Welcome traveller, to this ongoing deep dive into the lore of Core Space and Maladum where we pull back the curtain on how we create our worlds. I’m Wayne from Battle Systems, hello.
This week we’ll be looking at the Purge, a race of maniacal alien machines whose sole purpose is to harvest worlds. We’ll look into what they are, where they come from and a little into where they are going.
WHAT ARE THE PURGE?
From the heart of the galaxy swarmed the Purge, like a plague of locusts, to strip planets of their resources and reduce living creatures to biomass. Their origins are unknown but their intent is malign. Semi-sentient machines with a hive mentality, the Purge leave whole worlds desolate.
At first the Purge seemed only interested in inorganic materials and would decimate asteroids and stars for resources. The Quell home planet, Genau, was destroyed by the Purge, and is in fact, still being destroyed decades later as the material of the planet slowly makes its way into the black hole at the centre of the galaxy.
Then they moved on to organic matter, with machines designed to capture prey alive. That was when the Purge were truly feared. The Purge prefer to capture biological species alive, mostly intelligent creatures, dumb animals are of little interest to them. The living beings are transported to the barrens, a sterile part of the galaxy which is a cradle of stars but almost entirely lifeless. There they are, by an unknown process, ‘spaghettified’ into an atom wide strand and fed directly into the Super Massive black hole. It seems likely that the victims still ‘live’ in some form during the process although that is speculation as no one dares get close to an area heavily patrolled by the Purge. The Purge may use other victims as the material for their own genetic experiments.
With the destruction of the Quell home planet and the capture of living creatures the myths spread and caused a disproportionate panic. In reality less than one percent of the galactic population will ever encounter the Purge directly but fear doesn’t care about statistics.
PURGE EVOLUTION
The Purge are in constant evolution, new models are created and old ones abandoned. The current models are well known to unlucky space-farers, the Harvesters, Devastators, Assassins, and Live Ones, and more recently, the Annihilators and ‘Mothers’. There are other models that have been rarely encountered and work in the background, and yet others in development.
Originally there were no machine Purge, just battalions of a species that were an earlier, proto-form of the Live Ones. Although they were a hostile species they were considered as just another fledging race fighting for resources by the established races of the galaxy, not as a genuine threat to the galaxy.
The Live Ones were once a two-sexed race and procreated like other species. These have since been replaced by the genderless Live Ones that are maintained and created artificially. The Live Ones are unaware of their history, they do not know that they once rebelled against their masters and were almost annihilated, their conversion into cyborgs as much a punishment as a form of control.
The numbers of the proto Live Ones fell drastically, most likely in a cull, and they were mostly replaced by machine soldiers. The majority of those machines were unspecialised units that were an early model of Harvesters but were able to shoot targets from a distance, these were eventually replaced with modern Harvesters and Devastators.
The Live One acts as both scout and commander in battle but it is directed by an Overseer. The Overseer was introduced in the short story ‘A Purge Awakening’, where the Live One breaks its conditioning. We never actually developed the Overseer beyond the concept stage as there didn’t seem to be a way to meaningfully add it to the game. The Overseer is never given a physical description only that it’s part organic like the Live Ones. We envisioned it as a sort of spider creature, imagine a Live One with a swollen head crammed with cybernetic implants, and six or seven arms but no legs, you’ll be pretty close. It’s job was to co-ordinate the Purge for maximum efficiency, it gave orders from outside of battle and acted as a link to all of the other Purge, each Overseer acting as a relay to the Purge hive mind.
A Purge awakening also introduced the Rogue Purge, a faction that broke their programming, developing an independent spirit that was alien to the Purge. Although Colin designed the Purge he was never entirely satisfied with them, he wanted something less ‘robotic’ and more feral so we developed the Rogue Purge. What exactly they were was a bit nebulous so I wrote A Purge Awakening detailing what would happen if the Purge broke their programming. Colin drew several designs of the rogues, the idea being that they were ‘mix and match’ machines, with parts scavenged from the battlefield, their bodies and minds became weird amalgamations when they were blended with biog (non-Purge) technology. I also wrote the bios of the Purge showing how their individual personalities were formed by their piece meal hardware and software.
