A Cultural Analysis of the Tislath de Harrakiel

By Dr. Maliki Limiria, Chair of Harrakin Studies
Anthropology Deptartment, Columbia University

Linguistics Addendum by Dr. Limiria and Dr. Eoghan Mitchell,
Oxford University Chair of Linguistic Studies

* I - The Sagas of the Tislath de Harrakiel
	1 - The Wrexxakt Captivity 2 - Harrak the H'R'Djagtal 3 - Harra, Lokar and the Fratricidal War 4 - Nialamqar and the Wrexxakt Return 5 - The Song of Ry'Tharen 6 - Tislath de Harrakiel 7 - The Song of Neysar'Hra 8 - Sh'azt'Hra 9 - The last Tisaridron/The death of Li'Tarrk
* II - The Structure of Harrakin Society
	1 - The Royal Caste (Tislath de Harrakar) 2 - The Geneticist/Artificers (Moniath) 3 - The Priesthood of War (Takkiel'Hra) a - The Dy'Tariex, Prefect, and the ancestors b - The H'R'Djagtal and his rebirth 4 - The Wanderers/Keepers of Song (Niniaki) a - The Old Way (Niniaki Baragiex'Ka) b - The Blue Marines (Niniaki'Hra) 5 - The Harrakin Military (K'Krianar Vrath) 6 - The Lower Castes (Nar'Tha'Harrakiel)
*III - Initial Primer to spoken Harrakiel by Dr. Eoghan Mitchell, Oxford University

INTRODUCTION:

As I dictate this introduction to the revised edition of my report on Harrakin culture, I am packing my belongings and preparing for a voyage no human being has ever made. I have been appointed the Cultural Advisor to Ambassador Reed Graves, and will be making the trip to Mar'has'varak with the embassy. As one might expect, I am at once elated and terrifed. I am also working even as we prepare to depart, observing certain facts that will begin to stress elements of the Harrakin culture in the upcoming years until my return.

In the original study, I made reference to Harrakin culture as I saw it in the Antarctic refuge. Now I have seen the more mainstream elements as well as the religious leaders, the stratification of castes (Tislath, in the Harrakin tongue) and the subversive elements. I was as surprised as anyone to learn that a Harrakin secret society existed, much less to learn that they had tendrils everywhere inside the Harrakin society. These KK'Narath'Tak will not be mentioned in the report due to my lack of awareness, so I thought it best I detail them slightly now.

The KK'Narath'Tak (Accursed) are rebels much as the exiles who inhabited Antarctica were, yet they do not seek to reduce the level of violence in their culture. They seek to magnify it. They seek a return to the oldest ways of Harrakin life, when nomadic bands of Harrakin roamed from settlement to settlement, owing fealty only to a strong battlechief who could unite them against common enemies. They view the increasing Imperialization of the Dy'Tariexen'Ka Harrak, as the Royal Caste gathers more and more power and influence over even the furthest-flung outposts of the empire, as a great threat. As such, and having placed themselves in opposition to the Dy'Tariex him or herself, they have been forced to hide their identities from their own people behind the now-infamous red-skullfaced armor they wore during their interruption of the Tisaridron. Anyone who saw the footage of their attack, when they slew terrestrial reporters and particpants without regard for the rules of engagement, will have to remember them.

The other new element is one I discussed, but now one of my outlined possibilities has come true. The H'R'Djagtal, Eric Anderson, has become Dy'Tariex of the entire Harrakin Empire. Even now, despite his attempts to de-formalize his relations to the Harrakin of the fleet, he is being deified on a scale un-dreamt of, even to me when I first encountered the phenomenon upon visiting the Antarctic refuge. The H'R'Djagtal phenomenon will be explored in this document, so for now I will only state that a culture that believes that one day the messiah will come to lead them is vastly different then a culture that belives the messiah has come, and is leading them right now.

I have spoken enough of changes and new facts: Now it comes time to speak of things I know nothing of as yet, my own personal vision. As I said before, no human being has ever made the voyage I am about to, not even if you expand the definition to include Harrakin, as I do. The title of this report was a compromise that I felt wrong and still feel wrong about.

To the casual observer, the Harrakin are alien in the extreme. They dress in black metal and fly in ships as big as cities. Their architecture is based on ritualized instructions handed down for millenia. Their religion treats the killing of their enemies as the greatest possible honor and views holding back in combat as a disrgrace. They have no economy - No one goes hungry, no one is allowed to become sick; They accomplish this through ruthless conquest of their neighbors. They have advanced genetic technology and are capable of correcting any birth defect and eliminating viral infections, yet they have not even bothered to master trauma medicine and have no interest in doing so. They do not seem very much like us. But are these so very inhuman? I think not. I think of them as different ways of expressing a fundemental humanity. After all, are the people of planet Earth innocent of war and ritual?

You have to look at them up close, but then it occurs. They grow comfortable around you, and then the questions pour out of them. Why don't your eyes glow? Can you send me your thoughts? Do you know any songs? They are fascinated by music, sculpture, painting, stories, art of almost any kind. I remember one of them, a small girl of the Green caste, who sat at my bed for five hours reading and re-reading a King James Bible I'd brought with me, enraptured at the ideas in it. They love these things with the same intensity that they love to fight. To watch them raise their children and to realize that Harrakin infancy lasts a decade is to realize that they have the same potential for gentleness as they do for violence.

