Location: Nar Shaddaa, Alex's Laboratory
Time: 11 BBY
Alex leaned back in his chair, rubbing his tired eyes. He had been analyzing data obtained during the expedition for two years. The holographic display in front of him flickered with streams of data—the results of a month's analysis of the database. What he discovered in the "genetic experiments" section forced him to reconsider many common perceptions of the galaxy.
"Another sleepless night?" Verena appeared in the doorway with two cups of kaff.
"Just studying new data," Alex replied, taking the cup. The hot ceramic burned his fingers, but he was grateful for the sensation of reality. "Rakatan records turned out to be more... detailed than I expected."
He didn't elaborate on what exactly he was studying. What he had discovered was too shocking to share with anyone. Ever. Especially with Verena.
"Anything interesting?" Verena sat on the armrest of his chair, and Alex caught a faint scent of her skin.
"You could say that, I haven't figured it out properly myself yet," he said, trying to make his voice sound as natural as possible. "How are things at the dock?"
Verena talked about an order to modify navigation systems for a Corellian trader, about problems with the supply of rare crystals, about how one of their regular clients—a Rodian pilot—had again asked for a payment deferral. Ordinary matters, ordinary concerns. She gestured as she explained a technical problem with the hyperdrive, and her lekku swayed slightly in time with her words. Alex noticed how one of them twitched involuntarily when she spoke of complex spatial calculations—as if reacting to the very thoughts of navigation.
"...and this Corellian idiot insists the problem is with my settings, not with him buying smuggled navigation computers from Hutts," she finished with irritation. "As if I can't tell the difference between original components and fakes."
But Alex listened with half an ear, his thoughts occupied with something else entirely. He was thinking about what he had learned from the files, about how this intuition got into her genes, and for what purposes.
When Verena went to sleep, wishing him a good night and lightly kissing his cheek, Alex waited another half hour before reactivating the display.
The data was horrifying in its banality. The Rakata kept detailed records of their "biological projects" with the same meticulousness with which modern engineers documented technical specifications. And with the same indifference. Each entry was accompanied by detailed diagrams, genetic maps, and efficiency statistics. As if they were discussing industrial equipment, not living beings.
Project "Universal-Basis"
Subject: Gal-Nom-Ket
Status: Basic caste. Universal work units.
Modifications: Minimal. Increased adaptability to various conditions, moderate sensitivity to the Force. Enhanced learning ability with simultaneous increase in suggestibility.
Purpose: General labor, colonization, basic maintenance. Reserve genetic material for the creation of specialized castes.
Notes: Most successful project. Recommended for mass production and distribution throughout the galaxy.
Alex looked at the image of a representative of the species. A human looked back at him. Humans—the most common race in the galaxy—turned out to be just... a basic model. Universal slaves, created to perform any task not requiring specialization. They were distributed across the galaxy as living tools, as biological machines.
This was precisely why they later became the dominant race; they adapted to any conditions, colonized thousands of worlds, and created powerful civilizations. But all of this was embedded in their genes from the start.
The next file made him think even more.
Project "Lekku-Interface"
Subject: Modification of the basic Gal-Nom-Ket caste
Status: Specialized caste. Genetic line 23. Biological components for navigation systems.
Modifications: Development of lekku as direct-connection neural interfaces. Improved spatial reasoning and intuitive understanding of hyperspace geometry. Increased density of neural connections in the temporal lobes. Programmable life cycle with peak efficiency between 25-30 standard years.
Purpose: Integration with ship control systems for hyperspace navigation. Optimal age 30-35 standard years, with extraction of neural tissue for the creation of autonomous navigation modules.
Notes: Lekku contain concentrated neural tissue capable of processing multidimensional spatial models. After extraction, they can function in a nutrient solution for up to 200 standard days without loss of efficiency.
Holographic recordings of experiments were attached to the entry.
Alex hesitated for a long minute, looking at the list of files. He had seen much in his life—torture, executions, the atrocities of Hutt criminal clans, the cruelty of Imperial moffs. But this... this was something fundamentally different. This was the industrialization of suffering, cruelty turned into science, the indifferent dismemberment of a living being.
He activated the playback of the first file.
The hologram showed a sterile laboratory illuminated by cold white light. The walls were covered with some kind of organic growths—the living technology of the Rakata, which pulsed with a slow rhythm. On the operating table in the center of the room lay a young Twi'lek—no older than thirty, beautiful, with elegant lekku adorned with traditional ritual tattoos. Her eyes were open, full of horror and pleading, but her body did not move—some paralytic agent kept her consciousness clear, depriving her of the ability to move.
The creature that Alex initially mistook for a Rakata approached the table on a repulsorlift platform. But upon closer inspection, it became clear that it was merely a parody of a living being—half flesh, half machine, with mechanical limbs integrated into a once-living body. Its movements were precise, almost mechanical, devoid of any signs of empathy or doubt.