Oddly enough there’s also another type of Rogue Purge which has only been lightly touched on. I wrote a short story for the Dangerous Days campaign where the Galactic Crime Commission had attempted to reprogram an assassin. Obviously, that’s a bad idea as its barely restrained and prone to breaking free of its override!
A Purge Awakening also described how the Purge used language. The Purge communicate through encrypted bursts of information that resemble machine code. To an outsider they do not ‘speak’ on the battlefield but seem to intuitively know what they need to do; in truth they are in constant communication with the Live One and each other. When encryption is impossible the Purge can communicate in a verbal language that consists of rapid clicks and grunts. It is also in part an aural cypher that is constantly updated and has never been decrypted by non-Purge.
The Purge can also understand and speak any biog language that they’ve encountered. The Live One will use biog languages frequently in its role of scout and has to be ‘recalibrated’ regularly to an acceptable baseline as the alien speech patterns affect the way the Purge think. Any Live Ones that cannot conform to the baseline are immediately destroyed.
The Purge are essentially a slave race and like all slaves they inevitably break free. The Rogue Purge broke from their programming by chance but they wouldn’t have been the first and they won’t be the last, rebellion is inevitable.
Of course, where there are slaves there must be masters. Creatures outside our understanding created the Purge because they were unable to interact with our galaxy directly. I won’t tell you exactly what they are (let’s keep a bit of mystery) but the HG Wells description of ‘intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic’ is perfect. Minds completely different to our own looked upon our galaxy and drooled.
LESS THAN PURGE – A CORE SPACE SHORT STORY
Dawn broke over Calypso. It was a beautiful world with blue skies and warm seas, and so a haven for the rich and powerful. It was also the first day of the holidays and Jay didn’t need to go to school. He leapt out of bed with excitement, he had plans for today. Outside his bedroom window the ocean stretched as far as he could see, calm, with a cloudless sky above. Down below, in the grounds he could see the head gardener, an old man, even older than his father, going slowly about his duties.
Jay was eight years old and he knew many things. He knew his trading card collection was the best in his school and all the kids were envious. He knew his family were rich, although he wasn’t really sure what that meant. He knew other people were poor which meant they didn’t have a big house or their clothes were old and they didn’t have enough food to eat. He knew his father thought it was their own fault, that they wasted money or took drugs. One time Jay had suggested that maybe if they gave the poor people some of their money they wouldn’t be poor anymore. This had resulted in a long lecture that Jay wasn’t in any hurry to hear again so he kept his thoughts to himself, even from his friends, some of whom seemed to share his father’s opinion that the poor deserved to be poor but they couldn’t really say why.
Jay also knew about the Purge. They were monsters that terrorised people in the frontiers of human space. He was fascinated by the Purge and shared stories with the other kids about them. They were supposed to be robots that ate people and sometimes dragged them away, but no one seemed to know where to. When he was younger he would lie awake at night, scared that the Purge would come for him until sis parents had explained that the Purge were a long way away and besides stuff like that didn’t happen to people like them. When he realised that he was safe the Purge became his favourite monsters, even more than dinosaurs. T’gar, his best friend, shared his fascination and they would draw pictures of the Purge and write stories although the grown-ups didn’t seem to like that so it was mostly a secret between them. T’gar’s family were Ech Triune and they didn’t really approve of T’gar having human friends as they distracted from his studies. Jay’s family didn’t seem to like the Ech Triune either although they did ‘a lot of business’ with the Ech Triune so pretended to like them. T’gar was nearly a head taller than Jay but you could tell he was still a child because his skin hadn’t fully ‘greened’ and he was skinny so Jay would nearly always win in wrestling fights despite being smaller. T’gar didn’t really have school holidays, he was supposed to study every day but he promised to sneak out and explore the caves with Jay later that day. Until then Jay had the run of the house, his parents didn’t really mind what he did so long as he didn’t wander off the grounds, although he had recently found ways to sneak out. He was passing the study, where his father did most of his business, when he heard his mother’s high pitched querulous tone.