I realize many will accuse me of oversympathizing with them, and in fact the recent results of the Harrakin Arrival may prove those people right. They are hardly a simple people. They could now be rolling over our world and forcing us to surrender our freedoms to them, much as Eurpoeans did in our recent past. My only point is that everything they've done has not been inhuman. Frightening, but not inhuman.

They are human, if altered by hundreds of thousands of years of manipulation and half a galaxy of distance. My hope is that when I get to Mar'has'varak, they will look at the people in our embassy and recognize them as Harrakin. That could be the beginning of something larger than either of our cultures.

1 - The Wrexxakt Captivity

This saga is, quite simply, the oldest of the Harrakin song-histories. I have decided to define them as sagas, due to their resemblance to human epic poems such as the Iliad, Beowulf, and The Song of Roland. Like these poems, the Harrakin song-histories depend on repetition for memorization purposes, and had been handed down for generations before being transcribed. However, unlike our own sagas, Harrakin song-histories are telepathic in nature, requiring a memorization of specific images to go along with the lyric content, and these songs were originally transmitted by direct mind-to-mind contact over a lifetime. Even so, corruptions and alterations did set in, and it was not until the Harrakin developed the N'Allatath Har'Kanadran (The armor so many of them wear) that they had a perfect vessel for these records. Now, each Songkeeper spends much of his life going to the central spire in the wastelands of the Harrakin Throneworld and accessing these records, inscribing them into his armor's memory.

The saga of the Wrexxakt Captivity, as the oldest, has suffered the most from the long period of pure mind-to-mind contact. There are at least twenty-seven different versions of the song, each named after the region on the throneworld where it sprung from. The favored versions are the Mar'has'varrakiel, the Niniakiiel, and the Uutash Transcription left behind by the Dy'Tariex UUtash Larrath, who was known as the Singer due to his obsession with these sagas.

In all the versions, the story is basically the same, differences occuring in perspective and viewpoint. The evil Wrexxakt come to the paradisical Homeworld, where the not-yet-Harrakin are cavorting in peaceful harmony with loving, giving nature. The Wrexxakt take the hapless Harrakin (Known as Sh'uggurth, or slaves) to a burning wasteland with two stars orbiting a radio pulsar, pockets of 'glow' that resembles radiation poisoning, and horrible mutated beasts created by the Wrexxakt to make their lives difficult. Many die, and the rest are sickened and weakened by the harsh conditions and their labors.

The sagas all branch out at this point, each describing in lavish detail the sufferings of their respective settlements, save for the Niniakiiel which describes how brave, clever and determined they were to resist the Wrexxakt by melting into the sands and wandering from settlement to settlement, secretly spreading a culture of resistance. As a saga, it isn't that remarkable, and it is far from the perfection of Harrakin art. It is, however, the first extant saga and the only recording of their early history left them.

2 - Harrak the H'R'Djagtal

Sometimes called 'Time's Hammer' by the Songkeepers, this saga details the life and times of Harrak, the Sh'uggurth boy who grows up to destroy the Wrexxakt presence on the Hellworld (As Mar'has'varak was then known) and becomes the first member of the Royal Caste. This saga is very interesting, as it is the first to be carried by the Songkeepers as gospel, thereby avoiding the alternate versions that cropped up in the Wrexxakt Captivity songs.

Harrak is, in the saga, the first Green, born with great strength and what can only be described as psychic powers. However, at first he is not especially remarkable, living in a cave-city dwelling and engaging in normal Sh'uggurth behavior like mining for the Wrexxakt and hunting some sort of animals for their value both as meat and as storage containers for moisture. Several details in the song are vividly preserved, such as Harrak washing his face in his own urine because water is too precious to waste or the fear of the Wrexxakt that drives him to hide his abilities from his own people.

It is not until his family is killed that Harrak and his best friend (and eventual mate) Sheel depart the caves to ride with the Niniak. Given the Niniak's role in the preservation of songs, this may be why the saga is so intact and complete. Harrak and Sheel grow to be powers in the Niniak, and are present at the crash-landing of a Wrexxakt Survey Pod. This leads them into an open rebellion against the Wrexxakt and their D'Agn, giant robots that bear a shocking resemblance to the Kali robot that attempted to destroy New York.

The Wrexxakt are portrayed very sketchily in this saga. Depending on who is telling it, they come off as either tremendously stupid or unfathomably alien. This isn't that surprising: It is unlikely that a Harrakin storyteller is going to be fair to the most despised enemies of his race. After the Wrexxakt use the water-to-fire bomb (A Hydrogen Fusion Warhead is implied) to annihilate both their own D'Agn and a squad of Niniak rebels, Harrak forces his entire people into a mind-link and uses the sum total of their nascent psionic powers to kill all of the Wrexxakt on the planet. He then assumes the seat of power, aided by Sheel, who seems to be making many of his decisions for him, allowing him to focus on keeping the disunified Harrakiel in line. The saga ends as Harrak and Sheel rename Hellworld, calling it Mar'has'varak after the small settlement where they first saw a dead Wrexxakt.