The cyborg surgeon activated a laser scalpel and began to cut into the Twi'lek's skull. Living. Conscious. Alex watched as her eyes followed the instrument's movements, as her pupils dilated from the pain she could not even express with a scream.
Alex felt nauseous. He wanted to turn off the recording, but forced himself to watch. He had to know the truth, however horrific it might be.
The vivisector quickly extracted the brain along with a portion of the spinal cord with surgical precision, and removed the neural tissue from the lekku—they continued to pulse, still connected to the brain by thin nerve fibers. Then, the entire complex was carefully placed into a cylindrical capsule filled with a greenish nutrient solution. Cybernetic interfaces were connected to the lekku—thin metallic threads that grew into the living tissue like parasites.
In the solution, the brain continued to live. The lekku writhed, reacting to electrical impulses.
The recording switched to the bridge of a Rakata ship. The same capsule was integrated into the navigation console, becoming the living heart of the starship. The lekku, now covered in metallic implants, writhed in the solution, reacting to commands. Complex hyperspace routes were displayed on the screens, calculated by the living brain with incredible speed.
"Navigation system active," a dispassionate voice-over reported. "Biological component demonstrates optimal performance. Replacement recommended after 180 standard days due to degradation of neural tissue. This component is intended for reconnaissance of new hyperspace routes."
Alex turned off the recording and sat in silence for a long time, trying to cope with the nausea. He thought of Verena, of how intuitively she understood the most complex navigation systems, how her lekku twitched involuntarily when she worked with particularly difficult calculations. Now he knew where those abilities came from.
And he knew what she was created for.
When he returned to the terminal, his hands were still shaking. But he continued to study the files, forcing himself to read every line, to memorize every detail.
Project "Slug-Overseer"
Subject: Multiple hybridization based on the basic caste
Status: Controlling caste for special facilities. Slave overseers.
Modifications: Integration of genetic material from humans, amphibians of the planet Nal Hutta, and artificial biological symbiotes of the "Empathy-Suppressor" class. Increased lifespan (up to 1000 standard years), complete immunity to the Force's effect on the mind, innate drive for dominance over humanoid races. Modified nervous system, excluding the possibility of empathy for the suffering of other species. Enhanced cognitive abilities for long-term planning and analysis of social systems.
Purpose: Supervision of humanoid slaves. Creation of social control mechanisms among slaves. Organization and control of mass experiments on subjugated populations.
Notes: Most stable controlling caste. Inability to feel compassion ensures maximum efficiency in tasks involving inflicting suffering. Unique ability to retain thousands of interconnected elements of social systems in memory makes them ideal long-term planners. Recommended for deployment on all planets with large slave populations.
Alex opened the file again, this time reading more carefully. What he had mistaken for simple cruelty turned out to be something far more complex and terrifying.
The Hutts didn't just inflict suffering—they created entire control systems calculated for centuries in advance. Their ability to retain thousands of minor details in memory, to connect disparate events into a single picture, to predict the reactions of various population groups—all of this made them ideal puppet masters.
Jabba, for example, didn't just trade slaves. He created a complex network of dependencies: debtors who worked for him for years, trying to pay off debts that only grew; families separated and forced to spy on each other for reunification; entire planets whose economies depended on his "mercy." And all of this was held in his mind as a single scheme, where each element influenced the others.
The Hutts didn't see individuals—they saw populations, flows, trends. For them, slavery was not just a source of income, but a method of social engineering. They intuitively understood how to break the will of entire peoples, how to turn free beings into obedient executors, how to make slaves control each other.
Each successfully implemented control plan brought them a surge of pleasure because they were programmed that way. Each broken will brought them a sense of satisfaction on a genetic level. They were created to derive pleasure from the enslavement of others, and this program had been working flawlessly for thousands of years.
Alex closed the file and leaned back in his chair. He had thought the Hutts were just greedy criminal bosses, a product of a degenerate civilization. It turned out they were something far more terrible—living instruments of slave population control, created specifically to inflict suffering and incapable of feeling compassion for their victims.
And this program was still working. Every Hutt clan controlling slave markets, every crime lord who built an empire on the suffering of others—they were all simply following their genetic programming, without even realizing it.
But even this discovery was not the most shocking.
Alex opened the next file—records about the Rakata themselves.
Project "Will Executor"
Subject: Rakata (Self-designation: "Builders")
Status: Top-level controlling caste. Executive organisms.
Modifications: Full integration with technological systems. Suppression of all emotions except those necessary for effective task completion. Programmable goals and priorities. Inability to doubt the correctness of received directives.
Purpose: Deployment of infrastructure in accordance with the Creators' plans. Execution of long-term projects.
Notes: Complete lack of free will is compensated by maximum efficiency and devotion to project goals. Built-in self-destruct mechanisms are activated upon completion of the current stage.
