Seen throughout the Array as great warriors who show their mettle in violent games, the Morathi have always adopted a strategy to land troops on an enemy’s world, and seize their stuff, and hold their leaders for ransom. This plays into their strengths. They are not noted for ship-to-ship combat, but they spend a lot of their budget on a large military, leaning in to jump tech and landing craft. Much of that is always facing the Shadar Empire as a deterrent and potential attack force, and a big part of what’s left is facing off against Almerand over Vieden.
The Dominion lost part of its territory a generation ago, when Osterosza broke away to form its own kingdom. Needless to say, this has pissed off the proud Morathi.
The Morathi came from their home system, Morathin, starting on a pair of worlds. One was low-G, Ingehen, home of the Glinde; the other a high-G world, Mora, home of the Unsaag. It’s known from archeological evidence that Ingehen has been inhabited from the time of the Arrival, while Mora was settled by a crashed sub-luminal colony ship about 11,000 years ago. Modern thinking is that the ship was headed for Glinde.
The high-G Mora is further from its Sun, and is the larger planet. It has a stronger thicker atmosphere that retains heat. Unsaag developed to be stronger and primarily shorter. The air has enough oxygen for a short time, but people not from Mora need breathing assistance to be on the surface for more than an hour. An Unsaag can go a day, but will then begin to show adverse symptoms. It’s also pretty dark, being some ways from the star, and with a hazy upper atmosphere. The Unsaag, who also spend much of their time underground, have developed +1 for seeing in the dark.
There are two large seas that contain some Earth life. The large algae colonies there, as well as vents coming up from the active planet below, oxygenate the waters. The air gets what’s left after the essential sea life is done with it. Mostly deep-water life occupies the oceans, which are primarily subterranean. This puts them under pressure, so that deeper-water life from the Seeds planted here 50,000 years ago is able to exist at a shallower depth.
Currently, Mora is riddled with tunnels and chambers, with many foreign residents, whether clients or visitors. The Unsaag tend to frown on brief visitors. Their world is not a tourist attraction. Foreign residents on the planet proper are usually expected to stay for at least a term of four years. It is a military base as well as a world, with two massive beanstalks connecting to opposite high ports, one civilian, one military. These are the only ways cargo can be efficiently taken up and down from orbit, on such a high G world. They monitor unauthorized shuttle traffic, and are quick to shoot them down.
The Unsaag tend to breed very quickly. They fight and fuck and drink and gamble and joke and tell stories and sing songs, then repeat. They are the most jovial, by and large, of the major peoples.
The low-G world, Ingehen, is closer in, smaller than Earth, the atmosphere slightly thinner, but with a fairly large moon that helps stabilize its rotation.
Ingehen is very habitable, like a high-altitude area on Earth. The people are taller and thinner, but it’s much easier to get off of the planet, and their builds lend themselves to low-G environments, so that long-term inter-planetary space has been more represented by these people. They have great cardiovascular fitness.
The Glinde live for a long time naturally, and have relatively few children. They have some of the more philosophical leaders in the Array, but all in support of the Morathi agenda, usually set by the Unsaag. Most people outside of the Dominion would not recognize a Glinde as Morathi, because they are not noted as warriors, nor are they boisterous or stocky. They also usually have brown skin and pale hair.
A culture rose up between the worlds, about 3500 years ago (2572 a.r.), once they both had radio. They formed strange compatriots. The two worlds were able to share tech ideas, and advanced to an interplanetary level, so that a hundred years after they first spoke, they finally met in interplanetary space and shook hands.
The culture and ambition of Mora advanced at a faster rate than on Ingehen, with the Unsaag population pressure leading to them occupying moons and asteroids. The Glinde felt more secure and free for primarily ephemeral pursuits, grazing their goats on the hills of Ingehen.
The two worlds were able to listen to the Array-wide radio chatter, and knew that it was only a matter of time before other outsiders came to their star system, if they hadn’t already (UFO theorists did exist). The Unsaag of Mora pledged to defend the passive Glinde should they ever be threatened with violence, to their world or their people. The Glinde of Ingehen would provide their knowledge and advice in service to their mutual survival and success, pledging fealty to the High Khan in 2572 a.r.
