Virtahk Empire

The Virtahk Empire, colloquially known by the Black Rim's populace as the Virtahk Horde or Virtahk Swarm, is an aggressive Virtahk pirate state located in western Lawless Space. Ruled by the enigmatic Meridians, the Empire occupies the majority of the Royal Nebula, a region of the Rim notoriously difficult for external starships to traverse. Despite their small size, this makes the Virtahk Empire far easier to defend than most other states, something it uses to its advantage in the deployment of raiding parties across lawless space.

Many Virtahk willingly deploy far outside the Empire's territory to act as pirates, in service of the Annual Meridian Tribute. Many of them form lives outside of Empire space, joining pirate or mercenary crews composed of other species, sometimes even forming friendships and families. Once every year however, they must take their spoils back to Entradak and present it to the ruling Meridians in exchange for supplies and gifts that will sustain them for the remainder of the Meridian year.

The ancestors of the Virtahk race were an organic species of cirripedes conquered and enslaved by the Meridians in distant history, with the majority of the population eventually being cyber-converted into early versions of the Virtahk. This historical incident (as well as the fall of the Zogotons) has led to the superpowers of the Black Rim, predominantly the various Szekh and Delrii states, developing an aggressive fear of artificial intelligence. Both sides fear the Meridians seek to one day do to the Black Rim what they did to the Virtahk ancestors - partially due to Virtahk experiments in cyber-converting other species -, though the Meridians themselves have little current interest in expanding the Empire.

History
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Government & politics
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Relations with the galaxy
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Technology
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Culture
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Annual Meridian Tribute
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Sphere of influence

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