Alex reread the entry several times, disbelieving his own eyes. The Rakata... the Rakata themselves were created by someone else. These cruel rulers, whom he considered the embodiment of ancient evil, were themselves just slaves—more perfect, more powerful, but still slaves, devoid of free will.
They were biological robots programmed to build and manage a galactic empire. And when their task was completed, they self-destructed, as programmed.
But by whom? Who was behind the Infinite Empire? Who created this monstrous project to turn the entire galaxy into a giant laboratory?
In the next section of files, Alex found technical documentation that made him reconsider the very concept of interstellar travel. The Rakata were not just building an empire—they were creating the foundation for all future galactic civilization.
Thousands of relay stations scattered across the galaxy still operated in automatic mode. It was they that transmitted coordinates of safe hyperlanes to the navigation computers of modern ships. Without these ancient stations, interstellar travel would have been impossible—ships would get lost in the chaos of hyperspace or crash into gravitational anomalies.
Every time a pilot activated the hyperdrive, their navigation computer automatically connected to the nearest Rakata station. The station analyzed the current state of hyperspace—gravitational disturbances, solar activity, movement of large objects—and transmitted updated route coordinates.
But installing each such station at a precisely calculated point in space required ships with biological navigation systems. Mechanical computers could not handle this task—they lacked qualia, the subjective perception necessary to "feel" the right path through the multidimensional chaos of hyperspace.
This was precisely why the Rakata created the Twi'leks and turned their brains into living navigation systems. Thousands of ships, equipped with such biological components, set out for pre-calculated coordinates. Each ship carried in its heart a capsule with the brain of a Twi'lek, whose lekku were integrated into the navigation system through cybernetic interfaces.
Most of these ships were lost without a trace in the chaos of hyperspace. The biological navigators, deprived of their bodies and enclosed in capsules with nutrient solution, went mad from isolation and horror, losing their ability for precise navigation. The ships wandered in hyperspace until their energy ran out, and the living components died in their glass prisons.
But the few ships that reached their destination installed the stations and activated them. The biological navigation systems became part of the stations, ensuring their initial calibration and adjustment to local hyperspace conditions.
Afterward, the stations no longer needed biological components—they ran on energy cells that required replacement only once every few thousand years. But Alex wondered: where did these cells come from?
He stood up from the terminal and walked to a safe in the far corner of the laboratory. Inside, among other artifacts, lay three enormous crystals. He had obtained them in the ruins of an ancient Rakata fortification—they were called "crystal hearts" in their database. The crystals pulsed faintly with internal light, and energy scanners showed an incredible density of energy contained within their structure.
Alex touched a crystal, which was much heavier than expected for its size. It was warm to the touch and vibrated with a barely perceptible frequency. He had heard that such crystals were sometimes used to power planetary energy systems—one such artifact could power an entire city for centuries.
Alex sat in stunned silence, thinking about what he had learned today. Each race was created for a specific function in some unimaginable scheme.
But who were these Creators? The file contained no mention of them, except for the name. As if they had deliberately erased all traces of their existence, leaving only the results of their work.
Alex created a new folder with the highest level of encryption and moved all the files into it. This information was never to become public. Never. He didn't know what would happen if this data became public. If sentient beings learned that they were created as slaves, that their free will was an illusion, that their entire history was written by someone else... Perhaps the galaxy would descend into madness.
The clock showed almost four in the morning local time. Alex turned off the terminal and slowly walked into the bedroom. Verena was asleep on her side, her back to him, and in the dim light of the Nar Shaddaa streetlights, he could see her breathing rhythmically. Her lekku lay freely on the pillow, and one of them twitched slightly—she was probably dreaming of something related to work.
Alex carefully lay down beside her and hugged her from behind. Verena sleepily snuggled against him, and he felt the warmth of her skin, a living, real warmth. His hand rested on her lekku—they were warm, soft, pulsing with a barely perceptible rhythm. Alive. Not mechanisms, not "biological components"—a living part of a living, thinking, feeling being.
"Mm?" Verena woke up at his touch. "Did something happen?"
"No," he replied quietly, continuing to stroke her lekku. "Nothing happened."
She turned to him, smiling sleepily: "What's with the sudden affection in the middle of the night? You usually sleep like a stone after working with data."
"You're just too pretty," he said, kissing her forehead. "Couldn't resist."
Verena chuckled softly and snuggled closer to him: "Flatterer. Though I like it."
A few minutes later, her breathing became even again—she had fallen asleep. And Alex lay awake until morning, holding her in his arms and thinking that it didn't matter who created her or why. She was here, she was real, and she was his.
She was more than just a product of ancient engineering. Like all the others. Regardless of what modifications the unknown Creators had made to them, all sentient races in the galaxy had preserved the main thing—the ability to think, to feel, to love, to dream. The ability to surpass their programming and become something more than their creators intended.
And that, perhaps, was the only hope in this entire horrifying story.