Damorak

Damorak (disambiguation)
Damorak might refer to: "The second-last book in the series mirrored the second ''book in the series, in that it was named not for the tip-of-the-iceberg extension of the species that everybody knows about - Damorakind and aki'Drednanth respectively - but for the greater whole from which those extensions originate. Drednanth, and Damorak." - Andrew Hindle''
 * The seventh book of Andrew Hindle's science-fiction series The Final Fall of Man. Available in e-book and paperback.
 * An Elder Race, and root / originator species of the Damorakind.

''"Damora. Domakin. Damoraks. Dannarg. Gomak. The fairytale creatures known as the Great Revenants. These are all, as far as our fragmented and deliberately buried records can tell us, different names for – different categories of – Damorakind. And their origins, their impact on the cultural development of the Fleet, of the human race, of the aki’Drednanth, stretches far deeper into prehistory than our relatively contemporary spacefaring encounters would account for." - Ortorius P’aña Pell, in her presentation leading up to her assignation as Shedder. It is important to note that this presentation, designating Damoraks as a subcategory of Damorakind rather than the other way around, is erroneous due to lack of data''

Damorak (species)
Little is known about the Damorak species at this stage. They are known to rule the Damorakind civilisation both within the galaxy of The Final Fall of Man and in the region on the other side of the Portal in the Utmost Core, but it is an absentee domination seated largely in superstitious worship.

The Damorakind of the Core believe themselves (correctly) to be a flawed and failed outcast branch of the Damorak race, which represents perfection to them. They at once aspire to it and yet would not dare to insult it by emulation.

The Damorakind species on the far side of the Portal consider the separation enabled by the Portal to be all-important, referring to it as the hallowed silence. When violated, the existence of the Core Damorakind and all other sentient species in the galaxy was revealed and had to be dealt with. The "wider" Damorakind empire then escalated the issue to the Damoraks, who sent Hacticos to resolve the situation.

Species origin
The ultimate origin of the Damorak superspecies is The Centre, a Dimension - a universe in itself with its own attendant set of physical laws - in the absolute centre of the urverse. The species rose to sentience in Capital Mind, "the city in the centre of the universe" as some Molranoids of the Thirty-Ninth Century YM refer to it. The Damorak and Molran races evolved and developed side by side.

The Damoraks are one of the ten Elder Races, conceived and set upon the path to development by the Infinites and the Firstmades, in The Centre in the First Age. They were, along with the Time Destroyers, fostered and favoured dominantly by the Infinites Nnal and Orgok and by the Firstmades under Them, and therefore inherited a lot of the philosophy and culture of aggressive and domineering races - self-interest, according to academic theory, or evil according to Molran-dominated sociocultural commentary, became their guiding principle.

The majority of the Damorak superspecies still lives in The Centre, in a single structure known as the Damorak Centre.

Characteristics
Damoraks are bipedal, near-humanoid species with pre-reptilian and pre-arachnid characteristics. As they are an Elder Race, their biological and taxonomic makeup predate all known reptiles and arachnids, and thus defy assignment to any but their own designated classifications. They typically wear bulky, full-body garments such as hooded robes that conceal their bodies almost entirely to outsiders.

Damoraks, like Damorakind, are intensely social creatures despite their aggression and penchant for cruelty. Unlike the inferior subspecies, however, Damoraks are quite capable of existing in a solitary setting and in wide-open areas. Damoraks are more comfortable in dense populations of their own kind, and the Damorak Centre in Capital Mind is a single mountainous structure containing billions, perhaps even trillions, of Damoraks.

Damoraks have a plasma-based circulatory and/or nervous system, although in this case plasma is part of a broader term for bioelectric energy practically unique to Damoraks and predating the discovery and in many cases even the formation of other kinds of plasma. The energy runs in a network through their bodies, which are webbed with dense metallic structures to simultaneously conduct and insulate. It is externally apparent only in their eyes, which glow a brilliant blue-white, and in their forearms and hands, which are sheathed in fire that is highly dangerous to non-Damorak contact - often lethal. Damoraks use this discharge to activate a lot of their common technology, as well as offensively.