3 - Harra, Lokar, and the Fratricidal War

There are fourteen extant versions of this epic, I am told, athough those exiles in the Antarctic only knew five of them. As is usual, the Niniakiiel version was the most fluid, the most entertaining, and perhaps the most filled with hyperbole. This epic is not so meticulously detailed as is the one of Harrak the H'R'Djagtal.

In the Niniakiiel, Sheel has grown old and near death after having spent three decades attempting to prepare Harrakin society for the inevitable return of the Wrexxakt. Harrak is not aging at the same rate. This is a great source of pain and vivid imagery in the opening of the song, as Harrak watches his loved one die while foreseeing decades, perhaps centuries, of life without her spreading out ahead of him. When Sheel is at death's door, she had a vision of the future, and attempts to relate it to Harrak. She sees great devastation on the surface of Mar'has'varak, but before she can relate its source, she is dead. Harrak, blinded by grief, summons his children to him, all of who have inherited their father's powers and appearance. There are four of them, but only the eldest, a set of twins named Harra and Lokar, are of importance in the saga.

Harrak relates their mother's vision to them, then declares himself unready to continue as Dy'Tariex. He declares to them that he shall leave them, but that when the time comes, like the 'H'R'Djagt that always rises again from the cliff walls near the burning sands of the desert, the best of me shall come again in my bloodline, mingled with the blood of 'They who hold home in their hands.'' This passage is very long in the War Priest version of the saga, and in truth all of the particulars of their version would seem to fit Eric Anderson. (The risen/returned H'R'Djagtal will be young, a child of one of Harrak's descendents and someone who lives on the Harrakin homeworld, his personal power will be great and he will be unbound by convention, he will not recognize his glory but will act upon it, he will visit Harrakin in the void under his own power, and he will not see Mar'has'varak until after he is recognized and found again on the homeworld. At this point I think I should mention that the Harrakin pronoun for he, she or it is the same word: *Dakk*, or 'That one/Thing.")

Then the grieving Harrak leaves them, carrying the body of his deceased mate, and is never seen again. Only one version of the song deals at all at what happened to him, and the Harrakin exiles did not know it (It is the Blue Marine version of the saga) but told me the gist of it: Harrak taps the Link, flies into space, and flings himself and Sheel into the pulsar after breaking the Link and suffocating. In the words of one exile. "They like their endings to be gestures, sometimes overdramatic, always sacrifice. They are somewhat limited as far as art is concerned."

This leads to a strange, almost Shakespearian conflict, as the twins each decide to lead Harrakin society and eliminate the other, all while under the compulsion of an incestual attraction that they deny at every opportunity. Lokar believes that the militaristic leanings of her father and his doomsday prophecies are ridiculous, and she seeks to stand the Harrakin down from their relentless quest to conquer Mar'has'varak and the Wrexxakt technology. Harra feels that this borders on blasphemy. Neither of the two of them can gather enough support to forge the Link and thus decide the issue in their favor.

Finally, the unthinkable occurs: Lokar challenges Harra to Tisaridron. (The irony of the great peacemaker using a ritual challenge to settle a conflict is not lost on the Niniak, who tend to read this entire section as a subtle mockery. The other versions are much more sober.) On the night of their conflict, Lokar visits Harra to attempt to convince him to agree with her. He refuses, they argue...and end up in bed. This is possibly at the root of the Harrakin disregard for inbreeding taboos. If *twins* could have an epic love, who cares if you and your cousin Mallarth mate?

The next day, Lokar refuses to fight her brother, who also refuses to fight her. This leads to war, as the factions split right down the middle. As the fighting rages, Harra proposes to Lokar that she take her followers and leave the throneworld, and she agrees. Only a few of them follow her into exile, feeling that they can't leave their home for shameful exile. As you might expect, the saga the Niniak tell is much friendlier to Lokar then the War Priest version. In all events, it is the saddest and most ambivalent of all the sagas.

4 - Nialamqar and the Wrexxakt Return

By all accounts, there are only two versions of this saga, and they differ in that one is the story as told to the Niniaki by Harra and Lokar's daughter S'harrak, and the other is the War Priest version maintained by them from their first prelate, Harra's son Dv'Arad. As is to be expected, Dv'Arad's tale does not refer to the Lokar nearly so much as S'harrak's does, because he did not spend his youth with them as she did. It is S'harrak's tale that I have been told, so it is that version I will deal with.

S'harrak was born to Lokar while in exile (The duration of Royal Caste gestation seems to be much longer than human) searching for a new world. The exiles, in another of those ironies that so amuses the Niniak, were forced to fall into a closer, more communal and more militaristic lifestyle then the one they'd been sent from in order to survive, and so they did, stealing a planet from its inhabitants, a peaceful race of entities decribed as 'Bags of Ammonia.' The Lokar world is described as 'harsh and seething' which is interesting when one considers how harsh the world they departed from was.

S'harrak, from birth, was a contrary child who gave her mother much difficulty, yet the two displayed a weary affection at many points in the song. S'harrak seemed to recognize that her mother sought only to protect her, and Lokar saw her brother in her daughter's bearing.

