The Mara¶
The Progenitors' firstborn seed-race, who overthrew their makers and hold Nandana sacred. The antagonists of Acts 2 and 3.
[!quote] "We were the first word the makers spoke. We made sure we were the last. Whatever you are to them, do not make us say it again through you." — Vritra
Nature: created race, the makers' firstborn · Creed: the makers were slavers; their work must not regrow · War-leader at Nandana: Vritra
Who they are¶
The Mara were seeded long before humanity and reached great power under the Progenitors — then came to believe they were not children but property. They rose, warred, and drove the makers out of the sector (see The Seeding). What remains of them is a civilization organized around a single certainty: the makers must never return, and no new servant-race must ever be grown to restore them.
They are not mindless. They are right enough to be frightening — a people who broke their own chains and now police the galaxy against the thing that chained them. That the policing looks like genocide, to them, is the tragedy of being correct.
Why they come for the Colony¶
To the Mara, Nandana is the First Garden — the makers' masterwork, holy and forbidden. A human colony taking root there might be the Progenitors growing back through a new seed — and the Mara cannot tell, and will not wait to find out. Even the possibility is intolerable. Scouring the colony is, in their creed, sacred hygiene, not conquest. This makes the war existential: you may not be the thing they exist to prevent — but they dare not gamble that you aren't.
On the board¶
| Trait | Effect in play |
|---|---|
| Exotic arsenal | Corrupted maker-tech: energy weapons, light-blades, phase-strike teleport |
| Zealot discipline | Coordinated, fearless, willing to trade lives for holy ground — see the Mara Zealot |
| Orbital reach | Arrive by fleet; can bombard and reinforce from above until you contest orbit |
| Weakness | Doctrine over pragmatism — their certainty can be turned into a trap |
The mirror
The Mara may be what humanity could become — if the two peoples share an origin at all, which no one has confirmed. That "if" is the point. Every argument they make about the Progenitors assumes a kinship with humanity that is never proven. Believe them, and the "gift" of Nandana curdles; doubt them, and you may be exterminating the only people who remember the makers at all.