One in a trillion Damorakind is born with the combination of genes necessary to express its plasma system in this manner, either in one or both hands, for varying durations. They are considered blessed, and often rise to positions of great prominence.

The Damorak superspecies is defined in large part by its vehement hatred of and desire to destroy all non-Damorak sentient life, although in places like The Centre this is moderated by the vast numbers of unified species in opposition to them. In cases such as the Damorakind, this drive is mitigated (according to some theories) by their unwillingness to extend into "empty" space beyond a certain population density they find comfortable.

The Domakin Dimensions
Early in their development, the Elder Races discovered Portals leading from The Centre to a number of different Dimensions and regions, and from those regions more Portals were discovered. The Damoraks utilised this discovery to perform clandestine population expansions into as-yet uncharted Dimensions.

Their usual practice was to send a self-sustaining and expansion-capable community through a Portal. The community would then seal the Portal behind them and spread out, sealing any subsequent Portals found and - in later years when other species began showing up - wiping out or subjugating competing species.

At its peak, the Damorak expansion was known to comprise "the Damorak Eight", eight Dimensions "wholly" occupied by Damoraks. While a Dimension is a practically infinite universe and therefore impossible to wholly occupy, the term was used to describe a Dimension sealed off and dominated to a certain volume and population density by Damorak culture.

This "hidden empire" was later amended to "the Domakin Six" for historical reasons, specifically the loss of two Dimensions and the concept of purity in the Damorak species of The Centre requiring them to reassign all cultures of the extended superspecies as subspecies or otherwise impure. This led to the formation of Damorak-descended subspecies, the Domakin being one of the largest, the Damorakind being another.

Theoretical Damorak / Damorakind timeline
The theorised timeline of Damorak activity as relates to The Final Fall of Man, therefore, is as follows:
 * The Damoraks long ago oversaw a spread of a subculture that became Damorakind into a Dimension (hereinafter Dimension D1) that they then attempted to seal off. Dimension D1 was accessible through some Portal in The Centre, or more likely through some multi-Portal connection mapped in the course of normal urversal exploration.
 * Damorakind civilisation spread through Dimension D1 according to their normal guidelines.
 * The Damorakind encountered a Portal, sent a seeding population through it. The Portal, unbeknownst to the Damorakind at the time, connected Dimension D1 to the galaxy known as Cursèd's Playground, in the Void Dimension, sovereign territory of the Firstmade Pinian Brotherhood. Either as part of their normal practice, or on Damorak orders as a direct result of learning of their inadvertent trespass, the Damorakind sealed the Portal using their standard weaponry. The hallowed silence fell, by which the "wider" Damorakind empire of Dimension D1 pretended the incursion had never taken place, and the Core Damorakind formed a slow-growing and highly-dense foothold empire in the Void.
 * A Molran community departed from Capital Mind using relative drive technology, and flew to a Portal that connected The Centre to a region of Dimension D1 to which the Damorakind had not yet spread. Study and knowledge of urversal physics makes it likely that nobody was even aware that it was the same universe that the Damoraks had previously sent a splinter-culture into. The Molren then flew for a further period of time, finally settling on a world they named Dema, with the intention of remaining completely isolated and never returning to The Centre.
 * The Damorakind expanded into Dema'i space in Dimension D1, or located the Molren based on their vessel's exhaust. The Molren fled using generation ships, having long since abandoned and forgotten the technology that could carry them to safety any faster. They eventually found the Dimension D1 / Void Portal, and managed to navigate through it despite its collapsed state. The Core Damorakind attacked the Molran Fleet on its arrival in the galaxy, beginning their long exodus towards Earth and the formation of the Six Species.