It should be noted that not all Intellectuals are Glinde. That is a stereotype. In fact, most of the Intellectuals are Unsaag, but as a proportion of their population, Glinde are very likely to wind up in the Intellectuals caste. Some actually fight, and even compete in games. These are very few.
The Glinde do a good job of being abstract, advanced and efficient, but they are a vassal world, make no mistake. As the Unsaag say, “They swore fealty, and we accepted. We will defend them as though they were our own children.” The people of Mora take the technology the Glinde provide, and apply it to military uses, but also civilian projects, in order to ease the consciences of the Frail, as some Unsaag epithetically call the Glinde.
One sect of Glinde now lives in another system, and has a modified ethic regarding violence. While they do not act, they do provide advisors to the Unsaag in the field, such as ways to minimize losses, or to find the path of least resistance, or to spot traps. They are always support personnel. It is also on this world that Glinde and Unsaag breed freely, making some on both worlds uncomfortable. But success in the games, which are interplanetary, is achieved by some of the progeny of these matings, the overall strength, agility, endurance, height, athleticism, makes some of them great all-around athletes, rather than concentrating just on strength and fighting events. Most of these hybrids retain the non-violence, but compete only in athletic events. The Unsaag welcome this, because it does present a new challenge to which they will rise.
Competition and gambling and are major components of the complex culture that has developed in the Morathin system, and by extension, in the Domain more widely. It means that they are often the best negotiators in the Array, typically a well-placed Morathi (Unsaag are often generically called that), with a Glinde whispering in their ear. It also means that sometimes they misread a situation, and it doesn’t turn out their way, but they accept this.
Though they did develop tech that would have allowed it, they never bothered at first to send sub-light colonization attempts to nearby stars, which had only planets with low habitability.
Then, about 2500 years ago, jump-capable kingdoms did make contact. For hundreds of years, Morathin watched patiently as starports were built in orbit. They tolerated two down ports, one on each world. About 2000 years ago, or 5156 a.r., a smallish kingdom decided to recruit the Morathi for their military.
They took to it very quickly. Though the Glinde would not fight, their low-G physiologies made them perfect support personnel, and the high-G Unsaag were physically and temperamentally suited to be warriors, and so were used as marines and shock troops.
Only 150 years later, in 5364, under the leadership of Morath, they secretly took their mercenary riches and bought a small TL-12 fleet. Moving quickly, they took the corporate-run starports in the system, and when no one wanted to challenge them over it, they immediately raised their rates as mercenaries. They kept mostly to a local few systems at first, happy to train on planets with harsh conditions.
Over the next 1500 years, the Morathi fought wars, lost some, won some, but over time, their population base grew. The Glinde helped decipher technological advances being made by the kingdoms around them. Other conquered peoples were ‘taught’ to enjoy the culture of competition and risk. Note that ‘sacked’ and ‘conquered’ are not the same. The Morathi keep and develop some worlds, and accept vassals as well.
In 6506, the Morathi seized a dozen worlds from Triene, landing thousands of shock troops and quickly subjugating the populace of all of them. Then they quickly consolidated and made a move to be recognized as a legitimate Great Power. They applied for membership in the Compact. That was the beginning of the Dominion, when the High Khan unified all of the local Khans under her banner, in order to have one signatory for the Compact. The Dominion is strong today, though the Morathi are currently not exceptionally bent on territorial expansion, and they have lost some territory to Osterosza.
The birth rate has declined in recent generations. Sometimes, a faction will drum up support for conquering a world, which they seize, strip of its easy assets, then neglect save for token relief workers from vassal states, to keep the Compact at bay.
They are signatories to the Compact, for 700 years, though they have often tested the Compact’s community standards, with their bloody games and proclivity for sacking worlds. But they do value freedom, among their people and among the conquered. They do not enslave, and they even allow condemned prisoners the opportunity to live on, for as long as they survive the spectacle of the games. The Compact complains, but not too loudly, leaving most of the poo pooing to the echo of past events that is the interstellar press.
All of that said, the Morathi are not mean people. If an enemy chooses not to fight, they do not indiscriminately attack. Surrender is an option. But if an enemy does choose to fight, and then later is forced to back down, the Dominion and its people will later view those associated with that defeat as weak, and try to take advantage of it.