Index -> Playing the Game -> Race -> Silica

When you choose Silica as your deck's primary race, the scouts and cruisers you build have no shields, but instead have additional hull. Those scouts get +3 hull regeneration and those cruisers get +5 hull regeneration.

Silica Racial Profile

The Silica derive their name from their form. They are silicon-based humanoids from a volcanic world. Just as humans are chemical-electric at a fundamental level, the Silica are transistor-based, and their biology is loosely analogous to a slime mold; a Silica's body is diffuse and lacks vital organs. However, the slime mold analogy breaks down in that Silica biomass is highly, highly solid. Each Silica is self-aware and its consciousness rests not in any central brain but in its overall mass. A Silicate cut in half would be near brain-dead, neurologically speaking.

Reproduction occurs when a Silica achieves enough "adulthood," or biomass. At that point, it simply splits in two. Two Silica can merge into a larger entity and combine memory, reasoning, and overall size. Silica biology is highly compatible with electronic machinery, and modern Silica have learned to integrate machinery into their body. In the current era, this practice has become as commonplace to them as watching television was to the 20th century man.

A Silica can share memory by splitting off quantities of biomass and adding to another Silica. Collectively, the race maintains a single, supreme leader created by applying this process on a massive scale. Scouts, spies, scientists, and explorers subsume their knowledge into a gargantuan individual that has no known name (although one human satirist has nicknamed it "Bob").

"Bob" is a living databank of knowledge. Its reasoning and decision-making is such that it verges on being precognizant. However, the constant addition of biomass and the tremendous mental stress test the limits Silica biology. The Supreme Leader has a very short lifespan if not constantly fed new biomass. In times of great starvation, the Supreme Leader commands its own stagnation - its core is salvaged as the seed for the re-establishment of a new leader.

From a human perspective, the Silica are a genuinely alien species. Their reproductive nature gives each Silica seed knowledge of its parent. As a result they have a collective unconsciousness - each individual has access to memories of thousands of years, but only from one continuous narrative. This creates a society where much of their memories are identical and interpersonal relations are unnecessary. The exchange of raw information about the now is all they ever need to discuss.

The Silica are an exceptionally calculating species but, aside from the Supreme Leader, their reasoning is far from what most humans would consider "bright." Since their growth, survival, and reproduction is so directly related to taking in more energy than they expend, all decisions are utilitarian. Some disasters and obstacles they will simply ignore or endure if they consider reacting to the problem a larger expenditure in energy than outliving it. Other matters will be dealt with in such a harsh and direct fashion, and most often through expansion.

Silica do not enjoy communicating with other species but are capable of doing so if the effort is worthwhile. When they speak it is succinct and to the point, so much so that each sentence is explicitly outlined before the terse message is given. "Query: Who are you?" or "Ultimatum: Surrender or die!" are examples of how they would talk to other species. Other races find their internal communication a mystery.

Silica Racial Profile

The Silica homeworld is a remarkable combination of high volcanic activity and a largely homogeneous surface. Its thin crust barely conceals the tremendous geothermic forces within. Yet a mixture of soft element composition, uniform magnetic fields, and a lack of moons and nearby planets means that this tectonic activity is spread evenly throughout the planetary surface. Instead of great mountains and volcanoes, the surface of "Homerock" is marked by continuous lava rivers and streams of semi-solid obsidian.

While the landscape was barren and infertile to most forms of carbon-based life, it bred a new form of organism. Crystal formations of rock grew and multiplied over the planetary surface. The proliferation of one formation was based on how well it was able to expand over and adapt to ever-shifting lava flows. The transition from self-reproducing crystalline structures to Silicate-based life has many of the same mysteries as the transition from simple amino acids proteins to single-celled carbon-based life. What is clear is that the structures eventually became self-aware, and sought to perpetuate themselves in a chaotic landscape.

The Silica developed sentience from this fundamental struggle to avoid destruction, spread their pattern, and reshape their environment for their own survival. The early Silica achieved superiority through mobility. Later species of Silica eliminated earlier ones through their capacity to share and interpret environmental data.