“Damian still wants to go through with this ‘Purge party’ nonsense.”
“What does it matter? Just let him.” Was his father’s grumpy response.
“I don’t like it. It’s in poor taste.” His father mumbled something else but Jay was out of earshot by then but it was clear it wasn’t the correct response because his mother’s voice got even higher. His parents argued a lot these days and he’d learned to tune it out. Partly because he didn’t like his parents arguing but also because he would sometimes hear things about the grown-up world that he wasn’t ready to hear, upsetting things that he didn’t like to think about.
His brother, Damian, was nearly ten years older and Jay had always idolised him, but recently Damian had gotten arrogant and argumentative and he was rude to the servants which Jay didn’t like. He wasn’t supposed to talk to the servants but he did, all the time, and he liked most of them. He’d noticed that there were less of them, something he’d overheard his parents talking about, that the staff kept quitting without notice. He thought it might be because his father wasn’t giving them enough money, but something about his parent’s hushed tone suggested that the staff had left because they were scared. Jay couldn’t understand that, what was there to be scared about? They lived in a cliff-top mansion on a private island on one of the richest worlds in human space. What did scare him was how big the house now seemed with less people in it. Sort of empty and neglected, things didn’t get cleaned as much, there were grubby corners where once there had been gleaming surfaces, and sometimes his bedroom wouldn’t be tidied for days at a time. The plumbing in his bathroom wasn’t working properly and no one had come to fix it and he’d noticed the grounds were getting tatty, once neat topiaries were growing out and the head gardener, slow at the best of times, seemed to be the only grounds man left.
Jay made his way down to the caves, it was forbidden but he could easily sneak out without the security men noticing. The caves weren’t far from his home, some of them were shallow indents into the side of the cliffs, others deep and narrow splits and one was an underwater cave that made loud booming noises at high tide. He liked to look into this one but had never had the nerve to enter, a kid had died there once, someone had said, drowned when the tide had come in.
Jay was sitting on the beach arranging stones into size order when T’gar joined him. His friend seemed more grown up then the other kids but he still enjoyed acting like a child, possibly because he wasn’t allowed to at home. Today, T’gar seemed nervous and in a hurry to get away, usually he’d like nothing better than to while away an hour stacking stones on the beach. Jay was disappointed, he’d planned a day of roaming the island, climbing the trees in the forest and other semi-forbidden pursuits.
“My donors are concerned.” Said T’gar. “There’s rumours of the Purge in our system.” Normally Jay would laugh at him for calling his parents his donors but the mention of the Purge so close by was shocking. Jay’s concept of space was tenuous, he knew they lived in the ‘galactic hub’ and the Purge were in the ‘frontier’ and that was a very long way away. The idea that the Purge could be in their own star system, attacking their neighbours was unreal, utterly inconceivable. But T’gar didn’t lie and his ‘donors’ didn’t gossip idly and Jay shivered. That night he lay in bed and he thought about all the terrible things he’d heard about the Purge, terrible things that seemed thrilling when they were so far away but were now threatening.
The next day was the day of the party. It was held in the cool foyer of the house, with a buffet in the grounds. There had been an attempt to tidy the house, even the pool had been cleaned although no one was using it. Damian had gone to a lot of trouble with his costume, he was a ‘Harvey’, a robot that looked like a skeleton to Jay. There was something comical about the costume but also something unnerving.
There weren’t many guests and none of them had dressed to the theme and seemed subdued, whispering amongst themselves. Damian’s sixteenth birthday party had been a riot, overblown and ridiculous and the stuff of teenage legends, nothing like this sad excuse for a gathering. Damian got more angry as the day wore on and it was clear only a handful of people were coming and even then, the guests were looking for excuses to leave. Jay wore a ‘devastator’ mask just to please his brother but he did it reluctantly. A year ago this would have been the most fun he’d ever had but now, seeing his brother parade up and down pretending to harvest the guests made him feel sick. Eventually, his father took Damian aside to talk to him but this soon became a shouting match with Damian getting slapped in the face. He’d never been struck by his father before and ran away, shouting childish threats.