Time passes, and S'harrak wonders about the Harrakin on Mar'has'varak and her father, whom she has never met. Lokar recognizes that her daughter will never be happy in the changing society she is building, and so she allows the young woman to depart, but in order to protect herself from her enemies, she removed the location of her new home from her daughter's mind.

S'harrak departs, and travels from world to world seeking her people. This section of the narrative is reminiscent of The Odyssey, as S'harrak travels from Wol with it's 'Dragons on legs of men' to the Black Stars of the Marranth, where the 'dark waits to swallow all living things' without finding home. Her voyages take her thirty years.

By the time she finds Mar'has'varak, it is a world in turmoil. The Wrexxakt have returned, and the children and grandchildren of great Harrak are incapable of uniting to oppose them. While the Harrakin are now nearly the *technological* equals of their hated enemies, the lack of common response is dooming them to slow defeat.

S'harrak presents herself to the Royal Caste. As a descendent of Harrak from her mother and father, she has the best claim to the throne, and while several of the Greens are willing to fight her, Dv'Arad decides to support his sister, going so far as to decree that no member of the War Priests should *ever* think of taking the Burning or Shivering Thrones. With his support, and the power she has inherited from both her parents, S'harrak becomes Dy'Tariex of the Harrakin and leads the offensive against the Wrexxakt.

The saga ends with a climactic battle in space orbiting the sixth planet in the system, ice-shrouded Arvin K'Krikat, the Hammer of Ice. The Wrexxakt ships are larger and better armed, but the Harrakin fleet uses the planet as a shield, surprising the Wrexxakt as they attempt to detect the Harrakin. Savage Blue Marines raid the Wrexxakt ships, overwhelming their combat drones and slamming their ships into the planet, where the cold kills the Wrexxakt, freezing their bodies solid and ending the last attempt the Wrexxakt would make to take the offensive in their long history of war. >From here on in, in all the sagas to come, it is the Harrakin who attack the Wrexxakt.

The title of this saga, Nialamqar, means 'To Search For' and the tradition of making a Nialamqar to find the homeworld comes from this epic.

5 - The song of Ry'Tharen

Between the end of the Nialamqar and the beginnings of this saga, over a thousand years pass. If there is a saga telling of these events, no one I spoke to was willing to divulge it. Everyone simply said 'We fought. And then Ry'Tharen was born.'

Ry'Tharen was the youngest daughter of Dy'Tariex Amari Jinarath, an unexceptional leader in a time of quiet within the Empire. By this date they had spread to seventy systems and were entrenched on 87 worlds that they considered inhabitable. Sixty-three of these systems had been Wrexxakt dominions, so the Harrakin had simply eliminated their inhabitants and moved in. The other six systems had simply had the misfortune of being between the Harrakin and the Wrexxakt. These worlds were still inhabited by their natives: the Harrakin system of colonization in this case was apparently to take the portions of those worlds they wanted and leave the rest. This usually ends up in an uneven split in favor of the Harrakin, although in four systems the Harrakin chose to live on worlds with no inhabitants in the same system as an inhabited world, preferring the challenge of conquest over nature.

At this time, Amari had a problem: He could not find the Wrexxakt. Wherever they were, they were not present in the nearby star systems. So what to do? How could he find them?

It was Ry'Tharen who answered this question, although not by addressing him. As the youngest daughter, she had no chance of becoming Dy'Tariex herself, so she was married off to one of the lesser families within the nobility, the Golirian. Her husband was Terreth Manadral, a functionary within the War Priests. Yet, surprisingly to her, he was always kind and attentive to her and her thoughts.

As horrific as it might be to us as humans, it is Ry'Tharen who re-awakened the Harrakin desire for the Homeworld. Where was it? Was it nearby, or was it so far away that they could never find it? Was there any way to look for it?

Since Amari's empire was beginning to fracture, with no one to fight, a vast amount of newly conquered space to administrate (and no one has ever accused the Harrakin of being great diplomats, bureaucrats or administrators) and the development of what we would now recognize as the modern Harrakin caste system fraying around the edges, personal aggrandizement leading to painful conflicts across their civilization. In short, the Harrakin were having a hard time holding together without a purpose, and Ry'Tharen saw this.

She convinced her husband of the validity of her idea, and with him went to her father with the idea, requesting that he grant her several ships to take as many as she could convince to follow her into endless space on a search for the Homeworld. Intrigued, he allowed it.

Thus began the second-greatest exodus in Harrakin history (Until the time of the Harrakin Arrival on Earth, it _was_ the greatest) as ten thousand ships, from re-converted Wrexxakt vessels to Harrakin warships to the spoils of dozens of conquered worlds, gathered in orbit around Mar'has'varak. Harrakin from all walks of life flocked to the chance of finding their homeworld. They set forth into Otherspace...

It is considered one of the bravest acts of any Harrakin, to have taken such a chance, and Ry'Tharen is one of their greatest heroes to this day. Her example united the race, forcing them to think of actions greater than their own and of unity as a people.

It was also, unfortunately, the start of the second great wave of Harrakin expansion.