The idea of rocks competing for pattern survival is a difficult concept to many humans. However, many humans tend to also not question too deeply why each Earth organism seems hard-wired with the desire to survive and reproduce.

Little is known of early Silica history prior to the arrival of the Omior, during the great Isolation. When the Omior first stumbled upon Homerock, they discovered a volcanic and inhospitable planet. Yet they also discovered a planet laced with stone metropolises, bridges, and lava canals. The species that lived in those structures had no machinery to speak of. The entirety of Silica civilization was built by hand - their sleepless biology and solid physique the only tools they needed.

The first Omior explorers also noted what could be nothing other than fortifications, tremendous defensive structures dividing up the territory between Silica gatherings. Several days after first contact, without explanation from the Silica or prompting from the Omior, cities across the entire planet began dismantling these fortifications. In their stead, the Silica began constructing new houses.

Such a minor detail was lost to the Omior, who were extremely excited by their first contact with a new form of life. Initial relations could best be described as wondrous enchantment on the part of the Omior and placid acceptance on the part of the Silica. The Silica continued in what appeared to be their routines, building, reproducing, and re-making. They allowed the Omior to visit the deepest parts of their cities and examine individual Silica at a whim. The Omior interpreted it as generous hospitality. The lack of infighting among the Silica further reinforced the perception of a peaceful, tolerant civilization.

The Omior fell deeply in love with the Silica � the mere concept of silicon-based life filled their biologists with wonder. Encountering sentient silicon beings was a scientific fantasy come true. It was not long until one Omior scientist decided to see if Silica biology was compatible with their old silicon semi-conductor computers. The first cybernetic implant grafted to a Silicate was a resounding success. The Omior were not surprised to discover that the Silica were true circuitry savants.

These implants were what gave the Silica the first inkling of vocal or visual language. Limited communication followed, and the Omior patiently answered Silica queries, as they grew more proficient with words.

Seven months after first contact, Garden lost communication with Homerock and its scientific expedition there. The Omior Avatars feared the worst. They believed that a great natural disaster consumed both the scientists and the silicate natives alike. A second expedition was sent, but no communication followed.

While the Omior were debating on the composition of a third expedition, the jump gate to their home system came alive. An armada of asteroids and small planetoids poured through, each equipped with simple conversions and copies of Omior ship engines. Each "ship" was little more than a lump of mass equipped with an engine, but the entire group was on a rapid, accelerating collision course with Garden.

The Omior fleet was caught unaware. Their weaponry was insufficient to deal with the sheer amount of mass headed directly towards their homeworld. After an emergency council, the Avatars decided on what they saw as the only viable course of action. After sending some token unmanned vessels to occupy the primitive Silica warships herding the asteroids, the rest of the Omior fleet was devoted to loading preserving specimens of as many species as they could salvage. The Omior were forced to withdraw, ships laden with life, as they watched their homeworld ravaged by the primitive assault.

With the Omior scattered, the Silica eliminated the closest interstellar power in their isolated sector. They rampaged through the frontier, seizing worlds, eliminating native forms of life, and exterminating sentients ruthlessly. Their methods grew more refined with each world. The Lavekians, a minor race under the old Galactic Empire, were crushed during their Festival of the Geysers. Today, the Lavekians number in the thousands, a large portion of which live as refugees on Earth.

Silica expansion halted only on the borders of Va�rul space where another recently emerged race, the Androids, was aggressively redrawing the star maps with its own areas of control.

When the Isolation ended and the jump gates were re-opened, the Imperial fleet found a ravaged frontier sector. The Ferrier were dismayed at the plight of the Omior - a peaceful partner in the old Empire. However, they did not desire an immediate confrontation with two new and belligerent species.

Deciding to meet the threat with prudent diplomacy and reserved strength, the Emperor dispatched envoys to Homerock to probe their interest in the ambitious Star Chamber project.

Surprisingly, the Silica reacted with enthusiasm.

Check out the strategy guide for the Silica.