Race Overview

The "Beast" is a strange bio-mechanical organism that infects and subverts ships and their crews into twisted zombie-like units that serve some dark, unknown purpose. The subverted ships bear noticeable marks of gore, presumably from the biomass of the crews that were converted into a twisted living control mechanism. The organism is transmitted by contact, but also by an "infection beam" weapon carried on some of the larger Beast ships. This beam transmits the infection on a carrier wave, and can jump from ship to ship across short distances, infecting entire groups of smaller vessels.

The organism was discovered by the Somtaaw mining vessel "Kuun-lan", part of which was infected and used to form the core of a Beast mothership of sorts. Since then, the Beast has subverted various other Somtaaw, Kushan, Taiidan and Turanic Raider vessels and their crews, and has grown into a bizarre, shambling armada of undead ships straight out of a matinee B-grade horror movie.

Story

The subversion entity threatening the galaxy has been code-named The Beast by Hiigaran Intelligence, for reasons that quickly become obvious when one views the combat tapes taken by allied ships as they struggle to defend themselves from this vicious threat. Currently there seems to be no defense against the beam used by Beast heavy vessels to infect and consume our ships. Therefore, the Beast fleet is composed of literally whatever Taiidan, Turanic and Hiigaran vessels have been unlucky enough to cross paths with it. Only two ships seem to be fabricated from primarily Beast technology, these being the command vessel known as the Beast Mothership, and a small kamikaze corvette known as the Cruise Missile.

Once a ship is subverted, it is not known exactly what changes are made in performance and firepower, but initial analysis indicates that while the transformed ships are slightly slower than their un-infected counterparts, they have an added layer of organic armor. Unsubstantiated reports claim that this armor layer can regenerate over time if damaged; this may also be true of intricate systems and drives aboard a Beast vessel. If the Beast is capable of healing Itself, Allied Commanders are warned to engage and destroy any Beast vessel as quickly as possible; any cripples should be finished off before they can heal.

Note: Most of these stats are largely conjecture, drawn from intelligence reports and known information about the base specs of the subverted ships. All information regarding the mass, speed, armor, and weaponry of these Beast ships cannot be confirmed at this time and may differ greatly from what's reported here.