6 - Tislath de Harrakiel

This song/epic is unique in that it has no real plot, no starship battles, no glory in the crushing of lowly Wrexxakt or ungrateful targets of colonization. It is simply a long song, similar to nothing so much as the Song of Solomon or Walt Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_ in the luxuriation of physical sensation in it. In short, it is a telepathic love song that takes ten hours to perform. It is from the point of view of Dartek, a young Harrakin Red who meets Jin'Tak Kytharre, a girl of the Green caste, and of their epic love, forbidden by Harrakin eugenics, custom, and even their War Priesthood. They die at the end, tapping Jin'Tak's pyrokinesis to immolate themselves, but this occurs only after hours of lovemaking that is faithfully and completely rendered. Despite the taboo nature of the subject, even the flinty Greens are moved by the song, and it has become standard for them to recite it at their bonding ceremonies...since it is telepathic, all at said ceremonies _experience_ the epic passion of the lovers.

Speaking as a poor human, born without a scrap of Omega powers, the sensation I experienced at the mate bonding I was allowed to attend was so real it nearly drove me mad. I _was_ Dartek (a male, which in of itself was a new experience) and I spent hours loving and being loved by my one and only woman, and then, as the fire began to set my nervous system on fire, I was myself again. It takes ten hours to perform...Dartek and Jin'Tak spent three days as lovers before their deaths.

As I said, it was overwhelming. Only with the help of Chad Milan, a student of mine with telepathic abilities, was I able to recover from the experience. I have since longed for it again. I hope I never succeed in that ambition, because I don't know what would happen to me.

7 - The Song of Neysar'Hra

The strangest song of all, this was apparently during a period of Harrakin art and culture where they were having difficulty finding new challenges. As a result, the initial defeat of their warriors by the Neysar and the war that follows (Neysar'Hra means The Neysar War) is almost jubilant in describing the initial Harrakin deaths caused by the Neysar's ability to somehow suppress their powers. The Neysar possess some sort of natural anti-psionic ability, apparently also due to Wrexxakt experimentation, and in fact Harrakin geneticists epostulate some sort of relation between the races. (Some Harrakin find this blasphemous.)

The song is told in three parts. In the first part, a small Harrakin survey team finds a glorious world, obviously earthlike to those of us raised here, and sets down on the wet, lush continent that covers one third the planet's surface (and is the only real land mass on it). At first, the Harrakin catalog the life-forms, and are awhirl in the prospect that this could be the Homeworld. Then they are attacked by spear-wielding Neysar. Laughing, the Harrakin don't even bother to arm or armor themselves...and are shocked when they begin dying at the Neysar's wood spears and slingshots. _Ekk Avikak A'Karagex_ exclaims the last survivor as he manages to get inside his ship and escape. (They have shattered my pride.) He dies gladly, but not before touching his living armor, which records his death and his memories.

In the second part, the living armor, all alone, must pilot the ship back. This is the longest part of the song, and the part I have the most difficulties with. In short, who cares? It's a suit of armor. I couldn't find myself concerned with its plight, because _it's just a suit of armor._ Granted, it has lost its Harrakin master, but do we need six hours of this? I think not. (Harrakin songmasters don't edit much. They'll _add_ but they won't edit.)

In the third part, after the armor gets back, the Harrakin learn of these spear-wielding mockeries and decide to kill them all. This part is just as dull as the previous section, but at least it only takes an hour. The Neysar homeworld is bombed from orbit, and only a few survive, rescued by other races who fear Harrakin expansion. (It doesn't do them much good.)

This song marks the low point of Harrakin art, in my opinion. Unlike the first few sagas, it isn't stirring or grand at any point in the narrative. Unlike the song of Ry'Tharen, it lacks the sense of destiny that can help Harrakin sagas rise above the repetitive nature of their telepathic narrative. Unlike the Tislath de Harrakiel, it isn't a departure from the form with _merit._ (The sheer eroticism of that epic makes this song's pathetic ennui seem even more drab and ordinary.) This is the worst saga, ranking below the Wrexxakt Captivity by several degrees. Even the Harrakin think so.

8 - Sh'azt'Hra

Another departure from form, _Sh'azt'Hra_ is not a history. It is prophecy, told in telepathic images accompanied by a kind of rhythmic Harrakin poetry called _M'manaxadra._ It consists of an opening line defining the meaning of the poem, two lines that are purely emotional, three lines that define that emotion, four lines that examine what forces conflict with that emotion, three lines that define that conflict, two lines that describe the conflict, and a final line that examined the conclusion of that conflict. (Yes, Harrakin _poetry_ is as combatative as the Harrakin themselves.)

The Sh'azt'Hra is about the great war to come after the Homeworld has been found and the H'R'Djagtal has arisen from it. He will lead the Harrakin people from their past ways into a new, more direct form of life, but he will not be unapposed. Great forces will rise against him. The ice world of Arvin K'Krikat will explode in flames, the great dark beast of the void will walk the Homeworld opposed by unequal foes, the lost ones (Lokar? Ry'Tharen's fleet? Both?) will return bearing death and destruction, and the hated Wrexxakt will be known again.