Everyone stood around feeling embarrassed when Jay noticed a shadow in the grounds. At first he thought it was a cloud, despite the calm weather, sudden squalls were not uncommon on this coast. The guests huddled closer to the high windows, peering up into the sky. A number of ships were descending, not the small private skippers that would drop in occasionally but much larger, the sort that weren’t supposed to land anywhere but a designated space port. There was something off about the ships, not quite right to Jay’s young eyes. It was as if each ship had been cut in half and attached to a different ship that was nothing alike. Human vessels melded with Quell ships, the sleek lines of an Ech Triune ship bisected cleanly with the baroque styling of an Ohrna clipper. Jay heard one of the adults shout out in fear and it took him a moment to realise it was his father.
The ships landed and ‘things’ poured out of them. They were humanoid machines but they moved as smoothly as insects and someone screamed in terror. It was the Purge, a nightmare come true and everyone had heard the stories. The security men were overwhelmed instantly and people ran from the foyer, screaming and Jay stood bewildered, not knowing where his parents were, they had disappeared in the confusion.
He ran up to his room and hid under the bed. The screaming seemed to get louder and there were explosions and gunfire, the fighting was getting closer and he knew if he was caught here he would be trapped. He knew that you couldn’t hide from the Purge, they would always find you. He fought the urge to stay hidden and scurried to the walk in closet. Behind the mirror was a ‘secret’ doorway his father had installed when Jay was much younger, although his mother hadn’t approved. It led to a warren of passages in between the walls, where Jay could easily cut himself on a protruding nail or unfinished rough timber. Jay made his way downstairs trying to hold in the sobs that threatened to give him away. He wanted to get to the stables, where he had a small gelding that he could ride to the caves and hide. Beyond that he had no plans, just the belief that he would be safe if he could just get away.
The stables were eerily quiet and stunk of seared flesh and burning hair. All of the horses, the tame mares, the haughty stallions and his own friendly gelding had been killed, burned to death by an unknown weapon. He stood there, terror rooting him to the spot. Everything he had ever known was being destroyed, buildings he had explored as a small child were on fire, the grounds had been swept clean of vegetation. The screams had stopped, he couldn’t see any people, he had no idea where his parents were, where his brother was, the old grounds man, the servants, the guests, they had all disappeared.
There was a soft noise, of a foot on gravel and he turned slowly to look at something so unknown to him his brain couldn’t process it. He wanted to scream but he couldn’t. He had seen aliens before, his best friend was one, but they had all been natural, a part of the universe. But he knew this creature before him was not natural, it was a made thing, alien flesh and alien machine fused together into an abomination. It looked like a toad in the form of a man, but much, much worse. It spoke and its voice did not match the movements of its lips.
“Little prince.” It said, its voice a hoarse whisper. “Little prince. I will spare you the agony of assimilation.” It raised a weapon and fired, and Jay disappeared from the world forever.
The Live One stood over the remains, troubled by the waste. The child creature should have been processed like the thousands before but somehow it couldn’t. It was joined by others of its kind, underlings that didn’t question it or notice that their leader was troubled. It gave the order for any surviving captives to be processed and the useful elements to be gathered. It swept aside its doubts and forgot them, whatever qualms it had would never stop it from completing its work.
IT’S ALL IN THE EDIT
So why are the Purge so creepy? The Purge could easily be a standard robot army, or a criminal gang, or religious fanatics and work just as well in the game as the main protagonists. The reason is simple: I didn’t find them scary. Colin had designed all of the main Purge, the Harvesters, Devastators, Assassin and Live One and I thought that they all looked kind of endearing, even goofy. Out of context the Purge could be any sort of industrial robot, in the background, just working Joes, harmless. So I made sure the actual context was horrible!
