Terminus Article 12

Some background information on my sci-fi YA series Terminus…

There are generally no large scale land battles. A single ship in orbit could bombard any ground forces into oblivion once any defensive shields have been depleted. The GA possesses an advantage in hand-to-hand combat thanks to their Royals. Mundane humans or Baraki stand little chance. The Ronains’ native strength can match a Royal and they do have technological advances to even the playing field, but even they must rely on greater numbers to overwhelm Royal adversaries. Combat is decided by ships and the GA does not carry a large standing army.

All Royals possess superior strength, speed, and flight. Higher level Royals are also telepathic but cannot read the thoughts of non-human minds like Baraki or Ronains. Royals cannot forcibly read one another’s thoughts but can share them willingly. Since memory is malleable, telepathic testimony is not admissible in court. Royal powers are ranked on a ten-tier system. Sarah, the strongest Royal alive, is an Eight. Logan Evans, the strongest Justice Officer, is a Seven. Danni is a Six. Kayma is officially a Five, but he is a man of many secrets. Sonyia, Alex, and Priya are Fours. Jenny, whose father is Mundane, is officially only a Three, but like Kayma she has her secrets. Going back into antiquity, Savior and Kasriel were Nines, though Kasriel also possessed extra abilities like conjuring lightning and invisibility.

Royal combat involves using their native strength, guns, and swords. Since Royals can conjure telekinetic shields for protection, Royal-on-Royal combat usually involves swords at speed along with bare fists and telepathic attacks. They generally would not bother with guns since the other could easily block the attack. Swords are worn at all times in the form of pommels at the waist. The molecule-thin blade, which can cut through anything except a specially made impenetrable metal called ogunite, is kept in a flat-space dimension in the handle. Flat-space is only useful for holding non-mechanical inorganic objects and would kill anything living. Ogunite is a rare and expensive metal only used sparingly. Wrist gauntlets made of ogunite are used for blocking blades, and some wear heart plates of ogunite protecting only the heart. Ogunite is heavy so wearing an entire suit of it would be counter-productive for combat, not to mention expensive.

Royals are vulnerable to other special combatants. Negators are beings capable of cancelling out Royal powers at a fair distance. They also possess a smaller defensive ability to repel any telepathic or kinetic attack upon their person. Shifters can shape-shift their body to impersonate others and form blades. They also possess the personal defense effect. The two subspecies are collectively known as the Hunted because their very existence is a death sentence according to the Founding Charter of the GA. They live in hiding in the shadows of the GA. They were the creations of the Prophets three centuries ago to destroy the Royals. The Prophets, now thought to all be extinct, were ancient synthetic beings with incredible abilities. In addition to the base Royal-type powers, they could infect computer systems and possessed what they called Aster. This gave them strange abilities like invisibility, greater telepathic powers, and conjuring lightning from their hands.

Fortunately all the Prophets are extinct… as far as the GA knows…