In short, it's a combination of Revelations and the prophecies of Nostradamus. In M'manaxadra after M'manaxadra, dire predictions are made and hope held out that the H'R'Djagtal and _only_ the H'R'Djagtal can save them. I wouldn't pay it much heed, save for two things.

1. M'manaxadra #1-37 seem to have come true, dealing as they do with the H'R'Djagtal's young life (Brother to a force of will, son of many son of none, true blooded child of Harrak, fighter of dragons and the beast of the void, great stormlord of the Homeworld) and his coming into knowledge of the Harrakin. In particular, 38-50 seem to directly deal with the Antarctic Settlement and the Fix, the destruction of the city by the God Killer, and the Tisaridron in orbit of Jupiter.

2. The Harrakin, _all_ the Harrakin (even the pacifists) believe this, with relatively few exceptions. This means that their behavior will be predicated on it. This requires that it be taken seriously.

<Note: After the Harrakin Arrival/War and Eric 'Tempest' Anderson's assumption of the Harrakin Twin Thrones, all the pieces are in place for the remaining 177 M'manaxadra of the Sh'azt'Hra to take place. If this is so, dark times are ahead for both the Harrakin and Earth...for the Sh'azt'Hra promises that 'The beast of the void shall ruin the island city of the Royal Mountain, and shall strike at the ones the H'R'Djagtral can least afford to lose, for his heart shall never leave the world he loved and loves. So it seeks to distract. Many die, and I can see no more.' This doesn't sound like anything we'd like to see happening. I find my objectivity threatened by the fact that I have seen things I once would have believed impossible, and can no longer dismiss prophecy as invalid.>

9 - The last Tisaridron/The death of Li'Tarrk

This epic, of recent composition, is a direct history. It is an explanation of the events of the last millenia and a half of Harrakin history. As such, it is invaluable to the student of the Harrakin. It is also a confusing mishmash of frighteningly similar names and mind-numbing combats that run one into the other. But at least it isn't the Neysar'Hra. (Again, my objectivity is suffering here, and I make no claims to be an art critic...but in the words of Eoghan Mitchell, who came along on the Antarctic trip: "Yaysus, When are these arsehole's gonna do that dirty one again?")

This saga begins at the death of Obran Tatris Harrakin, Dy'Tariex and one of the more placid of his kind to ever sit on the Twin Thrones. (In fact, he is described in the saga as P'ek'Thakkiel, The Sleepy One.') Upon Obran's death, his many children (some of whom are lost to history...he had at least fifteen, two he named after himself, a son named Obran Obran and a daughter, Obrantir Obran'Ka) begin squabbling for the throne.

Several choose other paths...Hallatiris, the youngest, who had been planning to join the War Priesthood, is now free to run away to the deserts that cover Mar'has'varak, spending his time in hunting and avoiding his responsibilities. Meanwhile, through shrewd politics, and tremendous psychic power, Obran's third child overcomes her siblings and becomes Dy'tariex. Lii'Taark Obran'Ka does not sit easily on the throne, however, and purges three of her siblings, including the unfortunate Obran Obran and two others. Obranir Obran'Ka runs away to the Niniaki and stays there for the rest of her life (in fact, it is not known when she died).

Narras, Lii'Taark's oldest brother and one hell of a violent, vicious brute, even by Harrakin standards, begins plotting against his sister, building a consensus, making alliances with the other families within the Royal Caste (The main family is apparently the Tislath de Harrakar, but within that family are the Golirian, the Azarath, the K'Krian and the Monithen, and there are apparently others. Harrakar is the surname adopted by whatever family the Dy'Tariex comes from, and has been on one clan for millennia). Slowly, Lii'Taark and Narras are heading for a war, when Hallatiris comes back from his self-imposed exile, leading a splinter faction of dissatisfied souls who want to see an end to the bickering. After observing his siblings, he decides to ally with Lii'Taark, and marries a woman of the Golirian clan, Kalia Golirian. This marriage seems to have been aimed at destablizing Narras' alliances, and it works. Enraged, Narras errs, insulting Hallatiris and his new wife at his bonding ceremony. This gives Hallatiris the chance to challenge his eldest brother to Tisaridron, and he does so.

The fight is brutal and takes the better part of a week to complete. Luckily, someone decided that it wouldn't be neccessary to reproduce it in its entirely: instead, a rapid stream of images composes the entire depiction. At the end, Hallatiris is barely the victor, his ribcage shattered, his right arm broken. Narras is dead. And before collapsing, Hallatiris stands there, in the hot sand, and stares at his wife with his shields down. (At this point, the saga takes on a bit of the feel of _Tislath,_ in that Hallatiris' emotions for his wife are experienced. It is the most haunting section of the saga.)

From there, Hallatiris plots and eventually overthrows his sister...it is implied that he does so in another Tisaridron, but the saga the exiles sung (remember, they were _running_ from the hero of this particular tale) ends in the sand pit, as Hallatiris stares at his wife. It is the way the exiles would have liked it to end.

