Usmaji

From FABT

Usmaji
Usmaji.jpg
Biographical information

Homeworld:

Vi

Status:

Extinct

Physical information

Height:

5'6

Skin color:

Light green

Hair color:

No hair

Eye color:

Black

Lifespan:

3000-4000 years

Distinctions:

Two eyes. Two fangs. Four arms. Four legs. Leathery skin. Cold-blooded. Six lungs. Two hearts.

Types:

Usmaji-Te
Usmaji-Nin
Usmaji-Paz
Usmaji-Vect

Political and military information

Affiliation:

Usmaj Ascendancy
The Reapers
New United Galactic Front of Races

Nomenclature:

Num Custos Saevus

 


"The Keepers are a sad example of the brutality of the Reapers. Instead of just wiping them out, they cybernetically enslave the remainder and use them as tools for embarking more cycles. I often wonder...what were they like? What was their culture? Their government? How long did they live for? What did they like doing in their spare time? All of that history is gone now. Even their species is extinct: these 'keepers' are merely mindless puppets, bereft of any independent thought. Lifeless."
Human historian.

Usmaji (Latin: Num Custos Saevus, literally meaning "cruel keeper"), known during the cycles as the Keepers, are an extinct species of formerly sentient/sapient organic quadrupedal people that were native to their former homeworld of Vi (formerly located near the modern-day cluster of the Shrike Abyssal). Achieving interstellar travel in 11004667211 BCE, the Usmaji were the third of six major civilizations to rise in the Milky Way Galaxy first, and thus one of the earliest known spacefaring species in galactic history. Whilst not interested in conquests, their species was known for their cruelty and isolationism, and anyone that dared to trespass on their borders never left, either being captured and tortured, dissected for medical and scientific exploitation, or sent to a penal colony, where the conditions were considered unsuitable for organic life. They were also racial supremacists, with the Usmaj Ascendancy, their main government following the development of space travel, believing all other races were inferior, which only added to their isolationism.

They also believed war was a sickness inherent in other cultures, one of which the Usmaji were safe from, as their species had very few conflicts in their interspersed history. However, exceptions were made on numerous occasions, and when the Tatha Navariao Empire, and later the Jetto Caan Hegemony, launched invasions into their territory during the centuries-long Annex Wars, they were shown to boast formidable military prowess when defending their territory, so much so that their brutality caused the Jetto Caan and Tatha Navariao to never invade their territory again until the Great Galactic Armageddon. Following the Annex Wars, the Usmaji began to aggressively expand into Tatha Navariao territory, and later into Jesh'qna and Bush territories as well, planning to cleanse the galaxy of their 'racially inferior filth.' These wars came to an end when a Leviathan experiment to solve the endless conflicts and ceaseless cosmic destruction plaguing the galaxy got out-of-control, leading to the creation of the Proto-Reapers. The resulting Great Apex War saw the Usmaji brought to near total extinction.

When it was over, the surviving Usmaji were harvested to create the third of the six first Reapers, Carrhanum. The rest, as punishment for their enormous cruelty and barbarity, were turned into the Keepers: they were stripped of free will and most of their organic tissue and organs, including their brain, was replaced with cybernetics. Their programming was to tend to the Citadel the Reapers had built, as well as open the portal when the Reaper vanguard signalled them. They were given no ability for free will, and their natural reproductive process was removed to ensure they could not breed their way out of it, with a 'keeper factory' built at the Citadel's heart that would create replacements en masse. With this complete, the Usmaji extinction was complete. The keepers would continue to serve the Reapers for hundreds of millenia afterwards, until they were modified to ignore the signal the Reapers gave by prothean scientists. Once their nature was revealed, after the Reaper War ended, the keepers were kept around to continue maintaining the Citadel, as it was deemed that it was impossible to free them. Regardless, the keepers were completely wiped out when the Citadel was destroyed on Eos in 2253 CE.

History[edit | edit source]

Ancient Times[edit | edit source]