The Rachni Empire was dissected piece by piece, until eventually all that was left was the rachni homeworld, but with Sovereign directing them, the rachni refused to surrender, and so the krogan took the fight to Suen's surface, eventually wiping out the rachni completely, seemingly rendering them extinct once more. The First Rachni Collective effectively ceased to exist, as did the rachni species until 2180 CE, where an egg on a derelict rachni ship was discovered by Binary Helix, hatching a rachni queen and allowing the species to live once more.