II: The Structure of Harrakin Society

1 - The Royal Caste (Tislath de Harrakar)

To even _attempt_ to cover the Royal Caste, one must understand the importance of breeding to the Harrakin. It was only through Psionic Power and the Dy'Kithanal that the Harrakin were able to defeat the Wrexxakt. Then, when the Wrexxakt returned, it was again only through massed Psionic abilites that they survived. Over the intervening millennia, the Harrakin have developed a kind of fetish about Psionic power, nearly deifying those that have it, because the more powerful a Harrakin is on her own, the stronger a Great Link she can form, and the more power she can survive having poured through herself.

Thus, you have the Greens. Bred from Harra's stock (and according to legend, Harra himself had the Green eyes that make them so distinctive among their people, whereas his mate Sheel had Red ones) and improved through selecive eugenics and outright genetic manipulation, the average Green today is the descendent of Thousands of years of breeding and culture.' (Dr. Marcus Aurelius Singer, Paper to the UN Cultural Attache, 1996) and is a match for our strongest Omegas. Possessing Telepathy, Pyschokinesis and enhanced physical attributes, Greens are the elite of their race...and some say weakened by centuries of such treatment. Most Greens cannot rouse themselves for anything but battle or the gratification of some interest, although some seem to also be displaying a taste for political intrigue and power-lust.

What all the different eye colors other than Green _mean_ is hard to determine. From what little I have been able to find out, each color is a separate _Tislath,_ a word that sometimes means Clan and sometimes means Caste. Each eye-color seems to relate to a particular strength in that Tislath. As an example...Violets tend to be stronger telepaths, whereas Blues are the strongest Psychokinetics, Yellows the best at Psychometery and Extra-Sensory perception, Indigos are usually good at one particular Psychokinetic power (The Psychokinetic specialists, like Cryokinetics or Electrokinetics will come from here) and Oranges are generally even, not especially good at anything but competent all around. Except for Reds, Oranges seem to be at the bottom of the totem pole. All of these groups, however, live in servitude to the Greens.

Note: Following the Invasion, the Harrakar are in turmoil. They have lost a Tisaridron, been driven from the Homeworld, and a half-breed sits on the Twin Thrones possessed of more power than they'd imagined possible. Their beliefs, desires, and dreams are all in doubt, and several are dead.

Harrakar of Note: Hallatiris Obran Harrakar (deceased), Tatris Hallatiris Harrakar (deceased), Ky'Rian Hallatiris Harrakar, H'Rik Ky'Rian Harrakin (Half-Breed Omega/Harrakin), Sharra Tatris'ka Harrakar, Arktish Hallatiris Harrakar, Kkyree Arktish'Ka Harrakar (deceased), Marreth Arktish'Ka Harrakar, Azarath Ry'Tharen Golirian, Kyta Larrath Golirian, Min'Hak Jarrath'Ka Harrakar (deceased), Sestus Lii'Taark Harrakar (deceased) Priscus Obran'Ka Harrakar (imprisoned)

2 - The Geneticist/Artificers (Moniath)

This is more of a job description than a class as such, but they tend to hang together as much as possible. The head of the Moniath is a Green, Sharra Tatris'Ka, but most of the rest are yellows and oranges. As such, they have relatively little political power. But they balance this by being the ones more or less in charge of both the Eugenics programs and genetic alterations that keep their overlords strong _and_ by being the ones always developing new weapons. They, for example, invented the N'Allatath Har'Kanadran, or Harrakin Living Armor, and are quite capable of designing other advanced weapons, such as Harrakin lasers' (actually a focused positron beam) and enormous starships also made of the same malleable metal as their armor.

3 - The Priesthood of War (Takkiel'Hra)

The Takkiel'Hra (War Priests) are reactionary, seeking mainly to preserve the same stasis as has existed in Harrakin culture since the oldest histories. As you might expect, they are dominated by Greens. Arktish Hallatiris is their Prefect, and Azarath Ry'Tharen is his closest aide. Yet they are also the sect that has done the most to keep the relationship between Dy'Tariex and Prefect separate. It is tradition that no War Priest can ever sit on the Twin Thrones, as the Harrakin seem to like a separation of powers there. The War Priesthood, as the sect entrusted with the spiritual relationship between the Harrakin people and their ancestors, also encourages a backward-looking attitude towards life: they feel that in the past is all you need for the future.

However, at the same time, they and the Niniaki share the credit for keeping the myth of the H'R'Djagtal alive for countless years. The Sh'azt'Hra was a series of songs sung by a minor War Priest who saw the entire saga in a vision he gained while ingesting the drug Yinyakl and touching the abandoned armors of previous Dy'Tariex, and although the Niniaki Baragiex'Ka quickly developed their own body of lore surrounding it, the War Priests did not forget that it was one of _them_ who had the visions. Whether or not it suits their desire for stasis, they consider it Holy Writ and abide by the dictates it lays down and the prophecy within it.

Therefore, the H'R'Djagtal is to be welcomed, submitted to, supported. What he demands is as the will of the whole preisthood, what he agrees to is what all agree to.

The schitzophrenic nature of always looking back while longing for events to come does not seem to have occurred to the War Priests. They have their own fleets, their own lands, even several worlds within the Harrakin Empire. In fact, they remind me of nothing so much as the Buddhist Monasteries of China during the 14th Century, or perhaps the Roman Catholic Church at the beginning of the millennium we are nearly out of.

