A once great but not exactly noble empire of extremely prideful “Demons” (Technically classified as Anamcorphs or “Strangers”) the Carthonex ruled a significant portion of the known universe, ruling through a combination of psyonic mastery and engineering capabilities. Carthonex quickly overpowered any competing old world factions and left most of them in ruins, absorbing the few they thought would add to their strength. The universe at the time was plagued with rogue AI that were building their own factions, the result of another fallen empire’s ashes spreading across the universe, and Carthonex proved exceptional at mopping these rogue projects up. These AI had defeated numerous other promising young factions, and their defeat was quite the accomplishment.

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Eventually, Carthonex grew too confident and picked a fight with the Chosen, thinking they could overpower and integrate them as they had done with numerous AI factions beforehand. Things did not go to plan, with the Chosen swiftly decimating Carthonex’s primary forces within minutes upon encountering them, leaving them reeling from a swift and unprecedented defeat.

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The Chosen did not continue their assault and only pruned what attacking forces they encountered, trimming the expansions in progress and pinning Carthonex into their own territory. Although Carthonex still had ample resources, people and territory to its name, they did not take the definitive loss well and it sparked fierce debate within the empire. Tensions only rose as the Chosen kept them pinned, refusing to allow their expansion attempts. They became obsessed with their opponents, determined to beat them at any cost and attempted to mimic them at every turn, with the end result ultimately being the complete mechanical conversion of their entire population.

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Carthonex believed the Chosen to be more than just AI, seeing them as a fusion of soul and machinery and attempted to follow in this wake, spending vast amounts of time and resources to produce omni-forges able to pull souls into machines to animate them. After many thousands of years, there are no organic members of Carthonex left, their entire population converted into soul powered war machines, living on fortress planets where they produce more of themselves and plan for their eventual collision with the Chosen, or anyone else who stands in their way. Suspicion, anxiety and paranoia completely consumed them following their defeat and they receded into a completely defensive, anticipatory stance. Lots of previously owned Carthonex territory has now been claimed by other factions, but unknown to the new inhabitants, some of these planets have tectonic foundries under the surface, just waiting to erupt out and attack when threatened.

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Since its mechanization, Carthonex have only grown more fanatical and hostile, with negotiations proving to be completely impossible with them; only brute force can ward them off, and they take no prisoners. The hysterical nature of their obsession has stifled their effectiveness as an empire. Their extreme paranoia over the Chosen caused the Carthonex to handicap their own communication tech, to prevent the Chosen from learning anything about them or their plans. The result is that every fortress world now operates completely independently, outside of total catastrophe, and as a result Carthonex’s attacks can only be so large at the moment. In the event a fortress world is destroyed or attacked however, it will openly broadcast its status across their empire, causing the other worlds increase their defences and increasing the risk that they will begin to coordinate once again.

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Carthonex has a “Doomsday tracker” of sorts, a measure put in place by their core worlds that will cause them to go on a complete offensive if they feel like they're being pressured too much.

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Carthonex have spent the last few thousand years refining their designs, honing their weapons and perfecting their craft, stockpiling armaments and building an ever increasing army with what resources they still have. They represent an extreme threat to any faction in a one-on-one basis, and would require a sustained counter attack from multiple Terra-corps to bring down without mutually assured destruction at the very least.

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Their forces are comprised of dynamic assault bots in various forms and fleets of hard hitting space-craft, equipped with “Shuriken” physical weapons and anti-matter beams. Combat is mostly performed by super heavy cruisers with planet-cracking macro-weapons built into them. When combat must preserve the planet or area in question, they alpha strike with a variety of transforming bots that can drop from orbit unaided, each one a well crafted sleek death machine, brimming with hatred and firepower, able to go toe-to-toe with the other factions elite infantry. Unprepared defences are often decimated within seconds of being encountered as shuriken fire rains down from the sky and cuts through beachheads and bodies alike.

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With every step onto their old territory, purposeful or not- every time a fortress world is discovered or attacked, the threat increases. Only Carthonex's core worlds know what state their defcon tracker is at and no one can foresee what might cause them to finally hit defcon one and remove their self-imposed isolation, although the Chosen are still under no threat from them, their neighbours and surrounding factions certainly are. Cathonex are a land-mine, creaking under the weight of the other factions, each fortress world contains a terrifying armoury of hellish death machines and planet-cracking super weapons ready to detonate at the command of the core worlds. The question isn't if they go off, it's when.