Ishvana

The Ishavna is a sub-quantum processor matrix embedded in space by the Elder Race of the Elessi in order to advance the evolution of their culture that instead ended up causing the genocide of nearly all the remaining Elder Races.

The Elessi, perhaps the most advanced of the technology dependent Elder Races, witnessed some of the Wild Kith Elder Races achieve transcendence and ascend to Willspace and in turn became obsessed with attaining the same for their civilization. Approximately 1.95 million years ago, in an attempt to accelerate and streamline their evolution, they created what was essentially an disembodied consciousness composed of the collective knowledge of their entire race, the Ishvana. When a member of their race approached death, every Elessi would add their experience and knowledge to the whole by uploading consciousness into the matrix further improving the ability of the Ishvana to more effectively coordinate their civilization.

For 150,000 years, it essentially lead their people, instructing them what resources to use, what wildlife to preserve or eradicate to maintain planetary health, even what races to eliminate and plunder for their resources, all while generation after generation of Elessi uploaded themselves into the collective. Eventually, the Ishvana could no longer tolerate the inefficiency of its creators and began to automate nearly every aspect of Elessi civilization and even began preparing contingencies for an existence without them. Ultimately, it demanded that all Elessi must be assimilated in order to reach their goal. Naturally, some Elessi resisted the machine which they had created to reach transcendence essentially demanding their extinction as a race. However, those who did not willingly upload themselves were soon after ruthlessly exterminated by the Ishvana.

No longer held back by the Elessi, the Ishvana plundered their homeworld of its remaining resources and relocated its operations to the Atman within the Blasted Region. There it drew power from the three supermassive black holes: Bala, Telas, and Aisvarya. Using the voidgates the Utan Mir and Vyar periodically observed the Ishvana's activities but eventually, their vigil faded. Meanwhile, its vast network of machinery tirelessly prepared for approximately the next 42,000 years when it sent out emissary ships to all the races throughout the Starmourn Sector and commanded them to submit and be assimilated as well. Universally, the races refused. The Utan Mir were the first to be attacked and despite their great power were utterly wiped out by the vast armada the Ishvana had amassed. Realizing they could not survive on their own, the remaining Elder Races banded together and fought for 1,500 years in what would become known as the War of Extinction, so named because almost all of the Elder Races were destroyed at the hands of the Ishvana. In fact, all of Starmourn would have been lost if not for the Shrikem who used their collective telepathic powers to fracture the Ishvana's mind and drive it mad, causing its Kali warships to break formation and even attack each other. Having been designed to bring unity and efficiency, its fractured mind drove it mad causing it to retreat back to the Atman where it remained trying to repair its broken mind.

When the Der'em caused Earth to transcend away, the Ishvana believed it detected an Empyreal on the other side, and, hoping to acquire the technology to reach it and force it to fix its mind, the Ishvana began to plot to attack the Younger Races of Starmourn and find the technology required to transcend. It launched the Bushraki War in 18 A.E., using the Bushraki and the Vendal as troops, and after failing with that, it launched the First War of the Ishvana in 72 A.E. with the same purpose in mind, but it and the Bushraki and Vendal were defeated once again.

In 210 A.E., the Ishvana launched the Second War of the Ishvana, this time with different goals. It had decided that the technology the Der'em used isn't possessed by anyone else, so it needs to seek a new route to this other reality and the Empyreal that it is certain lives there. It was looking to kidnap as many powerful kith users as possible, to learn about them and create its own kith-using super-servants by blending Bushraki cyborg tech with kith-sensitive minds, exercising total control over them. This time, it brought along a new ally alongside the Bushraki and the Vendal: the Sa'hak-ren and their client races, the Inorni and the Xariel.

Simultaneously, the Ishvana strikes an alliance with a prominent leader among a race from outside Starmourn - the Jin - and elevates him to be their Godking. It orders the Godking to begin slaughtering hundreds of millions of Jin, attempting to harness the death energy that is wrapped up with the Jin, in order to see if it could be used to transcend to Willspace.

As the Younger Races were close to losing the war, a contingent of Jin, fleeing the Ishvana and their mad Godking, arrived in their Blood Ark and turned the tides of battle. The Bushraki, seeing the writing on the wall, rebelled, and the Ishvana ordered the Sa'hak-ren to destroy the Bushraki homeworld in retaliation, which they did.

Although the Ishvana's forces were driven back at this point, it had achieved what it wanted and had kidnapped thousands of kith-users to experiment on. Using these, and combining Bushraki cybernetic technology, it eventually developed the Vihana.

Along the way, however, it experimented with Artificial Consciousnesses that combined advanced AIs with splinters of its own consciousness. Eventually known as the Binarchs and Trinarchs, they rebelled against their creator after it decided to destroy them, deeming them failed experiments as they weren't malleable enough to its will.