4 - The Wanderers/Keepers of Song (Niniaki)

The Niniaki Baragiex'Ka are an enigma. They travel, promised free transit throughout all Harrakin holdings by Harra himself, riding in a variety of vehicles from patched together starships to huge elephantine riding animals. They preserve traditions so old that the language they speak is almost unrecognizeable to modern Harrakin. They know _all_ the songs, in dozens of varieties. They have traveled in and out of Harrakin space, across the icy surface of Arvin K'Krikat and the burning desert of Mar'has'Varak...they are rumored to have seen the Lokar worlds, to have walked the Earth itself a thousand years before Ky'Rian (Indeed, one rumor very popular among the exiles, who idolized the Niniaki just below the H'R'Djagtal, was that the Niniaki deliberately sabatoged Ky'Rian's ship so that it would land on Earth and he would sire a son...fulfilling the prophecy.) and the vast tracks of unknown space coreward.

These are the legends. As to the truth, who can say? The Niniak Baragiex'Ka will not talk on it. They view the Ninaiki'Hra as fools who only remember the warfare of their heritage and none of the wanderlust, the drive to explore, that drove them all over the parched surface of Mar'has'varak before it even had that name. At least, that's what other's say. The Niniaki Baragiex'Ka don't speak of it.

The Niniaki'Hra are more commonly known for their Blue eyes and blue armor as Blue Marines. They too can trace their heritage back to great Harra, but unlike their wandering cousins, they have sworn loyalty to the Dy'Tariex above all other things, upholing the Niniak tradition of strength and self-discipline. They have eschewed the wanderlust and desire to know that the Niniaki Baragiex'Ka live for, instead living for that moment when ordered to move, to crush their enemies and rule all things in the name of their master.

That was pretty much all I could get out of the exiles concerning them. I hope it's somewhat accurate.

5 - The Harrakin Military (K'Krianar Vrath)

Of this, the exiles knew even less, but talked more. The K'Krianar Vrath is a stellar navy, capable of traveling through a trans-universal junction called Otherspace' by the Harrakin. They use ships composed of living metal that vary in size from several hundred feet to several hundred _miles._ They bear devastating armaments that the exiles hope never to see turned upon an inhabited Earth.

(Note: As we have seen, this was not an exaggeration. The Harrakin Fleet is everything the Exiles said it was.)

6 - The Lower Castes (Nar'Tha'Harrakiel)

This is a polite way of saying Red's', which to Harrakin is an awful lot like being a non-person. A Red has minor psionic abilities, certainly not the Titanic Power of a Green or other Tislath (Orange, Yellow, Blue, Indigo and Violet). Reds, although they are 70% of the entire race, and do in fact possess some psychic abilities (one of the Harrakin geneticists I spoke to indicated that all Harrakin were once Reds. He didn't like thinking that). Why Reds are so universally looked down upon is fairly simple: They can be. The average Red is no more likely to win a fistfigh with a Green than _I_ am. Even in the Antarctic, where the Exiles were trying for a more egalitarian lifestyle, the Reds are not considered much more than Sh'uggurth. (A Harrakin insult meaning Slaves' and apparently derived from the Wrexxakt name for them.)

However, the Reds have the most to gain if the H'R'Djagtal prophecy comes true, inasmuch as it promises a whole new way for the Harrakin people, a way that Will humble the mighty and exalt even the Red.' Therefore, they have taken to Eric Anderson in a way unheard of, believing fully in him as their chosen leader. This disturbs the War Priesthood greatly, as it makes them wonder if they are propagating their own destruction...but the Niniaki Baragiex'Ka laugh, and the Harrakar merely watch and wait.

VERBS - Much of the subtleties of Harrakin speech are carried by the telepathic elements of the language, which I can't set down here. In order to know what the person in question meant, it is neccesary to be in telepathic contact with them, However, there are some simple elements that can be set down here. Harrakin verbs come in five conjugations, which are listed here in their Infinitive forms, with an example per form.

Harrakin Verbs use prefixes and suffixes to indicate the person and tense of a verb, and have both the active and passive voice in one. A verb form can be used to be either. (Narat can mean either 'You make dead' or 'You are made dead': the passive is seen as disgraceful, and is ignored as much as possible.) Tenses are Present, Imperfect, Future and Perfect: Harrakin believe that once something is past, it is *past* and too much detail is unneccesary. While the Harrakin language has more moods than English (In addition to Imperative, Indicative and Subjunctive, there is also the Declarative, indicating a declaration of opinion not to be taken as a command and the Submissive, which replaces the Indicative when a lower-caste Harrakin addresses a higher one) only the Imperative is yet known. The following are the Indicative Active for the first conjugation.

Here are all of the conjugations in the Indicative Active (Allanal, To Love, replacing Karanal):

Much of spoken Harrakin consists of contracted words used either as suffixes or prefixes. Hence the use of the letter K and N as prefixed to the words K'Krianar or N'Tirstalath. Also, as a Telepathic race, many times the verbs are completely missing, as the action is suggested through a psi-link while the nouns are uttered out loud, or vice versa, to confuse eavesdroppers.

A Cultural Analysis of the Tislath de Harrakiel: Myth and reality in an once-human culture