The Syntha are secretive and isolationist and they put a high premium on the “information war”, devoting a great deal of resources to espionage and counter-espionage activities. Since becoming an independent power, the Syntha have always been slightly aloof and reserved, which is more to do with their emotional coolness and a high incidence of introversion in their population than anything sinister or political. However, since the incident on the Hephaestus Complex, the Collective’s cultural distance has transformed into full-on espionage, scheming and covert aggression against the other powers.
History
Prime is the Homeworld of the Syntha, a strange object caught in an elliptical orbit around the Viridia Solaris/Leviathan binary star system. Prime is a barren, frozen, teardrop shaped planetoid with no atmosphere. It is the only known source in the universe of the mineral prime obsidian. In the early years of colonisation it was a research station, devoted to harnessing the power of this new wonder material. In 2494, the colony there, the most distant at the time, declared independence from Viridia and thus began the First War of Secession. Four years later the colony won its charter and thus began the Syntha’s great quest to perfect humanity through integration with machines.
Colonies
Pure research, rather than economic or social improvement, drives Syntha colonisation. The worlds they live on are valuable from a scientific point of view, but are often inimical to life. They have perfected techniques based on Prime’s colonisation, for burrowing into planets and other objects. Once in, robotic miners build extensive subterranean networks of tunnels and chambers, preparing them for habitation. Where these “termite cities” break the surface, there are towers containing mag-lev service elevators, comms arrays and vents to release non-recyclable waste materials.
Technology
Syntha are the most technologically advanced faction in Pan-Humanic Space. Their stranglehold on the production of prime obsidian, coupled with their technological collectivism agenda, have assured that. Indeed, the Collective is governed by a giant SPOMM brain called Prime, to which all Syntha colonies are networked by sub-ether relays. Syntha citizens are grown from cloned cells and born from vat-like artificial wombs as fully developed adults. Complete with cybernetic enhancements they are educated and socialised by in utero VR simulations. And of course the Syntha manufacture a great many AI types, ranging from robotic labour and soldiers, through to enormous AI autofacilities like Hephaestus.
Warfare
Syntha are the least populous of the Homeworld factions. In this Age of Tyrants, which sees it embroiled in more military action than at any time in its history, the Collective has taken to deploying entirely robotic armies, in order to preserve its limited stocks of human and biomechanoid combatants. The SPOMM armies are poor at tactics and combined arms operations, though heuristic software is enabling them to improve all the time. However, they are way more reliable than human soldiers under fire as they suffer no morale effects from suppression. Plus they can wield heavier weapons making them the most formidable long range infantry in the galaxy. Supporting the androsynths and teratosynths are SPOMM artillery, carriers and tanks.