The Purge don’t just want to kill you they want to literally harvest you. They want to eat you alive. To strip you down to assets, to take your loved ones and reduce them to base constituents. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you’ve achieved or what your hopes and dreams are you’re just meat for the grinder to them. Nobody in the Core Space universe knows what the Purge want, and that’s what makes them scary. When you stare into the blank eyes of a Harvester there is no pity or understanding, there’s not even any malice. This is because the Purge aren’t actually evil, they derive no pleasure in what they do. They are machines and have no choice, the Live Ones are living beings that go through horrible conditioning. This isn’t sympathy for the devil, the Purge still commit evil acts, just that their innocence makes it all the more disturbing.
THE FUTURE OF THE PURGE
We always intended for Core Space to grow and develop, refining the rules and lore, exploring new worlds and new dangers. This means we have plans for the Purge but I’m forbidden to speak of them on pain of Colin snapping my pencils!
However, one possible future was suggested by a friend of ours, Andy of the youtube channel AJ Paints. He’s been kit-bashing the Rogue Purge as if they existed in Maladum. I think the idea is that they’ve been trapped and rusting away for thousands of years but are now free to roam Enveron.
Personally, I consider this semi-canon, in our established Maladum time line the Rogue Purge probably don’t exist but they could. And they definitely exist in the world next door, in a slightly different time line. Maybe we’ll explore this idea more in the future.
QUESTION TIME
Thank you for your responses to our previous blogs here and on the socials. I don’t actually answer directly in the comments but I’m happy to answer questions in later blogs in an old skool, ‘letter to the editor’ way. For some reason the comments in the last blog kept disappearing and reappearing, we’re not sure why but we do read them all, so please keep them coming!
As requested I’ve included links below to a couple of my early concept stories, ‘What if… The First Version of Core Space’ and ‘What if… The First Version of Maladum’. They’re a fascinating insight into the creation process, showing how the lore was originally formed and what changes were made for the final games. I’d be interested to know what you think.
One of our long term fans, David, had some interesting insights and I’m going to answer those now as his original comments were lost.
David: I am very glad that you included the idea of gene-farms in the lore. It allow players such as myself to be able to bring in races or species from other games. For example, I own a lot of Myth and there are a whole host of anthropomorphic creatures that can be drawn in such as Okians (jackal folk), Gatorfolk and so on. The idea of malacytes also enables an origin for elemental creatures similar to the golem etc. Similarly, there are characters such as Tavians (mongoose people) that I am using as adventurers, with their backstory being that they come from some islands to the south of Enveron where they battle with Serpentfolk.
Wayne: Gene farms allow anything so Colin may howl if you introduce dogs and horses but I’d give it the thumbs up! Our designer Jon drew an unknown map for the Barracks expansion – you may consider that the home of the Tavians!
David: I am mixed about the lack of horses, dogs etc as companions and mounts, and very much look forward to seeing what you have come up with. On the Crooked dice website there are creatures call the Sandtreader that feel like they might fit as alien pack creatures..
I am somewhat reminded of an indie RPG called the Skyrealms of Jorune that also had a medieval present but a technological past. I never managed to play it, but owned a lot of books for reading purposes
I like how most of the magic has some sort of physics based rules. It also means that the Forbidden Magic is truly horrific as it stand outside of physics. But does malacyte have agency…. ?
Wayne: I like to think of it more as a force of nature, seemingly cruel and capricious but unmindful. If it exhibits agency it would be like our own AI, where something appears to have intelligence where there is none. But could Maladum evolve an intelligence? I don’t see why not. As for Forbidden magic it also follows the rules of physics – just not the rules of our universe!
Next time I’ll be taking a closer look at the kingdoms of Enveron, how the kingdoms were formed, how they affect each other and what may arise in the future.
In the meantime don’t be shy about asking questions or making suggestions about what you would like to know more about regarding the lore and how we create our worlds.
Further Links:
Link to What If… The First Version of Core Space –
Link to What if… The First Version of Maladum –
Link to A Purge Awakening –
Link to Rogue Purge bios –
Link to Dangerous Days –
Link to AJ Paints –
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