Kiith Somtaaw
From Encyclopedia Hiigara
 Kiith Somtaaw
|
Kiith Somtaaw was originally a major religious kiith, however later on the Somtaaw made their living mining metal, to eventually become notable warrior kiith.
Contents |
[edit] History
Kiith Somtaaw started life as the best known religious Kiith mostly because of the Shimmering Path, a complex of 33 temples finished in 178 KDS which was a place of pilgrimage for almost 1000 years. Until 261 KDS there was an unbroken Somtaaw lineage, and they held the position of the primary religious Kiith until the Heresy Wars. During this conflict Khontala mountains in which Somtaaw had their settlements, were a natural barrier between Kiith Siiddim and Kiith Gaalsien, the major powers in this conflict. When war stoppedthe pilgrims it was no longer possible to maintain temples along The Shimmering Path, and in 675 KDS Somtaaw closed all but two of them to outsiders. Because of their naturally-defended location it was difficult to conquer Somtaaw, but it was also difficult to secure paths to their holdings. As a result, they became cut-off from all regular trade routes for nearly two centuries.By year 789 KDS there were only 30,000 of Somtaaw. In this year Kuura Somtaaw had a dream of Sajuuk driving a red sword into the earth in a rarely visited region of the Khontala mountains, and as a result ordered several families to dig in the Red Creek valley. What they found was the richest iron ore ever seen on Kharak which lay just beneath the surface. They announced this news to the world, and received numerous offers of buying mines or ore. Rather than simply trading the ore Kuura ordered the construction of smelters producing high grade steel, extremely valuble in times of war. Somtaaw steel became the most famous on Kharak, and eventually an agreement was made with the warrior Kiith Soban, who offered security for the Kasaar road, the main route out of the Khontala, for one hundred years in exchange for iron. All but abandoning their religious heritage, Somtaaw became a mining Kiith. Since 810 KDS when Kiith Nabaal ended up the war Somtaaw expanded their mining operations thanks to usage of steam and explosives reaching population of 500,000 souls till the Exodus, but only 15,000 Somtaaw arrived onboard the mothership. Upon discovery of Khar-Toba Somtaaw were asked to reopen the Shimmering Way so that their religious texts could be examined, but initially refused. The issue was still being debated in the Diamaid when Kharak was burned by the Taiidan.
7 years after Hiigaran Landfall Kiith Nabaal made an request to absorb Somtaaw, claiming that Somtaaw skills in mining would be better-used when working under Nabaali industrial planning committees, and that such a merger would be in the best interest of all Hiigarans. Somtaaw refused the offer, but the debate lasted for a long time, eventually incorporating the issue of smaller Kiithid not being allowed access to the Mothership, now being used as an orbital shipyard. As a sign of support, many small kiithid joined Somtaaw, almost doubling their population in just a few months. With the backing of Kiithid Paktu and Soban the matter was resolved in favor of Somtaaw, who also managed to gain access to the Mothership construction facilities for a period of 6 months. Three ships were built during that time: The Explorer-class command ships Kuun-Lan and Faal-Corum, designed for deep-space mining operations, and Clee San, a dedicated science ship. However, despite their new capabilities the larger Kiithid regularly 'forgot' to thank Somtaaw for assistance.
After the incursion by Imperialist Taiidan forces to Hiigara in 15 AHL, Kuun-Lan was dispatched to rescue a Kiith Manaan destroyer that was stranded outside the Hiigara system. In the process, they discovered an artifactSSource: Homeworld: Cataclysm
mission 2 . Analysis yielded that the device was built by no known galactic races and as such probably held great, unknown technology. The ruling Somtaaw council decreed that this would give them great leverage in the new Hiigaran government, and ordered that the Kuun-Lan keep this a secret within Somtaaw. The Kuun-Lan then met up with the Clee-San, and they opened the device up for analysis. However, the artifact contained part of the organism known as the Beast. The infection rapidly spread, forcing the ship to jettison its entire lower sectionSSource: Homeworld: Cataclysm
cutscene before mission 3 .
This is how the Beast War begun, the conflict in which Kiith Somtaaw played the most notable role fighting the Beast threat. During this time Somtaaw developed a number of new technologies and their own versions of other races', and as a result of it became a true Warrior Kiith, earning the title of "Beast Slayers".
100 years after the Beast War Somtaaw opposed to re-activating the Hyperspace core in the face of the Vaygr threatSSource: Homeworld 2 Strategy Guide .
[edit] Ships and Technology
The Somtaaw are a resourceful people, and to this end their technology is based on designs created using any sources they can find, be it purchased from the Bentusi, adapted from old designs collecting dust in their engineering libraries, reverse-engineered from salvaged derelicts or even all three in conjunction. Their ships tend to combine many features into one, such as the Worker-class which functions as a Salvage Corvette, Repair Corvette and Resource Collector, as their smaller command ships cannot support larger fleets of individually specialised ships.
After the Beast War they possess technology that even the far-more developed Kiith do not had, such as force-field generators, the unique electromagnetically-based repulsor generator defensive system, microships and splitter-technology for Ion Cannons.
[edit] List of Somtaaw Ships
Frigates
Minion-class Heavy Tug ° Hive-class Advanced Drone Frigate ° Dervish-class Multi-Beam Frigate
Other
Deacon-class Destroyer ° Shaman-class Carrier ° Archangel-class Dreadnought
[edit] Font
Kiith Somtaaw uses unique font amongst other kiith. It's used by both tactical analysis as well as research divisions. Font contains over 30 unique chars, however many of them were used also in rotated variants. It is unknown if Somtaaw possessed their own ancient language, and all the texts were written using this font, or was it just variant of Galactic Common encrypted using this chars.
